Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Countering Dominant Narratives In Community: The Many Voices In Spoken Word Poetry, Natalie Raquel Acuña Jan 2024

Countering Dominant Narratives In Community: The Many Voices In Spoken Word Poetry, Natalie Raquel Acuña

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this project I research the counternarratives within spoken word poetry by authors of color (i.e., Rafeef Ziadah, José Olivarez, and Denise Frohman) and how they resist the dominant narratives that are broadcast towards a larger audience. I analyze categories of counterstory through the following paired themes: immigration/citizenship, and joy/trauma. I delve into the heavy importance of community within my project in the realm of spoken word poetry. A lot of poetry is going against dominant narratives, community within this discourse gives a sense of belonging and relatability to the experience of the spoken word performers.


A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin Jan 2023

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Because not all disabilities look the same it is difficult to label a person with disabilities just by looking at them. Given that our knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions impact how we interpret our world and our willingness to act, people, including professors, may be biased toward providing accommodations for those with easily recognizable disabilities and biased against those with non-recognizable disabilities, and this may impact the disabled person’s ability to learn. This thesis aims to address whether professors’ disability-related attitudes, perceptions of accommodation reasonableness, and willingness to provide accommodations differ when the disability is recognizable (student is pictured in a …


Muele Las Palabras Con Canela: How Queer Xicanx Writing Practices Reclaim Indigeneity, Karen Zurita Jan 2023

Muele Las Palabras Con Canela: How Queer Xicanx Writing Practices Reclaim Indigeneity, Karen Zurita

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

My thesis project is a multi-genre story in itself, dedicated to my community. By using Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza and Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel’s Decolonize Your Diet, I emphasize the importance of Xicanx writing needing to reflect their Indigenous identity by intertwining the spiritual and physical in their writing practices. In the process of creating this thesis project I was able to heal my own writing and have it shapeshift into creating a summer poetry class for high school students in the Humboldt County Area. In all, I found these writing practices to be crucial …


"Think Of The Children!": Understanding Parental And Community Opposition To Critical Race Theory, Daniela S. Tierra Jan 2023

"Think Of The Children!": Understanding Parental And Community Opposition To Critical Race Theory, Daniela S. Tierra

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools has become a controversial topic nationwide, leading to widespread and alarming bans on the teaching of CRT. CRT has been accused of shaming white children, creating racial division, and creating a “victim mentality” amongst people of color. The CRT utilized in critical legal studies, ethnic studies, and sociology looks drastically different from what opponents claimed. So, what exactly is CRT - more importantly, what do opponents of CRT believe it to be, and why are they opposed to it? This thesis builds on the sociological field of critical whiteness to examine the academic origin …


The Paiute, Water Wars, And A Covered Up Agricultural Revolution, Nicholas Anthony Chambers Jan 2022

The Paiute, Water Wars, And A Covered Up Agricultural Revolution, Nicholas Anthony Chambers

History Senior Capstones

Like many other Native Americans, the Bishop Paiute in California have long faced an uphill battle in retaining their federally given land rights, access to natural resources, and their ability to remain self-sufficient. Often Native peoples (the Paiute included) have faced a long history of presidential administrations or federal agencies tolerating or even assisting them, only for a small political change to occur and all positive treaties or relations towards them evaporate or turn hostile. Tribes (according to American law) are supposed to be sovereign and see their treaties upheld in perpetuity. However, the Paiute (like many other Native tribes) …


The Slater Fire Was The Product Of Settler Colonialism, William Joseph Curtis Jan 2022

The Slater Fire Was The Product Of Settler Colonialism, William Joseph Curtis

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The Slater Fire of 2020 burned in Karuk aboriginal territory overseen by the Klamath National Forest. It burned over 200 homes to the ground and ravage over 100,000 acres of forest. This thesis argues that state-enforced fire suppression policies and methods are tools of settler-colonial erasure and the continuation of genocidal violence towards Karuk people. It analyzes the conflict between interests of the colonial state on one side and Indigenous resistance and survival on the other. Fire is an essential tool for the survival of Indigenous cultural identities, the material security of said populations, and the health of the environs …


Johnson V. M'Intosh: Christianity, Genocide, And The Dispossession Of Indigenous Peoples, Cynthia J. Boshell Jan 2022

Johnson V. M'Intosh: Christianity, Genocide, And The Dispossession Of Indigenous Peoples, Cynthia J. Boshell

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Using hermeneutical methodology, this paper examines some of the legal fictions that form the foundation of Federal Indian Law. The text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh opinion is evaluated through the lens of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to determine the extent to which the Supreme Court incorporated genocidal principles into United States common law. The genealogy of M’Intosh is examined to identify influences that are not fully apparent on the face of the case. International jurisprudential interpretations of the legal definition of genocide are summarized and used as …


Hózhó, “To Walk In Beauty And Balance”: Indigenous Writers Decolonize Theories Of Myth, Aaron Laughlin Jan 2021

Hózhó, “To Walk In Beauty And Balance”: Indigenous Writers Decolonize Theories Of Myth, Aaron Laughlin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this project, I argue for an Indigenous theory of myth in order to reconsider popular and academic paradigms about myth and its function. My goal is to articulate how Indigenous understandings might revise these paradigms by emphasizing myth as a means to foster ethical relationships of health and balance within ourselves and in the world. Inspired by the Indigenous writers Leslie Marmon Silko, Thomas King, and Gerald Vizenor, I outline how these authors think, write, and talk about the concept of myth. I explain prevailing academic paradigms, including the term’s long history of associations with old-fashioned, “primitive,” superstitious stories …


Working Towards Land Return In Goukdi’N: A History Of Genocide And A Future Of Healing, Carrie Tully Jan 2021

Working Towards Land Return In Goukdi’N: A History Of Genocide And A Future Of Healing, Carrie Tully

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Since 2009, the city of Arcata, R. H. Emmerson & Sons, and Humboldt State University have collaborated on the transfer of an 884-acre tract of land in Goukdi’n (known locally as Jacoby Creek Forest). The main goals of this project are to prevent fragmentation of the land, protect wildlife, and to support and enhance student research opportunities. In the ten years that it took for this land to be transferred to the California State University and in the care of Humboldt State University the Wiyot Tribe was not consulted regarding the parcels, their purchase, or their being given to HSU. …


(In)Equities In The Publishing Industry: The Politics Of Representation, Hallie R. Lepphaille Jan 2020

(In)Equities In The Publishing Industry: The Politics Of Representation, Hallie R. Lepphaille

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project contains an overview and key introductory sections of an intersectional, equity-based literary publishing course textbook. The full-length edited collection, currently under external review for publication, seeks to rectify long-held disparities of the publishing industry in regard to hiring, acquisitions, developmental editing, and considerations in audience, readerships, and marketing. Each chapter examines the ways that racism, ableism, heterosexism, and cisnormativity, operate in the industry, limiting who is represented at an editor’s desk and in the pages of published books. The collection is intended to be utilized in upper-division and graduate-level literary publishing courses. This project is a response to …


Shifting The Colonial Narrative: Re-Examining And Reclaiming Internalized Identities Within Mestizaje, Vanessa Tenorio Jan 2020

Shifting The Colonial Narrative: Re-Examining And Reclaiming Internalized Identities Within Mestizaje, Vanessa Tenorio

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The dehumanization of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) during the colonial period has led to an internalization of colonial beliefs about ourselves informed and reinforced by settler-colonial, nation-states that continue to occupy our lands. This thesis explores how the construction of the Mexican[1] identity of mestizaje is based on the logic of racial hierarchy embedded within the colonial construct of the state and this has led to an internalized colonial mentality and inferiority complex among Mexicans. These internalized racial hierarchies have become a part of Mexican society and culture which becomes apparent in the way that we …


Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr Jan 2020

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …


Retelling Narratives Of Eco-Memory: Settler Colonialism And Carceral Occupation Of The Jordan River, Megan Rose Awwad Jan 2020

Retelling Narratives Of Eco-Memory: Settler Colonialism And Carceral Occupation Of The Jordan River, Megan Rose Awwad

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this thesis, I retell and reclaim stories that have been shared and passed down within my family and family history in relation to our homeland, Palestine, and more specifically to the Jordan River. I argue that the construction of the dam in the 1960s on the Jordan River, by a zionist state, is an extension of both the settler colonial state and the treatment of the land/rivers as inherently linked with the treatment of Indigenous people. The carceral spaces and geographies settler states create are part of both the destruction of the land and the genocide Indigenous people experience. …


Cultivating Chingona Power: A Study On The Chingona Identity, Celia Orosco Haro Jan 2019

Cultivating Chingona Power: A Study On The Chingona Identity, Celia Orosco Haro

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Mujeres across the country are claiming the Chingona identity and using it to cultivate their Chingona strength, feel empowered, and live for their own approval. A Chingona in this newly reclaimed use means a woman who embodies confidence, acceptance of self, reclamation of sexuality, siguiendo le adelante por su propio camino sin importarle lo que digan los demás, rejects social and cultural norms/expectations of women, and uses her strengths to empower and uplift others. Through the reclamation of this identity, these mujeres are moving beyond being hijas de la chingada to being Chingonas. This research highlights the Chingona identity …


Adaptation Of Customary Quechua Indigenous Political Organization In The Face Of Modern Resource Extraction: A Case Study In The Apurimac Region Of The Andes Of Peru, Yojana Miraya Oscco Jan 2018

Adaptation Of Customary Quechua Indigenous Political Organization In The Face Of Modern Resource Extraction: A Case Study In The Apurimac Region Of The Andes Of Peru, Yojana Miraya Oscco

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research focused on the forms and structure of customary political organization in Quechua indigenous communities of the Peruvian Andes that extend from the villages to their associated migrant communities in the capital. As the mining industry has been expanding rapidly throughout the Andes in recent decades, describing the political organization of these remote communities is a key aspect of their negotiation practices with these external industries. This research was conducted utilizing grounded theory in a comparative case-study format by analyzing two villages and their associated migrant communities from the Andean District of Juan Espinoza Medrano. This research utilized a …


How Anthropogenic Climate Change Exacerbates Vulnerability In Prison Communities; A Critical Environmental Justice Analysis, John L. Veit Jan 2018

How Anthropogenic Climate Change Exacerbates Vulnerability In Prison Communities; A Critical Environmental Justice Analysis, John L. Veit

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis examines the link between anthropogenic climate change and mass incarceration by examining how governments address conditions in and around prisons resulting from hurricanes and wildfires. Critical Environmental Justice, Treadmill of Production and Destruction theories are synthesized using what is debuted here as an intersectional camera based on the theory of intersectionality. It examines how Trump administration policies will greatly exacerbate dangers caused by climate change and increase risks and dangers caused by mass incarceration. In addition to being a call to action, this project is intended to serve as a resource for prisoner rights activists. Prisons have become …


Community-Based Initiatives For Neighborhood And Community Rehabilitation: A Case Study Of The Mission District, San Francisco, California, Francesca Monique Gallardo Jan 2018

Community-Based Initiatives For Neighborhood And Community Rehabilitation: A Case Study Of The Mission District, San Francisco, California, Francesca Monique Gallardo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Through the case study of San Francisco, CA’s Mission District, this research project addresses how community-based affordable housing development is operationalized to rehabilitate communities and neighborhoods experiencing effects of gentrification, mass displacement, and cultural dilution. My goals were to identify how the processes of building a sense of community, trust, and cohesion- rehabilitating and critical to affordable housing development efforts in the Mission District? And, how are nonprofit community development organizations engaging with these processes in collaboration with citizen and community partners? The final objective is to provide evidence-based strategies to assist other at-risk minority communities and neighborhoods in the …


Historical Consciousness, The Cultural Imaginary And Postcolonial Subjectivity In Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For The Time Being, Cassandra S. Curatolo Jan 2018

Historical Consciousness, The Cultural Imaginary And Postcolonial Subjectivity In Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For The Time Being, Cassandra S. Curatolo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project fuses personal narrative and literary criticism, as it excavates Ruth Ozeki’s representations of Japanese culture in the novel A Tale for the Time Being. I argue that her use of stereotype unsettles popular images of Japan by constructing characters who challenge the hegemonic gaze of the Western cultural imaginary. My reading connects continuing investment in these stereotypical representations to the postmodern epoch, where individuals and society as a whole have become incapable of dealing with the past. I explore the links between postmodern amnesia, the disappearance of a multiplicity of perspectives in history and the inclination of …


“I Exist To Resist”: Navigating The Gender Non-Conforming Identity At Humboldt State University, Lizbeth E. Olmedo Jan 2017

“I Exist To Resist”: Navigating The Gender Non-Conforming Identity At Humboldt State University, Lizbeth E. Olmedo

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

While transgender research is educating and reforming schools, politics and wider society, there is little work on a gender spectrum that disrupts the gender binary of (trans) men/women. This research is an attempt to fill in the gaps of people, significantly students who do not fit under the “transgender umbrella,” as this term has tended to clump an array of gender and sexual identities together. This qualitative research explores students who go beyond the gender binary and how they navigate non-binary, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming identities within Humboldt State University (HSU). With this present qualitative study, I examined the lived …