Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Something Good, Kendra Thompson

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Instead, Kendra Thompson

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Archangel Michael, Pam Adams

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Winter Weary, Danielle Wyenberg

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Worth, Danielle Wyenberg

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Radium Girls - Written By D. W. Gregory, Laurel A. Koerner

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Weapons Revives A Hitchcockian Sensibility Among Bland Horror Offerings, Josh Matthews

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Harnessing Irrationality, Jennifer E. Smith

All Theses

My thesis work considers the presence of objectifying gazes in representations of women in Western visual media and pop culture. I reference film, television, short form content shared on social media, and pornography to identify and repurpose tools of objectification in my large scale drawings and animated GIFs. I compare the objectifying tropes present in contemporary entertainment media and pop culture to those present in the Western art historical tradition of the reclining female nude, mythology and folklore, and pornography. Using these comparisons, I discuss objectification in terms of passive and active, consumption and appetite, and idealization and devaluation. I …

Autoethnography, Poetic Performance Narratives, And Pláticas As Dialogues Of Radical Love, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This piece examines Autoethnography, Poetic Performance Narratives, and Pláticas as decolonial methodologies that challenge the coloniality of knowledge and center voices historically excluded from academic discourse. These approaches honor traditions rooted in community, solidarity, and radical love, presenting lived realities without oversimplification while inviting readers to inhabit contradictions and imagine ethical possibilities for equity. Grounded in Latin American and Chicana/Latina/Indígena feminist scholarship, this work situates these practices within a legacy of decolonial epistemologies that resist dominant Western paradigms and affirm lived experience as a site of theory-making. Through this lens, the piece seeks to: (1) bear witness to shared experiences, …

The Collapse Of The Cotton States League: Segregation And The Final Years Of Minor League Baseball In South Arkansas, Alex Mason Becker Mceachern

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1953 through 1955 the Cotton States League of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana went through an integration and financial crisis that led to its collapse. Through this three season stretch several clubs attempted to sign and play black ballplayers, a first in the segregated minor league. While the major leagues and a majority of minor leagues successfully integrated, the Cotton States League represented one of the final holdouts of whites-only baseball. The league collapsed in 1955 due to a myriad of issues including declining interest, which led to severe financial issues. This thesis will examine the final three years of …

Review: Poetter, Thomas S. Curriculum Fragments: A Currere Journey Through Life Processes., Joseph Wiederhold

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Poetter’s book Curriculum Fragments—and the stories shared within— have changed the way I think about education. Redefined it. Recentered it on what matters most—the human experience, the life processes at the center of Poetter’s book: losing, knowing, forgiving, relating, hoping, growing, loving. Each of Poetter’s fragments—reflective narratives written following the Currere methodology (Pinar)—caused me to reevaluate my practice.

A Forgotten Piece Of History: The Story Of The First Municipal Council Of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Chandra R. De Silva

History Faculty Publications

The website of the Municipal Council of Colombo asserts that it was founded in 1865 (Colombo Municipal Council, 2015). This is also the story that is recounted in scholarly histories of Colombo, in modern websites and in popular accounts of the history of the city. The objective of this article is to demonstrate that Colombo had a municipal council as early as the sixteenth century and to illuminate the story of its existence for over 70 years - until well into the seventeenth century. It also explores the functions of the council, its relationship with Portuguese officials who ruled the …

The Fate Of Meaning In An Age Of Machines: A Nietzschean Warning On Artificial Intelligence, Graham Johnston

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Artificial intelligence is quickly taking precedent in lives all over the world. It has emerged as one of the most controversial inventions of the 21st century, and represents a larger digital shift that is being taken among first world society. As our lives shift into unprecedented digitized territory, new technology brings more questions than answers, but there seems to be no slowing down despite patches of uncertainty. AI brings new forms of innovation to the table that drastically change the way humans interact with productivity as a whole. When these factors are observed from a philosophical lens, patterns arise that …

From Directory To Database, Simeon A. Betapudi

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, I attempted to scrape Memphis City Directories images into text and to sort that data into an organized data table. While the project was ultimately unsuccessful, the purpose of the project extended beyond an organized data table. Incorporating interdisciplinary elements - in this project, a data science skillset - into historical research has become a useful, if not essential, aspect of the discipline of history. The second half of the presentation deals with the idea of the changing role of history after the advent of big data.

A Faith-Based Approach To Mental Health Challenges, Patrick Leblanc

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This project sheds light on mental health issues within the Black community and the need for faith communities to intentionally address mental health issues in communities of color. Black men are oppressed by an interplay of cultural, historical, societal, and economic factors that impact their well-being. Racial discrimination and oppression are non-medical drivers exacerbating mental health disorders among Black men. The influences of culture and faith fabricate barriers to help-seeking behavior, and mistaken perceptions of masculinity cause many men to suffer in silence. To begin erasing derogatory perceptions of mental health disorders, faith communities need to increase mental health …

The Spiritual Care Of Hospice Patients With Cognitive Deficits, Shane Sullivan

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT How can a hospice chaplain know whether their presence and ministry make a meaningful difference when visiting patients with dementia or other serious cognitive impairments? This project thesis seeks to answer that question conclusively. The theological foundation of this project centers on the doctrine of the imago Dei—the image of God—as it relates to individuals who are dying with cognitive deficits. Specifically, it explores how a person who is helpless and near death continues to reflect the image of God. The project intervention described here is the creation of a specialized training guide for hospice chaplains at Bridge Hospice …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces Prof.

International Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Works Of Love From Russia, Alisa Gorshenina

International Dialogue

This reflective artist’s statement by Alisa Gorshenina (Alice Hualice) intertwines autobiographical narrative with the creative context of four works produced during and after her politically forced displacement from Russia. Gorshenina recounts a lifelong pattern of resisting external pressures—from expectations to relocate for education and career advancement to demands that she flee Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. She frames her continued desire to live in her hometown of Nizhny Tagil as an act of personal agency and a “new language of resistance,” grounded not in state loyalty but in an authentic, non-nationalistic love of place. Increasing censorship, denunciations, canceled …

Introduction And Letter To Firas And Ali, Joanna Zabielska

International Dialogue

In this deeply personal and politically charged epistolary essay, Joanna Zabielska reflects on the intersecting forms of erasure occurring within European cultural institutions and at the continent’s militarized borders. Framed as a letter to two men—Firas and Ali—whom the author met during the humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, the piece recounts their experiences of pushbacks, violence, detention, and survival, contextualizing their stories within a broader critique of European migration regimes. Zabielska juxtaposes this with her account of institutional censorship in Austria, where the names of the two men were removed from her VR installation Über das Neue at Belvedere …

Fragments, Najlaa Attaallah

International Dialogue

In Fragments (شظايا), Najlaa Attaallah offers a poetic, intimate, and devastating meditation on exile, trauma, and the unrelenting violence endured by Palestinians in Gaza. Written from Reykjavík yet emotionally tethered to her homeland, Attaallah narrates the psychic rupture caused by witnessing war from afar—the guilt of safety, the suffocating pull of memory, and the sense of existing as “a body without certainty.” Across lyrical vignettes, she explores the collapse of ordinary life under the weight of collective horror: sleeplessness, paralysis, obsessive monitoring of news, and the disintegration of routine maternal roles. The text moves between present anguish and childhood …

From Inside The Recording Studio, Mckayla J. Adkison

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This project documents the historical, technical, and creative significance of recording studios through both industry examples and the design and construction of a personal backyard studio. By examining iconic studios such as Abbey Road and Capitol Records, the paper highlights how technological innovation, acoustic engineering, and architectural design have shaped the evolution of recorded music. These concepts are then applied to the planning and construction of a custom-built recording studio, emphasizing room dimensions, sound isolation techniques, acoustic treatment, lighting, and sustainable design choices. In addition, the project addresses the importance of aesthetics and emotional comfort in creating a space that …

“Fighting For Our Future” The Grassroots Victory For Ethnic Studies In The Pajaro Valley Unified School District, Eli L. Davies

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This Capstone project captures personal participant ethnography of the 2023-2025 campaign to reinstate an esteemed Ethnic Studies consultant at the Pajaro Valley Unified School District in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, CA. I joined students, educators, parents, and community members to form a grassroots movement of resistance to counter right-wing Zionist attacks on Ethnic Studies. This paper will show how the rich legacy and spirit of resistance within Watsonville contributed to the victory against academic repression in K-12 Ethnic Studies.

Boxing The Shadow, Based On Some True Stories By Madskater Bohannon, Brad Haines

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Creative writing, as a therapeutic modality, delves into memory and confronts fragmented emotional and cognitive processes through the medium of written language. For me, this involves language exerting resistance against memory, physical form, and silence. Boxing the Shadow, a hybrid of memoir, flash nonfiction, poetry, graphic novel scripting, and playwriting, emerges from my experiences with moral injury, and the ongoing process of self-expression that challenges institutional structures. At its essence, writing is an act of survival: it renders visible the inarticulable, identifies the phantoms and specters that haunt, and finds a suitable form to accommodate memory's unreliability and the jaggedness …

Losing Control: Evaluative Access And The Limits Of Attributability In Angela Smith’S Theory Of Moral Responsibility, Henry Kissam

Honors Theses

The unwilling addict agent archetype–who wholeheartedly resolves to abstain from taking a drug but takes it regardless–is important to moral responsibility theorists for many reasons, but two in particular stand head-and-shoulders above the rest. The first is the frequency with which the archetype must be reckoned with through our everyday practices of moral assessment. It is not an idle thought experiment, pushing nothing but the theoretical limits of a particular theory. It is a near-ubiquitous presence in real, practical moral assessment. The second reason is a consequence of the first. Because we deal with the archetype frequently, we morally assess …

Princesses & Unicorns, Children's Health

Book Recommendations

Book recommendation list from the digital library collection focused on the topic of princesses and unicorns.

Ecotheology For Kids, Lana Glenn

Theses

This project includes research into the eco-anxiety of children and how ecotheology may help ease the children’s minds. This project is meant as a sign of hope in the climate crisis; there are so many reasons to look forward to ecological improvements for the Earth. As adults, we should remind children of these reasons to be hopeful for the future. This 24-page book has illustrations with prayers to help calm the readers, while the cover is informational and inviting.

The Vampire In Video Games: Narrative Structures, Game Mechanics, And Cultural Significance, Ricardo Longo Minervino

Theses

This thesis examines how vampires are represented in video games by analyzing narrative structures, game mechanics, and cultural meaning. Using the existing games of Vampyr, V Rising, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, The Sims 4: Vampires, Skyrim: Dawnguard, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Bloodlines 2, the study identifies which design strategies successfully create an engaging and believable vampire experience for the player, as well as determining which development decisions could hurt the experience for players. Using formalism, symbolism, feminist methodology, and player reception theory, this thesis argues that vampire games function best when players confront moral dilemmas, experience consequences for feeding …

Rubbing Away Respect: How Repeated Touch Alters The Meaning Of Women’S Statues, Olivea Kittrell

Theses

This thesis examines how repeated public interactions with statues of women, particularly the ritualized rubbing of their breasts, alter both the material surfaces and symbolic meanings of statues. We will focus on three bronze sculptures: the Molly Malone statue in Dublin, the Juliet statue in Verona, and the Bust of Dalida in Paris. Through these, we will investigate how statues created with commemorative intent become sites of sexualized behavior based on gender. The problem this thesis addresses is the lack of scholarly analysis on how gendered public interaction physically and symbolically transforms statues of women. While some scholarship covers either …

Frameworks Of Genius: Fresco, Labor, Scaffolding, And Patronage In The Making Of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Jackelyn Eileen Adkins

Theses

This thesis examines how the materiality of production and the patronage of Pope Julius II influenced the visual and conceptual outcome of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. It argues the physical demands of the fresco medium, the architectural constraints of the chapel, and the material infrastructure, such as the pigments, scaffolding, and spatial dynamics related to the political, theological, and ideological imperatives of papal authority. The materials served as a symbolic extension of Pope Julius II’s ambitions, embedding his message directly into the frescoes. By foregrounding the complex web of labor and materials that supported the project, this …