Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What Did Tolkien Really Think About Narnia?, Holly Ordway

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"We are presented with two questions: “what did Tolkien really think about Narnia?” and “how did the idea that Tolkien hated Narnia become accepted as common knowledge?” In this essay, I will address both questions and conclude by suggesting why they matter for Inklings scholarship. At the outset, I will merely observe that since Tolkien and Lewis are two of the greatest fantasy writers of the twentieth century, it is worth knowing what one of them thought of the other’s work. …I have drawn my primary evidence from Tolkien’s published Letters (in the Revised and Expanded Edition), unpublished letters, and …

Book Review: The History And Politics Of Star Wars: Death Stars And Democracy, Petra Hendrickson

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Book Review: The History and Politics of Star Wars: Death Stars and Democracy

Frontmatter (Volume 19 Issue 2), Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Unsex Me Here: Gendered Psychology In Shakespeare's Major Tragedies And Comedy, Md. Abu Bakkar

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This study examines how gender shapes psychological experience across five of Shakespeare’s major plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. Existing scholarship treats Shakespeare’s tragic women, tragic men, and comic heroines as separate problems; this article asks whether one framework connects them. Its starting point is the reversal in psychological positions between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: he resists killing on moral grounds and then grows recklessly violent, while she plans the murder with cold resolve and is later overwhelmed by guilt. The study asks whether this pattern recurs more broadly, and why. Drawing …

Dowland Is For Everyone! The Making Of A New Biography, K. Dawn Grapes, Katharyn R. Benessa

Soundboard Scholar

Following the publication of her new biography of the Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland, K. Dawn Grapes details her research journey in conversation with Katharyn Benessa. They discuss both the history of Dowland research, including the legacy of Diana Poulton, and the gaps that still remain. Grapes offers new context for understanding Dowland’s music and considers how his travels and experiences may have shaped his life and work.

Bahasa, Budaya, Dan Kecerdasan Buatan: Tantangan Pengajar Bipa Di Era Ai, I Made Darma Sucipta, I Made Rai Jaya Widanta, I Made Sujanayasa

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought significant transformations to the teaching of Indonesian for Foreign Speakers (Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing, BIPA). This empirical qualitative study aims to describe the challenges faced by BIPA teachers in integrating AI into language instruction and the strategies they employ to balance the use of technology with the preservation of local culture. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and the analysis of teaching-material documents involving three BIPA teachers at Bali State Polytechnic who were selected through purposive sampling. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicate …

More Than A Name: Reparative Description For Women’S Archives, Allison Mccormack, Hallie Oines

Journal of Western Archives

This article describes a reparative description initiative at an academic library aimed at improving access to women’s archival collections. By hiring a metadata specialist through grant funding, the project revised legacy MARC records to update, expand, and standardize collection descriptions. Prioritizing inclusive language and accurate subject headings, the team addressed gaps that previously hindered discovery of women’s materials. Over two years, 818 records were remediated, enhancing creator, topical, and genre/form access points. The article discusses project challenges, strategies for respectful description, and the resulting improved discoverability, offering a replicable model for reparative archival work.

Rachel's Quest, William Lindsey Mcdonald

Correspondence

Letter from William Lindsey McDonald to Rachel, with an unlisted last name, in response to the question "who is Piedmont?" McDonald's answer endeavors to stretch across time and becomes philosophical at times. To the outsider, it would appear that McDonald was answering an inquiry about the Piedmont plateau region within the Eastern United States, a relevant subject for a local historian who often described geography. However, McDonald is instead telling about the somewhat humorous existence of an "old owl" that inhabited his childhood.

Ai-Supported Analysis Of Jury Deliberation Impact Factors, Jennifer Siciliani Phd

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students conduct a controlled, two-run generative AI jury simulation to examine how a single socio-legal variable affects simulated jury deliberation. They compare and manually code the AI-generated outcomes against peer-reviewed human jury research to evaluate the model’s accuracy, limitations, and potential biases.

From Retrieval To Generation: Building And Evaluating An Ai Accompanist For Piano Duets With An Anticipatory Music Transformer, Sai Ruthvik Uppala

Masters Theses

Systems that accompany a live musician, such as ACCompanion, work by retrieval: they hold a written accompaniment and stretch its timing to follow the soloist, so they can only accompany music whose second part already exists as a score. This thesis asks whether that second part can instead be generated, and specifically whether a machine learning model can write an accompaniment for a piece whose score it has never seen. A player performs the primo, the melody; a model produces the secondo, the accompaniment; and a score follower places the generated notes against the live performance. If this works, a …

2026-2027 Performance Forum - September 4, 2026, Ziling Wang, Hanting Peng

Performance Forum

No abstract provided.

Ritual Action Reed Trio: September 4, 2026, Andy Nogal, Andy Hudson, Ben Roidl-Ward

School of Music Programs

This is the second program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

September 4, 2026

Thursday Evening

7:30 p.m.

"Robert Pain And The Legacy Of Leadership", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Robert Paine was the first president of LaGrange College, the earliest predecessor of the University of North Alabama. The article gives a brief overview of Paine's leadership.

"The Sounds Of Handy's Music On The Tennessee River", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

William Christopher Handy "the father of the blues" was raised in Florence, Alabama. The article offers a synopsis of the connection between Handy, his music, and the Tennessee River.

More information about W.C. Handy and a digitized image gallery is available at the William Christopher Handy Collection.

"T.S. Stribling" And "T.S. Stribling's Ties To Lauderdale County", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

The articles offer an overview of Pulitzer-prize winning author and Florence Normal College alum T.S. Stribling, as well as his connections to Lauderdale County, Alabama.

"A Story Of The Beginning Of Old Brick Presbyterian Church", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

The article provides a general overview of the origins of the Presbyterian denomination and a history of the establishment of local Presbyterian churches in North Alabama.

"Sweetwater: The Story Of East Florence", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Research article that depicts the story of various portions of East Florence, Alabama industrial district, resulting from the resource of the "sweet water" spring. The subheadings that McDonald uses are as follows:

• Sweetwater Plantation, pg. 1
• A Second Plantation Called "Sweetwater", pg. 1
• Early Water Powered Mills on Sweetwater Creek, pg. 3
• The Industrial Section of Florence Called Sweetwater, pg. 3
• Early Iron Furnaces at East Florence, pg. 4
• The Florence Wagon Works, pg. 6
• The East Florence Cotton Industry, pg. 7
• Cherry Cotton Mill, pg. 7
• Ashcraft Cotton Mill, pg. 9
• The Broadus Mill, pg. 10
• Gardiner Warring Knitting …

"The Story Of The Shawnees At The Muscle Shoals", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

A brief overview of the Shawnees in Northwest Alabama.

"A Renowned Slave In The Early Life Of Florence", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Dred Scott, the plaintiff in Dred Scott v. Sanford, was a confirmed resident of Florence, Alabama in the 1820s-1830s. The article gives an overview of Dred Scott's life, including his time in Lauderdale County.

Restoration Of Cannon Cemetery, William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

The article discusses the restoration of the Cannon Cemetery near the Natchez Trace Overpass on Waterloo Road. Among the individuals buried at the cemetery are the grandparents of Pulitzer-prize winning author and Florence Normal School (predecessor to the University of North Alabama) alum T.S. Stribling's grandparent's James and Lydia Waits.

"Salt Cave On The Doublehead Reserve", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

A salt cave located on the previous site of the Chief Doublehead Reserve and current location of Lauderdale County, Alabama is now covered by the backwaters of the Wheeler Dam. The article discusses the oral history and local folklore related to the cave.

"The United States Post Office And Courthouse At Florence", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Brief depiction of the architecture of the Florence, Alabama Post Office and Courthouse Building and the heritage of the architect that designed it, John Robie Kennedy, Jr. Images of the Florence Post Office and Courthouse can be accessed at the William Lindsey McDonald Image Collection. To find the images, simply search the gallery via the search bar located on the left side.

"A Visit With Abraham Lincoln", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

In 1864, a woman from Killen, Alabama, Helen Hamm, was visited by President Abraham Lincoln. William Lindsey McDonald recounts the event.

"The View From Old Lagrange", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

A brief history of LaGrange Mountain and LaGrange College, the precursor to the University of North Alabama.

"The Remarkable Miss Lulie Jones", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

Short biography of local humanitarian Lulie Jones, who organized the free kindergarten that became known as Maud Lindsay's Free Kindergarten.

"State's First Black Church Was Started By Lightfoot", William Lindsey Mcdonald

Research Articles

TimesDaily article by William Lindsey McDonald about the establishment of the first African American Church in Alabama, Church Spring and eventually the Greater Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, by the Reverend Robin Lightfoot in 1837.

Advancing A Familial Understanding Of International Students, Prof-Collins Ifeonu Dr

Critical Internationalization Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Fast Discovery Of Motivic Patterns In Symbolic Music Via Lossy Compression, Adam James Wilson

Publications and Research

Generative systems that react to live musicians require rapid analysis of musical data, which rules out deep learning models: they cannot be trained within the time constraints of live performance. But because analysis results are often transformed before use, we are free to reduce the parameters that undergo transformation to a small set of primitive states. We address this coincidence of constraint and opportunity with an algorithm for online discovery of maximal musical motives that achieves speed through lossy compression: the pitch and inter-onset-interval deltas for all pairs of events in a potential motive are reduced to two-bit values, conceptualized …

So Much For Musicology: William Carter Plays Santiago De Murcia, Ellwood P. Colahan

Soundboard Scholar

Review of La Guitarra Española: Santiago de Murcia (1682–1732), by William Carter (Baroque guitar).

Harmonicthreads: A Formative Evaluation Of A Fabric-Based Digital Musical Instrument Toward Inclusive Music-Making, Ellie Nguyen, Franceli L. Cibrian

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Background:

Inclusive music-making requires instruments that support varied bodies, abilities, musical backgrounds, and forms of participation. Digital musical instruments provide diverse approaches to sound creation, and fabric-based interfaces offer an alternative interaction modality that may support participation for some users and contexts. Their tactile and deformable properties enable forms of interaction that differ from conventional rigid or screen-based controllers and may offer inclusive possibilities in particular settings.

Objective:

This paper presents HarmonicThreads as a formative interaction-design case of a fabric-based digital musical instrument. The prototype explores how tactile cues, fabric deformation, projected visual feedback, and assisted accompaniment can support low-barrier …