Digital Commons Network^™

Rattlesnakes And Enlightenment Science: An Unlikely Epistemology Of Early American Herpetology, Sahir Hismiogullari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the hybrid epistemologies developed by early American naturalists, such as Hans Sloane, Pehr Kalm, John and William Bartram, and Benjamin Smith Barton that blended empirical observation, spiritual frameworks, and Indigenous ecological knowledge. These figures, implicitly or explicitly challenging the dominant mechanistic and reductionist models of Enlightenment science, pioneered a more holistic ecological thinking, even as they operated within colonial power structures.

Through historical and textual analysis based on letters, natural histories, and other written sources, the study reveals how these naturalists synthesized multiple ways of knowing, particularly in their encounters with New World peoples and environments. Within …

Community, Autonomy, Irony: Lessons From Historic Rosenwald Schools, Ronald B. Matus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Growing evidence suggests the Rosenwald schools of the American South, which anchored thousands of Black communities for a half century before desegregation, boosted academic outcomes for generations of Black students and helped fuel the civil rights movement. The research literature, however, is thin on what specifically made these schools successful. My research attempts to narrow the gaps by asking the Rosenwald alums themselves. Through semi-structured interviews, 10 alums in Florida identify defining features of their schools, including seamless community connections; a culture of high expectations for academic achievement and character development; and especially caring and committed teachers. The alums’ insights …

The Grizzly, October 23, 2025, Renee Washart, Julia Picklo, Nathaniel Nerone, Erin Ewing, Caitlin Cunnane, Kate Adams

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Opportunities in Motion • Spooky Spectacles and Enchanting Art • In the Blood: A Visceral Scarlet Letter Stage Adaptation • The MAA Fortnightly Question • Greetings From Ireland • The Best and Worst of C-Store (In My Humble Opinion) • An Injured Athlete's Experience: Emma Reinert • Bears' Players of the Week • Field Hockey Fights to Keep Season Alive

Deslenguadas: A Photo Essay On The Performative Remembering Of The Impact Of 1940s Americanization Programs In Northern New Mexico, Yvonne M. Montoya, Fawn-Amber Montoya

International Journal on Responsibility

This photo essay captures the dance performance Deslenguadas by choreographer Yvonne Montoya. Deslenguadas, a dance inspired by a writing of the same name published in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, is a series of three dances – one duet and two solos. The dances in the series explore the impact the forced loss of the Spanish language had on three generations of one nuevomexicano family from the 1940s to the present day. Through dance, movement, projected animation, and spoken word, the dances explore how each generation internalized racism and shame. At the same time, these generations …

Analysing Visitor Perceptions Of Storytelling: The Eileen Gray Exhibition, National Museum Of Ireland, Dublin, Keeva Burns, Jacqui Doyle

International Journal of Tour Guiding and Visitor Attraction Research

Eileen Gray is widely regarded as a pioneer of twentieth century interior and furniture design. An exhibition of her work is on display in the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. This research aims to shed light on the perceptions and experiences of visitors to the museum. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to provide insights into the quality and standard of the museum storytelling in order to generate recommendations for the enhancement of the current visitor experience. A pragmatic approach is taken, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methods of surveys and participant observation. The findings reveal that …

Socialism’S Contribution To An Important Episode In Bronx And New York Music History, Mark Naison

Occasional Essays

At a time when NYC may be electing its first openly Socialist mayor, it is time to share this story about Socialism’s contribution to an important episode in New York Music History.

Fort Brooke After 200 Years: A Public Heritage Approach, Alex F. Fawbush

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fort Brooke, established in 1824 at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, shaped the growth of Tampa and Florida’s west coast for nearly sixty years and served as the nucleus for the forced removal of Indigenous people. Though the Fort itself has long since vanished beneath the modern city, archaeology has preserved its legacy. Excavations since the 1970s have uncovered rich assemblages of ceramics, glass, military equipment, faunal remains, and domestic refuse. These materials reveal daily life at the post, highlighting the interactions of soldiers, Seminoles, African Americans, white settlers, and Cuban fishermen, while also uncovering the deeper prehistoric, referred …

The Orange Glow In The Sunshine State: Three Visions Of Plato In Florida (1970-1990), Ryan Mcgahan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The PLATO network, a collection of mainframe computers, terminals, and educational software, has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention in the last decade as a social precursor to the modern internet. Existing histories have neglected to investigate the ways in which PLATO and its related business enterprise worked to accelerate the shift in university governance away from classical liberal ideas centering the public good and towards a more profit-centered neoliberal rationality. By tracing the rise of PLATO in Florida universities, this paper argues that PLATO aided and was aided by the shifting priorities of American universities in the 1970s …

Strange And Weird Tales: H.P. Lovecraft And Horror In American History, Serafin Hector Matthews

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Author Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft (1890-1937) of Rhode Island was a transformative figure in American fiction. Hailed by one modern writer as “the twentieth-century horror story’s dark and baroque prince,” Lovecraft wrote over sixty-five works of fiction representing—alongside Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and David H. Keller—“the golden age of weird fiction.” Lovecraft, however, enjoyed only modest commercial success during his lifetime, writing for amateur journals and pulp magazines such as The Vagrant, Amazing Stories, and Weird Tales. Most of his stories, then, were not published in hardcover or paperback form until after his death, including what many literary critics …

An Intellectual History Of The American Right To Keep And Bear Arms, John Charles Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation presents an examination of the intellectual history of the American right to keep and bear arms, as well as its embodiment in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The document presents the history of ideas surrounding the concept of the right to keep and bear arms, from early Western Civilization through various channels, including English traditions, and how they contributed to the unique perspective on the right to keep and bear arms that emerged in America. Explores not only English contributions, but those of the Scots, and philosophers throughout Europe and Western Civilization, as well as …

Review Of Ai Needs You: How We Can Change Ai’S Future And Save Our Own, Tracy A. Fernandez Rysavy

Feminist Pedagogy

AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own urges citizens to band together now, while A.I. is still in its nascent stages, to head off its potentially destructive repercussions and ensure that the technology serves more than just a wealthy few. While such efforts might seem out of reach in our polarized society, author Verity Harding points to three cases from history where policy was heavily influenced by multistakeholder collaborations. This review encourages educators to use the book as a way to study business ethics; out-of-the-box thinking; and intersectional, inclusive consensus-building over a top-down approach.

Student Senate Meeting Minutes October 15, 2025, Student Senate-Winona State University

Student Senate Meeting Minutes

This document is the official Winona State University Student Senate Minutes for October 15, 2025.

Ozark Historical Review, V. 44, 2015

The Ozark Historical Review

No abstract provided.

Billiken As Transcultural Object From American Mascot To Japanese Pop Deity, M.W. Shores

Asia Pacific Perspectives

This article examines Billiken’s transcultural journey from American novelty mascot (1908) to cultural icon, illuminating early twentieth-century Pacific exchange networks and patterns of cultural adaptation. Drawing on American and Japanese archives, it demonstrates how this commercial figure, born from Progressive Era optimism and incorporating Japanese (and Orientalist) design elements, was transformed within Japanese religious and cultural frameworks. The study analyzes Billiken’s metamorphosis from “good luck” commodity to quasi-religious icon, particularly in Osaka’s Shinsekai district, where strategic marketing drove his its late twentieth-century revival after decades of obscurity. While largely forgotten in America and elsewhere, Billiken’s endurance in Osaka challenges narratives …

Dynamics Of Infanticides Among The Ngoni Of Tanzania, 1850s-1916, Andrew S. Kasambala, Oswald J. Masebo

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

Infanticide is one of the key factors in explaining changes in human populations since the antiquity. This paper examines dynamics of infanticide practices among the Ngoni of Tanzania from the late pre- colonial to the end of German colonial rule in 1916. Relying on primary and secondary sources, it argues that while infanticide remained a critical problem in Songea from the 19th century to the end of German colonialism in 1916, the context in which it was practiced and the interventions devised to alleviate it changed over time. While it was primarily practiced in Songea by pre-Ngoni communal based clans …

Mediation Partiality And The East African Community’S ‘Quiet Diplomacy’ In The Kenyan Post-Election Crisis Of 2007/2008, Rasul A. Minja

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article examines the role of East African Community (EAC) in mediating the 2007/2008 Kenyan post-election crisis, analysing its engagement in regional conflict resolution. Despite its mandate to promote peace, the EAC's response was constrained by institutional weaknesses, political dynamics, and reliance on quiet diplomacy. The African Union-backed Panel of Eminent African Personalities, led by Kofi Annan, ultimately led the mediation, sidelining the EAC. Through the analysis of primary and secondary sources, the article indicates that EAC lacked a binding conflict management framework and faced decision-making delays that hindered swift intervention. The partiality of key figures, particularly President Yoweri Museveni …

Beyond Christianity : German Missionaries’ Heritage In Colonial Mbeya, Tanzania, 1880s-1918, Ashura Jackson Ngoya, Edward Simon Mgaya

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article examines the history of German missionaries in the colonial Mbeya, a southwest region of Tanzania, from the 1880s to 1918. It explores how missionaries influenced political, social, and economic changes that had a profound impact on the lives of the local population. The article investigates the secular roles of missionaries, which, although they supported evangelisation, they were not directly non- secular aspects. In doing so, the article considers missionaries' efforts in education, health, agriculture, trade, and tax collection, which sometimes led to them working as colonial intermediaries in certain areas of Mbeya. Based on primary and secondary sources, …

The Boxer Rebellion And Missionaries: A Study Of Historical Context And Ideological Perspectives, Danielle Russano-Simpkins

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This paper examines the complex interplay between missionary activity, imperial ambitions, and indigenous resistance in China during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). Analyzing primary sources and revisionist accounts, it is argued that the rebellion exposed the contradictions between missionaries' spiritual goals and their complicity in imperial structures. The study highlights how missionary theology, imperial relationships, and local resistance converged to create one of modern history's most significant anti-foreign uprisings, shaping subsequent Sino-Western relations and Chinese nationalism.

America's Pastime Under The Fog Of War: A Study Of The Impact Of World War Ii On Major League Baseball's Finest, Jacob Slusser

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

World War II was a crucial point in world history and many men could not escape the desire to fight and defend their country. One subsection of men that fought in the war is the many men that competed in Major League Baseball and its affiliate leagues, the minors and the Negro League. Players that served in the war lost valuable time in their playing careers, despite this many would eventually enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This study used an analysis of primary and second sources to determine where players served and analyze their pre- and post-war careers. …

Thou Art Not Yet Dead: The Existential Struggle Of Indians In Eighteen-Century North America, I. B. Landry

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The popular narrative of Indians in America typically has its genesis in the era of the Revolution. By pushing the scope of this narrative back only twenty years, one would find thriving indigenous population groups, contrary to the perception given to them in a story of America that begins with the War of Independence. By taking a traditionally neutral position, the Indians helped in maintaining a North American balance of power in every conflict preceding the Seven Years’ War. The wars ebbed and flowed according to the allegiances of the Indians. Not only would the Seven Years’ War be …

The Tomb Of Andraemon And Colophonian Burial Culture, Emily Brophy

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The ancient city of Colophon is surrounded by extensive necropoleis from the Mycenaean, Geometric, and Classical periods of Greek history. Long before the necropoleis’ modern rediscovery, Pausanias described his encounter with the tomb of Andraemon in the 2nd century CE. Searching for Andraemon’s tomb using specific details from Pausanias’s Descriptions of Greece, as well as geographic and archaeological evidence, firmly places the tomb within a complex burial culture surrounding the site of ancient Colophon in modern-day Izmir, Turkey.

The Reciprocity Of Misfortune: The Little Tradition Of Disasters In The Philippines, Greg Bankoff, Bianca Angelien Aban Claveria, David Lozada Iii, Camille L. Silva

History Department Faculty Publications

Just as there is a great and little tradition in religion and civilization, there is a great and little tradition in disaster. This article explores the origins of community resilience in rural areas of the Philippines based on local reciprocity and cooperation and how ­ these customary practices form the basis of national disaster risk-­reduction policies. The endless strug­gle to feed and shelter a family and contend with repeated hazards, whether natu­ral or human-­induced, promotes collective action. There is a need to cooperate with neighbors, a web of dyadic and community relationships born out of necessity that constitutes a “reciprocity …

What Can Bird Poop Teach Us About The History Of U.S. Imperialism?: Guano Islands And Manifest Destiny Beyond Continental Borders, Eliot Fackler

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

In high school and college history courses, Manifest Destiny is often taught as a period when the United States expanded across the North American continent in the decades before the Civil War. This article outlines an inquiry-driven lesson examining the Antebellum guano rush and its devastating consequences to show that Manifest Destiny was also characterized by extracontinental imperial ambitions. It highlights the lasting impacts of the 1856 Guano Islands Act and links the guano rush to subsequent empire-building efforts, U.S. militarism, and ecological destruction. The article provides relevant background history, descriptions of possible class activities and assessments, and options for …

Situating Media Literacy With A Theory Of Change: “Mapping Jmle”, Julian Mcdougall

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

This article uses a theory of change to identify the difference media literacy work makes to people’s lives, based on work published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education in 2024. This is a pilot study stage towards a global field mapping, aiming to make the case for media literacy as an essential element in the health of the communication ecosystem (forthcoming, 2025).

This is an exploratory pilot sharing provisional evidence, but this is the point of the the broader work this article is a part of which seeks to is describe how media literacy can make a difference to …

The Trial Of Musammat Kelee: Widowhood, Infanticide, And Colonial Justice In Early Twentieth Century India, Rashmi Banerjee

Socio-Legal Review

This article examines the 1920 trial of Musammat Kelee, a Hindu widow from Ajmer-Merwara, accused of drowning her illegitimate infant son in a lake. Drawing on extensive trial records, police reports, and official correspondence, it reconstructs the procedural history of her case and situates it within broader colonial debates on female sexuality, widowhood, and infanticide. Kelee’s conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, despite weak evidence, hinged on judicial emphasis on her widowhood and the perceived illegitimacy of her child as proof of motive. Yet her subsequent pardon by the Viceroy’s office reflected a contradictory administrative impulse that …

Ada News - 10/6/2025, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

Established in 1970 as the official newspaper of the American Dental Association, the ADA News serves practicing dentists and others allied to the dental profession in the U.S. and internationally. It is the No. 1 source of news and information about the many benefits and services the ADA delivers to members daily as well as timely information on scientific, social, political and economic developments affecting dentistry and health care.

Breeding, Mariah Susan, Wendy Chapkis Phd

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

In this interview, Breeding, a 75-year-old queer woman, explores questions of identity, culture, and activism. Breeding was born in New Hampshire, grew up in Ohio, and moved back to the East Coast as a teenager. She moved to Maine at 21, living in Ogunquit and Portland. Breeding discusses her family's background, including her parents' contrasting social classes, and the importance of a Unitarian Universalist group in creating early community. An important subject in the interview is Breeding’s first significant relationship with astrologer Wendy Ashley in Ogunquit and Portland, Maine. She discuses the complex bisexual and polyamorous culture of the 1970s, …

Santiago Pilgrims Travelling The Portuguese Routes In The Modern Age: A Global Phenomenon, João A.G.R. Nunes Prof. Dr.

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The aim of this work is to study the pilgrims who travelled along the Portuguese Ways to Santiago de Compostela in the Modern Period, namely between XVI and XVIII centuries, regarding their origins, ages, genders, and motivations. Moreover, it attempts to perceive the social and cultural interactions and experiences of the pilgrims. The Jacobean pilgrims, who travelled along the Portuguese routes, were a heterogeneous group. There were not only Portuguese pilgrims, but also many foreigners. There were pious and zealous people, fulfilling the religious precepts of piety and penance. But there were also people, of different ages, who disguised themselves …

The Grizzly, October 2, 2025, Renee Washart, Sidney D. Belleroche, Adam Denn, Ash Twomey, Claudia Tracy, Sophia Kumar, Erin Ewing, Emily A. Veasey

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Protests at Campus Charlie Kirk Memorial Screenings • Recovery Month Continues Past September at Ursinus • UC Theater Performs Harvey • President Hannigan Talks Financials, Retention, and More • More Than a Mic: WVOU's New Era Begins • Where's the Fun in Fashion? • Ursinus Goes "All-In" • Volleyball Looks to Repeat History

Kicking In The Copper Country: The Rise And Fall Of Early Soccer In Michigan's Upper Peninsula 1909-1914, Gabe Logan

Upper Country: A Journal of the Lake Superior Region

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, Cornish miners introduced soccer to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They initially played informal scrimmages and friendlies until 1909 when several mining communities organized the Copper League. This began spirited competition until the Copper Strike of 1913-1914 terminated interest in the sport. Following labor hostilities, many players moved away from the Keweenaw and ended this once promising league.