Digital Commons Network^™

Interracial Instagram: Depictions Of Interracial Couples On Instagram, Christie Sillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines depictions of interracial romantic relationships on Instagram, a popular photo- and video-sharing social networking site. Social networking sites like Instagram, whereby users connect with each other by creating, sharing, and consuming content, are prime sites for sociological study because ideas are constantly being (re)made on them. On Instagram, meaning-making is mainly done through the construction of a profile and the posting of images and/or videos. Using a mixed-methods research design of hashtag analysis, digital ethnography, discourse and image analysis, I critically analyze Instagram profiles that depict interracial romantic relationships. In doing so, I develop a contemporary, social …

Cancer In Pajamas: Radio, Podcasts, And The Politics Of Free Time In The Digital Age, Daniel Grjonko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The podcast, an extremely potent fermentation of the radio which was so central to many of the Frankfurt School thinkers, is an important political subject to consider in light of rekindled social discussions concerning a society straddling the line between fascism and socialism. Especially the political podcast, which has become a pulse of intellectual discussion and historical analysis, promises itself simultaneously as a medium of entertainment, pedagogy, and translation into real-world organizing for a different world, true for both the left and the right. The truth, I propose, is a sinister other experience, one which maintains the status quo …

Hagia Sophia: Politics Of Space And Hauntology, Hazal Demir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hagia Sophia is one of the most celebrated cultural heritages, considered sacred for thousands of years. However, Hagia Sophia’s political dimension is often overshadowed by its religious-sacred meanings. This thesis aims to analyze Hagia Sophia’s political character through four pivotal historical events: its foundation by Justinian the Great, its conversion into the imperial mosque of the Ottoman Empire, its secularization under the Turkish Republic, and its subsequent reconsecration into a mosque in 2020. Focusing on these four historical milestones, this thesis illuminates a political pattern embedded in Hagia Sophia, emphasizing its role as a space of political legitimacy and ideological …

A Pearl Ravaged: The Paradox Of Haiti And Its Socioeconomic Origins, Isabel Ishibe Exel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Saint-Domingue was once the most profitable colony of the Caribbean, the so-called pearl of the Antilles. Nowadays, Haiti is known for being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a dramatic shift that raises the question of the factors contributing to Haiti's current state, marked by persistent violence, natural disasters, and political instability. Various discourses have framed Haiti as a country doomed for failure. However, relying on binary concepts such as success and failure is counterproductive to a refined analysis. How, then, should we structure this conversation? My ultimate goal for this work is to provide a nuanced analysis of …

The Black Map Project: A Black People’S Epistemology Of Healing, Britton Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work is a love letter to Mary Turner and her descendants, by which I mean all Black people, that lifts recipes and roadmaps of Black creative healing and liberatory praxes. It is a freedom dream (Kelley, 2002) that dares to (re)imagine mental health care by holding Black healing and liberation centrally in mind. I do not seek to prove through this work but rather to provoke [thought|action|repair]. In this work, I unsettle prescribed notions of therapy that have long dismissed/erased/ignored the needs and [therapeutic] practices of Black people. The Black MAP Project resists epistemologies of ignorance (Mills, 2022)—born in …

In-Work Recovery Among Hybrid Employees: Examining The Relationships Between Stressors, Recovery Experiences, And Strains, Stefanie Larsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a drastic increase in the number of hybrid employees (i.e., employees who work remotely for part of a workweek) since the COVID-19 pandemic. While previous research has highlighted some of the benefits and costs of remote work, research on hybrid work is still in its early stages. One area that remains unclear is how hybrid work relates to stressor experiences and in-work recovery from work. The present study examined how levels of specific stressors (i.e., workload, availability pressure) vary depending on whether employees work remotely or in the office, and how the variations of these stressors across …

Migrant Children And Legislation: Integrating Knowledge About Trauma Into Policy, Yolennys E. Albornoz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate some knowledge about trauma into migration policies in the U.S. regarding children. Migration is not a novel concept; it is a dynamic phenomenon that experiences continuous changes and constantly increases in numbers. Globally, the United States has been the primary destination for foreign migrants for a long time, and most of them are Latinos who cross the U.S. and Mexico border. Here, I explore how children face trauma in their home country, which forces them to migrate. Also, while they migrate and after they have migrated, exposing the three stages of trauma for migrant children. …

Seeing Safety In Red: Expressions Of Interpersonal Gratitude Affects Conservatives’ Political Attitudes In The United States, Kyle M. Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current research focuses on how the expression of interpersonal gratitude might affect conservative attitudes, behaviors, and policy support in the United States. This was investigated either through expressions of gratitude or receiving gratitude to an interpersonally close other, as in Studies 1 and 2, or expressing gratitude to an authority figure or equal in one’s life, as in Study 3. Study 1 showed that expressing gratitude, relative to receiving gratitude, reduced support for general conservative ideology. Using serial mediation analyses, Study 2 demonstrated that expressions of gratitude, relative to receiving gratitude, directly reduced perceptions of relational uncertainty, which increased …

Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness: An Experimental Short Film, Fernando Vieira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As an artist and Film Studies student, I saw the capstone option as an opportunity to consolidate academia with the art of filmmaking into one project. This became Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness, an experimental short film written, directed, and edited by me. It is a film influenced by early avant-garde cinema, German expressionism, and film noir. Composed of pieces of unrelated footage and featuring an ambiguous, non-linear, and mostly silent narrative, the editing of the film prompted me to ask myself questions about its genre. Its hybridity made it possible to position the film within different categories, but there …

Ethnic Minorities And Family Health History: An Autoethnography Of Guyanese Americans And Kidney Disease, Dhaneesha R. Bahadur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exploring family health histories (FHHs) has emerged in recent years as an inexpensive genomic tool in public health. Families and clinicians can also use them to uncover family histories and experiences, which could inform better lifestyle choices to prevent or delay the onset of diseases. Exploring family health histories focuses on an individual’s genetic makeup and considers differences in lifestyle and environment. Despite national campaigns, it is an underutilized tool that could lead to engagement in effective strategies and better health outcomes. One important and serious condition that families should be more aware of is chronic kidney disease (CKD). One …

Digital Rhetoric Of The Invisible: Bisexual Literacy Practices On Tiktok, 2020–2021, Olivia Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation uses auto- and digital-ethnographic methods to analyze the literacy practices of bisexual TikTok users primarily during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, during which time TikTok exploded in popularity among U.S. social media users, especially among young adults. It is also an exercise in neuroqueer composing, diverging at times from the norms of academic writing and the dissertation genre to perform and intentionally draw attention to neuroqueer styles of thinking and communication. I argue that bisexual invisibility and contemporary bi+ rhetorical activity must be understood within the context of LGBTQ+ political history, particularly …

The Effect Of Alpha Binaural Beats On Virtual Reality Experiences, Andronikki C. Gerohristodoulos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Visually induced motion sickness (VIMS), a subset of motion sickness, has been a long-term obstacle preventing comfortable experiences in virtual reality (VR). There is a growing body of research showing that binaural beats (BBs) have been effective to influence aspects of cognition. The goal of this experiment was to investigate the possible effects of attending to BBs and any changes to the severity of VIMS symptoms following immersion in a virtual reality environment (VRE). To validate our hypothesis a repeated-measures, between-subjects experiment was designed (n=16) and an alpha (10Hz) frequency BB and a control audio were created. Participants were split …

Investigation Of Algorithmic Nudging On Decision Quality: Evidence From Randomized Experiments In Online Recommendation Settings, Yuxiao Luo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Most recently, academic research has started to address the relationship between nudges and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and found that personalized targeting algorithms can influence individual and collective behaviors in ways that may lead to undesired consequences for both end-users and firms. This dissertation investigates the effects of digital nudging, particularly algorithmic nudging, on user’s decision quality in online badge recommendations in the e-commerce context. Nudge is a choice architecture that alters individual’s behavior in a predictable way while preserving all available options and keeping the same economic incentives. In this dissertation, I conducted three independent and relevant studies and …

Park Use, Urban Environmental Justice, And Place Attachment In Parks In Low-Income Neighborhoods In New York City, Javier Eduardo Otero Peña

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This three-article dissertation brings environmental psychology themes and questions to a large-scale public health research project about a subset of community parks and park renovations in low-income neighborhoods in New York City (NYC). What attributes and perceived aspects of the physical and social environment of parks and their neighborhoods are associated with higher park use? How do residents of gentrifying low-income neighborhoods feel about park renovations that took place in their communities? What can be learned from parks, park renovations and place attachment from exploring user-generated content in the Google Maps platform? Each of the articles presented in this dissertation …

Developing Autonomy And Identity On Tiktok Among Recently Arrived Latin American Migrants To The United States, Camille D. May

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Latin American migrants, as content creators and consumers, active on the social media platform, TikTok, weave webs of ‘self’ across borders, employing narrative identity as a framework to challenge depictions, build community, and navigate power along the migrant journey. Amidst a dramatic rise in both US-bound and global migration, my analysis examines the interplay between technology and migrant narratives and identities across online and offline spaces. While deportation regimes, migration policies, mainstream technology, and state control over migrant bodies impose limitations, social media emerges as a crucial tool for navigating journeys and constructing identities in transit. This academic review explores …

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations Of “Peau D’Âne” In Contemporary French And English Texts, Amy M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations of “Peau d’Âne” in Contemporary French and English Texts explores trans-genre and transmedia adaptations of Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale using feminist and narratological theories to examine gendered aspects of storytelling and the treatment of father-daughter incest and blame in the work of selected French, British, and American creators. Texts are read comparatively, with analyses of the adaptations’ plots, motifs, characterizations, and modifications, both in relation to Perrault and to the other adaptations. This dissertation features prose and poetry texts by female authors—including Christine Angot, Catherine Cusset, and Emma Donoghue—in the first two chapters. Reading these …

Complicating Confidence: A Critical Analysis Of Confidence In A Girls' Empowerment Organization, Kimberly M. Belmonte

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the popular imagination, confidence is thought of as a positive or healthy state. Yet there is also a pervasive belief that adolescent girls are at risk of losing their confidence or of not having enough confidence, particularly compared to boys. The larger field of youth development theorists and practitioners see confidence as a positive, normative, and measurable aspect of healthy adolescent development (e.g., Lerner et al., 2015). Conversely, critical feminist scholars assert that confidence has become hegemonic, mandated, and commodified (e.g., Banet-Weiser, 2015; Gill & Orgad, 2016)—taken up by a neoliberal, post-feminist climate as a technology of the self …

The Power Of Public Service: Human Resource Management And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Meghna Sabharwal, Nicole Elias, Maria J. D’Agostino, Helisse Levine, Shilpa Viswanath

Publications and Research

This document is an introduction to a symposium that explored existing human resource management (HRM) policies and practices in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the challenges that emerged, and the path forward post-COVID-19.

Repeat After Me, Bonnie Morano

Theses and Dissertations

Bonnie Morano’s devotional abstract oil paintings are an offering of conviction reconciled with joy. Balancing spiritual zeal with geometric space, she creates mirrored compositions filled with gravitas and play. The sacred and domestic join together in maximal harmony, examining alternative arrangements of transcendental experience.

Ripe Spoils, Yan Cynthia Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Chen’s practice primarily focus on sculptures and installation. She explores the interplay between the idea of nature and the constructed environment, by examining how language informs what we know. The central thesis, "Ripe Spoils", employs citrus fruits as symbols for bodily experiences and personal identity, investigating their cultural and historical significance. Her sculptures summon the qualities and embedded meanings in materials like paper pulp and clay, wax and citrus fruits, often resulting in abstracted forms evocative of the human body. This thesis paper and exhibition reflect on themes like mortality and the essence of self.

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Place-Conscious Vs. Place-Bound, Julie Avetisyan

Theses and Dissertations

Julie Avetisyan’s installation of sculptures, paintings and printmaking works are driven by an exploration of constructed identity that is not place-bound, but place-conscious. In this paper, she explores how her art practice generates world building under the context of the Armenian Diaspora – considering histories of indigeneity, migration, and assimilation.

Crucifixion Can Happen To Anyone: Embodying Christ Through The Queer Artist, Xander Guyer

Theses and Dissertations

In the late 20th century, queer artists incorporated the Crucifixion into their artworks, embodying a crucified Christ in the process. This thesis seats these contemporary works within traditional Christian art history, a position long denied to these transgressively queer artists.

Go Big Or Go Flat: Life Satisfaction After Mastectomy With Or Without Reconstruction, Susan T. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research on psychosocial functioning after mastectomy has focused on comparing women with different types of reconstruction to women who “remained flat.” We found that women who remained “flat by choice” had the highest overall psychosocial functioning, followed by the reconstructed group and lastly, by “flat without choice" women.

A Grid And A Shadow, Henry Glavin

Theses and Dissertations

Henry Glavin's acrylic paintings on panel of architectural interiors and facades use repetition, contrived light, unreliable shadows, photographic posture, and compressed detail to create uncanny spaces that generate an air of silence.

Through Their Eyes: Illuminating The Nature Of Animal Use In Conservation Research Through An Analysis Of Peer-Reviewed Literature In The Journal Conservation Biology, Sarah Hollmann

Theses and Dissertations

Non-human animals habitually have been treated as a resource in the service of humans and human-driven values. The field of conservation is not immune to this fact. But, because conservation is seemingly dedicated to the saving and protection of species and nature, until recently the field historically has been given a pass for the use and treatment of animals that are done “in the name of conservation”. This treatment is evident in common conservation practices such as capture, captivity, invasive sampling, aversive treatment, experimental manipulation, and intentional killing. A principal question we are asking is how individual animals are impacted …

Evaluating Differences In Expression Of Neuroticism In Individual Homed Cats And Feral Cat Colonies Across Varying Degrees Of Human Settlement, Sophie Ambrosino

Theses and Dissertations

Neuroticism is a dimension of personality that was first defined for human psychology as a collective measure of excessive tendencies towards stress, anxiety, fear, unwarranted aggression and/or instability. In a two-part study, this project aimed to identify neuroticism as an observable personality dimension in domesticated cats, and to investigate if the expression of neuroticism varies on an individual and population level in correlation with an increase in environmental stressors and scarcity based upon degree of urbanization of the site. One component of the study surveyed cat owners about personality traits and daily lifestyle of their cats to test the viability …

A Year As A Monk Parakeet, Eric Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Monk parakeets are a species of parrot native to subtropical and temperate regions of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia that have been introduced to many parts of the world. Monk Parakeets have lived in Brooklyn, New York since the 1970s and many myths and legends surround how these birds came to live here. This thesis is a description of the behavior of monk parakeets in Brooklyn, New York’s Greenwood Cemetery based on observations I conducted twice a week from January through October of 2023. Because of the unusual nature of this population of parakeets as well as their unique …

May The Soil Be Everywhere: Portraying A Family's Love And Revolution Through Oral History, Performance, And Film From A Granddaughter's Perspective, Yehui Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

May the Soil Be Everywhere is a feature-length documentary film that tells an intimate four-generational family story about farming, survival, and regeneration. Set against a backdrop of war, famine, and rapid urbanization, May the Soil Be Everywhere delves into oral history, trauma, family heritage and generational love. It represents a community’s collective effort to preserve its identity.

Stourhead In Arcadia Ego: The English Countryside And The Expanding British Empire In Eighteenth-Century, Rachel C. Sherr

Theses and Dissertations

Stourhead Gardens, an emblematic eighteenth-century landscape, reflects Britain's socio-cultural and imperial changes. Owned by the Hoare family, it melds classical influences and Enlightenment ideals. Existing research deciphers its iconography, but this thesis broadens the perspective, placing Stourhead in its era's socio-cultural context. It's a narrative rich in cultural and historical significance, shedding light on identity, art, and culture, past and present.

"This Other Way": Photography At Black Mountain College, Kyle Canter

Theses and Dissertations

Relying on the photographic collections of the Western Regional Archives in Asheville, NC, as well as oral histories, personal correspondence, course notes, official college records, and other archival material, this thesis examines the history and pedagogy of photography at Black Mountain College.