Digital Commons Network^™

The Uprising Of The Anecdotes: Women’S Letters And Mass-Produced News In Jacob’S Room And Three Guineas, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

This short article explores the similarities between Walter Benjamin's theory about the disruptive potential of an anecdote vis-a-vis the conventional narrative and Virginia Woolf's use of anecdotes in her novel, Jacob's Room and her anti-war treatise, Three Guineas.

The Anxious Shadow Of A Coldwar: Affect, Biopower & Resistance In Fiction & Culture In The Period Of Intra-Anxiety 1989-2001, Kate Adler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Don DeLillo’s 1997 novel Underworld stands as the framing text for this study of fiction, cultural affect, and resistance in the later part of the 1980’s – the exhausted, waning years of the Cold War – and the 1990’s, the period immediately following its collapse. DeLillo’s book is situated in the 1990’s, a period of what I term “intra-anxiety” following the Cold War and prior to the attacks of September 11^th and the ensuing “War on Terror.” The Cold War had provided an organizing myth for America and American culture, absorbing and structuring anxieties and governing affect. “The Cold …

Building In Public: Critical Reconstruction And The Rebuilding Of Berlin After 1990, Naraelle Hohensee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reconstructing Berlin’s ruined contours after 1990 was one of the most important ways that reunified Germany made a public display of its relationship to the violence wrought by both the Nazis and East Germany during the twentieth century. By integrating historical forms into new buildings in the city’s commercial center, Berlin’s urban planners hoped to show the world that the nation had transcended totalitarianism and was worthy of a prominent place in the new global order. In order to achieve this vision, they adopted an approach called “Critical Reconstruction,” which required architects to follow rigid design standards based on traditional …

Radical Interiorities, Aesthetic Selves: Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Miciah Hussey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In her essay “On Being Ill” (1926), Virginia Woolf writes “We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others…There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown.” My dissertation explores how the novel’s attempts to represent this inherently intimate and estranging “virgin forest” also test its formal limitations. From free indirect discourse to stream of consciousness, the development of the novel is marked by different modes of reproducing inner life that push beyond the boundaries of historical, social, and physiognomic indices. I argue that these narrative and …

Assembly And Association: Mapping The Development Of The Public Sphere In 19th Century Columbia County, Ny, Christopher L. Meatto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project seeks to investigate the development of the Habermasian public sphere in Columbia County, NY, during the rapid expansion of railway transportation from the middle- to the late-19^th century, by gathering and presenting information about the proliferation of railway stations and select public institutions between 1840 and 1900. In charting the spread of area libraries, newspapers, post offices, and churches during this period, this project utilizes and combines methodological approaches taken by a number of landmark recent studies in historical geography and digital history; in so doing, it prototypes the research and pedagogical value and promise of incorporating …

Where Have All The Feminists Gone?: A Mixed-Methods Study Of College Students' Attitudes Toward Gender Equality, Erin Maurer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The perceived lack of interest in feminism among “millennials” is a subject of continued debate in sociological literature as well as public discourse. While the U.S. women’s movement of the 1960's and ‘70s can claim some success in reducing educational and professional barriers, legalizing abortion, and transforming conceptions of sex/gender both in academia and in the wider culture, numerous obstacles to gender equality remain. Indeed, the paradox of the second-wave is that it was successful in so many respects that young women and men coming of age today might assume that gender equality is a fait accompli. For scholars and …

“Vital Glowing Things”: The Art Of Women’S Writing, 1910-1935, Elizabeth C. Decker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The rising field of new modernisms continues to breathe new life into the literature of marginalized writers of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. By imagining modernism as a series of modes and strategies, and expanding the axes upon which we map modernism’s boundaries, we make way for writers who were shut out by the often imbalanced, limited modernism of the past and illuminate the field with new possibilities. This dissertation takes part in this exciting, vibrant conversation by identifying a mode of modernism present in the literature of three early twentieth-century women writers, who all used visual art techniques to …

Feeling Political: Affect, Emotion, And Ethics In Western Political Theory, John Mcmahon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What conceptual and methodological resources would it take for political theory to be able to more deeply analyze the emotional and affective dimensions of political life? In this dissertation, I articulate interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion into political theory in order to realize four linked objectives: first, to develop a method of reading and interpreting political theory capable of tracing the theoretical work done by affect and emotion in works of political thought; second, to reassess the boundaries of the political theory canon in terms of the thinkers that ‘count’ as part of that canon as well as the …

Examining Relationships Between Basic Emotion Perception And Musical Training In The Prosodic, Facial, And Lexical Channels Of Communication And In Music, Jamie Twaite

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research has suggested that intensive musical training may result in transfer effects from musical to non-musical domains. There is considerable research on perceptual and cognitive transfer effects associated with music, but, comparatively, fewer studies examined relationships between musical training and emotion processing. Preliminary findings, though equivocal, suggested that musical training is associated with enhanced perception of emotional prosody, consistent with a growing body of research demonstrating relationships between music and speech. In addition, few studies directly examined the relationship between musical training and the perception of emotions expressed in music, and no studies directly evaluated this relationship in the facial …

Perceptions Of Money: Relationships Between Remembered Parental Rejection, Extrinsic Life Aspirations And Maladaptive Attitudes Toward Money, Rebecca J. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined the extent to which maternal rejection, paternal rejection, maternal care, and maternal overprotection predict extrinsic life aspirations as well as maladaptive money attitudes in young adults. Additionally, this study sought to determine if the Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire correlates with the Parental Bonding Instrument. The variable, extrinsic life aspirations, was examined to determine if it mediates between parental rejection and maladaptive money attitudes. Finally, the present study examined gender differences with regard to parental rejection, extrinsic life aspirations, and maladaptive money attitudes. A multiple regression analysis was conducted in a college sample of 366 participants using self-report …

Performing El Rap El ʿArabi 2005-2015: Feeling Politics Amid Neoliberal Incursions In Ramallah, Amman, And Beirut, Rayya S. El Zein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is about politics in Arabic rap. Specifically, it is about affective dynamics and material negotiations during rap concerts in three cities in the Levant. I analyze Arab hip hop culture in the context of three different but related histories of cosmopolitan, middle class growth, and gentrification. Using an ethnomusicological framework rooted in participant observation and performance theory, I compare concert conditions, audience behavior, and accessibility of music production in Ramallah, Amman, and Beirut.

In Chapter One, I elaborate the discursive and theoretical frameworks that have pinned the political valences of Arab youth, Arab artists, and Arab rappers in …

Investigating The Construct Of Psychopathy In Lebanese And American Adults, Marie-Anne Issa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy has been primarily investigated in forensic and psychiatric populations in North America. Cross-cultural studies, mainly conducted in Europe, have shown disparities in psychopathy scores and the measures’ psychometric properties, which raise the issue of cultural factors, such as individualism-collectivism, values, and different ways of emotional expression, and the impact of these cultural factors on the construct and its manifestation. Psychopathy has been rarely explored in Arab populations. This dissertation examines the construct of psychopathy among Lebanese adults, to assess its meaning, relevance, and utility among this population and compares the responses of Lebanese to American adults. The design of …

Lengua Y Racismo-Motivación, Competencia Y Conciencia Lingüística En La Clase De Español Como Segunda Lengua: Integración De Contenidos Relacionados Con La Dimensión Socio-Política Del Lenguaje En Un Acercamiento Content-Based, Jose Magro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dentro de un modelo de instrucción lingüística basado en la transmisión de contenidos (content-based instruction), esta disertación trata de averiguar cómo influye en la conciencia lingüística, motivación y competencia lingüística de estudiantes de cursos avanzados de español como segunda lengua, la integración en el programa de contenidos relacionados con la dimensión socio-política del lenguaje (CSP). Desde la perspectiva epistemológica de la lingüística crítica aplicada, se hará un estudio cualitativo apoyado con componentes cuantitativos. Se desarrollarán e integrarán en el programa del grupo experimental materiales con CSP destinados a observar si influyen en el desarrollo de una conciencia lingüística explícitamente antirracista, …

In Search Of Argentinidad: Identity Affirming Bodies In Movement In Latino-America, Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a multi-sited investigation into the production of Argentinidad (the embodied feeling of Argentine national identity) post the economic crisis of 2001 known as el Argentinazo. A special attention is paid to the role of the body as a culturally and socially mediated site of identity formation. Additionally, this project engages with the intersections of cultural and psychoanalytic theories that have influenced Argentinean self-identity in addition to social identities that are negotiated in moments of personal and national crisis. This project examines the roles and relationships of family and migration within Argentinean diasporic communities originating from the Provinces …

“Straight” Acting: Changing Image Of Queer-Masculinity In Media Representation, Zheng Zhu

Publications and Research

In this essay, I critically examine media representation of Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas, with a specific focus on the construction of his masculinity as an outing gay celebrity. The existing critical scholarship has studied various forms of media representation of queer images. But they did not examine how unconventional queer representation interacts with the normative gender performance. This paper investigates mainstream media’s discursive construction of masculine gay male. The findings call our attention to the emergence of macho gay characterization, which supports the hegemonic domination of heterosexual normativity. The stigmatization of gay-ness as the deviated other is rationalized through …

An Alliance Of Ladies: Power, Public Affairs, And Class Construction In Early National New York City, Alisa J. Wade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation studies elite women’s political consciousness in New York City between 1783 and 1815, contextualizing women’s position within the city’s social strata and the rise of market capitalism in the post-Revolutionary era. In a period of deferential politics, women within the leadership class played a unique role in remodeling the structure of republican government and determining who belonged within it. Building on the foundation of learned femininity, they constructed the etiquette that undergirded men’s political careers and oversaw the marriage market. They mediated divisions between new merchant capital and more established landed wealth, reinforcing dynastic stability. Moreover, they were …

Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy Of War And Medicine, Sandra Lee Trappen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Empty Metal Jacket: The Biopolitical Economy of War and Medicine undertakes study of how global conflict and violence shape the entire range of social production, from commodities and culture to social goods and social theory. The research presented in this work draws from cutting-edge theories in body and science studies, in addition to theories of affect and biopolitics to address how war became a problem solving paradigm in medicine. Combat casualties are shown to serve as a material nexus for medical knowledge production. Although the focus here is on medicine and medical innovation in particular, these developments are connected to …

Should The New England Education Research Organization Start A Journal In The Age Of Audit Culture? Reflections On Academic Publishing, Metrics, And The New Academy, Edward Lehner, Kate Finley

Publications and Research

A large regional educational research association can straightforwardly establish a scholarly journal associated with its annual meeting. However, this work underscores the complicated scholarly ecosystem that an association enters when publishing a journal. The social sciences’ scholarly literature exists in a related series of networks that could be described as a type of “audit culture.” Within audit culture, two major academic publishers, Elsevier and Thomson Reuters, have established competing, yet strikingly collinear, journal metrics systems: Scopus and Web of Science, respectively. These and other bibliometrics systems are used to assess, order, and rank the supposed value of a researcher’s work. …

Automobile, Construction And Entertainment Business Sector Influences On Sedentary Lifestyles, Diana C. Parra, Thiago H. De Sá, Carlos A. Monteiro, Nicholas Freudenberg

Publications and Research

Sedentary lifestyles contribute to premature death and health inequalities. Researchers have studied personal and community-level determinants of inactivity but few have analyzed corporate influences. To reframe the public health debate on inactivity and open new doors for public sector intervention, we conducted a scoping review of evidence from several disciplines to describe how the business and political practices of the automobile, construction, and entertainment sectors have encouraged sedentary lifestyles. In the last 50 years, these industries have found it profitable to produce motor vehicles, housing, and entertainment, which intentionally or unintentionally discourage physical activity. Ceding primary authority for policy decisions …

Pilgrim Through Space And Time, Marleen S. Barr

Publications and Research

This is a short story which describes what happened when Marleen S. Barr received the Science Fiction Research Association Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction studies.

In Vivid Colors: The Impact And Relevance Of The Browne Popular Culture Library At Bowling Green State University, William Blick

Publications and Research

“Popular Culture,” as a field of study, has often been met with skepticism. However, it has now been acknowledged by academics that the study of popular culture is an important component for the understanding of social theory and criticism, as well as many other areas of research. The United States has a vibrant background of cultural history due to the diversity of world influences on its music, literature, film, and artwork. The Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green offers a varied selection of American pulp, music, film, literature, memorabilia and ephemera. In fact it is so comprehensive, that it …

"Follow The Bodies": (Re)Materializing Difference In The Era Of Neoliberal Multiculturalism, Briana Grace Brickley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a transnational literary archive in addition to analyzing shifting U.S. American cultural and political landscapes, and shows how critically attending to the various terms, figures, and valences of corporeality opens generative avenues for addressing the contemporary historical conjuncture, often referred to as the neoliberal capitalist era. Neoliberal capitalism, understood here to be a complex, diffuse ideology that manifests in part as a number of broadsweeping economic changes—including widespread deregulation and privatization, the increasing influence of international financial organizations, governmental cuts in social spending, and structural adjustment programs for the formerly colonized nations of the global south—operates in …

Boundaries And Belonging: Asian America, Psychology, And Psychoanalysis, Natalie C. Hung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation addresses a vexing problem. In psychology and psychoanalysis, Asian Americans are more often understood as a collective Other than as individual Selves, more frequently an object of study than a subject. Through two overarching aims, my dissertation sheds light on neglected aspects of Asian American selves, the meanings of the invisibility surrounding them, and implications for clinical practice.

First, the project challenges extant psychological perspectives on Asian Americans, which often implicitly assume a wide gulf of difference between Asian American cultural values and the Western epistemologies of psychology and psychoanalysis. Through the examination of academic research, clinical literature, …

Searching For Sounds: Instrumental Agency And Modularity In Electroacoustic Improvisation, Stephen (Red) Wierenga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In their radical departure from conventional instrumental technique and standardized instruments themselves, the practices of electroacoustic improvisation present a particular challenge to prevalent Western concepts of musical instruments. These concepts—which generally treat instruments as fixed objects—are ill-equipped to account for the ways in which electroacoustic improvisers foreground the agency of their instruments and abandon the quest for “mastery” typical especially of classical attitudes. Additionally, electroacoustic improvisers often approach instruments not as singular, self-contained, and static in their materiality, but rather as modular instrumentaria capable of myriad states and ever in flux, similarly problematizing conventional conceptions that view the physical constitutions …

Crossing Boundaries: The Transnational Third Space Of Contemporary Chinese-Francophone Writers, Paula S. Delbonis-Platt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past two decades, a group of Chinese writers who pen their works in French, their adopted language, have garnered prizes in France and received international acclaim. The transnational voices of these writers have drawn attention to Chinese history, literature, and human-rights issues, as well as to their own diverse intersections with French culture. The four Francophone-Chinese writers studied—François Cheng (b. 1929), Gao Xingjian (b. 1940), Dai Sijie (b. 1954), and Shan Sa (b. 1972)—constitute themselves as subjects at least partially through their Chinese birth and French citizenship or residency and through the production of literary works that range …

Struggling To Learn, Learning To Struggle: Strategy And Structure In The 2010-11 University Of Puerto Rico Student Strike, José A. Laguarta Ramírez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From April 2010 to March 2011, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) underwent a two-phase strike sequence against neoliberal austerity measures. Altogether, that process resulted in the eventual concession of all of the students’ main demands, an unprecedented feat at the UPR, and a rare one in Puerto Rican history in general. In this dissertation I seek to cast light on this improbable event by examining, first, how neoliberalization patterned and contoured the choices facing the century-old UPR student movement. Second, I explore how interactions within the movement, including the framing contest among leadership teams and their interaction with the …

Understanding School And Interethnic Relations Of Mexican Immigrant Youth In A Post-Industrial Community, Roberto Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a dearth of literature on how immigrant groups understand minority groups in the United States, in particular, African-Americans. Increased technology and more rapid global movement in the 21st Century challenges 20th explanations of assimilation (Chicago School) and necessitates more research focused on how immigrant groups and racialized minorities interact to negotiate new worlds. This ethnographic research was conducted over thirteen months during 2012 and 2013 in a post-industrial neighborhood in the northeast that had been the site of 11 purported anti-bias attacks against Mexican immigrants during the summer of 2010. Research questions focused on: 1) Mexican immigrant youth …

Centralized, Decentralized, Distributed: Disruptive Technology In Distance Education From "Sunrise Semester" To Present-Day Moocs, Rosanna Flouty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lessons from early academic television courses from the 1950s guide an assessment of current disruptive technologies that shape Massive Open Online Courses (known as MOOCs) and other informal online learning opportunities today. This dissertation explores some of the unique contributing factors that led to the creation of Sunrise Semester (1957-1982), a popular network television program co-produced by New York University and CBS that offered college credit to viewers. Despite the fact that the show aired at dawn and rarely included one-on-one interactions with professors, Sunrise Semester aired for nearly twenty-five years and attracted a devoted viewership of over two million …

Dislocating Camps: On State Power, Queer Aesthetics & Asian/Americanist Critique, Christopher Alan Eng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation argues that the history of Asian racialization in the United States requires us to grapple with the seemingly counterintuitive entanglement between “the camp” as exceptional space of biopolitical management and “camp” as a performative practice of queer excess. While each practice of camp has been theorized as exemplary of modernity, these considerations have been largely separated into studies of political economy on the one hand, and queer aesthetics on the other. Taken up predominantly in political philosophy and the social sciences, the former centers the death camps in Europe during World War II as epitomizing state violence within …

Windows On The World: The Aesthetics Of Difference In Neoliberal New York, Nicholas Gamso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to refine critical methods for interpreting global cities and their cultures, charting an aesthetic history of neoliberal New York — from the 1929 regional plan to the present. Surveying a range of literature, art criticism, and planning discourse, I argue that the global has served as the dominant motif of spatial production and political power during this watershed era. I trace this argument through analyses of midcentury planning’s global spatial imaginings, gentrification and imperial metaphor, transnational encounter in World literature, and the city’s contemporary waste and recourse imaginaries. While I follow the Marxist account of the New …