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Into The Fire: An Examination Of Violence In Reconstruction Texas, 1865-1868, John Gorman

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This article examines the scale, patterns, and political implications of racial violence in Texas between 1865 and 1868, arguing that white terror functioned as a systematic effort to suppress Black freedom and restore antebellum racial hierarchies. Drawing on Congressional testimony, Freedmen’s Bureau records, and the 1868 Report of the Special Committee on Lawlessness and Violence in Texas, the study reveals that violence was not random but structured along social, labor, and political lines. Murders, whippings, intimidation, and organized attacks—such as the Millican riot—intensified when freedpeople asserted labor autonomy or political rights. Despite nearly 900 reported murders, convictions were exceedingly rare, …

The Ones Who Watched: Technology, Proxy Warfare, And The Testing Ground Hypothesis, Sean J. Oliver

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Great powers need laboratories for war. This thesis argues that great powers find these laboratories in proxy forces. Proxy warfare is not just a tool for strategic influence. It is a machine for experimentation. This study posits a central testing-ground hypothesis. It contends that great powers deliberately use surrogates to vet emerging technologies, doctrines, and mobilization schemes under the pressure of real combat. The analytical methodology is historical. It traces patterns from the ancient world's proxy forces and the innovations of the Crusades to the Cold War and the digital age. The thesis examines enduring patterns, including the tension between …

Stopping The Buck: What Made The Truman Committee Uniquely Successful In Its Oversight Of World War Two Military Contracts, Victoria Kelley-Chiarelli

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

During World War Two, Harry S. Truman led the Senate Select Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, also known as the Truman Committee, in its oversight of military contracts and the war effort. The Truman Committee saved the U.S. government billions by identifying and discouraging waste, fraud, and abuse, and saved many armed forces personnel’s lives through identifying defective products. Truman’s background in World War One service and his time as a local official in Missouri show signs of the integrity and commitment to good governance that made the Truman Committee so successful. The Truman Committee’s membership, staff, principles, …

Confucian Thought As A Strategic Veil: How Western Strategy Should Correctly Compete With China, Owen Miller

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The rise of the People's Republic of China as a peer competitor to the United States constitutes the defining geopolitical challenge of the twenty-first century, but even so, Western strategic analysis has consistently failed to engage China on its own terms. The recurrent pattern of Western misinterpretation results from projecting Western assumptions onto a state whose institutional and cultural drivers operate under fundamentally different premises, where key elements of Chinese strategic culture and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) instrumentalization of Confucianism as a moral veil are instruments of domestic legitimacy and external strategic narrative. The United States must recognize that …

Children Past Curfew: Surveillance, Resistance, And Childhood In Philippine Martial Law Children's Literature, Krisna Marie T. Balolong

Children's Literature (MA) Theses

This paper examines how two Philippine children's books depict state surveillance and its effects on a child's perspective of family, authority figures, and childhood. Through analysis of Augie Rivera's Isang Harding Papel and Sandra Nicole Roldan's At the School Gate, this project makes a connection between children's literature and surveillance studies, offering new framework to engage with children’s literature depicting authoritarian regimes and state violence, especially in cases where children were targets of their governments. Each book is examined by their representations of state surveillance during the Martial Law era of the Philippines, as well as each characters’ individual …

Choco Pies, Economic Gains, And The Opening Of North Korea:, Quinci Rasband

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Since the armistice was signed putting a hold on the Korean War (July 27, 1953) and officially created two separate entities, has there ever been a time when North Korea and South Korea—two diametrically opposed countries— worked together towards a common goal? If there really was such a time when North Korea and South Korea collaborated, one can wonder how this was received in the minds of North Koreans and South Koreans. While it is challenging to understand North Korean citizens’ perceptions of events, delving into accessible sources can shed light onto South Korea’s viewpoint of inter-Korean relations. One such …

Memories Of The Low-Income Elderly Of South Korea, Jacob Gilbert

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Rain pattered against my umbrella as I walked down the small alleyway near Tapgol Park. An elderly man carrying a black umbrella hobbled past me. Rain dripping from the gutters made puddles at my feet. I carefully avoided several puddles in the pavement making my way to the end of the alleyway. As I drew closer to the end, loud voices echoed down the alley. Around the corner a crowd of elderly people huddled underneath the roof of the front gate to the park. Some stood, while others sat on the ground leaning their backs against the walls of the …

The Hallyu Hexagon:, Katherine Linton

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

From the opening credits, Crash Landing On You1 captured the attention and adoration of millions. The show follows a South Korean chaebol heiress, Yoon Se-ri, who crash lands into the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. She is discovered by North Korean soldier, Ri Jeong Hyeok, who mercifully decides not to kill her on the spot. Over the course of 16 episodes and 23 hours, as Ri Jeong Hyeok betrays loyalty lines by evading the North Korean Military Police and helping Yoon Se-ri return to the south, the two’s fateful meeting evolves into a cross-border romance.

Korean dramas are …

Silencing The Party, Amplifying The Music:, Brian Lewis

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

The 2024 dissolution of the MFP marked a turning point in Thai electoral politics, catalyzing a cultural contest over political expression through music. The court’s decision to dissolve the MFP was perceived as a direct attack on free political discourse, intensifying state-led censorship efforts against musicians who critiqued the establishment. In response, political music became not only a means of protest, but a crucial space for youth to form their political identities and express dissent. This escalation in censorship and the concurrent surge in musical activism cannot be directly attributed to long-standing political trends; rather, they were significantly increased by …

Beyond War: Building Wisdom Civilization To Rescue Humanity, Andrew Targowski

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper presents a comparative civilizational analysis of humanity’s transition from a War Civilization to the emerging Wisdom Civilization. Drawing on the works of Toynbee, Sorokin, Quigley, Huntington, Spengler, and Koneczny, it interprets the present global disorder — marked by the tension between Western, Chinese, Russian, and Muslim civilizations — as a transformative moment in human history. War and militarism, once adaptive mechanisms of civilizational growth, have become self-destructive in an era of technological interdependence. It is proposed that the next evolutionary stage of civilization must integrate knowledge with conscience to form a Wisdom Civilization founded on empathy, sustainability, and …

The Jevons Filter: Why Civilizations May Fail Before Reaching “Type I” Status, Giray Fidan

Comparative Civilizations Review

Humanity’s accelerating energy use poses profound questions about the long-term viability of technological civilization. This paper introduces the “Jevons Filter” hypothesis: a self-reinforcing feedback loop between efficiency improvements and rising aggregate consumption, rooted in the classical Jevons Paradox that systematically drives civilizations toward resource depletion and environmental thresholds. Here we argue that this feedback constitutes a critical developmental barrier, hindering sustainable progression toward Kardashev “Type I” energy mastery. We develop a simplified thermodynamic model linking energy efficiency, economic expansion, and civilizational dynamics, and engage with counterarguments regarding absolute decoupling and transformative technological innovations. Building on the classical Jevons Paradox, this …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

“Which Side Are You On?”: The Historical Creation And Political Implications Of An Appalachian White Other, Zoe Davin

History Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

George W. Bush’S Contemporary Crusade: Binary And Peace Rhetoric During The Global War On Terror, Justin Lotito

Cohort 2025-2026

Justin Lotito is a senior majoring in communication studies, with minors in business administration, and journalism. Lotito’s Time Machine research investigates President George W. Bush’s rhetoric following the attacks of September 11. He contends that Bush established a binary world through the application of Manichean and Crusader rhetoric. Following this contention, Lotito applies Bush’s binary world framework into an analysis of the Setonian’s March 20, 2003, edition covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Archival Collection Used: SHU 0054 The Setonian

The Postmodern Frontier: Richard Prince And The Neoliberal Spectacle Of The American Dream, Taïs Khassanova

MA Theses

This thesis examines the oeuvre of Richard Prince’s as a sustained allegory of contemporary American visual culture, beginning with his Cowboys series as the point of origin from which his later appropriations, including Girlfriends, Spiritual America, and New Portraits, unfold. Through the recursive gesture of appropriation, Prince’s Cowboys expose the myth of rugged independence as a corporate fiction, revealing how the frontier ethos was redeployed under the Reagan presidency to naturalize neoliberal ideology. Building on this premise, the thesis traces how such logic extends throughout Prince’s subsequent body of work, as his Girlfriends refigure the cowboy’s masculine autonomy as the …

The Collapse Of The New Tendencies: How Did A Movement That Never Existed Cease To Exist, Tonka Protega

MA Theses

This thesis examines the short lifespan of the New  Tendencies. Although the  New Tendencies have gained renewed recognition over the last couple of years, there is still limited research on their final phase. To address this topic, I analyzed the narrative history of the  New Tendencies  , alongside the essays published in the exhibition catalogues. Additionally, I considered the historical and political situation in Croatia during this period, which influenced the manifestations. Ultimately, this thesis argues for the non-existence of the  New Tendencies  as a movement in the history of art and identifies the key reasons that led to its …

Cancel Culture: A Battle Of Headlines, Not Meanings, Nataliia Sapyrkina

MA Theses

This work explores the phenomenon of “cancel culture”, with a specific emphasis on the repercussions for Russian art, artists, and cultural institutions following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. The study examines “cancel culture” as a reputational sanctions mechanism functioning across the modern media landscape. By analyzing selected case studies this paper addresses cases of performance cancellations, institutional distancing, the termination of cooperation with donors, and the revision of artwork attributions. Crucially, Russia’s exclusion from the dialogue is driven both by direct legal grounds, namely sanctions, and by indirect technical factors or those arising from the internal structure …

Part 3: Confluences In Shakers At The Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles In Nineteenth-Century America, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Introduction to Part 3 of Shakers at the Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles in Nineteenth-Century America

"One of the last inspired message Eunice Bathrick recorded was also one of her longest— and most controversial. One day in November 1851, a Harvard sister “gifted in spiritual sight” informed her that Socrates had entered their room and “wanted to make himself known.” Bathrick hesitated. “I did not feel the least disposed to find out what this Spirit wanted,” she later explained, and so she ignored the presence of the “Ancient Philosopher.” She returned to her employments in the Square House, where she …

Epilogue: Spirits, Spiritualism Spirituality In Shakers At The Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles In Nineteenth-Century America, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Epilogue to Shakers at the Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles in Nineteenth-Century America

"Exploring the theological, social, and cultural dimensions of one of America’s most ambitious prophetic movements 

The Shakers’ Era of Manifestations ranks among the most astounding events in American religious history. During the 1840s, members of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing embarked on an audacious project of receiving visions, revelations, and other manifestations from the spirit world and convincing both themselves and the world’s people of their reality. Gifted Shakers known as “instruments” surrendered their bodies to possessing spirits and celestial beings who, in …

Part 2: Performances In Shakers At The Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles In Nineteenth-Century America, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Introduction to Part 2 of Shakers at the Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles in Nineteenth-Century America

"Shakers, Era of Manifestations, Mother's Work, New Era, Eunice BathrickEunice Bathrick bore witness to the spectacular developments of the Era of Manifestations. She wrote voluminously for the spirits and received dozens of personal messages and gifts in return. She participated in all the ritual innovations of the period, including the Passover feasts at Harvard’s Holy Hill of Zion. And she endorsed the “Sacred Roll” without hesitation. Bathrick’s extensive writings from this period— along with those of hundreds of other Believers—called forth an extravagant new …

Going Through The Motions At The Shaker Feast Grounds, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Sally Bushnell rose unusually early on the Sabbath morning of June 4, 1843. A seasoned Believer of over two decades, Bushnell served as eldress of the gathering, or novitiate, order of the South Family in Canaan, a satellite community of the largest Shaker village at New Lebanon, New York. Although she had participated in all the dramatic events of the Era of Manifestations, she understood this day to be particularly special. The young Believers over whom Bushnell presided had been granted a privilege to visit the Holy Mount, the outdoor feast ground located on a high knob in the Berkshire …

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, …

Part 1: Experiences - In Shakers At The Center: Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles In Nineteenth-Century America, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Two months after the “painful opperation” in which an angel cut the bloody “secret interests” from her heart, Eunice Bathrick became an instrument. It was the answer to her most fervent prayers.

Mathematics And Political Ideology: A Historical Argument Against The Cultural Understanding Of Mathematics As An Apolitical Field, And A Journalistic Report On The Impact Of The Trump Administration On American Mathematics In 2026, Philo Judson

Pitzer Senior Theses

The interplay between political ideology and mathematics is a recurring theme throughout the history of the academic field. Mathematics has been used as a tool of empire, while mathematicians have been elevated by states as symbols of national genius for political prestige. Political ideologies have also shaped the field from within, both through the suppression of mathematical thought and the enforcement of mathematical authority. Since 2025, the Trump administration has launched large-scale political attacks on American institutions of higher education, which include lawsuits, discrimination investigations, and the removal of federal funding from certain institutions that don’t adhere to the administration’s …

“The Irishmen – Immigrants, Soldiers, And The Spark Of Revolutions”, Joshua Hanscheck

History Theses

The Irish, as a people and a revolutionary inspiration, have been the subject of research and discussion for much of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A trope has emerged that the Irish could take over the world, if they were not so busy chasing the bottom of their pub glasses, but the trope – stereotypes about Irish drinking aside – is grounded in some truth. The diaspora encouraged many things: a revival in Gaelic culture, a general disdain among outsiders for the Irish as a people group, and, most importantly, a revolutionary fervor that seemed almost infectious. This fervor …

Eurovision As A Platform For Cultural Diplomacy In Times Of Conflict, Lucy Meza

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how states utilize the Eurovision Song Contest as a platform for soft power, focusing on the conditions under which cultural performance translates into reputational gains. Drawing on Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, Biasioli’s theory of songwashing, Zamorano’s typology of cultural diplomacy, Anholt’s competitive identity framework, and Feklyunina’s analysis of identity and narrative, it argues that Eurovision’s effectiveness as a soft power platform is fundamentally contingent on the alignment between a state’s cultural narrative and dominant international perceptions of its legitimacy. Through a qualitative comparative case study approach, the thesis examines two nations whose Eurovision participation during …

The Cost Of Defense: Labor And Construction Of 10th Century Danish Fortifications, Noah James Eckert

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

A Wound Upon The Union: John Quincy Adams And The Treaty Of Indian Springs, Spencer Peacock

Honors Theses and Capstones

This thesis examines the crisis that developed after US president John Quincy Adams signed, then disavowed (allegedly over moral concerns), the fraudulent 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs with the Creek Indian Nation. The thesis probes Adams' motives during the Treaty of Indian Springs crisis, and seeks to connect the crisis to the evolution of US federal Indian policy in the 1820s, prior to the mass Indian removal of the 1830s.

Religious And Cultural Dimension Of The "Ringing Cedars Of Russia" Movement In The Context Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Lukyanenko, Vitaly Dmytrenko, Vita Dmytrenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to a comprehensive religious analysis of the neo-religious movement “The Ringing Cedars of Russia,” based on the works of Vladimir Megre and the image of the prophetess Anastasia. The study covers the ideological and doctrinal foundations of the movement, its socio-cultural practices, the functioning of tribal settlements, as well as mechanisms of influence on individual and collective consciousness. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of “Vedrussia”, the sacralization of “Russian space” and the mythologization of Russia’s calling to revive the “primitive civilization of harmony.” The analysis shows that the movement, while declaring ecological and humanistic …

Defend The Fort: Indigenous History, Remembrance, And Memorialization In Ellis County, Kansas, Sarah Keiss

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This thesis provides an in-depth look into the Indigenous history of the area that would later become Western Kansas and Ellis County. Analyzing the history of the area from before European colonization to the Native American resistance against American expansion in the 1860s, this thesis illustrates the complex and layered history of the area. Even prior to European settler presence in the area, the native tribes felt the effects of European settlement and trade around them, leading to drastic changes in geographic distribution and access to new resources, particularly horses. Over the course of the nineteenth century, white settlement completely …