Digital Commons Network^™

A Mute Pleasure: Novelistic Poetics In The Nineteenth-Century, Ryan Everitt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through special attention to the non-narrative, descriptive, lyrical, or even boring passages that interrupt the story, this dissertation explores what happens when the nineteenth-century British novel envelops experiences that were traditionally (or since Romanticism) in the domain of poetry: longings for escape, exhilarating affects of freedom, opaque moments of revelation. In most cases, I characterize the novel discourse as representing a prosaic consciousness that wrestles with its more visceral yet vital “other,” poetic consciousness. To articulate how poetry survives within novelistic discourse, this dissertation is organized around sets of opposing terms, whose unresolved tension becomes the basis of my analysis …

Sex Differences In The Diets Of Forest-Dwelling Baboons (Papio Anubis), Kara Hartunian

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to eat and switch between many food sources is an adaptative feeding strategy utilized for meeting nutritional needs across different environments, seasons, and physiological conditions. Baboons (genus Papio) excel at both dietary flexibility and foraging selectively, and consequently have one of the most widespread geographic distributions in the Order. To further expand to our understanding of baboon feeding ecology, I analyzed foraging activity and the nutritional characteristics of the diets of the relatively understudied rainforest baboons (Papio anubis) living in Kibale National Park, Uganda. I also investigated if there are differences in food type choice …

Envelope Of Ruin : Material And Spatial Responses Of New York City Homeless To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kyle C. Maxey

Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to understand human material responses to catastrophic urban collapse. Using Henri Lefebvre's theories of spatial production and the history of a section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) this paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics present in the creation of an urban ruin. Through the observation of homeless material responses, particularly the construction of encampments under the BQE, during the COVID-19 pandemic "lock-down" in New York City, this thesis illustrates how populations respond to urban ruin and social collapse. Moving forward, this paper hopes to serve as a synthesis of urban theory and archeological observation …

Introduction: Urban Historical Archaeology Of And As Dissonance—An Invitation For Collaboration, Kelly Britt

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Policing, Power, And Protests: Landscapes Of Surveillance In Private And Public Spaces In Lower Manhattan, Kelly Britt

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The War On Critical Race Theory: Or, The Remaking Of Racism [Book Review], Joni Schwartz

Publications and Research

Review of David Theo Goldberg's The War on Critical Race Theory: Or, the Remaking of Racism (2023).

Language And Gender Dialogue Journal, Sgokcora D. Gokcora

Open Educational Resources

This is an introductory material to get learners oriented on the topic of language and gender.

What The Debate About Spanish Gender-Inclusive Forms Reveals Regarding Ideological Beliefs About Language And Authority, Jalitza Gutierrez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The “masculine generic” is a feature of Spanish that dictates that the masculine ending, (-o), is generally used as the default when referring to a mixed-sex group or when the sex of a person or group is unknown. Critics have claimed that this linguistic feature is sexist and contributes to the invisibility of women and gender-nonconforming people within the language (Eisenberg, 1985). In order to combat these issues, critics have campaigned for the revision of Spanish to include gender-inclusive language, which has continued to be a source of debate, both from the bottom-up and from institutions such as the Real …

Identifying Graduate Students’ Instructional Strategies And Approaches Towards Teaching Employable Skills, Elizabeth S. Che

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

College instruction tends to focus on imparting disciplinary knowledge rather than employable broad-based skills emphasized by undergraduate guidelines. The lack of emphasis on broad-skill development may leave many undergraduate students unprepared for the workforce. Graduate students who are future professoriate, are teaching undergraduate courses with various attitudes and strategies. This dissertation comprises three published studies that used data from two surveys identifying graduate students’ instructional strategies and approaches to teaching employable skills in their courses.

The first study asked whether graduate students teaching undergraduate courses (N = 114; 70.2% women, M age = 30 years) aim to teach employable …

Beautiful Resistance: Nonfiction Theatre Rehearsal Processes, Politics, And Prefiguration In War, Ash Marinaccio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Beautiful Resistance: Nonfiction Theatre Rehearsal Processes, Politics, and Prefiguration in War examines nonfiction theatre rehearsals and devising processes in and about conflict and war. I use the term “nonfiction” to refer to the vast body of collaborative theatre, facilitation, movement, puppet, and performance practices, knowledges, and techniques included under the capacious umbrella of “theatre of the real.” I propose that nonfiction theatre rehearsals are sites of prefiguration, possessing the potential to create a space where systemically oppressed communities can build alternative futures in the present. While there are multiple frameworks for understanding prefigurative politics, within this dissertation, I employ the …

Strike A Pose: Performing Gestures Of Female Madness Across Media Circa 1900, Elyse S. Singer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines methods for performing female madness onstage, in the medical theatre, and before the camera circa 1900. My focus is on Western techniques for imitating white women’s hysteria in the United States, England, and France. I argue that theatrical gesture served—and continues to serve—as a safeguard, a survival technique, for the actor (and the spectator) to preserve rationality in the enactment or viewing of mentally ill characters. At the same time, these resilient mad gestures carry traces of the oppressive structures of power that have fostered their legibility. Embodying a person in mental distress is a high-stakes endeavor. …

Evolution Of The Extant And Fossil Colobinae (Primates, Cercopithecidae), Julia L. Arenson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Colobinae (leaf-eating monkeys) are one of two crown cercopithecoid subfamilies along with the Cercopithecinae (cheek-pouch monkeys). They are today represented by a diverse modern radiation comprising two reciprocally monophyletic geographic subtribes, the African Colobina and the Asian Presbytina, which are collectively united by shared adaptations to folivory and arboreality. In addition, the colobine fossil record documents a taxonomically and ecologically diverse, geographically widespread radiation from the late Middle Miocene onwards. Fossil colobines exhibit an array of body sizes, craniofacial morphologies, postcranial adaptations, and dental dietary signals that exceeds those of the modern radiation and are also widespread over Africa, …

The Cultural Complexity Of Immigrants And The Implications For Personality Assessment: Exploring The Role Of Frame Switching, Patrick Jay Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A significant body of personality research has focused on cross-national comparison, but less attention has been devoted to within-country subcultural complexity – especially with regards to the growing population of bicultural immigrants who subscribe to multiple cultural-value systems. Bicultural individuals have been found to view situations under distinct frames of reference corresponding to their heritage and host cultures, and their attitudes and behavior can vary depending on which frame is activated at a given moment. This dissertation investigates whether such frame switching effects can be caused by elements within a formal personality assessment setting, and in turn affect bicultural respondents’ …

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Faunal Use And Distribution At The Site Of Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala, Jemima Georges

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation delves into the pre-Columbian Preclassic Maya civilization, examining the societal dynamics, subsistence strategies, and cultural practices at Nixtun-Ch’ich’, Guatemala through the analysis of animal bones. Animal bones are used as indicators of dietary habits, social structures, and ideological beliefs. The findings highlight a diet that evolved from favoring a complex array of strategies in the Middle Preclassic period to one that concentrated on a few mammals and freshwater resources. These decisions were influenced by sociopolitical changes from the Middle to Late Preclassic periods. Excavations of three residences (J1, C2/1, R2/1, and R1/2) and four public spaces (Mound ZZ1, …

Listening For Lemurs: Translating Black-And-White Ruffed Lemur (Varecia Variegata) Vocalizations Into Conservation Insights Through Acoustic Monitoring, Carly H. Batist

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of bioacoustic monitoring has undergone a significant evolution in recent years, driven by technological innovations that have revolutionized how researchers study animal vocalizations. Traditionally, bioacoustics was rooted in active acoustic monitoring (AAM), involving human observers using recorders in the field to study animal sounds and understand species' vocal communication. However, the emergence of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has introduced a new complementary approach, utilizing specialized recorders placed in ecosystems to autonomously capture sounds at wide spatial and temporal scales. My dissertation adopts a translational approach to bioacoustic monitoring, integrating both AAM and PAM techniques to study and survey …

Identification Of Mandibular And Maxillary Molars Of Old World Monkeys (Primates, Cercopithecidae) Using 3d Geometric Morphometrics, Eric John Mazelis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study is an attempt to take steps towards quantifying 3D molar shapes of the primate family Cercopithecidae to construct a framework for the automation of identifying the anatomical position and taxonomic affiliations of isolated molars. I introduce a new landmark protocol and present a proposed workflow model which can be applied in the future. For the purpose of this study, I collected and compiled the largest sample of 3D surface scans of varying wear grades of all six cercopithecid molar positions (i.e., M¹-M³ and M₁-M₃). The sample comprises 2641 specimens from …

Language Play And Racial Dysphemism In The Marrakchi Language Space, Spencer Fausel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to divulge the meaning and popular usage of two phonetically similar yet reportedly distinct dysphemisms spoken and understood in the Marrakchi dialect of Moroccan Arabic (Darija). Darija speakers across the North African lingua-space use the term "qlawi" to denote testicles. In Morocco, speakers utter "qlawi" to express negation or pejorative notions of being, the term commonly wielded to disparage or vituperate a frustrating person or object—drawing connections to the subaltern, the lowly, the destitute, the stupid, the possessionless, and potentially to the racialized (non)object. The word itself can stand as a syntactic substitute for “nothing” in certain …

Legislating The Taboo: Taboo Subcultures, Political Communication, And Public Policy, Rebecca S. Krisel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, titled "Legislating the Taboo: From Subculture to Public Policy," comprises three articles that collectively delve into the intersection of taboo subcultures, political communication, and public policy. While the fields of sociology and anthropology more thoroughly explore the concepts of "taboo" and "subcultures," political science has not given them due attention. This research seeks to bridge this gap by examining how taboo subcultures evolve into political constituencies with policy demands and how these demands are communicated through various mediums, including mainstream and social media.

The first article, "Virtual Dance Communities and The Right to the Internet," investigates how the …

Black Food Geographies And The Politics Of Resistance In The Brick City. An Intersectional Analysis Of Black Food Provisioning Practices, Food Access, And Racial Food Inequities In Newark, New Jersey From 1666 – 2020, Angelika Winner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work studied Black food geographies in Newark, NJ, which represent alternative food provisioning practices and strategies working within but also parallel to traditional food geographies and exist within and despite of foodscapes of domination. Black food geographies not only include the spatial agency of Black residents but also entail the structural intersectionality and organized abandonment that Black residents currently experience as well as their historical production. Thus, food access of Newark’s Black resident was analyzed with a three-pronged mixed methods research design, a supply-centered analysis from a Positivistic perspective, a political economy-centered historical analysis from a Marxist perspective, and …

Discourse Analysis Of Ethnonyms For Black Italians On Youtube, Kaithlyn Massiah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There have been various studies on the intersection of race and national identity for the African diaspora, but there has not been many on how language is used to evoke a stance on identity. This project focuses on the how ethnonyms, or names given to an ethnic group, are assigned to Black Italians in online discourse on YouTube. In this research, comments were analyzed from two YouTube videos that comprise of Black Italians who discuss their identity and the ethnonyms they prefer. ZERO is the first Netflix Italian series that centers the Black Italian experience. In the videos “Black [Italian] …

Queer Impersonality: Compulsory Visibility And The Politics Of Form In Modernist Women's Life Writing, Margot Kotler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modernist impersonality is an aesthetic practice typically associated with Anglo-European formalism and the doctrine of artistic autonomy. Although central to the modernist canon, impersonality has not been taken up by queer and feminist studies because critics have considered its implied evacuation of emotion and personal identity to be apolitical, and even dangerous. At its worst, impersonality reproduces an unmarked, white, and masculine subjectivity, yet it also questions the parameters of selfhood, posing a radical challenge to liberal-humanist conceptions of identity. Queer Impersonality moves beyond this critical impasse by tracing impersonality’s queer and feminist histories among modernist women writers whose engagement …

The Village On The Stage: Dramaturgies Of Modernity In African Concert Dance, Margit N. Edwards

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation, The Village on the Stage: Dramaturgies of Modernity in African Concert Dance, analyzes the underlying theatrical logic in African concert dance through a dramaturgical model I call the village on the stage. The village on the stage dramaturgy has had multiple iterations over the 20^th and 21^st centuries both across the African continent and the African diaspora. Commonly presented within the world-dance market as neo-traditional African dance, the village on the stage refers to a set of practices of staging traditional dance and music of Africa and the African diaspora and serves as a …

The Elusive Endonym, Thomas Eccardt

Publications and Research

The term ‘exonym’ was coined in 1957 by Marcel Aurousseau, an Australian geographer, to denote a place name used in a non-native language. ‘Endonym’ was later coined analogously as its counterpart, meaning the native name for a place. An example exonym would be the English word Germany, referring to the country whose inhabitants know it as its endonym Deutschland. These terms are useful to cartographers and also the United Nations, since it publishes documents in its six official languages, referring to places all over the world.

The topic of endonyms and exonyms would seem to fall into the …

The J In Danger, Zachary Delamater

Theses and Dissertations

“The J in Danger” merges autobiographic and formal concerns in sculpture and installation to describe the existential hazards contemporary life poses to Queer and Disabled individuals. The paper utilizes silent letters as thematic device to connect notions of precarity to a broader sense of contemporary “doomerism.”

Archaeomalacological Studies In The North Atlantic Islands, Kelly A. Mclafferty

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis expands upon the archaeomalacological narrative of the North Atlantic islands (the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Orkney) from the mid-8^th through the 20^th century. The main objectives are to identify exploited mollusk populations and ecological zones; investigate the roles of mollusk exploitation; contribute to laboratory methods of marine shell.

Rebetiko In Nyc: New Ideas Of Greek Diaspora, Mihalis Alisandratos

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores ideas of Greekness within the modern rebetiko space of New York City through the use of both ethnographic and reflexive techniques. Combining thick description, interview analysis, and extensive self reflection, this thesis endeavors to better understand how Greek American rebetiko musicians in NY today conceive of their experience in diaspora.

Human Experience In The Immersive Experience Economy, Beliz Yuksel Inal

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the growing trend of immersive experiences, examining how they are designed and experienced. It compares the artistic Machine Hallucination and the commercial Van Gogh Immersive Experience examples. Analyzing audience engagement and social contexts, the research aims to understand the impact of immersive experiences on individuals and society.

Bringing Recess Music Indoors: How Attention To Musical Play In The Classroom Impacts A School Community, Angelina B. Scolari

Theses and Dissertations

Why should elementary music teachers learn about the games their students play at recess? This paper discusses the process of recovering children’s folklore at a Bronx elementary school, what findings can teach us about the children in our lives, and how music teachers can use “kid culture” in the classroom.

Southern And Caribbean Transnational Black Feminist Dialogues In Contemporary Art, Adria Gunter

Theses and Dissertations

“Southern and Caribbean Black Feminist Transnational Dialogues in Contemporary Art” presents a Black feminist reading of the transnational cultural forms, as well as the political and social histories between the Southern United States and the Caribbean through the works of Andrea Chung, Allison Janae Hamilton, and Tamika Galanis.