Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Mentoring And Training In Performance Librarianship, Mallory Sajewski

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Performance librarians, or ensemble librarians, consist of a subset of music librarians who serve the music and information needs of orchestras, bands, and other performing ensembles. As there is no formal training system for performance librarians, the skills required to win an audition for a job must be learned by working with a mentor. This study investigated the mentoring process experienced by both mentors and mentees in the training and career preparation of performance librarians. Using a qualitative phenomenological approach, the researcher conducted semistructured interviews with 21 performance librarians in the United States and used thematic analysis to analyze the …

Perspectivism And Wicked Problems: Patterns In The Discovery Process Of Leibniz, Bohr, And Turing, Ernesto Diaz

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Faculty Authored Dissertations and Theses

This research investigates fundamental patterns in how transformative scientific knowledge emerges and becomes established, examining three pivotal cases: Leibniz's development of calculus, Bohr's formulation of complementarity, and Turing's conceptualisation of computation and artificial intelligence. The study introduces the o-é-c model (Ouverture Ontologique - Épistémè Socialisante - Connaissance Éclairante) to explain how individual insights become integrated into collective knowledge through structured phases of development. Drawing on Minsky's conception of knowledge as mental models for problem-solving and Longino's social epistemology, the research demonstrates how wicked problems—those that resist formulation within existing frameworks—catalyse the creation of new knowledge domains. The model reveals how …

Worship As A Means Of Formational Discovery At Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Shelby, North Carolina, Ricky Alston Jr

Doctor of Ministry Projects

The formational nature of worship obtains power from the relationship one develops with God through daily practices, as well as in the corporate gathering of God’s people. This leads to a holistic spiritual formation for those who practice it. Members from Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Shelby, NC, participated in a four-week study that defined what a practice of holistic worship looks like, established biblical principles to engage personally and communally, and explored the relationship between corporate gatherings and personal worship. The study provides evidence of growth in participants, and opportunity for further spiritual development individually and as a congregation.

The Power Of Pets: Navigating Infancy, Early Development, And Eventual Loss/ Exploring The Mutual Human-Animal Bond Through Children’S Board And Picture Books With Critical Anthropomorphism, Mary Teresa Woodcock

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

Pets are powerful elements of picture books. Alongside our animal companions, we navigate infancy, early childhood and adulthood, and better understand our relationships and life itself. Critical anthropomorphism allows us to represent our relationship to our animal companions ethically in the written and illustrated text. This paper acknowledges an array of primary and scholarly texts about animals and their roles in human experience as a foundation for my three book projects “A Colorful Night for Cat,” “Grandma, Sam, and Me,” and “Tired Old Socks.” I work to portray animal companions authentically, showing how both humans and animal companions benefit from …

Breath, Body, And The Blank Page: An Autoethnographic Approach To Embodied Writing Practices In First-Year Writing, Kristen Garramone Hoffman

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how somatic awareness and trauma-informed pedagogies can be integrated into the teaching of writing. Drawing from autoethnography and pedagogical theory, it proposes that writing is not a purely cognitive act but a deeply embodied process, one shaped by the physiological and psychological dimensions of lived experience. Using autoethnography as both method and praxis, the study centers the author’s experiences of trauma, grief, and healing to investigate how body-based practices such as breathwork, visualization, and mindfulness can support writing, particularly for students navigating stress, anxiety, or disconnection from their academic identities. Chapter One situates the research within literature …

Operation Airlift Africa: American Education And The Development Of Future Leaders From British Colonies In East And Central Africa, David N. Gachigo

Theses and Dissertations

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, over 800 students from British East and Central Africa gained access to American education through Operation Airlift Africa (OAA), a visionary initiative led by Kenyan trade unionist and politician Tom Mboya. Funded by private American donors, including Senator John F. Kennedy, and supported by scholarships from U.S. institutions, the program enabled African students to attend high schools, colleges, and universities in North America, mostly in the United States. This dissertation explores the impact of OAA on educational access for colonial subjects and its role in shaping future African leadership. The study argues that …

Sonic Futures: Exploring Podcasting, Artificial Intelligence, And The Evolving Landscape Of Composition, Grant David Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates podcasting and audio projects as multimodal practices in composition, analyzing how audio-based assignments both challenge and reproduce traditional writing norms. Drawing from personal teaching experience and a dataset of publicly accessible assignment prompts, rubrics, and instructional guides, the study examines how podcast projects are framed, assessed, and implemented in higher education. While often promoted as creative and accessible alternatives to essays, these assignments frequently replicate the same thesis-driven, rubric-centered, and exclusionary structures that define conventional academic writing. Through a cross-textual analysis of fifteen podcast rubrics and fifteen assignment prompts, this project identifies recurring patterns, including paradoxical expectations …

Recognizing Speculative Literature: Conceiving Identity In The Archives Of Enslavement, Gabriella Greco

Theses and Dissertations

One of the key problems of the archive of enslavement, borne out of the violent erasure of enslaved identities, is the struggle to reconstruct and honor those lost identities. Recognizing Speculative Literature: Conceiving Identity in the Archives of Enslavement investigates postcolonial archival processes and the resulting documents to identify a spectrum of speculative literary genres that can be used to supplement traumatic archival erasures, often of female voices and identities, to further understand the power dynamics. To clarify, I use the term ‘speculative literature’ here to refer to a mode of literature that relies on the few fragments that may …

False Awakenings, Stevie Knauss

Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the boundary between dreams and reality, and offers some unconventional techniques for discerning the difference. It describes Knauss’s various performance rituals developed around a case study that traces the genealogy of a ringtone. This study attempts (and fails) to use cultish thinking as a means of deprogramming and poisonous distraction as a cure for attentional assault.

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework For Sequential Art Creation, Asmin Pothula

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Most computational art systems rely on generative models that produce a complete artwork in a single pass, without capturing the gradual, decision-driven process through which human artists construct visual pieces. Prior research in sequential, stroke-based image generation, including differentiable neural painters and model-based reinforcement learning agents, has explored step-by-step creation, but these systems typically aim to reconstruct the input image within the same visual representation space, closely matching brushstrokes, textures, or colors to the target. In contrast, this thesis investigates sequential art creation in a different artistic representation, where the final artwork does not share the same visual form as …

Animal Triangulation – Expanding The Oppressed/Oppressor Binary To A Triadic Constituency: The Oppressor, The Proxy, And The Oppressed, Katherine A. Abelanet

English Dissertations - Archive

Drawing on three fields of study, Animal Studies, Black Studies, and Shakespeare Studies, this dissertation examines animal triangulation as a system of oppression in which three constituents are triangulated for the benefit of the oppressor. Through triangulation, the oppressed/oppressor duality expands, creating a triad: the oppressor, the proxy, and the oppressed. This reimagining of the traditional binary of oppression opens new areas of conversation by adding an additional component. In animal triangulation, a proxy is created when an oppressor trains an animal or an animalized human to produce an abusive outcome on an oppressed group. By using a proxy, the …

Witch, Please: The Campy, Sexually Depraved, And Sacrilegious Anti-Morality Tale, David Veatch

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

There will be no explanation, only reputation.

Sky, the little g god, is in their forest on the first Halloween, scheming on how to ascend to Big G God status, will Sky be able to bop their way to the top, or will a fascist plot, accidental immaculate conception, and their hubris ruin the bitchin'est night of the year?

Transforming A Public Flexible Space Into An Artistic Place For Leisure – An Artistic Intervention For Downtown Arlington., Sowmya Kanaka

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Open flexible spaces are often underutilized, undefined, or lacking identity, hold immense potential to become vibrant artistic places that support leisure, culture, and community life. transforming such flexible spaces into Community-led arts places serve as adaptable environments that can shift to meet evolving cultural and recreational needs. By integrating artistic intervention through public art, interactive installations, and creative spatial programming, formerly Underutilized open space becomes an anchor of activity drawing residents and visitors and influencing adjacent areas to align with its renewed identity. Arts-driven public spaces attract consistent foot traffic and recurring events, stimulating social and economic exchange. When artistic …

Bridging Generations: Shou-Yi Ch’En, Yanshuo Zhang, And Their Contribution To Asian Studies In American Higher Education, Zhen Zhou

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the lives and academic legacies of Dr. Shou-yi Ch’en (1899–1987) and Dr. Yanshuo Zhang (b. 1988), two Chinese scholars whose contributions have shaped Asian Studies in American higher education across nearly a century. Dr. Ch’en, educated in both China and the United States, played a foundational role in establishing Pomona College’s early Asian Studies program, fostering East–West intellectual exchange through extensive correspondence, and mentoring a generation of scholars. Dr. Zhang, also educated in China and the U.S., represents a new generation of interdisciplinary scholarship, focusing on China’s Qiang ethnic minority through oral history and a multicultural lens. …

Sermons In Stones: Mormon Chosenness And The Politics Of Land In The American West, Emily Mclean

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the intersection of religion, land use, and political resistance in Latter-day Saint culture, arguing that Mormon land ethics are shaped by a ritualized process I term the “Cycle of Chosenness.” Through historical and ethnographic analysis, I trace how collective memory of the pioneer era informs symbolic labor that reaffirms Mormon exceptionalism. Three case studies illustrate the cycle in action: Brigham Young’s integration of labor and theology, Walter Cottam’s unsuccessful push for ecological restoration, and the Sagebrush Rebellion’s successful reframing of anti-federal activism as sacred labor. I show how the Sagebrush Rebellion marked a turning point by legitimizing …

Tracing The Collective Endeavors: The Cultural Discourses Of Women Printmakers Throughout History, Ann Henrietta Bittl

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the dissertation is to examine the women who paved the way for future generations of women printmakers by tracing the influences and practices of women printmakers throughout history within collective workshops. In the West, the concept of a collective endeavor began during the Middle Ages with monasteries and convents, where artisans created religious works of art as a way to teach illiterate audiences and also to adorn churches and cathedrals. However, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the concept of the collective workshop grew out of artist’s studios and ateliers. Artists were trained in the apprentice system, …

Queen Nefertiti: Power And Intrigue Amidst Gender Inequality, Riyad Girgis

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Queen Nefertiti, one of ancient Egypt's most enigmatic & striking figures, rose to prominence during a time of radical political and religious transformation. Known for her striking beauty and influential role, her legacy transcends mere aesthetics, positioning her as a powerful force in a male-dominated society. Despite the constraints of gender inequality in ancient Egypt, Nefertiti played a pivotal role as co-regent with her husband, Pharaoh Akhenaten, and perhaps even ruled in her own right after his death. This thesis explores the complex interplay of power, gender, and political intrigue in the reign of Nefertiti. Through an examination of her …

From Self-Determination To Decolonization: How American Indian Activism Reshaped Museum Spaces, Daniel A. Gruber

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The American Indian self-determination movement of the 1960s and 1970s catalyzed fundamental transformations in how museums represent Indigenous cultures, histories, and peoples. Through analyzing the demands for tribal sovereignty, cultural authority, and equitable representation during this pivotal era, I show how these principles were applied in contemporary museum practice through an exhibition analysis of the Autry Museum of the American West. This thesis traces how federal American Indian policy evolved from legal and socio-cultural assimilation toward self-determination while also examining how anthropology and museums historically reinforced colonial and imperial narratives that positioned American Indians as federally dependent, scientific specimens. Through …

“Sé Exactamente De Donde Vine”: The Rivera Sisters And The Development Of A Lamanite Religio-Racial Identity In Salt Lake City’S Rama Mexicana, Kelsee Walker

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the religious participation of three immigrant sisters, Agustina Rivera de Torres, Dolores Rivera de Torres, and Domitila Rivera de Martínez, who were long-term members of Rama Mexicana, the first known Spanish-speaking congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah. During Rama Mexicana’s existence from the 1920s through 1960 (when it was converted from a branch into a ward), many of its members believed themselves to be descendants of Book of Mormon Lamanites through their indigenous heritage. This belief in a sacred Lamanite lineage, in part, allowed Rama Mexicana to become a place of …

The Price Tag Of A 5-Star Culture: Cultural Performance And The Politics Of Luxury In OʻAhu’S Hotel Industry, Kendall Hutchison Acker

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the intersection of cultural tourism and luxury branding with settler colonial dynamics in Oʻahu’s high-end hospitality industry. Focusing on Disney’s Aulani Resort, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, and the Moana Surf Rider, the study investigates how Hawaiian culture is performed, curated, and commodified as part of a five-star guest experience. Through ethnographic research and interviews with Native Hawaiian performers, artists, and cultural advisors, it traces how Indigenous identity is shaped by the demands of the tourism economy and the aesthetics of authenticity. These hotels function not only as sites of leisure but also as …

Dispossession, Adoption, And (Dis)Inheritance: The Sympathetic Sublime In George Eliot’S Fiction, Beth Ann Jones

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the promise and the peril of George Eliot’s sympathetic sublime in her fictional writing. To arrive at this designation for Eliot’s literary project, the dissertation synthesizes three distinct yet interconnected strands within Eliot scholarship: her emphasis on building absorbing sympathetic relationships between individuals, communities, and readers; her use of inheritance plots to develop the personalities and destinies of her protagonists; and her dependence upon the sublime aesthetic inherent in the poetry of William Wordsworth and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Eliot’s drive to create sympathetic connections which …

Augustine Of Hippo: On Justification By Faith, John Mauger

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study aims to retrieve Augustine of Hippo’s view of ‘justification by faith’ from his theological writings from the 390s to the end of his career. Significant sources are his early, unfinished commentaries on Paul’s letters to the Romans and his completed commentary on Galatians. In these, Augustine provides essential groundwork for his understanding of the Apostle Paul’s view of ‘justification by faith’ and other related doctrines such as the work of Christ, the law, and God’s grace. I also examine both continuity and development across other relevant early-, mid-, and later-career writings. By asserting both comprehensiveness and consistency of …

A Theoretical Framework For Black Women’S Leader Development, Kayla Kai Parker

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the leader development journeys of Black women, identifying key contributors and inhibitors that influence their progression into and experiences within formal leadership positions. This study employed a grounded theory methodology, integrated with an intersectional framework and Black feminist theory. Study data was gathered utilizing three methods: social media listening data points (n = 216), a leadership roadmap survey (n = 69), and structured interviews (n = 15). The open, axial, and selective coding led to the creation of a theoretical framework outlining two pathways to leadership outcomes: one shaped by inhibitors (e.g., identity management, overcompensation, hindrance, resource …

Reproductive Refugees: The Legacy Of The One Child Policy On Chinese Refugees In The United States, Brianna Michelle Chan-George

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This paper analyzes the cases of Chinese refugees who were running from the People of Republic of China’s (PRC) one child policy to the United States from 1993-1995. I argue that the process of the one child policy’s enforcement to the asylum cases in the United States was a messy and confusing process. The legal definitions, understandings and practices of both the United States and the PRC were inconsistent and contradictory.

The Roots Of Womanism As Identity, Empowerment, And Liberation For Black American Women: Raciolinguistic Genealogical Exploration, Shante Noel Millercent Morgan

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Black American women intellectuals, activists, and scholars have grappled with womanism in relation to Black women’s presence in the world, particularly in the context of feminist and Black liberation movements. Since womanism was introduced more than four decades ago, both movements claimed Black women were a priority in theory and rhetoric but often excluded them in practice. For this reason, this dissertation examines womanist thought as a source of identity, empowerment, and liberation for Black American women. I employed two methods to investigate womanist thought that align with a qualitative inquiry: genealogy focus and raciolinguistic genealogy analysis. I conducted a …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Race: Racial Discourses, Nationalism And Identity In Nineteenth Century Ireland, Timothy Werlinger

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The 19th century witnessed the rise of race and racism as a dominant framework of worldwide identity politics. These politics shaped the various social hierarchies and nationalist contexts across Europe and the world. Racial constructs adopted cultural, economic, and political components and did not rely exclusively on biological determinism. This had the effect of reinforcing or hardening boundaries between groups. This dissertation examines how racial identity was negotiated within an Irish context. It does this by considering social, scientific and nationalist discourses that engaged race as a device of inclusion and exclusion. By examining how racialized language permeated the Irish …

The Intersectionality Of Dance And Poetry, Isabelle Howerton

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Often times, a creative work utilizes multiple creative mediums. For example, many poetry books feature visual art to enhance the original work. Dance performance is, arguably, always multidisciplinary This leaves room for many questions regarding unique ways that creative work can be developed and what sources of inspiration can be used as contributors. The final project comprises a collection of five choreographic works and five poems that correlate with each other in various ways. These five creative works were created using multiple prompts that dictated the correlation level between the two mediums. These works were then filmed to transform the …

Organic Social Media Strategy For The University Of Akron, Alexander Busch

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project develops a research-based organic social media strategy for the University of Akron, addressing the growing importance of digital communication in higher education and the need for authentic, student-centered engagement. Although the university maintains an active presence on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X, its current content often reflects a corporate tone that limits relatability and audience connection. This project proposes an alternative content strategy instead: organic advertisements. These are unpaid, and rely on the algorithm to be promoted. The project proposes a five-week content calendar featuring mascot-driven campaigns and event-based initiatives to strengthen brand identity and …

Partners In Death: Introducing An Ethic Of Care To Online Funeral Home Rhetoric, Lindsay Catherine Gagnon

Dissertations and Theses

The funeral industry has become a staple in American death culture over the last century and a half. The professionalization of end-of-life and funeral practices has distanced the average American further from the realities of death, creating a dependent relationship on the funeral home to navigate the complexities of the death process. The experience of grief creates a need for a care that prioritizes the dead and their loved ones. This study calls for an application of care ethics to the rhetoric being promoted by funeral home websites. I first conduct an ideograph analysis of the ideographs and to assess …

Exploring Approaches To Address Racial Discrimination, Stigma, And Provider Communication In Sickle Cell Disease Pain Management Through Interprofessional Education And Collaboration, Ronisha Edwards-Elliott

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents research across three publishable manuscripts that investigate why structural and systemic racism persist among patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) seeking pain management, and how interprofessional collaboration and education can help reduce disparities through shared learning, accountability, and standardized care (Chapters Two through Four). A scoping review identifies current interventions and strategies aimed at sharing the pain experiences and feelings of being unheard by SCD patients (Chapter Two). Findings of the scoping review revealed that although interventions and strategies exist and have been tested, the lack of implementation or buy-in from healthcare professionals has allowed racial discrimination …