Anthropology Commons^™

41.82379°N, 71.38497°W, Xiaotong Cai

Masters Theses

I, Xiaotong Cai, have known an abandoned bridge was lifted and stuck at 64-degree from 1976. I have walked and bent down towards it for over 60 times, each paralleling a journal entry. The visits and 27,351 words (up until May 5th) are the living proof: observation, encounters, correspondence, collectively and personally. It’s been nine months since it emerged in flux. Two flesh. A moving outsider and a still bridge. How can an Unused giant activate a human body? Who is the attractor and intervener?

Here, my solution is to conduct a series of small gestures. I say, interpreting without …

Archives Of The Future, Ka Oskar Ly

Masters Theses

Archives Of The Future is a practice-based thesis that invokes the archive and the future as simultaneous.

This research insists on the recentering of HMong Indigeneity and its own rooted traditions of HMong Queerness and HMong Feminism as ancestral knowledge systems.

They are the medicine. To recover their cosmological capacity is to traverse centuries of systematic eradication by empires and patriarchy.

I treat artistic making, community encounter, memory, and materials as equally valid ways of knowing and as collaborators. Field research from 2020 to 2026 moves through kinship and artisan teachings. It spans Southeast Asia, France, the United States, and …

Just Between Us (And Everyone We Tell...), Deborah Khodanovich

Masters Theses

Graphic designers are often obsessed with a broader public. The desire to be seen, to be heard, to have our work reach the broadest audience possible—these are goals deeply ingrained in our discipline. But why? Just Between Us (and everyone we tell…) challenges us to abandon this fixation, proposing instead that graphic design should concern itself with the private—the intimate, the local, the unseen.

This is where gossip comes in. Gossip is the language of the invisible, a form of sharing, and a means of knowledge-production and preservation that has historically been dismissed as frivolous, immoral, and—most egregious of all—associated …

Tuning The Neighborhood: Purifying People, Places, And Environments In Suburban Kolkata, Sourav Saha

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In modern science, disciplines such as physics, mechanical and civil engineering, seismology, and acoustics have conceptualized vibration as a quantifiable mechanical phenomenon, measured through the metrics of frequency, amplitude, and resonance. In contrast, scholarship in anthropology, musicology, and sound studies has approached vibration as a socio-historical, cultural, and political phenomenon. This article examines how vibration (spandan) operates as a metaphysical, sensory, and ethico-affective force that mediates relations among people, places, and environments. Focusing on the practice of satsang adhibesan (devotional congregation), the article demonstrates how members of the Deoghar-Satsang community participate in sonic rituals of prayer, silent chanting, meditation, sacred …

The Autonomy Plan In Morocco: Legal Foundations, Political Dimensions And Prospects For Resolving The Sahara Conflict, Limam Boussif, Jalila Ait Soudane

Journal of Maya Heritage

Summary: The territorial conflict over the Sahara is one of the most enduring territorial disputes in international relations, involving issues of sovereignty, self-determination, and regional stability. In this context, Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Plan is presented as a negotiated framework of self-government under Moroccan sovereignty.

This article analyzes the evolution and consolidation of the Autonomy Plan using a conceptual approach based on self-determination, territorial governance, and conflict resolution theories. It shows that the initiative has progressively evolved from a national proposal into an internationally recognized framework, particularly through growing diplomatic support and developments within the United Nations Security Council, including Resolution …

Les Grands Chantiers De La Transition Énergétique Au Maroc: Le Cas De Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Entre Réalisations, Facteurs De Réussite Et Perspectives, Limam Boussif, Jalila Ait Soudane

Journal of Maya Heritage

Résumé: Cet article examine la dynamique de la transition énergétique au Maroc à travers une analyse descriptive et analytique du cas de Dakhla-Oued Eddahab. Dans un contexte marqué par l’accélération des politiques de décarbonation à l’échelle mondiale, le Maroc s’impose comme un acteur stratégique en matière de développement des énergies renouvelables et de l’hydrogène vert. L’étude met en lumière les principaux chantiers structurants engagés dans la région de Dakhla, notamment le développement des énergies éolienne et solaire, les projets de production d’hydrogène vert, le dessalement de l’eau de mer, ainsi que la réalisation du port Dakhla Atlantique. L’analyse montre que …

God’S Design For Human Nature: Paul’S Biblical-Theological Use Of Creation Theology In Romans 1:18–32, Eunsoo (Daniel) Seo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The world in which the Apostle Paul ministered was not a theological vacuum, but a sophisticated marketplace of competing worldviews and diverse moral frameworks. Within the specific milieu of first-century Rome, the cultural forces of Stoic philosophy, Roman imperial ideology, and pagan polytheism created an environment where complex expressions of human nature and sexuality emerged. Dominant Roman social stratifications often celebrated or normalized same-sex relations and blurred the distinctions of the created order. Paul found himself proclaiming a message of a Sovereign Creator in a society that had been conditioned for centuries to view the human nature through the lens …

Towards Critical Agency: A Case Study Of Japanese Peacebuilding And Development In The Bangsamoro, Hana Soma

Master in Public Policy Theses

Asking “In what ways have anthropological methods been part of Japan's peacebuilding and development interventions in the Bangsamoro?”, this research hopes to make a contribution to the study of anthropology and development and their practical application by exploring the possibilities of the role of an anthropological approach in making sense of modern-day development programs, particularly through the case study of Japan’s peacebuilding-through-development efforts in the Bangsamoro. After outlining the research question as well as the design and methodology used to answer it and an overview of the histories of dispossession and the Japanese relationship to Mindanao, the essay …

Inherited By “Merit”: What Caste Carries Across The Indian American Diaspora, Aarushi V. Jaiswal

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

This project traces the rhetorical formation termed “meritocratic nationalism,” a political vocabulary that makes national belonging conditional on moralized merit, converting structural advantage into the language of individual character. Meritocratic nationalism is traced across three political figures whose rhetoric represents successive moments in a single ideological trajectory. Reading Narendra Modi’s 2014 and 2018 Independence Day addresses and his 2014 Madison Square Garden speech to the Indian American diaspora as the formation’s originating texts, this project argues that Modi’s recurring moral tetrad of conduct, values, traditions, and ability translated the structurally concentrated advantages of India’s upper-caste professional class into a universalist …

Assessing Legacy Collections: Analyzing The Preservation, Recovery, And Interpretive Value Of Archaeobotanical Remains From Site 15le70 (Pine Crest Rockshelter), Lee County, Kentucky, Jennifer Carroll

Graduate Final Projects

This paper uses the archaeobotanical assemblage from Site 15Le70, a multi-excavated and extensively looted rockshelter in eastern Kentucky, while opening new lines of inquiry into gendered labor and practice during the Archaic-Woodland transition. Because legacy collections are often dispersed across institutions and/or research projects, the materials from any single site may be fragmented, as was the case for 15Le70. Such collections can be overlooked, yet this investigation into 15Le70’s archaeobotanical assemblage demonstrates that partial or scattered datasets can yield meaningful results and hold the potential to fill gaps in the archaeological record left by looting.

In this study, a small …

Analyzing Best Practices In Large-Scale Digital Archaeological Databases, Chloe M. Vizier

Honors Theses

Archaeological databases, the foundation of archaeological analyses, have changed drastically alongside the rise of new digital tools in the twenty-first century. Digital databases, alongside other digital tools, must therefore be evaluated for their efficiency and effectiveness within the field. This thesis seeks to determine a set of best practices within large-scale digital archaeological databases through analyzing an existing example: The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA). PIDBA is composed of multiple state-level datasets, a trait that both invited collaboration and creates discrepancies in data entry. Though examining both PIDBA's user-facing website and one of its most robust state-level datasets, the …

Living Archaeology: A Comparative Perspective On How Archaeologists Can Study And Document The Present, Alia S. Moran

Honors Capstones

Archaeology has long remained a social science that has tended to exclude sustained consideration of contemporary societies in the analysis of material culture. In recent decades, approaches such as ethnoarchaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary have expanded the field to include the study of present-day societies through material culture. Inspired by my involvement in the Thais in Illinois Project, which focused on documenting the Thai American immigrant experience in the greater Chicago area to produce an oral history collection, alongside other goals, this thesis intends to further explore how archaeological practice can be used to understand everyday issues in …

Kafr Kama: The Marble Finds, Anastasia Shapiro

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The study of 127 marble fragments from the excavation of the Umayyad building at Kafr Kama revealed that most of the samples are made of Proconnesian marble and originally belonged to panels that likely decorated a church demolished by the earthquake of 749 CE. The collapse of the building caused the breakage of the panels, which then became spolia. They were marked and reshaped into small geometric forms, such as octagons or trapezoids measuring up to 20–30 cm. Given that no completed items were found, the studied assemblage probably represents the workplace of a stonemason active in Umayyad-period Kafr Kama.

Kafr Kama: The Coins, Robert Kool

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation at Kafr Kama yielded five coins. One coin, minted in Rome, dates to the reign of Constantius II, while the others are from the Early Islamic period. Among these are a gold dinar and two silver dirhams from the early Abbasid period, including a rare dirham minted in al-Haruniya during the brief reign of the caliph al-Hadi. The coin assemblage attests to activity at the site during the third quarter of the eighth century CE.

Kafr Kama: Building, Oil Press And Glass Industry From The Late Byzantine–Early Umayyad Periods And Remains From The Middle Bronze Age, Roman And Mamluk Periods / כפר כמא: מבנה, בית בד ותעשיית זכוכית מהתקופות הביזנטית המאוחרת–האומיית הקדומה ושרידים מהתקופות הברונזה התיכונה, הרומית והממלוכית, Omar Zidan

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

A salvage excavation south of Kafr Kama revealed four occupational strata (IV–I). The two lowermost strata yielded meager architectural remains dating to the Middle Bronze Age (Stratum IV) and the Roman period (Stratum III), indicating early settlement at the site. Stratum II, which comprised two distinct occupational phases, yielded a building, an oil press and a glass-production furnace, along with glass-production debris, dating from the transition between the Byzantine and Umayyad periods. The site appears to have been abandoned during the late Umayyad period, with resettlement occurring in the Mamluk period, as indicated by a Mamluk-period refuse pit uncovered in …

Maa': An Analysis From The May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection, Claire T. Chilla

Department of Anthropology

Research of a maa’ textile within the May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection (MWESC) from Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Report discusses different knowledge systems including technical and physical as well as cosmological and spiritual from the Toraja people. Also analyses affects of colonialism, trade, spirituality, tourism, and funerary practices.

Predator Or Prey: The Analysis Of Gender And Race On The Perception Of Black Men As Sexual Assault Victims, Jordyn Livingston, Dr. Florencia Cornet

Caravel Undergraduate Research Journal

Men sexual assault victims have gained more attention in recent years. Despite the growing sociological literature on violence against men, previous research provides little acknowledgment of Black men sexual assault victims. In this manuscript, I analyze emerging literature in the socio-medical sciences to explore how gender and race affects the perceptions of Black men as sexual assault victims. Specifically, I utilize intersectionality as a theoretical framework to synthesize literature on blackness and masculinity in sexual assault victims to conclude that there is an intersectional point that disadvantages Black males, portraying them as sexual predators. In so doing, I provide research …

Who Can Dance If They Want To?: Intersections Of Dance, Gender, And Political Control In Late Archaic And Early Classical Athens, Adeline P. Strickler

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This thesis investigates the evidence for women's public choruses in the polis of Athens and the wider Greek world prior to the 6th century BCE and their decline in Athens following the Kleisthenic reforms of 509/508 BCE. Emphasising analysis of visual sources through Athenian fabric vases in the Beazley archive, and supporting literary evidence, this research seeks to establish a base of evidence for a neglected area of dance and women's research in the classics. Additionally, by analyzing the significance of choral dance in polis social and political life, this research seeks potential reasons for the lack of a culture …

The Dragon In The Dress: A Folklore Analysis Of Gender Bias In Ai-Generated Monster Imagery, Nicole M. Christensen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

When asked to generate a monster, AI image generators consistently produce masculine or genderless creatures and never female ones. This thesis documents that finding through a year-long experiment across seven generators that produced 577 monster images, not one of which depicted a female monster. Female monstrosity has deep roots in folklore and cultural tradition, yet it is entirely absent from these systems' neutral outputs. When specifically prompted, the generators handled female monstrosity in wildly different ways, ranging from hypersexualized figures to a dragon wearing a dress, while male monsters looked nearly identical across all platforms. The inconsistency between generators indicates …

Let's Play A Lovegame: How College Hookup Culture Came To Be, How It Functions On A University Campus, And The Greek Organizations That Perpetuate It At Butler University, Ella Gray Tucker

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

“Let’s Play a LoveGame” examines how hookup culture functions, is perpetuated, and impacts students on a college campus. By understanding the historical context of its creation, I analyze the multitude of factors that aided it to evolve into what it is today. Although hookup culture is considered part of the undergraduate “college experience”, it is negatively impacting students' mental well-being and their understanding of romantic relationships. With Butler University as my case study, I have come to find that Greek Organizations within the National Panhellenic Conference and Interfraternity Council hold events that enable hookup culture to permeate Greek row which …

Toward An Anthropology Of The Expressive Individual: Reformational Insights Into Emotions, The Heart, And Christian Formation, Isaac Kantola

Senior Honors Theses

Contemporary Western culture is increasingly defined by what theologians and sociologists call “expressive individualism,” driven by an “ethic of authenticity” in which one’s emotions and desires are seen as the primary arbiter of identity and meaning. Responding to this cultural movement, the Church has appropriated the language of desire, happiness, and the affective in its preaching, ministry, and apologetic endeavors. Figures such as John Piper, James K.A. Smith, and Timothy Keller have each, in their own way, sought to contextualize the faith so it may be better understood by a culture obsessed with their longings and therapeutic self-concern. While these …

Volume 17, Christian O’Neill, Kyara Greene, Savva Sidorov, Laura Bisaillon, Luke Clemmer, Hannah Gordon, Kitt Benson, Taylor Blount, Rachel Danzitz, Nicholas Duellman, Chase Gionis, Hima Fernando, Seth Franzyshen, Onyx Gonzalez, Bryan Lin, Samantha Start, Ysabel Wells, Maggie Duncan

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction Dr. Amorette Barber, Director, Office of Student Research

From the Editor Dr. Hannah Dudley-Shotwell

Cover Artist’s Statement Maggie Duncan

On Mentoring Dr. Yulia Uryadova

Ukrainian Resistance in the Face of Russification: Nestor Makhno and Anarchism

by Christian O’Neill

Life Vest by Kyara Greene

Isolation and 16S rRNA Identification of Bacteria from Fire Department Connection Pipe by Savva Sidorov

The Effectiveness of Planned Exercise in Reducing ADHD Symptoms in Children by Laura Bisaillon & Luke Clemmer

Linguistic Analysis on Confidence and Communication Strategies with Disparities Between Sign Fluency and Hearing Impairment by Hannah Gordon

Freedmen in Indian Territory by Kitt …

Maa’: An Analysis From The May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection, Claire T. Chilla

Department of Anthropology

An analysis of Maa’ textiles from Sulawesi Indonesia. Discusses both the artistic symbolism, possible physical creation, and the spiritual connection of the textile for the Torajans. Informs through the lens of globalization, colonization, and funerary practices from the country of origin.

Trinities In World Mythology: Why Separate Cultures Construct The Same Cosmology, Autumn Scott

Undergraduate Fellows' Research

Numerous cultures throughout the world construct mythologies and cosmologies which include a triad, triple deity, or three world cosmology. Specifically, this refers either to belief in a singular deity with three forms, belief in a distinct group of three divine beings with a common characteristic, or belief in three cosmic realms, such as the human world, underworld, and divine world. This phenomenon occurs within Europe, South Asia and East Asia, as well as North America. While many may be familiar with the Greek Moirai and the Christian trinity, this pattern appears well beyond the ancient and medieval cultures who inhabited …

Sonic Rupture And Embodied Politics:
Reconfiguring The Aesthetic Regime In The Syrian Uprising, Lynn Shabani

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the Syrian uprising of 2011 emerged as a sonic and embodied rupture within an authoritarian aesthetic regime that had long governed public sensibility. Through chants, song, and coordinated movement, political agency took form as collective, affective practice, transforming vernacular repertoires into infrastructures of mobilization, audibility, and resistance.

Internalizing Diasporic Peoples: How Do We Keep Native Hawaiians Connected?, Kallie P. Kaaihue-Paopao

Whittier Scholars Program

In the attempt to better understand the grounds for the generation culture disconnect of identity in Native Hawaiians, I study the diaspora of my people. Diaspora is the dispersion of people from their native lands. I find interest in this aspect of my people because the most common studies blame our dispersion on socioeconomic status and as a Native Hawaiian that wishes to do more for her people, I want to express that while it plays a part that there is a disconnection between the social actions and reactions of Hawaiʻi’s people. Common questions that I find unanswered are, why …

Analysis Of Volumetric Reconstruction Methods In Archaeology, Cade O'Fallon

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry in archaeological projects is entering a period of transition; a method of producing 3D data that is traditionally embraced as tool for documentation is being explored for its analytic potential. One such way SfM photogrammetry can be used analytically is through the calculation of volumes using photogrammetric data. The tools exist for archaeologists to be able to create and quantify volumetric models; however, the discourse on these methods is still so new there is no consensus on the best method for conducting volumetric work. Different methods of creating and isolating volumetric space …

House Of Ill-Fame: A Historical, Cartographic, And Archaeological Study On The Spatial Evolution Of Commercial Sex Work In New Orleans, 1875 – 1925, Austin Roebuck

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the historic spatiality of commercial sex‑work in New Orleans by analyzing targeted addresses associated with the trade across three census years. Using the establishment and closure of Storyville (1897–1917) as a temporal frame, it compares demographic patterns in dwellings labeled as “houses of ill fame” in 1880, 1900, and 1920 to trace changes in household composition and social identity. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, newspapers, and city directories contextualize these patterns within three ten‑year intervals (1875–1885, 1895–1905, 1915–1925), revealing how sex‑work spaces were regulated, represented, and embedded in the urban landscape. The study also incorporates an archaeological assemblage …

The Geography Of Race: A Spatial Analysis Of Free People Of Color In The City Of Charleston (1790-1861), Alexandra Ullman

All Theses

In Charleston, South Carolina, for all but one year from 1790 to 1860, the enslaved and free Black population outnumbered that of the white. Through manumission, the process of an enslaved person gaining their freedom, the free Black population grew substantially and reached a peak in South Carolina during the nineteenth century. This large community of free people of color (FPOC), shifted the social climate by upsetting the balance of white power, thus increasing racial conflict, tension, and legislation that aimed to control the movement of FPOC.

Despite FPOC comprising a significant portion of the total population of Charleston, there …

Understanding Roma Oppression In Europe Through Humantarian Forensic Analysis, Christal L. Quinn

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This thesis examines the marginalization of Roma people in Europe, and how humanitarian forensic practices may help Roma communities in their quest for justice and recognition. The study draws exclusively on secondary information to examine the social, political, and legal issues affecting the Roma communities, who have endured centuries of institutional discrimination, marginalization, and violence. This thesis identifies ways in which systematic oppression continues to limit Roma communities’ access to education, housing, healthcare, and legal protection through a review of relevant literature and applicable theoretical frameworks. The study also examines the relevance of forensic science, particularly its humanitarian applications, in …