Communication Commons^™

Ambiguous Identities: Gesturing Towards An Intersectional Conception Of Freedom, Shaun Soman

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Writing in The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948), existential philosopher and feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir declared that each individual’s freedom depends upon that of others. This claim was meant to motivate others to not remain complicit in the oppression of others; however, when considering the xenophobic rhetoric within Western feminists’ rhetoric about “liberating” Muslim women, one realizes that this demand warrants further scrutiny. In this paper, I apply Alia Al-Saji’s work on Western feminists’ approaches to liberating “other” women to de Beauvoir’s “we” in order to strengthen this latter concept. Overall, my aim with this work is to demonstrate that …

Misrepresentation Of Women Of Color In Western Media, Nicole C. Schutte

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper delves into the misrepresentation of women of color in western media. From the perspective of bell hooks (1992), the commodification of the Other serves sinister societal “needs” in order to uphold the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Patricia Hill Collins (2000) and Judith Williamson (1986) interpret this as keeping the western racial hierarchy, gender dichotomy, and capitalist markets intact. A vast majority of people believe that any form of representation in the media is a sense of inclusion when in fact misrepresentation is counterproductive and problematic. Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins (1993) would agree that inaccurate portrayals …

Exploiting Non-Western Women In Media Representations, Gabrielle Miller

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Media representations and advertisements serve as visual mediums through which cultural values are projected and reinforced. Western capitalism relies on Eurocentric media representations that exploit perceived differences of non-white and non-western cultures to sell western products. This paper analyzes recent advertisements from Kellogg’s and Suit Supply as examples of media representations that employ Eurocentric perspectives of non-western cultures to uphold white masculinist and colonial power structures. Therefore, I suggest that the non- western cultures in the Kellogg’s and Suit Supply advertisements exist within a western capitalist vacuum. This way of consuming and representing serves to reinforce western ways of knowing …

Standing Under A Sign To Which One Does Not Belong: Desire And (Dis)Identification In Catherine Opie’S Self-Portrait Series, Jenna June

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper will take a closer look at Catherine Opie’s Self-Portrait series. Spanning a decade, from 1993 to 2004, each self-portrait is both reflective of an important time in Opie’s life, and are emblematic of a particular period in the LGBTQ movement. Traditional interpretations of these images have read them as independent of one another. When read together however, they present a subtle yet powerful statement on identity and desire. Using José Muñoz’ disidentification theory as a critical lens, I plan to unpack these images and offer new insights that will bring them in line with contemporary queer theory. While …

Creative Submission: I Return To The Place I Ran From, Ian Gillespie

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

Lgbtq People Of Color And Digital Spaces Of Empowerment, Eden Bonjo

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

In recent history, the internet has been considered a place where disembodied users can escape the limitations of their corporeal bodies. But in the contemporary moment, the digital and the physical worlds have become mutually constitutive. What happens when a politics of race, sexuality, and gender is centered in an analysis of digital activity? LGBTQ people of color use strategies to navigate marginalizing social dynamics of power both offline and online. This negotiation is important because of how integral the internet has become to everyday life. In the age of social media, cultural production has become the business of the …

La Negra Tiene Tumbao: Multimodal Resistance Strategies Of Afro-Latinxs And Other Queer Constructions, Kassandra Colón Cisneros

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

The importance of sound in Afro- diasporic communities hearkens back to the slave cry on the plantation field, a sound that showed there is social life within social death. These survival and resistance strategies still exist today, and are not limited to music; they can also be traced through aesthetics, as well as routes and history that connect Afro-Latinxs to the diaspora. The deployment of diasporic resistance through what Juan Flores calls “baggage,” show the possibility and radical potential for survival in white spaces. Recognizing the necessity to dismantle white heteronormative spaces, my research will analyze how Afro-Latinxs—especially those who …

A Pre-Medical Student’S Reconciliation Of Feminist Narratives Regarding Women’S Health: A Consideration Of Perspectives On Childbirth In The U.S., Laura Clayton

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Many feminists argue that one major negative aspect of reproductive healthcare in the U.S. is the common over-medicalization of women during childbirth, including potentially unnecessary procedures such as cesarean-section and episiotomy. As a solution, they advocate for increased involvement of midwives in childbirth practices, as midwives allow women to give birth at home with minimal medical intervention. This paper analyzes the benefits of midwifery as well as the current increased risk associated with homebirth in the U.S. Additionally, it questions the damaging stigma associated with assumptions of cesarean-section as a suboptimal outcome. A false dichotomy has developed in our culture …

Shame And The Struggle Of Sexual Identity, Brooke English

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper examines the development and use of language in minority communities within the queer community from the beginning of the 20th century through today. The pre-Stonewall era is explored through two literary works, Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant (1997/1968) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1990/1928), and the post- Stonewall era looks at two 21st century groups, the undocuqueer movement and the group of queer people who use Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), otherwise known as Truvada Whores. Drawing on analysis of the modern groups found in Hinda Seif’s Coming out of the Shadows and undocuqueer and Tim Dean’s …

Creative Submission: For The Androgynous, Elias Fulmer

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

Small Historically Black Colleges And Universities Bridging Social Capital: The Use Of Language, Tone And Content To Share Information On Instagram, Pamela Peters

Journal of Research Initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained higher education institutions, especially small Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As campuses closed and reopened, Black communities' digital divide grew, adding to the need to stay connected. This study uses social capital to examine how institutions use language, tone, content, and information to bridge social capital. An analysis of 35 small liberal arts HBCUs’ Instagram posts was undertaken to compare post frequency, types of information, engagement, tone, language, and content in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic, 2020 and 2021. This study indicates that post-oversaturation in 2020 and 2021 and information …

African-American Parents’ Cultural Understandings Of The Concept Of Autism And Implications For Parental Communication And Health Management, Kellie J. Fennell

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

In 2023 the Centers of Disease Control reported that around 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with Autism in America and that the prevalence has increased by 178% since 2000 (CDC, 2023). Despite increases in awareness and diagnosis past research finds that the discussions of ASD in African American communities is minimal (Fombonne, 2003; Yeargin Allsopp et al., 2003). This disparity is important considering that African American children receive an ASD diagnosis years later than their white counterparts and are much more likely to be misdiagnosed (Mandell et al., 2009, 2002).

Given the history of a lack of representation of …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Improving Communication Access With Deaf People Through Nursing Simulation: A Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration, Jamie L. Mccartney Ph.D., Tracy Gidden, Jennifer Biggs, Kathy Geething, Karl Kosko Ph.D.

Journal of Gender, Ethnic, and Cross-Cultural Studies

Baccalaureate nursing and sign language interpreting students participated in a pediatric discharge simulation with a deaf person playing the role of the baby’s parent. At the conclusion of the simulation, participants were emailed a consent letter and a link to a 17-item questionnaire developed by the authors. Responses were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, whereby nonparametric statistics were calculated to examine Likert-scale items. A Mann-Whitney test statistic was calculated, instead of an independent samples t-test, given the smaller sample in the current study (n = 26). A question was posed to participants that evaluated their self-perception of the effectiveness of …

Citing Seeds, Citing People: Bibliography And Indigenous Memory, Relations, And Living Knowledge-Keepers, Megan Peiser Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma

Criticism

By turning the page or reading further, you are accepting a responsibility to this story, its storyteller, its ancestors, and its future ancestors. You are accepting a relationship of reciprocity where you treat this knowledge as sacred for how it nourished you, share it only as it has been instructed to share, and to ensure it remains unviolated for future generations.

This story is told by myself, Megan Peiser, Chahta Ohoyo. I share knowledge entrusted to me by Anishinaabe women I call friends and sisters, by seed-keepers of many peoples Indigenous to Turtle Island, and knowledge come to me from …

Trees And Texts: Indigenous History, Material Media, And The Logan Elm, Mark Alan Mattes

Criticism

Settler accounts of the Cayuga Native American Soyeghtowa (Logan), such as Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, interpret his famous mourning speech, “Logan’s Lament,” as the words of a melancholic, noble savage and vanishing Indian. This essay decolonizes settler accounts of Logan’s words and deeds such as Jefferson’s book by considering Indigenous relationships to a once-living memorial on Shawnee land in central Ohio, the Logan Elm, which nineteenth-century settlers apocryphally identified as the site of Logan’s speech. Drawing on scholarly work on Indigenous writing and historical media by Native American and settler intellectuals, as well as local …

Terrorism And Growth: Evidence From India And Egypt, Nibal Ezz Eldin Attia Nibal, Ahmed Sabry Abou Zaid

Future Journal of Social Science

The impact of terrorism is different in developed and developing countries, according to many economists. But what leads to variation in the consequences of terrorism among two developing countries? This paper takes into account two developing countries from two different continents and quantifies the impact of terrorism on GDP per capita. The data is extracted and arranged from the Global Terrorism Index (Humanity, n.d.) for India and Egypt from the years 1975-2018 and 1977-2018, respectively. A set of statistical analyses using the OLS and Newey-West method is used to examine the relationship between the variables. For India, an act of …

Reimagining The Theory Of Necropolitics In A Modern Lens: Hate Crimes And Violence, Salma Ahmed Abdulmagied Gheita

Future Journal of Social Science

This research paper is testing the validity of the Necropolitics theory and how we can reintroduce its definitions in a modern lens. Though the theory of Necropolitics is extreme and historically was a terminology and paradigm that was used towards more catastrophic and traumatizing events. The main argument that this paper is discussing is how did the idea of Necropolitics evolved into a more institutional, systematic, and legalized manors of exclusion. This is made through critical discourse analysis of the text presented on the term Necropolitics to highlight on the history of this term and what it stood for in …

You Are Cordially (Un)Invited: My Korean Femme Strategy And Aspiration For Survival And Queer Futures, Nahyun Kim

Masters Theses

You are cordially (un)invited: My Korean Femme Strategy and Aspiration for Survival and Queer Futures documents a series of ceremonies dedicated to the years I have survived. This book has branched from a project of the same name that consists of a durational installation, performance, and series of events. The project and book are an aspirational gesture to send off the part of myself–that had to compromise, comply, and negotiate with institutions–for a rebirth to live a life beyond survival.

As a book and project, You are cordially (un)invited is a culmination of my experiences as a Korean femme, using …

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

The Sociolinguistics Of Code-Switching In Hong Kong’S Digital Landscape: A Mixed-Methods Exploration Of Cantonese-English Alternation Patterns On Whatsapp, Wilkinson Daniel Wong Gonzales, Yuen Man Tsang

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

This paper examines the prevalence of Cantonese-English code mixing in Hong Kong through an under-researched digital medium. Prior research on this code-alternation practice has often been limited to exploring either the social or linguistic constraints of code-switching in spoken or written communication. Our study takes a holistic approach to analyzing code-switching in a hybrid medium that exhibits features of both spoken and written discourse. We specifically analyze the code-switching patterns of 24 undergraduates from a Hong Kong university on WhatsApp and examine how both social and linguistic factors potentially constrain these patterns. Utilizing a self-compiled sociolinguistic corpus as well as …

To Open A Clearing: Cultivating Spaces Of Endurance In The Upper Amazon, Brunno De Melo Meirelles Douat

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

To effectively challenge the policies of extraction implemented by late liberal regimes, the Waorani communities from Upper Amazon have devised spatial strategies to defend their traditional territory. By re-examining the concept of the contact zone and unfolding settler and Indigenous literature, spatialities, and worldviews, this thesis suggests the concept of forest Clearings as a means to explore spatial forms of endurance.

Clearings emerge within the Amazon in sites where encounters between divergent worldviews embody otherwise modes of existence. Through a series of fieldwork reflections, these Clearings are perceived as spaces where ontological negotiations are more likely to occur, strategies of …

Breaking Me Down And Lifting Me Up: An Autoethnography Of Being A Black Autistic Woman Online, Morgan Harper-Nichols

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This autoethnography investigates the diverse challenges associated with being a Black, undiagnosed autistic woman coming of age on the internet, and examines how online experiences shaped my identity over the past twenty years. Early encounters with racism and cautious self-expression on platforms such as forums, GeoCities, Myspace, and YouTube are explored as my initial efforts to "fit in" in virtual spaces. I discuss how engaging with platforms like Instagram and Etsy enabled my participation in the gig economy while grappling with my pre-diagnosis social struggles. I also share how I navigate post-2020 experiences as a Black autistic online creator, how …

Du Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Caitlyn Aldersea, Justin Bravo, Sam Allen, Anna Block, Connor Block, Emma Buechler, Maria De Los Angeles Bustillos, Arianna Carlson, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Noah Craver, Kate Dillon, Muskan Fatima, Angel Fernandes, Emma Finch, Colleen Cassidy, Amy Fishman, Andrea Francis, Stacia Fritz, Simran Gill, Emma Gries, Rylie Hansen, Shannon Powers, Jacqueline Martinez, Zachary Harker, Ashley Hasty, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Kathleen Hopps, Adelaide Kerenick, Colin Kleckner, Ci Koehring, Elijah Kruger, Braden Krumholz, Maddie Leake, Lyneé Alves, Seraphina Loukas, Yatzari Lozano Vazquez, Haley Maki, Emily Martinez, Sierra Mckinney, Audrey Mitchell, Kipling Newman, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Andrew Nguyen, Stevie Ostman, Casandra Pearson, Alexandra Penney, Julia Gielczynski, Tyler Ball, Anna Rini, Christina Rorres, Simon Ruland, Helayna Schafer, Emma Sellers, Sarah Schuller, Claire Shaver, Kevin Summers, Isabella Shaw, Madison Sinar, Claudia Pena, Apshara Siwakoti, Carter Sorensen, Madi Sousa, Anna Sparling, Alexandra Revier, Brandon Thierry, Dylan Tyree, Maggie Williams, Lauren Wols

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

A Dream Come True: More Than 50 Years After Black Students Demanded Faculty And Student Leadership Roles At The University Of Mississippi, Students Of Color Are Still Grappling With What It Means To Be Included., Kaylynn Steen

Honors Theses

This thesis tells the story of University of Mississippi alumna Treasure Fisher’s journey in the organization Column’s Society, an organization known as the hosts and hostess of the University of Mississippi. Throughout Fisher’s story, historical moments from the university’s complex relationship with its Black students are weaved through in an attempt to provide context for some of the lingering racial issues at the university today. Fisher’s story, these historical moments, and other anecdotal experiences from current and former Black students, faculty, and staff at the university challenges the reader to examine what representation does, and maybe should, mean to this …

Other Oceans, Other Skies, Sharlene Lee

MFA in Visual Art

I create immersive installations, performances, and time-based media artworks that delve into stories of belonging, feminism, and language as power. These stories offer a potential for transformation from viewer to participant and a shift in how our world is seen and experienced. Through an exploration of perception and affect, I challenge dominant narratives, prompting a contemplation of contemporary power struggles for control.

In this text, I examine the impact of historical borders and migration on my life while also investigating questions of home, shared values, and rituals that contribute to one’s sense of belonging. I also highlight my commitment to …

Through Her Eyes: Learning And Teaching About Racism Through "To Kill A Mockingbird" And "The Bluest Eye", Sloane Larsen

English Honors Theses

This thesis argues that Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird both merit a place in te United States’ secondary education systems by using use them in the classroom to encourage students to recognize and challenge their biases, perspectives, and choices. One of the many complex questions this thesis addresses is the efficacy of teaching students about racism using such novels. Teaching these novels through Critical Race Theory could help create a new generation of students who are more likely to address and challenge their biases and privilege. At the same time, this approach requires …

Espacio, Edgar Perez Peña, Edgar Perez Peña

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Edgar Perez Peña (He, Him, His) is a Queer, Chicanx contemporary figurative painter, who lives and works in the Los Angeles County. A native of Los Angeles, California, his paintings, and assemblages are a strong combination of process, materials, and content that displays his fascination on how physical/psychological space (from where he resides), reflects on the Queer Brown body and its comfort/discomfort in relation to public and private space.

Peña looks at his artistic practice as an opportunity to explore the human condition from the Queer and Brown perspective as well the beginning of healing through the meditative process of …

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

Mixed Speak: Towards A Re-Poetics Of Race And Self, Celina Mizuki Ohga Samuelson

Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects

This paper tells the stories of mixed-race Japanese people. I engage in a re-poetics, positing storytelling as an essential tool into complicating our understandings of race and self. I examine the relationship between language and race, exploring how subjects existing within a space of mixedness navigate identity-formation and racial belonging. Operating under a socio-constructivist lens, I begin with a brief re-telling of the history of race in Japan, re-framing mythologies of race throughout literature, legislation, and into national and colonial projects. While popular discourse alleges Japan was and is a country of racial homogeneity, I argue that this falsifies colonial …