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The Necessity Of Weaknesses In Experiencing The Grace Of God: An Examination Of Paul’S Use Of Grace, Culminating In 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Jason Scott Shawa

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Paul’s understanding of weakness, grace, and the power of the risen Christ are all important theological truths. This dissertation’s goal is to show that within the Pauline corpus, Paul’s use of “grace” (specifically χάρις) is often inseparable from the experience of weaknesses. This necessitates the inclusion of weaknesses (e.g., distress, persecution, difficulty, pain, and suffering) for the believer to experience the “grace” God offers in and through the power of the crucified and resurrected Christ.

Paul’s understanding of grace is a subject that has far-reaching implications. Understanding his use of χάρις within his corpus is essential to theological studies and …

Mental Illness In African American Women: A Transcendental Phenomenology On Self-Efficacy And The Treatment-Seeking Behavior Of Secondary And Post-Secondary Educators, Sasha N. Gordon

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This transcendental phenomenological research shows the influence of mental health treatment on the self-efficacy of African American women who are secondary or post-secondary educators in Northern Illinois. For African American women educators, taking care of their mental well-being and being aware of mental health conditions are crucial. Sharing personal stories and experiences can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. Promoting awareness and understanding of mental health issues are vital in our communities, and access to resources and support are necessary. Using self-identity theory can aid in comprehending motivations and behaviors, leading to greater satisfaction and fulfillment and the prioritization …

Exploring The Uses And Gratifications Of Higher Education Online Multimedia Instructional Tools: A Qualitative Study, Shelby Lord

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research study examined the communication goals that motivate California Community College (CCC) faculty to employ multimedia instructional tools in their online classes. Additionally, this study investigated the positive and negative impacts of multimedia instructional tools on faculty-to-student communication. A qualitative research method was utilized for this research study. Findings were obtained from June 2024 through August 2024 using 25 qualitative semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Participants were faculty who were currently teaching remote classes through the CCC system, faculty who approved the informed consent for the study, and faculty who agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview. A thematic analysis process …

Racial Reconciliation In Black And White: A Qualitative Study Of Live Mississippi Blues Music Communication, Christian Patterson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research effort is to investigate a problem regarding communication between Black and White Mississippians in live Mississippi blues music settings. The central research question for this study is as follows: Can live Mississippi blues music communication be used as a tool to strengthen race relations between Black and White Mississippians? Few studies exist regarding this matter. Understanding this phenomenon is relevant because racial reconciliation is critical to the Magnolia State’s future success, and research has proven that music can unify individuals. To facilitate comprehension, a thorough literature review describes Mississippi’s racial challenges from the …

School Structure As A Mechanism For Crime Deterrence, Daniel Glenn Hennigan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

An examination of the relationship between school structure and community strength will be conducted. School structure will be categorized based on the organizational structure of the institution. Schools are conceptualized and categorized as Kindergarten-12th grade (K-12th), 9th-12th grade schools (9th-12th) and Combination schools. Combination Schools are defined as any school that does not meet the criteria of either K-12th Grade or 9th-12th Grade, generally 6th-12th, 7th-12th or 8th-12th. Community strength will be examined through property crime rates, violent crime rates and individual crime statistics. Analyses will also include proportional or ratio examinations per 1,000 students. A literature review will be …

Exploring The Lived Experience Of Women Seeking Treatment For Genito-Pelvic Pain And Penetration Disorder: A Phenomenological Study, Emily M. Lacy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study explored the lived experiences of women seeking treatment for genito-pelvic pain, aiming to identify how each person experiences barriers and facilitators toward obtaining treatment as well as their outlook on the future regarding treatment. The research sought to provide an understanding of their experiences, with implications for minimizing current barriers and building accessibility and awareness. A qualitative phenomenological design was utilized to obtain the data from participants through semi-structured individual interviews. Nine individual interviews were completed with women between the ages of 27 and 44-years-old who have experienced symptoms of genito-pelvic pain for at least 1 year and …

The Influences Of External And Sideways Factors On The Introduction Of English As A Medium Of Instruction Programs In East Asian Countries, Sainbayar Gundsambuu

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Cultural Capital And Higher Education Expectations: Insights From Pisa 2018, Doo Rhee Lee

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Perceived Career Barriers Among Women Working In Public Transportation Based On Leadership Development Training And Race: A Causal-Comparative Study, Tamika Gunn White

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative, causal-comparative study investigated differences in perceived career barriers among women engaged in leadership development training programs and those who were not, with a specific focus on their racial backgrounds. The research targets women within the public transportation workforce, utilizing a convenience sample comprising individuals willing and able to provide insights into the issue of perceived career barriers among women in this sector. Purposive inclusion criteria encompass self-identifying as a woman, reporting ages between 25 and 65, and current employment in the public transportation sector. The Perception of Barriers Scale assessed career- and education-related barriers. The data collection procedure …

Stopping The Transference: Family Resilience Concerning High Adverse Childhood Experience Through A Genogram Study Of Southern Appalachian Storytelling Culture, Brittany Shay Teague

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of multi-generational Appalachian storytellers and their culture to discover if there was a decrease in Adverse Childhood Experiences and increase resilience across generations. Vygotsky's Communication Theory, which emphasizes child development through language and communication, and Masten’s Resilience Theory, which emphasizes that children can develop resilience with the assistance of their caregivers, guided this study. The research questions asked were as follows: How do they describe the impact of storytelling and genograms on resilience and intergenerational transference?  How do they describe the importance of storytelling? How would they describe …

Re-Entering Fandom Pages In The Era Of New Media Ecosystems: The Case Of Turkish Television Series And Their Devoted Viewer Communities, Orhun Yakun, Serhat Kaymas

Kritika Kultura

Given the global prominence of Turkish television series, there is a strong necessity for re- evaluating the constitution of transnational fandom groups in new media ecosystems. Hence, the reasons and motivations of multinational fandom communities are something of a blind spot in fandom studies, especially in the case of devoted fan communities of Turkish television series. Most contemporary studies in fandom literature have mainly focused on television viewers’ experiences in individual countries due to cultural proximity and cultural discount theories rather than the constitution of multinational fandom groups in the new media ecosystem. However, this article argues that such existing …

Comradeship, Remolding, And Rectification In Norman Wilwayco's Gerilya, Laurence Marvin S. Castillo

Kritika Kultura

In this article, I examine the representation of the long-running Maoist national democratic (NatDem) revolution in Norman Wilwayco’s award-winning novel Gerilya (2008), which centers on the uneasy, often violent encounters between petty bourgeois revolutionaries from the city and revolutionary peasants in the countryside. By engaging with the issues of revolutionary errors, remolding, and rectification, I explore how the novel’s predominantly unflattering depiction of revolutionary guerrillas track the difficulties that underpin the process of revolutionary remolding and the formation of comradely relations. Such portrayal conceives of the revolution as a complex social process marked by the tension between, on the one …

Resisting And Transgressing White Patriarchal Constructions Of Race And Gender, Danica Čerče

Kritika Kultura

Until recently a marginalized voice in Australian literary studies, Australian Indigenous literature has gained an important role in the articulation of Indigenous peoples’ political thought. As one of the most frequent media of Indigenous Australians’ artistic expression, poetry presents a commanding exposé of the logic and hypocrisy of whiteness and a potent denunciation of the ongoing racialized and gendered violence in Australia. This essay is focused on the works of Romaine Moreton and Lisa Bellear, which is particularly powerful in addressing violence against Aboriginal women and girls. Framed by an interest in the radical potential of postcolonial literature to dismantle …

The Forming Of Ethical Evaluation Of Shuihu Zhuan In The Context Of Guanxi Culture, Ruihui Han

Kritika Kultura

Shuihu Zhuan, a work of fiction with a perverse narrative of atrocities, has been criticized as a novel with serious ethical demerits. Yet, this novel remains widely appreciated within Chinese society, with many holding its morals in high esteem. This presents an apparent paradox when juxtaposed against the ethical criticisms directed at the novel. Understanding the forming of the ethical evaluation is pivotal, especially given the significant role of ethical references in literary commentary—a backdrop further intensified by traditional Chinese literary theory, which is deeply influenced by Confucian moral teachings. Since interpretations of Shuihu Zhuan should consider its context, this …

Ronnie Govender And Asian Belonging Within South Africa, Maurice O'Connor

Kritika Kultura

This paper explores the Asian presence in South Africa through the work of Ronnie Govender. One of its concerns is how fictional worlds based on real-life experiences become a means to counter the discourses of apartheid that insisted upon the incommensurability of cultural difference as regards Asian and African communities. In this light, the paper references how a white hegemony sets about compromising an already fragile co-existence that existed between the Black, Coloured, and Asian communities and considers the body of Govender’s work as a repository which aids future generations to connect with the traumatic nature of apartheid so as …

Gurnah's Men: Rethinking Muslim Masculinities In The Indian Ocean World, Felicity Hand

Kritika Kultura

This article explores how Abdulrazak Gurnah illustrates the varieties of Muslim masculinity in the Indian Ocean world through an analysis of two of his youthful characters, Hassan Omar, from his debut novel Memory of Departure and Salim Yahya, from his more recent Gravel Heart. Both young men find themselves pitted against a more traditional male role which stifles them while, at the same time, encourages them to envisage a more fluid understanding of what it means to be a man in a predominantly Muslim society like Zanzibar. The fissures in the relationship that Hassan and Salim have with their fathers …

Memory, Haunting, And Duality: Malaysian Amnesia Within The Uncanny Home In Chuah Guat Eng's Days Of Change, Hannah M. Y. Ho

Kritika Kultura

This article analyzes Chuah Guat Eng’s Days of Change as a postcolonial Gothic fiction by discussing instances of haunting and repressed memory in the novel. It examines memory loss in the family and the nation, triggered by traumatic events and leading to haunting and the haunted. Using the concept of the uncanny, this study explores the postcolonial fears and disruptions that, paradoxically, open up creative thinking for revisionist history. It contends that Chuah Guat Eng’s novel offers a critique of postcolonial othering while also insisting on acts of remembering to mitigate amnesia. The paper evaluates desires for a reconciled home …

Islands In The Stream: A Spatial Perspective On Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Reverse Flow, Faruk Faruk

Kritika Kultura

This study examines the role of Indonesian literary works with regard to the imagination as well as constructions of islands and seas, and in relation to the changing perception and attitudes of the Indonesian government respecting these twinned terms. The aforementioned is strikingly obvious in the case of the 2019 Natuna incident in which the Indonesian government verged on jurisdictional conflict with China over its Exclusive Economic Zone off Natuna island. The literary work chosen for discussion is Arus Balik [Reverse Flow] by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I examine this novel's imagination and construction of islands and seas with reference to …

The More People Come, The Harder Lives Become: Migration To The Villages Around The Lng Tangguh Project, Papua, Setiadi Setiadi, Sumini Sumini

Kritika Kultura

This study presents an overview of the dynamics of the life of indigenous people in Papua, with the rapid changes and new social, economic, and cultural arrangements brought about by in- migration and industrialization. From the perspective of critical island studies, we analyze, in detail, the process of marginalization of the indigenous population due to industrialization and massive migrant incursions into island life. The struggle of indigenous people is seen as an impact of multifaceted processes of development and power, involving diverse social actors, from locals to development agents. Emphasis is placed on the struggles resulting from the encounters of …

Mobility, Empire, And "Island" In Colonial Korea, Jinhyoung Lee

Kritika Kultura

From a humanistic mobility studies perspective, this essay looks at Saryang Kim’s work, “Mulori Island” in the context of the Pacific War and explores the “island” produced by a ship’s mobility as it crosses temporal-spatial borders in the story. During the Pacific War, Japanese geopolitical ideology was shaped by the spatialization of time and geographical determinism, found in the propagandized ideas of “Greater East Asia” and “Overcoming the Modern.” Kim’s work is a critical response to this imperialistic ideology in two ways. First, his story critically represents the geographical confirmation of the Japanese Empire as the devastation of a colony …

The Turn To The Archipelagic-Oceanic In Recent Critical Island Studies In Southeast Asia, Oscar V. Campomanes

Kritika Kultura

This introductory essay briefly maps Critical Island Studies as it is so dubbed in Southeast (nesology/nissology, elsewhere) to be able to mark how the six contributions to this Forum Kritika reflect some of the most characteristic aspects and the latest conceptual turns of critical writing and scholarship in the field. A turn to the archipelagic-oceanic as the object of theorizing and critical study is observed to be the recent trend, itself reflected in the various essays here, with their choices of topics and texts in Indonesian, Taiwanese, Korean, and Filipino conjunctures and contexts.

Masculinities In Literary Works On Indonesia's Post-Conflict Ambon Island, Wening Udasmoro, Arifah Rahmawati

Kritika Kultura

Various studies have examined masculinities within a sociological context, emphasizing linkage to violence, power, and militarization. In this sense, researchers have frequently positioned masculinities as the reproductions of male dominance and their perpetuations of conflicts and violence. No study has examined the roles that masculinities and their embedded values have played in building and maintaining peace. This article seeks to fill in the gap by examining how young people on Ambon Island helped create peace by expressing their fluid masculinities through literary works. This article focuses on poems by two Ambonese men—one a prominent peacebuilder and another a former combatant …

Choreographing Immersion: Negotiating Borders, Difference, And Power, Thea Stanton

Kritika Kultura

“Immersive” performances have been growing exponentially over the past fifteen years, yet the definition of the form remains elusive. While a number of scholars such as Gareth White, Adam Alston, and Josephine Machon have collated what they perceive as the overarching characteristics of immersion, these analyses have primarily been concerned with the aesthetic features of immersive performances. Despite, or perhaps because of their popularity, some recent immersive performances have prompted sector-wide concern, voiced aptly by Lyn Gardner’s question in her article “Is Immersive Theatre Growing Up or Growing Too Big, Too Quickly?” This artist’s statement and case study will both …

Beyond Dance Movement Notation: Field Reflections As Key In Mapping The Ebola Virus Disease Transmission In The Funeral Ceremonies Of Sierra Leone, Daniel Ceeline Ramonal

Kritika Kultura

This paper focuses on the critical role that field reflections played in establishing the overlapping engagement of dance movement notation and the sociocultural relevance of embodied techniques in funeral ceremonies to the chain of transmission of the Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone. Expanding from the research paper entitled “Ebola and Moving People: Understanding the Role of Embodied Techniques in Funeral Ceremonies to the Chain of Transmission of the Ebola Virus in Sierra Leone Through Movement Analysis,” this paper narrates personal field experiences and realizations on the dynamics happening in the social field that clarified how funeral ceremonies were equally …

Dance After Lockdown: Living With Paradox, Simon Ellis, Rowan Mclelland, Rosemary Kostic Cisneros

Kritika Kultura

This writing explores the experiences of people in the UK’s contemporary dance sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.1 It draws on qualitative data from a small research project—Dance after Lockdown—to examine how that sector understands their work, and how the language and ideology of the creative industries have shaped the lives and experiences of contemporary dance artists and institutions in the UK. The paper offers a range of diverse voices as one of the goals of the research was to examine the breadth of experiences, which we hope makes a case for the need to have a dance sector that is …

Weights And Pressures: Precarity And Democracy's Legislative Subjects, Victor Merriman, Sarah Black-Frizell

Kritika Kultura

This short essay introduces the Our Dance Democracy (ODD) project (2018–present) and the contributions to this Forum Kritika, “Dancing Democracy in a Fractured World.” The latter includes articles, provocations, and creative responses in visual and poetic forms. Dance is an art form positioned between artists and audiences, on one hand, and institutional structures— including funding regimes and performance venues—on the other. As state and civil society infrastructure experiences pressure arising from neoliberal political economy and the exacerbating effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, dance-makers experience increasingly burdensome conditions as artists, citizens, and human beings. Choreography itself emerges as a zone …

The Place Of Literary Criticism In The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Praxis Of The Philippine National Democratic Movement, Lance Espejo

Kritika Kultura

For Marx, “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force” (“A Contribution To The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”). Marx also says, “theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” It is this materialization of critical thought as theory which this paper expounds on. Marx says that this materialization happens in man himself, hence theory—or thought—is embodied. This paper, first, strives to expose the underlying class struggle which helps shape the discourse, which in this case, is literary criticism. Second, it …

Reclaiming The Indigenous Body: Discourse, Social Media, And The Aesthetic Of Igorot Activism, Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias

Kritika Kultura

This essay analyzes online activist media addressing the red-tagging and trumped-up criminal charges against members of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in the wake of the Anti-Terror Law in 2020. Engaging with critical scholarship on the archiving, colonial discourse, and representation of the Igorot body, I argue that these online activist media published on the organization’s official Facebook account deploy strategic essentialism by subverting the colonially othered and criminalized marker of the savage-terrorist. The Igorot body is rendered as a quasi-heroic figure of the Igorot warrior who invokes and appropriates traditional bodily customs on warfare and gender relations to embody a …

Rainbow Guerrillas: Gay And Lesbian Narratives Inside The Revolutionary Movement In Mindanao, Jervy C. Briones

Kritika Kultura

The LGBT community in the Philippines is tolerated but not accepted, as different forms of discrimination against this sector still exist. The founding of several LGBT organizations in the 1990s marked the emergence of an organized LGBT movement in the country. The same decade also witnessed the recognition of same-sex relationships and marriage by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which was an important development for the advancement of LGBT rights within the revolutionary movement. In this paper, I argue that the significant number of LGBT members within the movement necessitated the creation of revolutionary policies that reject gender …

Relational Nation: The Appreciation Of Characters In Rizal's Noli Me Tángere In Two Philippine Public High Schools, Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr., Christian Jil R. Benitez, Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal

Kritika Kultura

In implementing the Rizal Law, the Department of Education’s K-12 Curriculum Guide emphasizes the study of characters in Rizal’s novels as a means to cultivate patriotism among the youth. In this light, this paper presents ethnographically how students from two public high schools in Rizal Province relate with characters in Noli me tángere. In the classroom, these characters have developed a status akin to “real” historical beings. Concomitantly, students use tropes that connect these characters to their own lives, relationships, and understandings of the social world. The students’ relationships elicit moral standards for imagining the nation and embodying their own …