Digital Commons Network^™

Virunga: Guns, Gorillas, And The Construction Of Transnational Natures, Adriana Disilvestro

Honors Theses

The recent western media attention surrounding Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has brought up significant scholarly questions about the discursive portrayal of “ideal” Natures. In this thesis, I undertake a discursive analysis of western media materials about Virunga National Park in order to understand how ideas of Nature are transnationally constructed. In order to do this, undertake an analysis of the western oriented discursive material associated with three socio-political processes within the park: green militarization, gorilla trekking, and the ecotourist industry. Ultimately, I conclude that the discursive material portrays a highly spectacularized and commodified “ideal” nature, …

Social Media Use And Negative Partisanship Among College Students, Savannah Maas

Honors Theses

Since the creation of the United States of America, the political climate has vastly changed and adapted, each time period with its own distinct characteristics. Today, the American electorate and Congress are more polarized than ever and negative partisan-ship has become a central characteristic in politics. Partisan identities of voters are more homogenous than ever and approval rates of people's opposing parties are at an all-time low. People's political decisions have begun to be more driven by dislike of the opposing party than support of their own. Social media has also grown over recent years and has begun to play …

Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm: Terrorist Attacks On Transportation Systems, Gabbi Berlanti

Honors Theses

The Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm has been examined in concept, but little research has applied the theory to specific targeting of terrorist organizations. To build on this limited research, the current study analyzed the number of terrorist incidents targeting the transportation infrastructure in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia between 2001 and 2016 to ascertain if the Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm explains the variance between number of incidents and number of casualties. The use of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia created an opportunity to examine vulnerabilities in the transportation infrastructure and identify areas in the United States transportation infrastructure …

Brutus, Cassius, Judas, And Cremutius Cordus: How Shifting Precedents Allowed The Lex Maiestatis To Group Writers With Traitors, Hunter R. Myers

Honors Theses

In either 103 or 100 B.C., a concept known as Maiestas minuta populi Romani (diminution of the majesty of the Roman people) is invented by Saturninus to accompany charges of perduellio (treason). Just over a century later, this same law is used by Tiberius to criminalize behavior and speech that he found disrespectful. This thesis offers an answer to the question as to how the maiestas law evolved during the late republic and early empire to present the threat that it did to Tiberius' political enemies. First, the application of Roman precedent in regards to judicial decisions will be examined, …

Attitudes Towards Plastic Surgery In College Men And Women, Margaret Rose Hovan

Honors Theses

The aim of this study is to determine whether exposure to extreme makeover based reality television programs is related to the attitudes of college-aged individuals towards the acceptability of obtaining plastic surgery procedures and how students view plastic surgery itself. Interviews consisting of closed- and open-ended questions measured the possible influence that exposure to plastic surgery reality television programs, familial experience with plastic surgery and parental attitudes towards plastic surgery, among other factors, have on one's attitudes towards plastic surgery. The data collected were then entered into Qualtrics and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) or coded …

The Effect Of Participation In Party Politics On Terrorist Organizations: A Case Study Of Hamas And Hezbollah, David Newman

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to explore the effect of participation in party politics on terrorist organizations through a comparative case study of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The project was inspired by the existing literature on party-terror linkages and inclusion-moderation theory. The methodology used to test this relationship required analysis of the histories of the two organizations to identify each organization's years of participation and non-participation in party politics. Then, using the data compiled by the Global Terrorism Database, I calculated the average number of terrorist incidents per year across the phases of participation in party politics …

A Necessary Evil?, Jessica Wetzel

Honors Theses

In this essay, I set out to prove that some of the medical experiments undertaken by Nazi doctors during World War II have scientific relevance in today’s scientific community. In the first section, the experiments connected with Dr. Karl Brandt will be examined in some detail allowing the reader to develop a basic knowledge of the experiments that will be discussed. This will also set the foundation for the discussion on scientific validity due to the nature in which they are described. In the second section, the results relevant to today’s scientific community will be discussed, proving that these horrific …

Categorized, Indexed, And Tagged, Alexander Bourque

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Emperors, Prostitutes, And Children: Exploring Modern Japanese History Through Two Modern Japanese Plays, Gregory Kalim Darrell Wolf

Honors Theses

"Theatre," asserts Japanese playwright Betsuyaku Minoru, "mirrors the spirit of the times." Building on this assumption, this thesis analyzes how the pressing social issues of two periods in modern Japanese history are reflected in two modern Japanese plays: The Little Match Girl (Macchi uri no sho¿jo, 1966) by Betsuyaku Minoru (b. 1937) and The King of La Mancha's Clothes (Gusha ni wa mienai La Mancha no o¿sama no hadaka, 1991) by Yokouchi Kensuke (b. 1961). Both plays provide meaningful commentary on the themes of patriarchal authority, prostitution, and inter-generational conflict through combining "contemporary" Japanese characters with Hans Christian Andersen Fairy …

“Patriotism Is Not Enough”: Edith Cavell’S Life And Death In Anglo-American Context, Erin B. Blackledge

Honors Theses

In October 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell was killed by the Germans for aiding in the illegal liberation of Allied soldiers. In the wake of her death, the British government created a propaganda firestorm to garner both domestic and foreign support for the war. In particular, the propaganda featuring Cavell was highly gendered and over the course of multiple generations has generated a diverse, and often polarized series of social and political responses in both Britain and the United States. Through the examination of government documents, newspapers, and popular culture, such as film and children’s novels, this thesis examines the …

Social Media Transformation Of Human Resource Management, Lavita A. Williams

Honors Theses

Social media is rapidly transforming the way individuals interact in the real world day by day in the workforce. This research focuses on how social media effects human resource management (HRM) in areas of recruitment, selection, retention, and termination. Through a SurveyMonkey information was gathered from human resource professionals primarily in the southeastern region and throughout the United States. Human resource managers where asked about the advantages and disadvantages of using social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in areas of recruitment, selection, and termination. The results, illustrated that there were many advantages when using social media sites in …

Science And Literature: An Exploration Through A Shared Language, Maura D. Stovall

Honors Theses

Science and fiction are often deemed opposing forces, incompatible “languages” and “cultures.” Science is the realm of fact and reality while fiction is mere fantasy, useless to the rational mind. Yet, the works of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, and numerous others continue to stand the test of time even as scientific knowledge and understanding broaden. Science and fiction, science and literature, are so often thought of as separate, irreconcilable entities and yet science fiction enraptures and intrigues. Science fiction is the playground of science. Where science has not yet or cannot dare to go, science fiction …

Challenging The Postwar Narrative: The Art And Agenda Of Boris Lurie, Kiersten Signe Remster

Honors Theses

Art history is shaped, studied, and taught based on narratives, artistic movements, and the biographies of celebrated artists. While contributing to an understanding of prevalent traditions and artists working in those traditions, these narratives are also constructions of inclusion and exclusion that establish art historical placement for certain artists while relegating others to historical obscurity. It is clear what happens to the critical fortunes of artists who are placed within these narratives. Yet what happens to the artists who do not fit within any of the categories established by these constructions? Are they then to be understood as simply minor …

Women, War, And Social Memory In Peru: The Posthumous Careers Of Edith Lagos And María Elena Moyano, Meghan Kelly

Honors Theses

During the internal armed conflict between the Shining Path and the Peruvian state, women participated in important ways that are under-recognized in the scholarly literature. In this thesis, I examine the lives, deaths, and hero cults surrounding Edith Lagos and María Elena Moyano, two of the best-known women from this period. Edith Lagos, a young, white militant recruited by Sendero, was killed by the Peruvian police in 1982, while Moyano, an Afro-Peruvian activist from a low-income district of Lima, was assassinated by the Shining Path in 1992. I argue that the shifting narratives surrounding Lagos’s and Moyano’s lives and deaths …

Dear Reader, How Do We Go On? Letters Of Reflection On Community Care In Climate Activism In Maine, Ester Topolarova

Honors Theses

Climate activist groups in Maine often see their members become too tired to continue organizing. Thus, I decided to explore how these activists enact community care. I conducted my fieldwork with 350 Maine and its local nodes. I explore community care as a practice and as an aspiration. Community care is practiced through the acts of people taking care of each other. Aspiration, therefore, is a way of living and seeing the self as striving to replicate the world activists are fighting for. I conceptualize care as racialized, gendered, classed, and embedded in neoliberal capitalism. In activist meetings, care is …

The Process Of Reclaiming Tribal Sovereignty Through Healthcare Autonomy, Karolina A. Serhan

Honors Theses

This honors thesis explores the complex interplay between health status, healthcare, and tribal sovereignty among native communities in the United States. These relationships are explored through analyzing the paradoxical and condescending nature of the Federal Trust Responsibility in relation to government-organized healthcare programs for natives. In establishing this relationship, the thesis goes on to illustrate how native communities have effectively fought to regain sovereignty through reclaiming autonomy of their healthcare systems through the use of the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. The impact of tribal-led healthcare systems is further explored through an in-depth case study conducted regarding the …

Evaluating The Success Of Russian Hybrid Warfare In Ukraine, Gage Adam

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates Russia's use of hybrid warfare in Ukraine, and whether the endeavor was successful. In order for Russian hybrid warfare to have been successful, the costs and repercussions of their actions must not outweigh their achieved goals. For this thesis, it was assumed that Russia's goals are: locking NATO and the EU out of Russia's remaining sphere of influence, demonstrating Russian solidarity, gaining territory, and boosting popularity for the current administration. Russia was able to achieve all of these goals with the annexation of Crimea and use of military force in the Donbass region. The costs of these …

Violence And Edification In 19th Century Fiction: An Analysis Of The Novels Of Charles Dickens And Leo Tolstoy, Caroline Fassett

Honors Theses

This Thesis argues that violence is essential to the structures and plots of Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of Two Cities and of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and is particularly essential to the edification, or the moral and intellectual improvement, of principal characters in these four novels. Additionally, this Thesis contends that this edification is both anticipated and reinforced by the novelists’ incorporation of counterparts whose demeanor and/or narrative overtly mirror that of the principal characters.

To support this argument, I bring the theory of Thomas Carlyle into conversation with the novels of Dickens …

The Drier The Land, The Higher The Chance?: An Examination Of The Relationship Between Water Availability And Civil Conflict And Its U.S. National Security Implications, Sailer E. Perkins

Honors Theses

This thesis uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the relationship between water availability and civil conflict through an ethnic conflict lens. It further applies the trends observed in this relationship to United States National Security concerns to provide real-world applications of the knowledge gained. Consisting of quantitative and qualitative parts, this thesis uses logit analysis of data to test for significance in the water-conflict relationship then conducts a case study on Israel and Palestine, Darfur, and ISIS in Iraq to examine how water impacts conflict in true situations. This thesis posits that increased measures of ethnic divisiveness, monopolization of …

The Future Of Isis And Us Counterterrorism: A Study Of Isis, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, And The Us Policy Response, Luke Phillips

Honors Theses

This study is comprised of two parts. Part 1 focuses on ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab, examining the structures, tactics, and motivations of the groups. Each group seeks territory in its respective region. After losing territories, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab both turned to guerilla attacks and suicide bombing, destabilizing the areas formerly under their control. Having lost much territory, ISIS is already showing signs of behaving more like an insurgency and employing tactics similar to Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab by resorting to attacks on soft targets as it continues to be deprived of territory. Part 2 focuses on the US …

Little Philosophers: Assessing And Prompting Philosophical Reasoning With Children, Makensey Sanders

Honors Theses

There is a debate in academic philosophy and psychology of whether or not children can or should do philosophy. Robert Kitchener asserts that due to cognitive limitations, children under the age of 10 cannot think philosophically (Kitchener, 1990). Murris (2000) challenges Kitchener's arguments and concludes that more research is needed. Further, this is a period during which children show individual differences and development in cognitive capacity, specifically within executive function relating to conscious control that may influence abstract thought (Zelazo et al., 1997). The present study assessed 7- to 9-year-olds' and adults' ability to answer philosophical questions in relation to …

The Reinvented Romance: A Study Of Manuscript Bnf French 60, Natalie Keller

Honors Theses

This thesis examines a fourteenth century manuscript of the Roman d'Enéas, currently held at the Bibliothèque nationale in France, for significant textual changes against the other surviving manuscripts. Careful study of the manuscript exposed considerable modifications to characterization and genre. Examination of the textual changes present in the manuscript, BnF 60, revealed an amplification of female figures and subtle developments of romance elements. In BnF 60 most changes occur in the exposition and the revised ending. The writer of this version appears to draw from copies of both the Roman d'Enéas and Virgil's Aeneid. It demonstrates the inconsistencies present in …

Cognitive Biases And Reflexive Control, Natalie Minton

Honors Theses

Manipulating an opponent is nothing new to warfare, but what is new is the understanding behind modern tactics, psychology, and the how the two intertwine under real world circumstances. One modern tactic, particularly used by the Russian government, is called reflexive control. This hybrid warfare tactic is used to manipulate an opponent into unknowingly making decisions benefiting the manipulator while harming the opponent. Though executed through many outlets, reflexive control is aimed at flaws within the opponent's decision making process. Many such flaws are categorized as cognitive biases derived from mental shortcuts that can lead the brain to misjudge information. …

History And Heritage Made Accessible: The Lee County, Virginia Story, Martha Grace Mize

Honors Theses

This thesis creates a digital space to preserve the heritage of Lee County, Virginia through community input of stories, values, and beliefs, loosely based on the concept of an eco-museum as described by Corsane, Davis, and Murtas (2009). The virtual museum space includes a history of Lee County, Virginia, and the community's heritage ideals, as identified through local interviews, research, and stories. The results of the research created www.theleecountystory.com, a community-based website centered on heritage preservation that incorporates regional values identified through ethnographic research and educational information from local organizations and the University of Mississippi. The digital community space includes …

Psychosocial Care In The Syrian Refugee Crisis, Miller Richmond

Honors Theses

The Syrian civil war created millions of refugees who are internally displaced across Syria and in surrounding host countries. The use of violence and forms of warfare against the Geneva Convention make this crisis particularly traumatic for civilians, leading to high rates of PTSD and depression among the refugee population. Relying on concepts of structural violence and the ecology of health, I justify the use of a psychosocial framework to build refugee crisis response in Jordan. I performed ethnographic fieldwork to collect data in the form of stakeholder and care provider interviews and training manuals, and I analyzed and critiqued …

The Fourth Crusade: An Analysis Of Sacred Duty ‌, Dale Robinson

Honors Theses

The crusades were a Christian enterprise. They were proclaimed in the name of God for the service of the church. Religion was the thread which bound crusaders together and united them in a single holy cause. When crusaders set out for a holy war they took a vow not to their feudal lord or king, but to God. The Fourth Crusade was no different. Proclaimed by Pope Innocent III in 1201, it was intended to recover Christian control of the Levant after the failure of past endeavors. Crusading vows were exchanged for indulgences absolving all sins on behalf of the …

Winning At The Graduate Level Of Warfare: Six Core Factors Of A Successful Counterinsurgency Campaign And The Example Of Sierra Leone, John D. Rimann

Honors Theses

The most common form of warfare so far in the 21st Century has been insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, types of warfare which are particularly challenging for industrialized Western nations to wage effectively. This paper identifies six factors of primary importance which form the key to a successful counterinsurgency campaign. These factors are legitimacy, clarity, beneficial geopolitical factors, restraint, intellectual understanding, and an enduring commitment. This paper argues that these factors must all be present for a counterinsurgency campaign to succeed, and argues that without these factors being accounted for a counterinsurgency will fail. The British humanitarian intervention in Sierra Leone in …

"Why Do We Laugh When We Should Cry?...Is It Only Here In This Sad Island?": Gender, Affect, And Empire In Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea And Johnston's Fool's Sanctuary, Kylie Dennis

Honors Theses

British colonial literature has produced no shortage of the silent woman: she has surfaced in a variety of disguises as the domestic wife, the colonial woman, and the mysterious, exoticized other. For contemporary women writers interested in countries occupied by British forces, the prominence of the silent woman has produced a dilemma of writing agentic female characters and women's voices into literature without centuries of historical precedent for doing so. For Jean Rhys and Jennifer Johnston, dissatisfaction with the representation of women's narratives has inspired novels that engage with iconic colonial women, revising their stories and reconsidering the space for …

Overlook Of Sino-American Power Transition: With Special Considerations Of Cyber Warfare, Dalton E. Runyon

Honors Theses

Examination of the current posssible power transition between the Unoted States and China and how it relates to Power Transition Theory. then an overlook into how cyber warfare will play a part in a huge power transition, a topic that is not included in the antiquated PTT.

Graphic Design And The Cinema: An Application Of Graphic Design To The Art Of Filmmaking, Kacey B. Holifield

Honors Theses

When the public considers different art forms such as painting, drawing and sculpture, it is easy to understand the common elements that unite them. Each is a non-moving art form that begins at the drawing board. Using line, color and shape to evoke a particular response from audiences is what ties these fine arts together. Graphic design, however, tends to separate itself from the fine arts. Because of its later development in the art world, as well as, its operation within modern technological developments, graphic design is driven by the idea of communicating to large audiences. In this way, although …