Digital Commons Network^™

“I Am A Refugee Direct From Mississippi:” Drafting And Substitution As Muster Methods In Shaping Black Participation In The Union Army, 1863–1865, Carson R. Maschmeier

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Historians have frequently emphasized voluntary enlistment as the primary means through which Black men entered military service, portraying military participation as an expression of autonomy and a pathway toward freedom and citizenship. Within this scholarship, few historians have examined how Black participation in the Union army as draftees and substitutes impacted Black men and their families. This thesis examines the role of drafting and substitution in shaping Black military participation in the Union Army during the American Civil War. By focusing on Pennsylvania's 8th United States Colored Troops (USCT), this study argues that drafting and substitution complicate the commonly accepted …

“I Call For The Resurgence And Reclamation Of Our Indigenous Ways”: Institutional Landscapes, Resistance, And The Experiences Of Mmir Advocates, Sara Tehrani

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island experience disproportionately high rates of violence and homicide compared to other racial groups. Rooted in coloniality and sustained by Western institutions, this epidemic is recognized as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) crisis. In response, Indigenous women have mobilized the MMIR Movement to raise awareness and advocate for institutional change. Although scholarship on MMIR has expanded, limited research has explored the experiences of MMIR advocates. This study interrogates the institutional landscapes that shape MMIR advocacy and explores the resistance strategies advocates employ to address the crisis. Using reflexive thematic analysis, this study examines semi-structured …

Michigan Academician Volume 50, Issue 2

Michigan Academician

Volume 50, Issue 2 - Abstract Issue

Developmental Themes Associated With Religious Activity After Early Return From A Latter-Day Saint Mission, Samuel E. Hancock, Sam A. Hardy, Michael Goodman, Camron Angell, Jenae M. Nelson

Faculty Publications

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, qualified young men are expected (and young women are given the option) to complete extended missionary service during the transition to adulthood. Some youth end their missionary service short of the anticipated duration, which is associated with markedly lower rates of religious activity post-return. This study is a qualitative inquiry into the developmental themes associated with early returned missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who chose to remain active (be consistently involved with the church), sampling from areas with high rates of Latter-day Saint activity, where stigmatization …

Australian University Websites As Colonialities Of Gender, Emily M. Gray, Ampersand Pasley, Emma Fishwick, Mindy Blaise, Jacqueline Ullman, Maria Delaney

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper offers analysis of the first phase of a research project, Understanding and Addressing Everyday Sexisms in Australian Universities. This phase involved a critical content analysis of all 39 of Australia’s public university websites, focusing on how they represent gender, absences in relation to gender and the navigability of the websites in relation to gender equity policy. Drawing on Maria Lugones’s colonialities of gender, this paper demonstrates how university websites have the potential to reproduce or renegotiate inherited institutional everyday sexisms and broader gender inequities. Themes of reconfiguring acceptable gendering, conspicuous absences, and in-built obscurity that emerged from this …

Framing Home: Extending Beyond The Threshold, Kaitlin R. Kirsch

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This thesis body of work inspects the changes in the artist’s relationship to domesticity and their perceived sense of control over the spaces they have called home. By creating and embellishing spaces that subvert the threshold between the physical and psychic, the works stimulate feelings of comfort or discomfort. Installations of found materials, mixed media, and text-based dark humor, come together to account for this artist’s attempt to navigate the tediousness of daily life. The work takes into consideration the intangible rules that infiltrate a household, defining the framework in which a person learns to live within, or adapt to, …

"Time And Place Have Had Their Say": A Digital Historical Context Guide To Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Anna Kephart Norris

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Harlem Renaissance author, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. As part of the modern American literary canon, Their Eyes Were Watching God is assigned in countless secondary and post-secondary classrooms across the United States each year. Yet students find the book difficult to understand and educators find it challenging to teach due to its dialect, racial themes, and nuanced historical setting. In this paper, I argue that better understanding of Their Eyes Were Watching God's historical context eases these difficulties in reading and teaching the …

Old Maps Of The New World & New Theories On The European Encounter With La Florida: An Historical Archaeological And Four Field Anthropological Approach To Peter Apian's Cosmographia (1575), Emerson S F Richards

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This thesis examines the 1575 Spanish edition of the Cosmographia, a geographic textbook initially authored by Peter Apian and expanded by Gemma Frisius, as a source for anthropological inquiry into early European encounters with the Americas. Little attention has been given to the text’s potential as a source for anthropological analysis, particularly regarding its representations of the Americas and the cultural information embedded in the geographic data. This study addresses that gap by applying a Four-Field anthropological framework—cultural, biological, linguistic, and archaeological—to this edition, which incorporates excerpts from Ieronimo Girava’s qualitative and quantitative description of the Americas, including a …

Book Review: Macarthur As Spirit: A Review Of Spirit Power: Politics And Religion In Korea’S American Century, Jieon Yoo

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

Advancing Sustainable Tourism Behavioural Research: A Metacognitive Perspective, Arghavan Hadinejad, Kourosh Esfandiar, Liubov Skavronskaya

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The current scholarly inquiry on sustainable tourism behaviour research predominantly relies on cognitive behavioural approaches, particularly exemplified by the widespread application of the theory of planned behaviour among other theories. Given recent advancements in psychology underscoring the necessity to expand beyond conventional cognitive frameworks, the current research aims to integrate metacognitive perspectives in sustainable tourism behaviour scholarship. This perspective explores the reflective awareness and control individuals exert over their cognitive processes which can uncover nuanced factors shaping sustainable tourism behaviour that may be overlooked in traditional cognitive models. Using a critical review approach, this research proposes the adoption of alternative …

Governing By Fragments: Soviet Ruins And The Architecture Of Unaccountability In Kazakhstan, Robert A. Kopack, Magdalena E. Stawkoski

Faculty Publications

This article examines two case studies in Kazakhstan with research into how Soviet institutional legacies underwrite extractive economies that render toxic costs invisible in post-Soviet setting. Through ethnographic work in Stepnogorsk (uranium processing) and the Semipalatinsk Test Site (nuclear weapons testing), we extend Gabrielle Hecht’s residual governance framework to demonstrate how inherited bureaucratic compartmentalization now serves market rather than state interests. We introduce the concept of functional nonreform to describe how distributed actors maintain Soviet-era boundaries that prevent accountability: Agencies monitor but don’t enforce, health authorities lack jurisdiction over contaminated sites, and environmental agencies measure radiation but cannot restrict land …

Missionary Body Politics: Physical Education In West China, 1905-1950, Cory Willmott

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Republican Era China saw a radical transformation in Chinese physical culture as it aimed to compete in the global geopolitics of nation-states. Employing an historical ethnographic approach, this paper outlines how the unique conditions of Sichuanese warlordism and secret societies affected missionary relations with the Guomindang (GMD) as they implemented increasingly militarized physical education programs. Before the 1928 GMD consolidation of power, missionaries and GMD educators aligned with the YM/ WCA in physical education programs. After the GMD moved their headquarters to Chongqing in 1938, relations soured between the GMD and the Sichuan missionaries. Although the latter had been the …

Dr. Janice Chism Piano Music Collection - Accession 1744, Janice Chism

Manuscript Collection

The Dr. Janice Chism Piano Music Collection consists of piano sheet music owned and used by Dr. Janice Chism, a distinguished professor of Biology and Anthropology at Winthrop University. The collection reflects Dr. Chism’s personal musical interests and provides insight into popular and classical music performed in domestic and recreational settings during the early to mid-twentieth century.

The collection is composed primarily of individual pieces of piano sheet music dating from approximately 1919 to 1951, with the majority originating in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Titles include popular show tunes, jazz-influenced standards, patriotic and folk songs, and light classical arrangements. …

The Protection Of Geographical Indications Under Comparative Lens: Whether Law Artificially Creates Scarcity Of Goods, Domenico Di Micco

FIU Law Review

The economic principles of supply and demand dictate that market prices are contingent on the conditions under which supply and demand converge. Within this theoretical framework, the concepts of scarcity and abundance assume paramount significance. When goods are scarce, prices tend to escalate, while in cases of abundant supply, prices tend to decline. But what factors determine scarcity and abundance? In many cases, scarcity is inherent to the nature of the commodity (for example, diamonds are rarer than common stones). In other cases, such as geographical indications, scarcity is constructed through the legal denomination associated with the commodity, thereby creating …

The Italian Rice Production: Between Tradition And Globalization, Bianca Gardella Tedeschi

FIU Law Review

The Article examines the Italian rice sector as a case study in how law mediates the tensions between territorial agricultural traditions and the pressures of globalization. Focusing on the rice-producing districts of Piedmont and Lombardy, the Article argues that the resilience of Italian rice production cannot be explained solely by agronomic or economic factors. Rather, it depends on a dense legal and institutional framework that structures water governance, quality control, market organization, and contractual relations across the supply chain.

The Article develops three principal claims. First, it shows that the competitiveness of Italian rice production rests on an integrated model …

Negotiating Quality: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of American Higher Education Policy, John A. Foisy

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This qualitative study examined how institutional quality is constructed, communicated, and negotiated through the accreditation process in U.S. higher education. Drawing on a multiple case study design, the research analyzed accreditation-related documents from eight institutions undergoing reaffirmation, including self-study reports, peer review team reports, Commission action letters, and institutional responses. The study was guided by three research questions: (a) What institutional signals of quality are evidenced in self-studies? (b) In what ways does the accreditation process represent a negotiation between accreditors and institutions? (c) What implied views of institutional quality emerge from accreditation discourse?

The study employed a multilayered analytical …

New Game Start: Playing With Power, Community And Change In Video Gaming Culture, Jonathan D. Muller

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Video gaming culture has long been a site associated with norms and values of whiteness, masculinity, and neoliberalism, with games, players, and developers all reinforcing these. Recently though, gaming culture has been directly involved with social movements and forms of resistance that are contrary to these norms and values. The typical gamer is no longer a white man, and gaming culture is now acknowledged to include race and gender dynamics that are close to that of the broader population. These communal shifts have both challenged and reinforced existing power structures. This research addresses these shifts and struggles by analyzing how …

The Punishment Paradox, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

What does criminal punishment do? Across centuries of criminal legal thought, a shared answer persists: punishment incapacitates the wrongdoer. And yet punishment sometimes yields its opposite. Paradoxically, punishment sometimes becomes a rallying point-expanding community identification and solidarity around the defendant. This Article shows this punishment paradox using the 2023-24 prosecutions of President Trump and recent and historical case examples-from Luigi Mangione to Karen Read to Rosa Parks. By arguing that criminal law can generate solidarity rather than stigma, the Article both rethinks foundational theories of punishment and reconsiders the role of criminal law in democratic politics. Such an approach transcends …

Drag’S Impact On Drag Lives, José L. Oropeza Iii

Anthós

Drag’s Impact On Drag Lives

In light of recent political developments where Drag and Trans identities are being punished, why do people still participate in Drag? If there are repercussion to face for being a Drag Queen, then surely it must affect their lives for the better for them to continue the practice.

Through an autoethnographic approach to researching the Portland, OR Drag community, I collected transcripts of conversations with local Queens, took notes of community interactions, and put myself in Drag for the first time as a Queer man to better understand the Drag community and why they Drag. …

Empowering Students To Engage With Climate Change Action: A Project-Based Module For Artificial Intelligence Literacy And Sustainability Thinking, Gabriel Granco, Yu Chen, Heather Macias, Yunfei Hou, Frank A. Gomez

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

There is a growing need to prepare students to address complex environmental challenges, particularly climate change and the expanding role of artificial intelligence (AI). This article examines the adaptation of the Artificial Intelligence for Social Good (AI4SG) Ideation module, a pitch- and project-based teaching framework designed to integrate AI literacy and sustainability education. Implemented in an upper division climate change course, the module combines project-based learning, culturally responsive pedagogy, and geographic thinking to guide students in developing community-oriented AI proposals aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Students were encouraged to approach their communities not through deficit lenses, …

Anything But Endo: Diagnostic Buck-Passing In Endometriosis Diagnosis, Rita Dexter, Megan Kitts, Heather Welty, Melanie Jeske

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

People living with endometriosis, a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body, often experience prolonged diagnostic journeys because of symptom variability, normalisation of period pain and other symptoms, and lack of awareness of the condition. In this article, we analyse the endometriosis diagnostic journey through the lens of epistemic injustice. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 52 people living with endometriosis in the United States, we introduce the concept of diagnostic buck-passing to characterise the phenomenon wherein individuals who seek treatment for their symptoms end up stuck in a cycle of seeing …

Retrenchment, Segregation, And Public Education: A Five-Year Analysis Of State Exclusionary School Discipline Legislation, Thalia Gonzalez, Will Martel

Faculty Scholarship

Notwithstanding the decision in Brown v. Board of Education formally ending educational segregation and more than two decades of state reform, the legislative landscape protecting minoritized children from the structural violence of exclusionary school discipline has dramatically shifted in less than five years. From the passage of state “Teacher’s Bills of Rights” to mandatory expulsions, rescissions of prior protections, and new categories of removal, a retrenchment of anti-inclusion legislation—and its corollary, educational carcerality— has occurred. While studies of other forms of legislative retrenchment in K–12 public schools, such as anti-Critical Race Theory and Don’t Say Gay laws, literacy bans, and …

Reproductive Rights On Campus, Janet Levit

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Matusiflute: Exploring Intercultural Collaboration Through Timbral Dízi Emulation Within An Australian-Chinese Orchestral Performance Setting, Gabriel Mcmahon

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research investigates how the Matusiflute can potentially promote intercultural Sino Western collaboration within solo, chamber and orchestral settings by consciously applying technical and stylistic codes attributed to the dízi (traverse Chinese bamboo flute). Using an autoethnographic approach, I reflect on my engagement with the dízi, its morphology, timbre and stylistic interpretation, and how my pedagogical flute context impacted this approach. These learnings were then applied to the Matusiflute through two premiere performances of a commissioned intercultural work by Nicholas Ng, The Secret of the Golden Flower (2024) for Matusiflute and Chinese Orchestra. The latter being performed in a solo …

In Vitro Efficiency Analysis Of Different Β-Tri-Calcium Phosphate And Hydroxyapatite Doped Bacterial Cellulose-Polyvinylpyrrolidone Composite Hydrogel For Bone Tissue Repair, Probal Basu, Nabanita Saha, Radostina Alexandrova, Boika Andonova Lilova, Maya Argirova, Petr Saha

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

The study emphasizes an in-depth in vitro efficiency analysis of bacterial cellulose (BC)-polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) composite hydrogel scaffolds which are doped with different concentrations of β-tri-calcium phosphate (β-TCP) and hydroxyapatite (HA). The hydrogels are prepared with the natural polymer, BC, and synthetic polymer, PVP. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is also used as an anti-cytotoxic agent and agar is used as a gelling agent. β-TCP and HA were given in the ratio (w/w): 20:80 (BC-PVP- β-TCP/HA_20:80), 40:60 (BC-PVP-β-TCP/HA_40:60), 50:50 (BC-PVP-β-TCP/HA_50:50). In vitro efficacy of the different tri-calcium phosphate (β-TCP) and hydroxyapatite BC-PVP composite hydrogel scaffolds are analyzed through comparative analysis of the cell …

On The Surface: The Mural Of Shireen Abu Akleh As Space For Encounter, Saja Abd El Hai

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines a mural of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the city of Baqa al-Gharbiya as a site of political encounter. Rather than approaching the mural solely as a commemorative image, the study analyzes how it generated a series of interactions through acts of creation, defacement, restoration, performance, and digital circulation. Drawing on scholarship in visual culture, graffiti studies, and political theory, I argue that the mural operates as a gendered space of political encounter through which grief, resistance, and national identity are negotiated in public space. Methodologically, the project combines visual and contextual analysis with rhetorical criticism, …

Reclaiming Presence: An Anthropological Study Of Digital Disconnection And Meaning-Making, Leslie De Paz

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Human attention is increasingly at risk in an unregulated digital ecosystem where overconsumption shapes neurological function, social interaction, and the ways people make meaning of everyday life. Dominant discourse around digital overuse tends to medicalize the problem, framing it as individual addiction or clinical dysfunction. In this thesis, I argue that such framing obscures what a cultural phenomenon is fundamentally, one in which people are actively questioning their relationship with technology, building awareness, and developing practices that help them slow down and reclaim agency within algorithmically mediated environments. This study draws on 22 semi-structured interviews with Gen Z and millennial …

Endocranial Lesions: A Paleopathological Study Of Late Medieval Skeletal Remains From Żelewo Poland, Francesca Aleen Meyer

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The site of Żelewo is located in a rural area of northwestern Poland, a region historically known as Pomerania. Skeletal remains from the cemetery associated with the archaeological site Żelewo 1-3, dating mostly to the 13th-15th centuries, are likely associated with a nearby Cistercian monastery. Numerous individuals from this site show evidence of endocranial lesions. To evaluate potential factors associated with the lesions, a differential diagnosis was performed based on macroscopic observations of endocranial lesion morphology and distribution. This study takes into account estimated age at death, biological sex, and other signs of pathology in the body. Potential confounding factors, …