Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Word From The Writing Team (August 2023), Pam Walter, Mfa, Liz Declan, Ma, Mfa

A Word From the Writing Team (Newsletter)

This issue includes:

• Latest Issue of Evanescent is Out
• First Friday Writing Retreats Return in October
• Academic Commons Website Update
• Publication Spotlight
• Reminders
• Scott Memorial Library Renovations
• MS4 Residency Personal Statement Workshops
• Jefferson Faculty APA Style Guide for Faculty
• Wiley Open Access Fees Waived for Jefferson Authors

Military Women In World Cinema: A 20th Century History And Filmography, Introduction, Deborah A. Deacon, Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

From British soldier Flora Sandes to the fame World War II Night Witches of the Soviet Air Force, women across the globe stepped up to defend their countries during every major and minor conflict of the twentieth century, and filmmakers have long attempted to capture their stories.

This book analyzes real and fictional military women's portrayals in world cinema, including movies from Israel, the United Kingdom, Italy, China, France, the Soviet Union, and others. It includes theatrical releases, direct-to-video productions, and made-for-television films.

Chapters, organized by decade, address topics including the women's sexuality, maternal and marital status, leadership skills, actual …

Music And Mind Games: Disability And Genre In The Psychonauts Series, Sophia Wetzel

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The cult-classic video game Psychonauts (2005) and its acclaimed sequel Psychonauts 2 (2021) are known for their depiction of mental illness and trauma. However, the depictions in each game reinforce different disability narratives: the first a “cure” narrative and the second an “accommodation” narrative (Mitchell & Snyder 2000; Howe 2016). Each level occurs within the mind of a different character, allowing the player to interact with manifestations of the character’s cognitive disability, such as fighting enemies called “Panic Attacks” or sorting their “Emotional Baggage.” The scoring for each level reflects the respective character by drawing from existing musical genres to …

Greening The Desert: Emirati Youth’S Perceptions Of Green Branding, Gergana Alzeer, Tilde Rosmer

All Works

This chapter focuses on Emirati youth’s understanding of and practices related to a green shift in the UAE and how this correlates with the state’s efforts to brand the UAE as green and sustainable. This is part of a larger research project that investigates Emirati youth’s understanding of climate change. The UAE experience of environmental sustainability is unique as its green shift was initiated by the government in a top-down approach compared to the bottom-up green movements in most western states that has been the focus of most environmental studies so far. Environmental sustainability is part of UAE’s national Agenda …

Re-Mediating Nature: Environmental Entropy, Urban Parks, And The Boise River Greenbelt, Quinn Zachary Anderson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Urban greenspaces are integral to the healthy functioning of a city. They provide heat relief, flood prevention, act as sites of community engagement and creation, and are home to charismatic flora and fauna, to name just a few of their roles. However, this importance has not translated to scholarly analysis. This thesis aims to address this shortcoming in several ways. Firstly, it introduces the typology of environmental entropy, a framework of analysis that recontextualizes greenspaces as blended landscapes, where nature and culture and human and nonhuman agency equilibrate. Using environmental entropy, the rest of the paper examines urban parks …

Men Of The Forgotten War: The Korean War And American Masculinity, Elliott D. Sauerwald

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

While the Korean War is considered America’s “Forgotten War,” the conflict offers rich insight into an unexplored facet of 1950s masculine gender constructs. This thesis examines how Korean War servicemen deviated from hegemonic masculinity by failing to live up to civilian society’s gender standards, and by unwittingly developing alternative masculinities rooted in their shared wartime experiences. Military masculinity declined after World War II in favor of masculinity centered on nuclear companionate fatherhood. The troops who fought in Korea embodied obsolete masculinity and their service garnered less prestige and public admiration compared to that of their World War II counterparts. Nevertheless, …

Locating Queer Possibilities: Lgbtq+ Folks Negotiating Community And Belonging In Idaho, 1969-2011, Rachel Taylor

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Americans—regardless of their sexual orientation or home state—generally assume that Idaho is hostile towards queer folks. Linking rurality to homophobia and bigotry, they believe queer people are safer and happier in metropolitan settings with visible queer communities. However, the lived experiences of queer Idahoans reveal that LGBTQ+ people have built communities and found belonging around the state, even outside the state’s most populous city, Boise. Whereas queer people in urban areas like San Francisco historically emphasized the ways they differed from the straight public, queer Idahoans found safety and belonging by emphasizing their similarities with straight people. Through archival research …

Decolonizing Memory: Erasure And Resurgence Of Indigenous History In The Intermountain West, Chase Wilson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Decolonizing language, memory, and history is an important step in confronting dominant historical narratives in higher education and the general public. This paper focuses on the settlement of the US Intermountain West – where the violent roots of white settlement have been downplayed in the public historical consciousness through the dominant narrative of "pioneer heritage." Beginning with a study of Ogden, Utah, early histories of the area are reexamined, analyzing the contexts in which Native peoples are mentioned (or not) in order to understand their presence by the turn of the twentieth century. Next, my focus moves on to analysis …

By Other Means: The Political And Economic Motivations For The Formation Of The Anglo-Japanese Alliance Of 1902 In The United Kingdom, David Cornell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is an attempt to answer the question of why British political leaders made the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902. To answer this question, I have used primary sources such as government communications, newspaper articles, and articles from scholarly journals. Also, I have consulted the works of past historians to better understand the complex topic of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One explains the events that led up to the creation of the treaty between Britain and Japan and clarifies why this treaty was so unusual for the British Empire in the early 1900s. …

Central American Saints: The Formation And Preservation Of Latter-Day Saint Community And Identity In El Salvador And Guatemala, 1960–1992, Hovan T. Lawton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

After World War II, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew dramatically throughout Latin America, with much of this growth happening after 1960. My thesis studies how the growing numbers of Latter-day Saints in Guatemala and El Salvador (between 1960 and 1992) developed strong and meaningful religious community and became more and more committed to their new Latter-day Saint identity. Being a Latter-day Saint in these two countries was similar in many ways to the experience of being a Latter-day Saint in the U.S., but there were also some important differences. My thesis considers what made the Salvadoran …

Subduing The Wolf: Utah Pioneer Identity And The War On Wolves Between 1852 And 2020., Mason Lytle

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Utah has a unique history of pioneer settlement connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This history has become a source of pride that began with the first white settlers. I have come to call this the “deseret pioneer” identity, to differentiate from other western settlers. From the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, politicians and agriculturalists used this “deseret pioneer” identity to thwart federal protections for wolves and respond to wilderness policies that made Utah the only “rocky-mountain” state to not have wolves in the twenty-first century.

“Whan The Turuf Is Thy Tour”: Analyzing Gender Codes Of Burial Monuments In Late Medieval And Early Modern England, Shelbie Durrant

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The cultural pressures of gender conformity and "norms" have lasted as long as the social constructs of gender themselves. Gender is present and can be analyzed in symbols within material culture such as the Russell family funerary monuments located in their private chapel in Chenies, London. Gender, although not always transparently at the front of consciousness, was interacted with, performed, and memorialized in life and death, especially for families that were high status. The presence of gender in these funerary monuments illuminates how expected conformity of gender norms were in this time — so present that they were literally set …

Seeking Sacagawea: A Comparison Of The Accounts Of Bird Woman’S Birth, Life, And Death, Jay H. Buckley, Maren Burgess

Faculty Publications

On Saturday August 17, 1806, Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition recorded: "we ... took our leave of T. Chabono, his Snake Indian wife and their Son Child who had accompanied us on our rout to the pacific Ocean in the Capacity of interpreter and interpretes." This "Snake Indian wife" Sacagawea, also known as Sacajawea or Sakakawea, had proven her worth as a significant contributor to the Expedition not only through her services as "interpretes" but also through her diplomatic skills with Natives, knowledge of the land, food gathering abilities, and the symbol of peace she represented …

That Ye Might Feel And See: Touch In The First Day Of Christ's Ministry, Dan L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Leroy Mathis. Jr.

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Spatial Disaggregation Of Poverty And Disability: Application To Tanzania, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Estimating poverty measures for disabled people in developing countries is often difficult, partly because relevant data are not readily available. We extend the small-area estimation developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003) to estimate poverty by the disability status of the household head, when the disability status is unavailable in the survey. We propose two alternative approaches to this extension: Aggregation and Instrumental Variables Approaches. We apply these approaches to data from Tanzania and show that both approaches work. Our estimation results show that disability is indeed positively associated with poverty in every region of mainland Tanzania.

On Neo-Humean Accounts For Natural Laws, Tori Helen Cotton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Humeanism about laws is a metaphysical doctrine that claims that the complete scope of the world is comprised of the mosaic—a vast collection of particular, localized facts about the world, and everything else supervenes on this arrangement of facts. Reductionism about laws, the claim that laws of nature reduce to, and thereby supervene on, the Humean mosaic, follows from this view. The first part of the thesis explores Humeanism about laws and the evolving landscape of pragmatic approaches within this domain. Building upon the insights gained from this analysis, the second part of the thesis proposes a novel response to …

A Calvinistic Divine Glory Defense, Stephen Thomas Irby

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Calvinists, because they embrace the view that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, cannot appeal to libertarian free will while trying to defend theism against the problem of evil. However, they can appeal – and, in fact, some have appealed – to God’s desire to be glorified to account for why He has ordained the evils of our world. This is the divine glory defense, and my dissertation aims to develop a version of it. After spending some time framing my defense in the context of the rest of the literature on the problem of evil, an account is provided …

Who Sings And Who Falls Silent? A Spatial And Social Analysis Of Virgilian Graffiti In Pompeii, Rachel Murray

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes Pompeian domestic spaces in which graffiti that quote the works of Virgil have been found. This is particularly compelling because of the Aeneid’s status as a ‘national epic,’ simultaneously ‘high’ culture and seemingly part of the ‘common’ imagination. In the past scholars have argued that the presence of Virgilian graffiti was not indicative of widespread interaction with Virgil, and that a select few individuals were responsible for these quotations. Drawing from ideas proposed by modern graffiti studies and spatial theorists and employing the methodology developed by the Virtual Pompeii Project, this study uses network analysis measures to …

Abolition’S Informal Gatekeepers: The Role Of County Courts In The Making Of Pennsylvania’S ‘Free’ Border, Amanda Mcgee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Because Pennsylvania was the first state to implement legislation that slowly ended slavery within the state, contests over freedom and the enforcement of where it began and ended became an essential element of Pennsylvania’s border-making policies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The struggle over the territorial extent (by which I mean legal and geographical) of Pennsylvania abolition between enslavers intent on retaining their human chattel by any means necessary and enslaved men and women intent on asserting their freedom once they touched Pennsylvania “free soil” in turn, served to solidify the geopolitical boundary of the state in …

Investigation Of Chinese Students’ Writing Perceptions At An English Young Writers Camp, Jingshu Chen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how a young writers camp that catered to 40 Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, ranging from students entering the fourth grade to seventh grade, mediated the students’ writing perceptions. More specifically, the main objective of this research was to investigate the impact of the camp on the students' perceptions of writing and their self-identification as writers. The study employed the theoretical framework of Cultural Historical Activity Theory to guide the analysis. Various types of data were collected from the 40 participating students, including pre- and post-camp survey questions, classroom observations, and open-ended interviews. By …

The Multiverse Argument For The Existence Of God, Michael Dover

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of God’s existence. Perhaps the most common objection to this argument involves the Multiverse Theory, which posits an infinite or very large multiverse, adequately explaining the fine-tuning of the universe without positing an intelligent designer. Thus, the Multiverse Theory is often posited as a way of maintaining Atheism. In this paper, I argue that the Atheistic Multiverse View is untenable: if the multiverse exists, God or gods are highly likely to exist as well. Additionally, this paper explores topics like: the conceivability of …

The Impact Of Covid-19 Stressors, Racial Discrimination, And Racial Socialization On Family Functioning In Black Families, Regina L. Alexander

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Marginalized communities, specifically Black Americans, have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic which has resulted in more hospitalizations and deaths within this particular community. However, this disproportionate impact of COVID-19 is likely the result of ongoing health disparities related to a lack of access to adequate healthcare. In addition to health disparities specifically related to COVID-19, Black Americans have also experienced public displays of racial discrimination resulting from the systemic racism that has occurred for many years. It has been determined that stress spillover can impact relationship factors and this same spillover may be an important factor by which …

Comparative Study Of Supervised Classification Techniques With A Modified Knn Algorithm, Noah Owusu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The goal of classification is to develop a model that can be used to accurately assign new observations to labeled classes based on the patterns learned from the training data. K-nearest Neighbors algorithm (KNN) is a popular and widely used algorithm for classification, however, its performance can be adversely affected by the presence of outliers in a dataset. In this study we have modified this existing KNN algorithm that can alleviate the effect of outliers in a dataset, thereby improving the performance of the KNN algorithm. We compared the performances of the Modified KNN method and the Existing KNN algorithm …

Mrs. Dalloway (1925) Vs. The Hours (2002): How Does The Patriarchy Infringe On The Autonomy Of Marginalized Characters?, Mary E. Belton

2023 Symposium

Fans of Virginia Woolf know that her literature, such as A Room of One’s Own and Mrs. Dalloway, cover feminist themes. In adaptations of Virginia Woolf’s work, the same feminist themes are present. For example, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, based on three women whose lives are connected through Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, carries similar feminist themes. In the 2002 adaptation of The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry, the relationships between men and women in the film illustrate how the patriarchy operates socially.

To those who don’t know Virginia Woolf’s work well or are unaware of how …

Review: Oliver Jens Schmitt, Biserica De Stat Sau Biserică În Stat? O Istorie A Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, Editura Humanitas, București, 2023, Csaba Szabó

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

A review of Oliver Jens Schmitt, Biserica de stat sau biserică în stat? O istorie a Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, Editura Humanitas, București, 2023. 457pp.

ISBN: 978-973-50-7919-2

A Rudimental Drumming Vocabulary Applied To The Folk Music Of Argentina, Justin Sherrod

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the methods and approaches used by Argentine percussionist Mr. Sebastian Hoyos to incorporate rudimental drumming into the composition Soy de Salta: Suite para percusión criolla y orquesta. The study demonstrates the steps taken to employ Argentinian folk music content through four folk styles: Baguala, Zamba, Chacarera, and Carnavalito. The bombo legüero, one of Argentina's most well-known and essential folk percussion instruments, plays a supportive and dominant role in Soy de Salta, introducing rudimental components into the music. This original research therefore addresses rudiments, variations of rudiments, and simple and complex writing styles for the snare drum …

Transition And Transcendence: An Approach To Constructive Transgender Theology With Insights From Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza And Karl Rahner, Maggie Nadalin

School of Theology and Seminary Graduate Papers/Theses

Recent attempts at theology impacting transgender individuals from the Catholic bishops in the United States have not only angered and disheartened many but have also failed to address transgender individuals as human persons. Relying on motifs devoid of scientific dialogue, the bishops’ attempts at applying theology to individuals of transgender experience ignores decades of research in both the worlds of the physical and social sciences.

This paper is an attempt to frame the discussion around transgender individuals in a space where theology and science are able to dialogue for their mutual enrichment. Drawing from the experience of the author as …

The Development Dynamics Of Football And Its Influence On Conservatism Culture In Saudi Arabia, Ardia Yunda Fauzul, Basuni Imamuddin

International Review of Humanities Studies

This research discusses the development dynamics of Saudi Arabian football and its influence on conservatism culture in that country. Saudi Arabia is known as a conservative country and tends not to be inclusive toward outside cultures. However, in the past few years, Saudi Arabia has begun to open up and be moderate, including in the realm of sports. This research is interesting to discuss because football, which is actually the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia, has actually become a channel for creating a cultural transformation from conservative to moderate. This study aims to explain the history and development of …

The Misadventures Of Expectations, Laura Elizabeth Solano

Masters Theses

The following research and manuscript discusses the art of using characterization and storytelling to teach younger generations. If used effectively, characterization has the power to transport a reader into the story’s world. The manuscript that follows is the first attempt at a story about friendship, loyalty, and self-actualization. Against all odds, a young man leaves his country to uncover the truth about his family’s demise and reported treason. As he ventures forward, he meets all kinds of people and learns the value of true friendship.