Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Isu Symphony Orchestra Concerto-Aria Competition Finals: January 28, 2026, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

This is the ninety-first program of the 2025-2026

Center for the Performing Arts

January 28, 2026

Wednesday Evening

7:00 p.m.

Jury Recognition Recital: January 26, 2026, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

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

Kemp Recital Hall

January 26, 2026

Monday Evening

7:30 p.m.

2026 Isu Wind Symphony Concerto Competition: January 25, 2026, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

This is the eighty-ninth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Center for the Performing Arts

January 25, 2026

Sunda Afternoon

Does It Matter Who Tells The Story? Newspaper Coverage Of Immigration Across Three Latin American Countries, Fernando Severino, Sebastian Rivera

Faculty Publications - Communications

This study examines the news media’s coverage of intraregional immigration issues in three Latin American countries –Colombia, Chile, and Mexico– from 2014 to 2018, when immigration became a salient political issue in these nations. We examine the news coverage by utilizing a novel sample of approximately 20,000 news articles and relying on a Structure Topic Modelling (STM) analysis to detect the most prevalent topics in the news. Our findings reveal that policy issues and stories related to human rights constitute the primary focus of news media coverage on immigration in those countries. We also investigate whether there are differences in …

Thinking Machines: Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, And Technological Anxiety In The American Cold War, Erin Mae Wilcox

Theses and Dissertations

Following the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as a cross-disciplinary study in philosophy, neurophysiology, electrical engineering, and mathematics. Cyberneticists proposed the formal study of the man-machine analogy; that is, to equate biological structures to a complex mechanical system. Drawing from this analogy, cyberneticists used programmable digital computers to emulate the functions of the human brain. The study of artificial intelligence emerged within this cybernetic discourse in the early 1950s; yet, by the mid-1960s, the two disciplines suffered a methodological fracture. Drawing from a tradition generated by this fracture, historians have traditionally examined cybernetics and artificial intelligence in isolation from one …

Development And Validation Of A Music Teacher Candidate Assessment, Phillip Hash

Faculty Publications - Music

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Music Teacher Candidate Assessment (MTCA), a rubric-based tool for evaluating student teachers in music classrooms. Factor analyses of scores issued by university supervisors (USs), cooperating teachers (CTs), and student teachers (STs) supported construct validity, explained 53.5% of the variance, and revealed two subscales: Pedagogy (I) and Professionalism (II). Concurrent validity resulted from a strong correlation (r_s = .83) between evaluators’ rubric averages and holistic ratings of performance. Inter-factor correlation (r = .65) confirmed discriminant validity. All groups exceeded the α ≥ .80 threshold for acceptable internal …

Dietrich Von Bern’S Captivity Among Monsters: A Heroic Motif And Its Variations In Waldere, Virginal, Sigenot, And Laurin, Jonathan Seelye Martin

Faculty Publications – Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

No abstract provided.

Are We Perceived The Same? A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Instructor Communication Between American And International Graduate Teaching Assistants, Deborah Aku Shika Pappoe

Theses and Dissertations

The study examined college students’ perceptions of American Teaching Assistants and International Teaching Assistants on credibility, clarity, respect, homophily, cultural homophily, and instructor quality within the same instructional context. Guided by Face Negotiation Theory, the study employed a mixed-methods design combining survey data and open-ended responses from undergraduate students at a Midwestern university. Results indicated significant differences in perceptions of clarity, homophily, and instructor quality, with ATAs rated higher on these dimensions, while no significant differences were found in credibility and respect. Students’ narratives reflected comparable experiences with both ATAs and ITAs, as perceptions of cultural homophily and instructor quality …

The Thing About Stuff: Exploring Consumerism Through Contemporary Print, Collage And Self-Reflection, Alexandra Lee Cox

Theses and Dissertations

The Thing about Stuff is an exhibition of editioned prints and book forms that pertain to personal and societal contradictions under capitalism. I use a combination of collage, design, print, traditional research and writing to form a better understanding of my place in capitalism by redefining my participation in it. Historical and contemporary research in combination with self-reflection and artmaking assists in my exploration of consumerism through the lens of human-object relationships. This body of work translates my own material desire for an audience through intentional composition, limited color pallets and intentional display. The accompanying supportive statement focuses on the …

Built Different: Place, Identity, And The Holistic Well-Being Of Female Student Athletes, Jaye Mack

Theses and Dissertations

This research furthers the conversation surrounding holistic female student-athlete wellness, recognizing that their experiences can be inequitable – influenced by the intersectionality of race, gender, and athletic identity (Armstrong et al., 2018; Druckman et al., 2018; Neeley et al., 2021). This research accredits the physical environments where athletes train, recover, and connect as an underexplored factor in holistic well-being.

The Indivisible Self Model of Wellness (IS-WEL) was used to (1) explore the influence of physical design features on female student athletes' holistic well-being and (2) understand how their identity shapes how they experience and attach meaning to their team environments. …

From Deference To Dialogue: How International Gtas From High Power Distance Cultures Adapt To U.S. Classroom Dynamics, Deborah Akua Afi Appiah

Theses and Dissertations

International graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) from high power distance cultures play a significant role in undergraduate education at U.S. universities, yet they face challenges that go well beyond language proficiency. Coming from educational backgrounds where teacher authority is unquestioned and hierarchical, these GTAs must navigate American classrooms that operate on fundamentally different assumptions, where authority is earned rather than assumed, informality is the norm, and students expect to question, negotiate, and be personally known by their instructors. The present study examined how eighteen (18) international GTAs from seven (7) high power distance countries perceived and adapted to these differences while …

Between Tradition And Transition: Cultural Negotiations And Contraceptive Perceptions Among Ghanaian Students In The United States, Beatrice Amissah

Theses and Dissertations

As global mobility continues to rise, international students often encounter new cultural norms and health practices that differ from those in their home countries. While some studies have focused on contraception within the context of gender and types, less focus has been placed on diasporic populations, especially how students navigate tensions surrounding contraception within new cultural environments. This study explores how Ghanaian students in the United States interpret, negotiate, and respond to contraceptive messaging while navigating the cultural transition between their heritage and host societies. Drawing on Berry’s (1980)  Acculturation Theory, the study examines the tensions students experience, the strategies …

America The Not Yet Beautiful: Unfulfilled Promises In A Racist-Capitalist Society, Kaitlyn Tibbetts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis draws from Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again” to analyze four American novels that demonstrate the United States’s unfulfilled promises for lower-class individuals and minorities. The four novels examined in this thesis include: The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, There There by Tommy Orange, and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Utilizing theoretical frameworks such as social reproduction theory, intersectionality, and Burden-Shelly’s theorizations on racist-capitalist oppression, this thesis argues that the policies and systems that the U.S. is founded on are designed to primarily benefit economically …

Reawakening Waⁿdat: Community Research & Reclamation, Darcy Allred

Theses and Dissertations

The Wyandot(te) have undergone language dormancy due to settler colonial impacts of warfare, refugee relocation, forced removals, and U.S. assimilation projects. One of the most pressing priorities among our people today is reawakening our ancestral language, Waⁿdat. The common follow-up question is: how? Through the conduit of Waⁿdat language reclamation, this project grapples with the above question in collaboration with the Wyandot(te) community, and in adherence to the tribal sovereignty of the Wyandotte Nation. The project engages with diasporic perspectives, community-based pedagogy design, and tribally specific research protocols and policies. The living collective knowledgebase with which I engage in this …

Raised On Ritalin - A Work For Concert Band Based On My Personal Experiences With Adhd Alongside A Graphic Novel By Tyler Page, Ethan Prado

Theses and Dissertations

During my time as an undergrad at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, I loved to read graphic novels, and their library had quite the collection. I lost track of how many times I made my way down to the third sub-level of the Undergraduate Library to go to the graphic novel section. In my last year at UIUC (2021-2), preparations were made to close the UGL in order for it to be renovated for their Special Collections. Essentially, they would be swapping the contents of the UGL and the Main Stacks. One time, while looking for graphic novels in …

Reconciliation, Draper Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis exhibition, Reconciliation, examines how memory, loss, and lived experience shape personal identity over time. Through sculptural works composed of cast, blown, and hot-sculpted glass combined with mixed media, the exhibition explores the pressures that life events place upon individuals and the ways those pressures persist, transform, and become integrated into the self. The work considers identity not as a fixed state but as a continual process of negotiation between past experiences, present circumstances, and future possibilities.

Central to the project is the material analogy between glass and human experience. Glass, a material formed under extreme heat and pressure …

Conditional Reliability And Induction, Todd Stewart

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

I explore a problem for the standard process reliabilist analysis of proper inference in terms of conditional reliability. The difficulty involves Goodman’s new riddle of induction, which can be used to argue that inductive inferences are in fact conditionally unreliable, and hence that no inductive inference is capable of producing a justified belief given the conditional reliability analysis. Accepting this conclusion would commit reliabilism to an unattractive form of inductive skepticism. I then consider some ways a reliabilist could resolve this problem, finally proposing a new analysis incorporating inferential dispositions.

Refusing To Die On The Vine: Black Women's Survival, Resistance, And Dei Labor In Historically White Institutions, Senesta D. Howard

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the lived experiences of Black women in non-diversity, non-faculty roles at historically White institutions (HWIs) who engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) advocacy beyond their formal job responsibilities. Grounded in Black Feminist Thought and guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the study explores how race and gender shape invisible labor expectations, emotional and psychological burdens, and strategies for safety and meaning-making. Semi-structured interviews with 12 Black women staff members yielded seven interrelated themes, including invisible DEI labor, hypervisibility, emotional exhaustion, sisterhood as a form of resistance, respectability politics, self-constructed safety, and purpose rooted in legacy and spirituality. …

Abject And Uncanny Manifestations Of Sexuality And Sexual Desire In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Varvara Kuznetsova

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which psychoanalytic concepts of the abjection and the uncanny were used to depict monsters and monstrous bodies in nineteenth-century Gothic literature as a site of social, cultural, and sexual transgression. Through the intersections of queer theory, monster theory, and psychoanalytic theory, I examine and analyze depictions of women as monstrous figures in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel (1816), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Sheridan Joseph Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872). In particular, I aim to detail how language and descriptions of women monsters become coded elements that reveal monstrosity and transgression.

Framing Belonging And Exclusion: A Dialogic Narrative Analysis Of English- And Spanish-Language Immigration Coverage During The Trump 2024 Presidential Election, Evangeline T. Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

I investigated how English- and Spanish-language news outlets narratively constructed Latinx immigrants during the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, a period marked by heightened anti-immigrant rhetoric and political volatility. While past scholarships examined immigration framing through tone, sentiment, or frequency analysis, limited attention has been given to the deeper narrative structures that shape public meaning-making. This study addresses this gap by applying Dialogic Narrative Analysis (DNA) and Critical Thematic Analysis (CTA) to a bilingual dataset of 120 newspaper articles from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, El Diario, and La Opinión published between November 2024 and February 2025.

Findings reveal …

“Is This Really Funny?” Humor, Rape Myths, And Social Semiotics In Nigerian Comedy Skits, Grace Oluwatofunmi Adeyemo

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how rape myth narratives are normalized through humor in Nigerian comedy skits. While existing research has identified rape-supportive beliefs in digital entertainment, it has paid less attention to the processes through which these meanings become socially acceptable. Guided by social semiotics, the study analyzes how semiotic resources use humor to normalize rape myth narratives in Nigerian comedy skits. Using a qualitative design, twelve purposively selected Nigerian comedy skits on YouTube were analyzed. The findings reveal that refusal is constructed as temporary, persistence is portrayed as effort, men's refusal is framed as abnormal, and consent is shaped by …

Roan Stallion, Tamar And Other Poems: Centennial Edition, By Robinson Jeffers, Brett Colasacco

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Wild Anthropocene Literature And Multispecies Justice In Deep Time, By Louise Economides, George Hart

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Voices Of The Headland: Robinson Jeffers And The Bird Of Prey, By Alan Malnar, Eric San George

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Senior Recital: Roberts, Trumpet; October 25, 2025, Sam Roberts, Lu Witzig

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-ninth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 25, 2025

Saturday Afternoon

4:30 p.m.

Bachtoberfest Concert: October 25, 2025, Dr. Cora Swenson Lee, Dr. Benjamin De Kock

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-eighth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 35, 2025

Saturday Afternoon

2:30 p.m.

Convocation Recital: October 24, 2025, Illinois State University School Of Music

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-fifth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 24, 2025

Friday Afternoon

1:00 p.m.

Junior Recital: Pillsbury, Bass-Baritone; October 24, 2025, Nicholas Pillsbury, Zeph Mussman

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-seventh program of the 2025-2026.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 24, 2025

Friday Evening

9:00 p.m.

Senior Recital: Lukaszczyk, Saxophone; October 24, 2025, David Lukaszczyk, Lu Witzig

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-sixth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 24, 2025

Friday Evening

6:00 p.m.

Charles W. Bolen Faculty Recital: Babbitt, Trombone; October 22, 2025, Mark Babbitt, Lu Witzig

School of Music Programs

This is the twenty-fourth program of the 2025-2026 season.

Kemp Recital Hall

October 22, 2025

Wednesday Evening

7:30 p.m.