Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Lindenwood Digest, January 14, 2026, Lindenwood University

Lindenwood Digest

Primary Figures: President Porter visits classrooms and convenes with the Hawthorn Foundation; Payroll Director Monica Seiter serves as the contact for tax document inquiries; and MLB Network host Greg Amsinger leads "The Amsinger Series" event.

Key Events: Electronic 2025 W-2 forms became available in Workday on January 12, with paper forms scheduled for January 30; upcoming athletics include matches against UMass, Arkansas, and Delaware between January 15 and 18.

Date/Location: The digest covers institutional updates for the week of January 14, 2026, at Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri, noting a campus closure for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on …

Beyond Beltway And Bible Belt: Re-Imagining The Democratic Party And The American Left, Ben Agger

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Niebuhr's America, Charles Lemert

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Homegrown Democracy, Homegrown Democrats, Norman K. Denzin

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Remembering Derrida, Robert J. Antonio

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Mobile Phone In Everyday Life, Hannah Rippin

Fast Capitalism

This paper explores how ordinary people use their mobile phones [cell phones in the U.S. and Canada] to interact in everyday life. These people are virtual selves, but the impact of their mobiles is very real. Mobile phone technology, more than any other, has the ability to envelop its users in a sphere of perpetual contact and instant access, touching every aspect of their daily lives.

The virtual self is connected to the world by information technologies that invade not only the home and office but the psyche. This can either trap or liberate people… By virtual self, I am …

Timescapes Of The Network Society, Robert Hassan

Fast Capitalism

Since the late ‘70s, the mutually reinforcing interaction between neoliberal economics and the revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has transformed the world in many ways. “Globalization” is what we have come to call this process, and many aspects of its profound effect have been analyzed from a range of perspectives (e.g. Appadurai 1990; Robertson 1993; Omahe 1993; Waters 1995; Bauman 1998; Steger 2003). This paper discusses a central element of this change through globalization that has so far received relatively little attention—our relationship with time and how this is changing, in turn, the nature of power and politics. …

Speed: Through, Across, And In — The Landscapes Of Capital, Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Noah Kersey

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

C. Wright Mills: A New Left For A New Day, Charles Lemert

Fast Capitalism

Thomas Paine, during a crucial moment in the American war against its colonizers, said famously: “These are times that try men’s souls.” Many think, I among them, that these too are times that try men’s souls. At such a time, one must look back for clues as to what to think and do. One from not that long ago who lends us wisdom of a sort is C. Wright Mills, who in the 1950s, tried to make sense of America’s changing culture. However, a bad heart killed him in 1962, just after he wrote of the possibility of a New …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Fighting For Justice In The Neoliberal University: The Promise Of Reflexive And Flexible Solidarity, Timothy Gibson, Bethany Letiecq

Fast Capitalism

In the neoliberal university, faculty are encouraged to build strong connections in virtually every way except one: as workers. In this paper, we will discuss our experiences as leaders of the XXX chapter of the American Association of University Professors, with a focus on our campaign to build across-campus labor coalition connecting faculty, students, staff, and contract workers in the struggle for economic and social justice. We will begin by examining the constellation of structural forces and professional hierarchies that amplify labor exploitation on campus, subvert shared governance and academic freedom, and cultivate a campus culture of disconnection, competition, and …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Downloading Is Killing Music: Napster And The Recording Industry’S Piracy Panic Narrative, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

Beginning in the late 1990s and the arrival of the file-sharing program Napster, the recording industry used a “piracy panic narrative” in an attempt not only to prevent file-sharing, but also, to change the basic parameters of copyright law. In this piracy panic narrative, major record labels and their representative trade associations made the argument that file-sharing is piracy, piracy is stealing, and this stealing hurts recording artists. In this paper, I argue that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) used this narrative in the United States to change public opinion on file-sharing with the ultimate goal of changing …

Independent Music After Metallica V. Napster, Inc.: Seeking Liberation In The Music Streaming Simulacrum, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

In this brief paper, I note the ways in which being a musician has changed in the aftermath of the digital downloading and file-sharing developed by Napster pioneer Shawn Fanning, through the lens of the music streaming simulacrum—my term for what has unfolded since. I contrast the present environment with the potential that emerged with this technology. I theorize the music streaming simulacrum as opaque, flat, and hegemonic—a parody of both industry and culture that incomprehensible by a single human being, militates against deeper connectivity between artist and listener, and exerts outsized power over human behavior and decision-making in a …

Metallica, Napster And The Transformation Of Subcultural Capital, Justin Patch

Fast Capitalism

On June 1, 1999, Napster went live, ushering in profound changes in the music industry and consumer behavior. The new software popularized peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing, which enabled those running the software to search and download files from the hard drives of other PCs on the system. Within months, there were millions of songs available for download from computers around the world. In April, on the heels of a law suit by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Metallica became the first artist to sue Napster for copyright infringement, a lawsuit that, combined with the RIAA suit and another …

Convenience Begets Capitalism, Jörgen Behrendtz

Fast Capitalism

This is a short polemical piece, and does not have an abstract as such.

A Capitalist Stranglehold On “Artificial Intelligence”: A Gallop Through Piracy, Privacy Invasion, Lock-In And A Fever Dream Of Democratisation, Aidan Cornelius-Bell

Fast Capitalism

In this paper, I discuss the emergence of personal computing, the rise of platform-controlled smartphones and tablets, and the recent surge in artificial intelligence technologies. I explore how these technological advancements have often been shaped by the interests of capital, with recent trends towards increased platform lock-in, control, and exploitation of users (workers). I argue that without a strong push for open-source, democratised AI, these technologies risk being used to further the globalised colonial capitalist project. I highlight the potential for open-source hardware and software to counter the proprietary and un-hackable future of AI, offering a radical alternative that empowers …

The Artificiality Of Digital Scarcity: Contradictions Between Code, Law, Norms, And Value(S), Anthony Jack Knowles

Fast Capitalism

The rise and fall of Napster represented a major turning point in the history of the internet as it simultaneously paved the way for peer-to-peer filesharing as well as ushered in a backlash from incumbent media companies backed by an army of lawyers. This essay grapples with the ramifications of this struggle against filesharing and piracy that forever changed the internet. Much of how and why the internet is structured as it is can be explained through recognizing that this contradictory state of affairs is due to the inherent properties of the internet and digital files when "forced" to fit …

Napster's Mediations, Gavin Mueller

Fast Capitalism

While Napster has often been understood as a force for disintermediation, this essay examines three possible levels that Napster could be theorized as engaged in mediation: the level of protocol, the level of interface, and the level of culture. Each has implications for how we understand the politics of Napster, and peer-to-peer more generally.

Napster "Freedom" At Northeastern University: A Distanced Ethnography, Marcus Breen

Fast Capitalism

This article offers a critical first hand account, from an academic at Northeastern University after Napster's creator Sean Fanniong left the campus in 1999. Reflecting on the impact of Fanning on the campus, drawing on the history of community computer innovation in Boston as a means of activism, the article identifies through Marx, the way monopoly capitalism destroyed Napster's capacity for free music culture. The impact of Intellectual Property law in shutting down digital innovations such as Napster, is considered for the impact it had on the ideals of the liberal university in the United States.

Inciting Infringement And Innovation: From Napster To Now - The Dialectic Of Law And Technology, Matthew David

Fast Capitalism

The original Napster had only a short life, but what it set in motion has lasted and been significant. From 1999 to 2001(2) the Napster platform offered the first widely known and widely adopted music file-sharing download service; combining internet distribution and MP3 file-compression with its own central server acting to enable user uploading and downloading of music. Whilst Napster was shut down for ‘contributory infringement’ on the grounds that its central server directly facilitated copyright infringing downloading, its closure on these grounds saw the rise of fully peer-to-peer (P2P) services such as Kazaa. When P2P uploaders were targeted for …

Introduction: Napster At 25, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

David M. Arditi, University of Texas Arlington

Associate Professor of Sociology

Director - Center for Theory

Bridging Theory And Self-Development In Human Services And Counselor Education, Kristy Carlisle

Journal of Human Services Scholarship and Interprofessional Collaboration

Counselor and human services education increasingly recognize self-awareness as a core component of professional competence and ethical practice. This conceptual manuscript presents a pedagogical framework that integrates major helping theories as tools for structured self-reflection and self-development among students and practitioners. Drawing from experiential learning theory, reflective practice, and models of counselor identity formation, the approach encourages learners to view themselves through theoretical lenses such as person-centered, cognitive-behavioral, and existential frameworks, paralleling the very lenses through which they will view their clients in practice. By engaging in guided reflective activities, students examine personal beliefs, emotions, and behaviors to enhance self-understanding, …

The Profitability Of Racial Diversity And Gender Balance In Modern Hollywood, M. Garrett Roth, William Mcandrew

The Journal of Economics and Politics

This paper investigates the effects of racial and gender diversity in modern Hollywood. The primary objective is to determine if an objectively measurable increase in diverse casting over the last two decades has had a positive or negative impact on profits, and a secondary objective to measure diversity’s impact on critic scores. The study utilizes data focusing on the fifty most expensive films from 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023. The findings indicate that profit is neither positively nor negatively affected by diversity, whether in ethnicity or gender. However, movie critic ratings are negatively affected by ethnic diversity when using …

Threads Of Empathy: An Integrative Model Of Empathy In The Schools, Arthur J. Clark, Tara M. Simpson

Journal of Human Services Scholarship and Interprofessional Collaboration

Empathy has a distinctive and evolving history in education for cultivating human relationships and engendering mutual understanding. Within a school setting, empathic engagement is essential for the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. From an educational perspective, literature from multiple disciplines and specialties illustrate innovative practices to harness empathy in the classroom and beyond. The representative initiatives hold promise for developing an integrative model of empathy within a school or a school district through a program involving interprofessional collaboration.

“We Are Hope Despite The Times”, Melissa Whatley, Santiago Castiello Gutierrez

Critical Internationalization Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Automating Academia: Implications Of Genai Use In Doctoral Research And Online Mentoring, Cheryl Burleigh, Andrea M. Wilson

Journal of Online Mentoring

This study critically examines the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), specifically ChatGPT, in the development of doctoral dissertation proposals, highlighting both its potential and its ethical implications. Through a content analysis of a dissertation proposal created using ChatGPT, the study investigates how GenAI supports structural organization, academic writing, and citation formatting while exposing significant concerns related to fabricated references, methodological misalignment, and diminished scholarly rigor. Although GenAI accelerates the proposal-writing process, its outputs often lack the depth, coherence, and originality expected at the doctoral level, thereby threatening the integrity of academic research. Findings reveal that GenAI-generated content may deceive …

The Relationships Between Ego Depletion And Social Behaviors Across Different Degrees Of Psychological Flexibility, Jacob Cage Norris

Masters Theses

Social behavior includes behaviors that are influenced, directly or indirectly, by the realistic, anticipated, imagined, or implied presences of others. Particular social behaviors such as altruism or aggression may vary in how accessible they are, depending on the degree of self-control that has been recently exerted. Specifically, self-control fatigue, or ego depletion, seems to make aggression more likely and altruism less. However, individuals who are psychologically flexible, or who tend to be in contact with the present moment while engaging in behaviors that support the pursuit of values may not respond to ego depletion with the same changes to social …

The Role Of Isotocin In Female Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) Reproductive Behavior And Its Implication For Intranasal Oxytocin Therapy In Humans, Katelynn M. Benge

Masters Theses

In the past several decades, oxytocin has been colloquially termed the “cuddle hormone,” due to its role in pair-bonding and monogamy (Carter et al., 1992). In addition to being used experimentally for psychological disorder, it has also been used in couple’s counseling settings (Anagnostou et al., 2014; Domes et al., 2016). The outcomes of this research reveal mixed results, creating a need for further research in the topic to understand the exact mechanisms by which oxytocin works in the brain to induce this prosocial response. This study sought to address this deficit through the zebrafish animal model. The zebrafish serves …

Classroom To Campus: A Qualitative Case Study Of Exemplary First-Year Seminar Instructors In Student Transitions At A Louisiana University, Brianna J. Doucet

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative case study examined how exemplary first-year seminar (FYS) instructors design and implement pedagogical strategies that support students’ transitions into higher education through the lens of Schlossberg’s (1981) Transition Theory. Conducted at a public university in Louisiana, the study explored how university-identified, award-winning instructors foster academic, social, and emotional adjustment among first-year students, a critical priority amid the impending enrollment cliff and the growing need to retain enrolled students. Using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, findings revealed exemplary instructors design intentional, relational, and reflective learning environments. They view transition as a shared institutional process, model adaptability and lifelong learning, …