Digital Commons Network^™

Playing Through Music History: The Contextualizing Function Of Western Historical Music In Fantasy Role-Playing Video Games, Laney Abigail Sheehan

Wayne State University Theses

This thesis focuses on the presence of Western historical music in contemporary video games. Through a combination of music-theoretical analysis, iconography, and Peircean semiotics, the author demonstrates that the nondiegetic soundtracks of fantasy role-playing video games utilize elements of major style periods in music history—including the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras—to enhance existing representations of time and place in their visual environments. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in three games, which serve as case studies: Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), and Elden Ring (2022). Ultimately, the project contributes research to …

Valuing Cheap: Constructing, Consuming, And Contesting The Dollar Store Economy, Frances Evelyn Barrett

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

In Valuing Cheap, Barrett traces the histories of Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree from the firms’ twentieth century origins in three distinct southern locales into corporate behemoths with more stores than McDonald’s or Walmart. Valuing Cheap provides an important chapter of the late twentieth century history of racial capitalism, detailing how dollar stores at once “served” local communities while capitalizing on existing spatialized, racialized, classed, and gendered inequalities. This history illuminates the interwovenness of business, consumer, and labor histories, emphasizing the fundamental entanglements of power, material and cultural production, and consumption. The dollar store industry’s cheap goods, low-wage …

‘Soñando En Un Futuro Mejor’: U.S. Empire, Racial Capitalism, And Garífuna And Afro-Caribbean Radicalism In Caribbean Honduras, 1920-1963, Cristian Jose Padilla Romero

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

This dissertation argues that Afro-Caribbean and Garífuna radicals in 20th-century Honduras forged, at different times, radical, race-conscious, and sometimes anti-imperialist and nationalist politics that contested both U.S. corporate domination and the racialized exclusions of the U.S and Honduran nation-state. Focusing on the period between 1920 and 1963, it traces struggles across the Caribbean coastal cities of La Ceiba, Trujillo, Puerto Cortés, and Tela. By foregrounding Black and Indigenous working-class actors, like Centeno García and Alfonso Lacayo, it highlights how racial capitalism, labor radicalism, and anti-Black state and corporate repression intersected in Honduras’ banana economy. The stories of individuals like Centeno …

The Science Of Not Knowing: Systems Thinking Between Vienna And The United States, 1900-1972, Libby S. O'Neil

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

This dissertation is a history of the interdisciplinary field of systems theory from the perspective of Central European scientists and intellectuals who migrated to North America during the 20th century. It is a story about how people, ideas, and techniques circulated in new ways across a period of global upheaval, about how the philosophy of science became a stage for urgent political questions, and about how scientists tried to grasp the whole without surrendering authority over its constituent parts. This project reveals how European interwar debates were encoded into technical practices of control and communication in the postwar United States, …

A Conspiratorial Republic: The Societal And Political Impact Of Conspiratorial Knowledge In The Early Nineteenth-Century United States, Kylee Nikole Robinson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis argues that the American conspiratorial worldview identified by Bernard Bailyn during the American Revolution persisted well into the early American republic period, having a significant impact on early republic society. Drawing on Michael Butter’s study of conspiracy theories, this study examines how early Americans continued to view republican government as inherently fragile and continuously under threat from corrupting forces. This conspiratorial belief established the common American worldviews that the right to personal representation and personal liberties were constantly at risk. Ultimately, this mindset influenced major political developments in the early republic period including the decision to declare war …

Faltered States: The Rise, Fall, And Containment Of Psychedelic Science In The United States, Baxter Brew

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis traces the history of psychedelic science in the United States and its implications for policymaking. In the postwar period, psychedelic researchers were enabled by a unique convergence of optimism in medical science and structural flexibility. But their hope blinded them to the deeper tensions of their field. As institutions grew increasingly rigid and risk-averse, the space for psychedelics began to close. Some scientists responded by fortifying the walls around them, developing socially and professionally acceptable research methods. Others tried to escape these walls entirely. But neither approach could prevent psychedelics from being squeezed out of formal inquiry. Yet …

Queer In & Out Of Montana: Oral Histories Of The Lgbtq+ Exodus From Montana, Erin T. Heaton

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This project will summarize findings from six oral histories of LGBTQ+ people who lived in Montana, but have left or are leaving in the near future. This project will explore the questions: Why are queer and transgender people leaving Montana? What are common experiences for LGBTQ+ people living in Montana? The answer to these questions will be derived from the stories of the Narrators who provided their oral histories. The questions utilized in the oral histories covered topics of identity, “coming out,” living history, cultural observations, community experiences and perceptions, well-being, healthcare, laws, and reasons for leaving. Thematic Analysis was …

Teaching Cuba In Georgia Today, Eric Kartchner

The Coastal Review

This essay details a college professor's approach to teaching a course on Cuban history and culture. The professor's pedagogical choices were influenced by Ada Ferrer's book, Cuba: An American History, and José Antonio Bowen's work on fostering independent thinking. The syllabus covered pre-Columbian Cuba, Spanish rule, the wars of independence, the Castro era, and significant cultural aspects like music and religion. The course emphasized multiple perspectives and encouraged student-led research, challenging preconceived notions about Cuba's complex relationship with the United States. The professor aimed to promote critical thinking and understanding through student-driven inquiry.

West From West Point: The U.S. Military Academy And The Romantic Frontier, Ryan Shaw

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

This dissertation examines the influence of Romanticism on the culture and curriculum of the United States Military Academy in the early nineteenth century, and demonstrates how it shaped the behavior of U.S. Army officers on the far western frontier. While historians have long associated Romanticism with the frontier experience, it has traditionally been framed as an output, rather than an input. This study identifies West Point as an unexpected but significant source of Romantic ideals.

The history of the Academy is presented uniquely here as a contest between three competing visions: A republican ideal of a modest military …

Inclusive Approaches To Teaching African American History Rooted In Decolonial Pedagogy And Praxis, Anya Tassy

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This thesis critically examines the exclusion of LGBTQ+ and disabled voices in African American history curricula at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) in Ohio, advocating for a decolonial pedagogical approach that centers intersectional narratives. By analyzing course descriptions, syllabi, and faculty communications from PWIs such as Wright State University, it reveals a pervasive omission of queer and disabled Black experiences, reinforcing a narrow historical lens. The study proposes a 15-week, praxis-based syllabus that integrates critical pedagogy, intersectionality, queer and disability theory, and service learning to foster inclusive historical engagement. Using primary and secondary sources, multimedia, and community partnerships, the curriculum emphasizes …

One Thing Leads To Another: A New Approach To Teaching Medieval Literature In The Twenty-First Century, Nicholas Markellos

Quidditas

Part of the problem with defining the "Middle Ages" stems from nineteenth-century historians' attempts to distinguish the Renaissance as a unique period that brought about modernity. In examining the literature of this period, however, it is clear that there was a certain element of queerness that surrounded this bewildering age. As a literature teacher, I found that my students do not always see these strange and important elements in the antiquated translations of the texts. To that end, I designed a new curriculum unit that approaches the reading of several medieval stories through a queer perspective, as well as a …

El Maíz Del Abuelo: Fidel Márquez Sanchez’S Legacy And Mexico’S Historical Maize Agriculture, Lucia Marquez-Uppman

Scripps Senior Theses

The Green Revolution was an era of scientific development in productive agricultural methods and technologies in the mid-twentieth century. High-yielding seed varieties, artificial fertilizers, irrigation infrastructure, pesticides, and herbicides all developed from this period. Texcoco, Mexico was the center of much of the Green Revolution's education and research from the 1940s onward at the Autonomous University of Chapingo, a prestigious agricultural school, with funding from the US-based philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation. Powerful consequences in the globe's agriculture emerged from the Green Revolution, including the production of maize, a staple crop in Mexico, especially for Indigenous and campesino populations. My abuelo, Fidel …

Auxiliary Of East Georgia Regional Medical Center Records, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

Spanning 1971 to 2022, this collection consists of photographs, financial records, professional and personal correspondence, and scrapbooks from the Auxiliary of East Georgia Regional Medical Center. Additionally, the collection contains digital photographs of oversized commemorative plaques and awards bestowed to the hospital.

Place-Based Learning Practices: A Diptych Case Study Of Human And More-Than-Human Relationality At The Tribal And Western Academic Institutional Interface, Karley M. Rojas-Vienneau

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The ‘Place-Based Learning Practices Project’ is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective environments …

The Department Of Cardiovascular Anesthesia Of The Texas Heart Institute: An Informal History, John R Cooper, N Martin Giesecke

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Action This Day: The Mathematics And Machinations That Bested The German Enigma, Jonah Weinbaum

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis presents a comprehensive and chronological overview of cryptographic techniques designed to break Enigma, beginning in 1932 and culminating in the creation of the Turing-Welchman Bombe. We discuss the mathematical theory and electromechanical implements used to decode one of history's greatest ciphers.

Reexamining the Bombe through the lens of modern group theory, we critique Alan Turing's estimation of the number of "stops" that the Bombe produces for various plaintext-ciphertext pairing structures. To address its limitations, we introduce a new framework for estimating the number of stops by extending John Dixon's theorem concerning the probability that uniformly distributed elements of …

Aestheticizing And Engendering Disease: The Case Of Tuberculosis, Abigail Dollries

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis examines how tuberculosis, known in the nineteenth century as “consumption,” was aestheticized in American cultural and medical discourse, particularly in industrial cities of the North between 1830 and 1850. It addresses the paradox at the heart of the disease’s representation: while tuberculosis was medically pathologized, it was simultaneously romanticized, especially when afflicting elite white women. The central problem explored is how this aestheticization of illness functioned to reinforce gender, class, and racial hierarchies by transforming suffering into a symbol of virtue, refinement, and social status. Using a cultural-historical methodology, this project analyzes a range of sources, including medical …

Role And Evolution Of Islamic Education In Kazakhstan, Yeleukhan Kaliyeva, Albina Duissenbayeva, Aııtmamat Karıev, Bekzhan A. Azhimov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This paper examines the evolution of religious education and the professional development of clergy in Kazakhstan, with particular emphasis on the establishment of institutions aimed at enhancing the competencies of imams and religious educators. It traces the evolution of the Islamic educational system throughout various historical periods until the present day. Particular focus is given to blending Islamic teachings with contemporary educational structures. The researchers heuristically analyzed the current state of the field, identified the main problems, and suggested prospects for Islamic education for further development. The research utilizes the historical method, which uses primary and secondary data sources. This …

Dictyostelids: The Second Major Group Of Slime Molds, P. Liu, Z.J. Zhang, J.H. Ge, Y. Zou, Z. Li, S. Li, Y. Li, S.L. Stephenson

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The dictyostelids (also called cellular slime molds or social amoebae) are among the more abundant and widespread groups of microorganisms in terrestrial ecosystems. Despite this fact, they are totally unknown to most people, who sometimes confuse the dictyostelids with myxomycetes (or plasmodial slime molds). The first dictyostelid (Dictyostelium mucoroides) was described by the German Oskar Brefeld in 1869. More than 180 species are now known, and these organisms have been recorded from the high arctic to the subantarctic. The primary microhabitat for dictyostelids is the soil/humus layer on a forest floor, but they also occur in a number of other …

Napoleon’S Corpse And The Subversion Of Historical And Political Authority, Alissa Rachel Adams

Art Inquiries

This article examines printed depictions of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exhumed corpse in conjunction with Romantic historical practice in nineteenth-century France. Current studies on history in the Romantic age emphasize Romantic historicism’s link to a widespread and frustrated yearning for direct access to the past that will settle the upheavals of the revolutionary period. This study considers how the corpse and its representations fulfill the desire for direct access to the past but, in doing so, also contributes to a proliferation of individual understandings of the past—and future. Through an analysis of representations of the corpse, their sources, and their connection to …

Kaleidoscopic Visions Of South Africa: A Study Of State And Station In Imraan Coovadia's Tales Of The Metric System, J. Coplen Rose

Kritika Kultura

This paper discusses the structure of Imraan Coovadia’s Tales of the Metric System: A Novel. Drawing inspiration from Karina Szczurek’s review of Coovadia’s book, the article explores the kaleidoscopic view of the South African state that emerges across the storylines in the novel. Critically, this paper connects Szczurek’s terminology to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of the rhizome. The multiple perspectives that intersect over the course of Coovadia’s text foreground the polyvalent bonds connecting characters across space and time. These links form a web between characters which closely resembles Deleuze and Guattari’s description of the rhizome in A Thousand …

Speaking Across The Lines: 1965, The Family, And Reconciliation In Indonesia, Kar-Yen Leong

Kritika Kultura

In the aftermath of the 1965 killings, Suharto’s New Order regime in Indonesia initiated a series of policies and ideological programs that sought to turn the Southeast Asian nation into an “integral state.” The family unit then became institutionalized and idealized as an object providing the state with the necessary discursive language to maintain then-president Suharto’s three-decade long rule. His regime, however, continued to demonize hundreds of thousands of former political detainees, denying their families access to basic rights. Branded as having come from “unclean environments,” the descendants of the Suharto regime’s political detainees continue to face discrimination even after …

Marvelous Bodies: Italy's New Migrant Cinema, Vetri Nathan

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Historically a source of emigrants to Northern Europe and the New World, Italy has rapidly become a preferred destination for immigrants from the global South. Life in the land of la dolce vita has not seemed so sweet recently, as Italy struggles with the cultural challenges caused by this surge in immigration. Marvelous Bodies by Vetri Nathan explores thirteen key full-length Italian films released between 1990 and 2010 that treat this remarkable moment of cultural role reversal through a plurality of styles. In it, Nathan argues that Italy sees itself as the quintessential internal Other of Western Europe, and that …

Modern Agricultural Servitude: The Modern Farm Worker Experience In The Salinas Valley, Jesus E. Tavarez

Chicana and Chicano Studies ETDs

The prevailing narrative in Chicanx studies focuses on the historical labor activism of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in the 1960s and ‘70s. I am particularly interested in examining the contemporary campesino experience in the Salinas Valley by discussing the history behind Mexican cheap labor, low wages, exploitive work conditions with inadequate healthcare, agrochemical exposure, and historical consciousness of farm workers. I will argue that farm workers are in dire need of a migratory reform as an approach to improve the working conditions of farm workers throughout California. This research aims to shed light on how the multi-billion-dollar agribusiness industry …

A Puerto Rico For Whom? Race, Neglect, And Empire, Ediberto Román, Ernesto Sagás

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This article examines the persistent colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, highlighting the paradox of a nation that champions democracy while maintaining colonial rule over millions of disenfranchised citizens. Over 120 years of exploitation, neglect, and subordination have shaped Puerto Rico’s status as the largest U.S. territory, where residents live in stark inequality compared to those on the mainland. Despite the veneer of sovereignty created by the U.S. through legal frameworks, Puerto Rico exemplifies a sophisticated and undemocratic form of modern colonialism, recently termed "new legal colonialism." This approach uses legal structures to maintain economic and strategic …

Documenting Sensation: Reimagining Urban Data For Equity And Sustainability, Nathan R. Johnson, Meredith A. Johnson

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper explores the historical and contemporary practices of documenting urban planning in Tampa Bay, emphasizing the role of sensory experiences in fostering sustainable and equitable development. Using the 1989 Future of Hillsborough Transportation Concepts white paper as a case study, the research critiques the dominance of efficiency-focused documentation in urban policy. This study highlights how such frameworks often neglect cultural and sensory dimensions critical to community well-being. The research calls for a shift towards documenting sensory experiences, drawing on the concept of the sensorium, to bridge the gap between technical data and lived urban experiences. The paper argues that …

An Outspoken Woman In A Man's World: A Commentary On Seneca's Medea, Julia Eckholdt

History & Classics Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ucf Pegasus Plan - 2nd Grade - Immigration, Emily T. Yackel, Elizabeth Logan, Hannah Schwarz, Mckinzi Johnson, Katie Molloy, Victoria Kingstone

Pegasus Plans: Social Studies Unit Plans for Florida Teachers

During this unit, students will learn about the history and symbols associated with immigration throughout the 1800s to modern times. Students will interact and explore with different pieces of literature and technologies dealing with Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and other countries’ cultural influences. Materials such as virtual tours, AR apps and arts integration will be used throughout this unit plan.

Pacific Magazine 2024, University Of The Pacific

Pacific Magazine and Pacific Review

No abstract provided.

Bibliometric Guide To Photographs Of Male Participants In Early Exercise And Physical Medicine Research, James L. Nuzzo

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The history of exercise science research has undergone relatively little examination, and exercise science students receive little education about the field’s history. Photographs are tools that lecturers and writers can use to educate audiences about history. Yet, no resource exists that tells educators where they can find photographs of individuals participating in early studies about exercise or related topics (e.g., physical education, physical medicine). Here, the aim was to identify papers published before 1980 that contain photographs of boys and men participating in studies about exercise or related topics, aggregate the papers into a bibliometric list, and describe the photographs. …