Digital Commons Network^™

Tolkien, Modernism, And Mass Art, Matthew Thompson-Handell

Journal of Tolkien Research

A good deal has been written in the last 30 years on the extent to which Tolkien's work can be aligned or associated with literary modernism. Arguments have been made both for and against, though in spite of the range of perspectives that have been considered, what has been missed is the question of difficulty. A central characteristic of modernism is its difficulty, its inaccessibility to a non-specialized reader. The Lord of the Rings is not difficult, nor inaccessible - indeed it can readily be characterised as mass art by virtue of its accessibility.

Rosier, Donelly Fuglseth

Floodwall Magazine

No abstract provided.

Judaism And Catholicism: Possibilities Of An Inter-Spiritual Dialogue, David Neuhaus

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines the possibilities of an inter-spiritual dialogue between Catholics and Jews. Describing the transformation of the Catholic attitude to Jews andJudaism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, moving from a teaching of contempt to one of respect, it analyses the far-reaching reformulations of Catholic theology that promote an interreligious dialogue. After centuries of traumatic history, Jewish reactions have been hesitant. However, the past decades have led to a burgeoning relationship that can indeed flower into a mutual inter-spiritual dialogue that deepens the faith of both Catholics and Jews.

Jainism And Catholicism – Dialoguing Spiritually, Bryan Lobo

Journal of Global Catholicism

The inter-spiritual dialogue between Jainism and Catholicism lends itself towards discovering similarities and dissimilarities between the two spiritualities. Recognizing this discovery, this paper, without claiming to be exhaustive as regards the spiritual themes, discusses the chosen themes to facilitate greater reflection and potential to re-discover elements that can help the growth of understanding and practicing the preferred spirituality.

Hindu Poetry And The Project Of An Inter-Spiritual Catholic Theology, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article engages the work of the Indian south Indian Tamil-language Vaiṣṇava poet saints known as the Alvārs. The article specifically focuses the First HundredHoly Linked verses of Poykai Ālvār to argue for inter-spiritual learning between Catholics and Hindus. The article concludes with personal reflections on this encounter within the context of the global Catholic Church

Overview And Acknowledgments, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

An overview and introduction to the present issue on Inter-Spiritual Dialogue.

Representation, Passion Narrative And Anti-Narrative: The Genre Of History Between Historiography And Knowledge, Saida Taqi

SOROUD: The journal of Literacy Criticism

History is a narrative that records past events, notes and preserves the memories of peoples, and documents the interpretation of facts adopted, officially and institutionally approved in cause and effect controversy. However, the historian is a narrator, a human being, who, since Herodotus, has been producing his knowledge in relation to his culture, confusing act and passion, letting his representations slip through his speeches. Science, in parallel, generally does not go far from the characteristics of History. Although Man may appear in terminology and linguistics, as much as a human being who includes in his lexical entry the oscillating definition …

For An Emotional Reception Of The “Hypermodern” Novel: Eric’S Example Chevillard, Abbes Marzouki

SOROUD: The journal of Literacy Criticism

Provoking the reader’s emotions, challenging heir feelings and stimulating their imagination broadens the field of investigation of the novel. The poetic part of the reception is born from the pensive and reflexive states generated in an affective novelistic universe. Emotion is produced through games of all kinds and through a writing that proceeds to experimentation, that cultivates the excessive and the extravagant and creates the pleasure of the text. Hence, the emotional dimension becomes the leitmotif of the strong integration of the reader and the trigger of his/her performative participation. Faced with an intricate writing with structural, semantic, chronological and …

Editorial (English) Narrating Passion(S), Chouaib Halifi

SOROUD: The journal of Literacy Criticism

No abstract provided.

Cultivating Narratives: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Higher Education Student-Led Farms And Gardens, Maximilan Sherard, Marc T. Sager

Publications

Despite extensive research on community agriculture, little attention has been paid to student-led farms or gardens (SFGs) in higher education contexts. SFGs represent a unique site for community agriculture due to their diverse stakeholders, academic affiliations, and the institutional policies they navigate. This study examines online promotional materials from 42 SFGs located on land-grant higher education campuses across the United States. Using critical discourse analysis, we (1) map these organizations’ practices and (2) identify competing discourses about community and agriculture within their promotional narratives. We identify and explain four core practices (membership, growing, distribution, and purpose) and connect these practices …

Systematic Errors In Judging The Performance Of Others, Michael J. Benson

Psychology ETDs

The well-documented tendency of people to be poor estimators of their relative abilities can be problematic in real life. These errors in are highly asymmetric: the worst performers dramatically overestimate their relative ability, whereas the best performers underestimate theirs (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). There are two possible causes of this misjudgment of relative ability: 1) participants are poor estimators of their own performance, or 2) participants are poor estimators of the comparison group’s performance. Kruger and Dunning (1999) attributed overestimation in the worst performers to the former problem but attributed the underestimation in the best performers to the latter problem. …

Review Of Gautam Bhatia’S The Indian Constitution: A Conversation With Power, Aishwarya Singh

National Law School of India Review

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Culturally Responsive Evaluation In Extension Programs For Indigenous Youth, Sara M. Tomis, J.C. Bunch, Amy Harder, T. Grady Roberts

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

Indigenous communities, deserving and in need of salient Extension services, experience disparity in programming and culturally responsive evaluation because of historic and current social and financial barriers. An exploration of culturally responsive evaluation practices in Extension programs serving Indigenous youth audiences is warranted to identify areas for improvement. A focus group of Extension professionals was conducted to investigate evaluation practice within a federally funded Extension program. Findings indicated that Extension professionals were committed to operating and evaluating in ways that respected Indigenous culture, but improvements in culturally responsive practice are needed among both university and federal partners.

Trauma-Informed And Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices To Support Multilingual Learners In K-12 Classrooms, Emily Johnson

Graduate Teacher Education

This Capstone paper examined how trauma-informed (TI) and culturally responsive (CR) belonging of multilingual learners (MLs) in K-12 classrooms. This study evaluated the intersection of TI education and CR teaching as a framework to support MLs. With MLs representing approximately 10% of the U.S. student population (NCES, 2024), schools faced an urgent need to address the academic, linguistic, and social-emotional challenges due to adverse childhood experiences, migration-related stress, displacement, and cultural adjustment. The literature review included qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and intervention-based studies examining MLs, refugee-background students, teacher perceptions, professional development, school-based interventions, and CR instructional practices. This paper explored how …

Learning About Gujarati: Cultural Identity And Family Language, Vritti Sodha

Florida Atlantic Undergraduate Research Journal

Language loss is a prevalent problem that is occurring in immigrant families in the United States. Since regional languages such as Gujarati are not used outside of households and community gatherings, it is not given much importance to learn. In order to combat this problem, community centers hold Gujarati classes for students of all ages to help preserve the language, but the lack of motivation to learn the language still remains. This is because a student needs to have a connection to the language to be motivated to learn it, which can be made through active learning. This study examines …

Perceived Teacher Tensions: Navigating Educational Mandates Of Explicit Instruction And Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Ruby Olivia D'Aietti, Brian Lewthwaite, Philemon Chigeza

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In this paper I discuss the perceived tensions in navigating an Explicit Instruction approach with a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy at the cultural interface. The study took place in a Year 6/7 classroom in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. All students identified as EAL/D learners. As an experienced, yet non-Indigenous practitioner, I documented the perceived tensions I encountered in the discipline of English. Adopting an Action Research methodology, I explored the classroom struggles as I navigated the mandate of teaching explicitly, yet responsively. I used student dialogue sessions and a reflective journal to document my tensions. Results showed, despite being able …

Air: Improving Agent Safety Through Incident Response, Zibo Xiao, Jun Sun, Junjie Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Large Language Model (LLM) agents are increasingly deployed in practice across a wide range of autonomous applications. Yet current safety mechanisms for LLM agents focus almost exclusively on preventing failures in advance, providing limited capabilities for responding to, containing, or recovering from incidents after they inevitably arise. In this work, we introduce AIR, the first incident response framework for LLM agent systems. AIR defines a domain-specific language for managing the incident response lifecycle autonomously in LLM agent systems, and integrates it into the agent's execution loop to (1) detect incidents via semantic checks grounded in the current environment state and …

I Didn’T Think Teaching Was For Me: An Autoethnography Of Teaching Other People's Children, Jaquinetta Mitchell

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This autoethnographic study examines how the cooperating teacher-student teacher relationships shapes professional identity, culturally responsive practice, and long-term teaching efficacy, particularly when preparing educators to work with students of color. Drawing on my own reflective narrative as a Black woman who navigated a predominantly White teacher preparation program and entered the profession inadequately prepared to serve diverse students, alongside three rounds of data collected from former student teachers, this study asks: How does the student teaching experience affect teachers’ educational journeys? What support do cooperating teachers need to effectively mentor student teachers working with students of color? How does the …

Academic Achievement Of Students In The United States: The Lived Experience Of Being A Black, Hard-Of-Hearing College Learner, Tracy Laneis Ivy

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Black Deaf and Hard of Hearing college students’ current educational experiences are shaped by their lived experiences in high school classrooms. This qualitative study centers the voices and lived experiences of 15 Black Deaf and Hard of Hearing college students. The purpose was to explore how the participants, first-, second-, or third-year college students, made meaning of their high school classroom experiences and how those experiences continued to influence their college experiences. This study was informed by Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education, and Counter-Narrative.

Data were collected using Seidman’s three-interview series, which required …

Sharing The Voices Of Latine Students: Their Experiences Of Community, Belonging And Joy In A Suburban Public High School, Ashley Acosta-Meyers

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenological and ethnographic study explored how seven Latine high school students in a suburban public high school defined and experienced community, belonging, and joy, asking what school spaces, experiences, and practices build or diminish these three concepts. Data was collected through four interview sessions per participant, reflective journaling, and three culturally and linguistically responsive walkthrough observations, and were analyzed through layered linguistic, narrative, and thematic coding. Findings showed that belonging and joy were tied to specific spaces rather than felt evenly across the school day. Institutional fairness shaped belonging as much as any relationship. Latine identity was contested, …

Eric H. Martinez, Eric H. Martinez

Faculty CVs

No abstract provided.

Native American Speech-Language Pathologists: Voices And Perspectives, Lexi Woods

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: This narrative inquiry centers the lived experiences and professional voices of Native American speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with students with disabilities on tribal lands, a population that remains unheard within special education and speech-language pathology research. Grounded in Indigenous epistemologies that honor relationality, storytelling, and community accountability, this study explores how Native American SLPs navigate systemic inequities, cultural and linguistic mismatches, and institutional constraints while providing services in public, tribally controlled, and Bureau of Indian Education schools. Through in-depth narratives, the research illuminates how participants resist deficit-based approaches by reframing silence, communication styles, family engagement, and disability through culturally …

Wooster Magazine: Summer 2026, Caitlin Paynich Stanowick, The College Of Wooster

Wooster Magazine: 2021-2030

 The summer 2026 issue of Wooster magazine explores the role of mentorship in shaping inquiry, confidence, and lifelong learning at The College of Wooster. Features examine how personalized guidance supports student research through Independent Study, including projects by psychology and music, classical studies, physics, and computer science and neuroscience students that explored music cognition, ancient texts, consciousness, and distant galaxies. Additional featured stories highlight a faculty professional learning community focused on strengthening mentoring practices across campus and alumni Amber Rice ’01, Austin Russell ’19, Marcel El Kouri ’21, and Emily Beuter ’20, who carry forward the lessons and values of …

Fostering Inclusion: Supporting Children With Hearing Loss In Social Interactions, Danielle Kaletta, Mary Jan Greer

Summer 2026 OTD Capstone Symposium

This project provided an open-access online program for caregivers of children with hearing loss to facilitate social engagement. Qualitative methods were used to conduct a needs assessment and identify areas of concern, barriers, and limited resources that affect participation in social activities. Based on the needs assessment, a 6-module website was created and published. Occupational therapy-based evidence, research, interventions, and best practices were compiled and adapted to target identified areas. Participants reported overall favorable feedback, stating an increase in knowledge, confidence, and participation.

Pragmatic Measures In Aided Language Measurement: Aac Clinical Expert Perspectives, Makayla Hydiea Smith

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

Purpose: The augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) discipline currently lacks psychometrically sound aided language measures. This thesis is designed to address one step in developing such measures: to begin to establish the clinical feasibility of three pragmatic measures – communicative intent, independence/co-construction, and imitation/non-imitation. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to identify the useability of these pragmatic measures.

Method: A qualitative approach in the form of a focus group was used to examine the perceptions of SLP practitioners who are experts in AAC. Rapid qualitative analysis (RQA) was used to identify relevant themes and subthemes.

Results: Overall, the themes …

Conceptualizations Of "Public Health" And Government Action Among U.S. Adults In 2025., Lauren Yan, Emily Cramer, Peter J. Winch, Emily A. Hurley

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

INTRODUCTION: Understanding how Americans think about public health and the role of government institutions is crucial for informing effective health communication in a polarized political climate.

METHODS: We deployed an open-ended national survey of 1004 adults in October 2025 to assess public perceptions of these topics.

RESULTS: Respondents associated the term "public health" with health for everyone (44%) and health of everyone (23%), alongside healthcare (20%) and other themes. The most common perceived government benefit was facilitating access to healthcare (39%)-particularly by addressing cost (16%). Among perceived government harms, more Republicans than Democrats cited overregulation (16% vs 8%, P < 0.01), limiting …