Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Troje, Erandi Hernández Aguilar

CouRaGeouS Cuentos: A Journal of Counternarratives

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Courageous Cuentos

CouRaGeouS Cuentos: A Journal of Counternarratives

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Courageous Cuentos

CouRaGeouS Cuentos: A Journal of Counternarratives

No abstract provided.

Best Integrated Writing Spring 2026 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

An Eternity Of Time: The Overlook And The Search For A Queer Haven, Christian Hunt

Best Integrated Writing

Hunt argues that The Shining critiques traditional patriarchal and heteronormative structures by portraying the Overlook Hotel as a space that exposes and resists the violence and repression tied to masculinity and queer identity. Through Jack Torrance’s psychological unraveling, the novel reveals how societal expectations of heterosexuality contribute to personal and familial destruction while suggesting the possibility of alternative, queer forms of existence beyond those constraints.

Critical Roles And Critical Rolls: A Frame-Analytical Perspective Of Self-Making, Safe Spaces, And Worldbuilding In Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Cal Quayle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many gamers prefer to play tabletop roleplaying games, or TTRPGs, in order to a) join a community, and b) tell a story collaboratively with friends and acquaintances. This thesis discusses selfhood-making, safe spaces, and allegory in imaginary worlds from the perspective of Erving Goff man’s frame analysis. It relies on a theoretical framework of imagined communities, the magic circle, and subcreation. This research culminated in the understanding that people play TTRPGs for a variety of reasons - collaborative storytelling and exercising critical thinking skills, but respondents overwhelmingly reported that they enjoyed the ability to socialize with friends and strangers, and …

The Case For Lgbtq+ Adoption Rights In The Post-Roe Era, Tate Craft

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of Nevertheless, We Persist: A Feminist Public Theology, Tiffany Hunsinger

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Dating Among University Undergraduates Living With Disability In South-Western Nigeria, Usman A. Ojedokun, Bukunmi I. Oluborode, Lateef J. Adeyemo

The Journal of Social Encounters

In many university campuses in Nigeria, undergraduates living with disability are visible and functionally involved in academic, political, social, and religious activities. However, the social life of these students is hardly the focus of scholarly research. Therefore, this study explored dating behaviours among undergraduates of selected public universities in south-western Nigeria living with disability. The social disability model was employed as the conceptual framework. Data were elicited through in-depth interview and focus group discussion methods.  Findings showed that the choice of partners among undergraduates living with disability was guided by trust, communication, emotional safety, shared values, and acceptance of disability …

Where Are The Women Memorialized? Commemoration Of Women In The U.S. Congress, Deborah Saki, Alexander Leasure

The Journal of Social Encounters

In the United States, a study of the memorialization of political actors through monuments reveals the disgracefully small number of women memorialized. We find little effort to preserve the memory of trailblazing women in the U.S. Congress. By 2021, as the National Monument Audit indicates, only two congresswomen were memorialized in public spaces across the country: Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-T.X.) and Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R-N.J.). Drawing on frameworks of historical memory and theories of reputational politics, we examine the public conversations that led to the memorialization of these women. We find motive, institutional power, and clarity of narrative in …

Sanitation System Options For Public Health Promotion For Post-War Khartoum, Sudan, Gazi Nouman

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Frontline Medicine During War In Sudan: Confronting Health System Collapse, Mogahed Halaly

The Journal of Social Encounters

Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the country’s fragile health system has deteriorated rapidly. As hospitals closed, medical supplies vanished, and millions were displaced, frontline health workers were forced to make impossible choices. This essay recounts my experience as a young physician during the collapse of Sinnar Teaching Hospital, my displacement to White Nile State, and the creation of a community-led humanitarian initiative that provided clinical care, shelter, food, and livelihood support to thousands. It reflects on the intersection of war, displacement, public health collapse, and …

Emergency Response Rooms In Sudan: From Revolutionary Grassroots Organization To The Management Of Life In A Context Of Political Collapse, Salih Mustafa

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Webinar: Sudan: Possible Paths To Peace?

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Welcoming Iranian Refugees And Immigrants To Toronto, Canada, Paul Pynkoski

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Shia Islam And Politics: Iran, Iraq, And Lebanon, Christopher Anzalone

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: The Islamic Moses And Muslim-Jewish Relations, Kareem Rosshandler

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Festival Diplomacy (Ceremony Diplomacy) As A Lesser-Known Form Of Cultural Diplomacy By Emerging Non-State Actors: The Newroz Legacy Of The Kurdish Regional Resistance In Iraq And Syria, Khaled Sheykholeslami

The Journal of Social Encounters

Kurds as the second largest ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria are the only nation in these two major-Arab countries that celebrate Newroz every year. However, as a minority community divided among different Middle Eastern countries, the arrival of the new year and the celebration of Newroz seem to have taken on a political significance beyond merely celebrating spring and the end of winter. This essay argues that Newroz has evolved from a cultural celebration into a strategic instrument of non-state cultural diplomacy used by Kurdish actors in Iraq and Syria to resist centralizing state power and project transnational identity. …

Islamic Relief As A Transnational Advocacy Network In Building Global Solidarity For Gaza, Nura Alanda Nabila, Zhafirah Fatin Azzah, Nuraeni -, R. Dudy Heryadi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This article examines the role of Islamic Relief in supporting Palestine from the perspective of the Transnational Advocacy Network. The conflict in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, raises the central question of how non-governmental actors contribute to global advocacy efforts amid the large-scale civilian suffering. The article is based on qualitative research, utilizing a literature review as a data collection technique, with constructivism as the theoretical framework. This study positions Islamic Relief as a transnational humanitarian organization whose work is shaped and rooted in Islamic values. The findings showed that the efforts to address the crisis in Gaza are carried out …

Food, Faith, And Sustainability: Rethinking Ramadan Consumption Practices In Qatar, Tamim Raihan

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay examines the paradox that Ramadan’s ethical horizon of restraint and moral accountability often coincides, in contemporary Qatar, with heightened provisioning and recurrent food waste. Bringing Émile Durkheim’s sacred–profane distinction into dialogue with Nancy Ammerman’s “lived religion,” the analysis treats commensality as a privileged site where religious meaning is socially produced, renewed, and contested through embodied practice. It further mobilizes Benjamin Smith’s critique of Market Orientalism to caution against culturalizing narratives that frame Gulf “excess” as moral deficiency while obscuring political-economic conditions, labor arrangements, and infrastructures that normalize surplus. Methodologically, the article is a theory-driven, interpretive conceptual essay grounded …

United States Middle East Policy In The Age Of Donald Trump, Gary Prevost

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay on the foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East in the middle of the second Trump administration and the continuing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank makes the case for decades of consistency in US policy but also some nuances from the current US administration. The author makes the case that there have been three constants in US policy since the era of the Second World War. First, is the guarantee the flow of reasonably priced oil to the United States and its allies.  Second, the maintenance of the state of Israel as a …

Geopolitical Transformation In The Post-October 7 Middle East (2023–2025): Power Shifts Vs. Structural Shifts, Nael Shama

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay investigates the geopolitical shifts that unfolded in the Middle East from October 2023 to the end of 2025, stimulated by the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent events it triggered. These included military confrontations between Israel and each of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. The essay demonstrates that these developments have reshaped power positions and alliances in the Middle East, leading to a more complex and unpredictable geopolitical landscape. It sketches out the new regional balance of …

Countering Social Encounters: Darwish’S “Speech Of The Red Indian”, J. Kristen Urban

The Journal of Social Encounters

In June 2025 the Washington D.C. Arab Center held a conference at the National Press Club titled, “A Historic Juncture: Israel’s Destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian Future.”  The discussion sparked an incisive question: Would such a future follow a Palestinian-owned trajectory?  Incisive, because Palestinians have not owned their trajectory since the 1915 Sykes-Picot Agreement, have consistently been defined in negative terms, and have lived with the ambiguity of existing while remaining unrecognized.  Growing up within Israel, Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), experienced this paradox firsthand, and explored it directly in “Speech of the Red Indian,” a poem written …

Gender Justice Lessons From North-East Syria Amidst Patriarchal Perpetuation In The New Syrian Arab Republic?, Theresa Wagner

The Journal of Social Encounters

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for over sixty years, and his government by Hai’at Tahrir asch-Scham (HTS) signified for many the beginning of a new era of democracy and freedom after thirteen years of civil war. People in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), a self-governing region that had not been ruled by the Syrian state since 2012, joined in with the celebrating crowds. However, they remained skeptical of HTS, which originated as a branch of al-Qaeda, known back then as Jabhat al-Nusra. Since taking on government responsibilities in the new …

Introduction: The Arab World And Middle East In An Age Of Dynamism And Change, Eslam Elbahlawan, Mawa Mohamed, Ron Pagnucco

The Journal of Social Encounters

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel began a massive joint military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran to which Iran has responded. At the time of the publication of this issue, the fighting continues and could become more widespread; the ultimate outcome of the conflict is unknown.  This conflict highlights the importance of a deeper understanding of the region.

In the shadow of these events, people of the Middle East once again find their lives reordered by decisions taken far above their heads and far beyond their borders. The current war not only devastates cities, infrastructure, …

Opening And Closing Doors: Internationalism In The Norbertine Missions To Settler And Indigenous Populations In Wisconsin, Alex Gruber

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this essay, I argue that the Premonstratensian or Norbertine Order located in Berne Abbey in the Netherlands responded strongly to a call for international ministry by going to northeast Wisconsin for Walloon settlers from Belgium and their descendants in 1893. However, these priests and brothers fell much farther short of internationalism in the mission to the Oneida Nation reservation they received in 1898. I will make my case by detailing these two missions and analyzing how the Norbertines acknowledged their international nature and practiced or failed to practice internationalism in them. Diving into the mission histories requires discussion of …

The Untameability Of The Sacred: Votive Traditions At Notre Dame De Lourdes And El Santuario De Chimayó, Gabrielle Bibeau

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article compares divergent votive practices at Notre Dame de Lourdes in France and El Santuario de Chimayó in New Mexico. Lourdes’ embrace of modern aesthetic values—simplicity, order, and functional clarity—has led to the removal and tight regulation of most ex-votos. By contrast, Chimayó’s roots in Latin American Baroque aesthetics, with its emphasis on abundance, drama, and hybridity, create space for a vibrant proliferation of offerings. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s theory of aesthetics and politics as the “distribution of the sensible,” the article shows how aesthetic judgments intertwine with clerical power to curate, constrain, and authorize pilgrims’ access to the …

“Enslavement By Unbridled Passions:” Catholic Magisterial Institutional Attitudes Toward Homosexuals In Poland Between 1945 And 1989, Agnieszka Laddach

Journal of Global Catholicism

During Communism, the Polish bishops presented a narrative about (homo)sexuality with in order to create the image of a righteous moral and social life that was to influence the Catholics. In my research I conduced a thematic analysis of this narrative. I highlight the doctrinal and Polish social-religious context to foreground tendencies in the formation of Church teaching about homosexuality as well as the importance of the Church in Poland to its formation. Then, I show the factors that characterize the episcopal discourse’s content and language about homosexuality, recognizing that components of episcopal discourse suggest a specificity of Church potential …

Overview & Acknowledgments, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This Introduction overviews the work of contributors from the Graduate Symposium sponsored by the Journal of Global Catholicism and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.  The Introduction also highlights the independent peer reviewed submission from Dr. Agnieszka Laddach of the University of Warsaw.

Spirituality In Abstraction: The Female Future In 20th-Century Art, Lauren T. Sargent

Epochs Art History Journal

No abstract provided.