Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Guest Editor’S Introduction: Liah Greenfeld And The Future Of Comparative Civilizational Studies, Monika Monika, Guest Editor

Comparative Civilizations Review

Every scholarly life leaves behind unfinished questions. Professor Liah Greenfeld was acutely aware of this. Throughout a career spanning more than four decades, her research never settled into the repetition of established arguments. Each major work emerged from the unresolved problems of the previous one, enlarging both the scope of its inquiry and the range of disciplines with which it engaged. Nationalism led her to questions of modernity (Greenfeld, 1992) and the foundations of economic development (Greenfeld, 2001). The growth of the modern economy and the emerging new forces of globalization, in turn, raised broader questions about the self and …

In Memoriam: Liah Greenfeld A Reflection From The President Of The Comparative Civilizations Forum, Bibi Pelić

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is with sorrow and gratitude that the Comparative Civilizations Forum dedicates this special 2026 Fall issue of the Comparative Civilizations Review to the memory of Professor Liah Greenfeld, who passed away in May of this year.

Professor Liah Greenfeld was a sociologist, an anthropologist, a political scientist — and more than any single label can hold. Across four decades at Harvard and then at Boston University, she built a body of work, from Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity to The Spirit of Capitalism to Mind, Modernity, Madness, that stepped outside the boundaries the modern academy likes to draw. …

Liah Greenfeld: Scholar, Thinker, Friend, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

Professor Liah Greenfeld and I met several years ago when she submitted an article to the Comparative Civilizations Review. Her thoughtful demeanor and personal kindness to all were quickly evident, but so, too, was her scholarship, especially her probing theories of state, society, and civilization.

End Matter

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

It Is Literally Impossible To Be A Monologue: The Misplaced Generalizations Of Barbie, Mabel Court

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

The summer of 2023 was a hot pink pressure cooker that transformed the Barbie brand from a dusty relic into an omnipresent cultural phenomenon. The Barbie movie’s savvy marketing team colored billboards bright fuschia, with the film’s mystery-shrouded plot fueling a thunderous roar of speculative chatter that crescendoed until its long-anticipated release. A star-studded cast and auteur director Greta Gerwig were the cherries on top, rocketing the film to critical and economic success. The film was heralded as thematically ambitious, one of the best comedies in recent memory, and a “feminist self-aware masterpiece” (Barbie Movie Reviews). Although Barbie marked a …

Jael The Kenite, Madison Sacriste

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

The First Thirteen Years, Crystal Gonzalez Callison

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

From Hesitation To Creation: Bookmaking, Language, And The Development Of Student Confidence In The Arts And Crafts, Kayla Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Many secondary students enter art classrooms believing that artistic ability is an innate talent rather than a skill that can be developed, often resulting in low confidence, perfectionist tendencies, and a reluctance to take creative risks. This action research study investigated how participation in a crafts-focused bookmaking curriculum affected students' engagement, divergent creativity, artmaking, and mindset in relation to success, failure, and creative risk-taking. Drawing on research in growth mindset, guided mastery, craft education, and artists' books, I designed and implemented a scaffolded curriculum that progressed from structured bookbinding techniques and process-based exploration to conceptually driven artists' books. The study …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Student Awards

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Awards for Outstanding Papers Written in 2025

Dam Negotiations: Water, Diné Sovereignty, And The Navajo Dam, George Smith

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On July 30, 1958, contractors working for the Bureau of Reclamation broke ground on the Navajo Dam, located about 35 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico. Diné Tribal chairman Paul Jones had called the dam a “new hope for [his] people,” anticipating increased agricultural and industrial capacity from irrigation and flow management. Though officially approved in 1962, the contingent Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (NIIP) that was to provide those many of those benefits remained to be completed in 2024. By contrast, the San Juan Chama Project (SJCP), the other project contingent upon the dam, diverted water from the San Juan …

Marcion And The Crisis Of Second-Century Christianity, Samuel Petersen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Almost a century after the death of Christ and his original apostles, the 2nd-century Judeo-Christian church found itself in a vicious struggle for survival catalyzed by an ongoing negotiation between the church’s traditional Jewish roots and establishing its own identity. The loose confederation of Jesus-believers fought to gather themselves into a functional body as they wrestled with questions surrounding the very nature of the Christian faith.

“No Hen Should Herald The Dawn Lest Misfortune Follow”: Gender, History, And Power Sima Guang’S Comprehensive Mirror, Zoe Ngan

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It was not a particularly notable occasion when Emperor Gaozong 高宗 of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) established Wu Zetian 武則天 as a mid-ranked concubine in 654. Emperors, throughout Chinese history, were polygamous rulers who acquired no shortage of concubines per the Rites of Zhou 周禮, an ancient ritual text which proposed that rulers obtain 121 wives and consorts. Wu’s nomination signified the unpredictability of imperial favour and almost certainly did not turn heads when her appointment occurred.

“I, Too, Want To Be Free”: Women And The Birth Control Movement In Utah, 1914–1940, Evelyn Wilcox

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Like many other women, I too, want to be free,” explained a 33-year- old Utah woman in a 1925 letter to Margaret Sanger, a prominent leader in the birth control movement. This woman, whose name is unknown, was married to a 78-year- old man with whom, she thought, “in her ignorance,” that she would never have any children—she was proven wrong. With six children under the age of eight at the time and wanting to prevent having more, this woman’s predicament reflects Sanger’s mission to inform everyday women of birth control so they could make their own reproductive choices. After …

Christianity Behind The Iron Curtain: How Creative Arts Gave A Voice To The Voiceless, Riana Johnson Wills

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1988, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held celebrations across the Soviet Union to mark the Millennium of Christianity in Russia, commemorating a thousand years since the baptism of Rus in 988. While this was a monumental day for Christians, many believers across the Soviet Union felt a sense of dissonance. For decades, religious freedom and worship had not been privileges they enjoyed. Thousands of Christians suffered for their belief. The communist regime began in 1922 with Vladimir Lenin. The USSR built upon Marxist ideology where atheism is a fundamental and they expected nationwide compliance to these ideologies. …

Rationed Victory: A Study Of American Civilian Rationing In World War Ii, Alex Moulder

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In any conflict or competition it is often said that the winner is “fueled to victory.” This could come as a result of training, diet, stamina, support from others, or sheer willpower. Even small variations in any of these elements can have significant consequences and affect outcomes. The same can be said about civilians during wartime, especially during the largest conflict of the twentieth century, World War II. The war cemented the United States as a global power, thanks in part to its massive economy, technologies, and industries, which helped to overcome the war of attrition against the Axis powers. …

“It Was The Women Who Kept It On”: The 1984–85 National Union Of Mineworkers Strike In Wales, Brett Bodily

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On March 3rd, 1984, more than 140,000 miners, all members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) walked out on strike in protest of proposed colliery, or “pit” closures. Years of disputes culminated in a major showdown between the largest labor union in the United Kingdom and a resurgent national conservatism led by Margaret Thatcher— leader of the Tory party. The communities built around coal mining recognized the Tory pit closure plan for what it was—an existential threat to their way of life. Women within these communities rose to the occasion and took on leadership and organizational responsibilities, many for …

Leasing Land, Losing Sovereignty: Us Military Land Leasing In Okinawa, Japan, Kathryn Blau

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Military land leasing in Okinawa has played a central role in limiting Okinawan political sovereignty since the end of World War II by fostering economic dependence on US military bases and enabling policies that override local opposition. Tracing the evolution of the leasing system under both American occupation and Japanese administration reveals how land expropriation, compensation policies, and increasingly generous financial incentives encouraged reliance on base-related income while discouraging advocacy for land reversion and base reduction. The analysis further demonstrates how the Japanese government's legal enforcement of mandatory lease renewals, particularly during the 1996 Okinawa land dispute, curtailed the rights …

Editor's Preface, Gabe Smock

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

This editor's preface explores the origins and enduring mission of The Thetean, BYU's undergraduate history journal. Through archival research in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, the journal's founding history is traced to its inaugural 1967 edition, revealing the origin, pronunciation, and meaning of its distinctive name as a reference to Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society. The preface highlights the journal's longstanding commitment to encouraging scholarly research, providing publication opportunities, and introducing students to the work of historians. By recovering the journal's own history, it underscores the broader value of historical inquiry: understanding the past to better …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Repetition As Ritual Structure: Sound, Movement, And Electrodermal Activity In A Hmong Shaman Ceremony, Maile Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between repetitive sound, physiological arousal, and embodied participation in a Hmong shamanic ritual. Drawing on scholarship about music, trance, absorption, repetition, and Hmong ritual journeying and communication, I consider how sonic layers such as chant, rattle and gong help structure ritual time and sustain the shaman's altered state. The project uses electrodermal activity (EDA) data from wearable sensors, video and audio recordings, and my own event coding of sonic and physical activity during a selected 30-minute section of a recorded Hmong shaman ceremony. By aligning EDA data with a timeline of chanting, rattling, gong playing, …

Religious Bias In Llms Is Significantly Understudied, Sheryl Carty, Nancy Fulda, Walter Reade

Faculty Publications

In the earlier years of development of LLMs, it was relatively easy to prompt an LLM to respond with toxic or biased statements about religion. Subsequent improvements in frontier models addressed many of the issues of bias and toxicity in general, including against religion. At the same time, the adoption and usage of these models has grown exponentially. Small and implicit biases, therefore, have a magnified overall impact. In this paper, we (1) briefly review previous efforts to measure religious bias in LLMs, (2) show, by reviewing over 12,000 papers dealing with bias in LLMs, that religious bias has been …

The Role Of Complexity In Structural Transfer: A Corpus Study From Turkish And Bulgarian, Sarah Joy Russell

Theses and Dissertations

This study the explores the need to examine the increasingly varied methods of quantifying morphological complexity in regards to their ability to influence structural borrowing across languages, with particular attention to the distinction between enumerative complexity (enumeration of all of the morphemes and distinctions in a system) and integrative complexity (entropy-based calculation of the class distinctions of the system). While existing models in contact linguistics often assume that structurally simpler languages are more likely to serve as sources of grammatical transfer, such accounts typically rely on enumerative measures of complexity alone and do not fully account for the role of …

Redesigning Our Curricula To Foster Career Readiness, Benjamin Rifkin

Russian Language Journal

Undergraduate majors are not engraved in stone; curricula have been adjusted and changed over the course of the history of higher education and now is the time to change our curricula once again. This article proposes a reconceptualization of the undergraduate major in Russian away from the framework of “coverage of the humanistic canon” to a framework focusing on the development of transferable or durable skills, i.e., skills that can be deployed in numerous employment contexts throughout an individual’s career trajectory to support career-readiness, in accordance with powerful frameworks offered by prominent educational organizations. This approach helps us support the …

Russian Language In An Interdisciplinary Setting: A Case Study, Foreign Area Studies At The United States Naval Academy, Joan Chevalier

Russian Language Journal

Russian language enrollments have been dropping in recent years at colleges and universities in the United States. In contrast to this national trend, the number of students studying Russian language at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) has remained robust over the past decade and is poised to increase in the near future as a relatively new interdisciplinary major, Foreign Area Studies (FAS), is expanded and revised. This paper traces recent developments at USNA that have led to the development and expansion of Foreign Area Studies, integrating language study into an interdisciplinary curriculum featuring courses related to nations and cultures …

What Do Learners Do With A Foreign Language After Their Studies? A Survey Of Alumni Of A Russian Summer Immersion Program, Dmitrii Pastushenkov, Liya Zalaltdinova, Jason Merrill

Russian Language Journal

Responding to concerns about the long-term value of foreign language education, this exploratory survey-based study examines how Russian language learners (N = 321) continued to use the language after completing a summer immersion program. The study investigates language use in personal and professional contexts and identifies resources alumni used, recommended, and needed to maintain proficiency. Although opportunities for conversational practice were limited, and interaction in Russian was one of the activities alumni needed but often viewed as unattainable, about 60% of participants continued using Russian at least occasionally. Among those employed full time, 24% used Russian frequently, primarily in …

Workforce Readiness And The Humanities: Building Internship Pathways In Slavic And East European Studies, Ani Kokobobo

Russian Language Journal

As workforce readiness becomes an increasingly central metric for evaluating academic programs, humanities disciplines, particularly small language and area studies fields such as Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (SEEES), face growing pressure to demonstrate measurable employment outcomes. Drawing on national and state-level workforce policy frameworks, employer competency data, and the author’s administrative experience as Dean of Liberal Arts, this article argues that SEEES programs are uniquely positioned to meet contemporary career readiness mandates without compromising their intellectual and civic missions. The article reframes SEEES not as an at-risk humanities field, but as a high-value incubator of precisely the competencies …

Russian For The Professions: Creating An M.A. Program In The Context Of Holistic Foreign Language Instruction, Angela Brintlinger, Andrei Cretu, Helen Myers, Emma Pratt, Larysa Stepanova

Russian Language Journal

This paper presents the design, implementation, and some preliminary outcomes of measures aiming at integrating career readiness into the Russian language program at Ohio State University through the creation of a “Russian for the Professions” (RFP) stand-alone M.A. degree. While the M.A. program is still relatively small, its courses serve a larger contingent of students who have achieved or aspire to higher language competency. The key component of the program comprises courses offering specialized language skills in business, cybersecurity, government and foreign affairs, information services, media, and translation. Career-focused curricular offerings are supplemented by programming offered in partnership with industry …

Spotlight: Resources For Listening Proficiency In Russian, Molly Godwin-Jones

Russian Language Journal

The Digital Resources Corner (DRC) offers reviews of new digital resources that could be beneficial in the teaching and/or learning of Slavic languages. It is intended for instructors looking for or evaluating different materials to use in the classroom.