Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Central Americans At A Crossroads: Asylum Seekers’ Testimonios Of Mental Health After Detention And Family Separation, Corie E. Schwabenland Garcia

Master's Theses

Though Central American asylum seekers are presently hypervisible in the U.S. consciousness, this population continues to be inadequately understood or cared for. Discussion of this population often presents them as a helpless and damaged population, in need of saving, fixing, or shelter -- beyond their trauma, they cease to exist. This qualitative study utilizes first-person testimonio methodology to understand the psychological experiences of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States, the stressors they face, and the mental health support that can and should be provided to them. Their stories speak to a space of sociopolitical precarity in the …

Violent Or Non-Violent? What Difference Does It Make In 1960’S Civil Rights Activism And The State?, Jada A. Commodore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this essay, I research the differences between violent and non-violent actors during the civil rights movement and how their methods changed their interactions with the state. For my case study, I chose two violent and two non-violent subjects, as well as two individuals, and two organizations. Those being Martin Luther King Jr. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for my nonviolent actors, and Malcolm X and The Black Panther Party as my violent actors. I examine how their methods as individuals and groups changed the way they interacted with Police, The FBI, and the Federal Government such as presidents …

O Santíssimo E As Vulvas Lésbicas: Uma Experiência Poética-Teológica Queer, Priscilla Ruah Gomes Da Costa

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

In this article, I reflect on the forms of thinking and doing theology. I begin by examining Jaroslav Pelikan’s proposal in the first volume of his collection, Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, to explore Marcella Althaus-Reid’s legacy later. I focus on Althaus-Reid’s contribution to a queer Christian experience; hers is a rich proposal to theological thinking that invites us to a radical hermeneutical change. Finally, I contribute excerpts from my published work to dialogue with these two theoretical references —underlining in a confessional style with Marcella’s theology— towards a subversive way of doing theology and …

Regresando De Narnia: Entre La Encrucijada De Armarios Y Templos, Hugo Córdova Quero, Saúl Serna Segura, Jorge A. Aquino Ph.D., Miguel H. Diaz

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This issue of Queer Connection presents the work of authors who have left the infancy of Narnia, covering topics ranging from queer poetics, honest conversations about sexuality in the Roman Catholic Church, and online Eucharists to the deconstruction of Islamic texts for the acceptance of queer people. All of these studies point toward liberation and societal transformation. In Christianity, the TLL has made reflecting on oppression and liberation possible. Still, its novelty lies in reflecting faith elaborated within a practice of liberation done by oppressed people through their movements. In this sense, liberation is transformation and change, a new world …

Reflections Of A «Recovering Outer Catholic», Jorge A. Aquino Ph.D.

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This essay comments on the long-deferred need for Latinx Catholic theologians to resist Roman Catholic teaching on sexuality by taking it out of the margins and integrating it as a co-equal topic of theological reflection. Based on the author’s 2014 presidential address to the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), it reviews the challenges — pastoral, theological, social, and psychological — of confronting homophobia and the exclusion of queer subjects by the Roman Catholic Church.

Quaerite Et Invenietis: Tras El Rastro «Queer» En La Edad Media, Anderson Fabián Santos Mesa

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

In this article, I distance myself from the chrono-normativity of time frameworks traditionally deployed to understand and analyze history. Instead, I inquire into the jagged lines of history. My focus lies specifically on the medieval period, and I seek to queer traditional interpretations of this era by posing indecent and uncomfortable questions. This inquiry can potentially bring medievalist work out of the theo(ideo)logical closet. My ultimate goal is to unveil a more diverse and nuanced understanding of the past, considering the full range of human experience while un/covering different answers: quaerite et invenietis [Seek and ye shall find].

La Práctica Incluyente De Jesús De Nazaret: Una Lectura Teológico-Pastoral De La Perícopa De Mateo 8.1-17, David De Jesús De Pascual

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This article proposes a queer reading of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 8, which reveals a radically inclusive praxis of Jesus, transcendent for people who struggle for the right to spirituality outside the hegemonic normative social parameters. It discusses the story of a person suffering from Hansen’s disease, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, and the figure of the Roman centurion’s slave, who are presented as queer people in the sacred text. It concludes with a hopeful message that the Divine gives to all people equally through Jesus.

Textos Islámicos: Una Fuente Para La Aceptación De Las Personas Queer En La Sociedad Musulmana Mayoritaria, Muhsin Hendricks

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This article seeks to reveal that Islam, at its core, does not condemn non- heterosexual sexual intimacy. On the contrary, it accepts it as part of a divine plan. In its true sense of peace and justice, Islam accepts a person’s sexual orientation as an intrinsic part of their biological and psychological makeup. He shows that the prohibition of same-sex marriages in Islam does not come from the Koran but from the legal construction of marriage and that sexual relations are both gendered and hierarchical. However, his study does not focus on Qur’anic texts that can be interpreted in support …

Send Your Holy Spirit: Reflections On The Theology Of Virtual Eucharist In Times Of Covid-19, Hugo Córdova Quero, Alan Robert Young

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This article explores the issues concerning the intersection of spirituality, sacramentality, proximity, and health safety in light of extreme circumstances such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. We begin by tracing the origins of the sacrament of the Eucharist, including the Eucharistic agency in the lives of the community. The second part of the analysis discusses the nature of community and how it relates to breaking bread and sharing wine. The last part of the article centers on community practice within the context of queering ecclesiology and rites through two examples, one in Latin America and the other in Asia.

Raj Karega Khalsa! - The Evolution Of The Sikh Identity, Vineet Mehmi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Generally, religion has served as a method of creating a unique identity and history for many groups across history. This concept is especially true for the Sikh community, to the point that they have carved their own niche across the different places they inhabit in the world, whether that be their homeland of Panjab or their extensive population in places like Canada or the United Kingdom. However, this expansion and development of their culture did not come without a cost, formed through countless battles, martyrdom, and revolutions. Chardi Kala, a foundational idea in Sikhi that refers to eternal optimism even …

Between The Sky And Earth, Swetha Amit

Master's Theses

Between The Sky And Earth is a collection of short stories that takes place in India, and in America, capturing the lives of Indian immigrants, and a cat, from different walks of life, some made up of students who came to pursue the American dream. The time span ranges between the early to late 2000s, capturing some significant events like farmer suicide and undocumented immigrants. These stories explore grief, trauma, identity, displacement, and relationships, focusing primarily on the consequences of losing loved ones, and unexpected mishaps that lead to a life and death situation. A couple of the stories grapple …

The Power Of Anime: Artistic Power, Social Consciousness, And Cultural Impact, Natalie Ortez-Arevalo

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project explores the widespread popularity and impact of anime on Japanese culture. In my research, I demonstrate how the integration of anime into Japan’s culture creates big splashes—like stones being thrown into a lake—that, at the same time, ripple out in various directions and reverberate on multiple levels. First and foremost, this research centers around an important concept: that anime contains well-crafted storytelling and powerful imagery that demonstrates wider historical, cultural, and social issues—both the positive and negative. In anime films and shows, symbolism plays an important part as it can be found throughout the imagery and the storylines …

Queen Academy, Hantian Zhnag

Master's Theses

As an upmarket novel exploring immigration and racial dynamics, Queen Academy lies at the intersection of Kathryn Ma’s The Chinese Groove, Timothy Wang’s Slant, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in style and subject. The protagonist Kang comes to the US from China to study statistics, but finds himself becoming a “potato queen”—an Asian gay man interested in dating white men only—and locked in self-loathing. It will take a heartbreak and treading the line of illegality to see himself again. Overall, by engaging with themes of immigration, belonging, and racialized desire, the novel takes the stance that the …

Recommendations For Sustainable Tourism In Patagonia: An Exploratory Analysis Of Sustainable Tourism In Costa Rica, The Nordic Region, And Thailand’S Communities, Julia K. Lowery

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores different levels of governance and its role towards actualizing sustainable tourism in Patagonia. With the growing threat of climate change, international destinations such as Patagonia are looking to continue building their tourism industries in a sustainable way. Through analyzing case studies of national governance in Costa Rica, multi-national governance in the Nordic region, and community-based tourism in Thailand, we can better understand how each form of governance has the potential to create a sustainable tourism industry. With this understanding of successful governance in my case studies, as well as understanding the historical and political forces that have …

An Exploration Of Higher Educational Experiences For Mixed Blood American Indian Males In The Santa Clara Valley, Edward Salcedo

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the availability of higher educational opportunities in the Santa Clara Valley for mixed blood American Indian males in the Santa Clara Valley from lower middle class and middle-class backgrounds born between the early 1980’s and early 1990’s who enrolled in community college courses but did not graduate. The study uses Critical Race Theory as the guiding theoretical framework but focuses on Tribal Critical Race Theory pioneered by Brayboy (2005) to understand the educational and societal experiences of American Indian people from their unique ethnic prism. The dissertation uses Red People’s Oral Tradition as the methodology, drawing from …

No One Should Have To Give Birth Alone: An Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Community-Based Doula Programs Serving Ethnic Minorities In San Francisco, Maria Margaret Nelson

Master's Projects and Capstones

Adverse birth outcomes for both the parent and the child disproportionately affect people of color. Evidence demonstrates that one of the ways to mitigate these negative consequences is through the utilization of a doula, a trained birth companion that is not a medical provider but whose role it is to physically and emotionally support the patient through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Community-based doula programs, where the doula is of the same cultural background as the client, are particularly effective in improving birth outcomes in communities of color by providing culturally competent care and helping to navigate a healthcare system that …

Black Educology Mixtape Vol. 1, Black Educology Producers

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

Call* For Tracks And Creative Works The Black Educology Mixtape Vol. Ii: It’S A Weird Time To Be Black, Black Educology Producers

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

Go Good: Reading, Mapping, And Teaching The Territory Through Space And Time, Christin Washington

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Go Good will take the form of a digital memorial, incorporating short stories, voice notes, music, and photographs, among other fragmented artifacts, to honor mythical life, death, and spiritual afterlife. It will borrow from the transnational account of a Guyanese woman who travels with, hides, and passes along her spiritual possessions. Reliant on affect and memory, this digital altar aims to swell the imagination, encounter new worlds, and restructure the frames placed around control, materiality, home, and humanity. This song offers reflections on the beginning of the production process of a forthcoming digital research project. While this song is a …

Black Magic: A Collective Of Lived Experience, Janise “Jay” Powell

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Anti-Blackness is a pandemic that plagues societies across the world and across histories filled with the murder of Black lives, spirits, and dreams. Yet, throughout it all, Black folx have found strength and been leaders of resistance, radicalization, self-emancipation, and liberation. Black Magic is a collection of tracks that Powell has formed in relation to critical race theory and the ways in which Black folx have found solidarity, liberation, freedom, and healing in a world that seeks to destroy them. Utilizing short stories told through spoken-word poetry, Powell shares her experiences and the experiences of those who she has been …

“What Do You Suggest That I Do Next?”: The Rival Geographies Of Ellen Irene Diggs, Constance Holden

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This biographical essay tells the story of Dr. Ellen Irene Diggs (1906–1998), a Black woman anthropologist who specialized in African diasporic cultural and historical studies. Best known for her work with the heralded scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, Dr. Diggs was a writer, traveler, and educator who imagined an inclusive, expansive, and representative historical canon that captured the breadth and depth of Black politics and cultures. This essay argues that in so doing, Dr. Diggs charted a “rival geography” that challenged the dominant narratives of the academy. Building on the work of Stephanie Camp in her examination of rival …

“Bad Taste In Movies”: Hacking Films As A Site Of Praxis For Black Embodiment, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, Andre Carter, Noah Morton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

During a time of racial unrest and a hyperfocus on inclusion and representation, three Black scholars from different time zones met on Zoom to discuss recent movies. Initially, our conversation revolved around the role of the representation of Black people in film and contentious arguments about the quality of Marvel’s Black Panther. We shifted toward a more analytical trend when we began to interrogate how the world of cinema has attempted to take progressive steps regarding representation, such as moving away from obvious racialized tropes. Essentially, we concluded that the industry has yet to address its deeper and prevailing flaws …

The Cypher, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton, Andre Carter, Noah Morton, Gertrude Jenkins, Brian A. Davis

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

The Black Educology Mixtape is a collective of Black people working to amplify and empower Black educational voices. Black Educology goes beyond the scope of academia to recognize the movers and shakers of emancipatory movements. We imagine this mixtape as a vehicle toward revolution. To that extent, this album informs, confers, and collaborates with educational voices across the Black diaspora. Our scope and sequence focuses on the past, present, and future of Black education, which has been historically and systemically caught in the underbelly of western education. Black Educology is an open-access mixtape that moves beyond academic articles to feature …

Tutorial 27: Chi Square Tests - Test Of Association, Aline Hitti, Saera R. Khan

Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Scholarship

This tutorial will cover how to carry out tests using the Chi Square statistic and distribution to examine associations between two categorical (nominal or ordinal) variables.

This tutorial is one of 27 tutorials funded by a 2021 Gleeson Library OER Faculty Grant. A report summarizing the work completed on the USF Jamovi Tutorial Project can be found on the USF OER Faculty grant section of this repository.

"What’S Race Got To Do With It?”: A Virtual Participatory Action Research Study Of Community College Students Exploring Intersectionality In Queer Studies, Breana Hansen

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify and explore how curricula in queer studies at Community College of the Bay (CCB) reflect and ignore the lived experiences of Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (QTBIPOC) by engaging queer studies students as co-researchers in virtual participatory action research (VPAR). This research utilized the frameworks of Queer of Color Analysis (QOCA) (Ferguson, 2004; McCready, 2013), critical whiteness (Baldwin, 1984; Du Bois, 1903), anti-oppressive education (Kumashiro, 2001), and intersectional theory (Crenshaw, 1989), to examine the experiences of QTBIPOC within queer studies in community college classrooms. The following meta-question guided this research: …

The Cost Of Urbanization: A Look Into The Transformation Of Mao Era Reforms, Tieren A. Dokes

Master's Projects and Capstones

Mao Zedong has played an influential role in Chinese society, whether for better or for worse. His policies have caused ripples throughout contemporary Chinese society, but nothing stronger than his desire for urbanization and economic land reform. Utilizing Mao’s drive for urbanization and economic reform as essential historical context, this paper connects how the contemporary governmental push for urbanization has been unyielding, and, in some ways, counterproductive as decade-old Mao-era institutions reverberate in an echo chamber with cracks that allow darker forces to seep in. Real estate and urban development companies and local governments are given monetary incentive to redevelop …

Inaccessible Interpolated Imagery: How Coffee Farmers In The State Of Chiapas Might Access Political Economic Opportunity Through Representation, Paolo Fiann Bicchieri

Master's Theses

Here is a useful parable to boil down the idea of this project and set the tone: when one goes to the bar to tell a story about a fight at the bar, they would never venture to place themselves as the hero of the brawl, taking out three drunkards in a single punch, unless they were really in the bar, at that time, fighting a good fight. One would never do this as the bartender, locals, and regulars would all know if this were the case or not. Yet transnational corporations, governments, and even consumers do this all the …

Degrowth And Catholic Social Thought: Rethinking Socio-Economics For A Planet In Crisis, Chad G. Baron

Master's Theses

It is assumed within both degrowth literature and the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (CST) that socio-economic transitions and transformations are needed due to the failings of the dominant capitalist paradigm. Both bodies of thought engage with issues of socio-economic transitions by considering what constitutes globally just development, and by outlining key principles they espouse to be foundational to global justice. By highlighting these principles, and locating the affinities between the two, these theories of socio-economic development can benefit from engaging with the other’s promoted framework. What could follow is a more coherent and holistic approach to development, …

Consumerism, Economic Growth, And Climate Change In China, Shijie Yin

Master's Projects and Capstones

The world economy entered the age of high mass consumption as early as the 1920s.1 Consumption has heavily influenced economic growth; thus, consumerism has become a trend worldwide. With modern financial crises being successfully overcome by increased government spending and the stimulus of consumption, the dependence of economic growth on these factors has been reinforced. Nevertheless, each government has a dilemma. On one hand, they launch stimulus policies to encourage consumption; on the other hand, the international community has made little progress in emission reduction caused by economic growth. Faced with this impasse and paradox, few scholars address the situation …

The Role Of African Non-National Storytelling In Challenging Xenophobic Discourses In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Kelly Allyn Cruchett

Master's Theses

A growing body of literature on xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa has shown that this form of violence targeted towards African non-nationals is closely linked to a xenophobic discourse of national chauvinism that has been deployed by powerful institutions since the nation’s independence. This capstone project seeks to highlight the role that non-national storytelling plays in addressing the issue of anti-African xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa by challenging the discourses that contribute to it. Through the analysis of a NGO’s youth summit that revolved around the stories of four non-national speakers, this study examines the impact …