Arts and Humanities Commons^™

America's Highest Stage: Utopians, Capitalists, And Trail Runners On Pikes Peak, Mitchell Morris

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Since ancient times, Pikes Peak’s prominence on the land has endowed it with prominence in the minds of all who have lived around it. This ancient dynamic was reinforced in the nineteenth century by the famed expedition of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike in 1806 and the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush in 1858. Since then, the mountain has become a stage. Standing tall, visible from hundreds of miles around, and known from coast to coast, Pikes Peak is a platform that has attracted diverse historical actors to come and perform, elevate their endeavors to new heights, and demonstrate what they, and people …

Climate Goodbyes: Reporting On Loss, Change And The Human Response In Montana, Madeline Jorden

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This portfolio explores how climate-driven environmental change intersects with long-standing tensions over natural resource management, tribal sovereignty, and rural identity in Montana. It consists of three stories: a historically low water year at Flathead Lake that intensified disputes between tribal dam operators and non-tribal waterfront homeowners; the first confirmed presence of invasive smallmouth bass in the Bitterroot River, signaling warming stream conditions and ecological disruption; and a political narrative from Colstrip, where coal industry workers cling to promises of revival amid economic and regulatory decline. Each piece illustrates how climate change acts not only as an environmental force but also …

Challenged: A Practice-Based Analysis Of Simulating The Realities Of Teaching Through Play, Shanel Lara Locke

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

ChallengED is a classroom simulation game designed to explore the emotional and procedural realities of teaching through interactive play. Rather than attempting to manufacture empathy, the project focuses on conveying the unpredictability, humor, and fatigue that shape daily classroom life. Drawing from my own teaching experience, the game uses experiential realism and embodied interaction to communicate how educators navigate constant interruptions, shifting demands, and limited control. The development process also became a therapeutic practice, offering a way to reinterpret professional challenges through creative experimentation. Situated within practice-based research, ChallengED demonstrates how game design can function as both artistic inquiry and …

The Hardheaded Got To Feel It To Believe It, Magdalene Eden Luna-Buckelew

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Memoire short stories about the author’s experiences in Southern California working as an artist, exotic dancer, and going through various 12 step recovery programs and therapies to heal from childhood trauma.

Campesino World-Building: Stories Of Migration, Memory, And Care In The Tension Of The Colonial Frame, Chelsea Ríos Gómez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Campesinos, often reduced to the label of “farmworkers”, are too often seen only through the lens of their labor within profit-driven systems. This thesis disrupts that limited narrative by illuminating the rich, expansive nature of vivencias campesinas, ways of being that transcend capitalist measures of value. These vivencias are lived, embodied experiences rooted in campesino lifeways, encompassing cultural, spiritual, and relational practices that nurture and sustain life.

My research is guided by four central questions: (1) In what ways have campesinos in pixley resisted exploitative labor systems, and how can this resistance be understood as a form of care labor? …

Place-Based Learning Practices: A Diptych Case Study Of Human And More-Than-Human Relationality At The Tribal And Western Academic Institutional Interface, Karley M. Rojas-Vienneau

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The ‘Place-Based Learning Practices Project’ is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective environments …

Representation In Higher Education: A Closer Look Into Cal Poly Humboldt’S Hsi Designation Through The Courageous Cuentos Retrospective, Audriana Peñaloza

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

When it comes to representation in education, it can be inconsistent. For many students of color, it can either feel like their identity is included in the conversations in the classroom and on campus, or it can feel like an afterthought — especially in higher education. Many colleges in the country are classified as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), Cal Poly Humboldt being one of them. This designation claims that Humboldt has the resources and support systems for all students of color, especially for the Hispanic/Latine population on campus. However, it looks like it is the student population that rise …

Hope Transforms: An Analysis Of The Novel Indiana, Jemimah "Miah" Dawn Lodes

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

George Sand’s Indiana (1832), often misread as a romance, critiques France’s failure to uphold Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité—freedom, equality, and unity—by excluding people of color, women, and peasants during its shift from the Ancien Régime’s monarchy to the democratic Nouveau Régime, now in its Fifth Republic. This study surveys the French literary canon through textual analysis, engaging writers like La Fontaine, Molière, Marivaux, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Danton, Duras, and Dracius. While analyzing these authors, this study also investigates Sir Ralph Brown’s transformational monologue as well as the relationship between Hamlet’s Ophelia and the Amistad voyage, where hundreds of souls were …

The Experience Of Child Language Brokering In Latin/Hispanic Students: Understanding How Clb Shapes Attitudes Towards Higher Education, Noemi Maldonado

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Immigrants often pursuing a better life than that in their own places of birth migrate to the states. In order to make lives in the states they bring their families with them or begin to create their own already inside the host country. With little knowledge of the place, they arrive and with nothing more than the help of their children, they seek to find a place in the society they became a part of. Immigrant children or those who come from migrant families often must help their parents, caretakers, or extended family manage the English language and American culture …

Lineation To Liberation: The Transformative Power Of Poetic Rhetoric, Amber Rae Alvarez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project explores the transformative power of poetic rhetoric and examines how poetry as a form of expressive art serves as a means of reclamation in the aftermath of encounters with the American criminal justice system. I contend that poetry provides a space where folks can reimagine (and reclaim) their identities, asserting their agency in empowering and authentic ways. Taking a Cultural Studies and Critical Prison Studies informed approach, this project engages the concept of lineation to liberation to conduct a close reading analysis of artist (Reginald) Dwayne Betts’ poetry. Betts’ work not only provides a powerful example of how …

Harmony Or Discord? A Study On The Alignment Between National Objectives And Reformed Social Studies Textbooks In Egypt, Lina Yehia

Theses and Dissertations

Education systems, in many parts of the world, have served as a channel for communicating national goals to students, and Egypt has not been an exception. This study examines how public textbooks effectively align with equipping future generations of Egyptians to fulfill the nation’s development policy goals set for 2030. Utilizing a qualitative research design, this study employed textbook and document analyses of the published national policy goals of the current administration, along with the most recently reformed social studies textbooks of Grades 4, 5, and 6, a product of EDU 2.0. Based on an analysis of national documents, the …

The Southern Tide And Under The Green Cloud, By Hamish Williams. Reviewed By Nyssa Gilkey., Nyssa Gilkey

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Review: The Shape Of Power: Stories Of Race And American Sculpture, Jiaying (Gloria) Dai

Art Inquiries

The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, co-curated by Karen Lemmey,

Tobias Wofford, and Grace Yasumura, ambitiously asked: How does American sculpture

intersect with the history of race in the United States?1 Positioning itself as the first major survey

exhibition of American sculpture in decades, this exhibition featured 82 sculptures created by 70

artists spanning from 1792 to 2023.

Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch

Animal Sentience

We often face grave practical decisions that seem to hinge on whether a system is sentient. This family of cases includes invertebrate animals, people who are unresponsive after brain injury, fetuses, neural organoids, and now AI technologies. We must decide what to do despite ongoing disagreement about the nature of sentience. In our state of uncertainty, we should pragmatically transform the question from “Is it sentient?” to “Is it a sentience candidate, an investigation priority, or neither?”. When a system is a sentience candidate, it is negligent to fail to consider precautions. We should instead evaluate precautions for their proportionality …

Censorship: Through An Iowan’S Eyes, Erin Mcrae

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This is a collection of creative work prefaced by an introduction, which gives an overview of the development of these pieces. The pieces contained in this thesis are comprised of various genres, including creative nonfiction, poetry, and short fiction.

Polynomial Invariants For Classical Invariant Groups, John Diller

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The classical invariant theory of matrix groups plays a fundamental role in modern algebra and geometry, with origins in Hilbert’s Fourteenth Problem concerning the finite generation of rings of invariants. In this thesis, we study polynomial functions on spaces of matrices and investigate their invariants under natural actions of classical groups. After recalling the geometric and algebraic motivations behind Hilbert’s question, we focus on invariants for several complex Lie groups, including the general linear group GL(V), the symplectic group Sp(V), the orthogonal group O(V), and the special orthogonal group SO(V). Building on foundational work of Hermann Weyl and a modern …

The Animated Frontier: Fluctuations Of Power Across Time And Space In Flows Of U.S. And Japanese Animated Media, Kendall Belopavlovich

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project critiques the historical and contemporary relationships between the U.S., Japan, and marginalized groups through the lens of animation. The U.S. and Japan share a complex history, from the opening of Japan during the Edo period to events like Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings, which shaped their present-day alliance. Furthermore, the U.S. and Japan are the central nodes in flows of animation, where both nation states have dominated the global market at various points in animation’s history. Today, Japan's soft power in media is significant, and the flow of power between these nations has influenced media forms and …

Indigenous-Industrial Heritage: Centering Indigenous Voices In Minnesota's Iron Range, Larissa A. Juip

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Industrial heritage refers to the material remains, sites, landscapes, and practices associated with industrial and extractive activities. As a field, it has historically been concerned with the conservation, management, and interpretation of industrial sites and activities and forms a central narrative within Minnesota's museums. Yet such accounts often privilege object-centered narratives while silencing the presence, knowledge, and contributions of Indigenous and Descendant communities, obscuring their enduring relationships to extractive landscapes. In recent decades, critiques of traditional industrial heritage approaches have identified gaps in the discipline related to the exclusion of marginalized populations, including Indigenous Peoples. Minnesota is home to eleven …

Distributing Composition: Rhetorical Agency In First-Year Writing, Elizabeth Novotny

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project centers on engaging students in class lessons related to rhetorical agency. Typically understood as the capacity to act, within rhetoric, I define agency as the capacity to make meaning. In most traditional Western conceptions, agency is primarily located with the individual rhetor. However, these views were increasingly challenged throughout the later twentieth century as theorists from various traditions came to understand that discussing our agency as solely our own doing was insufficient. In contrast to an individualistic understanding of agency, theories that characterize rhetorical agency as more fragmented have evolved, where, instead of writing and rhetoric being …

Barbie Vlogger As Teen Influencer For Little Girls, Brilynn A. Janckila

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Mattel’s YouTube Barbie Vlogs series (2015-2022) targets 6–11-year-old girls with short narratives and prosocial messages addressing their prevalent interests and everyday experiences. While the vlog is clearly an attempt by Mattel to appeal to a market sector that includes both little girls and their Millennial parents, this analysis examines Barbie Vlogger as a social media influencer in order to explore how little girls learn to become older girls through the performance of teenage girlhood as enacted in the Barbie Vlogs. What is Barbie doing in the vlogs to show little girls who a teen girl is and what she …

Editors’ Introduction: 25th Anniversary Issue Of The Jiws, Diana J. Fox, Kimberly Chabot Davis, Priyanka Tripathi, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Miss Usa Meets Feminism: A Qualitative Study Exploring Contestants’ Thoughts On Feminist Ideals, Julia Van Steenberghe, Sandra Caron

Journal of International Women's Studies

This qualitative study explores pageant contestants’ views on feminism. A total of twelve state titleholders, aged 22-29, from the 2020 Miss USA Competition were interviewed about their motivations for participating, their own views on feminism, and their opinions about whether beauty pageants align with feminist ideals. The initial analysis of the interview transcripts revealed sixteen coding categories. A secondary analysis of these coding categories identified three overarching themes: “Pageants are Empowering,” “Swimsuit is Complicated,” and “Pageantry Has Evolved.” This study revealed that participants had many reasons for entering pageants, the least common of which related to beauty. Most …

The Influence Of Public Policies For Gender Equality On The Construction Of Women’S Autonomy In Northwestern Mexico, María F. Higuera Cota, Teresita Del Niño Jesús Carrillo Montoya

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study analyzes the influence of public policies for gender equality and how these formal support networks contribute to the construction of women’s autonomy in northwestern Mexico. It highlights the interrelation between women’s economic independence, decision-making ability, and physical autonomy. This study is also part of a broader investigation into formal support networks related to gender equality and women’s autonomy currently being conducted in the region. Adopting a qualitative methodology, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with directors of key governmental institutions in Mexico—SEMujeres in Sinaloa, INMujerBC in Baja California, and ISMujeres in Sonora—which serve as core agencies within these networks. …

Modernity, Domesticity, And Women’S Subjectivity: A Comparative Study Of The Fiction Of Jane Austen And Ling Shuhua, Rou Li

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study examines how Jane Austen and Ling Shuhua represent women’s conceptions of selfhood through domestic narratives during periods of modernization in their respective societies. Drawing on Anthony Giddens’ theory of modern intimacy and Gary Kelly’s analysis of the bourgeois cultural revolution, this comparative analysis explores how their works reflect broader societal transformations through the depiction of intimate domestic spaces. Through detailed textual analysis of Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice and several of Ling Shuhua’s short stories in Collected Essays of Ling Shuhua, this study demonstrates how both authors employ domestic settings not merely as backdrops but as dynamic …

Being An Inessential Woman: Sexual Fluidity And Migratory Identities In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Dhanya V. Sankar, Sarbani Banerjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the experiences of principal characters in Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West, particularly the woman protagonist Nadia, as they battle with displacement and assimilation. The novel highlights the challenges faced by Nadia, a migrant woman, as she navigates through constant mobility and cultural adaptation. This continuous movement engenders a similar fluidity in her sexual orientation as she searches for a home. Nadia represents the “inessential woman” of Elizabeth Spelman’s book of the same name, a woman who is othered by White, middle-class feminists who may view Muslim women as shackled by heterosexuality and religious sanctions. Yet Nadia …

Unveiling The Vulnerability Of Return Migration: A Feminist Embeddedness Perspective On Bangladeshi Women Workers, Faraha Nawaz, Tania Afrin Tonny

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study explores the vulnerability of migrant workers returning to Bangladesh through the lens of van Houte and Davids’ (2008) embeddedness framework. Centering women’s narratives offers a feminist method of embeddedness, focusing on the economic, social, and psychosocial dimensions of returning migrants’ experiences. This paper addresses the vulnerabilities experienced by women upon their return, particularly those returning from the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 30 Bangladeshi women domestic workers, this study identifies two primary causes for their return from the Middle East to Bangladesh: coercion by family members and coercion by employers. The findings indicate …

Migration And Work: An Intersectional Perspective On Women Workers In Brick Kilns In The Sivasagar District Of Assam, India, Kashmiri Saikia, Sikha Das

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper is based on fieldwork regarding brick kiln workers in the Sivasagar district of Assam, located in Northeast India. Apart from family migration, women migrate alone to these brick kilns in search of work opportunities. Despite progress, evidence suggests that many women who work in brick kilns are not afforded workplace rights and are underrepresented, unregistered, and paid lesser wages compared to men workers. Many kilns are unregulated and remain outside the purview of workplace laws. Through interviews and conversations with women workers, this paper aims to understand and analyse the dynamics of gender, migration, and work in the …

Homophobic And Transphobic Bullying: Impacts On The Mental And Physical Health Of Queer Black Adolescents In Kacen Callender’S Young Adult Fiction, Uthra Devi R.K., C. Jothi, S. Rema Devi

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines how homophobic bullying profoundly impacts the mental and physical health of Black queer children, with a particular focus on the rising suicide rate within this marginalized community. Analysing the representation of homophobic and transphobic bullying in Kacen Callender’s young adult fiction, this study explores the devastating impact of both verbal and nonverbal forms of abuse, including rejection, intimidation, and social isolation. These negative experiences contribute to long-term emotional distress, leading to an increased vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Meyer’s minority stress theory is used to examine how systematic ignorance and rejection of queerness render Black …

Recasting Gender Roles: The New Woman And The New Man In Women-Centred Contemporary Malayalam Films, Roshan B. Karimpaniyil, Shashikantha Koudur

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the representation of gender roles in select women-centred contemporary Malayalam films. It attempts to expand on the idea of the “new Indian woman” and develop a concept of the “new Indian man.” The new Indian woman is a byproduct of the cultural metamorphosis caused by liberalisation, while the new Indian man could be understood as the product of modern culture’s attempt to undermine traditional masculinity. By analysing the movies Biriyaani (2020), The Great Indian Kitchen (2021), Aanum Pennum (2021), and Sara’s (2021), as well as the short films Memories of a Machine (2016), Freedom @ Midnight (2021), …

Al-Rawabi School For Girls: The Arab Mean Girls?, Leen Masoud

Journal of International Women's Studies

Released in 2021 on Netflix and directed by Jordanian actress and director Tima Shomali, the television series Al-Rawabi School for Girls garnered international attention for its daring depiction of Jordanian girlhood and discussions of hard-hitting topics such as bullying, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and honor killings. Despite its Jordanian context, the series engaged heavily with Hollywood tropes regarding girlhood, specifically the “mean girl” trope; the show referenced this trope so often that it began to be called “the Arab Mean Girls,” referring to the cult classic US film Mean Girls (2004). This essay critically examines the utilization of popular …