Digital Commons Network^™

'Crowned With The Wreath Of Immortality': Martyrdom, Death, And The Afterlife In North African Religious Discourse, Matthew William Egbert

Dissertations

This dissertation explores North Africa’s role in the development of its own religious discourse, specifically with regard to martyrdom, death, the afterlife, and other eschatological themes. Historians of early Christianity and Islam often depict the region as peripheral, but it was actually a crossroads where pre-existing traditions met new ideas to develop unique, localized versions of these religions. More often than not, these emphasized a pursuit of martyrdom and veneration of saints. This longue-durée study covers a vast timeline, spanning the pre-Christian period to the late Fatimid Caliphate. Its central focus, however, is the Donatist schism that divided North Africa …

The Suzuki Method: History, Philosophy, And Contemporary Implications, Catherine Begin

Research Papers

Abstract

The Suzuki method emphasizes early musical intervention, involvement of parents/caregivers, and a musical home environment as foundational tenets of its philosophy. Parent involvement and home environment in general education (PI-HE) and in music (PI-HEM) has been operationalized and explored in a growing body of research. Most existing PI-HEM research has measured elementary and instrumental students in grades 4-12, while few studies have measure PI-HEM in preschoolers aged 3-5. Further exploration of the Suzuki Method through the lens of contemporary PI-HE literature could reveal a more specific understanding of the Suzuki Method in our modern landscape so that a conversation …

Evaluating Student Success On The National Board Dental Hygiene Examination At A Midwest University, Stacey Mckinney

Ed.D. Capstone Reports

The purpose of the study is to determine if preparatory measures, including the HESI exit examination and an on-campus board review course, helped increase first time pass rates on the NBDHE at a Midwest University. I compared national pass rates and school pass rates and observed school pass rates have been consistently below the national average for seven years. I utilized four cohorts of graduating students. One group was not provided with any preparatory measures, two groups were provided with the HESI examination only, and one group was provided with the HESI examination and an on-campus board review.

Student’s HESI …

The Effect Of Altitude On Decomposition: Toward An Understanding Of The Postmortem Interval In The Rocky Mountain Region Of Colorado., Christiane Irene Baigent

Dissertations

The estimation of postmortem interval (PMI) is a critical component of medicolegal death investigation. An accurate PMI estimate has the potential to influence the allocation of investigative resources, establish the probative value of associated biological and material evidence, shape the analytical framework applied to skeletal analysis, and inform cause and manner of death. Forensic anthropologists are often tasked with PMI estimation throughout all stages of decomposition and typically rely on categorical phases of soft tissue and skeletal change purported to correspond to broad estimates of elapsed time. In an attempt to improve precision, Megyesi et al. (2005) developed the Total …

The Effects Of Police Officer Education And Academy Training Methods On Fair Decision Making, Benjamin Chapman

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Faculty Incentive Programs For Open Educational Resources: A Scoping Review, Amber T. Burtis, Jennifer J. Horton, Mary K. Taylor

Morris Library Data Sets

No abstract provided.

The Russian Orthodox Church And Russia's Military Nuclear Complex: A Time Series Analysis, Myla Burton

Research Papers

In recent years, the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian military has garnered significant scholarly attention. Notable contributions from Adamsky (2019) and the Garrards (2008) assert the integral nature of this relationship. This research paper builds on this research by examining the relationship between the level of Orthodox religiosity in the Russian public and the Russian nuclear complex. This research provides a foundational step towards a deeper understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church’s navigation within Russia’s religious market. The primary objective is to better understand the connection between the Russian Orthodox Church and Russia’s military-nuclear complex. The …

“Everybody Better Care”: A Qualitative Exploration Of Environmental Documentaries And Psychological Distance, Cassandra Lc Troy

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

Severe problems like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss demand urgent action. Unfortunately, people can tend to view such problems as distant, failing to feel that they are relevant to their lives. Psychological distance may play a role in such perceptions. In order to understand how environmental documentaries, which are often used to educate the public about the environment, may influence perceptions of psychological distance, environmental film festival attendees and organizers were interviewed. Qualitative analysis revealed complex reactions to depictions of environmental issues in films, with perceived severity playing a key role in conceptions of spatial, social, and temporal distance. …

Inauthenticity, Delusion, And Victimization: Interrogating Affective Rhetoric Targeting Trans* Youth, Ben Bishop

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

In this essay, I interrogate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s KP-0401, a 2022 legal opinion letter that frames gender affirming healthcare as dangerous, sterilizing, and therefore, child abuse. Within this framing, trans* youth are presented as both delusional and deviant, written off as victims of abuse and social contagion. In analyzing KP-0401 through a critical perspective of affect and performativity, I demonstrate how particular affects have gained power through their circulation to reify feelings and performances of cisheteronormativity, often through establishing the trans* body as a source of negative affect, like fear or repulsion, and trans* youth as infantile and …

Reinventing Black Womanhood: Alternative Media And Identity Discourse In The 2019 Chicago Mayoral Race, Ololade Afolabi

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

This paper examines how a Chicago-based alternative medium covered the 2019 Chicago’s mayoral race. The study uses critical discourse analysis and the theory of Black feminism to argue for the need to examine the multiple identities of Black women and how such identities determine their representation in socio-cultural and political spaces. The findings from this study show that agency is a major part of media coverage and that the identities of Black women are better represented when the women are portrayed as agents in their own stories. These findings provide an alternative narrative to the discourse of Black womanhood which …

Listen When She Speaks: Young Women On Arriving At Reproductive Rights Opinions, Sydney Elaine Brammer

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

While a significant amount of time has been devoted to researching and analyzing existing opinions about reproductive rights, few have aimed to identify how young women, between the ages of 18 and 35, have arrived at those opinions. This project includes a literature review, an analysis of a series of interviews with young women, and an in-depth discussion about the importance of understanding their experiences. Above all else, it suggests that there are several common points of interest and demands for change from women all across the spectrum on reproductive rights issues, and critical similarities in the ways that they …

Psychology In A Podcast Context: Do Brand Personality Perceptions And Social Nudges Explain Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions To Subscribe To Breaking Points?, Stephen D. Berry

Dissertations

Two psychological variables are of interest in the study of consumers: brand personality perceptions (per social cognition, beliefs that brands exhibit human-like attributes) and nudges (per behavioral economics, an attempt to influence behavioral change that benefits the consumer without taking away their right to choose). However, no known research exists about whether these variables explain behavioral intentions to consume podcasts, specifically. This is relevant because perceptions of mass media brands are historically negative, and consumers increasingly seek out independent media (e.g., Breaking Points). Therefore, this dissertation’s purpose was to use Breaking Points as an example to study the influence of …

Religion And Political Orientation: An Examination Of Intolerance, Tyler Campbell

Research Papers

With the recent upsurge in challenges to the public’s ability to speak in certain settings, the presence of various college curricula, and the inclusion of certain books in public libraries and schools, the contemporary political climate demonstrates a need to look at intolerance. Using the Stouffer (1955) battery of intolerance data in the General Social Survey (GSS), we examine the relationship of religious affiliation, religiosity, and political orientation with intolerance. The analyses shows that fundamentalist religious denominations exhibit intolerant attitudes more than other denominations. Likewise, the analyses indicate a positive relationship between higher religiosity and intolerance. Unexpectedly, political moderates showed …

A Study Of Policies And Responses To Chronically Absent Students In Illinois High Schools In The Four Southern Most Regions Of The Illinois Associaiton Of School Administrators, Charles Shain Crank

Dissertations

No abstract

Disability Critical Race Theory And Its Application To Law Schools, Vivian Hardison

Ed.D. Capstone Reports

No abstract provided.

The Aesthetics Of News: Narrative Construction And Media Illiteracy In Contemporary India, Shashidhar Nanjundaiah

Dissertations

Amidst the public’s declining trust in news, media prosumers—that is, media consumers who have also become producers of mediated texts—are not equipped with any credible alternative mechanism to better understand the world around them. Prior academic studies of news and its delivery have not adequately explored the ideological framework we need to confront this frightening situation. This dissertation does so. I problematize the narration of news as an aesthetic process. Such mass-mediated narration stitches together our world in ideological ways. A tidal flow of stories highlights and obscures selected truths in a frenzy of “new” news cycles, the frequency of …

Breaking Barriers: Exploring Women's Identities And Challenges Around Work Through Photos And Reports In Delhi Ncr, Sonal Vij

Research Papers

This paper explores the relationships between women and their work in India's Delhi National Capital Region. Using a journalistic ethnographic research approach, the study examines women's experiences from different socioeconomic backgrounds, professions, and castes. The research aims to understand the complex dynamics of female relationships at work, focusing on how women negotiate and resist patriarchal structures. The research uses participant observational techniques and involves spending time with the participants in their workplaces, observing their interactions, capturing them on camera, and conducting semi-structured interviews. The data is analyzed thematically to identify the patterns and themes that emerge from the participants' experiences. …

Kukama Radio: The Politics And Aesthetics Of Indigenous Media In Peruvian Amazonia, Gabriel Torrealba Alfonzo

Dissertations

This dissertation is about the political and aesthetic dimensions of Indigenous media in Peruvian Amazonia. It explores how Kukama media-makers use aesthetic mastery to engage in three key political fields in Amazonia: indigeneity, historicity, and environmentalism. I specifically examine the audiovisual discourses and media-making practices coming from an Indigenous radio station called Radio Ucamara, located in the town of Nauta in Northeastern Peru (Loreto region). Drawing on place-based ethnography and digital research methods, I analyze the way this radio station instrumentalizes multiple digital and non-digital media forms to make visible (and also audible) their identities, violent histories, and cosmological worlds …

Acting Locally: Vegetable Gardening In Southern Illinois, Aimee L. Trojnar

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the everyday practice of home and community vegetable gardening in a small southern Illinois city. The project engages with questions of how diverse elements of practice interact over time in the development of both gardens and gardeners, dwelling particularly on how the material agency of nonhumans contributes to what emerges. Combining a broad investigation of societal influences and constraints involved in gardening practices with a granular focus on material interactions in the garden, I consider the kinds of relationships individuals forge with the nonhuman environment in a modern, Western context and how they do so. Understanding such …

Voices From The Street: The Perception Of Crime, Disorder, And Police In Chicago Neighborhoods, Courtney Boyce

Research Papers

How do Chicago residents feel about police, crime, and disorder? Using qualitative interviews with 20 Chicago residents, this study examines the ways Chicago residents perceive and feel about police, crime, and disorder in their neighborhoods. The relationship between perceptions of police, crime, and disorder is compared to the way it is framed in the broken windows theory by Wilson and Kelling (1982). The first research question addresses how residents understand the relationship between police officers, policing, and crime in their Chicago neighborhoods. The second research question focuses on how residents understand the relationship between disorder, other neighborhood characteristics, and crime. …

There She Is: How Beauty Pageant Standards Affect Asian American Beauty Queens, Rebecca Chia

Research Papers

Beauty pageants were created to celebrate a woman’s beauty. However, beauty pageants then and now seem to celebrate Eurocentric beauty standards, and this is apparent in the lack of racial and cultural representation and diversity in premier pageants like Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe. Using in-depth interviews, the author examines how Asian American women who compete in pageants navigate their racial and cultural identities and how they define beauty standards in a white dominated space. This study identities two significant themes: 1) the Asian women control the narrative around their racial and cultural identities in a space where …

Essays On Risk Preferences, Altruism, And Life Events, Fitri Safira

Dissertations

In this applied microeconomics dissertation, we study the effect of religiosity and life events on risk preferences and how happiness affect altruism. We begin with the first chapter by examining the relationship between high-risk health behavior and religiosity. Religious beliefs can impact an individual's behavior, including their future health. The 2021 CDC analyses shows that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are still common, with an estimated 1 in 5 people in the US having an STI, and 13% of persons in the US with age 12 years old and above consuming any illicit drugs. We estimate the effect of religiosity on …

Predictors For Student Success On The National Board Dental Hygiene Examination (Nbdhe), Jennifer S. Sherry

Ed.D. Capstone Reports

The primary focus of this research was to determine if any link exists to pre-entry grade point average (GPA), science-based didactic dental hygiene course GPA, and graduation GPA and success on the National Board of Dental Examinations, Inc. (NBDHE).

Results were gathered through NBDHE score reports from Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s (SIUC) dental hygiene program as well as GPA and course grades from the SIUC Registrar’s office for graduates from the Class of 2012-2022. Pre-entry GPA, graduation GPA, and individual science-based didactic dental hygiene courses were evaluated by using the course grades “A, B, or C” as “pass” and “D …

Cultivating Community: Investigating Performances Of Community In Ecovillage Settlements, Alex Lockwood

Dissertations

This dissertation considers the subject of ecovillages, intentional ecologically-oriented sustainable communities developed in the U.S., and the different understandings of community involvement, structure, and challenges that members of these communities confront in their efforts at managing these time and labor-intensive settlements. Informed by the work of performance ethnographers and critical phenomenologists, I consider twelve interviews I conducted on-site and electronically with people living in ecovillage settlements. Taking these interviews and my own observations from on-site visits to two ecovillages as entry points, I conducted a phenomenological analysis informed by a critical phenomenological ethos of these accounts, highlighting five motifs that …

Ideology And Intervention: The Case Of Afghanistan’S Opium Economy From The Cold War To The War On Terror, Gabriella Salemi

Legacy

No abstract provided.

Coffeehouse Capitalism: From London To America, William “Jacob” Dunning

Legacy

No abstract provided.

Contributors

Legacy

No abstract provided.

Heartland Deluge: Race, Flooding, And The Two Alexander Counties, Illinois, David Szoke

Legacy

No abstract provided.

The Medical History & Use Of Psychedelic Drugs, William Brock Renshaw

Legacy

No abstract provided.

Paul Mcroy And Wcil: A Look At Local Radio Culture In A College Town, 1950s-1960s, Joshua Cannon

Legacy

No abstract provided.