Digital Commons Network^™

Romanist-Bourgeois Property And The Development Of The Modern Capitalist World System, Anna Di Robilant

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role of Romanist-bourgeois property law in the development of the modern capitalist world system, focusing on how nineteenth-century jurists deliberately crafted and adapted Roman law-based property doctrines to address the evolving social relations of production in both Europe and its peripheries. Rather than viewing legal concepts as merely reflective of broader economic transformations, the author highlights the active role played by a professional class of jurists in shaping property law to legitimize and structure emergent capitalist class dynamics. The article critically engages with competing scholarly perspectives that either privilege market expansion or downplay class relations, arguing …

Ottoman Wikālas In Cairo: Islamic Architecture Beyond The Mosque, Yumna Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces one of the largest architectural typologies in Cairo: the wikāla, a type of urban caravanserai unique to Egypt. Estimated to have reached more than five hundred buildings by the 18^th century, the wikāla was the building of choice for most patrons in Ottoman Cairo. This study initially investigates the evolution of commercial architecture within the Islamic city. It then explores the defining architectural features of Cairene wikālas built between the 16^th and 18^th centuries—their plans, decorative/iconographic programs, and urban distribution—based on waqfiyyas, chronicles, travelers’ accounts, and photographic archives. Since many of …

Formation-Based Analysis In Contemporary Saxophone Practice: A Case Study Of Ziwei Shi's The Blue Lotus Bloms, Jiageng Ren

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation examines contemporary saxophone repertoire through a formation-based analytical approach, using Ziwei Shi’s The Blue Lotus Blooms as a case study. It is organized into three parts. Part I establishes the conceptual and methodological framework by introducing the concept of “formation-based analysis,” positioning the “condition of musical formation” as its core. Further situating the study within scholarship on practice-based research, cross-cultural theory, and modernism/postmodernism. Part II provides a detailed analytical and performance-based investigation of the work, including the collaborative commissioning process, the application of Thaat as a pitch resource, the role of extended techniques and embodied endurance, and contrasting …

Bias Across The Data Lifecycle: Data Governors’ Perceptions In Land-Grant Higher Education, Shauna N. Mcclure, Lisa Lambert Snodgrass

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs

Higher education institutions increasingly rely on artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled tools and predictive analytics to inform decisions in areas such as admissions, student success, and resource allocation. This reliance heightens the need for data governance frameworks that address the policies, processes, and technologies governing student data. Data governors shape how institutional data are collected, interpreted, and used, yet existing approaches often assume that data are neutral, overlooking how bias can become embedded and compounded across the stages of the data lifecycle. This exploratory study investigates whether data governors perceive implicit bias as present across these stages. Using a quantitative survey, we …

The Vestiges Of The German Democratic Republic: Memory Politics And Xenophobia In Former East Germany, Diana Zhou

CMC Senior Theses

From the 2015 migration influx onward, xenophobic and nationalist sentiments permeated Germany’s national political discourse. The former socialist territories in eastern Germany have proven particularly susceptible to far-right, anti-immigration, and anti-integration rhetoric. This thesis explores the mnemonic foundations of xenophobic sentiments in former East German states, tracing the development of an antifascist yet ethnically nationalist mnemonic framework to the state-sanctioned myths and invented traditions of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). As the loss of a collective GDR identity produced a reactionary rehabilitation of this framework post-unification, the racial and ethnic “other” — migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees — became constructed …

Review Of James K. Galbraith And Jing Chen, Entropy Economics: The Living Basis Of Value And Production (The University Of Chicago Press, 2025), Panos Tsoukalis

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Wilhelm Von Humboldt And The Idea Of The Modern University: The Unity Of Bildung And Wissenschaft, Ken Udas

Graduate Masters Theses

Wilhelm von Humboldt and the Idea of the Modern University examines Wilhelm von Humboldt’s contribution to shaping a philosophical ideal that has profoundly influenced the concept and identity of the modern research university for over two centuries. It highlights Humboldt’s position as a key figure in the Prussian reform movement and as the founder of the University of Berlin. Specifically, it addresses a question raised in the late twentieth century as part of the Mythos Humboldt revision: why has the Humboldtian Ideal maintained such lasting influence over the German university system, even as its practical realities have increasingly strayed from …

Counter-Mapping A Sugar Mill In Mascarilla, Afro-Ecuadorian Ancestral Territory Of The Chota Valley, Andrea E. Chavez Chuquimarca

Graduate Masters Theses

This project examines the legacies of the colonial hacienda (estate) system in the community of Mascarilla, situated in the Ancestral Territory of the Chota Valley, Carchi Province, in the northern highlands of Ecuador. This study is framed within the first half of the 20th century, during the early stages of industrialization in Ecuador, and the last period in which the Trapiche de Mascarilla was still functioning. These elements will be viewed through the lens of the archaeological feature of the trapiche (panela production facility), serving as a referential space of history under the huasipungo system (debt-peonage). The interconnected components of …

Change In Community Composition And Structure On Subtidal Rock Walls In The Gulf Of Maine Over Four Decades Of Warming, Breck A. Mccollum

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The Gulf of Maine (GOM) has faced many changes over the last 47 years from overfishing of its iconic cod fish stocks to the introduction on non-native species, but no change has been as dramatic as the warming ocean temperatures that began to increase rapidly in the 2010s. This thermal shift is due largely to the northward movement of the Gulf Stream current mixing with Arctic meltwater before entering the GOM. Average summer temperatures jumped by 3.35°C between the periods of 1980-1985 and 2015-2020. This warming trend, combined with an increasing frequency of marine heat wave events, has led to …

Education For A Shared Society In Wartime: A Faculty Of Education Dean’S Autoethnography, Ilana Paul-Binyamin

The Qualitative Report

My autoethnographic study emerged in the wake of the Hamas–Israel war that began on October 7, 2023, placing me in a dual position as both an academic leader and a member of a society in crisis. As Dean of a multicultural Faculty of Education, I reflect on how the war disrupted longstanding efforts to promote shared society education between Jews and Arabs. Drawing on personal narratives, reflective fieldnotes, and case studies from campus life, I explore how trauma, fear, and political polarization undermined the multicultural frameworks I had developed over years of practice. I document moments of rupture—between students, faculty, …

Everyday Practices In Seed Sovereignty, Tapiwa Singini, Wu Xu

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Seed sovereignty is increasingly recognized as central to debates around food security, biodiversity, and rural livelihoods, particularly in the Global South. In Malawi, seed is not merely an agricultural input but a carrier of memory, resilience, and political agency. This paper explores how smallholder farmers in rural Malawi engage in everyday acts of resistance to maintain seed sovereignty amidst expanding corporate influence, restrictive state policies, and climate variability. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Mchinji District, I employ a political ecology framework and peasant resistance theory to analyze the lived strategies of farmers. These include seed saving, informal …

From Essays To Embodiment: Reimagining Student-Centered Assessment Through Creative Practice, Rory Bester, Carla Lever, Bongani Kona, Mona Hakimi

Turning Toward Being: The Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education

This essay explores the experience of implementing podcast-based assessment in ‘Feeling History, Making History,’ a semester-long course at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa. The course is designed to cultivate broad-based critical and interdisciplinary skill sets in first-year Humanities students. Through pedagogical reflection across three consecutive iterations of this course, we investigate how creative assessment practices such as podcasting both enabled our students to bring their whole “selves” into the academy and productively challenged our own preconceived notions about effective, decolonial pedagogy.

A Bicentennial Approach To An Exegetical School Of Private Law In Louisiana, Agustín Parise

Journal of Civil Law Studies

This paper is an expansion of the 44th Tucker Lecture on Civil Law. It deals with sources of law, codification, and the place of the civil code in the State of Louisiana. It explores to what extent it is possible to speak of the presence of an exegetical school of private law in Louisiana throughout the life of the Louisiana Civil Code. This paper is divided into five parts. First, it deals with foundational aspects of codification and of the Louisiana Civil Code. Second, it offers a conceptualization of exegesis. Third, it presents a periodization to help analyze the degree …

Dirk Heirbaut, Redefining Codification: A Comparative History Of Civil, Commerical, And Procedural Codes, Agustín Parise

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Red Flag In The Pearl Of The Orient?: The Image Of China In The Philippine Periodical La Solidaridad (1889-1895), Lois Mauri Anne Liwanag, Tiffany Ritz Mendoza, Sophia Marie Enriquez, Vianca Jamyla Joven, Leslie Anne Liwanag, Michael Charleston "Xiao" Chua

Kritika Kultura

This paper attempts to deduce how certain articles in La Solidaridad that specifically discussed China present a general image of the said Celestial Empire. Its significance lies in the fact that it can provide further knowledge of how Filipino intellectuals of that time perceive the Philippines in relation to its neighbors in Asia as well as the dynamics of the region’s political situation. This article is also important due to its potential to provide a Filipino perception of China before it was altered by the Philippine-Chinese territorial conflict that emerged during the latter part of twentieth century. This paper has …

Communal Aspects Of Old Order River Brethren Life, Rod Janzen, Stephen Scott, Hannah Scott

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Critical Engagement With Gpt In U.S. History: Full Integration In An Undergrad Setting, Matt Meador

Teaching Repository of AI-Infused Learning

This project integrates a custom-trained GPT model into undergrad U.S. History courses to support students in analyzing primary sources, evaluating historical perspectives, and bridging the gap into AI Literacy. Students use AI to generate draft responses, then critically review, annotate, and revise outputs, ensuring that human oversight fosters deeper historical thinking rather than passive acceptance of machine responses.

Employers’ Best Practices For Retaining Women Employees With Dual Responsibilities Post-Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multiple Case Study, Wenoka E. Nieves

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The challenges women face with dual responsibilities during a crisis often force them to take on additional or multiple responsibilities at home. The specific research problem is that although researchers have investigated job loss during crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of how employers can retain women with dual responsibilities, caring for their family members in their household and working during crises, has not been explored. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the best practices that employers use to retain women employees with dual responsibilities who are caring for their household family members …

New Harmony, The Owen Brothers, And The Origin Of The Smithsonian, Lucy Jayne Kamau

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Men Of God, Men Of War: Military Chaplains As Ministers, Warriors, And Prisoners, Geoff Bailey

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Robert C. Doyle

Reviewed by: Chaplain (Colonel) Geoff Bailey, PhD, US Army War College chaplain and director of ethical development, Department of Command, Leadership, and Management, US Army War College

Robert C. Doyle offers a sweeping historical study of chaplains in American wars, revealing how faith and duty intersected on battlefields and in prison camps.

Ellen G. White On The “Deeper Meaning” Of Scripture, Alberto R. Timm

Ellen White Issues Symposium

No abstract provided.

Friendly Fire: George I. Butler’S View Of Degrees Of Inspiration, Denis Kaiser

Ellen White Issues Symposium

No abstract provided.

Global Pathways: Suwon, South Korea, Amanda D. Ledger

Capstone Collection

This capstone proposes the Global Pathways: Suwon program, a semester-long study abroad initiative developed in partnership between Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and Kyonggi University (KGU) in Suwon, South Korea. The program responds to current limitations in study abroad, particularly the prevalence of short-term tourism-oriented experiences and curricula that prioritizes Western perspectives. A needs assessment consisting of student interviews, surveys, and professional consultation demonstrated strong interest in programs that combine language learning, cultural immersion, and career development. Findings also highlighted the importance of financial accessibility, reciprocal host partnerships, and ongoing advising support. Drawing on Freire’s critical pedagogy and Vygotsky’s sociocultural …

Archetypes: Angels Of Literary Art; Demons Of Science, Ronald A. Davidson

Masters Theses

This Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing thesis focuses on archetypal literary theory and criticism and their application to Bushido of the Cur, a novella by Ronald A. Davidson. The critical analysis will evaluate the characters in the novella and identify how their roles in the story align with everyday human experiences, suggesting the existence of a literary collective unconscious. The creative manuscript, Bushido of the Cur, exploits the craft of character development to present a storyline that feels authentic, even though it is a work of historical fiction in the western noir genre. The goal of the manuscript is …

Glider Gladiators: American Transport Aviators And Gliderborne Troops From Operation Ladbroke Through Operation Overlord, Gregory F. Withrow

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study reassesses the overlooked but crucial role of American glider pilots, gliderborne infantry, and C-47 Troop Carrier Command aviators in Allied airborne operations from Operation Ladbroke to Operation Overlord. While most accounts of World War II airborne warfare focus on paratroopers, this dissertation shows that glider forces were key to the success of major Allied offensives. They often faced misinterpretation, bias, and historical omission. By using a wide range of primary sources—including glider pilot interrogation reports, unit operational records, after-action analyses, and firsthand accounts—this work reconstructs the tactical, logistical, and experiential aspects of American glider operations at a depth …

2022u_Lac23_Approved_Nc_Hist-3343-History-In-The-Digital-Age, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee

All Approved Curriculum

No abstract provided.

2022u_Lac24_Approved_Pm_Ba-History-Curricular-Update, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee

All Approved Curriculum

No abstract provided.

Review Of Modem Polygamy In The United States: Historical, Cultural, And Legal Issues, Christopher James Blythe

Communal Societies

No abstract provided.

Multidimensional Analysis Of Student Loyalty Using The Neutrosophic Biplot Method For Retention Strategies In Higher Education, Claudio Ruff, Marcelo Ruiz, Alexis Matheu, Bastián Gutiérrez, Luis Benites, Gerardo Anabalón

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Student loyalty in higher education represents a critical challenge for universities, particularly in the context of increasing competition and the need to ensure long-term retention. A key question arises: how can student loyalty be modeled when it is shaped by diverse and subjective perceptions? The relevance of this issue lies in its impact on institutional stability: when students withdraw before completing their programs, universities not only lose projected revenue but also face disruptions that may negatively influence academic rankings. Previous literature has explored drivers of satisfaction and determinants of loyalty; however, little attention has been given to approaches that explicitly …

Testing Tocqueville’S Troops: American Democracy At War In Mexico, Corbin V. Cali

History Theses

This thesis explores Alexis de Tocqueville's theory of democratic armies through the lens of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), testing his predictions about how democratic social conditions influence military institutions and performance. Tocqueville argued that armies in democratic societies would face tensions between egalitarian ideals and military discipline, with citizen-soldiers resisting hierarchy while professional officers, often isolated from civil society, grew dangerously ambitious for war. He predicted that democratic armies would show energetic initiative but struggle with weak formal discipline, and that equality would fundamentally change the relationship between the military and the broader society. The Mexican-American War serves as an …