Digital Commons Network^™

The Storyteller: Concealment, Memory, And The Architecture Of Exile, Dylan Hirsh

Theses and Dissertations

The Storyteller is an expressive documentary investigating the life of Francis Kalnay (1899–1992). A Jewish-Hungarian intellectual, Kalnay lived as a socialist, an X-2 Counter-espionage chief for the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, an architect in Mexico, and a celebrated children's book author. The film's central conflict lies in his hidden identities and exploring how, despite his position as a high-level spy, he failed to save his sister and mother from death at the hands of the Nazi-aligned Arrow Cross government. As a filmmaker investigating a lost part of my own Jewish-Hungarian heritage, I believe Kalnay …

Granted, Emily Weissman

Theses and Dissertations

Granted is an Alice in Wonderland-style psychotic break of a play about trying and explosively failing to dodge the landmines of being an artist–only to become your own worst enemy: a gatekeeper.

Surface Gestures: Contemporary Sculpture, Material, And The Possibilities Of Finish, June Kitahara

Theses and Dissertations

Through the work of Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Patty Chang, and Jes Fan, alongside performance, cinema, cultural figures, and twentieth-century sculpture, the thesis argues that the surface of contemporary works reveals the inextricability of aesthetics from technologies of gendered racialization, sexuality, and sensation.

The I Need More Time Machine, Suzanne L. Schulz

Theses and Dissertations

The I Need More Time Machine imagines alternatives to gendered overwork and exhaustion. Incorporating animation and the interviews of twelve NYC-based female and nonbinary artists who are caretakers and full-time workers, the film dwells in spaces of fatigue and repetition — from the vantage point of commuting — then draws on forgotten feminist and utopian housing blueprints to create science fiction-inspired, fantasy-imbued sites for gendered flourishing. The animated fantasy segments imagine elastic time, deep rest, experiments in collaboration, and liberating feminist spatial possibilities

Do Clothes Make The Man? Ftm Crossdressing In The 18th-19th C. Anglo-American World, Aidrian Graber

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the legacy of "Female Husbands" and other female-to-male crossdressers in the 18/19th c. Anglo-American world and how such people can illuminate the field of transgender history.

Transient Landscapes, Selena Lozano

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores a technical shift from studio to plein air observation and contextualizing urban landscapes through art history and memory. By investigating the tension between permanence and erasure amidst rapid gentrification, the work utilizes painting and photography to mirror the physicality of El Barrio in East Harlem.

Covert And Overt Expression: Understanding Jazz Through Individual And Communal Values, Jalen F. Grandchamps

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that jazz— particularly the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s–70s—can be understood through the lens of covert and overt expression, a framework tracing its lineage to earlier Black musical forms like Spirituals and Blues. Covert expression, defined here as coded or survivalist communication (e.g., Spirituals’ biblical allegories for liberation), emerges under conditions of violent oppression; overt expression, by contrast, reflects unfettered artistic agency and direct protest (e.g., Mingus’s "Fables of Faubus").

Genetic Screen For Regulators Of Pol4, A Dna Repair Polymerase In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Pasang Dolma Sherpa

Theses and Dissertations

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, DNA polymerase 4 (POL4) is the beta repair polymerase, the product of the POL4 gene, and is involved in base excision repair (BER) and microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ). Despite its involvement in these repair pathways and its conservation across eukaryotes, deletion of POL4 shows no detectable phenotype under standard laboratory conditions. I hypothesized that unknown genes act as backup systems, providing redundant activities that allow pol4Δ cells to survive. To test this, a genetic screen for mutants showing synthetic lethality with pol4Δ was implemented. I constructed a strain lacking the POL4 gene and carrying …

The Process Of Othering: Grief And Shame In Kanafānī’S “The Land Of Sad Oranges”, Eman M. Ahmad

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how “othering” shapes Palestinian experience through Ghassan Kanafani’s fiction and Frantz Fanon’s theory. It argues that othering produces grief, survival, and resistance rather than assimilation, and proposes a model centered on power, dehumanization, and identity to explain how domination is sustained and challenged.

Sonic Rupture And Embodied Politics:
Reconfiguring The Aesthetic Regime In The Syrian Uprising, Lynn Shabani

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the Syrian uprising of 2011 emerged as a sonic and embodied rupture within an authoritarian aesthetic regime that had long governed public sensibility. Through chants, song, and coordinated movement, political agency took form as collective, affective practice, transforming vernacular repertoires into infrastructures of mobilization, audibility, and resistance.

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

A Fine Arts Program For No. 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, Paul Richert-Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reads Chase Manhattan's 1959 art program as a reconstitution of ornament. The spatial and affective work historically performed by murals, carved stone, and mosaic was now performed by collecting—contemporary art, ethnographic holdings, folk art—deployed by committee across a corporate modernist master plan stripped of the handcraft tradition.

Signs In The Landscape: Authenticity, Ambiguity, And The Work Of Richard Long, Heather Green-Gulez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Richard Long’s walking-based practice as a sustained and direct engagement with lived experience, tracing his development through walking landscapes, marking, and documentation. It negotiates tensions between reductive and hermeneutic readings, ultimately arguing that Long gestures toward pre-agrarian land ethics, raising broader questions of authenticity in modern life.

Building Artistic Identity, Visual Heritage, And Contemporaneity Of The Arab World: Case Studies Of The 1974 Arab Art Biennale And 'Calligraphy In Contemporary Arab Painting' At The 1989 Havana Biennial, Amanda Msallem

Theses and Dissertations

The 1974 Arab Art Biennale held in Baghdad, Iraq, and the exhibition Calligraphy in Contemporary Arab Painting of the 1989 Havana Biennial in Cuba are unique biennial initiatives that represent a decisive transitional period of modern art of the Arab world, during which Arab artists moved from the aspirations of the Pan-Arab collective and toward increasingly individualized, experimental practices with local cultural specificity.

From Guyana To Queens: The Formation Of The Indo-Guyanese Ethnoburb In New York City, 1970-1990, Lianne R. Persaud

Theses and Dissertations

Expanding on Li’s concept of ethnoburbs, this study examines Indo-Guyanese settlement in Little Guyana, Queens (1970–1990). I propose the Vertical Enclave Model, which suggests that multi-family homeownership and internal rental markets facilitated the residential permanence of working-class individuals. The IPUMS Census microdata corroborates this community’s reliance on metropolitan integration, thereby refuting traditional self-sufficient ethnic enclave theories.

Hanne Darboven: Bismarckzeit (Bismarck Time), Lindsey J. Poremba

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines post-war German artist Hanne Darboven’s 1978 work Bismarckzeit (Bismarck Time). Bismarckzeit is a significant work where images, quotations, and equations meet and explore history. This thesis studies the different visual languages in Darboven’s installation, comparing her work with that of Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project.

Containment, Quin Mittelstead

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores “containment" (the act of keeping something within limits) as both oppressive control and a mode of self-regulation, grounded in the author’s experience with epilepsy. Paintings deploy grayscale grounds, restrained palettes, and contrasting rapid/slow gestures; emergent color, texture, and altered substrates map psychological states, bodily impulses, and reactive processes. Research into witchcraft, remedial items, and eugenics (notably Buck v. Bell) informs works that link historical censorship and institutional violence to contemporary stigma. Sculptural installations (nets, jute, flawed Faraday-like enclosures) and cannibalized studio materials probe systems that restrain thought, media, and bodies. By introducing unpredictable variables with found supports, …

Beyond Local Pathology: Exploring The Role Of Gut Microbiota In Chronic Low Back Pain Using An Integrated Behavioral And Microbiological Approach, Adan L. Redwine

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Chronic low back pain (LBP) affects millions worldwide, often originating from intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration. While the gut microbiome modulates musculoskeletal pain, prior studies of the gut-disc axis have focused entirely on structural changes. This leaves a critical gap: does the microbiome influence the experience of discogenic pain? To answer this, an integrated approach using longitudinal gut microbiome profiling, machine learning-based behavioral phenotyping, and structural disc assessments in a rat model of discogenic LBP was utilized.

Female Sprague Dawley rats underwent one of four conditions: sham surgery, IVD injury, antibiotic-mediated microbiome depletion + IVD injury, or IVD injury + treatment …

Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Soft Sovereignty, Threat Management, And The Politics Of Recognition In Asia, Olga Shalaeva

University Honors Program Senior Projects

Why did Taiwan as a contested state with no seat in the United Nations (UN), shaped by Confucian conservatism and the world’s longest period of martial law become the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, while other Asian democracies with stronger institutional track records have not? This paper argues that democratic maturity alone cannot answer this question. What explains Taiwan’s 2019 marriage equality achievement is the strategic management of threat, operating simultaneously at the geopolitical and psychological levels, and the utilization of “soft sovereignty” as the “weapon of the weak.”

The paper introduces “soft sovereignty” as an in-progress …

No More Loopholes: The Story Of The 13th Amendment Exception Clause : Its Effects And How To Challenge It, Nur Johnson

University Honors Program Senior Projects

This study examines the harms of exploitative prison labor through examining the loophole in the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution. I build an argument that the wording of the 13th amendment needs to be modified to close this loophole in all states. Additionally, through framing prison labor as a form of human trafficking, I argue that prisoners could potentially sue to challenge the 13th amendment by applying the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). I present several case studies to describe the conditions that prisoners are exposed to, compare them to other forms of trafficking, and conclude that we …

The Resurgence Of Nationalism In Germany And The Alternative Für Deutschland, John L. Wardlaw Jr

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

I examine the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) within the broader historical and ideological course of German nationalism. In doing so, I argue that following the Prussian-led unification of Germany in 1871, nationalism became entrenched as a constitutive feature of the German identity, not only as a political ideology, but also as a foundational sociocultural framework. Rather than emerging sporadically, nationalism persisted in a latent form throughout Germany’s modern history; latent in that nationalism could be reactivated and shaped through the intentional efforts of particular political parties during periods of sociopolitical and economic strain. To analyze this phenomenon, …

A Preliminary Study On A Variant British Recension Of De Excidio Troiae, Kailee M. Rowe

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Dares Phrygius’s De excidio Troiae (“On the Destruction of Troy”) is a fifth or sixth century historical account of the Trojan War that gained significant attention during the medieval period in western Europe. Surviving in over 200 manuscripts, De excidio Troiae had been widely disseminated, developing different traditions in Latin as well as inspiring translations and adaptions in vernacular languages, such as Irish, Middle High German, and Old Icelandic. Dares was considered one of the most reliable sources on the Trojan War, partly because of the decline of Greek in Western Europe, but also partly because of its claim to …

Lake Region Conference Elects President To Serve Remainder Of Term, Lake Region Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

Election Fraud In The American Mind, Mitchell Brown, Spencer Goidel, Soren Jordan, Bridgett A. King, Isaac Westfall, Ryan Williamson

Political Science Faculty Publications

Objective: Disputes over election fraud have become a defining feature of contemporary American politics, yet it remains unclear whether partisans are disagreeing about the same underlying phenomenon. This article examines how Americans understand and interpret the phrase “election fraud” and whether partisan divisions reflect differences in concern about fraud or differences in what the term itself is taken to mean. Methods: We use novel survey questions included in our team's module of the 2024 Cooperative Election Study (N = 1000). An open-ended question captures respondents’ own top-of-mind associations with the phrase “election fraud,” while a closed-ended item asks respondents to …

The Baby And The Bathwater: Reproductive Abuse As Domestic Violence And Empowering Bodily Autonomy Through The Law, Kadhapriya Lindo

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

Reproductive abuse—ranging from contraceptive sabotage and coerced pregnancy to coerced abortion and sexual violations such as stealthing—operates as a distinct and under-recognized form of domestic violence. By assessing medical, sociological, and legal research, it is clear how reproductive abuse holds a victim’s body and reproductive ability hostage, producing long-term physical, psychological, and familial harms. Existing criminal statutes, which focus on force-based sexual offenses, do not capture non-physical reproductive violations such as medication tampering or nonconsensual condom removal. Further, civil remedies, including tort claims and custody determinations, inadequately account for the harms of coerced conception and the long-term legal ties it …

Under The Influence: Why The Federal Government Should Implement A Tier System For Drunk Drivers, Maycie Bloom

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

Drunk driving persists as a serious problem in the United States, claiming thousands of lives every year. Although the drunk driving fatality rate decreased following advancements in federal drunk driving legislation during the 1990s, after decades of remaining unchanged, the drunk driving fatality rate has increased in recent years. The increase in drunk driving fatalities has been associated, in part, with an increase in drunk driving recidivism, a phenomenon that is closely linked to alcoholism and poses a serious problem for the community. Individuals who suffer from alcoholism often develop higher tolerances, which can lead to overconsumption and a diminished …

Undue Hardship In Student Loan Bankruptcy: A Circuit-By-Circuit Analysis Of Brunner, Rahaf Alrehaili

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

The judicial landscape of student loan discharge under the Brunner test reflects both commonalities and significant divergences across circuits. While courts generally adhere to a shared framework for assessing undue hardship, they remain divided on key issues, including whether retirement savings qualify as necessary expenses, the extent to which religious tithing is protected under the Religious Liberty and Charitable Donation Protection Act (RLCDPA), and whether a debtor’s refusal to enroll in an income-driven repayment (IDR) plan constitutes bad faith under Brunner’s third prong. Courts also disagree on whether IDR eligibility should be considered under the first or second prong …

Political Weapons Or Judicial Officers: How The United States Supreme Court's Increased Political Polarisation Highlights An Immediate Need For Reform, Marcello Jones

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

The “politicization of justice” has become a most unwelcome stereotype for our nation’s highest court. While it is understandable that Justices must still judge, and so in a practical matter, leaving their political views at the door is not always possible. When society can accurately and consistently predict the Justices’ votes solely based on their political ideology, it is difficult to see past the view that the Justices are consistently manipulating the Constitution and the facts of the cases before them to serve their own political agenda. And when an Executive can be elected into office primarily based on the …

Religious Law Schools, Rankings, And Bias: Measuring The Rankings Penalty At Religious Law Schools, Michael Conklin

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

Law school rankings play a pivotal role in shaping legal education. However, these rankings have faced substantial criticism for their methodology, susceptibility to manipulation, and bias related to political ideology and race. This Article measures bias by applying a novel, quantitative analysis to disparities between the objective overall rankings and the subjective peer rankings among religiously affiliated law schools. The findings reveal that religiously affiliated law schools experience a 17.65 peer rankings penalty. Further analysis strengthens the evidence of bias by showing a heightened penalty among more devoutly religious law schools. A longitudinal analysis finds that this trend is rapidly …

Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

Documents

The first edition of the Florence Normal College Quarterly