Digital Commons Network^™

Scientists As Citizens: The Role Of The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists In The Postwar Era, 1945-1949, Elizabeth Baker Given

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In mid-August 1945 the dropping of the uranium and plutonium bombs devastated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing Japanese leaders to surrender to the United States. World War II had finally come to a close. However, the manner in which the war ended also marked the beginning of a new age. The detonation of the atomic bomb prompted unprecedented challenges in controlling the destructive weapon. Manhattan Project scientists, who had created the bomb in the midst of wartime secrecy and understood its grave dangers, were deeply concerned about the future of their brainchild. In a world that had been …

Glasnost, Perestroika And Big Mac's: The Significance Of Mcdonald's In The Changing Face Of The Ussr, Theresa Bartholomew

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Early on the morning of 30 January 1990, George Cohon, president of McDonald'sCanada, left his hotel room and drove to Pushkin Square in Moscow. Nervous about the international press that would be covering the opening of the first McDonald's in this nation and anxious to make the opening perfect, he arrived to see the streets empty in front of the fast-food restaurant except for a lone policeman. Wondering where the anticipated crowds of Muscovites were, Cohon approached the officer, concerned by the apparent lack of interest in the first McDonald's opening in the Soviet Union. After a short conversation with …

Re-Defining Thainess: Negative Identification During The Franco-Thai Border Conflict, Shane Strate

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On the night of 15 October 1940 over three thousand university students and city residents marched, torches in hand, through the streets of Bangkok to protest the latest incident in the long-standing border dispute with France. Local newspapers had organized the demonstration and a few journalists accompanied the demonstrators, standing in the back of trucks and making speeches designed to incite the crowd. The march was part of a newspaper campaign to convince the government to deliver an ultimatum to French Indochina: either return territories formerly belonging to Siam or face military retaliation. Among the banners carried by the students …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Time Of Troubles Causation, Class Warfare, And Conflicting Interpretations, Jeffrey S. Hardy

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The end of a dynasty in medieval or early modern Europe was often followed by a calamitous period of conspiracy and revolt, intrigue and bloodshed. Such was the case in Russia from 1598 to 1613, the period later called the Time of Troubles. Few epochs still weigh on the collective conscience of the Russian people as does the Time of Troubles. Fears associated with this period remain to this day, as evidenced by the frequent references to it after the fall of the Soviet regime. But the Time of Troubles has not always been well understood. The chroniclers and revisionists …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Eisenhower, Kennedy, And America's Covert Military Operations In Laos, Russell Stevenson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Summer 1963: Roger Hilsman's plane pierced the clouds to reveal the Plaines des Jarres, a flat area strewn with the remains of age-old rock jars. The plains below showed signs of the batterings of war: slit trenches, bunkers, and a network of roads. The weather was dry and arid, and the terrain resembled a ghost town in the American West more than the "land of a million elephants"-an allusion to the tremendous war machine of a medieval Lao king.

A Historiographical Look At The New Soviet Woman, Liberty Sproat

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Prior to 1917, the character of the ideal woman throughout Russian history was that of wife and mother. This cultural image for women had been upheld by centuries of legislation and tradition. During and immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution, though, the relegation of women to the home began to be considered bourgeois. Consequently, from the revolutionary era to the rise of Stalinism, the Soviets sought to drastically transform gender roles in Russia. Establishing equality between economic classes, the Bolsheviks believed, would likewise establish equality between genders. Thus, they began to promote a new image of Soviet womanhood. The New Soviet …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Nur Al-Din: Al-Malik Al-'Adil, Drew Mecham

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Though Saladin typically dominates discussion on Muslim resistance to the European Crusades, historian Carole Hillenbrand has noted that it was not Saladin but Nur al-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn 'lmad al-Din Zangi, hereafter Nur al-Din, who had a "reputation ... most glorious in the succeeding centuries in the Islamic world" Writing in the thirteenth century, Abu Shama noted that Saladin "modeled himself on all Nur al-Din's qualities of piety, chastity, decency, nobility and statecraft." The great Arab historian 'Ali 'izz al-Din lbn alAthir al-Jazari lbn al-Athir, known as lbn al-Athir, stated that his epitaph for Nur al-Din is written "in …

No Dog In The Fight: East Tennessee And Its Response To The Succession Crisis, Douglas Marsh

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Despite arguments that the South fought in the 'War Of Northern Aggression' to protect the rights of the states, or to defend their homes and their freedom from a foreign power, it is clear slavery was the central issue of the American Civil War. Even the Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens declared that the inferiority of the Negro was the "immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution" and the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy. The centrality of the slave issue becomes even clearer when noting that where slavery was not so engrained in the socioeconomic system, Confederate sympathy diminished.

"They Could Not Guard Against It": The Failed U.S. Policy Response To German Sabotage At Black Tom Island, Benjamin Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the early morning hours of 31 July 1916, German agents successfully detonated a storage facility on an island in New York Harbor named Black Tom. The facility was filled with munitions meant for the Allied powers fighting against Germany in World War I. It was at that time the single most destructive subversive act ever perpetrated on U.S. soil. But it is not surprising that such an act occurred: the United States had no specialized counter-espionage agency and the area had relatively little protection. The remarkable thing is the miniscule amount of attention Black Tom, along with other instances …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Battle Of King's Mountain: Making History In An Hour, Katelyn Thacker

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Heavy rain in the early morning hours of October 7, 1780, dampened the leaves and allowed the rebel militia to steal through the forest surrounding King's Mountain undetected. The loyalist corps on the top of King's Mountain became aware of the approaching enemy by the rebel's own gunfire scarcely half a mile away. Multiple units of patriot riflemen swarmed the footshaped hill, pushing the loyalist troops to one end of it. In vain, the loyalists attempted to counter showering gunfire with bayonet charges. After only one hour, the loyalist commander British Major Patrick Ferguson lay dead. His subordinate, loyalist Captain …

Evaluating Instruments And Strategies For Change: A Pilot Study For Total Life Ministries, Lisa M. Hunter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In times of turbulence and crisis, people and families should look to the church to receive comfort, salvation, spiritual and emotional assistance, and support from the church. Declining rates of prayer and worship church service attendance levels is an issue of major concern. Continually formulating new strategies, conceptual frameworks, and theoretical and theological models are necessary to address this situation. A participatory action research intervention pilot study was conducted at Total Life Ministries church, which comprised a phenomenological study with hermeneutical consistency and a case study essence. The new strategy centered on certain prayer types and ways of praying that …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

The Hut Tax War Of 1898: Political Spin And Chamberlain's Colonial Office, Chase Arnold

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1895, the British Empire underwent a dramatic change. This change was not precipitated by war, expansion, or discovery. Instead, the empire was changed by a renewed longing for the glory of the old empire. Where the empire had been shrinking, it would now be expanded. Where claims had been ceded, they would now be defended. All of this was undergone with the greatest hopes but resulted in the gravest consequences. Yet there was a brief moment in 1898 when this new imperialist vigor was almost cut short and this terrible history nearly averted.

Typological Reading Of The Apocalyptic Vision Of Daniel 7 And 9, Timothy Andrew Prince

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Prince, Timothy A. “Typological Reading of the Apocalyptic Vision of Daniel 7 & 9.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2024. 311 pp.

As a response to Daniel’s prayer for the restoration of God’s city and sanctuary, “The Seventy Sevens” oracle of Dan 9:24–27 gives further details of the overarching apocalyptic vision of ch. 7. After establishing how the canonical apocalyptic visions of Daniel and Revelation constitute a unique genre that gives a teleological-eschatological-apocalyptic perspective, this study demonstrates how a typological reading of the text best perceives the revelation and interprets the message presented in Daniel’s apocalyptic vision. The vision and oracle …

Working Against Themselves Jesuit Tactics To Displace The Huron Indian Shamans, C. Mackenzie Snow

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the spring and summer of 1635, a severe drought struck Huron country. Falling back on traditional means for relief, the native people appealed to the local shamans, their spiritual leaders, for aid. Tehorenhaegnon, one of the most famous of these "sorcerers," as the Jesuits called them, promised relief in return for "the value of ten hatchets" and "a multitude of feasts." However, Tehorenhaegon's "efforts were in vain-dreaming, feasting, dancing, were all to no purpose, there fell not a drop of water; so that he had to confess that he could not succeed, and he declared that the crops would …

Homeless Veterans And The Impacts Of A Dedicated Discipleship Program, B. Keith Poole Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Homelessness represents an incredibly damaging and challenging reality across the United States; of the 588,000 homeless in this country, 33,000 are military Veterans. Homelessness among Veterans is intensified by afflictions of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Suicide Ideations, Moral Injuries, and Substance Abuse. The purpose of this DMIN action project was to establish a discipleship program to develop disciples among homeless Veterans to reduce their homeless rates. The objectives of this project were to bring homeless Veterans to Jesus, decrease Veteran homelessness, establish ongoing relationships with homeless Veterans, assist homeless Veterans in overcoming specific factors impacting their …

The Crucible Of War: The Personal History Of A Social Democrat In Nazi Germany, Michael Tetto

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On Christmas Day 1943, Somewhere in Russia, Siegfried Sinz enjoyed a jovial moment with his unit of the German Army. It was a refreshing break from the trials of war, for he had been on the eastern front since June of 1941. Cautiousness, endemic of their proximity to the battle front, attended the preparations for the event. All windows needed to be sealed to prevent light from escaping into the night lest any Russians on patrol ascertain their location and attack. Unfortunately, someone did not seal one of the windows completely; a ray of light escaped to illuminate the darkened …

Voices Of Resiliency And Persistence: Native Americans In Southern New England In The Seventeenth Century, Debra Taylor

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

During the early seventeenth century, the Algonquian Indians of Southern New England demonstrated courage and resilience as their societies survived a "massive depopulation" from diseases introduced through European colonization (See Fig. 1). It is a credit to the strength of their core values that Native Americans successfully combined remaining clan members and reconstructed stable communities. However, these communities became threatened as increased numbers of English colonists arrived believing that the devastation of Indian numbers was the divine hand of God paving the way for colonial settlement and supremacy. As contact increased between two vastly different worlds, colonists minimized Indians and …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

"Dish For An Epicure": Spanish Perceptions Of Indigenous Food In Mexico And Central America, 1517-1577, Timothy Boyer

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Upon Arrival in Veracruz, Mexico in 1520, the conquistadors were exposed to the sights, sounds, and tastes of the New World. In Cuba they had subsisted on a mostly European diet, but in Mexico they would have to learn to make do with indigenous foods. Their leader, Hernan Cortes, ordered the ships burned to prevent deserters, destroying any hope they had of receiving supplies of European foods during their conquest of what would later become known as Nueva Espana. This left them highly dependent on either their own ability to properly identify food sources or, as was usually the case, …

The Marketplace Of Ideas Quenched: Examination Of Christological Conflicts, And Their Outcomes, In The Early Christian Church, Brent Monnett

University Honors College

The first four centuries of church history were largely dominated by a diverse mix of philosophical arguments, theological debates, and seemingly intractable conflicts over the nature of Christ and his person. The paper presented here will endeavor to examine these through multiple lenses of understanding, historical, political, geographical, and theological. Perhaps the most defining conflicts of this period of upheaval were the gnostic controversy of the 2nd century, followed by the Arian controversy of the 4th century A.D (Pagels, 1974, & Haas, 1993). The theological kerfuffle's over Christ and his humanity considered against his deity were every bit as sociopolitical …

Beyond The Matrix: Navigating The Implications Of Nick Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis On Reality And Existence, Michell-Lee Graham '24

Honor Scholar Theses

Suppose for the sake of the argument we are all living inside of a simulation, is that a problem? Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher has proposed the question of whether we are living in a simulation. Philosophers in the past have grappled with this concept, from Plato to George Berkeley. This concept is also readily seen in movies such as “The Matrix" which is a science fiction film that explores the concept of a simulated reality. In the story, humans live in a simulated world created by sentient machines to distract and control them, while their physical bodies are used …

“They Can’T Just Stamp Out This Faith”: Cold War Anti-Communism And International Evangelism At The Appalachian Preaching Mission, Braden Lay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Appalachian Preaching Missions (1955-1981) occurred annually in Northeast Tennessee, with their predecessor, the Bristol Preaching Mission, dating back to at least 1949. Local churches, primarily Protestant, organized and convened these annual ecumenical gatherings. Nationally known clergy and laypeople from various denominations spoke, with up to several thousand congregants attending each mission. These individuals provided sermons and speeches on spiritual, domestic, and international issues. Among the most consistently repeated sermon themes was Christianity’s spiritual conflict with atheistic communism. This work addresses the missions’ origins and how the speakers spoke on international Christian missions in decolonized or developing nations as threatened …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Ussr Influence On The Antiapartheid Movements Of South Africa, Brooke England

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 21 March 1960, the Pan Africanist Congress urged people to join together to protest passes-identifying documents required to be carried at all times by black Africans-by surrendering themselves without the passes for arrest in defiance of the discriminatory law. Thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Sharpeville police station. After hours of singing and peaceful protest, a policeman was accidentally knocked down and the crowd rushed forward to investigate. Terror ensued when the policemen opened fire on the crowd. Humphrey Tyler, the assistant editor of Drum magazine, witnessed the chaos firsthand. He recounts chat after a cheerful and …

All Those Who Shall Pass An Italian's Resistance & Nazi Occupation, Alexander Willis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The song "Bella Ciao" was originally written as an anthem for the struggles of the 19th century Italian working class. Amidst the beginning of Italy's monumental wrestle against fascism (both from Italy's own government and Nazi forces), the words were changed to reflect the struggle of the resistance fighters, known as partisans. "Bella Ciao" was now a song mourning the loss of their beautiful Italy. It was not just a song of grief, but also a song of belligerent determination to resist.