Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

[2026 Honorable Mention] Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, Daylyn R. Reese

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

This research offers unique insights into the creation and development of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (N.M.S.) with a focus on indigenous populations’ roles (primarily Chumash and Costanoan). In this episode, I analyze what makes this NMS different from every NMS precluding it, how it recognizes a new goal in conservation (thrivability), and the areas in which improvements still must be made to authentically include and honor indigenous voices.

Critical Geopolitics And The Reconstruction Of Meaning: A Discourse Analysis Of The 'Terrorism' Label Applied To Hamas By Western Hegemony, Cahaya Mulyani Sakti, M.Hamdan Basyar

Journal of Terrorism Studies

The emergence of Hamas in 1987 cannot be separated from the configuration of modern colonialism and the continuity of occupation that shaped the political reality. Hamas’s early phase was rooted in socio-religious activities through education and community empowerment programs, before evolving into armed resistance against the occupation. The labeling of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization began in the mid-1990s in U.S. legal documents, which subsequently generated debate and gave rise to counter-narratives. This study employs the frameworks of critical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail & Agnew) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak) to analyze the labeling of Hamas as “terrorist” by Western hegemony. …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

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. …

Children Past Curfew: Surveillance, Resistance, And Childhood In Philippine Martial Law Children's Literature, Krisna Marie T. Balolong

Children's Literature (MA) Theses

This paper examines how two Philippine children's books depict state surveillance and its effects on a child's perspective of family, authority figures, and childhood. Through analysis of Augie Rivera's Isang Harding Papel and Sandra Nicole Roldan's At the School Gate, this project makes a connection between children's literature and surveillance studies, offering new framework to engage with children’s literature depicting authoritarian regimes and state violence, especially in cases where children were targets of their governments. Each book is examined by their representations of state surveillance during the Martial Law era of the Philippines, as well as each characters’ individual …

Reawakening Waⁿdat: Community Research & Reclamation, Darcy Allred

Theses and Dissertations

The Wyandot(te) have undergone language dormancy due to settler colonial impacts of warfare, refugee relocation, forced removals, and U.S. assimilation projects. One of the most pressing priorities among our people today is reawakening our ancestral language, Waⁿdat. The common follow-up question is: how? Through the conduit of Waⁿdat language reclamation, this project grapples with the above question in collaboration with the Wyandot(te) community, and in adherence to the tribal sovereignty of the Wyandotte Nation. The project engages with diasporic perspectives, community-based pedagogy design, and tribally specific research protocols and policies. The living collective knowledgebase with which I engage in this …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

‘Casar Public Lecture: Jazz Diplomacy: America's Conversation With The World', The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

The lectures deliberated about how the U.S. used jazz as a tool of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War, sending jazz musicians abroad to promote American values and counter Soviet influence. Jazz symbolized freedom and democracy but also highlighted racial tensions in the U.S., creating a paradox. These tours influenced global perceptions of America and supported civil rights movements at home and abroad. These lectures were a collaboration with The Music Program in the Department of the Arts at AUC.

Date: 2-3 Nov. 2025

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CASAR website: https://gapp.aucegypt.edu/academics/c...

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Music, Poetry And Identity In Badakshan, Tajikistan: Singing And Sounding Community, Chorshanbe Goibnazarov

Music & Performance in Muslim Contexts

An illuminating account of Ismaili music, spiritual poetry and social change in Badakhshan.

In the riverine valleys of the Pamir Mountains of Tajik Badakhshan, a thriving millennium-old community of Nizari Ismaili Muslims created a unique spiritual culture in which the performance of music and poetry plays a central role. This book focuses on the central musical and poetic tradition of the Pamiri Ismailis, qasīda-khonī (also known as maddo), tracing its origins, evolution, delocalisation and relocation.

This book introduces readers to leading performers of qasīda-khonī and to the Ismaili gnosis that inspires its music and poetry.

• Based on six …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Designing Between Worlds, Levon Kostandyan

Masters Theses

This thesis reimagines design as a means of cultural continuity—an act of memory, resistance, and transformation. Rooted in the diasporic Armenian experience, it explores how identity is carried not only through storytelling, but through materials, rituals, and objects that evolve across time and place. Through the transformation of pomegranate skin from waste into a meaningful design material, the project navigates the space between symbolism and substance, honoring both the fruit’s ancestral weight and its potential as a living material language.


The work moves between personal narrative, historical research, and material experimentation, engaging with themes of displacement, hybridity, and embedded knowledge. …

Enjeux De Contacts De Langues Et D’Oralitures Dans Les Noms D’Ogresse Dans La Kabylie Des Babors, Massinissa Garaoun

Journal of Amazigh Studies

La Kabylie des Babors est une région montagneuse littorale située au nord-est de l’Algérie. Trois langues amazighes y sont pratiquées : la tabǧawit (ou kabyle oriental), la taɛemmuct (ou chaoui des Amouchas) et la tasaḥlit. L’une des figures majeures du conte amazigh et nord-africain est l’ogresse (Farès). Celle-ci est décrite comme une créature féminine, vivant seule ou en famille, isolée des Hommes et pouvant se nourrir de ces derniers. À partir d’un corpus de contes recueillis auprès de femmes originaires de différentes confédérations des Babors depuis 2017, j’ai rassemblé les dénominations ainsi que les principales caractéristiques attribuées aux ogres …

‘Amazigh Literary Space’: Intersection And Hybridity Across Languages And Media, Daniela Merolla

Journal of Amazigh Studies

My contribution will focus on multilingualism and multimedia in the ‘Amazigh literary and cinematographic space’ (Merolla De l’art, “Amazigh/Berber Literature”). Examining this notion coined in the 1990’s (Merolla “Gender and Community”) allows us to reflect on ongoing debates regarding North African literatures in postcolonial contexts. It also helps to see that Amazigh/Berber literature solely defined as Amazigh-language production tends to isolate works and performances that engage with multiple languages and literary traditions, cultural intersections, and hybridization in North Africa and its diasporas. The discussion is contextualized within the historical development of what is sometimes referred to as the “North …

Beyond The Binary: Amazigh Ethnicity And Transformational Resistance, Nour Sidhoum

Journal of Amazigh Studies

This article explores Amazigh activism in Algeria, focusing on the role of language, memory, and political mobilisation in reshaping national identity. It critically examines the reductive Arab/Berber binary, arguing that such oppositions, rooted in French colonial logic, provide the vocabulary through which Amazigh identity claims are confined within minority paradigms. The aim is to reconceptualise Amazigh ethnic identity as a form of transformational resistance that challenges dominant power structures rather than merely seeking accommodation within them. Drawing on a diverse range of primary and secondary sources—including memoirs of key figures in Algerian nationalism such as Hocine Aït Ahmed and Sadek …

Tsenacommacah, Wylan Blair

Persimmon Creek

This poem is about the area that was once called Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan people, and the horrors of the centuries that followed 1607.

Voice As Dual Striving: Spiritual Resonance And Psychological Negotiation In South Indian Musical Practices, Ramya Thiyagarajan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intricate dynamics of voice within South Indian musical traditions, examining it as both a spiritual medium resonating with the divine concept of Nāda-Brahman and a psychological instrument navigating modernity, identity, and cultural hybridity. Employing the Self-Rasa-Chakra framework, derived from Upanishadic and tantric philosophies, alongside autoethnographic narratives and case studies, it investigates how the voice serves as a site of striving. Through an interdisciplinary lens combining ethnomusicology, psychoanalysis, and sound studies, this research delves into the paradox of voice: its role in sacred surrender within Carnatic music, juxtaposed against its individualistic expression in contemporary independent music. Case …

The Tales Of Maruni, Sikuma Rai

Theses and Dissertations

Sikuma Rai journeys into the fading indigenous genre of Maruni—an eastern Nepali song and dance form—narrating letters to her late grandfather. Accompanied by her father, and a devoted folk musician from an upper-caste background, she traces echoes of memory, identity, and the fragile inheritance of indigenous culture.

Dekonstruktion Der Afd: Eine Analyse Der Rechtspopulistischen Deutschen Partei Der„Alternative Für Deutschland”, Elizabeth A. Breckenridge, Elizabeth Breckenridge

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ist eine rechtsextreme populistische Partei, die innerhalb eines Jahrzehnts rasch an Macht gewonnen hat, insbesondere in den ostdeutschen Bundesländern, aufgrund ihrer Betonung der Nationalisierung, ihrer populistischen Rhetorik und ihrer Anziehungskraft auf Wähler, die Ängste vor Einwanderung und kulturellem Wandel hegen. Die AfD hat es innerhalb von fünf Jahren geschafft, eine starke Wählerschaft zu mobilisieren, 2017 Sitze im Bundestag zu erringen und gilt nun als wichtigste Oppositionspartei zu den etablierten Parteien. Die AfD ist die erste rechte Partei seit 1945, die aufgrund des Aufstiegs rechtspolitischer Ideologien bedeutende Wahlerfolge erzielen konnte. Aufgrund des reaktionären Pendelschwungs nach dem …

Cultural Of Authenticity And Commodification: Analyzing The Aesthetic Waves And Collective Culture In The 2010s And 2020s, Stefanny Leung Yu

Student Theses

The “authentic self” is curated, aestheticized, and most notably, commodified. Digital algorithms, likes, views, and engagement are more than just digital metrics, they are the management of performance. For millions of other users — including the author herself — social media is the locus of personal expression. Most notably, sites like Tumblr, where users in the 2010s posted hazy images or overly filtered graphics along with melancholic song lyrics that match the vibe of the moment, expression was earnest and idealized. Today, social media in the 2020s, new creators like Hannah Neelaman, better known as Ballerina Farm, dress in pastoral …

Global Nomads: Identity And Belonging In Third Culture Kids And Adult Third Culture Kids, Vallon Bucayu-Lee

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone examines the subculture of Third Culture Kids and Adult Third Culture Kids who have experienced living abroad as children. There were two main objectives in this study. First, to understand the perceptions of Adult Third Culture Kids on how their global childhoods have impacted their self-identity and sense of belonging as adults. Secondly, to understand the opinions of Adult Third Culture Kids on transitional programs through their personal experiences with them. The methodology of this capstone included a twelve-question survey distributed to seventeen Adult Third Culture Kids born in six different countries around the world. The questions in …

"Integrating The Seven Stages Of Conocimiento With Nahuatl And Ralámuri Wisdom In Kosmic Feminism: My Creative Writer Identity.", Hilda Yaneth Sotelo Dr

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This paper explores the intersection of Kosmic Feminism and the seven stages of conocimiento as outlined by Gloria Anzaldúa, integrating Indigenous wisdom from Nahuatl and Ralámuri traditions. It examines how decolonial thought, feminist theory, and creative writing can be transformative tools for personal and communal healing. Drawing on personal experiences rooted in the borderlands of Ciudad Juárez-El Paso and Rarámuri heritage, the author blends Anzaldúa’s framework of conocimiento with Indigenous perspectives to offer a critique of patriarchal systems and a vision of holistic, cosmic resistance. The seven stages of conocimiento—awakening (El Arrebato), liminality (La Nepantla), commitment (El Compromiso), healing (La …

Actualizing Black Spatial Histories Through A Speculative Youth Archiving Project, Kaleb Germinaro, Alvin Logan, Jr.

Occasional Paper Series

For today’s youth, learning about one's history and culture is not always a given in the classroom. Many schools are learning spaces void of any cultural or spatial connection, particularly for Black students. This paper details an action-based summer archeology program hosted by the Burke Museum and Seattle Public Schools Liberatory Education Program that explored Black spatial histories through speculative youth archiving. Through key relationships with community organizations, students underwent a three-week program designed to allow students to develop their relationship with Black spatial histories and envision their role in creating and setting history in real-time. Using student interviews, the …

Finding Aid For The Yocona International Folk Festival Collection (Mum00954)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Established in 2006, the Yocona International Folk Festival is a non-profit organization which preserves traditional intangible cultures such as music, dance, and storytelling; inspires children to learn about language, history, and geography through the powerful medium of the arts; and develops heritage tourism across Mississippi.

The collection contains materials related to the Yocona International Folk Festival, including programs, administrative files, correspondence, posters, t-shirts, and other materials.

Heteropoesia: Basil Bunting’S Translation Of Obayd Zākānī’S Mush-O Gorbeh, Emadeddin Naghipour

Languages and Cultures Publications

This article studies the role of ‘selving’ and creative interpretation in literary translation. Specifically, it analyzes one of Basil Bunting’s successful translations of Obayd Zākānī’s Mush-o Gorbeh, a picturesque and catchy poem in rhyme and rhythm, laden with animal characters, which was considered to be both a masterpiece of children’s literature and a very important political satire. Bunting, a translator of Persian classical poems into English, had both political and poetic missions as a spy and an up-and-coming poet. This study turns to the theories of translation by Steiner, Benjamin, and Bassnett, among others, to show the challenges of translating …

Unveiling Trauma And Seeking Justice: Exploring Mass Atrocities Against Tamils Through The Lens Of Religion, Culture, And Global Justice, Arrabe Vigneswaran

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This paper examines the mass atrocities committed against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, analyzing them through the interconnected lenses of religion, culture, and global justice. It explores how Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism, codified through legal and constitutional mechanisms such as the Sinhala Only Act and state-sponsored cultural erasure, facilitated the systemic marginalization, displacement, and dehumanization of Tamils. The study investigates the legal, political, and cultural underpinnings of these acts ranging from war crimes and ethnic cleansing to potential genocide while assessing the reluctance of both domestic and international actors to enforce meaningful accountability. Drawing on hybrid court models, transitional justice theories, …

Bibliography For "Code Talkers Display", Arianna Tillman, Arianna Tillman, Isabella Piechota

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to support a display about Code Talkers at the Leatherby Libraries during November 2024 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University.

An Investigation Into The Documental History Of Immigrants From Russia And Latin America In The State Of Nebraska, Elena Thomson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The research questions in this essay ask whether or not the Nebraska State Archives contains literature in the Russian and Spanish languages. These documents, and others written in English on the same topic, are introduced and analyzed throughout the essay, exploring the history of immigrants from Russia and Latin America. As well as history, the documents delve into the current state of these immigrant groups, and how their traditions have changed Nebraska and continue to influence it today. The essay contains two sections: the first about immigrants from Russia, the second about those from Latin America. At the end of …

Basil Bunting And The Challenges Of Literary Translation From Persian Into English: A Case Of Rūdhakī, Emadeddin Naghipour

Languages and Cultures Publications

The purpose of this study is to analyze Basil Bunting's literary translation. It turns to the theories of translation by Steiner, Benjamin, and Eco, among others, to study Bunting’s translation of Rūdhakī’s ‘Dandaniyyeh’ poem, a 10th century qaṣīdah replete with mesmerizing musicality and with a form galvanized in its originating language, time, and locale. A deep contrastive analysis of its translation into English by the poet, Bunting, shows the difficulties that can arise from literal translations of classical Persian poetry.

Répertoire Kabyle Culturel Immatériel Ou Comment (Re) Penser L’Oralité : De La Fixation Écrite Au Numérique, Katia Bellal

Journal of Amazigh Studies

L’oralité reste l’outil incontournable de la préservation et de la transmission du répertoire culturel et immatériel amazigh. Après avoir conquis l’écrit, la tradition orale a su se renouveler grâce aux nouvelles technologies. Les plateformes numériques telles que les réseaux sociaux comme YouTube donnent accès à une représentation numérique de la culture orale amazighe. Ces plateformes numériques incarnent de nouvelles opportunités de partage de cet héritage immatériel à travers les médias sociaux. Cet article explore cette nouvelle expérience de l’oralité, ses manifestations, et ses conséquences, tel que par exemple le fait de s’affranchir de certains tabous et traditions.

Mots-clés : Oralité …