Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Rural Women Of Color Seeking Police Intervention During An Intimate Partner Violence Crisis, Michelle Angelica Perez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Exploring the lived experiences of rural women of color in the United States who seek police intervention during an intimate partner violence crisis is a necessity. In rural regions, many African American and Caribbean Blacks in rural communities endure physical assaults perpetrated by their partners throughout their lives. IPV among women of color, especially the obstacles that they face in requesting police intervention. The findings of this research study provide valuable insights that can support the establishment of intervention centers for rural women of color by involving key stakeholders, such as police departments in these regions. This study used semi-structured …

Modeling The Mark 26 Guided Missile Launching System: Exploring Its Role In U.S. Naval Doctrine In The Late Cold War, Ryan Matthew Cabico

Theses and Dissertations

The Mark 26 Guided Missile Launch System was an innovative and modular upgrade from previous systems for the United States Navy at a critical development point during the Cold War. Its incorporation into the Virginia-Class, especially the USS Arkansas, exemplified the rapidly evolving scope and demands of naval warfare in the modern era, and the requirements of individual vessels and component parts of the Navy to fulfill U.S. naval doctrine in this era. This same rapid evolution in technology and the global political landscape would ultimately seal the fate of the Mark 26 and USS Arkansas, with their designed innovations …

Unframing Spatial Presence And Resonating Aesthetic Presence : A “Continuous Interaction” Of Visitor Engagement With Chinese Art, Yi Zhu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Digital technologies, as a prevalent method of display in museums, has been widely used in the presentation and creation of Chinese art, such as software, hardware, and interactive installations in exhibitions. According to Peng Feng (2022), digital technologies can effectively disseminate Chinese classical artworks while enriching visitors’ experience, enhancing their perceptions of aesthetic concepts and facilitating their understanding of the artworks. However, current studies are primarily focused on the social and cultural background information conveyed by the objects, rather than the visitor experiences in the process of interaction with the artworks. Digital technologies can engage visitors through active interaction with …

Introduction, Dominic Davies, Candida Rifkind

WLU Press Books

This is the introductory chapter of Graphic Refuge Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics by Dominic Davies and Candida Rifkind.

Graphic Refuge is the first in-depth study of comics about refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and detainees by artists from the Global North and South. Co-written by two leading scholars of nonfiction comics, the book explores graphic narratives about a range of refugee experiences, from war, displacement, and perilous sea crossings to detention camps, resettlement schemes, and second-generation diasporas.

Through close readings of work by diverse artists including Joe Sacco, Sarah Glidden, Don Brown, Olivier Kugler, Jasper Rietman, Hamid Sulaiman, …

The German Defense-Industrial Zeitenwende: Implications For Transatlantic Security, Brett Swaney

INSS Strategic Perspectives

The Zeitenwende, or “watershed moment”—announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February 2022, days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—outlined a set of policy shifts, including the development of Germany’s first-ever National Security Strategy, that appeared to signal a greater role for Germany in the defense and security of Europe. The German National Security Strategy draws a clear connection between the need for a robust defense-industrial base and the foundation for the capabilities needed to meet North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense and deterrence commitments, support Ukraine, and provide for the recapitalization of allies and partners. To date, however, there has been …

Political Sociology, Talha C. Issevenler

Open Educational Resources

This open-access textbook on political sociology introduces and problematizes the classical categories and parameters of the field. It explores the main approaches to the state and governance, while conceptualizing a turn toward network power. Specific chapters address political spacetime, violence, secrecy, social movements, politicization, interdisciplinarity, media, biopolitics, and event-analysis. Multimedia pedagogical exercises accompany the conceptual exposition.

Why Should We Give Thanks?, Calvin Vandermeyden

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Our Relentless Objectification Of Native Americans: As Exemplified By Louise Erdrich And Cherie Dimaline, Lena Kozubek

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Indigenous communities relentlessly challenge the normalized commodification of their culture and beliefs. One way they actively address these oppressions is through storytelling. Their accounts educate readers and encourage them to re-frame modern perspectives and how stereotypes affect Native communities. Their stories are not a simple myth; instead, they serve as an active participant to combat actions that treat Indigenous people as an anomaly. We should treat Native Americans as human beings who invariably struggle with present-day degradations, commodification, and continual displacement. Indigenous authors reclaim their narrative by using their historical context and storytelling skills to dissect the parallels between fact …

Dreamvisions+: Virtualizing Medieval Poetics In Multimedia Performance, Mac Waters

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

DreamVisions+ is a transdigital and transhistorical odyssey into the realm of fiction and truth, reality and virtuality. Rooted in the tradition of late medieval dream-vision poems—wherein religious or political allegories unfold through dreaming protagonists—DreamVisions+ stages a multimedia dream vision of the digital age, reading medieval dream visions as proto–virtual reality. Through the creation and analysis of DreamVisions+, a full-length solo multimedia performance, I synthesize live electroacoustic music, XR technologies, and 3D game environments with medieval textual and visual iconography to construct a porous, unstable dream world that collapses medieval and digital imaginaries.

Situating my work within broader political …

Counter-Hegemony In The Captive State: Recasting Katrina’S Carceral Legacy Through Conjuncture, Joseph S. Muratore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis traces the historical development and contemporary manifestations of carceral power in Louisiana, arguing that racialized systems of control—from slavery and convict leasing to mass incarceration—have been sustained through shifting alliances of political and economic elites. Using The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) and its exhibit Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration as a foundational timeline, this study demonstrates how Bourbonism forged a regional bloc that institutionalized racial domination through incarceration and labor exploitation, later reconstituted through neoliberal policies of abandonment, privatization, and militarization. I chose to focus on Hurricane Katrina because its aftermath reflects many …

Tradwives: The Housewifization Of The Girl Boss, Gagan Kaur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the reemergence of a particular performance of domesticity in the post-pandemic era, focusing on the rise of the "tradwife" (traditional wife) movement alongside the normalization and spread of Alt-Right ideology through popular social media platforms. It argues that the tradwife is not a return to tradition, but a commodified performance of domesticity built on the erasure of social reproductive labor. Tracing the lineage of the “housewife” from the enclosure of the commons to imperial domesticity and from the “girl boss” to tradwife influencer culture, this project situates the tradwife within a longer history of "housewifization"—wherein women's labor …

Emulating Empire: Washington’S Preoccupation With British Counterinsurgency In Malaya And U.S. Commitment To Vietnam, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This essay examines how Washington’s deep preoccupation with the British-Malayan counterinsurgency tactics–tactics that routed the guerilla fighters of the Malayan Communist Party–shaped US commitment to Vietnam. This US preoccupation, stoked by Britain’s (and Malaya’s) promotion of their counterinsurgency knowledge to US leaders, also influenced the lessons that US analysts and thinkers absorbed from the United States’ defeat in Indochina. Most studies of British-Malayan counterinsurgency and its connection to the Vietnam War fixate upon debating the relevance of the former to the latter and how this bears on US failures in Indochina. However, this essay focuses on the understudied fervor with …

A Symbol For The Masses: Sergei Chakhotin And The Modern Crisis Of Propaganda, Benjamin J. Diehl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an intellectual biography of Sergei Chakhotin, a Russian biologist whose most famous work, The Rape of the Masses (1939), represented an insightful, pioneering analysis of modern propaganda as it arose during Europe’s “Age of Catastrophe” (1914-1945). In this work and others, Chakhotin used the psychological theories of Ivan Pavlov to develop a system of thought that emphasized the scientific possibilities and political inevitability of mass conditioning through propaganda. In addition to Pavlov’s theory, Chakhotin also used other intellectual frameworks, such as Taylorism and microbiology, to buttress his own firsthand experience during World War I, the Russian Revolution, …

Resilient Church Planting In Global Cities : Identifying Best Practices For Building Resilience In Urban Church Planters, Branden D. Petersen

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Chumash War Of 1824: Revolution And Counterrevolution In The California Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, And La Purísima, Joseph V. Payne

Master's Theses

In 1824, the Indigenous Chumash of Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, and La Purísima de Concepción went to war against the settler-colonial system that bonded them to the mission lands and forced labor regime demanded by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries and compelled by Mexican military force in Alta California. The conflict lasted months and included violent battles and skirmishes at all three missions, the militant occupation and reclamation of La Purísima, a mass exodus to the interior of the territory, and the subsequent counterrevolutionary collaboration of the Spanish missionaries and Mexican military to return many (but not all) of the …

War, Wounds, And Strategy: Patient Movement Lessons From The World Wars For Great Power Competition, Phillip R. Jenkins

Faculty Publications

This thesis examines the evolution of the U.S. military's patient movement system during World War I and World War II to evaluate how well it may perform under the conditions of future large-scale combat operations. It asks whether the United States can move, treat, and sustain wounded personnel at the scale and pace required to preserve combat power in a prolonged, high-intensity conflict. Using detailed case studies of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, the analysis focuses on how transportation platforms, organizational structure, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) shaped patient movement under conditions of attrition, disruption, and …

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

An X-Ray Of Mẽbêngôkre Houses In Terms Of Matrimonial Alliance, Vanessa R. Lea, Leandro Mahalem De Lima

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the matrimonial implications of the Houses, or matrihouses, of the Mẽtyktire subgroup of the Mẽbêngôkre (Kayapó-Jê) with the assistance of Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) and Pajek software. In accordance with the greater legibility of graphics, statistical results have been converted into graphics whenever possible. The analysis is based on a revised version of a dataset spanning the years 1978 to 1982 and published on the site Kinsources. What began as a village census later morphed into genealogies, which served as the basis for the digital dataset. The matrihouses …

Comfort In Contradiction, Yanchen Zhao

Masters Theses

This research explores why modern visual experiences often feel hollow—why suburban McMansions imitate classical architecture and why luxury spaces feel staged. Instead of simply criticizing these aesthetics, I want to understand them: Why do we embrace symbols disconnected from history? What makes them feel familiar and comforting?

Using Jean Baudrillard’s idea of hyperreality and Marshall Berman’s view on modernity, I examine how today’s aesthetics are simulations—designs that no longer refer to a real past but exist as self-repeating symbols. Everyday objects borrow classical decorations without structural purpose, offering a sense of tradition and familiarity without real historical connection. Modernity, while …

The Terror Of The Threshold: On Impermanence, Enclothed Hauntology, And Rest, David M. Legrand

Masters Theses

My artistic practice explores the intersections of impermanence, enclothed cognition, necropolitics, and rest as intertwined acts of decolonial resistance. Through a studio practice rooted in transient mediums—charcoal, chalk, and erasure—the work confronts neoliberal and anti-Black demands for coherence, productivity, and permanence. The ephemeral drawings, layered and dissolved on my studio walls, embody a fugitive aesthetic inspired by Édouard Glissant’s “right to opacity[1],” rejecting colonial logics of legibility and commodification. These impermanent gestures mirror Haiti’s silenced revolutionary history[2], as theorized by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, while invoking Vodou’s vevè symbols as counter-archives of survival.

Enclothed cognition[3] is reimagined …

Archaeological, Pxrf, And Gis Analyses At The Trestle Bridge Site (8ja186), Northwest Florida, Victoria Marie Freitas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Trestle Bridge Site (8JA186), located on an eroding riverbank of the upper Apalachicola River in northwest Florida, represents a significant multi-component precontact site with occupations that date from the Early Woodland (~800 B.C.–A.D. 300) and the Fort Walton periods (A.D. 1000-1500). Previous research has broadly classified the site based on ceramic and lithic assemblages, but a detailed investigation into pottery production and environmental changes over time at the site remains unexplored in the understudied Apalachicola valley region. There also appears to be over a thousand-year gap in occupation at the site, as no Middle or Late Woodland ceramic or …

Territorial Scars: The Legacy Of The Eugenics Movement In Puerto Rico, Audra Desiree Edwards

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The United States-Puerto Rico relationship was strongly impacted by the eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The groundwork for the paternalistic relationship that the United States imposed on the island was set by the Spanish colonization. Once the United States gained the territory in 1898, many assumed that it would progress to statehood through the same process as former U.S. territories. However, the impact of the eugenics concerns over race, population density, and undesirable genetics had affected U.S. imperialism. The lack of white migration to the island, in combination with the perceived undesirable and overly dense …

A Showman And A Scholar: Bascom Lamar Lunsford And The Preservation Of Traditional Appalachian Music, Benjamin Grist

Masters Theses

Appalachian musical culture is well-known in the modern day. Between old time, bluegrass, country, and clogging, people around the world know and enjoy the musical traditions of the mountains. However, in the 1920s, Appalachian culture was in serious danger of going extinct. A mix of industrialization destroying local economies, an influx of rich outsiders moving to the region, and the people of Appalachia trying to distance themselves from their impoverished lifestyles, traditional Appalachian music and culture was being crushed on one hand and abandoned on the other. Realizing that the region's musical traditions were disappearing, several scholars tried to record …

Scared Straight: Investigating The Psychological And Moral Dimensions Of Horror, Angelica Martinez

Masters Theses

This research examines the psychological and moral dimensions of the horror genre through qualitative analysis, with particular emphasis on its potential to convey ethical and spiritual meaning. While often dismissed as mere entertainment, horror frequently engages with profound questions of morality, fear, and the human condition. This study argues that horror, especially in its psychological, apocalyptic, and religious forms, serves as a vehicle for moral instruction and reflection. By tracing thematic developments from the 1970s to contemporary expressions of the genre, the research identifies a resurgence of interest in spiritually charged narratives. The findings suggest that horror can play a …

From Comics To Courage: The Real Life Impact Of Superheroes, Dylan A. Perkins

Masters Theses

Are superheroes good for society? Do fictional stories of heroism have nuggets of applicable truth for the every day, normal citizen? Can it even be a motivation for people who follow religion? All of this and more are explored in this thesis assignment as we examine the history of Marvel and DC Comics and how superheroes have been developed during times of war and uncertainty throughout history. Much of this discourse serves as inspiration for the creative draft which is an original novel excerpt that goes into the life of Jack, a child experiment born with extraordinary abilities set against …

Beyond Skins: The Far-Flung Impacts Of Sea Otter Fur Capitalism, Callie Pappas

Dissertations and Theses

Sea otter fur was one of the first commodities to shape the broader Pacific Ocean trade. As the trade expanded, it became entwined in a global network of commerce that stretched from St. Petersburg to Alaska, from Boston to Astoria, from London to Nootka Sound, and from Hawaii to Canton (China, modern-day Guangzhou). This paper aims not just to view the trade qua trade, but to go Beyond Skins to tell four stories of impacts of sea otter fur capitalism, in the areas of geopolitics, Indigenous cultures, trade in China, and local ecology. Originating in the Pacific Northwest, the sea …

A Futurist Exegesis Of Matthew 24:1-42, Kenneth Garcia

Masters Theses

This thesis explores a Futurist exegesis of Matthew 24:1-42, emphasizing its prophetic fulfillment in future events rather than historical or allegorical interpretations. It critiques Preterist and Historicist views, arguing that key elements—including the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, and the second coming of Christ—remain unfulfilled. By analyzing the text in its historical, grammatical, and theological context, and correlating it with Daniel’s visions and Revelation, this study defends the position that Jesus’ discourse predicts end-times events such as the rise of the Antichrist, the rebuilding of the third temple, and global tribulation. This work affirms the hope of Christ’s imminent …

Vampyres Reimagined, Madison Marie Strand

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the intricate interplay between imagination and reality in fantasy literature, encapsulated within the first ninety pages of my novel, A Ruin of Memories. It is an explorative contribution to the genre, with themes of mental health, loss, and belonging in an environment that morphs reality with the supernatural.

The artist statement serves as a reflective insight into my creative process and personal journey as a writer. It outlines my motivations for crafting A Ruin of Memories, rooted in my desire to paint a picture of spiritual warfare through the lens of vampyres, werewolves, and witches. Through this …

Collateral Damage From A Legacy Of Silence: Redefining Sexual Violence In The American Civil War, 1861-1865, Chandra K. Waller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines the often-overlooked issue of sexual violence during the American Civil War, challenging the myth of Victorian restraint and the romanticized notion of the "gentleman soldier." While traditional Civil War historiography has focused on military strategy, politics, and elite actors, this study foregrounds the experiences of civilian women, particularly enslaved and marginalized women, who were subjected to sexual violence at the hands of soldiers. Drawing on court-martial records, personal letters and diaries, newspaper accounts, and military documents, the paper argues that sexual violence was not an aberration but a systemic and strategic aspect of wartime conduct.

It also …

How The Book Of Genesis Addresses The Problem Of Evil From A Biblical Theological Perspective, Fabio Delgado

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The study focuses on the conventional conception of God, specifically, the question of the problem of evil from a Biblical theological perspective. Theists believe that God is supremely powerful, completely benevolent, and all-knowing. Evil may be found everywhere, as seen in our everyday lives: sickness, natural catastrophes, warfare, a lack of opportunity for advancement, poverty, bigotry, murder, animal abuse, and the list goes on.1 According to conventional beliefs, the problem of evil arises from the apparent contradiction in stating that the Lord, who possesses unlimited power and is kind-hearted, is the origin of all that is good while also acknowledging …