Digital Commons Network^™

Letter To The President: Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Academic And Hip Hop Genres In A Rap Narrative Program, Debangshu Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to examine an in-school rap narrative workshop through critical discourse theory (Bamberg, 2012; Daiute, 2014). Twelve youth from a public school serving youth in urban Houston, TX were recruited from an in-school and after-school Hip hop/Rap narrative program to participate in a two-year cohort research study. The primary research question guiding the study was “How do young people participating in a school-based Hip hop/Rap program use a wide range of narrative genres for literacy and psycho-social development over two years in the program?”

The data-intensive study involved assessments of literacy and psycho-social development via …

Effects Of Multimedia Instruction On L2 Acquisition Of High-Level, Low-Frequency English Vocabulary Words, Euna Cho

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of multimedia enhancement in video form in addition to textual information on L2 vocabulary instruction for high-level, low-frequency English words among Korean learners of English. Although input-based incidental learning of L2 vocabulary through extensive reading has been conventionally believed to be appropriate for high-frequency words, intentional or explicit vocabulary learning is suggested to be more sensible or realistic for the acquisition of low-frequency academic words. Multimedia support in foreign language instruction has revealed benefits in promoting direct teaching and explicit learning of L2 vocabulary; moreover, adding textual information to video seems to boost students’ …

Performing Human Rights In Neoliberal Asia: Artistic And Activist Engagements In Hong Kong, Malaysia, And Singapore, Melissa Wansin Wong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines artistic and activist performances that address issues of rights abuses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. I demonstrate how the centralized ruling parties encourage the neoliberalization of their economies while maintaining autocratic rule, thus intensifying structural inequalities while also clamping down on dissent. This condition then exacerbates the lack of labor, sexuality, and democratic rights. Concurrently, the states’ aspirations to be part of the global capitalist market have paradoxically provided conditional spaces of political and artistic expression. I contend that existing critiques of human rights from sociological and legalistic perspectives are inadequate for contemplating this state of …

Spatial-Relational Learning And Memory Deficits Associated With Nmdar Autoantibodies In Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Brittany L. Bascetta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Individuals with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) experience inflammation that may target any organ within the body, including the central and peripheral nervous systems. Additionally, these individuals often demonstrate psychological dysfunctions including emotional and cognitive deficits; however, research is inconsistent as to the nature and cause of these dysfunctions. While there are multiple factors that may increase risk for variability in cognitive function, such as population differences, socioeconomic status (SES), mood disorders (depression and anxiety), medication effects, and disease activity, these factors do not reliably predict the severity and extent of cognitive deficits. A growing body of animal research associates autoantibodies …

A Political Ecology Of Information: Media And The Dilemma Of State Power In China, Michael L. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I employ a Weberian concept of social power in order to theorize the challenges posed by, and the varieties of state response to, the dilemma of state power: the need of all states to empower societies with social capacities that may, in turn, threaten state interests. Through a comparison of traditional and new forms of media in China, I show that rather than posing qualitatively new types of challenges to authoritarian states, new media exacerbate the dilemma of state power. They do so because along each of three dimensions of social control, new media shift the relationship …

Not My Queer: Queer Representation In Contemporary Italian Serial Television, Julia Heim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Contemporary Italian television, like many national televisions, has entered a period in which the relationships the producers and consumers of televisual content are increasingly indistinguishable. In this age of media convergence the new participants of this medium work across platforms to actively engage, consume, create, and recreate both televisual content and our understanding of the medium. These new relationships require a new understanding of the semiotic and discursive changes taking place in television so that we may reconceptualize the contemporary interplay between media and society.

This dissertation maps out a new understanding of the televisual economy through an elaboration of …

Saisiyat Morphology, Daniel Kaufman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Nature Of Introspection, Adriana Renero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation proposes a new model of introspection by examining those aspects of the nature of introspection that have been neglected in the contemporary literature, such as the ones determining variables or mental phenomena in accordance with specific cases of introspection. I assert that these neglected aspects are the very ones which provide a precise account of the way we are aware of our mental life and help us arrive at self-attributions. I begin by raising issues already extant in the epistemology of introspection, and not only argue against skeptical doubts about the reliability of introspection but also provide empirical …

Psychopathy, Empathic Concern, And Emotional-Sentence Processing: An N400 Erp Study, Farren Larson

Student Theses

Using an undergraduate sample, the present study examined how psychopathic traits (assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised) and empathic concern (assessed by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index) affect emotional-information processing using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a sentential priming paradigm. Participants had their electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while they silently read sentences with three types of endings: congruent, incongruent, and emotionally negative. We hypothesized that participants with high levels of psychopathic traits and participants with low levels of empathic concern would find the emotionally negative sentence endings less unexpected and disturbing (yielding a smaller N400), compared to participants with low levels of psychopathic …

Dark Stars Of The Evening: Performing African American Citizenship And Identity In Germany, 1890-1920, Kristin L. Moriah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dark Stars of the Evening: Performing African American Citizenship and Identity in Germany, 1890-1920 demonstrates that black performers in Germany developed wide networks in the performance world as they sought artistic opportunities beyond the racist circumscription of the American popular stage. Their performances became emblematic of modernity, globalization, and imperial might for German audiences at the turn of the century. African American-styled blackness contributed to the formation of the city of Berlin while allowing African American performers to assert themselves on the global stage. Groups like the Four Black Diamonds had a lengthy engagement with the popular stage in Berlin, …

Slavic Psycholinguistics In The 21st Century, Irina A. Sekerina

Publications and Research

This article provides an update on research in Slavic psycholinguistics since 2000 following my first review (Sekerina 2006), published as a position paper for the workshop The Future of Slavic Linguistics in America (SLING2K). The focus remains on formal experimental psycholinguistics understood in the narrow sense, i.e., experimental studies conducted with monolingual healthy adults. I review five dimensions characteristic of Slavic psycholinguistics—populations, methods, domains, theoretical approaches, and specific languages—and summarize the experimental data from Slavic languages published in general non-Slavic psycholinguistic journals and proceedings from the leading two conferences on Slavic linguistics, FASL and FDSL, since 2000. I argue that …

Literary Theories Of Circumcision, A. W. Strouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Literary Theories of Circumcision” investigates a school of thought in which the prepuce, as a conceptual metaphor, organizes literary experience. In every period of English literature, major authors have employed the penis’s hood as a figure for thinking about reading and writing. These authors belong to a tradition that defines textuality as a foreskin and interpretation as circumcision. In “Literary Theories of Circumcision,” I investigate the origins of this literary-theoretical formulation in the writings of Saint Paul, and then I trace this formulation’s formal applications among medieval, early modern, and modernist writers. My study lays the groundwork for an ambitious …

Haitian Linguistic And Cultural Practices: Critical Meaning-Making Spaces For Haitian Learners, Marie L. Cerat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is concerned with the effects of the exclusion of Haitian linguistic and cultural practices in the education of Haitian learners. Through qualitative data collection and analysis, a set of texts and narratives in the Haitian Creole language, Rara and Vèvè practices were inventoried, reviewed and described. Moreover, a series of focus groups and ethnographic interviews were conducted with Haitian adolescents and Haitian parents with school age children living in New York. These interviews revealed that Haitians deeply value their cultural knowledge, and view them as resources for knowledge preservation and knowledge production. Textual analysis also shows that Haitians …

Narrating Power And Injustice: How Young People Make Sense About Fairness, Svetlana Jovic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Our concrete embodiments as members of a specific class, race, and gender, as well as our historical situations play important roles in shaping our perspective of the world. The goal of this dissertation was to explore how different socioeconomic circumstances shape adolescents’ sense-making about fairness and their capacity to relate to different actors in a social situation including an instance of injustice. Additionally, the study explored the systematic shift in youth’s sense-making – their capacity to adjust one’s ways of knowing and being, depending on the perspective they assume and different others they address. I used narrative methodology to explore …

"Why Wouldn't You Like It?": Exploring Masculine Identities In Discussions Of Male Rape, Bridget Woods

Student Theses

Empirical research on the topic of male rape is scarce within the discipline of psychology. Current research focuses on negative perceptions of male rape victims, but does not take into account the role hegemonic masculinity plays in constructing beliefs about male rape. The present study aims to gather narratives of young men’s beliefs of male rape and male rape myths and analyze how masculinity and masculine identities shape these beliefs. Narratives were gained through collection of journal writings and focus groups, and an integrated narrative analysis was conducted to identify themes and discursive strategies that men employed to balance their …

Details In Testimony: How Hedge Words Influence People’S Perceptions Of Victim Testimony Credibility, Justine B. Rayborn

Student Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine whether hedge words and the age of a memory can influence the way participants (mock jurors) perceive an alleged sexual assault victim’s credibility. Prior research has demonstrated many issues that can affect the accuracy of memory for childhood events such as childhood amnesia, fragmented and distorted memories, false memories and source monitoring errors and the way in which jurors’ decisions can be swayed based on verbal cues to confidence. Here, we further investigated whether jurors' decisions are sensitive to the age of the memory—an event that happened in the recent or distant …

"Where Are The Bathrooms?": Academic Library Restrooms And Student Needs, Stephanie Margolin, Jennifer Poggiali

Publications and Research

This article investigates bathrooms, paying specific attention to those in academic libraries. The authors describe how bathrooms have been considered in the library literature for the past century and challenges to changing the status quo. Finally, this work sets the stage for future inquiry. Research materials come from a range of sources: historical library literature, building codes, social science theory and research that address the issues around bathroom taboos, and checklists for assessing bathrooms. The authors propose librarians and library administrators reconsider all aspects of their own bathrooms: location, features, equity/inclusiveness, and maintenance in service to their patrons.

Two Types Of Gods: Narratives And Imagined Orders Of Islamic Spain, Brian Beegan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role in contemporary Spanish cultural politics of two historical narratives from Spain’s Islamic era: St. James and Convivencia. I argue that these narratives serve different political agendas as Spain comes to terms both with its past and the challenges of Muslim immigration in the present.

Theory For A Starving Obese, Ishai Shapira Kalter

Theses and Dissertations

Theory for a Starving Obese (2017) is both a book and an installation. During the years 2015-2017 I began writing Theory for a Starving Obese; a collection of essays and art criticism about exhibitions that took place in white cubes in New York. I was following my dissatisfaction, and hoped to delve deeper into the question “What is Contemporary Art?” At the end of a process, I sent seventeen envelopes to artists who exhibited solo shows in New York and whose works I have criticized. Each envelope consists of one digital drawing (שרבוט, pronounced Shirbut), DVD with the …

Dalgish Studies, Teaches The Complexities Of Languages., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

“I tell my students that if they want to see the world, they might consider studying linguistics, because that is how I got my start,” says Dr. Gerard Dalgish, a professor of English at Baruch College. “I went to many different countries, and if you have that sort of background, you can live for a while working part-time or something like that if you like the particular place you’re visiting.”

These compelling words come from someone who has specialized in teaching English as a second language or ESL, as it is also known.

Absence Is Presence With Distance, James Bayard

Theses and Dissertations

Prompting obvious considerations for freedom and nationalism, language and race, time, and decay, the work asks not only what it means to be an American today, but also, more broadly, what it means to be human—to breathe and act, to live and die.

Summer Light, Sara Dolatabadi

Theses and Dissertations

"Summer Light" is a film about family dynamics. Using light as a defining factor, it looks at the relationship between the director’s parents and her daughter. It is the her response to a desire to record and safeguard intimate moments of an ordinary day before they disappear.

Horizon Of Possibilities: Artists And The City In Postwar Beirut, Tatiana Mouarbes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis narrates a history of postwar cultural production framed by urban redevelopment in Beirut, Lebanon (1989-Present). Focusing on artists engagements with the city, this thesis demonstrates how artists thought through the legacies of war inflicted upon the beleaguered city of Beirut in order to construct livable futures.

Multilingualism And Ego Depletion In Interference Task Performance – Are Multilingual Brains More Intelligent Than Monolingual Brains?, Dorota B. Botwina

Theses and Dissertations

Research linking multilingualism with better executive control has produced inconsistent findings. Since definitive empirical evidence is not available, this study seeks to explore whether these advantages really exist. The Flanker Task followed an ego depletion task that was introduced to participants who were monolingual, bilingual and trilingual.

What Does Silence = Now? An Analysis Of Past And Present Discourse Surrounding Hiv/Aids, Emily A. Moner

Theses and Dissertations

This essay examines how the HIV/AIDS epidemic was first addressed in the context of politics, media and the general public and subsequently how that compares to the ways in which it’s currently being discussed using popular forms of communication such as Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media.

The Sounds Of Silence; Or, Isabella’S Counter Discourse In Measure For Measure, Gina Vivona

Theses and Dissertations

This argument reshapes the thinking about masculine dominance in Measure for Measure, and considers the patriarchy as a series of socially constructed, hence artificial, rules and regulations. It also explores how Isabella’s discourse and celibacy empower her to defy the constraints of early modern paradigms and achieve individual freedom.

The Feminization Of Violence, Caitlin Logan

Theses and Dissertations

Grounded in the necessity of upending the economic base as it is defined by Louis Althusser, this paper seeks to express a possibility for the creation of a feminine voice, that when expressed as itself, independent of the pervasive nature of patriarchal power and significance, could be the very event that engenders the first real “violent” attack on the base. Using Zora Neale Hurston’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God, as an example of a uniquely feminine voice, this paper also seeks to empower the experience of the Black female aesthetic as a perspective capable of tapping the multiplicity of human …

The Association Of Feline Behavior To Acoustical Features Of Kitten Directed Speech, Daniela Acevedo

Theses and Dissertations

This study observed responses of cats to kitten and adult human directed speech. Human vocalization analysis showed significant variation in harmonicity for kitten directed speech. Playback experiments analyzing feline responses to owners and strangers using kitten and human directed speech showed higher attentiveness to a stranger’s kitten directed speech.

Towards Telepathic Ecologies: A Presentation Of Sources For Image Production Within Information, Lewis A. Longino

Theses and Dissertations

Telepathy through information systems, Yutaka Matsuzawa,with Ilya Prigogine, Roger Caillois, Susan Howe, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Aase Berg, images and artists today form telepathic ecologies through information,Aaron Flint Jamison, Dora Budor, Sb Fuller, Andrea Crespo.

Knowledge Systems And The Colonial Legacies In African Science Education, Edward Lehner, John R. Ziegler

Publications and Research

This review surveys Femi Otulaja and Meshach Ogunniyi’s (2015) Handbook of Research in Science Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, noting the significance of the theoretically rich content and how this book contributes to the field of education as well as to the humanities more broadly. The volume usefully outlines the ways in which science education and scholarship in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be impacted by the region’s colonial history. Several of the chapters also enumerate proposals for teaching and learning science and strengthening academic exchange. Concerns that recur across many of the chapters include inadequate implementation of reforms; a lack …