Digital Commons Network^™

Corruption And Foreign Influence: A Cross-National Analysis Of Environmental Violence, Jamilah D. Christiansen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

World systems theory argues that wealthier nations exploit less developed nations, exerting their power and influence to take advantage of resources, often with little pushback. However, there is an ever-growing number of conflicts organized by citizens and activists alike that seek to push-back against the exploitation of their homes and labor, working to resist the political corruption and foreign manipulation within their governments. This dissertation examines the factors that contribute to the rise in environmentally-related conflicts, the impacts of those conflicts, and finally the resolutions of those conflicts using data that includes 1370 instances of conflict across 101 nations from …

Creativity In Arts Organizations: Waterfire Providence Unites And Inspires, Tiana Degrace

Honors Projects in History, Literature, and the Arts

Community arts organizations serve as vibrant cultural hubs, uniting diverse networks and fostering creative expression through their dynamic administrative planning and management. This study examines the creative processes at WaterFire Providence, focusing on how administrative teams integrate creativity into their decision-making, and volunteer practices. Drawing from existing literature on arts organizations and music festivals, the research highlights the importance of spaces, audience engagement, and collaborative community involvement in event organizations. By analyzing the decision-making strategies that administrators employ across various stages of event planning and execution, this study sheds light on the interplay between creativity and organizational practices. Through qualitative …

Jessica "Decky" Alexander, Oral History Interview, 2025, Kat Hacanyan

Oral Histories

Decky Alexander is a professor of drama and theater education and the Director of Engage@EMU. Alexander has become a well known community member across Washtenaw County through her theater education programs and work with organizations like the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor. She is the founder of CloseUp theater troupe and has been another long time supporter and board member of the Center for Jewish Studies at EMU. In this interview, Alexander talks about her Jewish upbringing in Chicago, the strengths of a good community network, and why having a center like this is especially important at EMU.

Justice, Human Rights, And The New Charisma Of Anti-Democratic Ideologies, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Floersheimer Center For Constitutional Democracy, Matthias Mahlmann

2025 Event Invitations

Democracies are under pressure worldwide – externally by authoritarian states and internally by political forces that spread anti-democratic ideologies even if masked by avowed concern for the people. While reasons are intensely debated, this talk critically revisits explanations for the charisma of post-democratic ideologies by (1) investigating normative foundations of the exacting and fragile project of democracy and its relation to human rights and (2) discussing human rights theory in times of widespread human rights skepticism and its meaning for crises of democracy. How can we defend the project of democracy in theory and practice?

Small Claims Mediation In Maine: An Empirical Assessment, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman

Maine Law Review

In recent years considerable attention has been paid in the United States to the development of informal "alternatives to court" as part of a world-wide access to justice movement. Of these alternatives to courts, mediation contrasts most sharply with adjudication and, in theory, promises much by way of decreasing the alienation of citizens when it is made an adjunct to the formal judicial process. The contrast and promise stem largely from the participatory and consensual character of the mediation process. A third party to the dispute—the mediator—encourages the parties to find a mutually agreeable settlement by helping them to sharpen …

Decolonizing The Future Through The Memory Of Subalternized Knowledges: Looking At The Production Of Three Latin American Artists From A Decolonial Perspective, Luciana Amormino, Anna Cavalcanti

Kritika Kultura

This article examines the artistic production of three Latin American artists, two Brazilians and one Chilean: Rosana Paulino (1967-), Moara Tupinambá (1983-), and Cecilia Vicuña (1948-). Vicuña and Tupinambá, artists of Indigenous descent, incorporate the epistemologies of native peoples into their works, considering the differences in ethnicity, territory, and generation that distinguish them. Paulino, in turn, a Black woman from the outskirts of São Paulo (SP/Brazil), addresses issues related to Black ancestry in her artistic production, particularly those linked to the experiences of enslaved African populations. Despite the distinct trajectories of these artists, a common element emerges in their artistic …

Deimperialization Of Difficult Heritage Museums Of Political Repression In Kazakhstan, Dmitriy Melnikov, Anastasia Mitrofanova, Svetlana Riazanova

Kritika Kultura

In this article, we employ a decolonial methodology to question whose voices and histories are highlighted and whose are silenced in museum exhibitions. This methodology is employed to analyze the memorial museums situated on sites associated with state-induced violence, or, more precisely, within the premises of the Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp (the museum in Dolinka and the “ALZHIR” memorial complex). Our objective is to examine how these museums endeavor to reclaim these sites as significant for national history and identity. The museums employ various strategies to deimperialize the message conveyed through their exhibits and to find a balance between the …

Decolonizing Memory: Omnibus Life Writing In Post-1989 Romania, Ioana Luca

Kritika Kultura

This essay conceptualizes omnibus life writing—collective autobiographical volumes—as a means of decolonizing memories of communism and the transition in Romania. I argue that omnibus life writing offers a viable framework for challenging entrenched postcommunist narratives and fostering a relational and intersectional model of remembering the recent past. Through an analysis of Ioana Pârvulescu’s Și eu am trăit în communism [I’ve Also Lived under Communism, 2015], Dan Lungu and Amelia Gheorghiţă’s Cărţi, filme, muzici şi alte distracţii din communism [Books, Movies, Music, and Other Entertainment under Communism, 2014] and Cartea copilăriilor [The Book of Childhoods, 2016], and the Prima dată series …

Decolonizing Memory And Examining The Naga Identity In The Works Of Easterine Kire, Paloma Chaterji

Kritika Kultura

Colonization can be twofold: external and internal. For a socio-geographic space like Nagaland, a state in the Northeast of India, colonialism has presented itself through Britain, and even India itself; these multiple faces of colonialism have influenced and destabilized this hilly state. It was the British who had the maximum influence on Nagaland. India, even after its independence from the British in 1947, implemented certain strategies that smelt of British imperialism, whichultimately affected Nagaland and Northeast India as a whole. Thus, referencing the novels by the Naga woman writer, Easterine Kire, namely, Sky is My Father: A Naga Village Remembered …

War, Violence, And Womanhood: (Re)Membering Women’S Military Narratives In China’S Revolution And Civil War, Szu-Nuo Chou

Kritika Kultura

In this ethnographic study, the author interviewed Chinese women aged 85 and older to explore their childhood and adolescent experiences of exile and military violence in the context of World War II and Chinese Civil War. Throughout the years of China’s revolution and interparty conflicts, ordinary Chinese women suffered from war-related violence—not only on the frontlines, but especially in domestic spaces, where the head of the household (e.g., father,husband, or son) engaged in a variety of violent and misogynistic performances associated with culturally-rooted Chinese patriarchy and masculinity. The author argues that in our current political discourse, the Chinese revolution and …

“Ghosts At The Banquet”: The Kenyan Mau Mau In Global Memory, Christian Alvarado

Kritika Kultura

In the decades since Kenyan independence from British rule, scholarship regarding memory of the Mau Mau Uprising has been bound by its nationalisms. “Nationalism” in the plural is apt because of the ways of remembering Mau Mau. It has investigated pressing issues in both Kenya and Great Britain itself. This article engages both foundational and recent scholarship in this vein in order to identify the set of assumptions that has shaped these debates and point toward new ways of thinking beyond them. In pursuance of new avenues in the study of global memories of Mau Mau, it also attempts a …

Decolonizing National And Imperial Memories: From Postcolonial To Decolonial And Beyond, Jarula M.I. Wegner

Kritika Kultura

This article describes a discursive shift at the beginning of the twenty-first century in academic and public debates from postcolonial to decolonial critiques and asks what this means for the study of national and imperial memories. While some critics, like Robert J. C. Young, see this shift within postcolonial discourse, others, like Sylvia Wynter, believe that postcolonial theory itself needs to be decolonized. Regardless of whether one believes the shift is taking place within postcolonial studies or caused from outside, in any case it presents at least twelve complex transformations. While many of the characteristics hark back to a longer …

Decolonizing National And Imperial Memories: Introduction, Jarula M.I. Wegner, Jocelyn S. Martin, Mary M. Mccarthy, Ruramisai Charumbira

Kritika Kultura

Building on Frantz Fanon’s insights into the intricate entanglements of colonialism, nation-states, and memories, there have been increasing calls to decolonize national and imperial memories. This introduction sketches the wider historical context within which these calls emerged, the collaboration that led to this special issue, and the contributions it makes to the wider debate.The introduction observes a general rise in calls for decolonization around the globe. The appeal to decolonize national and imperial memories was a response to at least three significant historical developments. First, the insight that mid-twentieth century decolonization remained incomplete, second, the widespread “memory boom” of the …

On Exasperated Isles, Joff P. N. Bradley

Kritika Kultura

This essay is an experimental piece of writing that brings together an array of thinkers from different traditions. Readers will encounter allusions to the Heideggerian Marxism of Axelos, the schizoanalysis of Deleuze and Guattari, and the pre-Socratics such as Heraclitus. Badiou is present, alongside Glissant, Nietzsche, and Bernard Stiegler. Karl Marx also makes an appearance. My project is to rethink the question of the unthought and the open system. I have been exploring this theme in various contexts, and for nearly a decade, I have been revisiting the excellent philosophy of Kostas Axelos. Axelos is a thinker who is rarely …

Transversal Symbiogenesis: Mapping A Nonlinear Postcolonial Future, Chun-Mei Chuang

Kritika Kultura

Gaia’s symbiotic imagery and the Anthropocene crisis characterize the early twenty-firstvcentury, shaping a historical consciousness where we are becoming Isabelle Stengers’sv“cosmopolitical idiots.” In this context, we practice “slowing down” and regeneration, always with historical specificities and intricate networks of relations. This paper reevaluates Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon’s vivid transcorporeal language, charged with the violent energy of resistance, through the lenses of symbiogenesis, metamorphosis, and hybridogenesis. I propose a nuanced understanding of postcoloniality that challenges normative notions of identity and violence, advocating for a nonlinear trans-species future. I emphasize the urgent need for a planetary postcolonial turn that embraces hybridity, …

Reconstructing Normalcy: Identity And Trauma In The Last Of Us Video Games Saga, Jaime Oliveros Garcia

Kritika Kultura

This article argues that normalcy and trauma are processes central in understanding the narratives of the video games saga The Last of Us. As such, the article will, after a brief introduction, offer the theoretical framework, in which identity, avatarization, normalcy, and trauma will be defined. These terms are key for the analysis: with the players’ connivance, the narrative delves into the identity of the main characters of the saga so that players can infer how they aim to find a normalcy that is, because of the circumstances that the game offers as the plot, unattainable. Afterwards, the article will …

Texas Institute For The Preservation Of History And Culture Newsletter - April 2025, Texas Institute For The Preservation Of History And Culture

Newsletter Collections

No abstract provided.

Ua19/16/2 Women's Basketball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU women's basketball team in spring 2025.

Faculty Authors 2025: College Of Arts And Sciences, Erin Sheffner

Faculty Authors and Sponsored Grant Recipients Reception Bibliographies

An annotated bibliography compiled by the University Library of the publications featured by the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty at the annual Faculty Authors and Creators Reception at Governors State University.

The Importance Of Multicultural Clubs At Pc, Courtney Wight

The Civil Rights Movement (HIS/BLS 347) Zine Project

No abstract provided.

Günther Anders’S “Promethean Shame”: Technological Ressentiment And Surveillance, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Günther Anders’s philosophy of technology, particularly his complex notion of ‘Promethean shame,’ or technological ressentiment, may illuminate questions of surveillance and AI ethics. As a critical philosopher of technology, radically so, his emphasis on the negative or downside of technology distinguishes Anders’s thinking on technology from future-focused and mainstream technological messianism. Key to Anders’s notion of ‘Promethean shame’ was his observation that we adapt ourselves to our technology, not the other way around. Provocatively, Anders argued that while the populace in the past—referring to Nazi Germany—required the techniques of mass psychology and mass gatherings for the purposes of manipulation and …

Translating In The Community, Kevin Kirwan, Peter Shen, Macy Smith

Expo Student Presentations

2025 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Service-Learning

Coping With Pediatric Surgery: How Families Manage Anxiety And Stress, Veronica Missildine

Expo Student Presentations

2025 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Service-Learning

From Campus To Community: Supporting Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Anusha Mukherjee, Jalyn Youngblood, Ridhima Talsani, Sruti Sivan

Expo Student Presentations

2025 Spring Expo Online Poster Presentation

• Service-Learning

Flow Without Fear: One Pad At A Time, Judie Colon Perez, Leah Johnson

Expo Student Presentations

2025 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Service-Learning

Sisterhood As Sanctuary: The Role Of Multicultural Sororities In Promoting Resilience & Health Equity, Elise Weatherly

Expo Student Presentations

2025 Spring Expo Poster Presentation

• Works in Progress - class project

Ua19/16/2 Ahletics Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases regarding general activities of the WKU Athletics Department for spring 2025.

Ua19/16/2 Volleyball Press Relations, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Press releases and game statistics for WKU volleyball team in spring 2025.

Not Red Or Blue, But Green: The Political Economy Of Media Bias For Librarians And Educators, Becka Cooling

All Student Capstones

This capstone was completed in fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in Sociology.

Variation And Selection During Pandemic: Toward A Multiplex Framework For Understanding Nonprofit Community Network Evolution In Crisis Time, Yiqi Li, Aimei Yang, Wenlin Liu, Jingyi Sun, Michigan State University, Lichen Chen

iSchool - All Scholarship

This study examines how the communication network structure of a community of U.S. nonprofits evolves in response to the COVID-19

pandemic by examining their multiplex strategic communication network- building on Twitter/X. This study identifies two types of networks:

representational ties (for third-party audiences) and substantial ties (for direct resource exchange). Our findings suggest that organizations remain consistent with network strategies through different crisis stages, and the crisis provides opportunities for nonprofits to maintain existing substantial networks while building more extensive substantial networks. Representational ties, even the ones formed pre-crisis, hold the potential to turn into substantial relationships. Theoretically, this research …