History Commons^™

Lanthorn, Vol. 60, No. 09, January 12, 2026, Grand Valley State University

Volume 60, August 4, 2025 – April 20, 2026

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Image Circulations And Economic Imagination: Framing The Peruvian And Chilean Peripheries At The End Of The 19th Century, Alexandre Puche

Artl@s Bulletin

Abstract: This study explores two cases of photographic circulation between Peru, Chile and France in the late nineteenth century to show how images contributed to the requalification of the region within global commercial geography. It also proposes a historical methodology that considers visual repetition as a traceable product of transnational circulation. This approach sheds light on both certain mechanisms behind Atlantic propaganda regarding South America’s economic potential and the structuring role such circulations played in shaping regional representations.

Résumé: Cette étude examine deux cas de circulations photographiques entre le Pérou, le Chili et la France à la fin du XIXe …

Wei Xiqin’S Evolutionary Plan For Modern China, Nianhong Qiu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

This study examines the thinking, practices, and significance of Wei Xiqin (1882- 1952). Born in Germany and educated in various European countries, Wei was a musician and educator who played an active role in the educational reform of the Republic of China. Wei was equipped with modern European thoughts but held deep reverence for Confucianism and other traditional Chinese classics. Examining this contentious figure in the wake of “Chinese Evolutionism” trend, this study investigates the differences between Wei’s evolution theory and the dominant evolution theory during early 20th-century China. Wei’s evolutionism, which I call a type of “Cyclic Evolution,” implies …

Infinite Line, Infinite Knowledge: The 'Spera' And Organized Chaos In Lambert's Encyclopedia, The 'Liber Floridus', Ava Romano

Theses and Dissertations

The Liber Floridus is a medieval encyclopedia renowned for its program of circular diagrams, or sperae. Inside this manuscript of 190 chapters, these diagrams frame and embody written knowledge, revealing a connection between encyclopedism and life in the Benedictine monastery by creating a coherent visual organization of chapters.

Negotiating Sacred Space: Monastic Endurance And The Spatial Politics Of Sistematizare In 1980s Bucharest, Symantha G. Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

Under Ceaușescu's 1980s Sistematizare program, Bucharest's Orthodox monasteries sustained sacred life through "negotiated resilience": ritual repetition and spatial adaptation under surveillance and constrained visibility. Văcărești, Mihai Vodă, and Antim map a spectrum—erasure, relocation/concealment, and institutional negotiation—complicating binaries of resistance and collaboration.

I Know You Are Watching, Camilo Salas Kusulas

Theses and Dissertations

I Know You Are Watching is a short documentary film that examines the evolving history and scope of mass surveillance, and how to resist it. The film introduces two local New York City artists, Bill Brown from the Surveillance Camera Players, and Sam Lavigne, who misuse technologies designed to watch us, exposing these systems and fighting back through digital art and performance.

Blending interviews, observational footage, personal narration, archival images, and news clips from different eras, the film interrogates the mechanisms of control, and positions art as a method of both understanding and talking back to surveillance.

An Introduction To Oral Traditions And Poetry Of The Baloches, Emran Dorrazehi

English Dissertations - Archive

There is not much known about the history and literature of the Baloches besides the translation and transliteration of Mansel Longworth Dames. Dames while serving as an official in the region wrote a book, Popular Poetry of the Baloches (1907) in two volumes. Dames translated a series of oral poetry of his subjects. This dissertation utilized 13 poems from Dames’ transliterations and employed a compensatory, creative and restorative translation to recreate their earlier states.  It is the assertion of this dissertation that the poems given to Dames by minstrels were already heavily censored to reflect Islamic, Mongol and Mughal identities. …

Guide To The Edward O. Bland Collection, 1953-2005, Columbia College Chicago

CBMR Collection Guides / Finding Aids

The Edward O. Bland Collection contains his scores and recordings of his compositions; his later works are primarily compositions for larger ensembles with each work listing the instrumentation required to perform the piece.

Laila: A Doll Memoir Of 1947 Partition Of India And Pakistan, Maleeha Malik, Maleeha Fatima Malik

Children's Literature (MFA) Theses

This abstract examines a creative and critical work centered on the 1947 Partition of India, which displaced approximately fourteen million people and caused one million deaths. The narrative introduces Laila, an anthropomorphized doll who functions as both witness and archive, embodying the memories and traumas of multiple child survivors. Through Laila’s journey across India, Pakistan, and the diaspora, the text explores themes of identity, belonging, loss, and intergenerational memory.

Blending personal family history with historical analysis, the author situates Laila within lived experiences of migration, silence, and religious marginalization, particularly as part of the Ahmadi Muslim community. The narrative foregrounds …

From Dred Scott To Barbara: Birthright Citizenship, Racial Exclusion, And The Enduring Promise Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jenna A. Milbrodt

CMC Senior Theses

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has guaranteed birthright citizenship to all children born in the United States for hundreds of years. Yet, President Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order threatens to strip that right from children born to parents unlawfully in the country and temporary visitors. This order, if permitted to stand, would change the definition of US citizenship and render countless children stateless persons without citizenship rights. This paper examines whether birthright citizenship in the US, properly understood, extends to children of unlawful immigrants and temporary visitors. To answer this question, three time periods of change in citizenship rights …

‘Politics! Not My Thing!’:The Misrepresentation Of Anne Boleyn In Six: The Musical, Natalie M. Bowen

UROP Posters

With the rise of Hamilton and Come From Away, stage musicals have become the next hottest form of historical reenactment, and the six wives of Henry VIII are no exception. These modern spins on Tudor history are typically riddled with inaccuracies that leave audiences with a skewed idea of Tudor England. The wives of Henry VIII, in particular, are the victims of centuries of historically inaccurate fictional media. Six: The Musical is a modern musical spin on this centuries-old story, following the six wives of Henry VIII as they reclaim their narratives in a pop concert competition on who had …

“A Couple Days In The Life Of What It’S Like In Washington Heights:” The Representation Of Latine Immigrants In Lin-Manuel Miranda’S In The Heights, Natalie M. Bowen

UROP Posters

The United States of America is a nation built by and made up of immigrants, being home to one-fifth of all migrants across the world. Anti-immigrant prejudice and xenophobia have long defined the American people and national policy, but the target demographic is constantly changing to reflect current narratives and fears. In recent years, Latine immigrants have been a prominent topic of concern in American politics. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2021 movie musical In The Heights aims to celebrate the existence of immigrants in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in New York City. Using peer-reviewed scholarly sources and movie reviews, this comprehensive literature …

Interpreting “Vampire” Burials In Medieval Eastern Europe, Arleen Chau

UROP Posters

Since the early twentieth century, various atypical or deviant graves have been excavated across Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. These discoveries have prompted much speculation, as the individuals were interred with items such as sickles placed over their necks or abdomens, along with other mortuary artifacts not considered normative compared to those found in typical community burials. Such practices suggest that these individuals were regarded as deviant or pariahs within their social contexts. Consequently, many have been quick to label these as “vampire burials,” interpreting them as measures intended to keep the dead from rising. However, this definition is problematic, …

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Complete issue of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

Front Matter

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Front matter of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

Letter From The Editors, Madeleine G. Ulman, Marcella Zimmer

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

We are proud to present the twenty-fifth edition of The Gettysburg Historical Journal. The journal embodies the History Department’s dedication to diverse learning and excellence in academics. Each year, the journal publishes the top student work in a range of topics across the spectrum of academic disciplines with different methodological approaches to the study of history. This year, The Gettysburg Historical Journal received a plethora of submissions from both Gettysburg College students and other students around the country. The works accepted this semester focus on the diverse relationships between individuals and the state throughout history, spanning from the western frontier …

Little Better Than One Of The Savages, Michael J. Aaron

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Western Pennsylvania was one of the earliest frontiers in US history, but is often overlooked and oversimplified. The frontier just west of the Appalachian Mountains was a complicated place of settler and Native American interaction, varied permanent settlement, and wilderness. The journal and letters of Major Ebenezer Denny show a complicated frontier of danger, wilderness, and chaos that is often not seen within historical views of the region. Through Denny and other Western Pennsylvania settlers, this paper complicates the common view of the Western Pennsylvania as a simply and quickly colonized region by showing the area as an unsettled frontier …

Soviet Sympathies On-Screen: Cinema As A Cultural Apparatus In The Stalinist Era, Anne E. Bolenbaugh

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The Stalinist era of the Soviet Union (1924-1956) is marked by its incredible pace of forced industrialization, extreme cultural repression, and an atmosphere of immense fear and paranoia, resulting in the Great Terror. Among the various mechanisms to enforce the state program, cinema offers a unique insight into specific state ideologies at key points in Stalin’s regime. By examining the three key phases of the Stalinist era consisting of his initial years, the Second World War, and the years of High Stalinism, it is possible to trace notable shifts in the Soviet authority’s approach to cinema as a propagandistically advantageous …

Certifying Widowhood: Lizzie Booth And The Making Of Black Widow Pension Entitlement During The Civil War, Michael B. Cox Ii

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

This article argues that Mary Elizabeth Wayt Lanning Booth, most commonly known as Lizzie Booth, played a decisive and underrecognized role in securing pension rights for Black widows during the Civil War. In the wake of her husband’s death at the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864, Booth personally lobbied President Abraham Lincoln and Senator Charles Sumner for pension reform, catalyzing the passage of the Supplemental Pension Act. This reform permitted formerly enslaved women—whose marriages had been deemed extralegal—to prove their unions through eyewitness testimony and access federal benefits. Drawing primarily on pension files, the article demonstrates that while the Act …

Opera Houses In Aberdeen, Huron, And Watertown, Sd: 1880-1910s, Janet M. Meyer

Dissertations and Theses

In the 1880s, many newcomers arrived in Dakota Territory for a new start in Aberdeen, Huron, and Watertown. Their arrival coincided with the popularity of opera houses, so it was not surprising that entrepreneurs built opera houses in these new towns. The early opera houses included several benefits. They provided important gathering places for growing communities to hold meetings and social functions. The settler-colonial society included people from foreign countries and eastern states. Opera houses were also beneficial by providing familiar shows and concerts, perhaps some shows the residents previously enjoyed in their homes back east. Knowing that an entertainment …

Mickey Mantle, Chata, And The Case Of The Missing Baseball Cards, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

In Dire Straits: Los Camaroneros Of Deep South Texas, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Between The Past And The Future: Operation Castaña–The Urgency Of Oral History For Tejanos, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

My Quinceanera Girl, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Historically Black, Immensely Beautiful, Leonard A. Slade, Jr.

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

No abstract provided.

I Could Not Sleep, Leonard A. Slade, Jr.

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

No abstract provided.

Holiday Prayer Poem, Leonard A. Slade, Jr.

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

No abstract provided.

To Jasmine, Leonard A. Slade, Jr.

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

No abstract provided.

Disrupting Power Dynamics In The Archives: The Digital Pv Panther Project, Gatekeeping, And The Texas Black Cooperative Extension & Home Demonstration Collection, T. Dewayne Moore, Evelyn Todd

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This article examines the Texas Black Cooperative Extension & Home Demonstration Collection at Prairie View A&M University as both a major recovery of twentieth-century Black rural history and a contemporary intervention into archival power. Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Digital PV Panther Project employed undergraduate and graduate students to process sixty-three county-level finding aids, 163 archival boxes, and more than 3,200 folders documenting segregated Black Extension work from 1923 to 1963. Beyond preservation, the project challenges long-standing regimes of archival gatekeeping. Drawing on critical archival studies and Black Digital Humanities scholarship, the authors argue that …

Revisiting Bandura’S Self-Efficacy Performance Accomplishments In Pwi And Hbcu Students: A Sign Of Persistence, Britine Perkins, Douglas M. Butler, Jerrel Moore

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This study revisits Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy by examining performance accomplishments among students attending a predominantly White institution (PWI) and a historically Black college or university (HBCU). While academic self-efficacy has long been linked to college success, much of the existing research centers on students at PWIs and often overlooks the cultural contexts shaping students’ beliefs about their academic abilities. Using the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES), the authors compare self-efficacy perceptions across institutional type and explore how performance accomplishments influence persistence. Findings highlight the importance of culturally responsive frameworks when assessing self-efficacy, particularly for minoritized and first-generation students. By incorporating …