Digital Commons Network^™

Y’All Means All: The Southern Queer Experience And Grassroots Archives As Places Of Remembrance, Emma R. Johansen, Emma R. Johansen

The Cardinal Edge

While the burgeoning field of queer history grows in academic prominence and scholarship, southern queer identities and histories are left in the gaps of this trailblazing research. As a segment of a larger senior honors thesis on gay press in Kentucky and the broader American South, this brief research report will specifically examine queer rurality, visibility, and space in the archive. This report also aims to highlight the political and sociological importance of remembering, studying, and teaching queer heritage, especially in the rural American South. This report argues that the complexities of southern queer histories are especially felt in the …

Blind Spots And Bottlenecks For Philosophy Of History, Bennett B. Gilbert

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Realist history does not meet many human needs. History needs a great deal more philosophy, but of what kind?

In his essay on this blog, "Reflections on Theory of History Polyphonic," Ethan Kleinberg suggests that historians often use theory to block change in their work rather than to advance it. One way they do this, he points out, is to include a little theory in order to inoculate themselves against greater and more fundamental challenges. They give or take a blow, and then hoist up their shield, thereby avoiding philosophy and miniaturizing it into "historical theory."

I cannot …

The Trauma-Informed Equity-Minded Asset-Based Model (Team): The Six R’S For Social Justice-Oriented Educators, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Emily Riewestahl, Shelby Landmark

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper describes the Trauma-informed Equity-minded Asset-based Model (TEAM) framework for social justice-oriented educators. We draw on trauma-informed approaches to illustrate how systemic racism as systemic trauma and normative whiteness as dominant ideology are embedded in the U.S education and media institutions. From an equity-minded perspective, we critique notions such as egalitarianism, colorblind racism, neoliberal multiculturalism, and abstract liberalism. Using an asset-based model, we urge educators to avoid deficit ideologies to frame marginalized communities. The TEAM approach offers the following “Six R’s” as strategies: (1) Realizing that dominant ideologies are embedded in educational systems, (2) Recognizing the long-term effects of …

Do Media Literacies Approach Equity And Justice?, Paul Mihailidis, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Melissa Tully, Bobbie Foster, Emily Riewestahl, Patrick Johnson, Sydney Angove

Journal of Media Literacy Education

It is often assumed that media literacy serves to protect and uphold democratic practice and that media literate citizens are the best safeguards for democracy. However, little attention is paid to defining this practice and its relationship to ongoing inequities within democratic societies. In this essay, we argue media literacy operates from three core assumptions; media literacy creates knowledgeable individuals, empowers communities, and encourages democratic participation. The first assumption draws out an individual’s skills and critical thinking in media literacy practices. The second assumption focuses on the community aspect of media literacy, specifically which communities are best served by media …

Pragmatism And Faith: A University Administrator’S Reading Of Reinhold Niebuhr, Jon Young

Government and History Faculty Working Papers

This paper examines university administration and theology based on the author’s growing appreciation for the writings of Christian theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), while serving in the senior administrative roles of provost and chief of staff at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. One of the leading Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, Niebuhr is perhaps best known as the writer of the “Serenity Prayer,” but his analyses of political and social events of the early and midtwentieth century influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama, among many others. Niebuhr’s writings enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the …

Sounds Of The Reich: Nazi Party Radio And Speeches, Katelyn Hanners

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Radio broadcasts and speeches were key aspects of Nazi regime propaganda. From March 1927 to when the Nazi party won power in March 1933, Hitler made 455 public appearances, reaching close to 4.5 million people. Radio was the leading medium during the Great Depression and during all of WWII. Nazi propaganda focused on the effectiveness of the message, not the means through which it was relayed. Nazis liked simplistic and straightforward ideas with no underlying interpretations. Studies have shown that campaigns do not change the opinions of the masses. Rather, they confirm what the people already believe. In the case …

2021-2022 Ursinus College Course Catalogue, Office Of The Registrar

Ursinus College Catalogues, 1869-Present

A digital copy of the 2021-2022 Ursinus College Catalog. It contains details of the curriculum, departmental requirements and courses of instruction as well as the Open Questions core requirements, experiential learning and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE). Academic policies, special opportunities and scholarships, off-campus programs and graduation requirements are also outlined.

Law In The Shadows Of Confederate Monuments, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Hundreds of Confederate monuments stand across the United States. In recent years, leading historians have come forward to clarify that these statues were erected not just as memorials but to express white supremacist intimidation in times of racially oppressive conduct. As public support for antiracist action grows, many communities are inclined to remove public symbols that cause emotional harm, create constant security risks and dishonor the values of equality and unity. Finding a lawful path to removal is not always clear and easy. The political power brokers who choose whether monuments will stay or go often do not walk daily …

Instrumentalizing The Past: The Politics Of Holocaust Memory In Contemporary Poland, Jonathan Zisook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigates Poland’s politics of Holocaust memory from the contentious Jedwabne debate in the early 2000s through the present and shows how the history of the Holocaust has been both distorted and exploited in contemporary Polish politics and culture. It pays special attention to the most recent period of Law and Justice Party rule (2015-2020) and considers the varying ways that the government has constructed its approach to the past by asserting a “policy on history” (polityka historyczna) in state-sponsored research, the educational system, legislation, museum narratives, and more. In so doing, this work argues that the …

Suicidality As A Discourse Of Safety In The Queer Youth Movement, Robert M. Cleary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In November 1991, a group of queer teenagers gathered to rally at the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Two years later, the state passed the first law in the nation adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes in the state's schools. The November rally was the first public expression of what became the safe schools movement, which went on over the following decade to transform the landscape in public education for LGBTQ students. A notable feature of the rally was the staging by the youth of a mass performative act of queer suicide. This paper uses Foucauldian concepts …

The Federalist Papers' Account Of Human Nature, Jeffrey P. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper is an analysis of the account of human nature found in The Federalist Papers. This interpretation assumes The Federalist is a work of political rhetoric and advocacy, but also one of genuine significance as political science and philosophy. As a book, The Federalist is a coherent whole, which offers a coherent account of human nature, despite the collective nature of its authorship, the time pressures of its publication, and the piecemeal nature of its workmanship. This understanding of human nature is the thread which runs through all its analysis and numbers. Its arguments asserting the inadequacies of …

Afterlives Of Discovery: Speculative Geographies In The Colombian Political Landscape, Heidi A. Rhodes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation considers how the temporal remains of the Age of Discovery and its doctrine persist in a racial-geographical ranking of human and non-human, terrestrial and planetary life and worth. Across this work, I interpret a series of historical moments and their objects of speculative geographic cultural production: a state mapping program, a painting, a biomedical project, a de-monumenting protest action. As repositories of codified belief and repertoires of Discovery’s political and affective modes of racialized domination, I read these materials from the Colombian archives of coloniality and liberalism to illuminate their implications for Colombia’s national becoming as a liberal …

Skizofrenia Dalam Film Joker (2019): Skizoanalisis Perspektif Deleuze Dan Guattari, Rino Andreas

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

In medical-psychology, schizophrenia is defined as a severe psychotic disorder that causes its sufferers to experience hallucinations and chaotic behaviors. However, the paradigm of schizoanalysis considers schizophrenia as a system of thought that opposes the existence of established discourses (i.e. the Oedipus System). One form of schizophrenia can be seen in the Joker movie (2019). This research aims to identify the schizophrenia suffered by Arthur Fleck, the movie’s main character, from the schizoanalysis perspective as proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. This qualitative research applied the interpretative description method based on the schizoanalysis perspective. This research found that the …

Telaah Filosofis Terhadap Tapa Brata: Praktik Spiritual Menanggulangi Kecemasan Dalam Pandemi Covid-19, John Abraham Ziswan Suryosumunar

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The COVID-19 pandemic, which is a global disaster, has an impact on all aspects of human life. Indonesia is one of the countries that have a high rate of COVID-19 incidences, which naturally has led to various policies intended to suppress further transmission by limiting social mobility. During this pandemic, people are faced with uncertain conditions that result in an increasing level of boredom, fear, and even public anxiety. The author was interested in exploring the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the possible relationship between public anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic and an awareness of the need for …

A Tribe Called Trump: The Motivation Behind The Education Line & Why People Of Color Voted For The Bully-In-Chief, Leah P. Hollis

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Throughout the 2020 election, a constant question arose, “How can they vote for Trump?” Within the context of tribalism and the disenfranchised status created by the deteriorated blue-collar job market, I reflect on labor history to explain how those who are denied affordable education are left out of the American dream. This trend disproportionately affects the Black community. In turn, these populations potentially remain reminiscent of how America was great for them in the past. Supported by descriptive statistics, I reflect on the educational line in red and contested states during the 2020 presidential election. The paper concludes with the …

Assessing Risk At The National Strategic Level: Visualization Tools For Military Planners, Wade A. Germann, Heather S. Gregg

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The reemergence of great power competition, conflict with near-peer competitor states below the level of armed conflict, and persisting threats from nonstate actors with transnational ambitions and global reach pose challenges for strategists planning, executing, and assessing military operations and strategy. Building on current visualization tools, two proposed models—the National Strategic Risk Abacus and the National Strategic Risk Radar Chart—address these challenges and better depict how the US military may inadvertently contribute to risk at the national strategic level.

The Battalion Commander Effect, Everett Spain, Gautam Mukunda, Archie Bates

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Statistical evidence suggests Army battalion commanders are significant determinants of the retention of their lieutenants—especially high-potential lieutenants. Further, this so-called Battalion Commander Effect should be included in brigadier general promotion board assessments and used to inform officer professional military education curricula.

Great (Soft) Power Competition: Us And Chinese Efforts In Global Health Engagement, Michael W. Wissemann

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Global health engagement, an underutilized strategy rooted in the strengths of soft power persuasion, can lead to more military-to-military cooperation training, help establish relationships that can be relied on when crises develop, stabilize fragile states, and deny violent extremist organizations space for recruiting and operations. Examining Chinese efforts worldwide to curry favor and influence and the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this article shows health as a medium is a very compelling and advantageous whole-of-government approach to national security policy concerns.

Cellphilming And Building Solidarity With Queer Youth To Speak Back To Historical Erasures In New Brunswick Social Studies Classrooms, Casey Burkholder

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

New Brunswick, Canada’s K-12 Social Studies curricula erases the myriad histories and experiences of the province’s LGBTQ+ communities. Building on these erasures, this study analyzes how six queer, trans, and non-binary young people (aged 14-17) created cellphilms (cellphone + mobile film production) in response to these absences. In the study, I ask: How might engaging in media and art production with young people—and screening and exhibiting these productions in online and community spaces—work to counter dominant forms of apathy and denial, and support youth to claim a stake in creating solidarities, belonging, and community-making? What is required for youth-produced media …

A Collaborative Autoethnography On Challenging Sociohistorical Constructions Of Gender In Teacher Education, Marie-Helene Brunet, Mark Currie

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

In early 2019, we developed a workshop that examines changing representations of masculinities and femininities through advertisements from today and from 30 years ago. We employ a pedagogy of discomfort (Boler, 1999) and challenge participants—whether students, teacher candidates, or seasoned educators—to historicize and critique how they co-construct sociohistorical representations and performativity of gender (Butler, 1990). Our hopes are that participants begin deconstructing how and which understandings of gender became normalized to them, as well as how they perpetuate or disrupt “masculinities” and “femininities”. Through regular debriefing, we realized that we do not merely facilitate but also actively participate in each …

America: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Comparisons: A Case Study Of The Representation Of “America” In Preservice Teacher Lectures, Kristal Curry, Suzanne Horn

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Theories and discussions around historical consciousness explore the myriad ways our identities and contexts shape our interpretations and understandings of the past. In this paper, narrative and historical consciousness will be used as a lens to understand the choices pre-service teachers make in the way they “define” America within their lectures. A total of 16 recorded 20-minute lectures from six social studies pre-service teachers were transcribed and coded for their insight into how these future teachers taught about America. Each of the pre-service teachers was white, between the ages of 20-25, considered (themselves) middle class, and were preparing to teach …

Operationalizing Culture: Refugees, Migration, And Mental Health In The Wake Of The Vietnam War, Helena Bui

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

!e end of the Vietnam War led to the migration of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to the United States a"er political and economic upheaval. As another result, the refugees’ years of warfare, trauma, death, and injury began to manifest as unprecedented mental health issues that American physicians and researchers sought to understand. In this paper, I argue that American medical professionals— in good faith—operationalized [Vietnamese] culture to help themselves and their colleagues understand the mental health issues of Vietnamese refugees. Yet this operationalization acted as a double-edged sword. Viewing Western mental health discourse through the lens of Vietnamese …

From “Pseudowomen” To The “Third Sex:” Situating Antisemitism And Homophobia In Nazi Germany, Gabriel Klapholz

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

In this article, I examine how Nazi antisemitism and homophobia built upon one another, employing parallel narratives about femininity, foreignness, and threats to the nation state. I explore how early historiography of the Nazi period links the two phenomena as part of a single project, variations on the same theme of Nazi hatred. Ultimately, however, I work to challenge the earlier historiographical narrative and illuminate the ways in which Nazism treated Jews and gays very differently. In order to do so, I examine the two main strands of German sexology at the time, that of Magnus Hirschfeld and that of …

Immunity As An Integral Aspect Of Tribal Sovereignty: An Analysis Of The Supreme Court Case Michigan V. Bay Mills Indian Community, Meghanlata Gupta

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

While Native nations in the United States have tribal sovereignty—that is, the inherent freedom and authority to govern themselves without outside control—non-Native actors have often challenged this institution within legal and political spaces. The United States court system, starting with the Marshall Court, has often attempted to define aspects of Indigenous sovereignty and federal-tribal relationships. The 2014 US Supreme Court case Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community is no exception, raising questions of sovereign immunity in the context of Indian gaming, tribal-state relationships, and land trusts. This paper first provides a general context for the case, identifying relevant historical events …

Jewish Ancestral Languages And Communicating The Sephardic Experience: The Judeospanish Of Tela De Sevoya, Julia Kahn

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

Judeo-Spanish, the ancestral language of Sephardic Jews, enjoys fewer speakers, literature, and less scholarly attention compared to Yiddish, its counterpart spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. Nonetheless, Judeo-Spanish captures the rich experiences of its speakers through exile, persecution, and perseverance, embodying unique Jewish-Spanish culture and religious practice. It has received fresh recognition in the last two centuries from scholars and Sephardim themselves, and the quincentennial of the 1492 Jewish expulsion from Spain inspired a new Sephardic autobiographical genre, where Sephardic authors grapple with their heritages and language, dimming from assimilation and the Shoa. Myriam Moscona is one such author whose unique descent …

Author Bios

CouRaGeouS Cuentos: A Journal of Counternarratives

No abstract provided.

From Green Pastures To Scorched Earth: German Environmentalism And Ecology, C. 1800s-1945, Santiago G. Lozada

Student Theses

Nature Conservation in Germany from The Second German Empire until Nazi Germany

The End Of The World According To Q, Francisco G. Mendoza Iii

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

The expansion of information networks and of paranoia in the West following the turn of the new century in 2000 created the nesting ground for a new politically focused conspiracy movement in QAnon which, like many before it, conceives of their liberation in the either explicit or implicit terms of the end of the world as they know it. QAnon is broadly maligned by popular conceptions as of late, and that same popular conception has accused their prophetic predictions of being wrong over the years, and yet the movement continues on with a strong base of support. Since its formal …

Nuclear Displacement: Effects Of America's Nuclear Tests On Pacific Islanders, Jessica Faucher

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

The United States conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific that permanently displaced Marshall Islanders, specifically the indigenous population of Bikini Atoll. In addition to rendering their native environment uninhabitable, the U.S. used the bodies of the Rongelapese that they exposed to radioactive fallout as a living laboratory to study the effects of radiation. Nuclear Displacement in the Pacific has not received very much attention in historical scholarship, but nevertheless represents a well documented case of imperialism in U.S. History.

Interview With Mary Fry On August 8, 2021, Mary Fry

Oral History Interviews

No abstract provided.