Digital Commons Network^™

Adopting A Data-Centric Mindset For Operational Planning, Jeremiah Hurley, Morgan Greene

Joint Force Quarterly

The Department of Defense is investing in advanced technologies to maintain a competitive military advantage, but realizing their full value requires a data-first approach to operational planning. Jeremiah Hurley and Morgan Greene argue that DOD must improve how it collects, organizes, integrates, and uses data so commanders and staffs can understand the operational environment and develop and execute courses of action faster than adversaries. The article critiques current planning processes that rely on static products such as PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets, and email, and recommends incorporating standardized data collection templates, plans, matrices, automated data pipelines, and dynamic visualizations into joint and …

Thomas P. Hillman, Pity, Power, And Tolkien’S Ring: To Rule The Fate Of Many, Sørina Higgins

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A review of Thomas P. Hillman, Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many (Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 2023). 306 pages. $40.00. ISBN 9781606354711.

The Last Romantic: C. S. Lewis, English Literature, And Modern Theology, Louis Markos

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A review of Jeffrey W. Barbeau, The Last Romantic: C. S. Lewis, English Literature, and Modern Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2025). 176 pages. $22.00. ISBN 9781514010518.

Deeper Magic: Theology Of The Body In C. S. Lewis And John Paul Ii, George French

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

C. S. Lewis tells us that science and magic are “twins.” “They were born,” he says “of the same impulse”3 of man to master the natural world. We think of them very differently because science has succeeded where magic has failed, but that should not make us blind to their “strong family likeness.”4 Science and magic are intertwined for much of their history, and it is in the Enlightenment that the two begin to separate. While magic died and science survived, Lewis thinks that modern applied science still retains much of the “family likeness.” Unfortunately, not all of the family …

N.I.C.E. Alchemy: The Quest For Immortality In That Hideous Strength, Joseph Weigel

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

In the third and final chapter of The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis makes what may be one of the most provocative statements in his entire corpus of writings: “The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavor are twins. . . . They were born of the same impulse.”1 This claim is jarring because science and magic are thought of as opposites. One seeks knowledge through observation, the other deals in spells, rites, and incantations. However, Lewis recognized something deeper that united the two disciplines. The impulse for “magic and applied science alike,” he continued in Abolition, “is …

The Abolition Of Man, Eighty Years Later: An Engineer’S Perspective, Paul G. Lorenzini

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

I n 2021 Michael Ward published After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. His purpose was to call attention to the continuing relevance and significance of Lewis’s book, originally published in 1943, now almost a century old. Among his many works, it is one of the least known, yet it was perhaps Lewis’s most highly acclaimed book among secular critics. Ranked seventh by the National Review in its list of 100 best non-fiction books in the 20th century, it is second on a similar list by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.1 While Abolition can be a difficult …

The Importance Of Recognizing Truth, Goodness, And Beauty: C. S. Lewis’S Antidote To The Poison Of Subjectivism, David H. Mcilroy

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

T aken in isolation, The Abolition of Man is different from most of C. S. Lewis’s other works. It is not a work of fiction or a work of expressly Christian apologetics. It is, however, rightly recognized by Dyer and Watson as “the lynchpin for understanding of all of [Lewis’s] work.”1 The thesis set out in The Abolition of Man is foundational to C. S. Lewis’s worldview. Lewis explored its implications in the third novel in his scientific trilogy, That Hideous Strength, which Lewis expressly described as a story whose moral was “the serious “point” which I have tried to …

The Positive Educational Program Of The Abolition Of Man, Jon Fennell

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Readers of The Abolition of Man, certainly those who have engaged it repeatedly and have thought deeply about what it says, recognize that the book is fundamentally a commentary on the reality—and predictable consequences—of the miseducation of the young. Much has been written on this topic. Not so commonly recognized, nor as frequently understood, is the positive educational program that arises out of Lewis’s largely critical “reflections on education.”2 The Abolition of Man, like its fictional counterpart, That Hideous Strength, elaborates a nightmare scenario. That scenario is the product of what, logically, is a reduction and absurdum. The details of …

The Riddle Of The Sphinx, Owen Barfield, Rory O'Connor

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Owen Barfield, whom C. S. Lewis described archetypally as his “Second Friend” —“the man who disagrees with you about everything . . . not so much the alter ego as the antiself ”1 —expressed his agreement with the argument of The Abolition of Man and his admiration of the book on a number of occasions. For example, describing various means by which one can become aware of the presuppositions of one’s thoughts, Barfield once wrote: One, of which the best example I know is C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, is to take some typical utterance by a contemporary …

The Mendenhall Building: An Origin Story, Marcos Antonio Carrasco

Whittier City & College Historical Research

No abstract provided.

From The Freedom Train: A Historical Perspective On Dr. Joseph L. White, Kimberly M. Wesley

Psychology from the Margins

This paper explores the generational impact of the late Dr. Joseph L. White, the Father of Black Psychology. During a time when psychology lacked cultural awareness, Dr. White pioneered a wave of institutional and community change among Black Psychology. Through his Academic Freedom Train, a mentoring system inspired by the Underground Railroad System, Dr. White influenced an interconnected network of mentees committed to decolonizing psychology and promoting Black Psychology. The paper frames the history of racism in psychology in the context of Dr. White's life, his role in promoting Black Psychology, and his commitment to mentees. Dr. White's legacy and …

When Dystopia Becomes Political Criticism: Why Margaret Atwood Wrote The Handmaid's Tale, Celeste Deale

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

When Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, she didn’t think it’d still be relevant nearly forty years later. Yet, her use of historical imagination helped her create a novel that permeates time and space. This essay explores the production and reception of The Handmaid’s Tale, asking how the novel was both a product of the political and cultural context of its production in the 1980s and a critique of Atwood’s own contemporary moment. Atwood drew on biblical themes, Puritan history, and the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu to construct Gilead's social and political order and comment on American …

How Robespierre's Hostility Toward Traditional Religion Led To The Terror, Nuray Bamanie

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The research attempts to explain, from the perspective of Historical Studies of Revolutions, Maximilien Robespierre's hostility to France's state religion and how it led to the excesses of the Terror between 1792-1794. Robespierre appeared at the most radical phase of the Revolution, that began in 1792 and lasted up to 1794. He placed the belief in the Revolution as a priority to everything and justified faith in the cult of the Supreme Being as part of France's new Revolution. Robespierre is a controversial figure. In the historiography, historians are divided between those who are infatuated with him and those that …

Clinton’S March: A Strategic And Logistical Study Of The Crown Forces’ March Through New Jersey In 1778, Colin Edward Zimmerman

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This paper reexamines the British army's march through New Jersey in the summer of 1778, led by Sir Henry Clinton, challenging the traditional narrative that portrays Clinton’s movements as a mere retreat following the loss at the Battle of Monmouth. Instead, it argues that Clinton’s actions were part of a calculated strategy to provoke General George Washington’s Continental Army into a decisive engagement that could potentially end the Revolutionary War. By analyzing Clinton’s leadership decisions, logistical considerations, and the army’s experience during the march, this work reveals a more nuanced intention behind the British movements. The paper contends that Clinton’s …

William Bradford: An Unexpected Father Of Early Colonial American Politics, Megan E. Romero

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation is a project dedicated to explaining and defining not only who William Bradford was a person, but also as a leader to the people of Plymouth Colony and the Puritan faith. He was an individual who was dedicated to establishing a society that was fairer and more equal for all people, who could have the chance to grow economically, practice their faith freely, and live a more politically stable life. Through research conducted on Bradford’s life, it became easier to understand that due to his determination and hard work he quickly rose up in the ranks and perspectives …

A Written Dissertation Of A History Of The Ethnic Identity Of The Irish Child Laborers In Saint Louis, Missouri: 1890-1930, Deserea A. Morse

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The study of child labor helps us better understand the connection between labor, ethnicity, and crime within America. Throughout this dissertation, there will be a closer look into the influence that child labor has had on the growth of this nation. It also grants a look into the design of society within Progressive America and gives a voice to the story of the child laborer and his experiences. Currently, there is an ever-changing debate on the role child labor played within American history, specifically between the years 1910-1930. This period of years is critical as it signals when reform programs …

Towards The Non-Spectacle: Responses To Necropolitics In The Artwork Of Teresa Margolles And Maya Watanabe, Leslie Anne Condon

Masters Theses

How do we engage with artwork that addresses complicated histories

of colonialism and political violence, specifically intangible and

incomprehensible violence? Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’ 2005 work, Lote

Bravo, is named after and composed of the soil from a mass grave site

discovered in 1995 in the southeastern corner of Ciudad Juárez, a city known

internationally for the femicide that has continued to haunt its streets and

peripheries since the 1990s. Peruvian filmmaker Maya Watanabe’s 2019 film

Liminal cinematically documents the official exhumation of two mass graves

in the Ayacucho and Huánuco regions of the Andes highlands, where

thousands of …

Uncovering Maria Edgeworth’S Strategic Political Influence Through Her Unpublished Letters, Autumn G. Hall

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was one of the most prolific Anglo-Irish novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While Edgeworth’s novels are regularly discussed among Regency-era scholars, researchers have rarely considered her letters and correspondence, especially in relation to her role in contemporary politics. During my time on the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project team, I researched Edgeworth’s previously unpublished letters, which provided a unique view of her strategic political correspondence network. Through her writing, Edgeworth was able to voice her thoughts while also remaining publicly complacent with restrictive societal norms imposed on women. In my article, I argue that through her …

Schlichting Hist 103 Syllabus, Kara M. Schlichting

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Johann Georg Hamann And The Liberal Project, Jesse D. Ansley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the political thought of Johann Georg Hamann, his relationship to liberalism, and the importance to modern concerns for consensus formation and intercultural dialogue. This contributes to the line of literature sparked by Isaiah Berlin debating the political legacy of Hamann and its relation to the development of modern politics. Berlin labels Hamann an anti-rationalist whose current developed into the ideology of the Nazi party. My work supports the countervailing arguments that Hamann’s work is importantly different from the Romantics he inspired and even more so from the Nazis. By examining two complete works and a number of …

Lanthorn, Vol. 59, No. 09, January 6, 2025, Grand Valley State University

Volume 59, August 5, 2024 – April 14, 2025

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Eisenhower, Wilson, And Professional Baseball In Kansas, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Ever since General Dwight David Eisenhower mentioned in 1945 that he had played professional baseball under the pseudonym Wilson sometime after his 1909 graduation from Abilene High School, there have been attempts to document this assertion. Yet, he offered little detail for researchers to follow, not even the team or year. If true, however, it has been speculated this would have made him ineligible for intercollegiate competition in 1911–1915 while he attended the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he played on the football team. Thus, interest in the story has persisted. Newspaper accounts of baseball mention …

Bert Wakefield And The End Of Integrated Minor League Baseball In Kansas, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Bert Wakefield was a lifelong resident of Troy, Kansas, where he was an active member of the community—business owner, member of social organizations, and musician. Wakefield was also an African American who played on several integrated and Black baseball teams through the 1890s and early 1900s, including the Chicago Unions, Chicago Union Giants, Algona (Iowa) Brownies, Renville (Minnesota) All-Stars, and the original Kansas City Monarchs. In addition, Wakefield served as the captain of the predominantly white Troy minor league team in the Kansas State League in 1895. In this role, he joined Bud Fowler as the only Black players to …

Alfred “Army” Cooper: A Baseball Career With The 25th Infantry, Negro Leagues, And Tournament Teams, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Lefthanded pitcher Alfred “Army” Cooper was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1899 and had a long career with Black baseball clubs between the First and Second World Wars. He played baseball while serving with the 25th US Infantry Regiment in Nogales, Arizona during most of the 1920s. After his discharge in February 1928, he pitched for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League until 1930. The following year, he played for several weeks with Gilkerson’s Union Giants, a prominent barnstorming team, before rejoining the independent Kansas City Monarchs as they barnstormed through the end of the summer. …

Baseball Career Of Andy Cooper In Kansas, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Andrew Lewis Cooper was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. He was a lefthanded pitcher, who played and managed in the Negro Leagues from 1920 until his death in 1941, mostly for the Detroit Stars and Kansas City Monarchs. Cooper also played baseball in California, Cuba, and the Far East. However, his life before 1920 has been little studied. Andy Cooper was born in Texas, probably in 1897. Although he was a resident of Waco and began playing baseball in northern Texas, contemporary newspaper reports document an African American pitcher from Texas named Andrew “Lefty” Cooper …

Shattered Windows: The Story Of Genora Johnson Dollinger, Eva Stone, And The Women Of Michigan, Brett Kovel

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The thesis, Shattered Windows, explores the significant roles of Genora Johnson Dollinger and Eva Stone in Michigan’s labor movements during the 1930s. It focuses on Dollinger’s leadership in the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37, where she mobilized women to join the picket lines, culminating in the formation of the Women’s Emergency Brigade. Her influence extended beyond Flint, inspiring women across Michigan to challenge corporate power and defend workers’ rights. Following Dollinger’s example, Eva Stone led protests against rising meat prices, further uniting women in economic activism. This work examines the unique contributions of these women, situating their efforts within a …

Culture Of Disease: A Historiographical Review Of The Black Death, Jack Bamford

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay ………………………………2

II. Document Selection ………………………. 22

III. Textbook Critique…………………………...32

IV. Original Textbook Entry…………………... 36

Behind The Mask: Unveiling The Hidden Narratives Of The Spanish Flu And Unearthing Its Elusive Memory, Dagan M. Turcotte-Cutkomp

Research Honors

In the fall of 1918, as World War I drew to a close, a greater killer swept across the globe: Influenza. Within a year, influenza infected one-third of the world’s population and killed between 50 to 100 million people, whereas the First World War claimed an estimated 16 million lives. Yet, when we study the early 1900s, the Flu is a minor footnote and has remained largely dormant in pandemic memory until the recent COVID-19 Pandemic. Why has the Flu been ‘forgotten,’ and what untold stories challenge the established narratives surrounding it? By exploring both collective and individual memories of …

Inaugural Season Of Intercity Base Ball In Leavenworth And Kansas City, 1866: Frontiers And Antelopes, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

The inaugural year for baseball played among formally organized base ball clubs (BBC) in Kansas and in Kansas City, Missouri was 1866. Little has been written about the events of that year other than retellings and embellishments of a myth created in 1927 about James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok umpiring a game between the Kansas City Antelopes and Atchison Pomeroys to prevent violence during the contest. In truth, the first club organized in the area by local business owners and other professionals was the Frontier BBC of Leavenworth in November 1865. The first club organized in Kansas City, Missouri was …

Data To Support The "Mapping The Second Ku Klux Klan, 1919-1940" Project, John T. Kneebone, Shariq D. Torres

History Data

Data to support the "Mapping the Second Ku Klux Klan, 1919-1940" project. The data provides a rough timeline of the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan between 1915 and 1940.

http://labs.library.vcu.edu/klan/

The article, "Publicity and Prejudice: The New York World’s Exposé of 1921 and the History of the Second Ku Klux Klan", provides additional context to the data:

http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/hist_pubs/12/

Data

Research compiled by Dr. John Kneebone. Database export and quality assurance from 2015 by Shariq Torres. 2023 updates include significant contributions regarding Alabama from Dr. Kenneth C. Barnes, Professor of History, University of Central Arkansas. 2024 updates include …