Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Languages Of Italy: An Examination Of The Vitality Of Standard Italian And Dialects In Contemporary Italy, And The Role Of Dialect Speakers In The United States, Juliana Maria Esoldi

Senior Theses

In this thesis paper, I address the question of linguistic shift in the context of Southern Italian dialectology. I break this study up into two parts. First, I discuss the decline in usage of regional dialects in contemporary Southern Italy, particularly the regions of Calabria, Campania, and Sicily, and provide an assessment of their current vitalities and popularities. Then, I address the role of Italian dialect speakers abroad, specifically in the Italian American context, in this dynamic of linguistic evolution, extinction, and survival. Along with factual data and statistics describing the vitalities of the dialects in Italy, a selection of …

The Costs Of Lolicon: Japan’S Pedophilia Trade, Megan Sluzhevsky

Senior Theses

This thesis investigates Japan’s normalization of pedophilia via the proliferation of popular culture and media. This analysis will begin by looking at historical examples of pedophilia, specifically focusing on chigo in Medieval Japanese Buddhism, wakashu in Edo Period pleasure quarters, and the spread of soft power diplomacy after World War II. This phenomenon will also be viewed in the modern context by discussing lolicon in Japanese media and advertising, idol culture in the Japanese music industry, the JK business, and “real” child pornography. The ways that Japan benefits from this culture economically and politically will also be investigated. Finally, this …

“The British Museum Had Lost Its Charm”: The Repatriation Of The Benin Bronzes And Nazi-Looted Jewish Art, Reeve Pacen Churchill

Senior Theses

The purpose of this research is to consider the question of Benin Bronze repatriation through the context of Jewish repatriation which has spanned the decades following World War II. By studying ownership and property rights, cultural heritage, and repatriation efforts of each movement, this study seeks to draw distinctions between European repatriation and African repatriation to show that success is limited in both cases because of the historic legality of looting in both cases. Ultimately, it becomes clear that a comparative repatriation study becomes problematic when European standards are superimposed on to African standards, when African countries struggle with vastly …

A Qualitative Study On Nurse Facilitators Of Mind-Body Skills Groups, Paula D. Blake-Beckford

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), founded by Dr. James Gordon, provides communities with evidence-based Mind-Body Skills Groups (MBSGs) that foster self-care, self-awareness, and self-expression. MBSGs range from 8 to 12-week series on various mind-body practices wherein group members meet, practice, and reflect on the impact of mind-body skills in their lives. Research has demonstrated that participants in MBSGs have positive outcomes. Healthcare professionals (HCPs), especially nurses, gain resiliency from MBSGs. As facilitators of MBSGs, nurses develop essential skills transferable to clinical and educational settings. MBSGs are therapeutic for adult participants with chronic stress. Prior to this thesis, only one …

Where I’M From: Internal Manifestations Among Cambodian Women Using The Expressive Arts A Literature Review, Noeun Chhim

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Chronic mental illness has affected many Cambodian people, but, culturally, Cambodians aren’t accustomed to opening up and discussing their feelings, rather defining mental illness to craziness and seeking help is presumed taboo. Thus, Cambodians are often reluctant to talk about their experiences and/or their related illnesses. Though Cambodians have experienced inconceivable suffering and violence during the Khmer Rouge era, for the purpose of this thesis, I will be discussing the role of Cambodian women and investigate the extent of what they’ve witnessed and experienced. Cambodian women have suffered through many years of trauma and grief, during and after the Khmer …

A Literature Review On Decolonization Of The Expressive Arts In Order To Help Facilitate Racial Healing Within The Black Community, Kateri Collins

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This literature review will analyze the racial disparities in the current Euro-centric expressive therapy modalities and will examine the additional needs to allow for these modalities to facilitate healing within the Black community and recommend adjustments accordingly. When conducting my research and coming up with my research question I came to the conclusion that my proposed question is: What are the racial disparities within the expressive arts due to them being Euro-centric and where are the areas that need adjustments to be culturally competent?

The anti-racist efforts of deconstructing all Euro-centric modalities are crucial for the field of expressive arts …

Redefining Connection And Meaning-Making Through Virtual Artistic Community Amidst Persistent Adversity: A Community Engagement Project, Gwendolyn Healy

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the meaning of community drastically shifted across the world. Many groups and individuals were forced to alter their professional, academic, and personal lives in order to persevere through this collective, global health crisis. During a time in history where so much changed in a short period of time, community and peer supports became more important than ever. Specifically for students involved in arts or expressive arts programs, the process of collective art making serves as a means of communication, connection, and emotional and mental processing. Without these connections and critical supports, feelings of disconnect, disinterest, loss …

The Effectiveness Of Music Therapy With Children Who Have Experienced Trauma Using The Neurosequential Model Of Therapeutics (Nmt): A Literature Review, Brianna Lambert-Jenkins

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper initiates filling the gap in the literature by utilizing NMT, which addresses trauma through understanding and assessing how it has impacted a child neurodevelopmentally with music therapy. Children in intensive residential care are referred to treatment with a unique range of challenges resulting from their traumatic experiences. Of these challenges, included are a wide range of traumatic experiences such as physical/emotional abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, homelessness, witnessing violence or domestic abuse, adjustment issues, attachment issues, or trauma while in utero. The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) is a newer framework for working with developmental trauma. Current research around …

Music Therapy Program Development In A Hospital Setting: A Critical Review Of Literature, Alexandria Rodriguez

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This capstone is a critical review of literature regarding development of music therapy programs in general hospital settings within the United States. This document will assist in defining important aspects of program success and serve to help better advocate for music therapy programs, creative arts therapies, and well-being programs functioning within a traditional general hospital setting. This capstone thesis presents key elements of successful music therapy program development, as proposed by in-field music therapist interview, studies utilizing music therapy in general hospital settings to serve both patients, hospital staff, and community outreach, suggestions for arts in health curricular development, and …

Dance/Movement Therapy Combined With Tai-Chi As A Regulation Strategy For Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: Developing A Method, Brenna Meindersma

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This capstone thesis examines the question of how dance/movement therapy can be combined with tai-chi to support the emotional regulation of children who have experienced trauma. The paper examines a possible method that combines dance/movement therapy with tai-chi, grounded in the theories of Trudi Schoop. It highlights the application of tai-chi as a movement intervention that impacts participants ability to engage in treatment. Through the literature it was found that dance/movement therapy techniques of deep breathing, balance, and slow, rhythmic movements can impact emotional regulation. In combination with dance/movement therapy and tai-chi principles of internal awareness, body alignment, and …

Toward Holistic Mental Wellness: A Literature Review Of Mindfulness-Based And Focusing-Oriented Art Therapies, Lesley Vernon

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Modern day living, for all its benefits, is synonymous with record levels of stress. The mental health clinician’s role is to assist clients in accessing the skills and tools necessary to reduce and alleviate the symptoms of stress-induced anxiety. Mindfulness is emerging as a potent and effective tool to restore one’s state of well-being. Likewise, engaging in art therapy has been shown to reduce stress and foster resilience. Grounded in humanistic and existential theories, this literature review aimed to assess the impact and effectiveness of two intermodal holistic therapies, specifically mindfulness-based art therapy (MBAT) and focusing-oriented art therapy (FOAT). A …

The Use Of Violin Family Instruments In Music Therapy With Individuals Experiencing Acute Psychiatric Presentations: A Literature Review, Brianna Rzeznik

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This literature review seeks to better understand the unique ways in which the four contemporary violin family instruments - violin, viola, cello, and double bass - can be used in music therapy with individuals experiencing mania, psychosis, and dissociation. In this paper, I explore the ways in which these four instruments have been used throughout Western music history and the different roles assigned to them by composers, as well as the ways in which they are used in music therapy today. I then explore the acute psychiatric presentations of mania, psychosis, and dissociation, and the treatments and goals that tend …

A Group Music Therapy Method To Promote Mentalization Skills In Clients With Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Lisa Riggs Hobbs

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract

This paper investigates the development of a group music therapy method by adapting elements of mentalization-based treatment (MBT) to help clients with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). A prominent characteristic of NPD is a deficiency in empathy. The fostering of empathy and emotional awareness forms the basis of MBT. Music therapy offers a means to explore these skills on a nonverbal level. This work is even more impactful in a group setting. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of literature specific to music therapy and NPD. Furthermore, despite the availability of writings separately concerning NPD, MBT, group therapy, and music therapy, …

How Clay In Group Art Therapy Helps Female Veterans Maintain Well-Being: Development Of Methods, Sooho Park

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Using clay in art therapy has emerged as an evidence-based therapeutic approach to enable treatment for people with anxiety. While clay in art therapy has been researched and proven to be highly effective with children, there is limited research on the benefit for the population of female veterans. Therefore, this study examines the possibility of how clay in art therapy helps female veterans to reduce anxiety and maintain their well-being at Veterans Affairs Hospital (VAH). Three female veterans were engaged in weekly intervention for six weeks through both in-person and online sessions. Results indicate participants experienced beneficial changes in anxiety …

Preparing For An Unpredictable Future: A Community Engagement Project, Rebecca Coates-Finke

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The COVID-19 Pandemic has upended lives across the world for the past two years, and it is hard for anyone to say if or when life will return to what we may have called “normal.” Communities must learn how to support and protect one another in rapidly changing circumstances, while holding space for the collective trauma and grief of this pandemic. In this thesis, there is a review of literature regarding trauma, collective healing within communities and families, and COVID’s impact on Jewish communities, with a particular focus on drama therapy. This is followed by a description of a workshop …

Building Nature: A Nature-Based Drama Therapy Method In An Urban Program, Courtney Bennett Mcduffee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Finding a mental health center that fits the needs of an individual can take time. Some individuals must travel to different states and enter large metropolises to find the specific type of support they need for their mental health journey. This can mean that for extended periods of time, as individuals go through residential treatment, partial hospitalization programs (PHP), and/or intensive outpatient programs (IOP), they can not only find themselves in a completely new community, but also entirely removed from nature. For this reason, my thesis focused on creating a method to reconnect humans ‘trapped’ in an urban setting with …

An Embodied Drama Therapy Approach To Restorative School Practices: A Method, Sarah Harmer

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Restorative School Practices offer schools a circle structure to shift the punitive mindset and power dynamics commonly found in America’s schools, to a model that focuses on relationship, connection, and mutual respect. Drama therapy interventions utilize embodied or active work that engage the entire person. The purpose of this thesis was to create a method to explore the addition of embodied drama therapy techniques to deepen the experience of the restorative school circle process. Three community-building and social emotional learning focused circles, in a second, fourth, and sixth grade class, were compared using the traditional scripts and then the same …

Spirituality & Wellness In The Black Lgbtqia+ Experience: A Literature Review, Black Pruitt

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This literature review explores the intersections of race, sexuality, spirituality, and wellness. The findings highlight the complex trauma caused by both racialized and religious violence and how they have historically impacted the lives of Black LGBTQIA+ people today. The research offers evidence for the benefit and efficacy of implementing traditional Afrodiasporic spirituality into expressive arts therapeutic treatment, particularly for Black LGBTQIA+ people and communities. This research also suggests the necessity for actively and effectively dismantling Western psychological frameworks and approaches that have been historically harmful towards Black and LGBTQIA+ people in order to pave pathways towards collective healing and liberation.

Epistemic Injustice, Endometriosis And Dance/ Movement Therapy: An Autoethnographic Investigation, Kevana West

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

As the field of dance/ movement therapy evolves to meet the demands of a rapidly changing social landscape, it is imperative that clinicians think critically about the degree to which our work is steeped in oppressive frameworks and ideologies. This investigation uses testimony to explore epistemic injustice as it relates to the author’s experience of living with endometriosis and the pursuit of professional licensure. Considering the limited amount of research on the condition, along with the perceived absence of literature within the field of dance/ movement therapy, further study is warranted. The experimentation phase of this research incorporated the use …

Streamlining The Performance/Talkback Model Using Media And Alternative Action (Maact): An Intervention, Daniel Brown

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This capstone project ventures to develop a drama therapy method that may increase empathy, social skills, and communication skills in populations with substance use disorders. Particular attention has been paid to the efficacy of performance/talkback methods in increasing these factors. An attempt has been made to streamline the performance/talkback method for greater accessibility to such methods in clinical spaces. The literature shows a particular need in populations with substance use disorders for social skills, communication skills, and empathy training. There have been published drama therapy studies that aim to intervene in these areas, though few with this particular population. This …

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 …

Supernova, Prinsey M. Walker

University of New Orleans Thesis Films

Film making is the one of the only creative outlets that has the ability to encompass the past, present, and future. Supernova, specifically is a piece that is a reflection of the black community. The story is an analysis of the family structure, privilege, and colorism. Beyond the audience's interpretation of the story, film making is a gateway to spiritual enlightenment of the inner soul for artists. The product upon completion may not be critically acclaimed. However, it is the take away as an artist that has the most meaning for passion projects.

Data Ethics: An Investigation Of Data, Algorithms, And Practice, Gabrialla S. Cockerell

Honors Projects

This paper encompasses an examination of defective data collection, algorithms, and practices that continue to be cycled through society under the illusion that all information is processed uniformly, and technological innovation consistently parallels societal betterment. However, vulnerable communities, typically the impoverished and racially discriminated, get ensnared in these harmful cycles due to their disadvantages. Their hindrances are reflected in their information due to the interconnectedness of data, such as race being highly correlated to wealth, education, and location. However, their information continues to be analyzed with the same measures as populations who are not significantly affected by racial bias. Not …

Fulfilling The Search For Completeness In Harper Lee’S To Kill A Mockingbird And Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing, Kyra M. Sica

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) and Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing (2018), set in the 1930s and 1960s, respectively, portray coming of age stories narrated from the points of view of two female protagonists, Scout and Kya. In Mockingbird, Lee conveys Scout’s maturation via a first-person narrative, recounting the events she witnesses between 1933 and 1935 as a linear flashback when she is an adult, whereas Owens conveys maturation in Crawdads, which happens over the course of Kya’s life, from a roving third-person narrative point of view, between 1952 and 2009. Both novels immerse the …

Testimonio At Work: The Power Of Malintzin Researchers, Freyca Calderon-Berumen, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto, Karla O'Donald

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

We are three Latin American women, once travellers – now US dwellers, mujeres de color, Mestizas, Neplanteras – sometimes ‘Malintzin researchers’ struggling to make sense of all our pieces, identities and changing faces. We draw upon the disruption of apartheid of knowledge in academia, arguing for counter-narratives through the use of pláticas and testimonio as tools to theorize personal experiences that contribute to the decolonization of educational research. We are advancing pláticas and testimonios as epistemological and methodological approaches to challenge and disrupt widespread Westernized research approaches that continue colonizing the U.S. education research.

He Had Two Women To Die For, Ireland And The Missus”: Mothers As Abject And Sons As Scapegoats In Edna O’Brien’S House Of Splendid Isolation And In The Forest, Emily Nix

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis examines the protagonists in Edna O’Brien’s In the Forest and House of Splendid Isolation and applies Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Rene Girard’s theory of the scapegoat. In doing so, I attempt to give a richer understanding of O’Brien’s masculine and feminine characters and how their constructed identities are based on their cultural circumstances and positions in their societies. I use Kristeva’s theory of abjection to analyze the single women in these novels, Eily and Josie, who become metaphorical single mothers by the invasions of young men into their homes. Then, I apply Girard’s theory of the …

We're Museum Professionals Too: Exhibitions Development In Library Special Collections And Archives, Carrie Meyer

Posters and Presentations: Leon S. McGoogan Health Sciences Library

In June 2021, the McGoogan Health Sciences Library opened the Wigton Heritage Center on the campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. This facility is the first of its kind in the United States and serves as a welcome center and museum for the history of the UNMC campus and explores the history of the health sciences in Nebraska. You read that right—a library opened a museum. Special Collection and Archives (SCA) professionals exist in a unique environment that utilizes three cultural heritage and preservation professions—libraries, archives, and museums. The Wigton Heritage Center project explores how museum practices for …

Mahalaya: Building Community In The Filipinx Diaspora Through Solidarity Journalism, Casey Ticsay

Master's Theses

Unethical approaches to storytelling in professional journalism continue to shape public discourse around the diverse experiences of Asians and Asian Americans. This paper analyzes the origins and impact of ethnic news media, specifically the rise of Filipino and Filipino American press in the United States, and the ways journalists of color continue to challenge traditional practices of professional journalism that perpetuate anti-Blackness and maintain white supremacy. Filipino and Filipino American newspapers in the early twentieth century provide historical insight into the issues, debates, and conversations transpiring at the time and highlight the community’s ongoing response to the misrepresentations of their …

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 …

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, …