Digital Commons Network^™

“Beejagalu Namma Jeevana” (Seeds Are Our Life): Women Farmers’ Relational Practices Of Care, Labor, And Life Within Regenerative Systems In South India, Sara F. Mehkri

Scripps Senior Theses

“Beejagalu Namma Jeevana” (Seeds are Our Life): Women Farmers’ Relational Practices of Care, Labor, and Life within Regenerative Systems in South India, examines the role of women farmers in regenerative agricultural systems in Kanakapura, Karnataka, through ethnographic fieldwork with GREEN Foundation (GF) and its farmer networks. It argues that regenerative agriculture in this context is produced through care-based multispecies assemblages that reconfigure relationships between labor, knowledge, and ecological life, generating resilient socio-agroecological systems and expanding forms of human capability.

Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews with women farmers, participant observation, and historical analysis of agrarian change in South India, this thesis …

Legal Stories Without Villains, Alison Peck

Law Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers have always been storytellers, and cognitive science is increasingly demonstrating that human beings are wired to learn through story. But legal stories may have a dark side if, as theorists have recently suggested, stories motivate pro-social action by reinforcing in-group identification and out-group hatred. In an increasingly divided polity, are we doomed to stories that drive us toward social disintegration? A solution to the legal storyteller’s dilemma may be found in an ancient source: Aristotle’s Poetics. By crafting legal stories that track the elements of the Tragedy as described by Aristotle and adapted by modern storytellers from Broadway …

Shrines On Asphalt Shoulders: Documenting Roadside Memorials In Western U.S. Roadscapes, Isabella R. Sullivan

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis analyses the practice of documenting and uploading roadside memorials in the Western United States as a socially transformative process facilitated between two distinct kinds of noticing. Drawing on (auto)ethnographies of roadside memorial sites in Colorado and California, interviews with photographers and cartographers working primarily in the American Southwest, and Google Street View media, this research examines how recognition of the social negotiations involving memory and mortality that are already present in the physical shrines evolves when documenters capture and transpose them online. First, these documenters have developed the “eyes to see” roadside memorials for various significant reasons in …

The Intertemporal Law Doctrine’S Application To The Acquisition Of Colonies In The Americas, Kent Mcneil

All Papers

The intertemporal doctrine provides that international disputes have to be resolved in accordance with the international law that existed at the time the events giving rise to the dispute took place, not at the time the matter is adjudicated.1 It is thought to be impermissible to apply current standards to events that occurred in the past when different legal principles and rules were the norm. This doctrine applies as much to acquisition of colonies as to other international issues.2 So in order to determine whether a European nation acquired sovereignty over an overseas territory, it is necessary to determine and …

The Connection Between Medicaid And Obesity In Northeast Ohio, Emmie Kelley, Sophie Kheder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Obesity is a major public health concern in the United States that is projected to increase exponentially over the next few years. Obesity is commonly associated with a lower socioeconomic status. Lower-income individuals tend to be supported by Medicaid, a federal insurance program for low-income Americans. Prior studies have shown a positive correlation between income status and obesity prevalence. Our goal was to find if there was a correlation between Medicaid patients and obesity in Northeast Ohio, to provide physicians with a set of characteristics to better combat obesity, since preventative and treatment guidelines are tailored to national trends. We …

Ceramics And Trade In Mesoamerica: Identity And Resistance In The Maya Culture, Mason A. Swanson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The region of Mesoamerica has been researched extensively by archaeologists over the past decades. There are numerous cultures and civilizations that occupied Mesoamerica over thousands of years. This paper will focus on the Maya, one of the most researched and examined of the cultures of Mesoamerica. By examining the ceramics and trade of the Maya one can reconstruct how the Maya identity was viewed in the past. Often the Maya are suggested to have experienced a collapse at the end of the Classic period around (AD 900). This, however, is an oversimplification of the events that occurred. The goal of …

Examining The Pre-Columbian Use Of Psychotropic Plants In The South American Andes: Tobacco, Coca, And Ayahuasca, Jalayne Allison

Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Program

This thesis offers a literature review that traces the origins and variations in the use of tobacco (Nicotiana sp.), coca (Erythroxylum coca spp.), and ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi) in the Andean highlands and Amazon region along the western coast of South America. This mountainous region stretches across seven countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Diverse South American Indigenous groups and ancient civilizations, such as the Inca Empire, have inhabited this area. This review delves into key concepts of Andean cosmology, especially those related to ecology and hydrology as interpreted through Inca beliefs. These concepts are pivotal in the application …

Feelings And Futures: Social Design Addressing Identity And Engagement Of Adolescent Girls In A Community-Based Organization, Eseoghene Mukoro

Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Program

Community organizations can provide numerous benefits to adolescent youth in various aspects of their lives—socially, psychologically, and physically, to name a few. Unfortunately, many youth-serving organizations aim to serve youth without directly involving their perspectives in the creation of their respective programs. At the Gardere Initiative, adolescent girls appear to have low levels of engagement and belonging, while their male counterparts enjoy activities and spaces catered to them. This poses a question of how this community organization might better serve the desires and life context of these adolescent girls.
Social Design is the practice of designing an intervention (product, service, …

Gullah Geechee, Progenitors For African North American Maternal Lineage, Jennifer Caldwell, Imani Sykes, Robbie Beyl, Tomilowo Abijo, Kiara Charles, Fatimah Jackson

Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Program

African American ancestral lineages are marked by resilience, shaped by centuries of forced migrations, the Transatlantic and domestic slave trades, and subsequent movements within the United States. These historical events have influenced both the cultural and genetic diversity of Legacy African Americans. This study examined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups among 189 participants—79 Gullah Geechee and 110 African Americans—to explore the Gullah Geechee as potential progenitors of other Legacy African North American lineages. Haplogroup analysis revealed L2 and L3 as the most frequent among both groups, comprising 34.6% and 38.8% in African Americans and 28.0% and 54.7% in Gullah Geechee, respectively. …

Primate Craniofacial Trauma And Its Relationship To Socioecological Factors., Katie Harden

2026 Research Poster Competition

Understanding patterns of skeletal trauma in primates can provide key insights into how a species lived and may reflect aspects of their socioecology and life history. Though some research has examined postcranial trauma in primates, analyses of craniofacial trauma are rare. Here we analyze craniofacial trauma in anthropoid primates with the goal of documenting rates of trauma and their relationships to socioecological factors. Trauma was documented in a total of 1093 specimens from 17 species of primates. For each species, patterns and prevalence of trauma were assessed and z-tests performed to assess sex differences and whether rates differed significantly from …

Andante: Introduction, Ilaria Serra

Andante: An Introduction

Cover art: Dorothy Tennant (1855-1926), Al gioco

Perceptions Of Managerial Roles In Physician Leadership Among First- And Final-Year Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study Using Mintzberg’S Framework, Sari Huikko-Tarvainen, Timo Tuovinen, Petri Kulmala

Health Professions Education

Purpose: This study investigated how medical students – as future physicians – perceive the relevance of Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles to physician leadership, and whether these perceptions change throughout medical education.

Method: In 2021, all first‑year (n = 116/116) and 98% of final‑year (n = 107/109) students at the University of Oulu, Finland completed a web‑based survey rating Mintzberg’s ten managerial roles in fulfilling physician leaders’ leadership work on a 5‑point Likert scale. Item reliability and internal consistency were examined with Cronbach’s α. Because Likert data are ordinal, medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) were calculated, and group differences were tested …

Ghostly Grieving In Theatre’S Now Also The Dramaturgy Of Perception And The Body In Contemporary American Ghost Plays, Jacob Mann Christiansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

“Ghostly Grieving in Theatre’s Now Also” explores how contemporary American plays and playwrights stage the dead as a way of understanding theatre’s unique language for dealing with the shared, complex human experience of grief. Focusing on theatrical ghosts and other “impossible” presences, I articulate how these figures function as dramaturgical devices. I also argue that theatre’s ghosts “set the stage” (as it were) for communicable meaning-making by inviting audiences into the tasks of creation and mourning.

My work draws on performance theory (especially phenomenological accounts of theatrical storytelling), on dramaturgical analysis, and on grief studies. In this dissertation project, I …

The Subadults Of Casas Grandes: A Bioarchaeological Study, Holli Kaye Mcdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Across the span of nearly eight hundred years, from AD 700-1450, the societies of the Casas Grandes region waxed and waned and left an astounding representation in the archaeological record. Best-known through the temporally older site of Convento (occupied during what is known as the Viejo Period) and the later site of Paquimé (occupied during the Medio Period), gradual cultural expansion and florescence across this period are witnessed through a variety of findings across decades of anthropological investigation.

Along with the artifacts and architecture unveiled during initial excavations at Paquimé and Convento, remains of 654 individuals were catalogued as well. …

The Forensic Implications Of Hydrochloric Acid (Hcl) Exposure On Dna Preservation In Human Teeth, Shaelyn Lee Zimmerman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Identity is a human right, and forensic anthropological methods are often aimed at returning identity to decedents. Three main pathways are used for the identification of human remains: fingerprints, dental records, and DNA analysis. Identification efforts may be hindered when perpetrators attempt to obscure the victim’s identity. In cases where corrosive substances, such as hydrochloric acid (HCl) are used, dental comparison and fingerprinting often fail and genetic analysis becomes the best chance of achieving personal identification.

Previous studies have shown teeth are an excellent source of DNA. Large, multi-rooted teeth, such as molars, are often preferred because they contain the …

Stanislavski And Operatic Acting: What Caused The Divide Between Stanislavski’S Ideals And The Opera World?, Max Smith

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

There is a difference between the realism of acting in opera and in other theatrical art forms. One reason for this might be due to theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski’s ideals not being readily adopted in the opera world. Due to translation and publication issues in both the West and in the USSR, his work on opera has been largely neglected by theatre and opera historians. Certain demands of opera as an art form limit or make more difficult the ability for realism in portraying a character, but Stanislavski and others show that it is possible. A look at literature reflecting …

Morphological Variation Of The Clavicular Rhomboid Fossa: Bilateral Asymmetry, Sexual Dimorphism, And Environmental Influences, Michaela Tucker, Skylar Hall

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Morphological variation on the clavicle, specifically the rhomboid fossa, may be impacted by age, sex, laterality, and mechanical stress. Occupational stress and loading conditions lead to bone remodeling and adaptation to change, altering the costoclavicular ligament site. A sample of 94 bilateral clavicles from individuals ages 16-40 years was analyzed using computer tomography (CT) and 3-dimensional reconstruction. Clavicles were categorized into five groups: flat, smooth, elevated, depressed, and pitted. Chi-squared analyses were used to test associations between morphology and age, side, and history of strenuous lifting. Significant differences were observed between class and sex for the leftsided clavicle group. Female …

Reclaiming Constitutional Authority Of Algorithmic Power, Yiyang Mei, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

Whether and how to govern AI is no longer a question of technical regulation. It is a question of constitutional authority. Across jurisdictions, algorithmic systems now perform functions once reserved to public institutions: allocating welfare, determining legal status, mediating access to housing, employment, and healthcare. These are not merely administrative operations. They are acts of rule. Yet the dominant models of AI governance fail to confront this reality. The European approach centers on rights-based oversight, presenting its regulatory framework as a principled defense of human dignity. The American model relies on decentralized experimentation, treating fragmentation as a proxy for democratic …

Forest Island Reforestation In The Llanos De Moxos, Bolivia, Ethan Tam

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Within the Llanos de Moxos of Bolivia thousands of forest islands dot the landscape. These forest islands have been shown to have been integral aspects of the pre-Contact indigenous cultures which existed there for thousands of years. Based on 1967 CORONA imagery and statistical analysis, this work provides insight into how these forest islands are integrated as infrastructure features within their landscape and surrounding network of other archaeological features. This research is carried out through investigations into changes in the size of the forest islands across an interval of 57 years, statistical attempts to categorize the forest island into smaller …

Democratizing Restitution: Trust As An Equitable Approach To Competing Claims On Cultural Heritage Objects, Britta Redwood

Articles

As formerly colonized states began to win their independence in the mid-twentieth century, a growing chorus of voices called on museums in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European cities to return objects taken during the colonial period. Having largely ignored these requests until recently, museums throughout Europe and the United States have begun negotiating returns of these objects to their rightful owners. There is a growing recognition among Western cultural institutions that continuing to hold cultural heritage objects taken under conditions of coercion or violence is morally untenable. More recently, some scholars have argued for a human rights approach to …

Legal Semiotics, Political Ontology, & Merging Chronotopes Of Identity Through The Federation Of Aboriginal Nations Of The Americas, Kevin T. Inglesby

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation studies the concept of self-determination related to a confederation known as the Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas. It addresses three main questions: How does FANA represent an institution of legal cooperation? In what ways does cultural capital become reproduced? And what are key principles for the Federations’ code of unity? Self-determination is a core principle of international law and may be identified through treaties and social conventions like Wunnandry. The study explores an interdisciplinary approach to American Indian selfdetermination through a focus on applied anthropology, cultural heritage, and Peircean legal semiotics to problematize some historical approaches …

Archaeology Of Yellowstone's Cascade Corner: Findings And Diet Breadth Modeling, William Brent Powell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the summer of 2025, archaeologists from the University of Montana conducted a pedestrian survey through the southwest corner of Yellowstone National Park to take inventory of cultural resources. Over nearly 50 miles of trail survey, the team identified and recorded 17 new archaeological sites, mostly consisting of sparse lithic scatters on the surface. The findings indicate recurrent use of the Bechler area since the Paleoindian period. This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and detailed report on those findings, followed by an interpretation of the data through the lens of optimal foraging theory and diet breadth modeling. The first …

The Birth Of Afghanistan: From Ancient Persia To A Modern-Day Multiethnic And Linguistic Country, Tyler A. Worm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis offers a comprehensive historical analysis of the formation and evolution of Afghan identity from antiquity through the early medieval period, emphasizing the region’s role as a dynamic crossroads of civilizations. It traces the origins of Afghan populations to Indo-Iranian pastoralist migrations and examines the successive influence of major imperial formations, including the Median and Achaemenid Persian empires, the conquests of Alexander and the Seleucid period, and the rise of the Kushan, Parthian, and Sasanian states. Through this longue durée approach, the study demonstrates how Afghanistan’s geographic position facilitated continuous cultural interaction, economic exchange, and political contestation, producing a …

Scholars Called: Ten Years Of Doctorates In Biblical Studies At Asbury Theological Seminary, David B. Schreiner, Jason A. Myers

Academic Books

No abstract provided.

A Quest For Food In Bedford-Stuyvesant And Brooklyn Heights: Residential Interactions With Neighborhood Food Resources, Aidan Carroll , ‘26

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This thesis examines urban inequalities situated across Brooklyn, New York by speculating residential interactions with food resources in their neighborhood such as gardens, grocery stores, restaurants, and food pantries. With a specific focus on the areas Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Heights of Brooklyn, New York, the study utilized qualitative data such as interviews and dietary food logs during ethnographic fieldwork in order to assess the ways in which experiences with accessing food can reveal a deeper message about systemic inequalities along the lines of racism and class if we are to consider food apartheid. That said, I found that food apartheid …

The Limits Of "Punishment", Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

“Punishment” is an all-important category in criminal legal thought. Conventional scholarship adopts a narrow definition and focuses on justifying penal sanctions. Much critical work, in contrast, seeks to expand the category—defining more practices and institutions as “punishment.” In this Article, I argue that the focus on purposes of punishment and on what constitutes punishment distracts from a larger theoretical and practical issue—much of what the criminal system does probably isn’t punishment as such. Certainly, a carceral sentence is punishment. But what about a curfew requirement for a defendant awaiting trial? What about a restriction on gun ownership post conviction? What …

Seeing International Organizations In A Shifting Landscape: Law, Practice, And Authority, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

This book review symposium comes at a moment of visible strain in the postwar legal order. As of this writing, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has described a "rupture" in the rules-based world order, warning that multilateral institutions and the architecture of collective problem-solving are under threat. Notably, Carney issued that warning at the World Economic Forum in Davos, before an audience of "companies and countries." The setting underscores a broader shift in global governance, in which states, firms, and philanthropic actors increasingly occupy shared institutional spaces, unsettling assumptions about law and power at the international level. The books under …

Personhood Amidst Process, Bennett B. Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Both process philosophy and key forms of philosophical personalism aim to harmonize the flux of reality, especially of organisms, with cosmic values and human meaningfulness. This is because both must face our mortality. This paper makes four suggestions for considering further the connection between these two approaches. First, that process philosophy can supply for personalism a thoroughly reasoned ground for nonreducible complexity. Second, that process thought borrows from personhood its model for cosmic creativity. Third, that both approaches share strong notions of the interdependence of all parts of a relational universe. And fourth, that they differ in respect of moral …

A Transnational Feast Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe: Globalization, Identity, And Collective Memory In Dodge City, Kansas, David A. Solis-Enriquez

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This work examines the transnational connections of Dodge City’s Mexican immigrants and their celebration of the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe and how their cross-border activity were parts of larger systems like globalization, identity, and collective memory. With migration into Southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle increasing intensely in the 1980s, because of the economic opportunities that the livestock and meat manufacturing industries offered, Dodge City’s Mexican population reached unprecedented heights. These migration waves mark the starting point of this thesis.

The incoming Mexican population flooded the city’s Catholic facilities, which prompted the community and the local diocese …

Beyond Judicial Intent: The Agency Of The Defense Counsel In Ozawa’S And Thind’S Supreme Court Cases, Bret K. Luchs

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This thesis seeks to examine how specific legal strategies by the defense counsel in Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922), and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), compelled the Supreme Court of the United States into a reactive and contradictory position. A re-examination of Ozawa and Thind delves deeper into the legal briefs and arguments made by Takao Ozawa and Bhagat Singh Thind, alongside their legal teams. These briefs, opinions of the court, past lower court cases, and personal statements by Ozawa and Thind demonstrate how they did not surrender to the confines of …