Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Masters Abroad, Sebastian Chavez

Capstone Collection

The research focuses on gaining the perspective and experience of students attaining a master’s degree abroad. The overall study is to answer the following questions: 1) What is the reasoning behind gaining a master’s degree abroad? 2) What kind of impact does a master’s degree have on the identity of students? 3) How might a master’s abroad experience aid international relations? Among the key findings, specifically, students’ main incentives ranged from career development in wanting to advance career objectives or real-world experiences of living and adapting to a new cultural environment. Following identity transformation, students experienced self-growth or discovered new …

Narrative Infidelity And White Resentment In The Rhetorical Mobilization Of The Anti-Crt Movement, Julien Burns

LSU Master's Theses

Beginning in the summer of 2020, an activist movement has arisen in opposition to Critical Race Theory (CRT). This movement has mobilized tens of thousands of Americans and passed policy curtailing the discussion of race in classrooms despite a lack of evidence that CRT has any meaningful presence in many of the public institutions targeted. This movement challenges logic-based conceptions of rhetorical persuasion and demands an alternative model. In this thesis, I propose that a narrative conception of rhetoric provides a framework for understanding how this movement is rational, despite the falsifiability of its foundation. Specifically, I respond to Walter …

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas

Secrecy and Society

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center “We the Curious” and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of …

(Not) Accessing The Castle: Grappling With Secrecy In Research On Security Practices, Lilly P. Muller, Natalie Welfens

Secrecy and Society

This article discusses how to deal with secrecy and limited access in ethnographically inspired research of security fields. Drawing inspiration from recent debates about secrecy in Critical Security Research and from Franz Kafka’s The Castle, we propose to treat access limitations and the secrecy we encounter as methodological tools that provide insights into social relations and power structures of security fields. We develop the argument in two steps. First, we argue for a more fine-grained taxonomy of secrecy, that allows to distinguish between mystery, concealment and the relational dimension of secrecy. Second, we apply the taxonomy to our respective …

Decolonizing Wash Practices Between National Policies & International Standards: A Case Study In Tanzania, Mary Thibodeau

Capstone Collection

The international community has developed guidelines and standards for the maintenance of water and sanitation (WASH) in states from the end of the 20th century to present and have often been criticized for their lack of contextual adaptations in the standards that states are expected to implement universally. The research explored how international standards on WASH have applied decolonized methods of interventions to guide the development of culturally relevant national policies. Tanzania was chosen as a case study to conduct a comprehensive review of the states’ integration of international standards within their policies through a decolonial perspective. The study included …

Hoping As A Transformational Imperative In Puerto Rico: A Phenomenological And Grounded Theory Study Within Colonized Space, José Luiggi-Hernández

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the United States continues to restrict Puerto Rico’s self-determination and imposes oppressive institutions such as the Oversight Board, the people of the archipelago live in precarity and hopelessness. Limited psychological research on colonialism has focused on the detrimental impact of oppression and its influence on the development of fatalism and the inferiority complex. On the other hand, existing psychological theories of hope fail to describe how it is lived within the post-colonial context and to explain the ways in which this psychological phenomenon arises even in the face of systematic dehumanization. As Puerto Ricans show evident signs of hope …

Do Men Strategically Leverage Women's Intersecting Identities? Intersectional Symbolic Inclusion As An Electoral Competition Strategy In Polarized Turkey, Elif Sari Genc

Dissertations and Theses

Do party elites use intersectionality as an electoral competition strategy? In this dissertation, I study this question in the context of mayoral elections in Turkey by focusing on the competition between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People's Republican Party (CHP). Examining the gender and religious orientation of candidates from these parties, local variations in party affiliations, and partisan polarization that is decisive in vote choice at the district level, I argue that the Islamist AKP strategically selects secular-appearing women to leverage their intersecting identities in races where secularist partisan polarization against this party is high.

Drawing on …

Civilizational Security: Why The Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Shows That ‘National Security’ Is Not Enough To Understand Geopolitics, Greg (Grzegorz) Lewicki

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper argues that the idea of “national security” is sometimes overwritten by “civilizational security” in security-related considerations. Civilizational security, as understood in this paper, refers to a country's security stemming from its belonging to a cultural zone or a civilization. The author clarifies the terms “a civilization,” “civilizational identity,” and “civilizational security.” Citing the examples of Poland, Ukraine, and Russia when considering the parameter of civilizational security allows us to better analyze and predict some processes, including geopolitical dilemmas and civilizational trends. It is argued that prior to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia misunderstood its own civilizational security …

"The Best Interests Of The Child:" Parental Claims In Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877–1924, Esme Krohn

Digital Legal Research Lab

Research poster titled "The Best Interests of the Child:" Parental Claims in Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877–1924; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2023.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

Editor's Note, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

Claude-Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon, a father of modern sociology, observed that the history of the world alternated between two poles: organic periods (in which the social and political institutions are in harmony with the state of civilization), followed by critical periods, which are transitional and marked by conflict and destructive criticism.

Rector's Welcome, Robert Kosowski Phd

Comparative Civilizations Review

With immense pleasure, we welcome the beginning of cooperation of the War Studies University with the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC). As an Organizing Partner of the 2023 ISCSC annual conference entitled "Civilizational Security", we will facilitate solutions to make the conference impactful, memorable and internationally fruitful.

Here, There, And In-Between: On The Civilizing Process And Civilizational Analysis, Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

This essay presents a cautionary tale about certain problems with systematization and abstraction in comparative civilizational studies. It advocates instead for the analysis of single works, limited events, or particular figures, within larger issues pertaining to what is understood as a “civilization” or “culture”. It prioritizes certain aspects of the civilizing process: the here, or the civilizing and interpretive gaze; the there, or the Other that is the object of that gaze; and the in-between. It further suggests that insights and methods from Mikhail Bakhtin, Hans-Georg Gadamer and others from the humanities, social sciences, and philosophy can …

The Applicability Of Lessons From American Society For The European Union: Tolerance, Demographic Change, And Social Structure, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

While Americans have long tended to see our society and civilization as exceptional, in fact the civilization is primarily based on European precedent. We see ourselves, in the words of one of our most significant poets, Emma Lazarus, as the new colossus, “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp cries she... I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” We claim to be an exception; that means that we are unique, different, what many, alluding to the New Testament as viewed by the Pilgrim founding fathers, have called “a shining city upon a hill.”2 And as “a beacon of hope.”

The Economic Regions Of Chinese Civilization: A Gis-Based Analysis Of Grain Markets In China, 1736-1842, Karl Ryavec, Mark Henderson, Rocco Bowman

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Philip Ball. The Water Kingdom: A Secret History Of China, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

Over centuries scores of sinologists have sought to define the essence of China. Philip Ball addresses and goes well beyond the materialist paradigm of Karl Wittfogel’s hydraulic thesis, which described the role of water management in China as stimulating state development. In his theory, government emerged as the central institution to manage transportation, flood control and irrigation. Ball also sees water management as critical in Chinese civilization and injects his description with spiritual and moral content, drawing on poetry, art, biography and extensive reference to historical events. His book is an exploration of the role of water in China’s culture, …

Global Security In The Third Millennium Of The Common Era, Michael Andregg

Comparative Civilizations Review

The primary purpose of this short essay is to catalyze discussion among security professionals about how perspectives on ‘global security’ and ‘wise civilizations’ might affect military affairs during a time of great, interdisciplinary stresses that impact everyone on earth today.

Global civilization faces two main existential threats this century. The first is a quick death from general thermonuclear war or release of other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) like exotic, genetically engineered biological weapons. The second is a slow death from incremental destruction of the living system that supports all civilizations, wise or unwise, by mechanisms like deforestation, desertification, climate …

Book Review: Steven Sabol. The Touch Of Civilization: Comparing American And Russian Internal Colonization, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

America and Russia are derivative civilizations from the same Greco-Roman source, with very different results. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, Russia proclaimed itself to be the Third Rome as it lifted the Tatar yoke. Although the U.S. did not become a country for another three centuries, the colonial experience and culture remained closer to England’s – a nation proudly conscious of its lineage.

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Is Civilization A Good Thing?, David Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

How do we feel about “Civilization”? What emotions does the idea of “civilization” evoke from us? Why are these emotions attached to that idea? In more technical terms, what are the “connotations” of “civilization”? Laudatory or derogatory? And why do we feel the way we feel about it? What makes us welcome civilization, fear it, praise it or shun it?

The Possibility Of A Global Civilization, Robert Elliott Allinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

This article inquires into the question of what is civilization. It considers that a sine qua non of a civilization is a non-violent culture. It investigates the concept of violence and extends the concept to cover examples of citizens who live in conditions of poverty, ill health, lack of food, lack of education, lack of adequate housing, and inadequate living conditions. The argument in the article is that a civilization that allows such conditions to exist perpetrates violence upon its citizens and therefore does not deserve the appellation, ‘civilization.’ Those citizens who do not protest against such violence are not …

Front Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

The Theoretical Status Of The Concept Of Civilization, Roger W. Wescott

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper may be regarded as an effort to answer some questions concerning the conceptualization of civilization.

1. Whether or not concepts are essentially verbal, is the concept of civilization primarily denotative (referential) or connotative (emotive) in meaning?

2. If the concept of civilization is primarily emotive, is its emotive force predominantly laudatory or derogatory in effect?

3. When the concept of civilization is derogatory, is it decadence or outdatedness that is primarily derogated?

4. If the concept of civilization is primarily denotative, is its denotation primarily abstract (referring to culture and associated mentifacts) or primarily concrete (referring to people …

Monitoring Wise Civilization By Creating An Index, Andrew Targowski

Comparative Civilizations Review

The Wise Civilization Index will assess how wise we are in developing and living in a sustainable civilization.

Recently, people have started to worry about the state of the climate. This has been reflected in the finding that the climate temperature should be kept to a growth of below two degrees Celsius by 2100 to save our species from a slow death (The Paris Agreement of 2015). After all, raising the human body temperature by two degrees threatens illness and even death by four degrees. The same (relatively) can be done with Earth. However, apart from the climate, the problem …

Book Review: Erich S. Gruen. Cultural Identity In The Ancient Mediterranean, John Berteaux

Comparative Civilizations Review

Erich S. Gruen’s edited collection Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean first appeared in 2011. I feel the significance of this collection is that it teases out and asks us to assess unreflective assumptions that inform not only our vision of the past, but also our grasp of present-day collective identities. Early on Gruen reports that while moderns tend to focus on difference, dissimilarity, or contrast when distinguishing cultures, in the eight sections of this text scholars identify and investigate complex connections that resulted in the cultural identities we associate with the ancient Mediterranean world. The essence of Gruen’s argument …

Book Review: Michael Farmer. An Atlas Of The Tibetan Plateau. Volume 50 In Brill’S Tibetan Studies Library Series, Constance Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

An Atlas of the Tibetan Plateau is a masterful melding of science and art created by British architect and cartographer Michael Farmer. Based on extensive contemporary data painstakingly woven from satellite imagery, the intrepid and apparently indefatigable Mr. Farmer has, over decades, produced a unique and indispensable reference work

The Mything Link: Why Sacred Storytelling Is A Key Human Survival Strategy, Ken Baskin

Comparative Civilizations Review

For several decades, societies across the globe have faced a real existential threat with challenges such as global warming. Yet no one in the elite has been able to do anything to improve conditions. We seem to be trapped in the kind of situation that Einstein described when he discussed problems that can’t be solved with the logic that created them.

Buber The Radical Egalitarian And Buber And Psychology, Kenneth Feigenbaum

Comparative Civilizations Review

My first iteration for this paper was to present Martin Buber in the context of radical politics in Germany and to focus upon his relationship to the anarchist Gustav Landauer. After a brief search, I found too few sources that were easily accessible from here in the United States, so as part of this presentation I situate Buber in the radical politics extant mostly during his time in Germany and in Berlin. I focus here on Buber’s psychology but include several intellectual side trips visiting aspects of Buber’s philosophy and his politics. I cannot separate them in discussing Buber and …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Habeas At Home And Heart: Progressive Era Cases Of Spousal Confinement To Nebraska's Psychiatric Households, Isabelle Childs

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.