Arts and Humanities Commons^™

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Extending Norbert Elias: Adjacency And The Dynamics Of Civilizations, Arthur Michelino

Comparative Civilizations Review

Civilizations have rarely been approached as systems of interdependence and strain. Most modern theories have oscillated between cyclical visions of rise and fall and static conceptions of blocs defined by cultural essence. Both perspectives have offered sweeping interpretations, but both also detached civilizations from the environments of pressure and interaction in which they have always existed. To reframe civilizations as relational processes requires both recognition of their internal dynamics and attention to the external conditions that compel their transformation.

Lawyering On The Eve Of War: The Role Of Law And Lawyers In Ethiopia’S Civil War, 2018–2024, Mekonnen F. Ayano

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

What role do lawyers play when a nation stands at the brink of war? This Article examines how Ethiopia’s legal profession navigated escalating political instability in the years leading up to the country’s devastating civil war (2018–2022). It traces how private attorneys, judges, prosecutors, government legal advisors, human rights advocates, consultants, and law academics engaged with shifting power dynamics, ethical dilemmas, and political tensions, revealing their complex positioning as both actors and intermediaries in the unfolding crisis. Some resisted factional political pressures and sought to uphold legal principles, while others adapted to the fragile conditions and aligned with prevailing currents, …

The Spiderman Piñata, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Legislative Debate-Attributed Suicidality Among Lgbtq+ Adults: The Buffering Effect Of Community Belongingness, Keith J. Watts, Shawndaya S. Thrasher, Laneshia R. Conner, Nicole Campbell, Louis G. Baser, Dekeitra Griffin, Sydney P. Howard, Missy Spears, Justin X. Moore

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Background: In recent years, the sociopolitical landscape in the United States has shifted due to an increase in state-level legislation regarding LGBTQ+ rights, a trend that has been particularly pronounced in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. While the mental health impacts of enacted laws are increasingly documented, a critical gap remains in understanding the psychological toll of the legislative debates themselves—the prolonged periods of public discourse surrounding the restriction of rights. Methods: Utilizing data from the 2025 Queer Kentucky Survey (N = 817), this exploratory study examined the association between LGBTQ+ community belongingness and acute suicidality attributed specifically to anti-LGBTQ+ legislative …

Asynchronous Lgbtq+ Affirming Counseling Training With Early Career Counselors: A Mixed Methods Program Evaluation, Amber L. Pope, Kelli Hartzell, Matt B. Siroty, Jeff Moe, Noelle St. Germain-Sehr, Bianca R. Augustine, Amanda St. Germain-Sehr, Tai Lexumé

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

A growing body of research shows that training in LGBTQ+ affirming counseling (LGBTQ+ AC) positively impacts counselors’ perceived knowledge and skills in providing mental health services to LGBTQ+ communities. Existing program evaluations of LGBTQ+ AC, however, have primarily used synchronous delivery formats and cultural competency models for the training design. This study is part of an action research agenda to develop an introductory training in LGBTQ+ AC, using asynchronous online delivery and cultural humility as the conceptual framework for the training design. We used a fixed convergent parallel mixed methods quasi-experimental design to examine the impact of our LGBTQ+ AC …

"Oh, You've Come To Visit The Yard?": Phenotypic Capital, Intragroup Marginalization, And The Gated Sanctuary In Black Lgbtq+ Communities, Keith J. Watts, Shawndaya S. Thrasher, Nicole Campbell, Laneshia R. Conner, Julian K. Glover, Janet K. Otachi, Dekeitra Griffin

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Identity-based communities that share common characteristics, beliefs, and experiences (e.g., Black LGBTQ+ communities) have historically been conceptualized as protective bubbles that buffer Black LGBTQ+ individuals against the deleterious effects of systemic racism and cisheterosexism. However, this monolithic narrative often masks the internal power dynamics that divide belonging. This study explores the exclusionary dynamics embedded within these safe spaces, examining how internal hierarchies of skin tone, socioeconomic status, and gender performance function as proximal stressors. Guided by a critical constructivist paradigm, this study utilized Reflexive Thematic Analysis to analyze open-ended survey responses from 74 Black LGBTQ+ adults. Data were drawn from …

Editorial For Issue 20(2), Jeff Moe, Peighton Corley, Aaron Albright

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Hello to the readers of the Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling. Like many counselors, counselors-in-training, scholars, and other individuals you may be coming to the journal looking for insights into your counseling work. Along with publishing original research that creates space for exploring LGBTQ+ lifeways from an open and affirmative perspective, the manuscripts published in the journal have always been grounded in application.

Colloquial Language, Standard Language, Or Educated Language?, Rocio Carranza Brito

Open Educational Resources

This assignment invites students to critically explore Spanish dialects, regional expressions, and language variations through guided interactions with ChatGPT. Students will examine colloquialisms across chosen Spanish dialects, analyze their meanings and linguistic significance, and compare AI-generated examples with their own academic revisions. Through structured reflection, students will assess the strengths, limitations, and risks of using AI as a language tool. The focus will be on intentional prompting, linguistic awareness, and critical evaluation, rather than simply substituting human expression.

Analyzing Headers With Chatgpt, Raymond Rosas

Open Educational Resources

This assignment invites students to examine how section headers function as rhetorical and organizational tools in research writing by analyzing headers generated by ChatGPT. Using a shared sample text, students prompt generative AI to produce multiple sets of headers that foreground different analytical emphases (e.g., race or language). Students then compare these AI-generated headers to identify how shifts in emphasis reshape the implied structure, focus, and interpretation of a text. Through analysis and reflection, students use these insights to inform their own planning for inquiry-based research writing, while critically evaluating the affordances and limitations of generative AI at an early …

A Low-Stakes Assignment That Introduces Ai Technology Into The Analysis And Writing Process, Tim Mccormack

Open Educational Resources

In this ENG 225 assignment, students use AI (ChatGPT) to perform tasks related to summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and responding to a text, then compare the AI-generated work to their own. Using Blitzer’s article “The Rhetorical Situation”, students create APA citations, summaries, paraphrases, key quotes, and personal responses with AI guidance. The assignment emphasizes critical evaluation by having students analyze the accuracy, effectiveness, and differences between human and AI-generated work. This exercise develops skills in rhetorical analysis, source engagement, and reflective assessment of AI as a tool for writing and research.

Genocide, Memory & Prevention: Ethical Inquiry And Critical Thinking Through Research & Ai, Linda Humes

Open Educational Resources

This assignment engages students in ethical inquiry and critical analysis by examining lesser-known or silenced genocides within a global and historical context. Using academic sources alongside responsible use of generative AI, students compare dominant and marginalized narratives, analyze recurring patterns and causes of genocide, and reflect on prevention strategies. The assignment emphasizes ethical AI use, historical memory, and the development of civic awareness, empathy, and critical thinking in the study of race, power, and inequality.

Analyzing The Use Of Ai To Transcribe An Interview In Spanish, Rocío Carranza Brito

Open Educational Resources

This assignment explores the differences between oral and written language and the challenges of transcribing speech. Students conduct an interview with a selected person, using ChatGPT to create and refine interview questions. They record the interview and use Otter.ai to generate a literal transcription that captures natural speech features such as repetitions and hesitations. After reviewing and correcting the transcript against the audio, students format it with participants’ initials to focus on content rather than timestamps. A simplified transcription guideline is applied to mark key elements. Finally, students reflect on the transcription process, addressing what was most difficult to represent …

Formulating Research Question With Chat Gpt, Nicholas Malkov

Open Educational Resources

This assignment guides students through the process of developing strong, focused, and measurable research questions while critically engaging with ChatGPT as a collaborative tool. Students begin by identifying a broad topic, narrowing it to a specific and feasible area of inquiry, and determining the purpose and type of research question (descriptive, explanatory, comparative, or evaluative). After drafting their own question, they use ChatGPT to generate feedback and suggested refinements, which they must evaluate critically using the FINER criteria (Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical, Relevant). Through comparison of AI-generated and human-generated revisions, students assess the strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations of AI …

Digital Cultures, Dei, And Ai: Critical Analysis Assignment, Oluremi Alapo

Open Educational Resources

This assignment presents a scaffolded, equity-centered approach to teaching digital culture and artificial intelligence (AI) within an undergraduate Diversity and Multicultural Education course at the City University of New York. Designed as a Writing Intensive, COIL-informed learning experience, the assignment invites students to critically examine digital technologies and AI as social and cultural systems shaped by power, access, and inequality.

The Trials We Remember: Exploring Historical Significance Through Interviews, Sara Mcdougall

Open Educational Resources

Students interview someone about a judicial trial that mattered to them and reflect on a trial of personal significance. They share what they learned through a classmate presentation, exploring how people assign meaning to trials while practicing communication skills.

(Re)Discovering The Streets Of Nyc: Honorary Signs, Sticker Street Art & Collective/Collaborative Investigations, Mark Mcbeth

Open Educational Resources

In a scaffolded series of assignments, students investigate NYC honorary street signs and sticker art through photography, research, individual essays, and a collaborative project.

Muinji’J Asks Why (2022) By Shanika Maceachern And Breighlynn Maceachern, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries American and Canadian government agencies and Christian churches established Indian residential schools where hundreds of thousands of children were “reeducated” in English and Christianity. They were not allowed to use their native languages or given names, to practice their religions, or to communicate with their siblings or parents. They were made to work in crop fields, kitchens, laundries, and industrial workshops. Many were physically and sexually abused. Many never saw their families again. The nine picture books reviewed here are accounts of survivors of residential schools from eight different Indigenous nations. In addition to …

Auseinandersetzung: Heidegger's Black Notebooks And Intercultural Engagement, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Heidegger’s relation to Asian philosophy should be guided by the notion of Auseinandersetzung. Often translated as con-frontation, this term plays a pivotal role in understanding Heidegger’s engagements with Asian philosophy. Auseinandersetzung (and related terms) can help us realise the changed perspectives on our own thinking that we derive from engagements with culturally and/or historically other types of thinking. Heidegger warns us against facile endeavours of comparing and contrasting, which, as a form of comparative philosophy, he sees as a kind of dialectics unworthy of true thinking. Thinking through the term Auseinandersetzung allows us to reflect more meaningfully on comparative philosophy.

Do The Oscars Move Markets? Best Picture Recognition And Public Equity Responses, Avi Dayani

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines when culturally salient events become financially material by testing whether Academy Awards recognition is reflected in public equity markets. The central question is whether Best Picture nomination announcements and wins generate abnormal returns or abnormal trading activity for the publicly traded parent firms linked to nominated films, and whether those responses depend on the firm’s exposure to filmed entertainment. I study Best Picture nominees from 2000 through 2024, map each film to the public parent of its primary distributor, and construct a firm-by-Oscar-year sample of 119 observations. Using an event-study framework, I calculate abnormal returns as firm …

Bitcoin And The American Conflict Over Money And Property, Jacob Smagula

CMC Senior Theses

I argue that Bitcoin is the latest expression of the recurring American conflict over who controls the terms of money and property, and that the political coalition formed around Bitcoin shares the same characteristics as earlier coalitions formed around this struggle. I review three historical cases that each produced a coalition opposing the existing monetary order: the Bank War of the 1830s, the Free Silver movement of the 1890s, and the populist backlash against the Federal Reserve during the 1979 Farm Crisis and the 2008 Great Recession. I find that Bitcoin’s architecture, which allows for self-custody, permissionless access, and an …

Procedural Rhetoric And Prosociality: How Game Mechanics Shape Altruistic Decision-Making, Elijah Emory-Muhammad

CMC Senior Theses

This study investigates how different prosocial video game designs influence subsequent altruistic behavior, specifically comparing interactive narratives with procedural rhetoric. While prior research demonstrates that prosocial games can prime helpful behaviors, less is known about the underlying mechanical structures driving these effects. Fifteen participants engaged with either an Interactive Narrative Game (ING) or a Procedural Rhetoric Game (PRG) before completing a resource allocation task (Dictator Game). Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the two conditions in promoting sacrificial altruism or satisfying basic psychological needs. Instead, participants across both groups demonstrated a strong adherence to an equality-seeking norm, consistently choosing …

By The Light, Desiree Galamgam

CMC Senior Theses

On the island of Helios, the sun god, a water nymph finds comfort tending to the flora along  riverbanks. Clytie avoids her oceanid sisters’ poisonous proclivities. Modeling herself after the sun god’s incessant responsibilities, she spends her existence working. Only taking breaks to perch herself at the top of her alcove’s hill to watch Helios drive his chariot to rise and set the sun, she sees him as the epitome of perfection and freedom.

Her tranquil life is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Helios himself at the footsteps of her isolated cave. Clytie begins to feel new emotions as …

The Aporia Of Divinity: Hegel's Metaphysics In Conversation With Spinoza And Schelling, Abhinav Ganesh

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the intersections between the metaphysics of Spinoza, Hegel, and Schelling, as seen through their engagement with the concept of immediacy. I aim to show that this perspective offers a fruitful way of understanding the arguments of these three figures, while also complicating our understanding of the nature of immediacy and its importance to metaphysical systems.

Pesos For Pesos And No One Feels At Home: Gentrification And Displacement In Mexico City, Sophia L. Castellanos

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates how gentrification and displacement have affected Mexico City, providing historical context and reasoning behind current policies for digital nomads and tourists. It examines policies enacted in similar cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Venice, which face challenges from increased tourism and short-term rentals like Airbnb. The thesis also reviews these regulations, highlighting their successes and limitations, and offers recommendations for integrating some of these strategies into Mexico City’s 2024 Tourism Law. Additionally, it explores public innovation strategies that could promote collaborations between the government and communities rather than complete government control. Finally, the paper discusses the challenges …

Family, Stability, Mentors & Money: Student Definitions Of Success, Arturo Caldera

CMC Senior Theses

This research takes a deep dive into the factors shaping marginalized communities’ educational experiences, particularly for low-income Latino students from migrant backgrounds navigating public schooling spaces. Across sixteen qualitative interviews, participant narratives reveal how a systemic lack of resources at the institutional, interpersonal, and structural levels undermines the quality of support students receive and shapes their academic trajectories. Grounded in student-centered practices and informed by scholarship in multicultural education, Chicanx/Latinx studies, feminism, and psychology, this study contributes to ongoing efforts to move beyond deficit-based frameworks and instead recognize the cultural wealth, knowledge, and resilience students bring from their homes and …

La Importancia De Los Personajes Femeninos En Como Agua Para Chocolate Como Medio Para Entender El Papel De Las Mujeres Mexicanas En Dos Momentos Históricos, Jessica R. Sloan-Cooper

CMC Senior Theses

En la novela, Como agua para chocolate, escrito por Laura Esquivel, el personaje central, Tita, se encuentra a sí misma entre dos mundos completamente diferentes en su hogar; uno es restringido y estricto, y tiene que ver con su madre, Mamá Elena, y el otro es libre e ilimitado, relacionado con su hermana, Gertrudis. Cuando Tita no puede casarse con el hombre que ama, Pedro, se da cuenta que está atrapada en dos realidades en conflicto. ¿Cómo puede ser? Esta novela toma lugar en dos momentos históricos centrales: El Porfiriato y la Revolución mexicana. El Porfiriato es el prolongado régimen …

An Examination Of Sycophantic Llms: The Case For Withholding Judgement, Josephine C. Albrecht

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates sycophancy in large language models (LLMs) and argues that although agreement can be socially appealing, it introduces serious epistemic and moral risks. Through Mrinank Sharma’s experiments, I show that sycophancy emerges reliably across major AI assistants, which adjust their responses to match users’ beliefs; even when those beliefs are incorrect. I explain how deep learning and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) shape these behaviors, and why models learn to prioritize user satisfaction over truth. While agreement can build trust, mimic expert testimony, and satisfy human preferences, it also produces epistemic bubbles and misplaced confidence. These risks …

Criminalizing Motherhood: Abortion, Obstetric Emergencies, And State Power In Post-1998 El Salvador, Valery M. Reyes

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how a series of regressive legal reforms in El Salvador–the 1997 Penal Code’s expansion of abortion-related punishments and the 1999 constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception–eliminated all exceptions to abortion and transformed a woman’s reproductive body into a site of surveillance. Rather than expanding rights, these reforms rolled back on existing protections by not recognizing obstetric emergencies, miscarriages, or cases of rape as legitimate grounds for abortion. Prosecutors and judges could treat such medical emergencies as convictions for “fetal homicide,” carrying sentences of 30-50 years in prison.

Court documents, reports from non-government organizations …

Digital Docent: An Analysis Of Accessibility In The Digital Music Space, Erin L. Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

The world is constantly changing and growing, most often seen through advances in technology. When it comes to the world of music, the same can be said, and digitization of musical material is moving at a faster rate than ever before. With the influence that music has on society and considering new ways of making music more accessible to the general public through the public-facing museum format, I wanted to examine how digital music museum exhibits and experiences can be made accessible and if it is possible to fully represent what an in-person exhibit can offer. In 2010, Smithsonian created …