Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Barriers And Bridges: Exploring Factors That Shape Mental Health Service Utilization In Rural America, Margaret Wiwuga

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Despite disproportionately higher suicide mortality rates and comparable prevalence of mental illness across urban and rural communities in the United States, rural populations across the nation experience significantly lower access to and utilization of mental health services, naturally leading to worse comprehensive outcomes. This literature review examines multifaceted factors shaping mental health service use in rural America, taking note of both barrier and enabling factors that impede or enable these unique populations’ willingness and ability to access and use mental health services. Ten articles published prior to September 9, 2025, were selected from the James Madison University Libraries’ Psychology and …

A Weeping Willow, An Original Script Enriching The Canon Of Deaf Plays, Tyler Furzland

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

This creative writing capstone project presents A Weeping Willow, an original play script that explores themes of resilience, mental health, human connections, and acceptance. A teenager wakes up with no memory of the past year. Through fragmented glimpses of the past and the future, he struggles to piece together what happened on the most important day of his life. The play does not revolve around a Deaf-thematic storyline, a story that highlights the auditory aspects of the Deaf experience. This play is influenced by a study of scripts written by Deaf playwrights or plays featuring Deaf characters. This research examines …

A Puff's Exploration Of Wayne Hopkins, Ethan G. Mullen, Leon Wiebers

Honors Thesis

This thesis is a synthesis of modalities I have studied during the course of my Theatre Arts degree, applied to the realization of the principal character, Wayne Hopkins in the award-winning play Puffs (Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic) a LMU Theatre Arts Department production. This work is divided into three major sections. First, I reflect on how I applied acting tools I have studied at LMU to the development of my character and performance. These include script analysis, story structure analysis, breath work, and Viewpoints training. Second, I share media displaying my …

Silent No Longer: Pedro Albizu Campos And The Fbi, Noah D. Dubroff

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis explores the Puerto Rican revolutionary, Pedro Albizu Campos, and how he evolved from a typical independence-minded young man into a radical who actively rebelled against the colonial rule of the U.S. because of the pressures applied by law enforcement agencies, especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The United States annexed Puerto Rico in 1898 at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Ever since, many Puerto Ricans have strongly advocated for their independence from the continental U.S., shaping the relationship into the present day. This article argues that the pressure and strain of such an imperial relationship influenced Albizu …

Identity And Intervention: United States' Foreign Policy Toward The Dominican Republic, Eileen Ledesma

College Honors Program

Constructivist theory provides a framework for understanding United States foreign policy toward the Dominican Republic during the U.S. occupation (1916-1924), the rise and consolidation of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship, and the regime’s eventual political isolation during the Cold War. This thesis argues that U.S. foreign policy was shaped by identity narratives and political culture, also identified through historically constructed understandings and the repeated performance of legitimacy and order. By situating U.S.-Dominican Republic relations within broader debates in international relations theory, this thesis highlights the explanatory value of constructivism in understanding the evolution and contradictions of U.S. policy in Latin America. …

2026-05-14 Message From The Preseident, Morehead State University. Office Of The President.

Staff Congress Records

Message sent on May 14, 2026 by the President to the campus community regarding upcoming dates of importance, summer hours, and campus personnel announcements and updates.

Local And Indigenous Knowledge, Innovation, And Sustainable Development: Creating Sustainable Futures Amidst Crisis Conditions At The Community Level, Carlos Andrés Arias

Dissertations and Theses

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future (1987) made clear the need to reject longstanding development processes and focus on sustainable development. The Commission stressed that actual sustainable development integrates three elements: social development, economic development, and environmental protection. Though developed nations have achieved economic growth through conventional and extractive development practices, these practices have intensified natural disasters driven by climate change, increased food insecurity, and deepened poverty. This has acutely impacted Indigenous and local communities, many of whom face crisis conditions, such as war, terrorism, civil disorder, and their aftermath. Even so, many of these communities successfully implement …

Architecture As Political Symbolism: Power, Authority, & The Built Form, Naomi Minwalla

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This study examines how architecture functions as a medium of political symbolism, exploring the ways in which built environments communicate authority, ideology, and collective identity. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Murray Edelman, the research first establishes how political symbols shape social cohesion, legitimize authority, and construct political meaning. The study then applies architectural interpretation frameworks developed by Martin Warnke, Erwin Panofsky, and Alois Riegl to analyze how symbolic meaning is embedded within architectural form, spatial organization, and ornamentation.

Using a qualitative comparative case study design, the research analyzes two major religious structures: the Seville Cathedral …

Treatment Of Different Non-State Actors In Detention: A Legal, Moral, And National Security Analysis, Alison P. Raedel

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This thesis analyzes state behavior regarding the treatment of non-state actors through three major frameworks: international law, ethical theory, and national security. Two cases are compared: the treatment of al-Qaeda detainees by the United States after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and the treatment of the Angolan liberation movements by the Portuguese during the Angolan War of Independence. These cases were chosen to assess how the three frameworks apply across different non-state actors, which include terrorist organizations and liberation movements. International law provides a baseline for rights and protections, but it is often selectively interpreted. Just war theory gives …

Identity And Ideology: Dolores Ibarruri's Reconciliation Of Motherhood And Communism, Marvin Black

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The Spanish Civil War remains a significant cornerstone of the historical narrative of the early 20th century, as it served as the political and military precursor to World War II. The war was far more complex than a simple conflict between two ideologies, with many political and military leaders often overlooked. One of these individuals was Dolores Ibárruri, a leader of the Spanish Communist Party, who called on her experiences as both a mother and a communist to galvanize support for the Second Republic. How these two facets interacted and were shaped by Ibárruri’s personal experiences is often overlooked. Through …

Sanctuary And Disappointment: Jewish German Refugees In The United States Army In World War Ii, Zachary P. Watts

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This paper examines the experiences of German-Jewish refugees who became intelligence soldiers in the United States Army. They are frequently called the Ritchie Boys, for their training in Camp Ritchie, Maryland. The paper focuses mostly on a single Ritchie Boy named Frank Adler, who came to the United States as a teenager from Austria in 1938 and ended up returning to his hometown as a soldier. The Ritchie History museum holds a large collection of Adler’s letters which form the most important source for this project. I have found a duality of experience from German and Austrian Jews in the …

The Culinary History Of Korean Immigrants 1903-2025, Eun Soo Han

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This paper is an exploration into the role that Korean dishes like Kalbi, Korean marinated or grilled meat, and Kimchi, a fermented vegetable or fruit dish played in the development of the Korean Immigrant community and the cultivation of cultural identity of Korean immigrants. This paper offers a brief overview into the history some of the major dishes that forms the core of the three sections of this article with Kalbi being the main theme for the section on Korean immigration to Hawaii in 1903 and Kimchi being the main dish discussed in the second to third section that explores …

Remembering Carlo Ferarai: Life, Community, And Death In Industrial London, William W. Wilder

Masters Theses, 2020-current

During the 19^th century English medical schools relied on resurrection men to provide dead bodies for anatomical dissection. While resurrection men typically took bodies from graveyards, there were also those who committed murder in order to sell the bodies of their victims. Carlo Ferarai, an unhoused immigrant child, was the victim of just such a murder, and his death contributed to many legal and social changes which have been studied by historians. This paper recontextualizes Carlo’s death by exploring his life as a social history. Using court transcripts, newspapers, and other sources, alongside insights drawn from urban history, and …

Multilingual Meaning Making In Zambian Social Media Discourse: Rhetorical Framing, Identity Construction, Persuasion And Digital Writing Practices On Facebook, Mwesah Mpundu Kapesa

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This study investigates how language choices in Zambian social media discourse construct identity, frame narratives, and influence audiences. Although major social media platforms are predominantly English and Eurocentric, Zambia is a highly multilingual society, creating tension between global linguistic norms and local language practices. Despite growing scholarship on digital discourse, limited research examines how Zambian users navigate multilingual communication online, particularly regarding identity construction, rhetorical framing, and audience engagement. Using a qualitative research design grounded in discourse analysis and informed by critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and sociolinguistic theory (Gee, 2014), the study collected two weeks of Facebook data. User‑generated …

The Chinese Red Record: Western Lynch Law And The Nationalization Of Racial Terror, 1853–1915, Kevin Hegg

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Between the California Gold Rush and the First World War, Chinese immigrants were subjected to a systematic regime of extralegal racial violence marked by lynchings, riots, massacres, and forced expulsions. Using a newly compiled dataset of anti-Chinese lynchings and related lethal incidents, this thesis reconstructs a “red record” of that violence and traces its spread from California and the Pacific Coast to the Mississippi Delta. In doing so, it expands the geography of what Ida B. Wells called “OUR country’s national crime” in “Lynch Law in America” (1900). These extralegal killings formed part of a Western anti-Chinese exclusionist regime that …

Aggression And Mobility: The Power Of A Cavalry Pursuit During The Civil War, Leland G. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Decades after the Napoleonic Wars ended, military theorists in western countries began to write books and other manuals on how to successfully use cavalry on the battlefield. One such writer; Barron Jomini, mentions in his book The Art of War that cavalry should be used for reconnaissance, guarding flanks and looting, but its most important use was “opening the door for victory” by exploitation and pursuing the enemy for total victory. Jomini’s book was influential for the generals fighting the Civil War. In the early days of the war the Confederates would greatly use cavalry to conduct reconnaissance, while the …

The Coffee Crisis: What Starbucks Coffee Company Teaches Us About Exploitation, Chloe Baker

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The average American consumer associates the coffee shop with an earth-toned color pallet, a comfortable seating arrangement, and a delicious beverage. American popular culture mimics that imagery, in television shows like NBC’s Friends and Frasier, and movies like You’ve Got Mail. Coffee shops are one kind of third place, a term coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe tertiary spaces to work and home where people commune and form community. But a darker side of coffee shops exists relatively unnoticed. This thesis demonstrates how popular cultural portrayals of coffee and coffee shops—small businesses and Starbucks Coffee Company—have both …

"An Hospital For These People": Community Cooperation In The Construction Of America's First Psychiatric Hospital, Kira Quintin

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The Public Hospital in the Colonial Williamsburg Historic Area is a reconstruction of the first psychiatric hospital in America. It is intended to interpret the psychiatric history of colonial Virginia to museum-goers, but with no dedicated staff or interpreters, the site is open for less than two hours a week at most. This project seeks to expand the accessibility of the site and the conversation surrounding the history of mental health among visitors to one of the largest living history museums in the country. This was accomplished by working with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to publish a self-guided tour of …

On Paper, Dallas Spears

MFA in Visual Art

I create sculptural works from discarded copy paper that I combine with found objects, all sourced from my immediate environment. The associations of paper such as writing, tearing, stacking, folding, and scribbling echo through my formal gestures. Found objects mimic these gestures, while adding unexpected textures and colors to the compositions. These machine-made objects are intertwined with the handmade to form displays of exchange. I am interested in the tension between the manufactured and the hand-formed, and how these tensions inform our daily lives. Objects that surpass the human lifespan, products alienated from us via opaque networks of exchange, especially …

A Kantian Guide To Understanding Agentic Ai And Its Ethical Consequences, Amelia Wang

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

The rapid emergence of Agentic AI, which are systems capable of autonomous, multi-step decision-making with minimal human oversight, has prompted growing discourse and concern regarding whether such systems possess a form of agency comparable to that of human beings, and subsequently, what ethical responsibilities ensue if they do. This thesis argues that many of the ethical risks surrounding Agentic AI stem from a fundamental misconception, which is the tendency to describe these systems using the language of agency ("deciding," "acting," "choosing") without examining whether they satisfy the philosophical conditions for genuine rational agency. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the …

Care As Method: Sound, Duration, Relation In Contemporary Art Practice, Violet L. White

MFA in Visual Art

Abstract Care as Method: Sound, Duration, and Multispecies Relation in Contemporary Art Practice

This thesis proposes care as a method of artmaking, not a subject, theme, or aesthetic position, but the actual structural logic through which a body of work is built, sustained, and understood. Working at the intersection of ecological art practice and relational aesthetics, it asks what happens when the encounter at the center of the work is not between two people but between species, infrastructures, and histories of use and what obligations that encounter generates.

The argument is developed through six interconnected works: installations, sound compositions, sculptures, …

Temporal Ubiquity, Brittni Mosby

MFA in Visual Art

My thesis examines looking as a sacred and relational practice rooted in familial memory, storytelling, and the photographic archive. Drawing from early experiences of engaging family photographs alongside my mother and great-grandmother, I conceptualize these encounters as the formation of “temporal altars”: living vessels that activate space, memory, and multiplicity. These intimate acts of looking and listening position the home as a critical site where Black subjectivity is held with care and complexity.

By casting these modes of perception into domestic spaces, my thesis not only resists reductive external gazes but interrogates the archive as a colonial apparatus structured by …

Grounding In Place And Space, Levi Anthony Walker

MFA in Visual Art

The foundation of Levi Walker’s artistic practice relies on the use of natural materials that reference the landscape. The materials within his sculptures, in combination with sculptural processes, create a conceptual language that is in conversation with the land and the ways that we engage with it as a community. As a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, his work addresses the relationship that Indigenous tribes have with the federal government, and the ways the tribe must navigate colonial systems in order to support their communities without erasing their identities or beliefs. Influenced by his upbringing, a strong …

Alive In Translation, Shiyao Fu

MFA in Visual Art

Alive in Translation explores in-between cultural conditions through my process of working with materials metaphorically, focusing on how they interact and intersect. By using paradoxical pairings—organic and synthetic, fluid and rigid, liquid and solid, flux and suspension—my sculptures and installations simultaneously hold multiple conditions. My process is grounded in my own negotiations with materials. By embracing both the material limitations and my own frustrations, I allow the materials to act as active agents in my process of making. The resulting forms exist in between the materials’ own tendencies and my own intentions. My thesis project, We twist, extend, and accrete …

From Beirut To Montreal, En-Camp-Ment-S On The Fringes Of Society, But What Society, Soñar Soñar

Gatherings

This text is a prose that retraces my experience as a researcher and activist in three camps, between April 2024 and July 2024 : the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Bourj El Barajne, and the pro-Palestine encampments in Montreal, Al-Aqsa and Al-Soumoud. The text is a continuation of writings of different genres, particularly creative, which relate facts and lived experiences around liberation struggles. This writing constitutes “a method of inquiry”, “a way of “knowing” – a method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it” (Richardson 516).

Watermelon Peels, Watermelon Peels

Gatherings

This piece comprises critical commentary by six students and two faculty who began a collaboration under urgent and difficult circumstances after October 7, 2023, when Israel intensified its genocide in Gaza. Writing from the University of Toronto, Mississauga — a campus situated on treaty lands and with a significant Palestinian student population — the eight contributors reflect on their solidarity work for Palestine between October 2023 and May 2024. The commentaries share this time frame and a commitment to Palestinian liberation, but they are different in voice, focus, and experience. Calling themselves the "Watermelon Peels," the group reflects on how …

Feminist Solidarities And An Ethos Of Care: Reflecting On Faculty Marshal Experiences At The University Of Denver, Andrea L. Stanton, Dheepa Sundaram

Gatherings

Spring 2024 witnessed student encampment protests around the US and world protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Israeli occupation in Palestine. The University of Denver (DU) became part of this movement in April when students established a Palestine solidarity encampment, permitted by DU's then-current freedom of expression policies. To protect students' free speech rights, we trained as marshals alongside faculty and staff colleagues to ensure student rights, peacefully de-escalate tensions, and keep all community members safe. This essay adopts an autoethnographic approach grounded in our lived experiences and care-based interactions with campus and broader community. Taking an intersectional approach …

Knock To Disrupt, Knock To Make Visible: Writing And Teaching About Architecture And Palestine Amidst The Ongoing Genocide, Nama'a Qudah

Gatherings

In his seminal novel Men in the Sun (1970), Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani poses a haunting question: “Why didn’t they knock on the walls of the water tank?”.  This paper reflects on that question and how it became the compass guiding my writing and teaching about Architecture and Palestine amidst the ongoing genocide. Knocking here is more than an act of refusal; it is a demand to rupture domination, insisting on justice and on noise against the enclosures that prefer quiet compliance. Kanafani’s question echoes beyond fiction, exposing the asymmetry between oppressor and oppressed, and the violence embedded not only …

Confronting The Storm: Dispatches From The Night Watch At The People’S University For Palestine, Leslie Quintanilla

Gatherings

As a strategy for transterritorial freedom and dialogic world-building, the People's University for Palestine across campuses became a seedbed for exchanging knowledge, tactics, and strategies, with clear goals to "disclose, divest, defend, and declare" for a free Palestine. At San Francisco State University, the student encampment achieved divestments from four corporations — Lockheed Martin, Leonardo, Palantir, and Caterpillar — all supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza. This article highlights the feminist space, politics, and pedagogies of gathering that created the infrastructure of the People's University for Palestine—the watchtower (EZLN 2015) of analysis that students, faculty, and community members created together. The …

Against Genocide: Feminist Dissent, Palestine Solidarity, And The Neoliberal University, Azza Basarudin, Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson, Araceli Esparza

Gatherings

In the context of the increasing nationwide repression of free speech and academic freedom, this article emerges from the collective scholarly and activist commitments of three women of color feminist faculty teaching at a large public university. Amidst our participation in anti-genocide organizing, we have been targeted by our university’s administration for our critiques of settler-colonial and genocidal violence in Palestine. Our intervention foregrounds an anti-war feminist ethic that insists on integrity and justice in confronting the university administration’s power to discipline faculty dissent, as well as our support for students’ political activism. Within this repressive context, we articulate a …