Digital Commons Network^™

Between The Lens And The Gaze: Reflections Of Femininity In Film, Noureen Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the male gaze’s construction of femininity through the use of glass and reflective surfaces, particularly mirrors, windows, glasses, and cameras in film. Reflections and depictions of women are recurring motifs in cinema, often symbolizing dynamics of perception and power. This thesis mobilizes related psychoanalytic and feminist conceptions to examine and compare the recurring visual motifs in the following films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rear Window (1954), Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), & Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010). This thesis employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology that integrates psychoanalytic theory, feminist film theory, literary criticism …

Lost In Chaos: The Battle Between Selfcare And Motherhood, Sarah Shahzad

MS Marketing Research Projects/Theses

Motherhood in collectivist societies such as Pakistan is deeply intertwined with caregiving, leaving limited space for women’s self-care or personal well-being. This study explores how young Pakistani mothers negotiate self-care within competing expectations of maternal sacrifice, cultural morality, and structural constraints. Guided by the Institutional Logics Perspective (ILP), it examines how familial norms, religious values, and market forces collectively shape women’s self-care practices, framing self-care not as an autonomous act but as a negotiated process embedded within social and institutional boundaries. This study adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach to explore how Pakistani mothers experience and negotiate self-care within cultural and …

Digitalverse And The African Narratives: Ai As A New Platform For African Cultural Preservation, Mudasiru Babatunde Sulaiman Mr, Tajudeen Salaudeen

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Abstract

This article delves into the concept of digital universe as a transforming digital system for the preservation of African culture, with a target on the unique role of artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of storytelling and cultural continuity. For long, there have been problems of availability of sustainable digital infrastructure where African storytelling can be preserved. This study therefore examines the intersection of AI and African storytelling through emerging digital projects, virtual storytelling spaces, and tools that digitize and translate African languages and oral traditions. It argues that AI not only expands the reach of African cultural narratives, …

Cultural And Social Inclusion In Sexe Et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle Au Maroc By Leïla Slimani: A Critical Perspective, Juliet N. Elikwu Dr.

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Several published studies on Leïla Slimani's Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie sexuelle au Maroc have extensively examined the themes of sexual taboos and the challenges facing women in Moroccan society. But, limited attention has been given to her portrayal of cultural and social inclusion through the testimonies and narratives of marginalized women in academic discourse. This study seeks to analyze the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within the framework of cultural norms and patriarchal structures depicted in the work. The study draws on a qualitative methodology centered on close textual analysis. The theoretical framework integrates Michel Foucault’s concepts of power …

Ancestors, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Ancestors (2026), directed by David Turpin.

Idda, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Idda (2026), directed by Irene Dionisio.

Cloud: Between Paris And Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan, Heba Arafa Abdelfattah

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Joan Copjec, Cloud: Between Paris and Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan (MIT Press, 2025).

Unidentified, Candace Mixon

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Unidentified (2026), directed by Haifaa al-Mansour.

Piercing The Veil In Sinners: Theological Insights From The Juke Joint, Antonio D. Sison Cpps

Journal of Religion & Film

Celebrated as a critical and commercial success, Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying opus Sinners has also been considered as one of the most culturally significant films of 2025. It also promises to be one of the most theologically resonant films of the year. This is evinced not only in its thematic and literary bases but, importantly, in its very audiovisual language and grammar, its stylistic strategies qua film. As reasoned in this essay, Coogler’s film is a rich locus theologicus, a nexus for theological discovery and insight.Sinners kindles the hermeneutical impulse to dialogue with African American/Pan-Africa theologies exemplified by the …

Failed Gay Rights Amendment To Mankato's Human Rights Ordinance In Mankato, Minnesota In 1987, Kellian Clink

Library Services Publications

In 1987, small but passionate people urged the city to pass an amendment to Mankato’s existing human rights ordinance to protect LGBTQ+ communities.   Advocates argued that gays were entitled to the same rights as straight people and were looking for protection in housing and employment, particularly. They demonstrated that people had lost jobs, housing, and access to dance venues. Some opponents equated gays with promiscuity, child molestation, solicitation, sin, and AIDS; some were convinced it was not needed; some pinned their arguments on the existence of laws already on the books.  This narrative is based on articles from the local …

Lee, Jay, Jay Lee

Queer Mississippi (Complete Collection)

Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a 2022 graduate of the University of Mississippi, disappeared from his off-campus apartment on July 8, 2022. Well-known in the LGBTQ+ community in Oxford, his friends created a social media campaign, "Justice for Jay Lee", to keep his name in the news and advocate for Queer and Black victims of crime until his remains were found in February 2025 in Carroll County.

His case was profiled by Dateline NBC on January 29, 2026. (Trailer: "Bringing Jay Home")

“Ite Missa Est”: How Can The Altar Alter Attitudes And Actions?, Ebenezer Akesseh

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper brings into focus the relationship between personal agency and so-

cial structure, demonstrating that what we celebrate on the altar forms within

us the proper dispositions that can help prevent the occurrence of corruption.

The first part examines corruption from a socio-cultural perspective and ex-

plains the incidence and effects of corruption. The second part discusses the

relationship between worship and the formation of actions and attitudes. It

highlights the need to embody the social implications of our celebrations. Using

responses from interviewees, the third part illustrates that the celebration of the

Eucharist shapes the commitments and conduct …

Editor's Introduction, Brent H. Otto S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Ai-Supported Analysis Of Jury Deliberation Impact Factors, Jennifer Siciliani Phd

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students conduct a controlled, two-run generative AI jury simulation to examine how a single socio-legal variable affects simulated jury deliberation. They compare and manually code the AI-generated outcomes against peer-reviewed human jury research to evaluate the model’s accuracy, limitations, and potential biases.

Dancing In Circles: Bon Dance As Performance Of The Past, Travis Robb Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project traces the contours of the Japanese folk dance tradition of Bon Dance in Hawaiʻi through the nuances of public scholarship, diaspora, and racial capitalism by producing an original play which aims to perform the knowledge and praxis which the performance ritual puts forward. Treating Bon Dance as muse, the original play examines the necessity of turning to the past in order to disrupt a future made inevitable by oppressive systems; a fiction that comments on and critiques the predictive and generative technologies that have embedded themselves into society at large. Through intertwining conversations that explore prophecy and …

Possibilities Of Being: Black Women's Storytelling As Archival Undoing, Dasharah Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs a discursive genealogy of Black women’s storytelling, positioning its art and aesthetics as a form of colonial archival undoing. Each chapter explores how transmission and documentation can transform—and circumvent—traditional colonial archives. Beginning at the start of the twentieth-century to present, this project traces the discursive legacies of Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, and Staceyann Chin, examining each writer as a site of becoming as they individually (and collectively) seek to articulate an expansive idea of a Black world that constitutes a broader understanding of Black freedom. They each share a common goal of creating a …

The Negotiated Identities Of Refugee-Background Women During Resettlement, Iuliia Fakhrutdinova

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Refugee-background women experience unique challenges while resettling in the U.S. as they navigate complicated transnational gender roles, education gaps, migration trauma, learning a new language, and literacy in the adaptation process during resettlement, which can derail the productive paths they are on. Therefore, ignoring refugee-background women’s unique experiences and failing to understand their identities prevents our society from doing social justice and creating a space for a smooth adaptation to the new context. Language plays a paramount role in identity formation, as it moves away from the belief that identity is an essential concept. For refugee-background women during resettlement, their …

‘Passing’ The Baton Of Trauma: Queer Failure Of The Women’S Sport Policy Working Group’S Anti-Trans ‘Position’, Meredith M. Bagley, Mary Anne Taylor, Sarah F. Price

Publications and Research

Engaging in critical rhetorical theory and methodology, we interrogate the contemporary landscape of anti-trans backlash in women’s sport. Specifically, we read the ‘TERF wars’ (Pearce et al.) across critiques of biofeminism (Pape) and whiteness (Fischer) while drawing upon critical social science research into trauma-bonding, bullying, and the structural impacts of gender verification policies. Our analysis focuses on the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group (WSPWG), offering a trauma-informed reading of the WSPWG’s ‘Position’ statement to illuminate how lesbian female athletes who were previously slandered for failing to meet femininity norms in sport are unable to overcome that trauma to recognize and …

Community Problems Need Community Solutions: Feminist Collaboration Across Campuses To Create Transformative Outcomes Through Community Engaged Learning, Elizabeth Wilhoit Larson, Jasmine R. Linabary, Ziyu Long, Kylie J. Johnson

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

This study presents a multi-institutional engaged pedagogy project responding to college food insecurity that involved partnerships among students, instructors, and campus food pantries from three U.S. universities. Through analysis of pre- and post-class surveys, class assignments, and instructor and community partner reflections, we argue that our feminist collaborative approach resulted in transformative outcomes in three areas: (a) heads, as the collaboration enabled critical understandings of food insecurity and how to combat it; (b) hearts, as the collaboration fostered a culture of care and (re)ignited shared passion in doing change work, and (c) hands, as the collaboration inspired actions to address …

Designing Inclusive Stem Curricula: A Design-Based Study Of Teacher Learning And A Queer Inclusive Framework, Kyle Nolting

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education has historically marginalized queer identities, shaping inaccurate curricula and fostering unwelcoming classroom environments. To address this, my research uses design-based research to investigate the design of queer-inclusive STEM curricular resources. I partnered with in-service secondary STEM teachers amidst a series of professional development courses to co-create curricular resources. My research is grounded in queer theory, using a Gender Inclusive Framework to collaboratively develop inclusive design principles. My findings revealed a strong desire by teachers for more authentic and fluid representations of gender and sexuality in STEM curricula, particularly beyond the biological science discipline. …

Behind Prison Walls: Unmasking The Victimization Experience Of A Transgender Inmate: A Narrative Study, Kevin E. Hemminger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transgender individuals experience disproportionately high rates of victimization within the U.S. criminal justice system, at rates some studies estimate as four times greater than those of cisgender individuals (Marchi et al., 2025). Victimization may occur at the hands of correctional officers, institutional staff, or fellow inmates. This narrative study focuses on the life story of a formerly incarcerated transgender woman, tracing her experiences before incarceration, throughout her time at two different correctional facilities in two different states, and her life following release. While Community Based Research (CBR) was not adopted as a formal methodological framework, its principles — centering lived …

Cosmetic Nationalism: Fashion And Feminine Performance In Trump-Aligned America, Nicola Rountree-Williams

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This paper examines how fashion, beauty, and feminine presentation operate as political tools within Trump-aligned American culture. Drawing on historical examples from fascist Italy, Francoist Spain, and European aristocratic fashion, it argues that aesthetics have long been used to reinforce nationalism, gender hierarchy, and political authority. The paper analyzes contemporary trends such as “Republican makeup” and “Mar-a-Lago face,” arguing that these hyper-feminine and highly racialized beauty standards function as performances of loyalty, wealth, and traditional femininity within Trump-aligned politics. Through figures such as Kristi Noem, the paper demonstrates how women’s appearances can visually legitimize masculine authority while limiting women’s autonomy …

Well-Being Beyond The Binary In Perinatal Healthcare: An Application Of Reproductive Justice, Orphea D. Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gender diverse birthing individuals face several systemic barriers to accessing affirming and empowering perinatal healthcare. The present study utilizes the term gender diverse and the abbreviation TGE to describe those who self-identify as broadly non-cisgender, an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. Gender identities that may be included in this definition include transgender/trans, gender expansive, non-binary, gender fluid, gender nonconforming, gender variant, gender queer/queer, and/or agender. Gender diverse individuals face unique barriers in perinatal healthcare due to the pervasiveness of cisnormativity in perinatal healthcare spaces. Research has documented the harm caused to …

Afterword: Palestinian Solidarity As Feminist Labor, Dana Olwan

Gatherings

This afterword was completed in February 2026. Leqaa Kordia was released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on March 16, 2026, after spending a year of her life in detention.

University Policies In An Unjust World: Typographic Illustrations, Layal Shuman, Nina Rastgar

Gatherings

In this research-creation project, we use typographic illustrations as a visual method to portray how universities in Canada enable genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians while suppressing their rights to protest these injustices on campuses over the past three years. We conceptualize institutional policies as weapons, especially those covering codes of conduct, discrimination, harassment, and freedom of speech. The goal is first to show how universities are directly invested in the manufacturing and selling of weapons currently used in Palestine and Lebanon, and second, to argue that the strategic wording of institutional policies on diversity and inclusion …

Spaces Of Transformation, Love, And Poetry: Autoethnographic Reflections On Learning During The 2024 Student Solidarity Encampments And The 2019 Lebanese Thawra, Anna Wessels

Gatherings

This paper utilizes autoethnographic modes to reflect on the student movement in solidarity with Palestine, specifically the spring 2024 student encampment in Washington, DC. I frame this reflection through my experience as a student in a Women and Gender Studies class during the semester of the encampment, as well as through feminist theories of teaching and learning as liberatory practices. I analyze two sites of learning that moved beyond the ideological and physical boundaries of the university into public protest spaces during times of political mobilization: downtown Beirut during the October 2019 Lebanese thawra (revolution) and the student encampments for …

Symbol Of Defiance: Cultural Reclamation And Resilience In The Symbolism Of The Watermelon, Shukri Mohamed

Gatherings

This paper examines the watermelon as a cross-cultural symbol of nonviolent resistance and identity reclamation in both Palestinian and African American contexts. In Palestine, the watermelon embodies defiant cultural identity amidst occupation, symbolizing resistance against erasure. Within African American communities, it has evolved from a racially charged stereotype to a reclaimed symbol of pride and agency. Through postcolonial theory, intersectionality, transnational feminism, and visual cultural critique, this article examines how marginalized groups repurpose familiar objects to assert identity and reclaim autonomy under oppressive conditions. Drawing on Lila Abu-Lughod's work on media and everyday resistance, Ania Loomba's postcolonial perspectives, Patricia Hill …

Embodying Palestinian Freedom: Yogis For Palestine As A Site Of Transnational And Anti-Imperial Feminist Solidarity, Sheena Sood

Gatherings

In a climate marked by the rise of global fascism, yoga is often appropriated toward the reproduction of caste supremacist and ethnonational agendas, colonial and racial capitalist relations, and neoliberal spirituality. Still, it has also been harnessed for collective liberation. We see this through the effort of Gaza-based yoga teacher, Hadeel Al-Gharbawi, using trauma-informed yoga to help the children of Al-Jawad Camp cultivate endurance during a genocide, and the solidarity of practitioners activating yoga toward Palestinian self-determination. This article examines the social and political activities of Yogis for Palestine (YFP), a Philadelphia-based collective whose vision for collective liberation includes unwavering …

Roots That Refuse To Die: Narratives Of Displacement And Solidarity In Palestinian And Chicanx Feminist Traditions, R. H., Lea Colchado-Joaquín

Gatherings

Amidst the recent passing of Senate Bill 17 and increasing restrictions on academic freedom, and efforts to shut down encampments, political tensions have been on the rise at Texas university campuses. As women of color scholars learning to navigate these challenges, we are committed to fostering safe pedagogical spaces that honor minoritized students’ voices. This paper examines interpretations of solidarity narratives between Chicanx and Palestinian feminist authors through a decolonial feminist lens and employs an autoethnographic methodological approach such as autohistoria-teoría to highlight parallels between the authors' lived realities. Authors begin this conversation by using their own narratives of resistance …

Kinship As Ethical Caring In Genocidal Times, Khawla Badwan, Sunny Singh Prof

Gatherings

As the world bears witness to the first live-streamed genocide¹ in history with full collaboration of the so-called free world, whatever ethics had been defined and legally encoded by imperial powers in the aftermath of the Second World War are no longer functioning or indeed relevant. Instead at individual and collective levels, we must develop a more relational and nested approach to ethical caring; one that moves beyond saviourism and distant witnessing. To demonstrate this relationality, we present our thinking through a dialogic genre of creative and critical reflections and interventions. This dialogue draws and builds on entanglements of …