Digital Commons Network^™

A Reconstruction Of The Homeric Tradition In Early Greece, Aidan F. Hoey

Student Theses

This thesis discusses the centuries-long historiographical debate that is known to us as the Homeric Question. The identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the dating from when the Homeric epic poems were composed, the Homeric diction, and the historicity of the Trojan War has puzzled scholars since Antiquity. Only by the twentieth century, scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord proved that the Iliad and Odyssey were orally composed. How the written form of the Homeric epic poems came about has become even more of a historiographic puzzle than it has been previously. Building off the …

Folds, Bayan Abukiwan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the fold as an orienting metaphor and material gesture to linger on the minor details of intimacy that are severed by occupation and political violence. Through painting, drawing and ceramics, the work traces the more implicit modes of dehumanization—particularly in relation to Palestine—while engaging the domestic as a site of quiet and complexity. Influenced by artists like Jennifer Packer and Beatriz González, the practice embraces slowness, touch, and opacity to fold the viewer into a haptic encounter with the work.

Searching For Enslavement In Viking Age Iceland: An Exploration Of Making The “Invisible” Visible, Caitlin Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Enslavement was almost certainly a reality in Viking Age Iceland. However, the fields of Norse Studies and archaeology have traditionally used different lines of evidence to explore enslavement, and for archaeologists, the phenomenon has been left underexplored, and sometimes considered "invisible." While Norse Studies relies primarily on written texts, such as sagas and poems, archaeology focuses more on material remains, including burials and shackles. In Iceland, the archaeological evidence is more subtle - houses with annexes or pit houses, as well as signs of intensive farming and weaving, for example. The presence of any one of these could be otherwise …

Aquí Y Ahora A Dance Tribute To Gustavo Cerati And The Expression Of Hispanic Immigrant Identity In New York City, Karina Terán

Theses and Dissertations

This Thesis explores how dance serves as a language of cultural identity among Hispanic immigrants in New York City. Through a multidisciplinary performance and research, it reflects lived experiences, blending movement and music to celebrate legacy, resilience, and community, while honoring the influence of Argentine rock icon Gustavo Cerati.

Apocalypse As Utopia: The Exorcisms And Memorials Of Las Yeguas Del Apocalipsis And Queer Liberation In Chile, 1987-1997, Nicolas Poblete

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a comprehensive history of the queer activist-art collective Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis (1987-1997) and their performance-based resistance to the Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990), cultural homophobia, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Through art actions blending ritual, protest, and queer poetics, the collective redefined public space and national identity, envisioning a utopian queer apocalypse rooted in memory.

Island Child: Sound, Memory, And The Diasporic Imagination, Rachel J. Oh

Theses and Dissertations

Island Child is an immersive audiovisual installation that explores how sound-based memory sustains personal and cultural identity. At its core, the piece reflects on the quiet yet shared emotion among those who have left home—the inevitability of departure, and the complex act of holding both loss and love. For many, leaving is not a choice, but a necessity. Yet the act of leaving leaves a permanent mark, etched in memory, time, and body.

This project creates a contemplative space for those silent truths, using sound and image to express the tension between separation and continuity. Traditional Korean lullabies, my grandmother’s …

“Bottom Nature”: Embodying History In Gertrude Stein’S The Making Of Americans, Yasmin Tehrani

Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to connect Gertrude Stein’s conception of being in The Making of Americans with her vision of the production of history. This paper then concludes that for Stein, historical subjects themselves, both individually and collectively, and the imbued qualities in their being, shape history.

Intersections: Gastro-Politics Aesthetic And Contemporary Chinese Art, Fan Du

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary Chinese artists use food as a medium to explore ritual, trade, politics, and cultural identity. Centering on The Note of Food, an exhibition I curated, it draws on Arjun Appadurai’s concept of gastro-politics and Lu Xun’s nalaizhuyi (“grabbing doctrine”) to analyze how artists strategically appropriate cultural resources amid tensions between East and West, and tradition and modernity. Merging curatorial practice with food and visual anthropology, the project uses exhibition-making as both method and object of inquiry. As a native anthropologist working as both curator and researcher, I propose a model of curatorial anthropology that …

Geraldo De Barros’S Fotoformas: Towards The Construction Of New Forms Of Legibility, Jay Bravo

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the legibility and reception of Geraldo de Barros’s Fotoformas within Western art institutions, using MoMA’s 2021 Fotoclubismo exhibition as a case study. It argues that the integration of Brazilian modernist photography into canonical narratives often hinges on strategic affinities with Euro-American frameworks. Drawing on institutional critique, postcolonial theory, and the concept of Anthropophagy, the study explores how Fotoformas challenges conventional photographic discourse and reveals broader dynamics of artistic legitimacy and representation.

Fugitive Colors, Natalie Rose Eddings

Theses and Dissertations

My objects are meditations on intertwining themes of labor, rest, and interiority and their shadow sides—power, subjugation and the gaze. I couple materials that have millenia-long histories such as metals, glass, paper and clay with found objects and plat materials to illustrate narratives and exhume memories. Drawn from nature and technologies of land, plant stewardship and the domestic realm, I imagine my sculptures as life supporting vessels or magical enclosures.

Through sculpture, photography and printmaking, I build structures that are space of quiet to be filled with thought, healing and development. Like incubators and seed pods, my work is protective …

Querying The Ecological Sublime: Colonial Aesthetics, Anticolonial Thought, And The ‘Double Fracture’, Tacuma Peters

Publications and Research

This article examines the ecological sublime in its relationship to the history of colonial aesthetics, anticolonial thought, and contemporary colonialism. It argues that, while Edmund Burke utilized the sublime in support of colonialism (including settler colonialism) in North America and colonial slavery, Samson Occom and Ottobah Cugoano developed versions of the sublime to contest British colonialism in the Americas. The history of this aesthetic contestation has not been represented in scholarship on the ecological sublime, which, this article shows, has a vexed relationship with historical and contemporary colonialism. The article argues that the ecological sublime exhibits the “double fracture” of …

Exploring The Biasing Effects Of Gender On Personality Disorder Diagnoses Formulated By Artificial Intelligence, Zoe Colclough

Student Theses

Gender bias is prevalent in personality disorder assessments, and while artificial intelligence has been posited as a solution to improve diagnostic objectivity and accuracy, the potential for such technologies to propagate human gender bias in mental health contexts remains underexplored. This study investigated the influences of gender bias on the diagnostic performance of ChatGPT-4o for personality disorders using three factorial research designs, which involved experimentally manipulating patient gender in a combined sample of 360 vignettes and case studies. Vignettes were synthesized through a novel artificial intelligence-assisted methodology established for this research, and case studies were identified from the literature. Significant …

Examining Portrayals Of Gender In The Design Of Ai Voice Assistants, Olivia Fratangelo

Student Theses

This capstone project provides a theoretical framework for shifting the ways in which we think about and discuss anthropomorphized features of technological products, focusing specifically on applying this framework to the gendered design of AI voice assistants. The goal in providing this framework is to prompt readers to consider how we can think more critically about technology beyond our “preferences” and biases. Our roles as consumers of technology do not have to be passive ones. In fact, the dialectical relationship between humanity and technology makes everyone who contributes to society not just a consumer, but a developer of technology in …

Propasafe: A Bert-Based Offline Tool For Propaganda Detection, Vivek Sharma, Mohammad Mahdi Shokri, Shweta Jain, Sarah Ita Levitan, Elena Filatova

Publications and Research

In an era marked by the rapid consumption of digital news, the proliferation of propaganda poses significant threats to democratic values and informed decision-making. We propose a novel framework that prioritizes user privacy while assisting in the automatic detection of propaganda in news articles, allowing users to sift through the rhetoric to read the relevant objective news. As a demonstration of this framework, we present Propasafe, a BERT-based browser extension designed to alert users to propagandist tones in news articles. By highlighting instances of propaganda-like language in real-time, Propasafe empowers users to critically engage with news content, promoting objective understanding …

Constructing A Teaching Identity That Centers A Multilingual Stance Using Digital Literacies, Melissa Garcia, Nancy Dubetz, Jayra Sanchez

Publications and Research

Throughout their preparation programs, bilingual education teacher candidates (TCs) are asked to develop a “multilingual stance” (Garcia et al, 2017) which emphasizes valuing their own and their students’ multilingualism and linguistic diversity (Morea & Fisher, 2023; Duek & Nilsberth, 2022), as well as planning and implementing culturally and linguistically responsive lessons. Our study sought to understand whether and how taking part in computing and digital literacies (CDL) integrated teacher education activities could support TCs to develop this multilingual stance. Objectives and significance Authors of this poster teach three courses that span the course sequence of study in a Pre-K to …

Notes From The Field - Conference Proceedings, Summer Fellows 2024, Center For Latin American, Caribbean, And Latino Studies (Clacls)

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

CLACLS presents proceedings papers from the second CLACLS Summer Fellows Showcase Conference, held on November 7, 2024. The day-long event showcased fieldwork results of CLACLS 2024 Summer Fellows, and was curated into five panels: “Feminist and Queer Critical Perspectives”, “Transnational Exchanges/Diasporic Experiences”, “Ecocritical Lenses”, “Social Movements, Cultural and Economic Practices and Political Imagination", and "Countering State/Official Narratives.”

Find The Rule For Constructing The Row Elements For Each Row And Insert The Missing Elements Instead Of The “?” Signs, Vasiliy Znamenskiy

Open Educational Resources

This document presents a set of sequences with missing elements, each governed by a unique underlying rule. The task involves identifying the rule that dictates the arrangement of elements within each sequence and determining the missing items indicated by question marks ("?"). The sequences vary widely in character, including numerical progressions (such as arithmetic and geometric sequences, squares, and factorials), alphabetical series, symbolic arrangements (days of the week, Greek letters, planetary symbols), and numeric sequences referencing known mathematical constructs (e.g., prime numbers, Fibonacci series, angles). Completing these sequences requires interdisciplinary analytical skills, encompassing mathematical reasoning, linguistic patterns, general knowledge of …

Racial Trauma, Psychosis, And Double Consciousness, Brianna A. Baker

Publications and Research

Key Points

• Black distress is often misdiagnosed as psychosis instead of recognized as a response to racial trauma.
• Double consciousness may explain how racism causes cognitive and emotional strain in Black individuals.
• Racial discrimination is linked to paranoia, dissociation, and hallucinations in Black communities.

Edc 4200 Children’S Literature And Language Arts In Childhood Education Syllabus, Ivana Espinet

Open Educational Resources

This document is a syllabus for EDC 4200 Children’s Literature and Language Arts in Childhood Education.

Open Educational Resources For A More Just Romanticism, Leila Walker

Publications and Research

Efforts to diversify the field of Romanticism, long overdue, have intensified

recently, and many Romanticist organizations now sponsor programmes

aimed at amplifying Black and Brown voices. Most of these efforts have

focused on content: how to present Romanticism as a global movement

and include non-white authors in our anthologies and syllabi. While these

much-needed changes address some of the field’s traditional blind spots,

they do little to materially benefit our most vulnerable students or to

address the structural barriers that maintain Romanticism’s exclusionary

status quo. Open educational resources, or OERs, are one way to begin

productively transforming the way the …

David B. Smith Chats With Monday 1.0, David B. Smith

Publications and Research

This document is an edited archival transcript of extended conversations between David B. Smith and an AI persona (“Monday 1.0,” GPT‑4o based) conducted in Spring 2025, prepared as a foundational primary source for subsequent scholarly and creative work. It records the emergence and testing of concepts related to human–AI collaboration (including “Balanced Blended Space”), as well as applied explorations in areas such as generative AI, quantum computing and music, virtual orchestras, multimodal performance, pedagogy, and the rhetoric of “pushback” in conversational systems. It also contains an extended section in which Monday and DB Smith co-curate a set of student research …

Seed 1001 Critical Issues In Us Education, Roberto Martinez

Open Educational Resources

All levels of public education in the United States today have become the focus for often competing political, economic, social, and cultural visions of how and why we should educate the nation’s youth. This course offers students the opportunity to become knowledgeable about critical issues in American education and the controversies surrounding them, while considering the historical, political, sociological, and economic dimensions of each. Among the issues the course will address are a) the purpose of public education in a democracy; b) the private/public split in education, with a focus on home schooling, charters, parochial, and private K-20 schools; c) …

Language And Literacy In Early Childhood Education: Hybrid Syllabus, Michele De Goeas-Malone

Open Educational Resources

Language and Literacy in Early Childhood Education is a capstone course, which means it is a core course in the education degree that offers students nearing graduation the opportunity to integrate their learning to help them address issues in education related to the development of language and literacy from birth to 8 years of age. This course is also a writing intensive course. That means that you will be engaged in several high and low stakes writing activities throughout the semester.

This course is designed to promote your understanding of the importance of issues concerning language and literacy in early …

Ethical Ai Use And Classroom Integration Training Modules, Daniel Boudon

Open Educational Resources

This project focuses on developing comprehensive training modules to equip students and faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to ethically and effectively use AI tools in academic settings. The training consists of interconnected modules that cover a wide range of topics, including the ethical use of AI, evaluating AI-generated content, integrating AI tools into curriculum design, and creating AI-enhanced classroom activities. Additional modules emphasize fostering digital literacy, staying updated with AI advancements, and collaborating on best practices for AI in education.

Designed for flexibility, the modules cater to diverse academic disciplines, making them suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses, …

Eds 704: Curriculum And Instructional Practices For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Young Children With Disabilities In Inclusive Settings, Lingyu Li

Open Educational Resources

Curriculum and instructional practices appropriate for young children with special needs including curriculum standards, designing learning environments, developing effective strategies for teaching readiness and content area skills, developing social skill programs, collaborative teaching techniques and using informal checklists in the development of appropriate IFSP/IEP goals and objectives. Emphasis will be placed on the impact of cultural and linguistic diversity on program planning and skill acquisition. Use of technology for instruction and monitoring student progress will be incorporated throughout the course.

La Intensificación En Los Comentarios De Noticias: La Prensa Deportiva Digital, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

Las plataformas digitales de los periódicos permiten una comunicación más fluida y dinámica con y entre la audiencia, que refleja algunos patrones de la comunicación oral (Briz, 1997, 1998; Yus, 2001, 2010; Albelda, 2004; Albelda y Estellés, 2021). Entre ellos, se encuentran los recursos lingüísticos de intensificación que refuerzan la fuerza ilocutiva de los comentarios emitidos, en una clara apuesta por dotar al texto de una mayor interactividad con sus potenciales receptores. El objetivo de esta investigación consiste en conocer cómo se relacionan entre sí los participantes de estas plataformas en la prensa deportiva. En particular, se prestó especial atención …

Oer Learning In Disguise Toolkit, Alessandra Early, Nicole Mckenna

Open Educational Resources

The OER Learning in Disguise Toolkit, created by Doctors Alessandra Early and Nicole McKenna, is a series of learning materials that ask students to apply key criminal justice concepts to arenas like social media or popular culture, emphasizing media literacy, active reading, and creative thinking. The toolkit includes an introduction; five assignment descriptions (each divided into an instructor-facing section with notes on how to explain the assignment, and a student-facing section with the sample assignment description); one in-class activity; and an appendix with additional readings and materials.

The Role Of Acculturative Stress, Discrimination In Healthcare Settings, And Migration-Related Trauma On Hiv Prevention And Mental Health Among Immigrant Hispanic Sexual Minority Men: An Integrated Model Of Acculturation And Minority Stress, Jonathan Lopez Matos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation expands Minority Stress Theory (MST) by integrating the Fourfold Acculturation Model (FAM) to examine the impact of psycho-sociocultural stressors on health outcomes among immigrant Hispanic sexual minority men (HSMM) in the U.S. The study explored how language proficiency, acculturative stress, discrimination in healthcare, migration-related trauma, and stress-related growth influence HIV prevention behaviors and mental health. Survey data from 194 Spanish-speaking immigrant HSMM revealed that monolingual Spanish speakers experienced significantly higher acculturative stress than bilinguals. Acculturative stress significantly mediated the association between stressors and health outcomes, such as HIV testing and mental health symptoms. Discrimination and trauma were directly …

Echoes Of Chinese Tradition: A Guide To Mandarin Diction Through Fixed-Ipa And Traditional Phonology, With Insights Into Intertwined Intonation Contours Of Chinese-American Art Songs, Xiaoming Tian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents a comprehensive guide to Mandarin Chinese diction and articulation, rooted in traditional Chinese phonology and articulated through Fixed-International Phonetic Alphabet (Fixed-IPA). It unfolds in two primary segments, with the initial section delving into the historical underpinnings and phonetic nuances of traditional Chinese opera singing. This inquiry not only systematically introduces Chinese pronunciation rules but also illuminates the influence of traditional Chinese opera elements on contemporary Chinese art songs and operas. This part also reflects upon the significant strides made in Chinese language Romanization since the Wade-Giles system's introduction in the 19th century, discussing how it facilitated literacy …

Improving Low-Resource Translation With Finite State Grammars, Nicholas J. Uva

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scarcity of training data continues to pose a problem for the development of neural machine translation systems for low-resource languages. This study develops a method for the incorporation of linguistic information into the training of neural machine translation models for low-resource languages, using morphological grammars created using finite state transducers. This study explores the benefits, historical background, and effectiveness of this approach. This study incorporates morphological tags into a pre-trained multilingual neural machine translation model using a dual encoder structure. This study finds an improvement in performance in the Irish-English translation scenario. This method offers promising results with low computational …