Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Belonging Amidst Bias: Embracing Difference On The Path To Common Humanity, Alyssia Sheikh

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The mindfulness community prioritizes self-awareness and common humanity, but is often entrapped by the idea that oneness is equivalent to sameness. This inclination for objectivity is rooted in the same neural propensities that facilitate bias; the brain is a subjective organ, however, and so neurologically speaking, bias is inevitable. This paper asks: Is striving for sameness separating us from interconnectedness? A human experience is a subjective, diverse, and variable one. The path to shared humanity and social justice co-occurs with increasing cultural humility through mindful awareness and acknowledging our subjective nature. Exploring our neurological tendency to make assumptions, we …

Taming The Wandering Mind: Where Buddhism & Polyvagal Theory Meet, Tamara Embrey

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The ability to tame the wandering mind is at the heart of the insights emerging from the places where Buddhism and the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2001, 2011) meet. A polyvagal understanding of how our nervous system functions opens the door to developing skills that can strengthen our ability to regulate ourselves and others during times of challenge. The Buddha’s meditation instructions, laid out in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse offers a type of attentional training that allows us to become aware of our current neural state so that we can make intentional choices to tame our wandering …

Does Race Still Matter? An Exploration Of Race And Mentoring Relationships From The Perspective Of Early Career Teachers Of Color And Mentors, Franchesca R. Ho Sang

Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring has been attributed to lowering attrition rates of teachers. At present, the majority of teachers in the United States are White and female. The national teacher workforce does not represent the student body. Although there have been recent initiatives to improve the diversity within the teacher workforce, by explicitly recruiting teachers of color (TOC), the attrition rates of these teachers are negating the effects of recruitment efforts. Previous research has pointed to the need to consider race in novice TOC mentee and mentor matches, as cultural capital theory suggests common knowledge and experience may lead to stronger mentor relationships …

Holy Impairment: The Body As The Nexus Of Apocalyptic Ekphrasis In Acts 2:1–13, Meghan Henning

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This article reads Acts 2:1–13 as an example of apocalyptic ekphrasis, bringing together disparate imagery for rhetorical effect. In particular, the Septuagint imagery of theophany is combined with the imagery of divine healing that was associated with the god Asclepius. I explore the imagery of the divided tongue that rests on bodies and transforms them, an element of Acts 2:3 that many interpreters have given up trying to explain. The visual association of snakes and healing was prevalent not only at the shrines devoted to Asclepius but broadly in a variety of contexts outside the shrines. This complex of imagery …

2022-09-01 Caudill Connection, Morehead State University. Caudill College Of Arts, Humanities And Social Sciences.

Caudill Connection

Caudill Connection newsletter for September of 2022.

Hope And Pessimism In ‘Classical’ 20th Century Civilizational Theory, David J. Rosner

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper will involve an analysis of the relation between optimism, pessimism, and realism in 20th century classical civilizational theory, through the perspective offered specifically in Ernst Bloch’s magnum opus The Principle of Hope. Bloch, a German Jew and unorthodox Marxist, wrote The Principle of Hope during 1938–1947 in exile fleeing the Nazi holocaust. Today, humanity in its entirety now faces another set of crises — pandemic, overpopulation, climate change, political impasse, economic inequality, social unrest, growing lawlessness and nuclear threat. One can easily be tempted to give up on the future of our increasingly fragile and endangered world. …

Nationalism In The Context Of Globalization, Mariana Tepfenhart, M.A.

Comparative Civilizations Review

To understand the connection and consequences between nationalism and globalism, I will start with a basic definition of nationalism. According to Websters Dictionary, nations that are focused on national, not international goals, are nationalistic. A nation comprises the same language, customs, and traditions.

Some scholars have argued that nationalism has historical roots. People have been bonded by ethnicity and politics from ancient times. Others consider nationalism as a modern phenomenon due to industrialization, democratization, and modern technology. Jonathan Hearn1 from the University of Edinburgh has argued that some states are more homogeneous than others and they have strong senses of …

Pointers From Sociology: Looking At Trevor Noah’S Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

The book is a study of a basic change in social stratification. It is also a study of poverty in South Africa. Plus, it is a study of the changing nature of community and society in that land.

We know that almost every society organizes inequality by ranking categories of people in a hierarchy. Four important principles of social stratification are:

• Social stratification is inclusive of all, not a reflection of individual differences, and shapes our lives.

• Social stratification carries over from generation to generation.

• Social stratification is universal but variable.

• Social stratification involves both inequality and beliefs about the …

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Musical Legacy Projects (Fa 1387), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1387. Audio interviews conducted by WKU oral history students in spring 2022 for the South Central Kentucky Music Project, centering on musicians in Bowling Green and surrounding counties.

Mnemonicide: The Killing Of American Public Memory, Macie Morgan

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

The Jewish Experience In Huntsville, Sean Berry

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Bibliography For Constitution Day Display, Ruby Blakesleay

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about Constitution Day in September 2022 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

Reseña De Mundos Y Seres Poshumanos En La Literatura Contemporánea. Estudio Comparado De Kafka, Borges, Santa Cruz, Delillo Y Bellatin, De Sophie Dorothee Voo Werder. Medellín: Editorial Universidad De Antioquia, 2020, Luz Gabriela Hernández

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Reseña de Mundos y seres poshumanos en la literatura contemporánea. Estudio comparado de Kafka, Borges, Santa Cruz, Delillo y Bellatin, escrito por Sophie Dorothee voo Werder y publicado en Medellín por la editorial Universidad de Antioquia en 2020.

How It's Made: The Crime And Kombucha Podcast, Melissa Nemeth

Journalism

The goal of this senior project is to write, produce, edit and market a podcast through the application of skills acquired throughout the culmination of a Cal Poly journalism degree. The podcast created in conjunction with this senior project is called Crime and Kombucha. Crime and Kombucha is a true crime and pop culture podcast hosted by two bubbly best friends, Marcela Cabral and Melissa Nemeth. It explores the relationship between true crime and pop culture, both of which cannot exist without the other in modern internet culture, using one genre to understand the other. In fact, the “Kombucha” …

Epistemic Priors, Social Justice, And The Ethics Of Humor, Paul Butterfield

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I set out a theory of humor ethics and, in particular, I establish what difference humorousness makes to an instance of speech’s moral value. I set out by making the case for this approach to the topic, demonstrating that focusing on how humorous speech differs, morally, from non-humorous speech allows us to avoid getting caught up in prior ethical debates that are not strictly about humor itself – a shortcoming that is common to many treatments of humor ethics in the existing literature. I show that, in cases of humorous speech, we typically do not assert the …

Recovering Authenticity: Care, Conversation And Value, Shannon M. Brick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Suppose you learn that your steak-loving friend has just adopted a vegan diet. You ask her what prompted the change, and she tells you that someone she trusts recently tweeted “Eating meat is immoral.” Your friend’s response is a little disappointing and shallow, but why? Most of our knowledge comes from trusting what other people tell us, so why, when it comes to moral matters, does deference seem inappropriate? Some philosophers think it’s because moral testimony cannot transmit important epistemic goods, like knowledge or understanding. Others think that when people defer to moral testimony, their actions or characters will be …

Marx, Race, Black Radicalism, And Racial Justice, Gregory Slack

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I defend the claim that not only was Marx not an anti-black racist, he was an anti-anti-black racist, despite sometimes employing racist language and epithets. I prove this claim by adducing massive amounts of textual evidence from Marx and Engels’ writings, spanning their entire careers as writers and revolutionaries, where time and again they condemn black slavery and the slave-trade, look forward to and call for their abolition, and aim at a future of racial justice and equality for black people, as a component part of communist justice for all working people, under a communist mode …

Experiencing Sonic Change: Acoustic Properties As Form- And Meter-Bearing Elements In Popular Music Vocals, Kristi D. Hardman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes sound qualities in popular music vocals and examines the relationship between sound qualities and other musical structures, including beat, meter, and form. I use the term sound qualities to refer to those aspects of a sound that help us distinguish one sound from another. In this dissertation, I focus specifically on loudness, noisiness, brightness, and vowel quality. Listeners often attend to the vocals while singing along to their favorite popular song. Additionally, the voice is extremely malleable, which means that sound qualities regularly fluctuate in the vocals. This makes popular music vocals a good case study for …

Literaturas En Exhibición: Autores-Show Y Posturas Precarias En El Siglo Xxi Hispanoamericano Neoliberal, Sara Cordon Hornillos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The consolidation of neoliberalism, the demands of the market, the importance of the image, the possibilities offered by social media, and the ways celebrity is constructed not only favor but also demand the exhibition of the artist.

This dissertation examines for the first time how twenty-first-century Latin American and Spanish authors with sexual, ethnic, gender, or class identities traditionally excluded from the realm of literary distinction employ self-exhibition to engage with the public, thus redrawing the limits of literature. Reflecting critically on the commodification and manipulation of the contemporary authorial figure, as well as the possibilities of agency that certain …

“The People Are Tired, And Just Want To Have Fun”: Mahraganat Music And The Struggle For Sonic Presence In Post-2013 Egypt, Mohammed Elfeky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon Asef Bayat’s notion of the “unintelligibility” of Egypt’s subaltern politics, this thesis investigates how mahraganat music is rendered “unintelligible/nonsense” by influential Egyptian cultural figures and is targeted for censorship. Mahraganat is a musical artform that arose from the lower-working classes neighborhoods in Egypt to become a dominant genre in the country. In 2020, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate, headed by Hany Shakir, banned mahraganat artists from performing officially in Egypt. Before and after the ban, state media debated the genre's status; its detractors framed the music as nonsensical, “absurd”, “meaningless”, “vulgar”, and a “low-brow” dilution of Egyptian cultural production …

Banarasipan As Revelation: Immanent Utopias In The Performance Of Everyday Life, Bhargav Rani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation locates itself at the intersection of performance theory, South Asian studies and philosophy of history to examine the history of an urban consciousness known as banarasipan (literally, "Banarasi-ness") as performed by the people of Banaras in northern India. Over the course of the twentieth century, banarasipan, as a distinct way of being in everyday life, has been characterized by its valorization of heroic laziness, seditious laughter, subversive obscenities, and by its egalitarian subjectivity that overrides sectarian and class differences. In the context of South Asian history, this dissertation interrogates the theoretical premises of both Marxist and postcolonial modes …

Globalism And Identity In Taiwanese Contemporary Art, 1978–2009, Chu-Chiun Wei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Taiwanese contemporary art emerged in the 1980s and rapidly flourished in the 1990s, nourished by the process of democratization and the construction of Taiwanese consciousness prompted by the lifting of martial law in 1987. This dissertation makes two claims. Firstly, that Taiwanese contemporary art after 2000 can be understood as “post-national,” due to the country’s marginal position in the world and contentious status as a nation-state. Secondly, that Taiwanese post-national art differentiates itself from postcolonial/post-martial law art of the late 1980s and 1990s on the basis of its globalism. The three artists surveyed by the dissertation each exemplify different …

Examining The Linguistic Ideology "Throaty Sounds Are Bad For Performers": The History Of Negative Attitudes Towards Glottal Stops And Laryngealization In English, Dayle M. Towarnicky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes explicit metadiscourse (Johnstone et al 2006) on throaty sounds, primarily focused on glottal segments and non-modal constricted voice quality in English. Authors contributing to this metadiscourse are argued to be an offshoot of the speech chain network which valorized and circulated the English accent known as RP or Received Pronunciation, studied by Agha (2003). The evaluated texts center on English-speaking elocution, singing training, voice, speech, and voice care. The analysis shows glottal and guttural articulations are framed negatively and often discouraged by appeals to both health and aesthetics. Many authors in this performance speech chain network …

The Music Of Sylvano Bussotti And Its Interpretation: Biopolitics, Intersubjectivity, And Modernist Canon Formation, Charles A. Rudig

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The music of Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti (1931–2021) presents intentional challenges to interpretation and canonization. These particular challenges and Bussotti’s reasoning for implementing them are interrogated in this dissertation by reading the score to Bussotti’s La Passion selon Sade (1966) through contemporaneous European social theory, philosophy, and political developments. La Passion selon Sade is a theatre piece for a chamber ensemble, with a primary vocal and dramatic role written for mezzo-soprano Catherine Berberian, with whom Bussotti frequently collaborated. Like much of Bussotti’s music from the 1950s and 1960s, the discourse surrounding the piece and its reception largely relates to its …

Del Ornitorrinco A La Radio Ambulante: La Nueva Crónica Latinoamericana En La Era Neoliberal, Ulises Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the presence of neoliberal hegemonic imaginaries in narrative journalism written in Latin America between 1995 and 2021.

There are strong connections between a period of decline in the readership of some of the authors of the so-called “Latin American Boom,” the penetration of neoliberal economic policies in the region (with the privatization of State companies and the expansion of the telecommunications industry), and the renewed interest in non-fiction writing published by a number of print publications in the region during the last decade of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, as in magazines …

A Labor Of Livingness: Oral Histories Of Formerly Incarcerated Black Women, Robin Mcginty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anchored in the political subjectivity of formerly incarcerated Black women, “A Labor of Livingness: Oral Histories of Formerly Incarcerated Black Women” is a project situated at the intersections of Black geographies and Black Feminist thought that considers a re/imagination of the ‘living prison’ experiences of formerly incarcerated Black women. I offer the term “a labor of livingness” as the liberatory articulation and everyday practices of resistance to the prison as a site of ‘living death’ that is reflective of the carceral experiences of currently and formerly incarcerated Black women. Attentive to the prison as a repository of epistemological knowledge production, …

Audiovisual Afterlives: The Soundtrack Of Liberal Nostalgia, Max W. Kaplan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Following the 2016 American Presidential election, celebrity endorsements proved to be a more narrow gauge of public opinion than ever. The symbolic alignment with popular musicians, which had long abetted the Democratic Party’s standing with youth and particular identity groups, seemed only to reaffirm the party’s establishment status, drawing disavowal in a wave of anti-establishment sentiment on both the left and right. ‘Retromania,’ a term first coined by Simon Reynolds in 2010, can be tracked conceptually from the nostalgic inclinations of twenty-first century popular culture to the ideological sphere, where nostalgic, essentialized constructions of community, identity, and progress have coalesced …

Tell Me A Story: The Normative Power Of Storytelling, Zoe Cunliffe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Few would dispute that stories are powerful: they have the capacity to inform, to persuade, and to engage our imaginations and sympathies. However, the contemporary philosophical literature on stories focuses exclusively on the functions of narrative stories, and in particular on the role that novels can serve in cultivating our moral and political competencies. I argue that this narrow focus is theoretically pernicious in two ways. First, it leads to an unfortunate myopia regarding the value of non-narrative storytelling practices. Second, it results in analysis that is disproportionately likely to exclude forms of storytelling that originate in marginalized groups. My …

Heritage Repair: Revisiting Familial And Collective Histories In Filiation Narratives By Dalila Kerchouche, Colombe Schneck And Martine Storti, Rebecca R. Raitses

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis offers a critical reading of three French narratives: Dalila Kerchouche’s Mon père, ce harki (2003), Colombe Schneck’s Les guerres de mon père (2018), and Martine Storti’s L’arrivée de mon père en France (2008). These works combine representations of familial history with the explorations of personal and collective traumas or repression. The study addresses the following dimensions of the texts: 1) The catalyst of intergenerational silence behind these and many other similar works; 2) The textual interplay between storytelling and material evidence; 3) The ways in which the authors combine narratives of familial hardships on one hand, and of …

Historical Ecology Of Norse Greenland: Zooarchaeology And Climate Change Responses, Konrad Smiarowski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis invokes Historical Ecology approach to better understand human impacts on marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and the creation of cultural landscapes and seascapes in Norse Greenland. It also investigates climate impacts on human economic strategies, as they vary substantially by island and region in the North Atlantic but were especially important in arctic Greenland.

The analysis centers on the animal bone data and uses both existing and newly generated zooarchaeological collections to contribute to the study of Norse Greenland and its place in human ecodynamics research. The newly analyzed archaeofauna shows that the culturally Nordic European settlers used to …