High Altitude Exercise, Autophagy, And Angiogenesis, Quint Nikolas Berkemeier

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Environmental hypoxia, as a result of decreased barometric pressure upon ascent to high altitudes (>2500m) presents increased physiological demands compared to low altitudes. Competitive athletes, mountaineers, wildland firefighters, military personnel, miners, and outdoor enthusiasts commonly participate in, or are exposed to, forms of exercise or physical labor at moderate to high altitudes. Interestingly, however, the majority of research on intermittent hypoxic exposure is centered around hematological markers and the skeletal muscle cellular responses to exercise in hypoxic environments remain largely unknown. Two processes that are integral for maintenance of cellular health in skeletal muscle include autophagy and angiogenesis. We …

Tragic Fate And History In Thomas Hardy's "The Return Of The Native", Tristan Pageze

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis explores the operation of the tragic in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native by taking as a starting point the formalist approach to the genre of tragedy, before extending its definition to encompass the key concept of tragic conflict. This thesis argues that Hardy’s tragic vision takes for object human history, and especially the effects of new, unveiled knowledge on the human psyche, thus locating the root cause of tragedy in these contingencies. This continuum between individual action and the larger historical causes that shape it is expressed via the narrator’s discourse, and the discrepancy between his …

Celebrity Affect, Social Media Fandom, And Parasocial Interactions: A Thematic Analysis Of Fan Reactions To Kris Wu’S Sexual Scandals In China, Yan Zhao

Communication ETDs

In this thesis, the rise and fall of a popular Chinese celebrity, Kris Wu, provided the context to examine fans’ negotiation of parasocial and affective relationships in online interactions with the celebrity and other fans. On the basis of a thematic analysis of Chinese fans’ comments on social media before and after Wu’s arrest and conviction for rape and other sexual crimes in 2022, I highlight the fluidity of fans’ positive and negative parasocial interactions and emotional attachments to a celebrity. The analysis suggests how fans can prioritize their continued support and admiration for a celebrity above matters of morality …

Library Workers On The Front Lines Of Conspiracy Theories In The Us: One Nationwide Survey, Stephanie Beene, Katie Greer

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether and in what ways library workers in the United States encountered patrons espousing beliefs in conspiracy theories and, if so, to explore the effectiveness of the strategies they used to address information disorder during the interactions.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was designed with an exploratory qualitative approach. Data were collected via an online survey posted to national and state library association listservs, utilizing a self-selected sampling method. Researchers inductively and deductively analyzed results, developing predetermined themes based on the research questions, then iteratively integrating unexpected data during coding.

Findings

A total …

Pragmatic Elements In Efl Learners’ Request E-Mails To Teachers: A Study Of Learners’ Communicative Success, Hamzah Ahmad A. Kuriri

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Language is a tool for communication. People use it when they converse with each other. One way to comprehend what is being said is based on understating the intended meanings of the conversation, or what is called the underlined meanings (pragmatics). Pragmatic studies how different meanings are conveyed, depending on the utterances provided. A case study to investigate the phenomenon of pragmatics is selected as the methodology to specifically examine English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors’ perceptions of EFL students’ e-mails sent to their instructors. Qualitative methods are used to examine data for a period of almost three months …

Being Culturally Relevant And Responsive: A Comparative Analysis Of The Girl Scouts Of Usa Leadership Experience Program To The Diné Philosophy Of Hózhó And The Kinaaldá, To Illuminate Leadership, Rekindle Identity, And Revitalize Language Among Diné Girls, Deborah J. Belone

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

How does analytically comparing the Girl Scouts of the United States of America’s (GSUSA) Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophy of Hózhó (harmonious way of life) and the Kinaaldá (female puberty ceremony) positively affect the unique diversity of each Diné girl and give attention to leadership skills, self-identity, and the Diné language? This is the research question that guided this research study of comparative analysis. In addition, there are three subquestions: (a) How does aligning the GSUSA Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophies of Hózhó and the Kinaaldá build leadership skills, positive self-identify, and a healthy social and …

Polyscopic Spectatorship, Creative Cartography, And Post-Cinematic Refractions In The Age Of Neo-Liberal Travel: An Investigation Of Youtube Travel-Vloggers, Niko T. Doezema

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

One of the most popular forms of travel “literature” consumed today is the travel-vlog. YouTube is awash in these travelers, the most successful of which even make a career out of their travels through monetization of their content, allowing them to pay for traveling by traveling. My project is a three-fold investigation into the nature of this genre, the first two branches of which are genealogical and diagnostic, the third of which is speculative and potentially transformative. My first inquiry examines the historical and generic conditions at the crossroads of travel literature and empire that have led to the present …

“Great Excitement”: Violent Incorporations Of The American Southwest, Joseph Hall-Patton

History ETDs

This dissertation studies various incidents of violence throughout the Southwest from 1848-1919, often called “great excitement,” revealing a “Western Civil War of Incorporation.” US incorporation designated whether people would be included or excluded from the American body politic. Violence in the Southwest between the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries exposes deep change fueled by a relentless US drive to swallow and digest its people and resources, profiting handsomely in the process. Each chapter is a case study, culminating in a conclusion that ties them together to gain a greater understanding of American violence. They are the 1858 San Luis Obispo vigilantes, …

Cautividad: Deconstructing Notions Of Race And Nation In Argentina 1776–1840, Whitney Rue Wagner

Latin American Studies ETDs

This project is an exploration of the construction and contestation of whiteness in Argentina through the lens of women’s captivity in the middle period. This research explores how representations of captive women were used to construct a national identity via gender, race, and ethnicity, exploring some of the foundational work that would lead to the myth of Argentina as a white nation. By focusing on the various roles these captive women played and centering the complex liminal spaces they negotiated this work seeks to challenge elite historical representations of captive women by highlighting their nuanced socio-political role amongst Indigenous, specifically …

Eco-Anxiety And Heteronormativity In Dystopian Novels, Léa M. Briere

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

For marginalized communities, such as women and queer individuals, survival in their environment has always been a matter of adapting to social norms and expectations. However, the challenges have become even more complex in the face of climate change and environmental catastrophes, which often affect these communities disproportionately. While modern dystopian stories often evoke eco-anxiety by portraying societies at the mercy of their environment, Michelle Tea and Wendy Delorme have found an opportunity to break free from societal norms and heteronormative expectations in the speculative worlds they create in Black Wave (2015) and Viendra le temps du feu (2021), respectively. …

"Azat, Ankakh, Artsakh": Music, Memory, And The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Sasha Linn Arteaga

Music ETDs

In this thesis, I examine a selection of music videos, from those created in 2015 at the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, to those created in response to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, considered by Armenians to be a continuation of the Armenian Genocide. To the Armenian people, Nagorno-Karabakh is part of their ethnic homeland and has maintained a majority-Armenian population and separatist government backed by the Republic of Armenia since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. I apply a music-as-text approach in this thesis, examining these music videos through examination of the visual, musical, and lyrical elements. I then analyze these videos …

Botanical Empires: The Politics Of Plants In Theocritus' Idylls, Christian Rhoads

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This project identifies a system of plant-based identity politics in Theocritus’ Idylls. In Chapter One, I trace a paradigm of unequal reciprocal interactions, “plant-hubris,” throughout the erotic relationships of the Idylls as one partner acts violently against another who “overwaters” them with affection. I argue that characters in the Idylls use plants to explain their own relationship dynamics. In the second chapter I examine Idyll 1 and identify social commentary on culturally specific poetic competition that relies on vegetal imagery. The competition between the goatherd and Thyrsis in Idyll 1 is informed by both the immediate vegetal …

Saved Babies, Dead Doctors: Settler Colonial Anxiety And Strategic Rhetorics Of/In The Anti-Abortion Cultural Narrative, Cassidy Ellis

Communication ETDs

In this dissertation I identify and analyze the rhetoric that creates the anti-abortion cultural narrative and locate its toxic secrets by exposing the logics and ideologies the secrets obscure and sustain, and finally, ascertaining the strategic rhetorics that enable the narrative’s power and centrality. There are two primary arguments proposed in this dissertation. First, I argue that settler colonialism is the primary toxic secret nestled just beneath the surface of the anti-abortion cultural narrative. It is the secret that animates and sustains the narrative in service of maintaining settler colonial social order via control and maintenance of the population. Second, …

How South Asian Activists Queer The Model Minority Myth: A Critical Oral History Project, Noorie Baig

Communication ETDs

The model minority myth (MMM) is predicated on stereotypical perceptions of Asian Americans as subservient high-achievers who comply with the ideologies of meritocracy, whiteness, and capitalism. However, South Asian American (SAA) activists and community organisers, the focus of this study, are working to confront and abolish racist, heterosexist, and other exclusionary injustices, policies, and practices. This dissertation seeks to understand the historical influences of the MMM, the challenges SAA activists and organisers face, and the communication strategies they use to negotiate the MMM through their activism. Oral history methods and critical thematic analysis are used to elicit and analyse personal …

Maneuvering Mestizaje In Shakespeare's Tragicomedies, Andrea Phiana Borunda

English Language and Literature ETDs

This project explores and wades through the implications of mestizaje in the murky depths of Shakespeare’s oceans. Disguises and mistakes in identities and in gender and “race” draw on the hybridity and indeterminacy of the early modern stage and its fluidity and lack of order to reflect an unhomed and unmediated formation of nationhood, diaspora, and (trans)global identities. Drawing on ecocritical and critical race theories, I contend the tragicomic works of Shakespeare expose and dismantle ecoracial fantasies of white male supremacy to curate a space of mestizaje for a new generation of BIPOC scholars.

The Deconstruction Of Heteronormativity And The Presentation Of Eco-Anxiety In Dystopian Novels Written By Women, Lea Briere

Shared Knowledge Conference

Through an analysis of two modern dystopian novels written by Michelle Tea and Wendy Delorme, I will explore how ecological catastrophes and societal changes are the triggers for the deconstruction of heteronormativity. Following traditions of dystopian narratives, those novels delve into notions of reproduction, nature as an escape, patriarchal expectations, anxiety, and feeling of belonging. Themes such as queer identities, queer relationships, subjectivity, and identity, but also eco-anxiety and solastalgia are also challenged in these texts. My first interest is in the environment and the feeling of belonging of a community and an individual in their habitat. Solastalgia is a …

Polyphonic Spectatorship, Creative Cartography, & Post-Cinematic Refractions In The Age Of Neo-Liberal Travel, Niko Doezema

Shared Knowledge Conference

Today, the most visible and popular form of travel "literature" is the "travel-vlog", an amorphous category which can pertain to any first-person, audio-visual exploration of place. YouTube is awash in travelers from every conceivable place documenting their adventures in every conceivable destination, and their content is disseminated instantaneously and simultaneously through the ever present yet intangible and amorphous conduit of the internet. My thesis consists of a three-fold investigation into the nature of this genre, the first two branches of which are genealogical and diagnostic, the third of which is speculative and potentially transformative. Having established a historical and technological …

Languages, Cultures, & Literatures 2022 Apr Self-Study & Documents, Unm

UNM Academic Program Review

UNM Languages, Cultures, & Literatures APR self-study report, review team report, response to review report, and initial action plan for Fall 2022, fulfilling requirements of the Higher Learning Commission.

An Application Of Tajfel’S Social Identity Theory To Understand Gamer As A Social Identity Among Saudi College-Level Students, Mohammad M. Assiri

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Understanding the social identity construction of Saudi college-level students who self-identify as gamers in Saudi Arabia is essential when designing a student-centered education. Although support exists within the literature for exploring what it means to be a gamer from the perspective of gamers, a review of the literature revealed a gap in this regard in the context of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this grounded theory study explored self-identification as a gamer in Saudi Arabia using Tajfel's (1981) three tenets of self-identification with a group. A social identity framework was used to understand the characteristics of Saudi gamers, their positive or negative …

"The Ghost Of Freire Is In My Kitchen Now": Dominant Ideology And Critical Possibility In Teachers' Dialogue On Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, Hope A. Kitts

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Critical scholars in sociology, philosophy and cultural studies have long said what is wrong with schools, insofar as they function to perpetuate inequality rather than social uplift, generally. Despite this well-researched state of affairs, schooling—of the State-sponsored, public education kind—remains beholden to the economic interests of the dominant classes. Judging from current retention and attrition rates, proficiency levels, and college entrance numbers, schooling has continued to disproportionately benefit White people, especially in relation to their social class. Moreover teachers continue to be disproportionately White and female when compared with their students. Through a critical analysis of teachers’ discourse on Freire, …

Un-Earthing Popular Climate Narratives: Maintenance And Prophecy In Settler World, Hannah Oxford

Communication ETDs

Climate change is fundamentally rooted in facts such as rising global temperatures, carbon emissions, losses in biodiversity, etc. However new information about our changing world is translated and incorporated within the narratives we live by and give form to our personal and collective worlds. While climate change is scientific, our mitigation efforts are entirely storied. This thesis looks at popular climate narratives that frames climate change as an issue of Earthly mechanics fixable through innovative technology. The goal of this thesis is to understand the ways in which settler colonialism, as a communicable mechanism of cultural production, organizes this particular …

Development Of A Programmable, Open-Source, And Cost-Effective Fluidic System For Cell Culture Applications, Charles Montoya

Biomedical Engineering ETDs

Open-source laboratory equipment has become an increasingly popular alternative to commercially available options due to its simple implementation, capability of user-customized modifications, and cost-effectiveness. Presented here is the development of a programmable and open-source fluidic system comprised of three custom-built syringe pumps for cell culture applications. The fluidic system was directly integrated with a multiwell plate on an environmentally controlled microscope platform for live-cell imaging and time-lapse analyses of cellular responses as culture conditions are adjusted using the programmable fluidic system. Proof-of-concept of this system is obtained by controlling autophagic activity in A549 cells by adjustment of nutrient supply. The …

Technologies Of Territoriality: Indigeneity, Surveillance, And The State, Elspeth Iralu

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the global spatial surveillance of Indigenous peoples, nations, and territories in the twenty-first century through a multi-site relational analysis of colonial surveillance and Indigenous cartography in the United States, India, and Palestine. Analyzing Indigenous graphic novels, video games, virtual reality, performance protests, and visual art, I demonstrate how air and the aerial perspective actively shape what happens on and below the ground. I argue that Indigenous experiences of and responses to colonial and counterinsurgent surveillance are not limited by the geographic and legal bounds of nation-states but are rather linked through global histories of militarization and colonialism. …

Lecturas Ecoculturales Del Caribe Hispánico Y Francés Y Del Brasil, Mariana Herring

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation, we analyze a selection of works, both literary and filmic, in order to explore how they connect ecological realities with the social, economic and cultural realms. Through the analysis of novels, biographies and films by Caribbean and Brazilian authors, this analysis will focus, in particular, on how these works show the impact of the imposition of the plantation, the modernization discourse, the ongoing colonial experience, and the dismissal of traditional and local knowledge and practices, on ecological problems in the past and in the present. By ecological, we do refer to the interconnectedness between the human and …

(Un)Matched: Racialized Narratives Of U.S.-Based Japanese Men, Masculinity, And Heterosexuality In Online Dating Apps, Keisuke Kimura

Communication ETDs

In this study, I documented and examined U.S.-based Japanese men’s narratives about their day-to-day experiences in and across online dating contexts. Through the analysis of narratives, I critiqued how multilayered differences (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and more) working with dominant social structures affect their everyday experiences within the spectrum of power, privilege, and marginalization in the transnational space. Specifically, the overarching purposes and goals of this study were to better understand U.S.-based Japanese men’s online dating experiences and to critique the relationalities of how Japanese men’s narratives (i.e., micro-level context) and their beliefs/attitudes within and between cultural communities …

Eccentric: Writing Through The Lens Of Empathy, Steven M. Blacksmith

Theatre & Dance ETDs

In this essay, I detail my growth as a writer through different periods of empathic learning. I examine my childhood struggle to understand many common emotions and the ways in which I began to logically dissect and replicate them in life and in art. I further delve into this examination through my discovery of comedy and the lifelong process of understand the deep connections humans make with humor. I then discuss how my understanding of empathy allowed me to write my dissertation play, The Eccentrics, and create a world in which empathy among the characters can be a catalyst …

"Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" Ethnic Mexicans, Urbanism, Culture, And Politics In Emerging Silicon Valley, 1940-1980, Alexandro J. Jara

History ETDs

My dissertation explores the Latino experience in Santa Clara County, especially in San Jose. The area, located in Northern California’s Bay Area, is nestled just south of the more popular cities of Oakland and San Francisco, nearly five hundred miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. My examination of the social, cultural, and political activities of Latinos in San Jose provides insight into the community development of ethnic Mexicans away from traditional sites of study in places like Tucson, San Antonio, and Los Angeles. I argue that beginning at mid-century, Latinos moved into the downtown area and helped prevent nearby neighborhoods from …

Poetics As Rhetoric In The Works Of Horace, Lauren W. Brown

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This project demonstrates how Horace uses rhetoric in his poetics in order to advocate for moderation. The first chapter focuses on the rhetorical strategies of the Satires, in which Horace uses a poetic persona with an ambiguous social status and that acts as a bad exemplum of the morals he advocates for. The chapter also explores Horace’s use of a motif where something that appears quantifiably larger is, in fact, either of equal or lesser worth, which also appeals to issues of class. The second chapter turns to Horace’s use of rhetoric in the Odes. In the Odes, Horace focuses …

Buying Goodwill: Local And Regional Consumer Relationships In Nineteenth Century New Mexico, Erin Nicole Hegberg

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation uses comparative analysis of four nineteenth century Hispanic sites to examine the daily practices by Hispanic residents of acquiring and consuming material goods (1821–1912). Through the practice of consumption, Hispanics created and reinforced social relationships with the groups who bartered or sold them goods. In frontier New Mexico consumer relationships reflected important networks that may have played a role in the creation and maintenance of modern Hispanic identity after U.S. annexation. The nineteenth century was a key moment in the developing racialization of Hispanic identity in New Mexico, which makes it a vital period of study for archaeologists …

U.S. Muslim College Students' Spatialization Of Their Muslimness: An Exploration Of Muslim Linguistic And Cultural Identities Across Social Spaces, Ibrahim Demir

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore how four US-born Muslim college students spatialized their linguistic and cultural identities within and across their social, academic, and religious spaces. The data were collected through detailed and in-depth data collection methods involving multiple sources of information: observations in the above-mentioned spaces, focus group interviews, autobiographies, drawings, images, and narratives. The data were analyzed through spatial analytical perspectives.

This study was drawn on Lefebvre's (1991) Spatial triad of perceived, conceived, and lived spaces, Soja's (1996) interpretation of spatiality and Thirdspace, and Bhabha's (2004) concept of Hybridity. This study presented how …