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"Your Problem Is Not At All An Uncommon One": Visibility, Black Men, And Sexual Orientation In The Anti-Apartheid And Civil Rights Movements, Wren Addison Weddell

Dissertations and Theses

The South African Anti-Apartheid Movement and the American Civil Rights Movement are two of the most well-known examples of racial liberation movements, but there are few scholarly works that offer comparisons between the two. Furthermore, the experiences of people who fall outside the bounds of heteronormative society are often overlooked in historical research on both movements. Despite the dearth in research, there are several key factors that are revealed when comparing the lives of Black non-heterosexual men among the activists for both of these movements, including the role of the global community, unique local cultures, and how the state polices …

Staging Reception / Perception: Transhistorical Bi-Directional Dialogues Between Etruscan Visual Cultural Objects And Giuseppe Penone's Contemporary Sculptures, Shelby Morgan

University Honors Theses

I use the occasion of the March 2024 exhibit,"Vulci. Goods for Mankind. Goods for Gods." at Milan's Luigi Rovati Foundation to consider how the museum's staging of Etruscan visual material cultural objects and contemporary sculptures by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone prompts viewers to perceive transhistorical bi-directional dialogues between the viewer and material culture as well as between the ancient and contemporary objects themselves.

Via a close reading of the exhibition while leveraging the three frameworks of aura, imprint and classical reception I analyze how the staging of the hypogeum creates a place of atmosphere. I argue this is done through …

Healthcare Access Challenges Among Asian Americans, Phyo Theingi

University Honors Theses

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial ethnic group in the U.S. According to the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau population estimate, Asian Americans account for 25.2 million (or 7.4%) of the nation's population. Asian Americans are not a monolith and represent a diversity of rich histories, cultures, languages and ethnicities. According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, most Asian Americans face discrimination of some kind, including being treated as a foreigner in the U.S and being stereotyped as a model minority. They also experience health care access barriers. Research found that Asian Americans face barriers related to language …

A Twilight World Of Unspeakable Horror: Lesbian Camp And The Vampire Lovers (1970), Mirielle Lemay

University Honors Theses

From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, a wave of lesbian vampire themed exploitation films proliferated through UK, US, and Western European cinemas. In critical literature on this subgenre, camp reading is often dismissed, unacknowledged, or understood as circumscribed by authorial intent and/or intended audience. With this alternating lack of attention to and dismissal of camp, the interpretive agency of the queer spectator is constrained, their spectatorship implicitly subordinated to that of the "conventional" horror audience—the voyeuristic-sadistic male spectator. Through a reading of The Vampire Lovers, a 1970 British production from Hammer Studios, I seek to explore how …

"Address It Or Suppress It": What We Can Learn About Rpf From Celebrity Responses, Z Maloney-Dunn

University Honors Theses

In a growing culture of parasociality, ways of engaging with celebrities are constantly changing. RPF (Real Person Fiction) is an often controversial subgenre of fanfiction written about real people. This thesis examines how celebrities respond to RPF written about them, using two case studies: the pairs of Dan Howell and Phil Lester as well as Greg Davies and Alex Horne. Both case studies have reacted positively to RPF, but have very different relationships with their audience and ways of responding to them. Through an analysis of various statements made by the subjects over the years, this thesis seeks to gain …

¡Estamos Aqui!: The Underrepresentation Of Latinos In Professional Sports And Sports Media, Antonio Hernandez

University Honors Theses

The Latino population has had a long and complicated history within the United States. Since the turn of the 21st century, Latinos continue to become the largest minority group within the country. As the Latino population continues to rise, other industries have failed to properly represent the community. Within the world of professional sports, Latinos continue to be grossly underrepresented, with professional athletes from Latino backgrounds representing less than 6% of all professional athletes across all disciplines. This number is just under ¼ of the total percentage of Latinos within the United States. With Latino's influence of other cultural phenomena …

Little Africa In Global China: Transnational Nigerians In Guangzhou And The Making Of Xiaobei, Tess L. Nestel

Young Historians Conference

This paper will examine the history and development of transnationalism fostered by Nigerians in Guangzhou, China, after the late 1990s. Spurred in part by the Asian Financial Crisis, Nigerian men flocked to Guangzhou’s thriving import-export economy. They established the ethnic enclave of Xiaobei, where many lived and engaged in the informal wholesale economy. Nigerians existed between the cultural boundaries of Xiaobei and Lagos, where they constantly returned. Both the export economy in Guangzhou and the resale economy in Lagos’ street markets were deeply influenced by one another through entrepreneurial migrants. This paper will provide a general overview of the many …

Integration As Resistance: How Palestinian Chileans Have Acted As Transnational Activists From 1870-2008, Eloise H. Brentano

Young Historians Conference

Spurred by violence and persecution, countless groups across the Middle East have engaged in transnational migration across history. One such group, Palestinians, have embraced transnationalism as a cornerstone of their identity as a stateless nation. Beginning in the wake of the Crimean War, and later following the establishment of the state of Israel, many Palestinians immigrated to Chile’s capital, Santiago de Chile. There, they have engaged in cross-cultural interactions with Chileans in order to harness their economic, political, athletic, and artistic customs as unique forms of activism in the absence of proper diplomacy with any Palestinian state. While some Palestinian …

Black Women In Oregon Academia, Topanga Shakur-Freeman

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Black women scholars are a powerful demographic of intellectuals navigating a haunted house of academia, a structure erected upon the bones of a grotesque past. Black women scholars navigate a complex and often hostile academic landscape, a realm marked by under representation and the insidious interplay of race and gender. Oregon, a state steeped in a sinister history of racial terror, casts a long shadow over its present. Its soil, contaminated by the blood of countless Black lives, serves as a fertile ground for the insidious growth of systemic racism. Until 1905, a malevolent decree barred Black individuals from even …

More Than Just A Criminal: Talking Back As A Critical Autoethnographic Journey, Anakin Rivera Ramirez

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explores the experiences of doctoral students with criminal records navigating higher education, using a critical theoretical framework to highlight the unique challenges and triumphs I faced. Drawing upon decoloniality and critical race theory perspectives and activism, I define my critical scholarship as challenging the dominant oppression through thoughts and actions. Through autoethnographic and self-reflective narratives, I reflect on how my lived experiences as a Latino who has experienced criminalization. I have shaped my academic pursuits and critical consciousness. The autoethnography discusses systemic barriers such as stigma, discrimination, and institutional biases, showing how these obstacles have informed the author’s …

Teacher Candidates’ Attempts To Implement Anti-Ableist Pedagogy And The Constraints Therein, Benjamin Barnett-Perry

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

In this qualitative study, I interviewed four special education teacher candidates with a stated interest in enacting anti-ableist pedagogy in their student teaching placements. I drew on Holland et al.’s (1998) figured worlds to examine their attempts to enact anti-ableist pedagogy in their classrooms and their navigation of the hierarchy within their placements. Participants entered their student teaching eager to implement anti-ableist pedagogy. However, their attempts at implementation were often met with pushback from a variety of sources and a new understanding of how much they could actually accomplish from their place at the bottom of the school hierarchy. Findings …

Intersectional Realities, Multi-Dimensional Films: Reading Julie Dash's Illusions As An Activist Text, Amelia Morrison

University Honors Theses

This paper reads Julie Dash's 1982 film Illusions as an activist text, which challenges dominant cinematic and historical narratives through its Black feminist perspective. It explores the cinematic and narrative devices that Dash uses--including the weaving of fantasy and history, the strategic use of period aesthetics, and masking--to expose and subvert the mechanisms of white supremacist and patriarchal hegemony within Hollywood. Drawing on intersectional feminist theory from scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, and bell hooks, alongside cinematic theory, this analysis demonstrates how Illusions critiques the historical erasure of people of color from United States cinema and history. By …

Beauty In The Feed: Exploring The Role Of Social Media In Women's Body Image And Emotional Satisfaction, Momina Hassan

University Honors Theses

Through a thematic analysis assessing four peer-reviewed studies, this thesis explores the relationship between social media (e.g., content, engagement factors) and how it impacts women's body image and emotional satisfaction. The studies varied in methodological approach and age demographics, but included only female participants. The research reviewed in this thesis calls attention to the harmful effects social media can have on women's health such as body dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression and disordered eating. The two main themes that emerged were appearance-based social comparison, and psychological impacts on mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression, disordered eating). Exposure to idealized images on social media …

Essential Knowledge For Serving Bilingual Youth: The Perspectives Of Adult Former English Learners, Maneka Deanna Brooks

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study, framed by dignity-focused language policy and intersectional anti-adultism, investigates how 74 adults misclassified as English learners (ELs) during U.S. K-12 education conceptualize essential knowledge for educating bilingual students. Through semi-structured interviews, participants stressed two key areas for schools that serve bilingual students: recognizing students’ nuanced linguistic histories and acknowledging students as education partners. The findings emphasize centering impacted individuals’ perspectives, advocating for eliminating racial bias in EL policy implementation, and addressing institutionalized adultism in EL policy. Implications include the need for professional learning, policy, and practices prioritizing EL youths’ perspectives.

"I'Ll Just Say It's Been A Racist Process": The Power Dynamics Within And Outside Diversity Requirement Classrooms At A Minority-Serving Institution, Kazusa Seko

Dissertations and Theses

U.S. higher educational institutions have increasingly implemented diversity requirements; however, institutional power dynamics during the implementation process and in a classroom after the implementation should be more highlighted. This study aims to understand the implementation of a diversity requirement during the implementation process and faculty and student experiences within required diversity courses at Portland State University (PSU) by analyzing one-on-one semi-structured interviews. PSU is a minority-serving educational institution that implemented a diversity requirement, the Race and Ethnic Studies Requirement (RESR), in Fall 2022. These data are analyzed through Critical Race Theory (CRT) lenses--introducing Okun's (2021) white supremacy culture in an …

Performance Methodologies In Suicide Prevention Research: Queerness, Colonization, And Co-Performative Witnessing In Indigenous Community, Antonia R. G. Alvarez

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Performance methodologies take many forms—performative writing, poetic transcription, and co-performative witnessing, to name only a few—and can be both process and product, differentiating and unifying a group between and across differences. As a social work researcher committed to decolonial, liberatory methodologies that make and bring meaning to the communities I work with, performance methodologies fill a gap that other qualitative research methods can only begin to approach. This project is an exploration in performance methodologies and Critical Suicidology through the lens of social work research, with a case study derived from a performance documenting suicide prevention research with Native Hawaiians. …

Welcoming Historically Under-Represented Groups In Higher Education Through Awareness Of Standard English Ideology, John Hellermann, Lynn Santelmann, Jennifer Mittelstaedt, Janet Cowal, Steven L. Thorne

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the context of changing demographics at regional universities (including our own), we highlight an ongoing project at our university that addresses the last area of acceptable bias in English-medium higher education: bias against speakers of other languages and non-standard dialects of English. We discuss the hegemonic aspect of the Standard Academic English used by default at most US institutions of higher education and its role in potential discrimination against users of languages other than English and dialects other than the Standard. Data from over 2000 surveys, 55 follow up interviews, and three focus groups from faculty, staff and students …

History’S Movement: The Historical Ontology In Social Ontology, Bennett B. Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social ontology and the philosophy of history both concern themselves with human collectives. Social ontology is supposed to be theoretical, although the social sciences are supposed to be empirical. Philosophy of history is supposed to be theoretical, although historiography is supposed to be empirical. In fact, the a priori and the a posteriori mix in both theoretical and empirical endeavors in similar ways. Since the two endeavors hold part of their objects of inquiry in common, they should be able to speak to another. In what follows I aim to expose some of the ways their dialogue stresses and can …

The Adaptive Roles Framework: Trauma Adaptations And Identity Formation, Steffannie Roache

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Adaptive Roles Framework is a culturally grounded conceptual model that explains how individuals develop patterned behavioral, emotional, and relational strategies in response to family systems, culture, trauma exposure, and social environments. Rather than conceptualizing behavior through pathology or personality typology, the framework positions behavioral patterns as adaptive survival strategies, responses that increased safety, belonging, or stability within specific environments and were reinforced over time because they worked. The framework identifies seven adaptive roles observed consistently across individuals, families, workplaces, and communities: the Guardian, the Translator, the Assimilator, the Archive Keeper, the Time Jumper, the Intellectual Escape Artist, and the …

Planting The Seed: Using Research As A Tool To Revitalize Puberty Ceremonies In Anishinaabe Communities, Miigis B. Gonzalez, Alexandra Ziibiins Johnson, Lisa Awan Martin, Jillian Naawakwe, Jillian Fish, Lalaine Sevillano, Melissa L. Walls, Lee Obizaan Staples

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to honor the wisdoms of Anishinaabe Elders, community and culture by interweaving these teachings with my own (first author) Anishinaabe experiences and a research project. Ceremonies are an important health practice for Anishinaabe people. This project aimed to gain a clearer conceptualization of the protective role of Anishinaabe puberty ceremonies on health in adolescence and across the lifespan. Design/methodology/approach Spiritual offerings guided this project at every stage including inviting Elders and community members into shared spaces of storytelling and teaching elicitation and grounding me as I carefully adopted the use of a western …

Promoting Equity In Culturally Diverse Schools: A Literature Review Of Third Space Pedagogy, Sarah E. Harrison, Heidi Curtis

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

The increasingly culturally diverse settings present within today’s P-12 schools necessitate improved pedagogical practices to develop more culturally inclusive and equitable learning environments. Third-space pedagogical practices demonstrate potential as an approach for increasing educational equity by promoting cultural hybridity among diverse students and stakeholders through negotiated sociocultural perspectives and interactions. This literature review summarizes recent scholarship surrounding third-space pedagogy, including discussions of how educators can foster third-space relationships and design third-space learning opportunities in diverse educational settings. In addition, lessons from COVID-19 third-space learning opportunities are discussed as a model for re-envisioning equitable instructional practices post-pandemic.

It's Disco, Baby: Queer Possibilities And Conservative Outrage, Lottie Bromham

University Honors Theses

From 1974 to 1979, disco music was a cultural phenomenon, gracing radio airways and dance clubs across the United States. Just as disco music reached peak popularity, growing disapproval from rock fans and other Americans who saw the genre and scene as overly lavish, too effeminate, and too racially inclusive, forced disco out of American mainstream favor. This paper proposes a viewpoint that contextualizes disco culture as integral to the lives of queer people in New York City, analyzes the prejudices that accompanied the anti-disco movement, and situates the mainstream death of disco as an early cultural consequence of America's …

Feeling Otherwise: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study Of Queer And Trans Youth Of Color Who Create And Embody Fursonas, Hazel Ali Zaman

Dissertations and Theses

Queer and trans youth of color are often the target of surveillance, bullying, discrimination, and abuse. However, in an attempt to navigate such violent and discriminatory circumstances, the queer and trans youth of color in this dissertation found refuge in furry art and performances, both online and offline, where they were able to express themselves freely and thus acquire a sense of belonging among others with similar experiences. In this dissertation, "a furry" is used to refer to an individual who self-identifies as one who has an affinity for anthropomorphic animal characters. A common practice among furries is creating a …

Creating A New Border Culture In The Midst Of The Climate Crisis: Activism And Pedagogy Strategies For Teacher Preparation, Puneet S. Gill

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper documents the efforts of an activist group that came to teach about activist efforts, climate change/climate justice/climate crisis issues, and to create leaders in one border community. The leaders of this three-day workshop are a part of an activist organization named SOMOS Sunrise, the Latine constituency of the Sunrise movement. In this paper, I will analyze the climate change workshop training days and components of the workshops. Secondly, this paper will document a climate cohort education group conducted with undergraduate students and pre-service teachers the following summer. This climate cohort helped articulate art activism and public speaking opportunities …

The Wage Of Wellness: The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status, Race, And Work Recovery, Emily Julia Ready

Dissertations and Theses

A substantial share of the workforce is made up of low-income workers. Many of these workers fall below the federal poverty line and are considered low socioeconomic status (SES) and are disproportionately more likely to be racial minorities. However, this population is often neglected in the industrial-organizational psychological literature. Specifically, work recovery research has not considered the unique life circumstances of this particular group in the development of the research questions, theoretical framework, or practical implications in relation to this phenomenon. The purpose of the current study is to understand the relationship between socioeconomic status, race, and work recovery experiences …

International Bestsellers And The Online Reconfiguring Of National Identity, Rachel Noorda, Millicent Weber, Melanie Ramdarshan Bold

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

International bestsellers are the ideal sites for examining the complicated relationship between literary culture and national identity. Despite the transnational turns in both literary studies and book history, place is still an important configurer of twenty-first-century book reception. Books are crucial to national identity and catalysts of nationalist movements. On an individual level, books enable readers to shape and maintain their own national identities. This Element explores how contemporary readers' understandings of nation, race/ethnicity, gender, and class continue to shape their reading, using as case studies the online reception of three bestseller titles-Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies (Australia), Zadie Smith's …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet December 2023, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The December 4, 2023 monthly packet includes the December agenda, appendices, and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held December 4, 2023.

Exploring The Role Of Information Literacy Instruction In Student Co-Creation Of Community-Based Research Products, Robyn Hall

Communications in Information Literacy

Supported by institutional commitments to community engagement, undergraduate students at universities across North America are participating in community-based research projects. These experiential learning activities allow students to collaborate with community partners to address issues in their communities, often resulting in co-creating research products that seek to have a real-world impact. This article reports on ways that academic librarians can support students engaged in these activities, informed by interview data gathered from university administrators and faculty members from across Canada with expertise in conducting and overseeing students' participation in research connected to university–community partnerships. This growing area of scholarly activity in …

The Establishment And Shaping Of The Education System And National Identity In Manchukuo, Tianyang Lei

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis studies the education system and national identity of Manchukuo the nationstate (1932-1945). In September of 1932, the Japanese army staged the "Mukden Incident," a bombing of a railway line near Shenyang that was used as a pretext for the invasion of Manchuria. Following the incident, the Japanese established the state of Manchukuo with the last emperor of China, Puyi, as its nominal head of state. The establishment of Manchukuo marked the beginning of Japan's aggressive expansion in Asia and its militarization of the region. It also marked the start of Japan's effective control over large portions of Northeast …

L2 Learners’ Pragmatic Output In A Face-To-Face Vs. A Computer-Guided Role-Play Task: Implications For Tblt, Veronika Timpe-Laughlin, Judit Dombi, Tetyana Sydorenko, Shoko Sasayama

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Accomplishing oral interactive workplace tasks requires various language abilities, including pragmatics. While technology-mediated tasks are thought to offer many possibilities for teaching and assessing second language (L2) pragmatics, their effectiveness – especially those facilitated by an AI agent (artificial intelligence agent) – remains to be explored. This study investigated how 47 tertiary-level learners of English as a second language (ESL) performed on an oral interactive task that required them to make requests to their boss in two distinct modalities. Each participant completed the same task with a fully automated AI agent and with a human interlocutor in a face-to-face format. …