Digital Commons Network^™

An Investigation Of Bone Preservation As A Result Of Environmental And Cultural Variables In Mortuary Contexts, Adyn Hallahan

Honors Theses

Stable isotope analysis in bioarchaeology of human bone is generally used to reconstruct diet or migratory patterns of certain populations. Although this type of analysis is now standard practice, little research has been done regarding how cultural and mortuary practices may affect chemical composition of bone. This study aims to determine whether different simulated mortuary contexts have an effect on stable isotope levels in bone, using seven pig rib bone samples as proxy for human bone. In addition, macroscopic and microscopic observations are used to assess preservation and taphonomic processes. One of the samples served as a control, not being …

Blissful (Dis)Comfort, Mei Kiengsiri

Theses

From personal anecdotes and past experiences, “Blissful (Dis)comfort” confronts, celebrates, and humorizes my Thai culture and family dynamics through light, sound, and the subversion of everyday objects. This thesis explores the personal, intimate, and even vulnerable sides of my childhood and personal relationships, as well as their reflections on technical challenges and solutions to everyday electronic devices. The body of work rejects the expectations of cause and effect, logical consequences, and reactions, blending in the child-like sense of wonder, discovery, and play with more complex themes of nostalgia and family.

Planning Committee Report On Understaffed Programs, Planning Committee

Planning Committee

No abstract provided.

The Rider (2024-04-22), Natalie Lapsley

The Rider Archives

Vol.9 No.27

The Materiality Of The Soul In Plutarch's Moralia, Caleb Cole Deppermann

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Plutarch's vague comments about the materiality of the soul in Moralia. My contention is that, despite suggestions to the contrary, Plutarch aligned with Plato in thinking about the soul as immaterial. I argue that a deeper understanding of Plutarch's relationship to Plato as well as the Stoics and Epicureans of his time shed light on his otherwise ambiguous passages. The end result will be (1) a more secure understanding of Plutarch's position on the materiality of the soul and (2) an improved ability to appreciate Plutarch's playful and vivid language as he describes immaterial souls with material …

Understandings Of Vulnerability And Social Determinants Of Health In Forensic And Expert Social Anthropology: A Scoping Review, James W. W. Rose, David M. Tran

The Qualitative Report

Forensic and expert social anthropology (FESA) is a branch of social anthropology that specialises in the provision of evidence to legal-administrative processes, which are overseen by courts and other legally empowered bodies, and which give regard to the social cultures of legally and administratively involved individuals and communities (LAIICs). Despite a preoccupation with political advocacy in the broader philosophy of social anthropology, FESA literature does not typically give regard to LAIIC vulnerability defined qualitatively in terms of social determinants of health, including physical, mental, and social well-being. This paper presents findings from a JBI/PRISMA-ScR scoping review of n=1,674 texts, identifying …

Mapping Our Dreams And Rooting Our Futures: Possibility Trees As Essential Pedagogy And Praxis In Peace, Social Justice, And Human Rights Education, Maria Hantzopoulos, Monisha Bajaj

International Journal of Human Rights Education

In this article, we explore a pedagogical and conceptual tool we have refined and developed for the fields of peace, social justice, and human rights education: “the possibility tree.” Initially introduced in our 2021 book, we explore this tool in more depth in this article to show how such pedagogical and conceptual processes are key components of peace and human rights education praxis with greater implications for both research and teaching. Our aim is to provide an applied praxis-oriented framework for educators, practitioners, re-searchers, and theorists that are concerned with larger issues of peace, justice, and human rights. While we …

Convening The Counter-Conversation: Critical Participatory Action Research Against Real-Time Repression, Connor Maguire, Leo Jalipa, Anne Grass

Dissertations

This dissertation presents the anti-fascist Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) process of three doctoral student participants/co-researchers, all practicing educators, with varied experiences in public and private education at the middle school, high school, and collegiate level. This research examines the convergence of the participants/co-researchers in response to their shared concerns about ascendent authoritarianism and rising repression and the subsequent formation of this study’s in-process CPAR research collective organized to critically counter, rather than reiterate, this repression.

Enacting the theoretical/methodological frameworks of Critical Theory and Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, the participants/co-researchers dialogically determined contemporary fascism to be the focus of …

A Review Of Consanguinity In The Iraqi Population: A Call To Action To Prevent A Future Health Catastrophe, Zaid Ali Hawi, Kealan Pugsley, Atefeh Namipashaki, Walied Samarrai, Ziarih Hawi

Publications and Research

Although not uncommon worldwide, consanguinity has been a part of Arab culture and tradition as a means to strengthen tribal blood relations. However, this type of union has been linked to inherited diseases, particularly those of a recessive nature (e.g., hemoglobinopathies). Furthermore, several recent studies have documented highly significant associations between consanguineous parentage and common multifactorial diseases, including but not limited to hypertension, mental disorders, and several cardiovascular diseases. In Iraq, the prevalence of consanguinity is very high and still on the rise. This has resulted in an increased prevalence of inherited diseases and has significant negative impacts on Iraq’s …

Identifying Environmental Drivers Of Shell Shape Variation In The Freshwater Gastropod Campeloma Decisum, Lauren Western, David Zanatta

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Freshwater gastropods are important indicators of ecosystem health. Many native gastropod species are considered highly imperiled while other non-indigenous species are considered damaging invaders. Campeloma decisum, Pointed Campeloma, is a common freshwater gastropod from family Viviparidae found in varied habitats across the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Our study sought to increase the knowledge on C. decisumusing geometric morphometric analyses to test which environmental factors may be driving shell shape variation. C. decisum (n = 458) and environmental data were collected from 22 sites in 6 lakes in central and northern Michigan. Specimens were photographed with apertures …

Catchment Water Storage Mediates River Flow Sensitivity To Climate Change, Brian Charles Brown

Theses and Dissertations

As patterns of precipitation and evapotranspiration change, human water security and aquatic ecosystem health depend on understanding how catchment characteristics interact with climate to control river flow. We tested factors that mediate sensitivity of river flow to fluctuations in climate using a set of 1,148 data-rich, climate diverse catchments in various parts of the world from 2001-2020. We extrapolated these results to an additional 2,012 catchments with sparser data. Using features such as vegetation, land use, hydrology, and local climate, we found that catchments with high aridity to runoff ratios (Fuh's parameter) had 380% higher runoff sensitivity to fluctuations in …

An Ethnography Of Permaculture In Southwest Michigan, Lily Burke

Honors Theses

Permaculture is a holistic design system for meeting human and environmental needs in a sustainable way, using local conditions and circumstances to shape land use and food production practices. My project questions what it means to practice permaculture in southwest Michigan, and how environmental ideological commitments can translate into action and practice. Ethnographically investigating these questions through semi-structured interviews and participant observation with individuals in the permaculture community, along with extensive reading of permaculture materials, my study adds to research on applications and adoptions of permaculture in suburban contexts, and sheds light on how ecological ideological commitments can translate into …

Rainbows Around The Throne: Theological Aesthetics In Evangelism To Same-Sex Attracted Men, Austin Tucker Kemp

Senior Honors Theses

Cultural barriers and worldview differences between American evangelicalism and the LGBTQ+ movement have historically hindered evangelism to same-sex attracted men. Although recent Christian theologians have offered wisdom for including same-sex attracted believers in the church and for combating prevailing secular worldviews, evangelistic strategies to reach gay unbelievers remain underdeveloped. This thesis identifies five desires common within the population of same-sex attracted men (beauty, friendship, romance, sexuality, and masculinity) and proposes a method of evangelism which targets these desires using theological aesthetics to communicate the beauty of the gospel creatively and compellingly. A focus on aesthetic apologetics, aesthetic community, and aesthetic …

Small Moments: Anthropological Poetry, Lee Davis

Undergraduate Theses

Have you ever perhaps overheard a conversation and thought it reminded you of your own life, or someone you knew? You most likely moved on, and you most likely completely forgot about who you overheard. This collection of poetry was written to urge thought on these secret moments of connection which most people experience every day. Every poem in the collection was written from something I overheard in public, as though I were reading prompts. The pieces are fictional in the sense that I really know so little of the full context, but real in the sense that when I …

Despertando Del Sueño Americano: U.S. Policies Influencing Cartel Profitability From Undocumented Border Crossing, Gisela Martinez Acosta

Undergraduate Theses

Due to U.S. border policies limiting safe and lawful passage, cartels have developed an industry in the U.S.-Mexico border that supplies crossing services to migrants, utilizing coercive means to regulate the market and profiting from migrant’s desperation to enter the country. This study combines economic and ethnographic research to describe the human smuggling industry and the impact it has in the migrant journey. Scarcity, inelastic demand, black markets, and monopolies are economic concepts used to understand the operations of these services. Observational research and interviews conducted in the Sonoran Desert are also included to present this topic humanely. Background on …

Documentaries Created By Uab Media Studies Students To Premiere At The Mcwane Science Center Imax Theatre, April 24, Tehreem Khan

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

The Viking Warrior Woman? Birka Chamber Grave Bj 581, Emily A. Stolp

ATU Scholars Symposium

On a very small island called Björkö in the middle of Lake Mälaren, in southern Sweden, was a Viking settlement called Birka that was occupied for about 200 years. This town was the perfect trading area where merchants and tradesmen came with goods from all over Europe, and other parts of the world. Beginning in the late nineteenth century some 1,100 graves were excavated by Swedish antiquarian Hjalmar Stolpe. One of these graves in particular, labeled Bj 581, seen as remarkable at the time of excavation would later become a significantly controversial grave. The individual in grave Bj 581 was …

Vol.51 N.39 April 18th 2024, Voice Media Ventures

Black Voice News

No abstract provided.

Vol.51 N.39 April 18, 2024, Voice Media Ventures

Black Voice News

No abstract provided.

Frameworks For Balancing Care And Excellence In Higher Education (Chapter 2), Daniel L. Dinsmore, Carolyne Ali-Khan

Education: Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we explain our theoretical grounding and provide a framework for what follows. We outline the twin purposes of this book, as we explain our conceptions of care and excellence and the relationship between the two. Like all academic texts our work here stands about other established frameworks, and we diagram this to illustrate where this text fits in the field. Finally, we include an overview of the chapters that follow to serve as a reader guide.

Different Fabrics, Same Threads: How Fashion Reflects Cultural History And Gendered Perceptions, Emma Walston

Whittier Scholars Program

Fashion acts as both a reflection of, and as a lens through which to view history, culture, and perceptions of gender over time and across the world. To explore this observation, this essay will examine in detail the historical, cultural, and gendered contexts of 19th-century fashion in three different cultures: Northern Wales, the Fante people in Southern Ghana, and Jewish people living in the western sections of what was called the Pale of Settlement, and what is now Poland. These cultures were chosen due to the drastically different parts of the world that they represent and because they all have …

University Celebrates Community, Employee Service, Edwin Smith

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi recognized accomplishments in community-engaged research, learning, service and scholarship by its students, faculty and staff members on Tuesday (April 16) during the annual Celebration of Service Awards.

Latu Mae Rissa: Leader Come To War! An Autoethnography Of Colonialization And Post-Colonization, Leah Latumaerissa

Honors Theses

Latu Mae Rissa: Leader Come to War! An Autoethnography of Colonialization and Post-colonization is an undergraduate honors thesis that examines the effects and aftermath of Dutch colonialism regarding the Moluccan community through oral history, and unique narratives from four generations in the family Latumaerissa in the Netherlands. The generational narratives capture the indigenous Moluccan experience during the Dutch colonial and postcolonial eras. The findings in this thesis indicate that the Dutch colonial past and the historical events that occurred during and after Dutch decolonization function as significant Moluccan identity markers as they influenced the Moluccan being through intergenerational trauma which …

Musical Figures In Mythology And Their Effect On Ancient Greek And Roman Culture, Nathaniel Weeldreyer

Honors Theses

This thesis combines anthropology and music to approach the topic of how ancient society was affected by mythological stories focusing on musical heroes and the role of music in general. The essay begins with providing introductions to important divine figures such as the Muses, Apollo and others. These figures appear throughout the research and analysis further in the thesis, and it is important to understand their relation between each other and to the world as a whole before going any further. The prevalence of festivals and contests is another point discussed as they provided much more than just entertainment to …

Psychometric Analysis Of The Geses, Anthony Robert Eldridge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Research suggests a surge in the number of students attending a college or university. However, whether first-generation students complete their degree program remains a problem. Approximately thirty-three percent of first-generation students who began postsecondary education in 2003–04 left postsecondary education without earning a postsecondary credential. The current study investigated the psychometric properties of a revised version of a measure of academic, research, and social self-efficacy. Specifically, a sample of 403 Mturk participants ’completed the Graduate Education Self-Efficacy Scale (GESES). There were three primary research questions: 1) For a revised version of the GESES, is the original three-factor structure supported, 2) …

High And Dry - Contextualizing Domestic Root Cellar Drains In Southern Ontario, Anatolijs Venovcevs

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The subterranean root cellar is the quintessential feature of rural nineteenth-century archaeological sites in Ontario and much archaeological, historical, and architectural research on rural farmsteads has focused on defining and understanding these structures. However, this work has neglected an important component of this feature – the root cellar drain. This paper contextualizes these features within their broader nineteenth-century ideals of drainage and goes on to tackle the topic with the use of statistical analysis on the associated geographical, social, and economic attributes. The discussion presents opportunities that are present from the vast quantities of historical sites that have been excavated …

Unearthing The Ancient Metropolis: Perth Amboy's Clark-Watson Site, Richard F. Veit

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This Clark-Watson Site in Perth Amboy, New Jersey is one of the richest early colonial sites in the state. It is named for two early property owners: Benjamin Clark a Scottish stationer and bookseller who moved to New Jersey in 1683 and John Watson (1685-1768), a noted 18^th-century artist. Excavations at the site by William Pavlovsky unearthed an extraordinary collection of colonial artifacts. The archaeological assemblage provides an unparalleled glimpse into the material life of settlers in Perth Amboy during a period when the city aspired to be a center of international trade and was competing directly and …

Forgotten Places In Political Spaces, Lisa K. Rankin, Peter G. Ramsden

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The way in which many people, perhaps particularly those in secure and affluent circumstances, view their ancestry and heritage, and display it to others, is often a matter of pride. In some contexts, however, the identification of ‘ancestors’ and ‘heritage’ can have critically important - and sometimes dire - political, social and spiritual ramifications. Here we examine examples in which archaeological and/or historical evidence points to a distancing or ‘active forgetting’ of ancestors and places associated with them. The motives for creating these ‘forgotten places’ are diverse and might include a fear of ‘ghosts’ or death, the desire to project …

The First Foundation Of A Good House: Ferryland's Mansion House Kitchen, John D. Archer

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The community of Ferryland, located on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, is home to the remains of George Calvert’s initial attempt at colonial settlement in North America. Over 25 years of excavations and research at the site have produced an increasingly detailed image of life in the seventeenth-century community there. As part of this ongoing work, the project discussed in this paper explores the use and provisioning of a detached kitchen which would have served Ferryland’s Mansion House. Built between 1621 and 1627, the structure makes up one half of a detached service wing adjacent to the Mansion House, fitting a pattern …

An Inconvenient Corpse: Settler Adaptation To Winter Death And Burial Through Structural And Oral History, Robyn S. Lacy

Northeast Historical Archaeology

While the archaeology of death and burial is a popular avenue of research, considerations for burial practices during winter months in northerly climates when temperatures regularly drop below 0°C / 32°F aren’t regularly considered. Excavations in search of the early 17^th-century burials associated with Sir George Calvert’s English colony in Ferryland, Newfoundland considered different options for winter body disposal. While burial on land presented the most plausible option in the colonial period, deaths during the winter would have posed a problem for settlers. With limited options for digging in frozen ground, the storage of dead bodies during the …