Digital Commons Network^™

Object Expression: Diligent Realism In The Works Of Roland Barthes, Elena Ferrante, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Valeria Luiselli, And W. G. Sebald, John Knight

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the past twenty years, ambiguous yet meaningful encounters with objects have become a trope in contemporary fiction. Collections and archives, found objects and commonplace articles of modern life have especially substantiated literature that engages themes of displacement and selfhood. The method of incorporating objects into these works ranges from explicit cabinets of curiosities to more subtle appearances, but in each case material reality is the conduit for fundamental expressions of character. These authors draw the reader’s gaze toward an object as a way to indirectly articulate subjective experience, conspicuously displacing the central concerns of a text. This study examines …

How Are Refugees Depicted In The Amarillo Globe-News?, Shannon Reimers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research uses media analysis to ask how refugees in Amarillo, Texas, are portrayed in the Amarillo Globe-News from 2002 until January 2021. Amarillo, Texas is a small, conservative city with a long history of refugee resettlement. Researching one town, over an extended period, tells a rich story of how refugees are depicted in the local media. This research is important because while the United States takes in refugees on a national level, the local level is where they settle and become long-term members of a community. It shares what a community resettling refugees has to say about them. In …

Critical Climates: Stimmung, Voice And Mythopoesis In German Literature From 1950–1989, Marc Cesar Rickenbach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Critical Climates examines the interest in myth among a number of literary figures from 1950 to 1989 in relation to the concurrent re-emergence of the German aesthetic concept of Stimmung. At once referring to atmosphere, milieu, mood, disposition and harmony, while carrying along its root Stimme, or voice, this dissertation shows how Stimmung informed a literary practice among German-language authors that engaged the relationship between narrative, ideology and collective moods in a way that can be spoken of in terms of a mythopoesis. This project builds upon contemporary scholarship that focuses on Stimmung as a way to refigure …

The Logic Of The Land: The Agrarian Roots Of Uneven Development In Brazil, Chris Carlson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to explain the highly uneven pattern of economic development in Brazil during the 20^th century. Stark development differences between the northern and southern regions of the country have long been a problem of concern to scholars and policymakers and have generated a number of studies over the years. However, none of these have gotten to the root of the problem, and state policy has never adequately addressed the regional disparities. This study puts forth a new theory of uneven development based on the different ways that agricultural production has come to be organized in different parts …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …

Prophecy, Emanation, And The Mediterranean Middle Ages, Alberto Gelmi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the notion of prophecy as a semiotic construct in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on a chronological span that runs from Late Antiquity to the 14^th century. It argues that theories of prophecy offer useful insights in the domain of rhetoric and not just in epistemology, as scholarship has predominantly contended. The first two chapters survey the trendsetting work of Augustine, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Maimonides, arguing that their semiotic angle on prophecy depends on a structural affinity with the metaphysical template of emanationism as formulated by Plotinus and Proclus, whose teachings went often misrepresented or …

Mentorship And Support Matters: A Praxis Of Resilience For Black And Latinx Males In An Academic Context, Lisa R. Millsaps-Graham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditionally, Black and Latinx males have lagged their racial counterparts in academic attainment and even persistence. While a myriad of factors affects these outcomes, research points to the importance of student level variables (e.g., demographics and attitudes about college), family level variables (e.g., family support), and school level variables (e.g., school counselors). Much of that research, however, is regional (e.g., only focuses on students in urban or southern locales), cross sectional, lacks strong theoretical grounding, or relies on rudimentary statistical analyses. To address that gap, this dissertation employs the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS) data set, intersectionality, and critical race …

Dating Apps, Or, Ghosts In The Viral Affect Machine, Gregory Narr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an investigation into the effects of the popularization of dating apps on their users. I use OkCupid, Tinder, and Bumble as paradigmatic examples to flesh out these effects. The data I used for this investigation are fifty interviews and a content analysis of Bumble, Tinder, and OkCupid subreddit forums. I focused on the effects of swiping, texting, and the black boxing of the algorithm in chapters 2, 3, and 4 respectively. In all three chapters, I make the case that the shift to apps conforms with the exigencies of an economy that increasingly makes use of affect …

Class Act: Symbolic Revolution And The Meaning Of College In Prison, Ruth E. Delaney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The United States has gone through two transformations in the meaning of higher education in prison and the value of access for people in prison in the last 50 years and is now moving towards a third. The establishment of Pell grants in 1972 allowed for widespread access to higher education in prison, while the removal of those grants in 1994 effectively ended access. Federal policy makers are now poised to restore access to Pell grants to a broad swath of people in prison (Green, 2019; Krieghbaum, April 22, 2019; Krieghbaum, October 11, 2019). In this paper, I interpret the …

Reimagining Post-Secondary Training, Community College, And Welfare Supports, Aaron Azerad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to study the income patterns at the sub-bachelorette level through community colleges and workforce training programs. Using 2018 U.S. Census PUMA microdata, this thesis not only explores which fields of study, industries, and occupations have a sufficient number of observations to determine whether they provide incomes which are commensurate with a middle class livelihood but, also whether these jobs are plentiful in number.

The second goal is to evaluate the effects of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (the Clinton era welfare reform) and how it has influenced Giuliani era ‘work requirement’ initiatives tied …

In The Shadow Of China: Autonomy Movements And Local Government Responses In Hong Kong, Jessica M. Mahlbacher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the past few years, Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, has had formidable autonomy movements that have managed to force the territory’s Chief Executive to withdraw legislation that would have allowed extradition to other parts of China. Often the federalism literature investigates contentious relationships between a regional government and a central government. However, in Hong Kong, the local government often relies on the Chinese state and local elite are largely integrationist in orientation. What conditions empower grassroots forces to influence the local government’s implementation of autonomy from central government institutions? While scholars have …

Constructing Curriculum: Centering Identities In Sex Education, Jozette Belmont

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sex education (sex ed) is a state-by-state and school-by-school issue, and there are no federal laws which mandate medically accurate education. In New York, schools only offer one semester of health education which often happens in the last semester of twelfth grade. Further, LGBTQIA+ people’s sexual health and identities are rarely mentioned. Therefore, this project asks: What are the ways sex ed curricula and policies in New York address the needs of LGBTQIA+ youth? To answer this question, I use a critical policy analysis to compare curriculum from the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and Peer Health Exchange …

Smartphones And Somatizing, Jonathan Berkowitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project explores the relationship between smartphone use, somatizing, and mentalized affectivity. The sample consisted of 511 iPhone users who completed an online survey that included scales measuring somatizing, mentalized affectivity, and general symptoms, as well as measures of smartphone engagement and addiction. Participants also provided data from their screentime application, and information about game-playing tendencies. A series of regression models were used to analyze data.

Results showed that smartphone addiction and game playing predicted somatizing, and did not interact with mentalized affectivity. Game-players somatized more than non-game players, and within the game-playing subgroup, those who reported spending more time …

Broadway In The Age Of American Idol: Celebrity And The Broadway Musical, 2003–2018, Emily E. Clark

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Given the celebrity frenzy of the post-millennial climate, as described by Chris Rojek in Fame Attack and other celebrity theorists, Broadway followed suit and celebrity names were seen with regularity on Broadway marquees in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. While Broadway has nourished numerous individuals into becoming stars, those who are upheld above others for the significance of their work and accolades, celebrities are those whose private life garners more attention and interest than their work. My dissertation provides a critical reading and analysis of the performances of theatrical stars, film celebrities, television personalities, and reality television …

Burden-Sharing, Security, And The International Protection Of Displaced Persons: The United States And Italy As Case Studies, Paul Celentano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Less than 5 percent of those displaced by war and persecution receive permanent sanctuary. This is because the states tasked with protecting them are wary of the “burdens” that they pose, framing them as threats to national economies, budgets, and public safety. Consequently, states seek to share these burdens with other states in order to minimize their own international protection obligations. While the modern norm of “burden-sharing” has existed since at least the mid-twentieth century, it is vague and, therefore, permissive of a wide range of state behavior. When viewed through the lens of “securitization,” states utilize alarmist rhetoric and …

Embracing Conflict And Contradiction As A Path To Awareness, Joann Rintel Abreu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of this autoethnographic dissertation is the exploration of habitus and how it consciously and unconsciously influences our perceptions, emotions, values, and actions. I describe this dissertation as an autoethnography to highlight my subjective approach to research and to dispel any claims of objectivity. Through my experiences as a daughter, mother, administrator, and teacher-educator, I explore three internal conflicts, highlighted by intense emotional reactions, and deconstruct how my past and present contexts inform my values, beliefs, and actions. In each chapter, I describe several events that led to a greater understanding of my emotional responses and how I adapted …

The One-Armed Viewer: Voyeurism And Masturbation In Nudist Imagery And Film Spectatorship, Benjamin Eleanor Adam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nudist magazines and newsletters were among the first commercial, legal, and widely-available images of nudity which circulated in the late Comstock Era. To evade censorship, producers developed framing strategies that obscured the sexualized nature of these images, even as they also enabled the viewing practices their sales relied upon. This dissertation traces these framing strategies as they evolved through nudist still-imagery, camp films, and nudie cuties, and considers the evolution of spectatorial pleasures associated with Russ Meyer's early nudie cuties.

The Different Components Of Active Shooter Incidents: Examining The Co-Occurrence Of Offender And Incident Characteristics, Jeffery R. Osborne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present dissertation examined 198 United States single-offender active shooter incidents and thematically differentiated cases based on 1) offender backgrounds, 2) precipitating stressors, 3) offender routine activity, 4) crime scene location, and 5) incident characteristics. Doing so contributed to the increasing number of studies that have stressed the importance of creating empirically-based models to better understand active shooter incidents and the offenders who are responsible. To structure this investigation into active shooter incidents, concepts within Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis were paired with analytical methodologies seen in Offender Profiling and Investigative Psychology research.

The findings illustrated that offenders could be …

Between Kurdistan And Damascus: Kurdish Nationalism And Arab State Formation In Syria, Alexander K. Mckeever

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the fall of the Ottoman empire, Kurdish nationalism has developed as an ideology within a regional state system where Kurds lack national representation or recognition. This ideology has manifested itself into a fractured movement where the contemporary state borders that separate the Kurdish population at large have proven to be both a limiting and a creative factor. This thesis examines the history of Kurdish nationalism in Syria with a focus on both the local context as defined by Syria’s borders in addition to the broader region, for the politics of Kurds in Syria have clearly been shaped by interactions …

Producing Movement Space In New York City's Solidarity Economy, Lauren Taylor Hudson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is a project about how New Yorkers are sharing time, space, resources, and risks to meet their collective needs. To these practitioners the interlocking methods of collective production, use, distribution, and surplus allocation unite to form a ‘Solidarity Economy’ (SE) strengthened by values of cooperation, social justice, ecological sustainability, and mutualism. This work takes many forms, from cooperative businesses, to collective housing, to community gardens—each with their own discrete histories. One thing remains common throughout: In New York City, those who use ‘Solidarity Economy’ as a framework for their work, do so to communicate a shared social and political …

School Recess And Changes To Children's Play Opportunities In New York City, Keyonna Hayes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The policy, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 in US public schools was designed to improve how children learn and test in schools, but it has resulted in the decline or removal of recess from most schools. This thesis examines two important issues. The first issue is to assess the play opportunities that public elementary schools offer to children, in terms of both the time available for recess and the quality of the spaces and resources for play during recess. The second issue is to learn, alongside the question of the quality of school recess, how parents’ work …

Transcending Absence, Transforming Presence: Undocumented Migrants And The Navigation Of Forced And Chosen Space, Daniel Bloch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By its very nature, undocumented migration challenges the notion of set, static borders, at once rendering them transcend-able while also throwing into stark relief the power and control exercised by the state over undocumented migrants along the arc of their journeys. Two main questions guide my analysis: 1) How are migrants forced to enter and navigate geographic space and zones of exclusion? and 2) How do migrants subvert enforced spaces – often categorized by limbo and uncertainty – both by marking them with their presence and by creating alternative spaces? I consider two compelling examples: In Chapter One, using the …

Varieties Of Transnational Life: Brazilian Nikkeis’ Changing Cross-Border Ties With Two Homelands, Hiroyuki Shibata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the varieties of Brazilian Nikkei’s – Japanese emigrants to Brazil and their descendants – transnational lives throughout a century of their migration history. I propose an interactive process approach to migrant transnationalism to understand the divergence of Brazilian Nikkeis’ transnational lives between their two homelands, Japan and Brazil. First, I focus on the four macro-institutional contexts: 1) positions and development patterns of sending and receiving states within the international state system; the infrastructural power of states, more concretely 2) the diasporic bureaucracy of sending states and 3) the incorporative power of receiving states; and 4) the mobilizing …

Is This My Body? A Manual On Navigating Child Masturbation Without Shame, Stephanie M. Amis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children’s natural exploration of their bodies and sexual expression through masturbation is often considered to be taboo by many adults and caregivers. It is important that children are taught that they have the right to explore their own bodies, to express and experience any sexual developments that may be happening. A child can be innocent and still have the freedom to explore the biological processes of their sexuality. In early Christianity, 19th century physicians and some 20th century psychologists greatly influenced the negative attitudes around aspects of child sexuality such as masturbation that still thrive today. As far as child …

When Is A Sandwich Too Much? A Critical Look At Teenage Parenthood And Its Impact On The Lives Of Their Parents, Shirley P. Grant

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The transition into early parenthood also implies a shift to early grandparenthood for the parents of teenage parents. The stigmas and stereotypes associated with teenage pregnancy and parenthood are also experienced by their parents for the decisions their children have made. Furthermore, some of these grandparents are caregivers to aging parents while also parenting their younger children. These people, recently called, “the club sandwiched” generation, appear to be experiencing physical, social, economic, and psychological impacts because of their responsibilities of caring for three generations but have not yet received much attention in academic literature. Teenage pregnancy can affect any family. …

Non Ego Laudari Curo: Honor, Shame, And Aristocratic Competition In Tibullus’ Elegy, Federico Di Pasqua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation explores the ethics of shame and honor at the end of the Republic to offer new perspectives on Tibullus’ work and Roman elegy. By situating Tibullus’ corpus within his contemporaries’ aristocratic discourse on honor, my research argues that the elegiac narrator is not alien from the heroic self-assertion and pursuit of vengeance, typical of the honor-seeking elites of Roman antiquity. In my reading, Tibullus, while clad in elegiac non-conformity, is deeply committed to his contemporaries’ honor-driven ethos and, therefore, wary of the policing gaze of his fellow Romans. Albius Tibullus was an elegist and a citizen of equestrian …

The American Symphony Orchestra Today: Problems In Community, Diversity, And Representation, Hilary Slade Jansen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the symphony orchestra and its socio-political context in the United States. Using three orchestral case studies—the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Venezuela’s El Sistema—I examine the ways in which American symphony orchestras have responded both today and in the past to the public and academic discourse around social inclusion. Interweaving musicology, sociology, urban anthropology, cultural studies, education, economics, ethnomusicology, economics, data from grant-giving institutions, and from symphony orchestras themselves, I seek to situate the wider discourse on social justice in the arts (which has, until recently, lived largely outside of academia) within a musicological …

The Politics Of Hip Hop: A Political Analysis Of Hip Hop’S History And Its Complicated Relationship With Capitalism, Danielle Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the emergence of the Hip Hop movement in the 1970s in areas of New York City often referred to more generally as the South Bronx. Focusing mostly on the 1970s and 1980s, this thesis explores the underlying conditions that Hip Hop was born out of. Influenced by both global and national politics, Hip Hop provided a common space for underrepresented individuals and groups to unify, create common identities, and liberate themselves from the oppressive norms and political activity of a rich, mostly white, and dominant American society that tried to erase or silence them. This revolutionary aspect …

Progress Narratives In Trans Internationalism: Surveying A Collected Archive Of The Global Trans Movement, 2008–2018, Flora P. Wolpert Checknoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Trans liberation as a global movement began to be documented in public reports in the mid-2000s. Gathered together from their first decade (2008-2018), publications produced by three trans INGOs—Transgender Europe (TGEU), the Asia Pacific Trans Network (APTN), and Global Action for Trans* Equality (GATE)—demonstrate the cultivation of a global trans imaginary and materialize records of a coalescing struggle. The publications depict tensions between an evolving global trans imaginary and the construction of a rights deserving trans population in the development sector. The seeking of international action and resources has compelled the unification of messaging through rhetoric and data aggregation across …

Place Branding As A Mode Of Urban Governance And Verticalisation: The Case Of Tokyo And New York, Z. Ruya Yuksel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how place branding activities are amalgamated into the urban governance policies and how skyscrapers are weaved into this process by studying two of the top ten most vertical cities in the world: Tokyo and New York.

Fascination with building up towards the sky is nothing new. Yet what is new is that skyscrapers are becoming as part of place branding strategies which are seeping into urban governance practices. Concepts of place branding, urban development, spatial planning and governance are now being discussed and understood as significant elements of the same process where branding informs configurations and development …