Digital Commons Network^™

Card Tables Are A Dime A Dozen, Art Is Rare, Shannon Pritchard

Theses and Dissertations

In this text, through the categories of truth and mimicry, discomfort, repetition, and bureaucracy, Shannon Pritchard dissects her studio practice. With a dedication to high craft, she investigates the world through the lens of the Freudian Uncanny, linking eerie subject matter to conspiracy mindset, mid-century politics, and personal relationships.

Displaced Nostalgia, Nava Derakhshani

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring themes of identity, displacement, gender, and belonging, this paper examines the artist's work and her approach to her art. She covers the many influences that she has access to while unable to visit her ancestral homelands. Acknowledging the translation that comes from this removal, her art is in conversation with other diasporic, exiled, marginalised groups. She makes art with various materials such as clay, shadow, light, and paint, to work on the themes that she is pursuing.

Works On Paper, Xingyun Wang

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is about my painting practice and artistic influences.

The Logic Of Car Accidents And Other Digestive Processes, Rosalie G.L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

In this essay the author explores the artistic process via an analogy with digestion. The author goes on to explain their work via components of their practice, described as organs.

The Spirit Of Things Sometimes Or Shrew Gazing, Mariel Rolwing Montes

Theses and Dissertations

Mariel Rolwing Montes’ paintings are viewed as though through a portal. Photography and collected objects are negotiated on the canvas through a collage logic, allowing for distortion through memory. In The Spirit of Things Sometimes or Shrew Gazing, Rolwing Montes contextualizes her work around references related to history, imagination, and mysticism.

The Hand Reaches Out, Martin John Miller Iv

Theses and Dissertations

Through a combination of narrative description and in-depth explication, I will detail the physical experience of navigating the thesis work while tying those motions directly to personal writing. My hope is that, through this installation, I can establish a framework for relating to these systems through the felt and physical, through the suggested and implied, through the appearance of the ordinary, and on through to the interruption of the absurd.

Examining Components Of The Interpersonal Psychological Theory Of Suicide In A Clinical Sample Of Children With Suicidal Thoughts And Behaviors, Alana Brixner Nunes

Theses and Dissertations

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds. Despite a need to identify risk factors for suicide among children, there is limited research on suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) in childhood. The interpersonal psychological theory of suicide (IPTS) suggests that the desire for suicide emerges from perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness and that the transition from suicide ideation (SI) to a suicide attempt (SA) results from an acquired capability for suicide. However, no research has examined whether the IPTS applies to suicidal thoughts and behaviors among children. The present research examined components of the IPTS in …

Inherited Fervor: Maternal Archive, Maria Angela Talavera Tejeda

Theses and Dissertations

Inherited Fervor: Maternal Archive investigates the deconstruction of the non-verbal language of Catholic ecstasy rituals to develop a choreographic language. Through the piece Doves Don’t Fly at Night, it explores the expansion of dancers’ physical range, positioning the body as an archive that embodies memories and mirrors the audience’s humanity.

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 …

Raised Spirits The Visceral Journey Of Black Generational Female Trauma And The Transcendent Healing Power Of Spiritual Dance, Wendy Ann Powell

Theses and Dissertations

Black female bodies have endured sustained trauma globally since the transatlantic slave trade, and it continues into 2025. The collective consciousness has carried the generational burden and mobilized it within the womb. Powell uses this intergenerational knowledge to frame the basis for spiritual dance practices as a healing praxis.

Tears, Blood, And Milk: Frida Kahlo's Depictions Of Maternity, Jenny Mushkin Goldman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Frida Kahlo’s representations of miscarriage, childbirth, and breastfeeding as departures from idealized portrayals of womanhood in post-revolutionary Mexico. Drawing on Catholic and Mesoamerican imagery, Kahlo reframes the maternal body as a site of resistance, engaging mexicanidad (Mexicanness) to counter its patriarchal constructions of national identity and gender.

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 …

One Can Only Dream, Sophia V. Yacca

Theses and Dissertations

One Can Only Dream is an interactive installation in which players are invited to navigate a liminal, dream-like game, engage with a branching series of questions, and introspect upon the relationships between unconscious expression, conscious self-perception, and the inherent difficulty of depicting, sharing, and understanding subconscious thought.

Rooted in both my personal experience with a rare neurophysiological condition and in my desire to create, this project examines dreams not only as a medical and cultural phenomenon, but also as a means to form identity, reflect trauma, and inspire creativity. Drawing from modern interactive storytelling and my lived experiences, this work …

Black America, Ethiopianism And Ethiopians: Tizita (ትዝታ), And The Longing That Binds, David Brunberg

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis maps the concept of Ethiopia within the development of Black American peoplehood and Pan-Africanist thought, while shedding light on the deep influence of an American-inspired Pan-Africanist ethos on the works of two Ethiopian-American bridge artists, Julie Mehretu and Aïda Muluneh specifically, and on art production more generally as expressed within contemporary Ethiopia. They are “bridge” artists because they straddle an international space between Black American and Ethiopian identities. It explores the following questions: How did an American Ethiopianism morph into or become synonymous with Afrocentrism? What crosscurrents can one see in contemporary art production in Ethiopia, and its …

“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.

Intuiting Interaction: Meta-Reasoning And Meta-Learning As Foundations For Intelligent User Interfaces, Jeffrey Hsu

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents MARCO—a cognitive framework for Intelligent User Interfaces that uses meta-reasoning for context-aware adaptation across diverse tasks. It integrates multiple reasoning modules coordinated by a Meta-Cognitive Unit that selects strategies based on evolving demands. Evaluations show MARCO outperforms baselines in reasoning accuracy and computational efficiency.

Voice As Dual Striving: Spiritual Resonance And Psychological Negotiation In South Indian Musical Practices, Ramya Thiyagarajan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intricate dynamics of voice within South Indian musical traditions, examining it as both a spiritual medium resonating with the divine concept of Nāda-Brahman and a psychological instrument navigating modernity, identity, and cultural hybridity. Employing the Self-Rasa-Chakra framework, derived from Upanishadic and tantric philosophies, alongside autoethnographic narratives and case studies, it investigates how the voice serves as a site of striving. Through an interdisciplinary lens combining ethnomusicology, psychoanalysis, and sound studies, this research delves into the paradox of voice: its role in sacred surrender within Carnatic music, juxtaposed against its individualistic expression in contemporary independent music. Case …

Alienation In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Chunying Xu

Theses and Dissertations

Mrs. Dalloway is one of Virginia Woolf’s best-known novels. It was published in London in 1925-seven years after the end of World War I. The novel centers on Clarissa Dalloway’s life on a specific day in June 1923, in preparation for a party she will host in the evening. The day is also the death of Septimus Smith, a subplot character who is an ex-soldier of World War I and serves as Clarissa Dalloway's doppelganger. Clarissa is a middle-class woman who has just recovered from heart disease. Septimus is a working-class young man, a victim of war, and a sufferer …

A Grieving Heart, Cong Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

“A Grieving Heart” is a 12-minute animated short film about an immigrant woman examining her past in the wake of her American ex-boyfriend’s death. The film features a first-person confessional voiceover, 2D black and white animated imagery, and an original score. The narrator reflects on her Chinese-American upbringing, her past relationship, and her current grief. The film explores how love and loss impact the ways she confronts her immigrant identity, memories, insecurities, and regrets.

As Above So Below, Robin Smith Fedock

Theses and Dissertations

As Above So Below is a short experimental documentary film that reveals an unexpected world of entanglements connecting life, death, and fungi in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Fungi are nature’s decomposers, turning dead trees into soil so new trees can grow, for example. Mycorrhizal fungi perform acts of collaboration and mutualism, delivering water and nutrients to roots of plants through their underground networks of mycelium. As we struggle to find ways of living in and beyond this time of planetary crisis, rife with loneliness and grief, what can we learn from fungi and their entanglements? How can we move beyond dominant …

Jawad, Mohammed A. Alani

Theses and Dissertations

In a luxurious suburban glass house in Toledo, Ohio, tensions simmer within a fractured family on the brink of unraveling. Jawad, a 17-year-old Pakistani American, struggles with his identity and rejects the traditional path to college, much to the frustration of his father, Kamal, a businessman trying to juggle a demanding career and a complex family life. Kamal’s new wife, Ishraq, is caught in her own struggles with body image and the overwhelming pressures of her roles as a new mother and stepmother. Beneath the surface, an unsettling attraction brews between Jawad and Ishraq, further complicating the already strained dynamics. …

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.

House Meeting - A Play With Music, Levi J. Shrader

Theses and Dissertations

‘House Meeting’ Synopsis & Related Works

Levi J. Shrader

House Meeting

Brother Preacher’s been away on his mission to find a way to heal Little Brother’s deadfoot so he can walk again and live for the Lord. Family and neighbors gather for a Holiness house meeting to offer their thanks to God. When the cure seems to be deadlier than the affliction, Sister tries to remind them that, although this life is a suffering one, it isn’t worth destroying for a power God never intended for them.

Plays I believe House Meeting is in conversation with:

Beggars In the House …

All You Can Eat, Kelly Schiesswohl

Theses and Dissertations

All You Can Eat is a 2D-animated horror short following the patrons and inhabitants of a bakery as they prepare for its annual pie-eating contest. As the contest nears, tensions rise after the discovery of a dark secret amongst the staff inspires rebellion. Through the visual metaphor of pie and the pie-eating contest, this film explores how sexual violence functions on a systemic level. It explores our collective conditioning to a range of behaviors that contribute to patriarchal oppression and the social cycles that reinforce them across generations. Through design and surreal storytelling, this film captures the urgent threat of …

Unplug: Psychological Impact Of Nature In The Age Of Media Technology, Haisi Hu

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis explores the psychological, cultural, and societal consequences of humanity's growing disconnection from the natural world, intensified by dependence on artificial environments such as media, technology, and generative AI.

Shifting Alliances: Are Black People Increasingly Identifying As Republican?, Clamont C. Mack

Student Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates claims that Black Americans are increasingly aligning with the Republican Party. Drawing on theories of party identification and political realignment, I compare competing perspectives to determine appropriate indicators of realignment within the Black community. Using quantitative analysis across several datasets, I find a modest rise in Republican identification over the past decade, but a more pronounced decline in Democratic affiliation. These findings suggest not a realignment toward the Republican Party, but rather a dealignment from the Democratic Party. This challenges popular media narratives of realignment and instead points to growing political disengagement among Black Americans.

Found Words, Lost Homes: Immigration And The Language Of Identity, Ali Motamedi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the relationship between personal experience and public space through a body of work that moves between image, text, and material. Rooted in an intimate perspective and extending into streets, landscapes, and communal environments, the practice examines how nomadism—both physical and conceptual—shapes ways of seeing and making. Drawing from my background in engineering, a deep connection to Farsi literature, and the lived experience of immigration, the work reflects on themes of displacement, belonging, and identity.

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 …

Understanding The Lived Experiences And Sense Of Belonging Of Bipoc Lgbtqia+ College Students At Urban Institutions Of Higher Education, Kayla M. Bassknight

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study explores the lived experiences and sense of belonging of college students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA+) at urban higher education institutions. Using Meyer’s minority stress model, Crenshaw’s intersectionality theory, and Strayhorn’s belonging framework, the study investigates how students’ intersecting identities shape their college experiences. Through an instrumental case study design, the research focuses on the unique challenges and opportunities faced by BIPOC LGBTQIA+ students, particularly the role of co-curricular engagement and institutional agents in fostering belonging. Eleven individual interviews and two focus …

Examining The Impact Of Expert Testimony And/Or Mindfulness Training On Jurors’ Appraisals Of False Confessions, Izabela Rzaca

Student Theses

False confessions continue to be the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States, often because of coercive interrogation tactics (Kassin, 2008; Leo & Ofshe, 1998). Jurors frequently view confession evidence as highly persuasive, even when situations suggest it may be false (Kassin & Sukel, 1997). A confession becomes important when there are no other forms of evidence against the defendant, especially in cases where police detectives are pressured to decipher the crime (Gross, 2004). Additionally, confessions have shown to override other types of evidence when jurors make their decisions (Leo et al., 2013). To address this issue, the …