Digital Commons Network^™

From Sorochyntsi To St. Petersburg: National Identity In The Works Of Nikolai Gogol, Gary Jay Kogoy Jr.

Honors Theses

Nikolai Gogol's extant works depict a man torn between his birthplace of Ukraine and the nineteenth-century milieu of Imperial Russia. Notably, he did not reveal his name for some time after publishing his first story collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka; as a result, readers attributed the tales of Ukrainian life within not to Gogol, but to the charming "Ukrainian jester" persona of Rudy Panko. Even after revealing his identity and garnering respect in the St. Petersburg literary scene, his contemporaries often viewed him as sly and suspicious because of his ancestry. Perhaps due to external doubts regarding …

Hegemonic Microtonality: Decolonizing The Soundscape Of Music Theory Pedagogy, Ash K. Wetty

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Western music theory pedagogy—long organized around tonal and twelve-tone equal-temperament frameworks—structures both what is taught and how students are trained to listen. Through a literature review tracing the historical construction of tonal universality in undergraduate curricula, the project argues that dominant models of music theory reproduce broader epistemic hierarchies inherited from Western conservatory traditions. Situating these histories within my own experience as a student navigating institutional listening norms, the thesis combines critical self-reflection with ethnographic research conducted across five liberal arts institutions, including the CBB consortium and JanPlan research at Wesleyan University and Amherst College. Rather …

Between Commodity And Culture: Tea Advertising As A Site Of Imperial Ideology And Anti-Colonial Resistance In India, Sydney Pascal

Honors Theses

Between the late nineteenth century and Indian independence in 1947, tea advertising became a key site through which imperial authority and Indian nationalism were negotiated. Drawing on advertisements, trade journals, and visual marketing campaigns produced from the 1880s through the 1950s, this honors thesis argues that tea advertising was a cultural and political mechanism through which the British Empire attempted to normalize imperial consumption and legitimize colonial authority. British campaigns framed tea as modern and routine while obscuring the exploitative labor systems and landscape transformations that sustained plantation production in Assam. As nationalist movements expanded in the early twentieth century, …

Blood And Belonging: Remembering Massacres Of The American West In The Twentieth Century, Mountain Meadows And Sand Creek, Kenzie Burns

Honors Theses

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a turning point in mainstream America’s sense of national identity. A wave of nostalgia for the American Frontier enshrined the region’s idealized nineteenth-century past as myth. A key part of the story is romanticized violence—often depicted through cultural imagery of cowboys, gunfights, and battles with American Indians. This project seeks to understand more about how violence is represented in the cultural memory of the American Western past. Within the past twenty years, scholars of the American West have begun to incorporate the study of memory into their scholarship, frequently with how cultural …

Borrowed Mantles: Neoclassicism, Theology, And The Construction Of Authority In Phillis Wheatley-Peters, Zoe N. Lament

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how Phillis Wheatley-Peters established literary and intellectual authority within an eighteenth-century world that questioned both her authorship and her intellectual capability as an enslaved Black woman. Rather than focusing on the external validation provided by the prefatory materials to Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), this study argues that Wheatley-Peters constructs authority through the poetry itself. Specifically, it explores how her use of neoclassical poetic conventions alongside Christian theological language functions to establish credibility and strengthen her moral and intellectual arguments.

Through close readings of poems including "On Being Brought from Africa to America" and …

Faculty Fellowships: Knot Theory In The Bay Area, Anthony Bosman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A New Kind Of Muslim?: Islamic Identity, Digital Media And Youth In Oman, The "Switzerland Of The Middle East.", Paulo C. Oliveira

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Going On Vocation, Rodney Palmer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Measure Of Librarianship: How Accessibility, Compassionate Service, And Practical Action Reveal The Heart Of Adventist Librarianship, Zorislav Plantak

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Scripture Spotlight: What Was The Role Of The Scapegoat?, Roy Gane

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Density Turbulence On Helicon Wave Propagation In The Core Plasmas, Eun-Hwa Kim, Syun'ichi Shiraiwa, Seung-Hoe Ku, A. Bortolon, Masayuki Ono, Nicola Bertelli, Robert I. Pinsker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Existence, Nonexistence And Uniqueness Of Positive Solution To A General Elliptic System With Fixed Or Perturbed Growth Rates, Joon Hyuk Kang, Noah Koliadko

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Low Frequency Oscillation Observed In The Ionosphere Around The Substorm Onsets, Simon Wing, Elmer Rivera, A. J. Hull, P. A. Damiano

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Discipling The Youth Through Preaching, Rodney Palmer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Different Starting Point: Youth Discipleship For A New Generation, Rogelio Paquini

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding How Emotional Intelligence Training And Awareness Can Enhance The Effectiveness Of Campus Discipleship Activities, Scott R. Ward, Natasha Richards, Sara C. Ward

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Construction Of A Theological System, The Sanctuary, And Adventist Theology, Adriani Rodrigues

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Trusting With All Her Heart - And A Kidney, Beverly Matiko

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Identifying Phrase Boundaries In The Samaritan Pentateuch With Machine Learning, Oliver Glanz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Historians And The Courts, Sarah Seo, Laura Edwards, Jennifer Mittelstadt, Sam Erman, Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Maggie Blackhawk, Ned Blackhawk

Articles

This Q&A explores the benefits of and challenges to translating historical scholarship for a legal audience. MAH editorial board member Sarah A. Seo (NYU Law School) asked historian-experts Laura Edwards (Princeton University), Jennifer Mittelstadt (Rutgers University–New Brunswick), collaborators Samuel Erman (University of Michigan Law School) and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (University of Southern California), as well as Maggie Blackhawk (NYU Law School) and Ned Blackhawk (Yale University) to reflect on their experiences.

Against Audiepistemic Injustice: Claiming Deaf Futurity, Pamela R. Conley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework: Audiepistemic Injustice (AEI). Expanding upon existing theories of epistemic injustice (EI), I identify AEI as the systemic marginalization and dismissal of deaf ways of knowing. AEI is a multidimensional phenomenon rooted in the nineteenth century, when auditory and linguistic biases became codified across education, law, and literature. This interdisciplinary study interrogates three nineteenth-century literary narratives as primary case studies to examine AEI: (1) Ivan Turgenev’s “Mumu,” (2) Guy de Maupassant’s “The Deaf Mute,” and (3) Abigail Bradley Hyde’s “The Deaf and Dumb Child: A True Narrative.” I synthesize these literary works with legal …

We’Re The Aunties Now: Intersections Of Mourning Practices, Intergenerational Trauma, And Matrilineal Responsibility In Oneida Life, Marena Bridges

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examines how Oneida and broader Haudenosaunee mourning practices, as I have lived and understood them, shape grief, healing, and matrilineal responsibility in my family. Using Indigenous autoethnography and storywork, I first present a crafted narrative, then return to that narrative through reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis identifies patterned meanings in how grief is structured, shared, and carried across closely stacked deaths in the maternal line. Mourning practices function as community infrastructure that organizes time, redistributes labor, transmits knowledge, and sustains continuing bonds with the dead. At the same time, repeated loss produces a form of matriarchal ascension, concentrating …

Do You See What I Hear?: The Effects Of Musical Harmony On Cultural Perception And Recognition, Marvin Martin Williams

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explores whether listeners can identify the differences in harmonic progressions in a musical composition, and, if so, whether those differences can elicit a cultural or social perception of the origins of the music. By investigating how audiences respond to variations in harmony, specifically traditional versus altered harmonic treatments, the research offers a framework for music producers, educators, healthcare providers, and other cultural gatekeepers to better understand and engage with audiences on an empathetic and meaningful level. The underlying hypothesis posits that harmony in music does more than evoke emotion but may inform a cultural interpretation, thus presenting an …

The Phenomenon Of Church Growth Through Authenticity: How African American Gen Z Christians Are Sharing The Gospel Of Jesus Christ Without The Program Structure Of The Black Baptist Church, Devin E. West

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examines the perspectives of Black Generation Z Christians regarding factors within the Black Baptist church that may limit their full engagement. In this study, the Black Baptist church refers to congregations with predominantly Black membership led by Black pastors. Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, is forming its religious identity within a rapidly changing cultural and institutional environment. Historically, the Black Church has served as a central institution in African American communities, functioning as a place of worship as well as a source of social support, leadership development, identity formation, and justice advocacy (Lincoln & Mamiya, 1990). …

Approaching Social Cohesion And Social Progress From A Systems Perspective: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of The Canadian Multiculturalism Act, Melissa Kimmel

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Social cohesion plays an important role in supporting stable, equitable, and resilient societies. Growing social division and polarization have weakened collective trust and challenged progress in many nations. Understanding how social cohesion can be strengthened has become increasingly important as societies face rising inequality, political partisanship, and declining institutional legitimacy. This study examines how social cohesion can function as a systemic driver of social progress through the example of Canada’s Multiculturalism Act. The Act provides a lens for understanding how national policy can serve as a way to strengthen inclusion, equality, and belonging within diverse societies. This study utilizes a …

Beyonce´, The Womanist Entertainer: Womanism, Anti-Racism And Cultural Pride In Beyonce´ Knowles Carter’S Music, Nena Carpenter

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research explores the latter portion of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s career and her distinguishing herself as a womanist/feminist icon. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has been regarded as a popular music icon since her days as the lead singer in the R&B group Destiny's Child. The group’s music, including songs like "Say My Name" and "Independent Women", have often been recognized by cultural critics as empowerment anthems for women and girls. When Beyoncé performed at the Video Music Awards in 2014, the sample of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2013 Ted Talk on feminism in her song "Flawless" precipitated a more focused discourse about the authenticity …

A Content Analysis Of Black Women's Race And Gender Depiction In American History Textbooks, Le'marqunita De'sharay Lowe

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Using a race and gender analytical lens, this research study examined how Black women were depicted in four secondary Advanced Placement Pearson’s history textbooks. Content analysis was the methodology to collect data from Pearson’s Advanced Placement history textbooks. Captions and images were analyzed to observe the patterns and themes that displayed the intersection between Black women's race and gender depiction. The interdisciplinary fields of history and education allowed an in-depth analysis of race and gender to be conducted throughout this research study. Two research questions were answered throughout this study. What do captions and images teach about the race and …

Navigating Financial Futures: A Case Study Of A Targeted Financial Literacy Program For African American College Students, Michael L. James

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation presents a qualitative analysis of a targeted financial literacy program designed for African American college students. The dissertation examined how African American college students describe and make meaning of their participation in a targeted financial literacy program, particularly in relation to the program’s structure, content, and delivery. Despite growing interest in financial literacy education, interventions that acknowledge the persistent wealth gap and systemic financial inequities faced by African Americans remain underexplored. Employing a case study research method within a program understanding framework, this study investigated a program at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Findings reveal that the …

From Margin To Mandate: Examining Community Development Strategies That Support Black Lgbtq+ Youth Experiencing Homelessness, Martel Okonji

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Black LGBTQ+ transitional-aged youth (TAY) experiencing homelessness navigate intersecting systems of marginalization that shape their access to safety and stability. While community development organizations play a critical role in addressing these inequities, limited research examines how these strategies are implemented. This study explored how a community development organization supports Black LGBTQ+ TAY experiencing homelessness. Using a qualitative single case study design, data was collected through semi-structured interviews with leadership, staff, and youth, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Grounded in community development theory and ethical leadership, the study examined how organizational practices shape outcomes. Findings revealed an affirming, relational approach centered …

Uae Traditional Folklore Through Modern Media And Its Educational Potential: The Case Of Freej, Shahad Imad Mostafa

Theses

This mixed‑methods study examined how the Emirati animated series Freej preserves traditional folklore through vernacular language, dialect, and idiomatic expressions, and evaluated its educational potential. Guided by four questions on folklore representation, dialect/idiom use, the role of the characters, and curricular applicability, the research combined content analysis of selected episodes, interviews coding and a survey of 100 Emirati participants; survey data were summarized with descriptive statistics to triangulate qualitative insights.

Findings indicated that audiences overwhelmingly perceived Freej as linguistically and culturally authentic: 95% rated the dialect as very/somewhat authentic, 94% said it reflects elders’ speech, and 89% felt the series …