Digital Commons Network^™

American And Iraqi Prose Fiction Of The Iraq War: Traumas Of The Self, Traumas Of The Nation, Ghyath Manhel Alkinani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

War is so omnipresent in our contemporary world that the story of war is too important to be left to fiction writers to frame and give meaning for. This dissertation provides an analysis of two dominant patterns in contemporary Iraqi and American prose fictional representations of the Iraq War: the individualistic trauma hero narrative and the nationalistic, collective narrative. I argue that the trauma hero myth that dominates American representations of the Iraq War psychologizes and de-politicizes war experience alienating the victim of trauma by decontextualizing their experience and negating the Other. On the other hand, the sweeping nationalistic narrative …

Leveraging Technology And Culturally Relevant Content To Enhance Student Engagement And Classroom Management, Andrea Wojciehowski

Theses

The project focuses upon the application of culturally relevant content, and implementing technology as a means to enhance student engagement, and classroom management. The purpose of the project was to research current classroom management strategies, and implement these strategies, using technology to enhance student engagement, and in turn, enhance student learning, while decreasing disruptive behaviors.

Stories Of Color: An Exploration Of Storytelling And Racial Microaggression, Tama Lunceford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines experiences of racial microaggressions as related to an audience through the art of Storytelling. Integrating Performance Ethnography and Critical Race Theory, it examines how storytelling may serve to illuminate the concept of racial microaggressions. After examining the current body of work on Racism, Storytelling and Microaggression, the author moves through the stories of experiences with racial microaggression from four individuals, gathered and performed as a storytelling event, before a live audience. The communicative management methods individuals use when talking about race and racial microaggressions are explored in presentation of the audience discussion which followed the performance. The …

A Power Man’S Theology: Marvel’S Luke Cage And Black Liberation Theology, Diarron B. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Netflix released Marvel’s Luke Cage in 2016 to critical acclaim. Born from a 1970s comic book, the series features Luke Cage, an African-American superhero. Cage is a big, bald, bulletproof black man. Instead of tights and a cape, Cage wears a hoodie calling the audience to remember Trayvon Martin and other victims of white racism. Theologian James Cone created Black Liberation Theology in the 1970s. As a result of Cone’s work, Black Liberation Theology addresses the issue of white racism from a theological standpoint. In this thesis I present a close reading of Marvel’s Luke Cage using Black Liberation Theology …

Conflict Style And Marital Satisfaction In Black Intercultural Couples, Tiffanie James Parker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Current literature suggests that culture-specific relationships exist between conflict styles and marital satisfaction; however, researchers have only focused on marriages between non-Westerners and Westerners. Very little research exists on how these variables function uniquely in marriages involving African American and African Caribbean individuals. This quantitative study examined the relationship between conflict style and marital satisfaction with and between African Caribbean and African American couples living in the United States. The research focused on three questions: (1) Will cultural differences between spouses influence the relationship between conflict styles and marital satisfaction? (2) Will there be any observable differences in conflict styles …

Priestly Formation And Sexual Abuse In The Roman Catholic Church: In Dialogue With The Nigerian Church, Simonmary Asese Aihiokhai

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Reading the signs of the times today cannot be done legitimately without a critical look at the current sex abuse crisis perpetuated by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. To deny the fact that the Church has a crisis on its hands is to trivialize the pain and sorrow experienced by all in the Church, and most especially by the victims of the crisis. This work provides an x-ray vision of some of the factors shaping this crisis and boldly offers some interventions that can help the Church to navigate its way out of the crisis. There is an …

Bicultural Development Of Students In A Dual Language Program, Quinn Wulbecker

Dissertations

Dual language programs are often viewed as enrichment programs for students of various language backgrounds. This study evaluated the long-term bicultural impact on students who participated in the Hawkins School District (pseudonym) Spanish-English dual language program. The participants in this study were graduates of the Hawkins Spanish-English dual language program who were in college or beginning their careers. These graduates participated in an interview to offer their perceptions on their current level of biculturalism and the extent to which their participation in the dual language program shaped it. The results of this study revealed that biculturalism is a possible outcome …

Archaeology On The Widdicom Tract At Hobcaw Barony, Heathley A. Johnson

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Effects Between Prison Documentaries And Popularity Among Viewers, Dominique Malone

Honors Theses

This research examines the themes between a variety of prison documentaries and the subsequent viewership. In recent years, documentaries depicting prison life have risen in popularity due to a number of factors such as violence, drama, hysteria, and an overall sense of fascination (Cecil, 2009). This popularity may have impacted views on the current criminal justice system considering most people never have contact with the criminal justice system in their lifetimes (Cecil, 2009). Therefore, these documentaries may serve as one of the only bases for information that they may have about the system (Cecil, 2009). Because prison documentaries are fulfilling …

Denkyem (Crocodile): Identity Development And Negotiation Among Ghanaian-American Millennials., Jakia Marie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ghanaian immigrants and second-generation Ghanaian-American Millennials are largely ignored in scholarship. Using qualitative methods, this study explored the experiences of Ghanaian-American Millennials who are first, 1.5, and second-generations with the purpose of understanding how they create, negotiate, and re-create identities. Twenty-one individuals were interviewed using a phenomenological approach. The main findings suggest that even though the sample populations were of different immigrant generations, they have some similar experiences, which demonstrates the value in exploring age instead of solely immigrant generation. The findings also suggest that there are a number of complex layers that are involved in identity development and negotiation …

The Impact Of Culturally Different Types Of Faking On Test Properties, Yumiko Mochinushi

Theses and Dissertations

Personality measures have become a key component of the human capital strategies of organizations (Hough & Oswald, 2008). Multinationals often conduct employee selection across countries, and opportunities have expanded for using personality tests in selection across cultures. However, few studies have yet investigated applicant faking behavior in cross-cultural contexts, despite research suggesting that psychometric assessment tools are vulnerable to this (Salgado, 2016). One of main causes of the limited number of cross-cultural faking studies is the difficulty in data collection. Simulation is one of the more promising methods, and current research of similar problems often uses simulation (e.g., Jin & …

Montclair Magazine (Fall/Winter 2019), Montclair State University

Montclair: The magazine of Montclair State University

No abstract provided.

The Development Of Students’ Understandings Of Social Identity, Inequality, And Service During A Critical International Service-Learning Program In The Dominican Republic, Jeremy Gombin-Sperling

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

Emerging Scholar Issue

Shakespeare's Cultural Capital Conversion, Christopher S. Hults

Theses and Dissertations

Shakespeare's vast cultural capital does not often translate easily to financial capital.Whether those who invest in Shakespeare seek financial, educational, or cultural gain, anunderstanding of capital conversion as it relates to Shakespeare industries can inform decisionsand clarify goals. After clarifying and delineating what we have and know of Shakespeare before1616 and what has been created by culture regarding him after 1616, we label the latterShakesaltation, then seek the key to converting his cultural capital to financial capital. ApplyingPierre Bourdieu's states of cultural capital to the Shakespeare industry illustrates why manyinvestments fail, few succeed, and why: cultural capital must be in …

Impact Of Intercultural Competence On Communicative Success In L2 Environments(With Reference To Missionaries Of The Church Ofjesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints), David Milford Lucero

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the impact of cultural competence on success in completing key missionary tasks. Qualitative survey results are supported by data from an intercultural effectiveness assessment and a Mandarin Chinese listening proficiency test to describe themes related to missionary communicative success and to explore correlations between intercultural effectiveness and listening proficiency. Missionary communicative tasks are clarified into themes:"obtaining referrals,"obtaining teaching opportunities," and"helping people make and keep commitments." Factors perceived as associating with communicative success include"feeling and communicating love" and receiving"spiritual guidance." The effect of training on intercultural competence is also described. The intercultural effectiveness subcategory of positive regard is …

New Perspectives On Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, The Nazi Pogrom In Global Comparison, Wolf Gruner, Steven J. Ross

Purdue University Press Book Previews

On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leadership unleashed an unprecedented orchestrated wave of violence against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, supposedly in response to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Polish Jew, but in reality to force the remaining Jews out of the country. During the pogrom, Stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and ordinary Germans murdered more than a hundred Jews (many more committed suicide) and ransacked and destroyed thousands of Jewish institutions, synagogues, shops, and homes. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps.

Volume 17 of the Casden Annual Review includes …

The Player Character's Journey: The Hero's Journey In Moldvay's Dungeons & Dragons, Robert Leopold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the archetypes, motifs, and stages of the Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as they are found in the Moldvay revision of the rules to Basic Dungeons & Dragons, that emerge from playing the game using the seven adventure modules printed for these rules. Using narratological concepts, the definition of what makes narrative is expanded to include the narrative that emerges by playing story-based roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. These narratives, based on the seven adventure modules, are the analyzed using Campbell's monomyth as an interpretive tool, showing that these types of narratives are up to …

Globalizing Sustainable Education: Environmental Literacy Connecting Cultural Literacy, Sofia Maciel

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This Capstone project aims to increase the integration of both a sustainable and globalized education. This is an important issue for students and teachers worldwide because without a more globalized and environmentally aware educational focus in schools, there will be little to no improvement in the suffering and changing climate of the planet. It is argued that after decades of neglect, nations are finally becoming aware that the natural health of the earth is in a delicate state. We are all stakeholders facing the risk of environmental dangers, but for this project the focus is on teachers and students. These …

Growing Elementary Education With Curriculum Founded In Place, Sally A. Triant

Masters Projects

Public school education has become increasingly homogenized as teachers work to meet national and state standardized curriculum goals. What is at risk is students losing touch with the places where their learning occurs. By inviting our schoolyard habitats, neighborhoods, and communities back into the curriculum educators can reconnect their classrooms to place allowing the environment, both ecological and cultural, to serve as the foundation for meaningful learning. Through the development of a guidebook, that administrators and educators can use, this project serves as a tool to implement place-based education. The guidebook has been designed as a scaffold of seven core …

Mapping Urban Performance Culture: A Common Ground For Architecture And Theater, Ting Chin, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

Our co-taught course focuses on theater history, with an emphasis on performance architecture. Assignments are designed to illuminate the ways in which architectural design and technology inform performance practices and audience reception. The pivotal assignment for exploring interdisciplinarity is a three-week module on mapping historical theaters in New York City. Open-source Global Information Systems (GIS) software serves as a common mechanism for students to situate theatrical productions in the context of the built urban environment, deepening their understanding of the social, economic, and artistic forces that contributed to performance culture. Mapping is a shared pedagogy for analyzing and presenting research …

Happiness Advantage: The Impact On School Culture, Jillian Sagan

Dissertations

The purpose of this evaluation is to analyze the implementation of the Happiness Advantage principles (Achor, 2011) to address the mental well-being for all school district employees. In addition to Happiness Advantage Training (Achor, 2011), the study seeks to determine if the implementation of positive psychology principles affects school culture, teacher engagement and student achievement. The program design incorporates whole district training, ongoing professional development for employees and the autonomy to generate new ideas to sustain a positive mindset for individual schools sites and classrooms. The findings indicate that when positive psychology principles are implemented across a school district, teacher …

Harnessing The Power Of Social Incentives To Curb Shirking In Teams, Brice Corgnet, Brian C. Gunia, Roberto Hernán González

ESI Working Papers

We study several solutions to shirking in teams that trigger social incentives by reshaping the workplace social context. Using an experimental design, we manipulate social pressure at work by varying the type of workplace monitoring and the extent to which employees engage in social interaction. This design allows us to assess the effectiveness as well as the popularity of each solution. Despite similar effectiveness in boosting productivity across solutions, only organizational systems involving social interaction (via chat) were at least as popular as a baseline treatment. This suggests that any solution based on promoting social interaction is more likely to …

Karczma/Taberna: Public Houses In Cracow During The Jagiellonian Dynasty, Peter Paul Dobek

Dissertations

Public houses—inns, taverns, and alehouses—during the Jagiellonian Dynasty (1385-1572) in the city of Cracow and its immediate surroundings functioned as important establishments in the everyday life of the city. While the city continued to grow and prosper as the preferred residence of the dynasty, inhabitants, travelers, and migrants increasingly relied on the public houses of the conurbation to meet their many needs and desires. Although scholars have studied these establishments throughout Europe during various epochs, they have neglected to analyze the public houses in Cracow during the Jagiellonian era.

This study provides a comprehensive examination of a multitude of sources, …

The Farm As Place In A Changing Climate: Capturing Women Farmers' Experiences In Idaho, United States And Victoria, Australia, Tagen Towsley Baker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In Australia and the US, women play a vital role in the agricultural sector. However, historically farmwomen’s contributions to agriculture as well as their individual knowledge and social resilience to stressors like climate and climate change have been unrecognized and rendered invisible. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship from geography and the humanities, this dissertation explores the farm as place in a changing climate, drawing on women farmers’ experiences, under three distinct themes: identity, place, and photography. The dissertation research includes three distinct parts. First, incorporating non-fiction writing and photography, I explore my agricultural and religious heritage, as well as familial connections …

Dynamics, Modality, And Commodification Of Customary Title Bestowal In Local Political Communication In Gorontalo, Indonesia, Sumarjo Muna, Atwar Bajari, Soleh Soemirat, Diah Fatma Sjoraida

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study aimed at analyzing the commodification of identity politics through customary title bestowal (Pulanga) in local politics in Gorontalo Province, Indonesia. This study referred to the critical approach with the critical ethnographic methodology. The data were obtained through in-depth interview with customary title recipients, customary stakeholders, and cultural observers, and gained from customary documents and news archives of the pros and cons of customary title bestowal from local mass media coverage in Gorontalo Province. Validity testing of the data was conducted through triangulation process. The politicization of customary title bestowal occurred because the process of customary title bestowal was …

Economic Stress Of International Students: What Counselors Should Know, Yuh-Jen Guo, Shu-Ching Wang, Angela P. Wong, George A. Loftis, Jada M. Mathison, Megan K. Ashpole

Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision

College students encounter high levels of stress due to intensive demands from developmental and academic tasks. In addition to the stress induced by developmental and academic tasks, economic stress adds substantial distress to college students. Economic contraction is known to bring up mental health concerns in society. Financial stress and diminished optimism are affected by distressful economic conditions. This study examined the different perceptions of economic stress between American students and international students of one English for Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) program. International students in this study sustained equally high economic stress but were more sensitive to the economic …

The Fusions And Confusions Of The Concierto De Aranjuez In Jazz: A Listener’S Musings, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Reflections on Sketches of Spain (1960) by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, focusing on their jazz version of Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez (1940). Motivated by Edward Said’s and Homi K. Bhabha’s writings, the recording is analyzed as a cultural artifact characterized by its “formal instability” and its typological “inbetweenness,” rendering it neither classical nor jazz; neither Spanish nor non-Spanish; and neither traditional nor modern, among other dualities. Sketches is an artwork that defies categories and inhabits the interstices of cultural expectations.

Fusiones Y Confusiones Del Concierto De Aranjuez En El Jazz: Reflexiones De Un Oyente, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Este artículo lo conforman una serie de reflexiones sobre Sketches of Spain (1960) de Miles Davis y Gil Evans, centrándose en su versión del Concierto de Aranjuez de Joaquín Rodrigo (1940). Inspirándose en los escritos de Edward Said y Homi K. Bhabha, el autor analiza la grabación como un artefacto cultural caracterizado por su “inestabilidad formal” y su “indefinición” o “condición intermedia” (in-betweenness) convirtiéndolo en un álbum que no es ni clásico ni jazz; ni español ni no-español; ni tradicionalista ni moderno, entre otras dualidades. Sketches es una obra de arte que desafía categorías y habita los intersticios de las …

Non-Invasive Analyses Of Electrophysiological Properties Of Primary Cell Culture, Ahmad Mohammad N Alassaf

Open Access Dissertations

The model of efficacy and toxicity testing has been largely based on a model of high quantities of low quality data gathered in vitro. Recent advances in nanotechnology offer an alternative strategy. Soft lithography has made microscale tissue engineering possible. It is now feasible to create the cellular microenvironments of healthy and diseased tissues and engineer biological systems with high fidelity. Further, development of multielectrode array (MEA) platforms by precise location of metal electrodes on glass substrates has proven to be a robust innovative tool to use with cells that generate electrical activity. In this study, we first fabricated …

Understanding The Differences In The Radioprotection Activity Of The Vitamin E Tocols, And Their Implications In Developing Effective Radioprotectors, Ujwani Nukala

Theses and Dissertations

With the increased use of ionizing radiation for various purposes like radiotherapy, nuclear power generation, sterilization, the likelihood of intentional or unintentional radiation exposure is increasing and there is an unmet need for effective radiation countermeasures that are safe, efficient, easy to administer. Vitamin-E is a well-known antioxidant, consisting of eight different vitamers, including four tocopherols (α, β, γ and δ) and four tocotrienols (α, β, γ and δ), which are structurally very similar and collectively known as tocols. Though alpha-tocopherol has been considered the primary form of vitamin-E and extensively studied, tocotrienols have recently gained attention for their superior …