Digital Commons Network^™

Expressive Enlightenment: Subjectivity And Solidarity In Daniel Garrison Brinton, Franz Boas, And Carlos Montezuma, R. Arvo Carr

Publications and Research

This chapter explores the expressivism of Franz Boas’s anthropological and linguistic thought, and situates Boas in a late-nineteenth- century cultural and intellectual milieu in which the theory and practice of self-expression took on unprecedented significance. Boas’s expressivism had deep roots in German intellectual culture, but was also influenced in surprising ways by his experiences in the Americas, in particular by the “philosophy of expression” espoused by Daniel Garrison Brinton, to whom Boas paid tribute in a 1899 obituary. Yet the history of Boas’s expressivism goes beyond intellectual history and the transmission of scholarly theories among European and Euro-American academics; for …

Textual Revolution: Reading And Writing About Terrorism And Counter-Terrorism In High School Humanities Classes, Jacqueline Darvin

Publications and Research

This article provides a rationale for why high school humanities classes need to discuss the sensitive topics surrounding terrorism and counter-terrorism. It provides lesson plan ideas on the topics of lone wolf killings, domestic terrorism, the language of terror, related current events and larger social issues, and counter-terrorism. These lessons have the potential to reimagine secondary English and Social Studies classrooms to further focus on human development, relationships, and social justice

The Weight Of Categories: Geographically Inscribed Otherness In Botkyrka Municipality, Sweden, Beiyi Hu

Publications and Research

This paper asked a paradoxical question: why have immigrants to Sweden (particularly refugees) become geographically, economically, and symbolically segregated despite the putatively generous provisions of Sweden’s welfare state? I sought to understand how people and institutions perceived and deployed categories that created geographically inscribed “Otherness” through a year-long fieldwork in Botkyrka Municipality of the Greater Stockholm area. My analysis weaved together three models for explaining social segregation: the relational, the symbolic, and the spatial. I then augmented these models by taking into account the legal and bureaucratic frameworks that influence social exclusion, as well as historical factors of geographical exclusion. …

Contemporary Proposals About Reading In The Digital Age, Matthew K. Gold, Rachel Sagner Buurma

Publications and Research

Recent ideas about reading in literary criticism have centered around a fundamental question: what are the limits and affordances of human reading? Not all of these re-visitings of reading name technology as a central figure, yet they are all to varying degrees shaped by recent cultural attention to the emerging possibilities of machine reading and the reading of digitized and born-digital texts.

Influence Of Perceived Stress On Dressing And Eating Behaviors Of Chinese Female University Students Residing In The United States, Kandiah Jayanthi, Diana Saiki, Kiya Dues, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis

Publications and Research

The objective of this research was to evaluate how perceived stressful conditions (PSC) and perceived non-stressful conditions (PNSC) influence eating and dressing behaviors of Chinese females. Chinese female university students (18–30 years) residing in the United States, completed a validated and reliable 45-itemized Chinese Stress Eating and Dressing Survey (CSEDS). The CSEDS included: (i) effort to control making healthy eating choices and dressing, (ii) foods eaten and dress items selected during PSC, (iii) foods eaten and dress items selected during PNSC, and (iv) demographics. Seven comfort food categories and eight appearance categories were used. The CSEDS included multiple choice, yes/no, …

A Cardiology Exhibit At A Science Museum, Viewed As Speech Acts In Sequence, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

An exhibit about cardiology at a science museum is an elaborate form of health communication, with messaging happening across text, pictures, models, and videos. This qualitative case study uses concepts of speech act sequencing and interpellation to explain a series of multimodal exhibits about cardiovascular health. Health exhibits are described as verbal and audiovisual arguments combining assertions of information; directives to change behavior, and designations of risk candidacy—or sequences of assertive, directive, and declarative speech acts. Visitors are targeted as heart disease candidates according to their risk factors, such as hypertension, overweight, and inactivity. Communication research focused on health exhibits …

The Lines Between The Lines: Stage Directions As Fluid, Affective Collaborations Between Theatre Texts And Theatre Makers, Sarah Bess Rowen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project contends that certain kinds of stage directions can affectively engage the bodies of actors, and the imaginations of directors and designers, resulting in a collaboratively created performance of a given theatre text. As opposed to more literary treatments of stage directions, this project contends that theories of embodiment, especially affect theory, is a useful lens through which to explore the range of potential performances present in various stage directions. By analyzing the ways in which stage directions allow for more agency than has traditionally been considered in theatre scholarship, I seek to encourage theatre makers and scholars alike …

Relating Justification Logic Modality And Type Theory In Curry–Howard Fashion, Konstantinos Pouliasis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a work in the intersection of Justification Logic and Curry--Howard Isomorphism. Justification logic is an umbrella of modal logics of knowledge with explicit evidence. Justification logics have been used to tackle traditional problems in proof theory (in relation to Godel's provability) and philosophy (Gettier examples, Russel's barn paradox). The Curry--Howard Isomorphism or proofs-as-programs is an understanding of logic that places logical studies in conjunction with type theory and -- in current developments -- category theory. The point being that understanding a system as a logic, a typed calculus and, a language of a class of categories constitutes …

Lexical Access In Individuals With Cerebral Palsy And Severe Speech And Physical Impairment, Iris Fishman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined lexical access in adolescents and adults with cerebral palsy and severe speech and physical impairment (CP/SSPI) who have limited language production due to severe dysarthria or anarthria. To date, the impact of a severe speech production deficit on lexical activation and the organization of the mental lexicon has not been investigated. Such an investigation may support or refute these views of an articulatory basis of speech perception and lexical development and access. The hypothesis of this study is that spoken word recognition will be severely reduced or absent in this population although individual differences may result in …

Aurality As Methexis And The Rise Of Castilian Literature: The Case Of The Siete Partidas, Maristela Verastegui

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Participation is the engine of cultural production. In the case of literature, the privileged modality that enables participation is auditory perception. In order to articulate a theory of literary cultural production based on auditory perception, participation needs to be analyzed in the context of Platonic methexis, understood as an embodied experience facilitated by brain mechanisms of sensory processing and cognition, which manifest in specific ways in written texts. The Siete Partidas, the first complete and systematic legal code of the Western World, provides the perfect case study to test a theory of literary cultural production based on methexis via …

Segunda Parte De La Historia General Llamada Índica (1572) De Pedro Sarmiento De Gamboa. Estudio Y Edición Anotada., Aleksín H. Ortega

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa’s History of the Incas (1572). A Critical Study and Annotated Edition.

by Aleksín H. Ortega

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa wrote his polemic and undoubtedly political History of the Incas at the request of Francisco de Toledo (Viceroy of Peru, 1569-1581). Toledo wanted to deliver to the Spanish King a version of Incan history which could subsequently be used as an ideological tool in the search of legal and moral arguments to defend the Andean colonization by the Spanish monarchy. Since his arrival to the Peruvian territories, Toledo embarked on a long personal visit to …

Race, Sexuality, And Masculinity On The Down Low, Stephen Kochenash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In a so-called post-racial America, a new gay identity has flourished and come into the limelight. However, in recent years, researchers have concluded that not all men who have sex with other men (MSM) self-identify as gay, most noticeably a large population of Black men. It is possible that a tainted history of Black enslavement in this country that is inextricably linked with ideas of space, surveillance, subversion, and survival inform a Black male’s self-identification as being “on the down low” (DL). This begs the question: What does mainstream society view as gay-ness and how is the DL constructed …

A Discourse Of True And False: An Analysis Of The Publications Of The Afl-Cio Between 1955-1965 As Archived In The Tamiment Library, John J. Gorham Jr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1955 the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations healed their twenty-year schism. Provisions of the NIRA and the Wagner Act had given promising opportunities for union organization in the early 1930’s. Unions in coal and steel saw possibilities in organizing vertically entire industries, rather than according to traditional crafts. In 1935 some unions left the AFL to form more aggressive organizations under the banner of the newly formed CIO. The public perception of aggressive strikes led to anti-labor laws, most noticeably the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. The increasingly hostile political climate, as states enacted the “right …

Reasoning With Pseudowords: How Properties Of Novel Verbal Stimuli Influence Item Difficulty And Linguistic-Group Score Differences On Cognitive Ability Assessments, Paul Agnello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pseudowords (words that are not real but resemble real words in a language) have been used increasingly as a technique to reduce contamination due to construct-irrelevant variance in assessments of verbal fluid reasoning (Gf). However, despite pseudowords being researched heavily in other psychology sub-disciplines, they have received little attention in cognitive ability testing contexts. Thus, there has been an assumption that all pseudowords work equally and work equally well for all test-takers. The current research examined three objectives with the first being whether changes to the pseudoword properties of length and wordlikeness (how much a pseudoword resembles a typical or …

The Production Of Space: Indigenous Resistance Movements In The Peruvian Amazon, Christian Calienes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The resistance movement that resulted in the Baguazo in the northern Peruvian Amazon in 2009 was the culmination of a series of social, economic, political and spatial processes that reflected the Peruvian nation’s engagement with global capitalism and democratic consolidation after decades of crippling instability and chaos. The recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves that occupy the subsoil of much the Peruvian Amazon provide the latest natural resource upon which the national project can continue to be implemented. In a context of neo-imperialism and neo-extractivism where through accumulation by dispossession, new markets are introduced into global capitalist structures after …

Revisiting Lockhart: A Case For A Conditional Operator, Eric J. Tsai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis presents a case for a binary modal conditional operator compatible with both circumstantial and epistemic modal bases. Certain contexts involving might conditionals require might to take wide-scope over a conditional proposition. A restrictor-view analysis of conditionals is unable to derive both the intuitive meaning of the might conditional and the necessary conditional proposition without positing a covert circumstantial necessity modal. However, based on observations of the temporal orientation of conditionals, such a modal lacks independent motivation. On the other hand, a binary modal conditional operator not only provides the necessary conditional proposition but is also able to derive …

Doing Their Best: How Teachers In Urban Social Studies Classrooms Integrate Culturally Relevant Pedagogy With Historical Literacy Instruction, Maria Akinyele

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What occurs when teachers in urban social studies classrooms want to do their best by incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy into their historical literacy instruction? While culturally relevant pedagogy and historical literacy are complementary in theory and a few scholars have demonstrated how teachers have integrated the two approaches in practice, I questioned the ease or seamlessness of the integration within an urban context. This dissertation examined how three teachers in an urban high school managed the tensions and possibilities of teaching historical literacy and culturally relevant pedagogy in U.S. and global history classes. In this case study, I explored …

Nursing Students At The Helm: A Study Of The Effect Of A Health Literacy Module (Helm) On The Health Literacy Knowledge, Skills And Attitudes Of Pre-Licensure Baccalaureate Nursing Students, Joy G. Borrero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Effective communication is a foundation of high-quality, patient-centered health care. Understanding health literacy is an essential attribute that health care professionals need to possess in order to promote effective partnerships with patients and their significant others. Nurses, especially, need to be involved in addressing the epidemic problem of low health literacy in the United States because they are responsible for the majority of patient, caregiver and community health education and communication. Nurses play a key role in providing health care information to individuals, families and groups in a variety of settings and therefore should be educated about the essentials …

Marginalidad Y Subversión En Tres Novelas De Juan Filloy De La Década De 1930, Sonia M. Tejada

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the concepts of marginality and subversion in three novels written by Juan Filloy in the 1930s: ¡Estafen! (1932), Op Oloop (1934) and Caterva (1937). I study these novels in the context of the avant-garde movement of the 1920s and 1930s. I analyze the transformation that the concepts of marginality and subversion undergo when they are explored within the context of the avant-garde aesthetics, instead of that of social realism. I contrast Filloy’s approach to these themes with those of the novelists of the preceding decades. More importantly, I compare and contrast Filloy’s novels to Roberto Arlt’s …

Elementos Persuasivos De La Citación En El Discurso Académico De Posgrado: Los Verbos Introductores De Las Citas En La Sección De La Conclusión, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Pipeline To Failure: Social Inequality And The False Promises Of American Public Schooling, Adia Wilson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My experience as a New York City public school student was absolutely electrifying, though filled with many trials. While my mother would have preferred to put me in private school, having access to some of the world’s greatest institutions and resources offered unique opportunities and exposures. The performing arts provided me with an outlet to express myself and build skills and confidence. In particular, dance education kept me occupied and disciplined in a large city full of danger. Every so often, I witnessed hostile, or even violent exchanges between students, or students and staff. While some of my schoolmates became …

Alternative Futures: The Creative Reconsideration Of Fashion Objects, Kathryn Roberts

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is the beginning of what I intend to be a larger, evolving work that seeks to marry the theoretical with the practical when considering fashion objects that have “served their purpose”. The object at the project’s focal point: a worn out pair of blue jeans. My particular focus on jeans is based on the fact that they, alongside the t-shirt, are one of the most ubiquitous and commonly owned pieces of clothing for people all over the world. This wardrobe staple transcends age, race, and class, as it occupies an iconic status that has made them invulnerable to …

Powerhouse Chihuahua: Electricity, Water, And The State In The Long Mexican Revolution, Jonathan Hill Jr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

State formation has for decades been a major analytical focus for historians of Mexico, especially during the armed Mexican Revolution (1910–20) and the “long” political and social revolution which continued for decades thereafter. Since the 1980s, the cultural turn in the humanities has produced groundbreaking works in the field and introduced a model of state formation framed around hegemony, subaltern agency, and the nation. While these reflect prevailing approaches, this dissertation joins more recent interdisciplinary work on Mexico in conversation with a ‘material turn’ in the humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the policy debates and infrastructural networks which attended …

Cynic And Epicurean Parrhesia In Horace's Epodes 5 & 6: Appropriating A Parallel Philosophical Debate For Poetic Purposes, Kent Klymenko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Within Horace's fifth and sixth Epodes there is a juxtaposition of canine imagery. This imagery parallels two different interpretations of the philosophical concept of parrhesia or frank speech. Horace examines the parrhesia of Cynicism and contrasts it with the parrhesia of Epicureanism. After establishing Horace's philosophical influences, I engage in a close reading of the two poems through the lens of these competing philosophical interpretations of the same concept. I make the argument that Horace is using his knowledge of philosophy to make a larger poetic point. Although Horace's own stance on parrhesia favors Epicureanism, to the extent that one …

Libraries And The Missing Narrative: Practitioner Explorations In The Use Of Design Psychology And Environmental Autobiography For Library Buildings And Designs, Amy Beth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Environmental Autobiography as a research method of Environmental Psychology and Design Psychology informs this study of the meaning and experiences of libraries described by six library-building design practitioners. Participants were guided through an adaptation of Toby Israel’s (2010) Design Psychology Toolbox (hereafter known as the DPT or the “Toolbox”) exercises. The research is intended to expand the practice of designing libraries as places and spaces where social and emotional affordance is supported. Emphasizing the significance of libraries as place and space where people often have rich and even transformative experiences serves to augment use-efficiency and evidence-based space planning. Primary goals …

Lost And Found In Translation: A Study Of The Bilingual Work Of Samuel Beckett, Julien Green, And Nancy Huston, Genevieve Waite

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While much has been written and theorized about translation, until recent years, considerably less attention has been paid to the product and process of self-translation, and self-translation studies has only recently emerged as a new and growing field of interest in academia. In my dissertation, I analyze the extent to which literal, linguistic loss in translation leads to figurative gain in the self-translated work and non-authorial translations of three translingual Franco-Anglophone authors: Samuel Beckett, Julien Green, and Nancy Huston. In addition to examining how self-translators and non-authorial translators afford themselves liberties in translation, I investigate the ways in which a …

Statistical Regularities In Melodic Phrases: Effects On Aesthetic Ratings, Daniel Meredith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Universals appear in a number different forms, from naturally occurring mathematical universals like the Fibonacci series, phi, and fractal scaling, to aesthetic universals like the golden ratio in architecture and other facets of human behavior like dance and religious belief. Music is another example of a powerful human universal. Further, within music there are a number of statistical regularities that have been empirically observed nearly universally. One such example would be the division of the octave into 12 equidistant tones. There are also a number of universal regularities that pertain specifically to melodic phrasing. This paper will examine four such …

Writing For The Sciences, Pamela Jean Stemberg

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

“I Want Her To Make Correct Decisions On Her Own:” Former Soviet Union Mothers’ Beliefs About Autonomy Development, Masha Komolva, Jane Y. Lipnitsky

Publications and Research

This qualitative study examined Former Soviet Union (FSU) mothers’ explicit and implicit attitudes and parenting practices around adolescents’ autonomy development. Interviews were conducted with 10 mothers who had immigrated from the FSU to the US between 10 and 25 years ago, and who had daughters between the ages of 13 and 17 years. Mothers predominantly defined autonomy in terms of adolescents’ ability to carry out instrumental tasks, make correct decisions, and financially provide for themselves, but rarely mentioned psychological or emotional independence. Mothers reflected on the various aspects of autonomy emphasized in their country of origin and America, and balancing …

Transforming The Embodied Dispositions Of Pre-Service Special Education Teachers, Gene Fellner, Helen Kwah

Publications and Research

Teacher education programs seek to foster dispositions that welcome student differences in race, culture, language and ability. However, pre-service teachers’ dispositions are difficult to transform because they tend to be aligned with the field of schooling where differences are punished or excluded. This study examines an activity for transforming pre-service teachers’ communicative habitus that was inspired by Bourdieu’s theory that habitus or dispositions are unconsciously embodied and therefore require a bodily counter-training for change. The activity instructed 17 pre-service Special Education teachers to communicate an experience through sound alone rather than words in order to challenge teachers’ deeply embodied communicative …