Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Textus Complexus, Vishakha Ruhela

Masters Theses

textus complexus investigates how language shapes thought by merging scientific rigour and poetic action to challenge reductive narratives. My inquiry stems from a fascination with complexity as an existential condition—one that resists homogenisation, preserves collective memory, and demands inclusive, multidimensional engagement. Hybridity, as a spectrum from complicated to complex, becomes a methodological tool to uncover latent connections that lead to cross-communication, and articulate transitional spaces through recursive processes. By systematising multiplicity via layering, modularisation, and indexing, my work foregrounds expression through form, where structural clarity emerges from cumulative gestures rather than simplification.

The projects in this thesis trace the roots …

No One Thing, Kate Brown

Masters Theses

Graphic design has mobility. It is oriented toward action, travel, and distribution.

My projects put me in touch with people and ideas, language, and visual form. They’re broad, conversational, and curatorial in spirit. They allow me to cut a path through the discipline of graphic design, and to branch opportunistically out to others, when I can—to art, architecture, fashion, writing. I expand my field of operations. Make it as big as you are. Make it 1:1. Take the part and run with it. Fold it up, send it away.

Collaus Taylor

African American Funeral Programs

Collaus_Taylor.pdf - Funeral program for Collaus Taylor

Mrs. Jimmie Lee Canty

African American Funeral Programs

Mr_Jimmy_Lee_Canty.pdf - Funeral program for Jimmie Canty

Maternal Melodrama, Domesticity And Female Liberation In Dekada ‘70, Laurence Marvin S. Castillo

Social Transformations Journal of the Global South

The critically-acclaimed Dekada ‘70 represents one of the most prominent efforts in post-EDSA commercial cinema to narrate the experiences of revolutionary involvement in the context of the Martial Law era. The film is remarkable as an example of mainstream Philippine cinema’s mobilization of popular generic conventions to depict a politically charged narrative that touches upon the question of socio-political and personal liberation. In this essay, I revisit the film to examine how it deploys the subgenre of maternal melodrama in exploring gender and domestic relations as the springboard for the politico-subjective transformation of its middle-class protagonist under the violent milieu …

Cinema As Praxis: An Integrated Theoretical Framework For Philippine Social Advocacy Cinema, Herwin Benedictos Cabasal

Social Transformations Journal of the Global South

This theoretical paper examines social advocacy cinema in the Philippines as a form of counter-hegemonic cultural practice. Drawing on Third Cinema Theory (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino), critical theory (Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer), and participatory communication for social change (Paulo Freire and Thomas Tufte), this paper proposes Cinema as Praxis as an integrated theoretical framework for understanding how politically driven advocacy films operate through the convergence of cultural and political production, ideological representation and critique, and participatory communication. It argues that social advocacy cinema functions through interconnected dimensions: (1) production as praxis, in which collective and grassroots filmmaking constitutes …

The Power Of Storytelling: Creatively Facilitating Conceptual Change In The Classroom, Mackenzie S. Rose, Marcus Johnson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Conceptual knowledge encompasses understanding the interrelationships among multiple pieces of information. Misconceptions of these interrelationships illustrate the need for effective educational strategies to facilitate conceptual change, with the goal of facilitating changes in learner understanding to appropriate, accurate, and complete concepts. Strategies, such as refutation texts, have proven effective in addressing science misconceptions, yet there is a prominent gap in research on conceptual change in nonscience subjects and the use of storytelling to facilitate such change. Storytelling, presented in a range of educational subjects, invites learners to engage in social discourses and problem-solving exercises. Prompted by classroom storytelling practices, creativity, …

Hazel Davis Moore

African American Funeral Programs

Hazel Davis Moore.pdf - Funeral program for Hazel Moore

Staff Congress Ofice Files, 1990-2021, Staff Congress

University Archives Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

Silly Little Romance Books: Analyzing The Value And Function Of The Popular Romance Genre, Mckenzie Chan

Honors Projects

Amidst the increasing popularity of the romance genre, as evidenced by notable growth on online platforms such as TikTok, this project interrogates the perceived value and function of contemporary romance fiction. Drawing on the existing field of romance scholarship, this paper synthesizes key arguments pertaining to romance’s content, readers, form, and market, respectively. Such analysis is grounded in a reading of Ana Huang’s 2021 novel Twisted Love. Furthermore, given the highly gendered nature of popular romance, lenses of feminist critique are used to unpack the cultural significance of these narratives, exploring both the dangers and the merits that they …

Volume Cxliv, Number 24, May 30, 2025, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.

A Legacy Of Presence: The Enduring Impact Of Faith-Based Service, Abby M. Foreman

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"A legitimate but limited role of government and an acknowledgement of other social structures having legitimate authority in life—these are key elements of the Reformed, pluralist approach."

Posting about Christianity and public justice from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

A Legacy of Presence

Feelings That Drive, Kayla M. Jackson

LSU Master's Theses

Feelings That Drive is an interdisciplinary, multimodal thesis that blends poetry, personal narrative, lyrical essays, and spiritual reflection to explore the complex intersections of Black identity, memory, trauma, resilience, and healing in the contemporary American South. Framed in five thematic sections—Worn, Anxiousness, Desperation, Hopeful, and Restored—the work traverses emotional and geographic landscapes, most notably the author’s home in New Orleans, to trace the cumulative effects of racialized trauma, familial rupture, and spiritual seeking. Through nonlinear storytelling and form-breaking verse, the thesis confronts experiences such as anti-Blackness in institutional spaces, gendered violence, economic precarity, generational silence, and the haunting …

The Silk Butterfly Effect: Japan And The United States 1853-1941, Melodee Birlew

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the rise and fall of the silk industry in both the United States and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. While silk had been a valuable commodity for millennia for royalty, aristocrats, and the extremely wealthy, the opening of Japan's ports in 1853 soon made silk more accessible to lower classes around the world.

Consequently, Japan's newfound wealth catapulted her status among other rich and powerful nations. Japan's military might, financed in large part by the silk trade and displayed by her victory over Russia in 1905, earned her even more prestige on the …

The Rainbow War: Ballot Measure 9 And The Fight Over Gay Rights In Oregon, Patrick Douglas Lasalle

Dissertations and Theses

On November 3, 1992, Oregonians were asked to vote on Ballot Measure 9, an amendment to Oregon's constitution that would prohibit anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals, prohibit the use of public funds and facilities to "promote" homosexuality, and require schools to actively discourage homosexuality as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse." In this narrative history, I will explore Measure 9 and the ways in which it divided the state, beginning with its introduction in May 1991. I examine the history and reasoning of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, the Christian Right organization behind the measure, as well as the gay and lesbian community’s …

Dr. Daniel Brantly Sr.

African American Funeral Programs

Dr_Daniel_Brantley_Sr.pdf - Funeral program for Daniel Brantley

Archaeological, Pxrf, And Gis Analyses At The Trestle Bridge Site (8ja186), Northwest Florida, Victoria Marie Freitas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Trestle Bridge Site (8JA186), located on an eroding riverbank of the upper Apalachicola River in northwest Florida, represents a significant multi-component precontact site with occupations that date from the Early Woodland (~800 B.C.–A.D. 300) and the Fort Walton periods (A.D. 1000-1500). Previous research has broadly classified the site based on ceramic and lithic assemblages, but a detailed investigation into pottery production and environmental changes over time at the site remains unexplored in the understudied Apalachicola valley region. There also appears to be over a thousand-year gap in occupation at the site, as no Middle or Late Woodland ceramic or …

The Dialectical Transformation Of Javanese Mantras In The Aesthetic Construction Of Modern Indonesian Poetry By Sapardi Djoko Damono, Mulyono Mulyono, U'Um Qomariyah, Asep Purwo Yudi Utomo, Dyah Prabaningrum, Qurrota Ayu Neina

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

Mantras are an ancient form of poetry believed to possess a powerful ability to cure diseases, protect oneself, ward off misfortune, and foster love. Beyond those practical interests, Javanese mantras also contain philosophical values regarding the relationship between humans and God, humans and humans, and humans and the universe. These mantras become especially intriguing when reimagined in the form of modern poetry, as seen in the work of Sapardi Djoko Damono. This study explores the forms of transformation that Javanese mantras undergo in the poems by focusing on the following questions: 1) What are the forms of transformation of Javanese …

Mother Belinda Simmons Jones

African American Funeral Programs

Funeral program for Belinda Jones. Service was held on May 30, 2024 in Statesboro, Georgia

Land And Sea: Maritime Capitalism, Terrestrial Frontiers And Their Literary Mediations In Nineteenth-Century Argentina, Claudio Aguayo-Borquez Ph.D.

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

This paper grapples with two crucial landscapes of extraction of the Argentine nineteenth century and their mediation through literature: maritime capitalism and primitive accumulation. First, it describes Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's aquatic utopia, focusing on his Americanism, his equation between oceans and plains and the aporias of his Orientalism. Second, this study shows an early displacement towards countryside provincialism in Argentine ideology by analysing José Mármol's novel Amalia. Departing from Etienne Balibar's concept of interior frontiers, this paper shows the emergence of a terrestrial imagination that was crucial for the consolidation of telluric ideologies. This process of ideological displacement coincides with …

Lost In Transition: An Examination Of The Burden Of Choice In Samuel Beckett's Dramatic Works, Sam Parrish

English Theses

Samuel Beckett's plays, Waiting for Godot and Endgame, provide ample room for applying existential and speech act theories to examine the goals of the characters. In analyzing the exchanges between these characters, the audience becomes aware of the phenomenon of miscommunication and how it alienates the characters. This thesis furthers the discussion of Beckett's intentions regarding the human experience as embodied on stage by examining the text of the plays, rather than any specific performances. Specifically, I develop a framework that identifies a main character within each of the plays discussed, and how the interactions between that main character and …

Considering The Ethics Of Conserving American Art: White Nationalism And The Evolving Meanings Of Nineteenth-Century Genre And Landscape Painting, Evan M. Crocker

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the stylistic and conceptual qualities of American genre and landscape painting from the antebellum period and how these qualities acted in service to establishing white nationalism before the Civil War. The intricate and calculated system of typing in genre painting presented carefully crafted idealizations of quintessential Americans, defined by their whiteness and maleness. Landscape painters of the early- to mid-nineteenth century endowed their compositions with a sense of wondrous opportunity which justified and upheld westward expansion under Manifest Destiny. At the intersection of genre and landscape practices sits plantation paintings—specifically house portraits—in which the plantation serves as …

A Reconstruction Of The Homeric Tradition In Early Greece, Aidan F. Hoey

Student Theses

This thesis discusses the centuries-long historiographical debate that is known to us as the Homeric Question. The identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the dating from when the Homeric epic poems were composed, the Homeric diction, and the historicity of the Trojan War has puzzled scholars since Antiquity. Only by the twentieth century, scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord proved that the Iliad and Odyssey were orally composed. How the written form of the Homeric epic poems came about has become even more of a historiographic puzzle than it has been previously. Building off the …

A Quantitative And Qualitative Analysis Of The Workplace Challenges Experienced By Women, Ahmed Mohammed Almousa

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation explores the persistent workplace challenges experienced by women through three interrelated studies using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Despite decades of progress, women continue to face structural barriers, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and emotional labor demands that shape their professional experiences.

The first study analyzes GSS data to examine the impact of the #MeToo movement on self-reports of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Results show an increase in reporting sexual harassment among White men and Women of color. With respect to men of color and white women, the results were not significant or did not show an increase. …

Editor's Note, Robert Rabe

Journal of 20th Century Media History

Editor's column for Vol. 3, Issue 1

Internationalisation Zen, Kalyani Unkule

Critical Internationalization Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Bellyache, Valerie Braylovskiy

Canterbury Scholars

My manuscript of poems, called "Bellyache," speaks to my experience with endometriosis and how it intersects with both womanhood, and the pain we inherit from our ancestors that becomes stored in our bodies over time. This project gave me the permission to write poems that grapple with both escaping and recreating what it’s like to be a woman inside the medical system which continues to equate pain with hysteria, and inside a world that either says you’re sick, or you aren’t.

Disability: A Dirty Word? How Language Historically Perpetuates Exclusion And Systemic Oppression, Kelly E. Imm

Graduate Masters Theses

In 1990, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) marked a pivotal moment in the American disability rights movement, which began in the 1960s and sought to secure civil rights for people with disabilities. Despite this monumental achievement, this thesis considers how the language used throughout American history and culture to describe people with disabilities, even within the confines of progressive legislation like the ADA, remains deeply rooted in ableist and oppressive historical attitudes. At the heart of this issue, this thesis demonstrates how the medicalization of disability, which has dominated American culture for centuries, continues to frame …

The Finest Orientalism: "The Orient" And Empire In 19th Century Romantic Poetry, Nathan D. Banfield

Graduate Masters Theses

This project seeks to interrogate the way that nineteenth-century Romantic authors incorporated tropes and depictions of the Near East in their poetry, and the relationship that their use of these tropes has to furthering the British Empire’s imperial aims. Drawing from the theory of “Orientalism” articulated by Edward Said, and his theoretical underpinnings in Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse analysis, I consider four major Romantic poets whose works articulate different versions of “The Orient” as a discursive entity. Said postulates that the “The Orient,” rather than being an inaccurate depiction of an existing geopolitical region, is a fabrication which is …

Like Lady Godiva: Godiva's Fandom From Fiction To Activism, Elizabeth Reid Boyd

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The legend of Lady Godiva, who famously rode naked through the streets of Coventry, veiled only by her long, flowing hair, has endured for centuries as a symbol of protest, sacrifice, and spectacle. According to the most popular version of the tale, Godiva pleaded with her husband, Lord Leofric of Mercia, to lift an oppressive tax that threatened to impoverish the people of Coventry. In response, Leofric issued a provocative challenge: he would revoke the tax only if she rode unclothed through the town. Godiva accepted, and in a gesture of defiance and compassion, undertook the ride. The townspeople, out …