Digital Commons Network^™

(Dis)Orientations: Finding Rhythm Within Queer Nightlife In Los Angeles, Frances Bright Currie

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines how queer individuals in Los Angeles perceive, inhabit, and reshape their experiences in queer cultural spaces. Through this project, I trace the evolution of queer nightlife in Los Angeles (from early gay counterspaces, through the collectivist politics of the Queer Nation, to post-gay assimilation and contemporary “inclusive” queer nightlife) in order to examine how queer space has been shaped and reshaped by a recurring tension between the utopian promise of universality and inclusion and the material realities of exclusion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, queer theory, and approaches to memory and the archive, I argue that queer nightlife …

Early Sound Recording Technologies, Peter James Verdin

World Music Textbook

This chapter recounts the history of early sound recording technologies, their development up until the early 20th century, and the commercial pressures and colonial legacies that shaped how these technologies were used.

Holding The Past Carefully In Players’ Hands: Historically-Structured Boardgames And The Troubles In History Education, Hugh D. O'Donnell

Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies

Controversial histories, such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, are often excluded from formal education, forming a "null curriculum" due to their political sensitivity, emotional difficulty, and risk of bias or re-traumatising students. To address this, Historically-Structured Boardgames (HSBGs) offer an innovative pedagogical approach, engaging students cognitively and emotionally while navigating sensitive historical terrain.

HSBGs like "The Troubles: Shadow War in Northern Ireland 1964-1998" embed players within historically accurate socio-political and economic structures, emphasising player agency and the consequences of their actions. Players assume roles from six factions, confronting ethically charged "Narrative Cards" representing critical historical decision points. The game's …

It Makes You Nervous When You Start Talking About Racism: Shining Light On Teacher Educators’ Experiences Of Anti-Racist Pedagogy In Australian Teacher Education, Sasha Janes

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Teacher educators have a significant responsibility in promoting anti-racist pedagogy and guiding preservice teachers to engage in critical self-examination regarding dominant narratives. However, many teacher education programmes fall short of adequately equipping aspiring teachers for diverse classrooms as they often perpetuate a predominantly white system and curricula. Informed by Critical Pedagogy and underpinned by a lens of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, this paper discusses the experiences of teacher educators facilitating anti-racist pedagogy within teacher education programmes at Australian universities. Semi-structured interviews were held with 23 experienced teacher educators employed at universities across Australia. Data reveal teacher educators’ efforts to promote anti-racist …

Author Biographies

Res Publica - Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

En Ritmo: A Praxis In Decolonizing Traditional Dance Spaces, Megan Curet

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

En Ritmo: Praxis in Decolonizing Traditional Dance Spaces is an investigation that explores the intersection of bomba, a traditional Puerto Rican song, music and dance form, and North American contemporary dance. This PhD research aims to decolonize culturally hegemonic dance spaces through a cultural syncretism of contemporary dance and the elements of bomba as foundational principles for training both professional and non-professional dancers. This practice challenges traditional Western dance training paradigms. Therefore it is crucial to clarify that this research is not positioned within the realm of pedagogy; rather, it critically interrogates and deconstructs the distinctions between dance practice and …

Antigypsyism: Foundations Of An Ideology Of Hatred Towards Roma, Fernando Ruiz Molina, Zoë James

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Roma communities represent the largest ethnic minority in Europe (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2021), dating their presence from the fourteenth century onwards (Council of Europe [CoE], 2012a; CoE n.d.-a; End, 2012).¹Accord-ing to the Council of Europe, it is estimated that the population of Roma citizens living currently in Europe is around 10 to 12 million (CoE, 2012a). Despite their long-standing presence in European countries, Roma are hated within their own countries. From Eastern to Western Europe, animosity towards Roma centres on public acceptance of stereotypes of their criminality and lifestyles, leading to this minority group experiencing the most bias-motivated crime …

Using Drawings To Understand Undergraduates’ Perceptions Of Politics—The Us And Ireland, John Hogan, Sharon Feeney, Paul Kosempel

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Purpose: This article seeks to gain insights from the interpretations of freehand drawings produced by American and Irish students, young voters, in response to the question: “What is American/Irish politics?” Our goal in using freehand drawing is to foster a collaborative and critical learning environment where participants enhance their ability to interpret and engage in self-reflection. Design/methodology/approach: Freehand drawing is a visual representation method that can bypass cognitive verbal processing pathways as part of a critical pedagogy. This approach enables participants to create clear, more critical, and inclusive depictions of their understanding of a topic, regardless of their vocabulary. Over …

Modern Day Saints And The Production Of A Contemporary Pilgrimage Site: Comparative Analysis Of St. Pio Of San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy And Sai Baba Of Shirdi, India, Kiran Shinde, Anna Trono Prof

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Places valorised by saints have attracted pilgrimage for a long time as devotion to saints is a way to achieve both material wellbeing and spiritual growth. Yet, the cult following of modern-day saints in contemporary societies has become a topic for exploration only in recent years (Di Giovine, 2010; Shinde & Pinkney; 2013, Srinivas, 2008). A few excellent hagiographies discuss the material and non-material world created around charismatic modern-day saints with global followership (Waghorne, 2004; Weiss, 2005; Shepherd, 1986). Given the immense popularity of modern-day saints many questions arise- what kind of pilgrimage landscape is created around them? Are they …

Non-Destructive Hhxrf Archaeometry For Grouping Individuals Via Trace Element Analysis Of Dental Remains, Griffon G. Binkowski

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Handheld X-ray fluorescence (HHXRF) spectrometry has been validated as an accurate, non-destructive method for analyzing archaeological osseous materials. This study utilizes HHXRF to address key bioarchaeological questions, including population differentiation, individuation, and the interpretation of bioaccumulated trace elements versus diagenetic impacts. Using dental enamel from the Maya site of Altun Ha, Belize (n=20) and several Roman-Christian sites in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt (n=6), the occlusal surface of molar crowns was assayed in air using a Bruker Tracer III- equipped with a 12 mil Al, 1 mil Ti, 6 mil Cu filter. Semi-quantitative trace element ratios (Sr/Ca, Fe/Ca, and Zn/Ca) …

Homoplasy Of Maxillary Orthognathism In Derived Homo, Jared Jordan

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The evolution of the orthognathic condition in the genus Homo represents a monumental transition toward the facial morphology of modern humans from that of earlier hominins, but the phylogenetic positioning of this transformation remains poorly understood. This study investigated temporal trends in maxillary and mandibular prognathism in the genus Homo, and whether maxillary and mandibular shortening in East Asian H. erectus and later East Asian Middle Pleistocene Homo (e.g., Homo longi) represent independent derivations of orthognathic morphology, thereby making orthognathism a homoplasy in the genus Homo. Using a sample of roughly 109 cranial and mandibular specimens spanning …

“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. …