Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Minor Feelings: Asian And Asian American’S Racialized Emotions, Identity, And Mental Health Amidst Covid-19, Kristina Mirasol Arevalo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the central role of racialized emotions in shaping how Asians/Asian Americans (A/AA) experience, interpret, and respond to racism, yet these emotional processes remain underexamined in psychological research. Rather than treating emotions as outcomes of discrimination, this dissertation conceptualizes racialized emotions as dynamic processes through which structural racism is experienced, interpreted, and embodied in everyday life. This framework positions racialized emotions as a key mechanism linking racialized social contexts to identity development and mental health. Across three studies using qualitative and quantitative methods, I examine how racialized emotions shape racial meaning-making, ethnic-racial identity, and psychological well-being among …

Healing Historical-Intergenerational Trauma And Colonial Soul Wounds With Ancestral Healing Practices And Psychosocial Limpias: An Ofrenda For The Salvadoran Community, Joanna D. Beltrán Girón

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1992, the United States-backed Salvadoran military and the leftist guerrillas signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords, which put an end to a 12-year war in El Salvador that resulted in 75,000 deaths, 12,000 forced disappearances, and half a million internal displacements. Around 85% of the reports made by survivors of the war attributed the violence to state agents, paramilitary groups, and death squads.While taking into account this history of state violence, this dissertation is interested in the psychosocial aftermath of the war and in how survivors integrate healing practices in their lives in response to the painful memories their bodies …

Roe V. Wade With Audre And Nikki: Their Social And Political Impacts Following The Landmark Decision, Sharon L. Eaddy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes how the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade shaped public understandings of reproductive rights and how those understandings diverged across race, gender, class, and sexuality. Using a qualitative, interdisciplinary design, the study pairs close textual analysis of Nikki Giovanni’s and Audre Lorde’s poems and essays with socio-legal and historical context on constitutional privacy doctrine, the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the Reconstruction legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The central research question is: what kinds of reproductive “freedom” become legible through Roe’s rights-based framing, and what forms of constraint remain visible when Black …

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems And The Principles Of Distinction And Proportionality, Nicholas Cromie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) challenge the core principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), distinction and proportionality, by delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithms rather than human judgment.  This dissertation examines whether LAWS can conform to these principles and, if so, under what conditions.  Through process tracing, the study traces the historical integration of disruptive weapons technologies, including chemical, biological, nuclear, and armed drones, into IHL-compliant frameworks or their exclusion via prohibition.  Each case reveals distinct pathways: outright bans for indiscriminate or inherently inhumane systems (chemical and biological weapons), normative restraint and limited acceptance despite destructive power (nuclear weapons) and phased …

Kitchen Table Press: A Case Study Of Regression To The Neoliberal Mean, Alaina Disalvo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the idealistic founding of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1980 and its slow downfall, culminating in the cession of ownership of the Press to a university in 1992. It traces the ideological development of Kitchen Table Press’s key founders, Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde, and their respective relationships to the ideologies of other renowned feminist figures of the era, specifically June Jordan and Adrienne Rich. It examines the history of the Press through historical, intersectional, affective, and socialist lenses. This thesis argues that neoliberal pressures can bend even the most radical organizations away from their …

A Comparison Of Manufacturers’ Claims Of Attenuation Rates In Non-Custom Earplugs, Skyler M. Shipley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recreational and social environments frequently expose individuals to high intensity noise environments; however, the use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) remains limited. This study evaluated whether non-custom, over-the-counter musicians’ earplugs provide attenuation consistent with manufacturers’ claims and whether cost is associated with performance. Six commercially available earplug models were tested using both human participants and a KEMAR manikin system. Attenuation was measured across frequencies from 250–8000 Hz (octave and inter-octave frequencies) and were tested using different ear tip sizes. Results indicated that several earplugs achieved attenuation levels comparable to or exceeding their advertised noise reduction ratings (NRR), though consistency varied …

Imagination And The Self: A Cross-Cultural And Cross-Disciplinary Study, Qianyi Qin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary investigation of the imagination and the self that engages with cognitive science, philosophy of mind, Buddhism, ethical theories, and a variety of perspectives from Asian and Western philosophy. I address the following questions in three interrelated chapters. First, what does it mean for the self to appear in imagination? In Chapter 1, against certain narrow understandings of the self in philosophy of language, I build a multidimensional model of the self in imaginative experiences to capture the rich phenomenology, drawing on empirical findings on memory and imagination. Second, can the self be removed from imagination? …

The Soviet New Wave: A Comparative Analysis, Katarina Parks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to assert the Soviet New Wave into the global New Wave cinema movements of the late 1950s and 1960s. Focusing on three Soviet films—Marlen Khutsiev's I Am Twenty (1965) and July Rain (1967), and Georgiy Daneliya's I Walk the Streets of Moscow (1964)—this study proposes that these works fully commit to the New Wave expression in form, sensibility, and content, despite the aggressive censorship of Soviet authority. By comparing the Soviet films with the French Nouvelle Vague, as well as with British, Polish, and Czechoslovakian New Wave cinemas, the thesis identifies recurring motifs: the centering of young …

The Exception: Refugee Camps And Governmental Control, Kyle L. Mans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone study examines the relationship between governmental control and the state of exception in refugee camps. This connection is analyzed by examining the control mechanisms employed by the nation state to erode the sovereignty of the individual within a refugee camp space. This study also examines how humanitarian organizations contribute to the perpetuation of the state of exception and how their involvement facilitates further state control. Included in this capstone are two case studies that examine both Libya and Kenya as examples of governmental control on the sovereignty of refugees and migrants. This research contributes to the overall understanding …

The Fellowship Of Christ's Sufferings: Toward A Practical Philosophy Of Worship For Missions In The Latin American Church, Moriah Hope Joseph

Senior Honors Theses

Within Latin America, evil and suffering are ever-present realities that cannot be concealed, and the Hispanic society is aching for relief. Liberation Theology and the prosperity gospel – and their accompanying worship practices – have been offered as tools to help alleviate the experience of suffering. But these theological perspectives and practices have accomplished little in edifying the Church by way of truth. Thus, the call for the modern missionary is to instead preach worship that is a response to the incarnate Christ in suffering. The missionary must advocate for worship practices that provide space for biblical lament, reveal a …

The American Revolution As America’S Civil War: Rethinking National Transformation, 1776-1877, Lucille Harlow

ETDs from 2020-2029

This thesis reinterprets the American Revolution by examining it not solely as a colonial rebellion against British authority but as a conflict that unfolded within American society itself. Long before independence was declared, political authority in British North America had already begun to fracture. Imperial institutions weakened, while revolutionary committees, militias, and local associations asserted competing claims to legitimacy. Rather than emerging from a unified population rising together in common purpose, the Revolution developed within communities already strained by suspicion, surveillance, and contested allegiance. Drawing on soldiers’ diaries and memoirs, including those of John Adlum, Jeremiah Greenman, Joseph Plumb Martin, …

Emotion In Absence: Omission, World War I, And Masculine Vulnerability In Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time, Anna Murph

ETDs from 2020-2029

This thesis analyzes Ernest Hemingway’s depictions of male-male and male-female relationships in his collection of short stories, In Our Time. By comparing heterosexual and homosocial relationships, I explore how Hemingway’s depictions of male bonds are not only unique due to his famed terseness but also rooted in shared understanding, prompting a reconsideration of how male bonds are interpreted textually. I consider Hemingway’s use of omission and focus on how his minimalistic style lends to a reading of male-male relationships as more emotionally intimate than heterosexual relationships. When analyzing omission and relational dynamics through concepts such as gesture, touch, identity, and …

Resisting The Neoliberal Postfeminist Sexual Objectification Matrix: A Critical Autoethnography Exploring Sexual Objectification, Mental Health, Relationship To Self, And Reclaiming Subjectivity, Ildiko Archer

ETDs from 2020-2029

Over the past two decades, women’s subjectivity and sexual experience have been dramatically reshaped by the rise of dating apps, the normalization of hookup culture, the popularization of BDSM, and the dominance of neoliberal postfeminist sexual discourses. In the South, this all unfolds in the lingering residues of purity culture, creating a perfect storm of sexual objectification. This autoethnographic dissertation examines a defining period of my life shaped by the mental health consequences of sexual objectification and self-objectification. During this time, I experienced two brief marriages, many sexual relationships, posed on social media, dating apps, sexted, and performed sexual ‘agency’, …

Book Review: The New Calculus Of Escalation: Avoiding Armageddon In Great Power Conflict, Darren W. Buss

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Martin C. Libicki

Reviewed by: Colonel Darren W. Buss, faculty instructor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College

In The New Calculus of Escalation, Martin C. Libicki redefines how we understand the thresholds between peace, conventional war, and nuclear conflict in an era shaped by cyber warfare and emerging technologies. Drawing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war and Cold War doctrines, he offers a fresh framework for managing escalation to prevent catastrophic outcomes. This timely and thought-provoking book is essential reading for strategists, policymakers, and anyone concerned with the future of great power conflict.

Legends, Lies, & Rewritten Lives: After The Little Bighorn: Forgotten Struggles Of Those Who Walked Away, 2nd Edition, Thomas B. Davidson

DU Textbooks

This Story surrounds an event that occurred one summer on June 25, 1876, along the banks of the Little Bighorn River in what is now the state of Montana. Seen from a 21st century perch, it is a story of a collision between two very different civilizations or empires. Both empire’s military fought in the manner of their society. This narrative will attempt to balance the believable truth of what happened in that contest between the military representatives of both societies while also trying to tell an engaging story, without drifting into naked partisanship, purple prose, or sensationalism. The narrative …

Book Review: Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-Building, And Insurgency In Somalia, 1992-1995, Christian Werner

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: Jonathan Carroll

Reviewed by: Colonel Christian Werner, director of European studies, Department of National Security and Strategy, US Army War College

In this groundbreaking military history, Jonathan Carroll moves beyond the infamous Battle of Mogadishu to uncover the full scope of the US and UN intervention in Somalia. Drawing on newly available sources and the Somali perspective, Carroll reveals how a promising humanitarian mission unraveled into a cautionary tale of political missteps and failed nation-building. Beyond Black Hawk Down offers vital lessons for future interventions in fragile states, making it essential reading for policymakers, historians, and military strategists alike. …

Book Review: Occupation: Russian Rule In South-Eastern Ukraine, Christopher J. Hickey

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Author: David Lewis

Reviewed by: Colonel Christopher J. Hickey, PhD, associate professor, Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, US Army War College

In this timely and penetrating study, David Lewis examines the mechanisms and consequences of Russian governance in occupied southeastern Ukraine. Through on-the-ground analysis and geopolitical insight, the book reveals how local institutions, identity, and resistance are reshaped under foreign rule. It’s an essential read for understanding the evolving dynamics of power, control, and legitimacy in one of Europe’s most contested regions.

Drone Urbanisms, Siew Ying Shee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Across contemporary cities, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) particularly drones have emerged as critical instruments for sensing, visualizing, and reconfiguring the built environment. Yet, urban space is not merely a passive backdrop for drone activity; it both shapes and is reshaped by them. The central question for understanding drone urbanism, then, is not only what drones do, but how their deployment redistributes the agency to see, know, and intervene across human operators, infrastructures, and algorithms.This renegotiation of visibility, authority, and knowledge takes shape through the ways drones mediate the governance and experiential textures of the city. Departing from the distant totalities …

Counterinsurgency In Afghanistan: Doctrine, Implementation, Cannibalization, Noah S. Fischer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Taliban return to power in Afghanistan on August 15th, 2021, is a watershed moment in the 21^st century history of the United States of America. The swift collapse of the U.S. backed Afghan government shocked American politicians, military leadership, and the general public. To many, trillions of dollars were wasted in funding a government that could not even survive a month without U.S. troops. But those dollars were used by U.S. military leadership to implement a new and innovative strategy those same leaders thought would guarantee success: counterinsurgency, abbreviated as COIN. In this thesis, I will ask: what …

Buttressing Britain’S Financial Rise: Anglo-Dutch Brokers In Eighteenth-Century London, Jiwon Han

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the course of the eighteenth century, British financial markets developed remarkably and London established itself as the financial center of Europe, replacing Amsterdam. Scholarship on Britain’s financial developments in the eighteenth century has largely understood it as the result of British efforts and innovation. This dissertation complicates that understanding by investigating the Anglo-Dutch merchants in eighteenth-century London and their contributions to the development of British financial markets. In particular, their support was essential for the British government’s war finances, because Britain’s continuous wars against France demanded an immense amount of money and credit while its financial markets were still …

Youtube As A Tool For Digital Diplomacy And Strategic Security: A Comparative Analysis Of Russia And Kazakhstan, Bekzat Baktybekovna Baktybekova, Elmira Kagazbaeva, Botagoz Ali

Journal of Strategic Security

In the context of growing competition in the information space, digital diplomacy is gaining key importance for the strategic security of states. This study analyzes how Russia and Kazakhstan use the YouTube platform to promote their foreign policy narratives, shape the image of the state, and strengthen digital sovereignty. Based on a qualitative analysis of 60 videos (30 for each country) published by official government channels between 2020 and 2024, differences in strategies, visual codes, tonality, and patterns of interaction with the audience were identified. The Russian approach is characterized by an aggressive narrative, antagonism to Western structures, and a …

Analysis Of Security Concerns In India-Central Asia Relations, Anmol Mukhia, Anurag Tripathi, Sanjeev Kumar Tiwari

Journal of Strategic Security

India-Central Asia relations have gained strategic significance driven by its historical ties, growing economic interests, and, most importantly, evolving security dynamics. This article deals with multifaceted security concerns such as drug trafficking, terrorism, radicalization, and the implications of instability in Afghanistan. The findings show that security concerns in the region, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, constitute a significant obstacle, alongside geographical challenges, to India’s connectivity with the Central Asian Republics (CARS). India’s rising aspiration to increase connectivity and build closer ties with the region in energy, trade, and commerce heavily relies on a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Central and South …

Shadow Logistics: Military Vulnerability Through Civilian Dependence, Gilles A. Paché

Journal of Strategic Security

The rapid evolution of civilian-origin technologies repurposed for defense is reshaping the foundations of logistical advantage and altering the conditions under which armed forces operate. Modern missions rely on an extensive ecosystem of infrastructures—port terminals, cloud services, data platforms, and civilian contractors—whose reliability frequently lies beyond the authority of public institutions. This environment gives rise to shadow logistics, a network of civilian systems largely absent from conventional doctrine yet capable of producing significant operational disruptions when failures occur. Case studies show that some dark assets, whether physical or informational, can act as multipliers of effectiveness while simultaneously creating systemic vulnerabilities …

The Supreme Court Under Threat: Early Lessons In Judicial Self-Protection, Curtis A. Bradley, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores how the U.S. Supreme Court, despite being vulnerable to defiance of its decisions and political retaliation, has developed tools of judicial self-protection to preserve its institutional authority and thus its capacity to sustain the Constitution and the rule of law. Arguing that the Court performs not only a legal role that requires interpretation of the law but also a political one that demands institutional preservation, the Essay examines how the Court has historically navigated political threats by using a range of tools—including avoidance, delay, narrow rulings, strategic dicta, and rhetorical appeals. The Essay focuses on three nineteenth-century …

Communicative Administration: The Administrative State Beyond Legal Administration, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

On many dimensions, the administrative state is at the nadir of its power. The Supreme Court has tightened administrative law controls on agency power, and the Trump Administration has stormed the bureaucracy in an unprecedented blitz designed to kneecap agency capacity and independence. For better or worse, many agencies and their civil servants are being sidelined as meaningful actors in the administration of government. Yet this familiar account doesn’t tell the entire story. At the same time that agencies are being stripped of the power to implement law—what this Article calls “legal administration”— they are steadily accumulating extensive and largely …

Hannah Bloch-Wehba, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty CVs

No abstract provided.

Geometric Characterization Of Ideals In Bipolar Semigroups, Kittipong Laipaporn, Rasimate Maungchang, David M. Cook, Prathomjit Khachorncharoenkul

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper develops a geometric framework for analyzing the ideal structure of the bipolar semigroup ��={(−��,��)∣��,��∈ℝ+0} under coordinate-wise addition. Subsets of B are interpreted as planar regions, allowing ideals to be described in terms of boundary behavior. In particular, we prove that the complement of a simply connected region is an ideal of the commutative additive semigroup (��,+) if and only if its boundary contains no strictly decreasing segment. This provides a direct and visually verifiable criterion for ideality, linking algebraic structure to geometric shape. Each ideal can be written as a union of translates of the form ��+��, with …

Fundamentalist Disorientations For Queer Subjects: Narrative And Theory, Betty Canoso

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines disorientation experienced by queer people who were raised in high-cost fundamentalist Christianity–people like me. Disorientation is a philosophical concept useful for examining specific intersections of human experience, like queerness and fundamentalism. Philosophers such as Sara Ahmed (2006) and Ami Harbin (2016) have been exploring the intersection of queerness and disorientation. Psychologists, sociologists and researchers from other disciplines are analyzing the interrelatedness of queerness and religion, and disaffiliation and deconversion from high-cost or high-control religions is another ongoing area of interest. Yet, despite widespread interest in these concepts, few have looked at instances of disorientation as they pertain …

We Buried The Curriculum And Called It Holy, Charles E. Becknell Jr., Johnna Rocker-Clinton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track develops the concept of apocalyptic pedagogy by situating it within Africana studies and classroom rituals, illustrating how curriculum itself can be examined, buried, and reimagined through practices rooted in Black educology. Drawing on ancestral knowledge and collective memory, the track envisions ritual as curriculum, where libation and remembrance become practices of mourning and reclamation. Rather than centering institutional reform, the track frames education as a ritual circle enacting pedagogy as remembrance, mourning, and rebirth, honoring Black life as sacred.

The Cypher: Freedom Dreaming And Black Sustainability Beyond The Ruins, Tiffani Marie, Kenjus Watson, David Stovall, Dre Carter, Simple Ant, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

In confronting the structural collapse of modernity and the dehumanization inherent in public institutions, this cypher serves as a site of radical imagination and sonic medicine. By centering freedom dreaming and Black sustainability, we argue for the necessary pedagogical movements of Black Educology. Ultimately, we invite a collective reimagining of death, not as an end but as a communal transition toward life beyond the trap of modernity.