Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Examining Barriers To Crisis Service Use Among Black Young Adults, Emily K. Burns

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

Black communities face an increased burden of mental illness (Gordon, 2020). This can be linked to factors such as experiences of racism, higher rates of unemployment, financial and food insecurity, and disparities in health care (Gordon, 2020). Despite this, Black communities have historically experienced relatively low rates of suicide (Gordon, 2020). This has been anecdotally attributed to protective cultural values and beliefs about suicide. However, there has been a recent shift in this trend, particularly for Black youth and young adults.

Examining Whiteness: A Narrative Inquiry Into Racial Identity Among White Women In Study Abroad Programs, Audrey Moreno Townsend

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to better understand race in contexts both domestically and abroad through the perspectives and experiences of white women who studied abroad outside of Europe and the Anglosphere. The investigation explored on how these experiences shaped white women’s understanding of racial identity upon returning to their home institutions. The research question which was addressed was: How do white women experience study abroad programming? Research highlights a critical gap in existing literature on this topic. While white women are centered in the study, it is contextualized considering how People of Color experience the world. …

When The Walls Talk Back: Black Women's Experience In The Graduate Classroom, Benesemon Simmons

Dissertations - ALL

Black women have historically experienced barriers in education and the traditional classroom space, facing visible and invisible walls that reinforce their silence, delegitimization, and harm. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine Black women’s experiences in the graduate classroom and use their voices to challenge the purpose and power of dominant structures—and talk back (hooks, 2014). Black Feminist Thought and Critical Race Theory were used as theoretical frameworks to better understand the unique experiences of Black women graduate students, help highlight their voices, and place their experiences and ideas at the center of analysis. To investigate this topic, …

The Residual Impact Of Slavery On How Enslaved Black Females Defined And Made Meaning Of Sexual Violence: A Content Analysis, Suzanne R. Bates

Dissertations

Thompson-Miller & Picca (2016) and Feimster (2023) argued that enslaved African American women, and even free African Americans after the Civil War were victims of non-consensual sexual activity and rape. The NISVS report revealed that before the age of 18 years old, 35.5% of African American women experienced contact sexual violence, 29.5% experienced non-contact unwanted sexual encounters, and 20.7% experienced rape (Basile et al., 2022). Researchers of slave scholarship have made the case for the importance of including discourse on slavery and enslaved Black females’ experiences when discussing present day sexual violence among Black women in the US today (Balfour, …

Welcome To Hotel Thai: Labor, Love, And The Space Between My Mothers, Tripty Tamang Pakhrin

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores maternal labor, silence, and family boundaries through my experience of growing up at Hotel Thai, a restaurant and home located on the open border between Nepal and India. The hotel is run by my three parents: my mother, my father, and his first wife. My two mothers live and work side by side every day but do not speak to each other. Their silence is not emptiness, but a way of surviving and holding the family together. This paper discusses my film, performance, installation, and printmaking works to explore how care, memory, and labor are expressed without …

Distributed Sovereignty: Law, Community, And Authority In The Political Theories Of Al-Māwardī, Al-Juwaynī, And Al-Fārābī, Ahmet Çelik

Dissertations - ALL

ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the concept of sovereignty in classical Islamic political thought through a comparative analysis of three major thinkers—al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), and al-Fārābī (d. 339/950)—each representing a distinct epistemic tradition: jurisprudence (fiqh), speculative theology (kalām), and philosophy (falsafa). Employing a conceptual and textual methodology, the study reconstructs a theory of distributed sovereignty in Islamic thought, in which political authority is not centralized in a singular sovereign but dispersed across three interrelated domains: legitimate authority, lawgiving, and governance. Drawing on primary texts—including al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya, Tashīl al-Naẓar, Ghiyāth al-Umam, al-Madīna al-Fāḍila, al-Siyāsa al-Madanīyya, Kitāb al-Milla, and Iḥṣāʾ …

In Defense Of Metaphysics: A Defense Of The Value And Methodological Soundness Of Metaphysics Understood As Structural Modeling, Sean Nalty

Dissertations - ALL

The aim of this dissertation is to provide a defense of the value and methodological soundness of contemporary analytic metaphysics against a variety of recent anti-metaphysical and scientistic critiques. In Chapter 1, I attempt to answer (at least provisionally) a surprisingly difficult question: what is metaphysics, anyway? I suggest seven adequacy constraints on an answer to this question, and then test five historically and contemporarily influential candidate characterizations of metaphysics against these constraints. Finding each candidate lacking, I close by proposing an ecumenical conception of metaphysics — what I call the structural modeling conception — according to which metaphysics aims …

Fertile, Social, Dangerous, Sacred, Gift, And System: Religion, Salt City Harvest Farm, And The Future Of Human Shit, Sarah Elizabeth Nahar

Dissertations - ALL

Shit, the taboo term for the human excreta that exits the anus, can be understood as sacred. Shitting, the vulgar verb to describe the act of discarding solid excreta, can likewise be understood as religious ritual activity. This counters the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) in the United States (US) of the placement of shit as profane, and shitting as unceremonial. An aim of this dissertation is to reclaim the word shit from the realm of what the DSP has rendered invisible and unspeakable, and spark rigorous academic discussion about it in the context of Religion and Environmental Studies. The DSP …

Dragon Guitars And Sexy Zombies: Tracing The Meta-Motion Of The Naga Motif In Northeast Thailand, Aaron Michael Stanley

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolving symbolism of the Naga motif (a mythic water serpent) in Northeast Thailand through a framework I call meta-motion, which maps symbolic persistence of this cultural signifier and boundary marker across four cultural horizons—animist (Z), Hindu–Khmer (B), Buddhist (A), and modern/global (C). Like electrons in quantum super position, symbolic motifs circulate as overlapping “waves” of potential meaning and are concretized into cultural “particles” only when recruited for specific ritual, commercial, or political purposes. I add a bookend extension to Chang’s Hindu-Buddhist (B/A) typology with the addition of Horizons Z and C in order to make …

A Religious Etiology Of Genito-Pelvic Pain And Pain With Penetration, Emily L. Carlson

Theses and Graduate Projects

Pelvic pain during penetration (PPDP) has been described using various diagnostic terms, including vaginismus, dyspareunia, and vulvodynia. The most recent and comprehensive classification is Genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD) which is characterized by psychological distress associated with pain during or in anticipation of vaginal penetration (DSM-5-TR; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2022). The etiology of PPDP is multifactorial, involving a complex interplay of biological, psychological, and relational factors. Religious and cultural influences may play a significant role in shaping individuals’ experiences of sexual pain. This study investigated the etiology of PPDP in relation to the religious influences among women raised in Judeo-Christian …

Tradition, Critque, And The Modern Moral Lingua Franca: A Lutheran Articulation Of Human Rights Language, Christian B. Dollar

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

The language of subjective, individual rights has become the primary way of speaking about the rights and wrongs of human life together. Since the end of World War II, one subset of this language—that of human rights—has achieved a global influence. The various Christian traditions of the west have, in large part, adopted this language of human rights to articulate and supplement their assorted social teachings. Yet, the adoption of human rights language has been contested by a dedicated cadre of Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians concerned about the potentially anti-Christian implications inherent in the grammar of rights. Christian rights …

Bob Becker: An Examination Of His Compositional Approach And His Chamber Work Never In Word, Kaipo Lan

Dissertations, 2020-current

In the late twentieth century, the dual role of percussionist-composer became more visible, supported by the growth of percussion ensembles, specialized university training, and musicians who embraced both performance and composition as central to their artistic identity. Bob Becker is such a musician, a world-renowned percussionist and composer notable for the fusion of North Indian classical music and Western music conventions. His chamber pieces are excellent additions to the repertoire and notable for his multicultural music aesthetic, orchestration, range of musical colors, and idiomatic writing for the performers. Moreover, Becker’s ongoing exploration of his interest in poetry has been reflected …

Management Concepts In Shishupalavadha, Sathyanarayanan V

Theses and Dissertations

Management of organizations, people, and entities has been a subject matter of great interest today. Schools of business and management were established in the West about 125 years ago, and countries in other parts of the world, including India, simply followed these practices. Consequently, there is a widespread feeling today that management concepts originated in the West. All Indian business schools teach management concepts propounded by Western scholars in the last 100 years or so.

Going by the first principles, whenever multiple people, resources, entities, and institutions are involved, there is a requirement for Management. This implies that management as …

The Influence Of Artists And Artworks On Identity Development: The Student Perspective, Celeste M. Boseman

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This study investigates the ways in which the artists and artworks depicted throughout their K-12 art education influence students’ personal sociocultural identity development. By utilizing a self-reporting survey and individual interviews, this study explores the perspectives of current university students; their exposure to diversity in their K-12 art education; and the curricular perspectives that influence their identity. The artists and the artwork that art educators show in the classroom are only one aspect of what makes up a student’s art curriculum; this research project demonstrates the impact those artists can have on students’ identity development. The results of this study …

Cinematic Empathy: Autistic Interpretation Of Social Cues In Narrative Film, Lux Gomez

University Honors Theses

From research and lived experience we can see a pattern of Autistic people engaging and forming connection with emotional narratives in media, despite stereotypes suggesting they lack empathy or theory of mind. This mixed-methods study sought to lay the groundwork and start preliminary investigation into how film’s structured formal elements may facilitate autistic viewers’ interpretation of social cues that typically challenge autistic-allistic (nonautistic) communication in real life. A sample of 22 participants (13 autistic, 9 allistic) viewed five film scenes depicting lying, flirting, sarcasm, exposition, and flat affect and completed a survey. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed. While …

What Is Lost When Time Is Saved: Drawing In Collaboration With The Urban Periphery, Carmen Ribaudo

MFA in Visual Art

I pay attention to the overlooked spaces where land and industry meet, prompting me to wonder what can be gleaned in the oily and cracked urban periphery. With a focus on my hometown St. Louis, this industrial city is my subject matter. And so, I draw in a neighborhood bisected by a highway. I animate with sand near the river confluence on land preserved after a historic flood. I make my own bricks in this Brick City, setting up in locations of former terra cotta clay mines. I sit in the tension of what author Michael Martone calls the “midwestern …

Seating Charts, Connections, And Fostering Community, Mckenna B. Chow

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how fostering stronger connections in the high school ceramics classroom can create a more inclusive and collaborative community. I regularly changed seating charts to encourage new relationships and strengthen classroom culture as part of this effort. Historically, seating charts have enforced uniformity and promoted specific behaviors. My research challenges these traditional purposes and proposes that seating arrangements can instead serve a more meaningful and enduring goal: promoting connection and ensuring that all students feel seen. I found that while seating charts can contribute to this goal, achieving genuine connection and inclusivity also requires several additional factors to …

Emotions And Narrative In Sophocles' Fragmentary Tragedies "Tyro" (A’ And B’) And "Tereus", Maria Eugenia Bonaparte Gimenez

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to explore the possibility of gaining a better understanding of Sophocles’ fragmentary tragedies by taking emotions into consideration. I focus on three of those plays, Tereus, and Tyro A’ and B’, and put them in relation to the mythological narratives from which they derived, as well as other examples of reception. By considering the basic narrative patterns of the myth and their rendering in different media alongside emotional scripts, we can support or challenge existing hypotheses about these fragmentary plays. At the conclusion of this study, I demonstrate that emotions have …

Perkembangan Syarikat Bekerjasama Kedah Dan Perlis, 1926-1956, Nur Najwa Yusof

Student Works (2020-2029)

This study examines on the development of cooperative companies established in Kedah and Perlis between 1926 until 1956. The focus of this study is to make sure if this institution is capable to change the social economic status of its members and to elaborate the scenario of the farmers in Kedah and Perlis before the cooperative companies are fully established in these two states. This study also examines the forms of social cooperation that has been the practice of the Malay community before the British colonisation. Other than that, this study focuses on the governance and organisation of the cooperative …

An Examination Of The Purity Culture Beliefs Scale And The Interaction Of Religiosity, Purity Culture Beliefs, And Pornography Use In A Census-Matched United States Sample, Kaelyn R. Griffin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The impacts of purity culture have been documented in the prevalence of abstinence-only sex education, perception of personal value tied to virginity, and shame and guilt related to sexual behavior. Similarly, models of moral incongruence often examine religiosity as a contributor of distress related to sexual behavior and pornography use, likely tapping into the influence of purity culture without directly naming its presence. This distinction is crucial due to the variety of religious beliefs and practices, some including purity culture and those without sexually restrictive beliefs and practices. Despite this, standardized measures for researching purity culture are limited. Ortiz (2018) …

Housewerk: How Drag Performers Engage In Emotional Labor While Navigating Community Care, Steph O. Landeros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines drag performance as a form of service labor shaped by emotional labor, community care, and identity-based inequality. Drawing on interviews with drag performers shows how drag labor blends artistic skill, emotional regulation, interpersonal care, and entrepreneurial labor. While these demands mirror service sector roles in other industries, drag remains underrecognized and undervalued, particularly for performers who do not conform to white, cisgender norms. The study introduces Housewerk—an adaptation of Marlon Bailey’s concept of housework (Bailey, 2013)—to describe the mix of paid and unpaid labor drag performers engage in. Housewerk captures how performers must balance self-preservation (branding, income, …

Tractors On The Mall: Unraveling The New Deal, Political Shifts, And The 1980s Farm Crisis, Tracy M. Neblina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the 1980s, Midwestern farmers faced an economic crisis that rivaled the Great Depression. Agricultural policy in the 1970s and 1980s led to a boom and bust for many of the nation’s farmers, causing the decline in rural communities in the middle of the country. During this period, more efficient agricultural production, shifting federal policy, high inflation, and devalued farmland led farmers in the Midwest to face incredible economic hardships, loss of land, changes in their communities, and challenges to their sense of purpose and identity. The Farm Crisis of the 1980s furnishes an extraordinary opportunity to investigate a confluence …

More Than A Feeling: A Mixed-Methods Examination Of Transgender Community Connectedness And Associations With Suicidality, Erin Rook

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Transgender adults experience significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation than the general population. A sense of transgender community connectedness (STCC) may reduce this risk, but predictors of STCC and its association with suicidal ideation are understudied. This cross-sectional mixed methods study examined STCC and past-year suicidal ideation in relation to dimensions of transgender community connectedness (TCC) at each level of the Social Ecological Model using data from a U.S. survey of transgender adults (n = 126). About half (52.4%) felt connected to the transgender community, and 27.0% reported past-year suicidal ideation. Hierarchical logistic regression models for both outcomes showed good …

Understanding The Role Of Drug Offenses And The Death Penalty In Iran, Cyrus Zarganj

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been governed by Islamic laws devised by Shia Muslim clerics, significantly influencing the nation's legal framework in both criminal and civil contexts. The death penalty in Iran covers a broad spectrum of offenses, many of which would not be considered capital crimes or even crimes globally. This extensive application of the death penalty is an instrument of social control during periods of political tension, indicating a direct relationship between the regime's stability and the enforcement of extreme punitive measures. Despite some reduction in the visibility of executions due to international …

Stewardship, Generosity, And Percentage Giving Changing Attitudes On Financial Generosity Through Bible Study Concerning The Tithe For The New Testament Christians Of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church In Kingman, Az, Timothy A. Barkett

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

The Church today finds itself navigating a landscape shaped by economic uncertainty, generational shifts, and a growing sense of spiritual indifference. Within this context, generosity continues to serve as a profound expression of both faith and mission. The research presented in this project affirms that when generosity is taught with a spirit of grace, rooted in Scripture, and exemplified by leadership, it has the power to bring renewal—not only to individual believers but also to entire communities. In an era characterized by financial anxiety and spiritual consumerism, the biblical and theological foundations of stewardship and generosity provide both a necessary …

Scent Of The South: Fragrance And Identity In The 19th Century, Sarah Donahua Peters

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of personal fragrance as a cultural marker in the 19th-century American South, examining how scent reflected identity, status, and social norms in a region shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and religious influence. Drawing on historical sources, botanical knowledge, and public history practices, the project traces the evolution of fragrance from home-crafted perfumes to mass-marketed products, highlighting how access to scent was shaped by race, class, and gender. Central to the thesis is a public history exhibition designed for the Esse Purse Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, which invites visitors to engage with scent as a medium …

The Governor’S Cabinet Project A Study Of The Evolution Of The Executive Branch, Revis. L. Edmonds

Theses and Dissertations

In Arkansas’s long path toward modernizing its executive branch, it may appear to the casual observer that the state was locked in a process in which its politics and its culture were engaged in a longstanding tug-of-war between traditionalists and modernizers—a conflict complicated by the state’s personality-based politics and restrictive post-Reconstruction constitution. It has often been asserted that the conflict, in Arkansas’s case the romanticizing of rural life as opposed to the economic and social interests of the fast-growing suburbs of Central and Northwest Arkansas, explains a great deal of this slow transition. This attitude was largely a product of …

Under The Sea And Into The Future With Darwin, Verne, & Wells: Evolutionary Ideas In Early Science Fiction Literature And Atomic Age Adaptations, Suzette K. Forston

Theses and Dissertations

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin's theories challenged traditional ways of thinking about the world so dramatically that his writings inspired the formation of a new genre: science fiction. Two pioneering authors, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells drew from Darwin's writings in their classic novels, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and The Time Machine (1895). Though the two authors are often compared because they were both early science fiction authors, they approached Darwinian theory in different ways. Verne uses a more extrapolative approach and focusing on specific details of Darwin's texts to tell a …

First-Year Writing Student Perceptions Of Graduate Student Instructor Authority, Lacey Madison Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate student instructors (GSIs) are trusted to teach first-year writing (FYW) courses across U.S. campuses, yet many still wonder how their undergraduate students actually perceive their authority, especially when they're new to teaching or sharing a classroom with full-time faculty. While previous research has explored how GSIs view their own authority and how institutional structures shape their roles, we know far less about what students of these GSIs think. This study aims to fill that gap. Building on Reed and Ostenson's work in Big Comp, I conducted a mixed-methods study in Fall 2024 to hear directly from FYW students about …

Coolness, Leisure, And Power : The Development Of Mokanshan Summer Resort In Modern China, 1890–1937, Xuyan Pan

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

The concept of "coolness" (清涼) embodied fundamentally different bodily and cultural experiences in Chinese and Western traditions. With the introduction of Western-style summer resorts by foreign missionaries in the 1890s, these divergent understandings converged and clashed in new spatial forms. This study examines Mokanshan (莫干山), located in Zhejiang province and recognized as one of the Republican era’s “Four Great Summer Retreats” (民國四大避暑地), as a paradigmatic case of transnational leisure. Initially developed by missionaries as a health-oriented retreat, a transnationally managed enclave, and a nostalgic “overseas home” for expatriates, Mokanshan reflected a hybrid model of modern leisure shaped by foreign institutions. …