Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Creating An Action Plan To Increase Diversity And Inclusion At Northwest Church Of Christ, Kenton Reeves Brown

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project was designed to meet a need at the Northwest Church of Christ in Oklahoma City to help the church transition from a church that values diversity to one that realizes its vision of being diverse and inclusive. The scope of this project was to create an action plan to increase diversity and inclusion to present to the church leaders for their consideration. The theological foundation for the project comes from Paul’s convictions, expressed in Gal 1–2, that any who are in Christ should not be excluded or treated as a lower-class member of the community based on their …

Incorporating Wisdom Christology Into The Phronesis Of Courtyard Church Of Christ, Tiffany A. Dahlman

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to address an identified problem Courtyard Church of Christ members were having with decision-making in a way that promoted shalom and reflected Christ to the world. I proposed that Wisdom Christology could assist in the decision-making process and formed an intervention team of five additional people from within the congregation to explore the situation through participatory action research. We met for six sessions in the early months of 2020. The team embarked on a thorough examination of Wisdom Christology through the Scriptures climaxing in the Wisdom Hymn of Col 1:15–20. Our subsequent collective understanding …

The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …

Media Erasure: A 1904 Lynching In St. Charles, Arkansas, Mary Hennigan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As Americans grew increasingly interested in historic racial violence following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021, select news publications chose to publish apologetic editorials and articles that addressed their failure of inclusive reporting for the last century (Lancaster, 2021; Fannin, 2020). In the theme of acknowledging past mistakes, the Printing Hate project emerged to investigate the power white-owned papers had in influencing lynching incidents in the county (Capital News Service, 2021). The present study examines one Arkansas lynching in 1904 St. Charles. The incident includes the death of 13 Black men. Findings from a content analysis of 70 original …

Defining A Culture Through Artwork: Case Of Asian Pacific, Camryn Kelbaugh, Gianna Aiosa, Brooke Demarsico, Fiona Lyons

Education Student Scholarship

Camryn Kelbaugh ’22, Major: Biology
Gianna Aiosa ’25, Major: Elementary/Special Education
Brooke DeMarsico ’25, Major: Elementary/Special Education
Fiona Lyons ’25, Elementary/Special Education
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Comfort Ateh, Secondary Education

Artwork is a major tool in any culture. Unfortunately, it has not been extensively explored as a tool in discussing the cultural diversity in our communities. In our research shared in this poster presentation, we focused on the Asian Pacific people and examined their culture through artwork. We investigated artists and their lives towards a deep understanding of the role of artwork in defining culture of a people. We share what …

Equity + Catalyst Framework Guide, Naomi M. Silas

Masters Projects

There has been a shift in society, in light of Covid-19 and the global pandemic, more people have begun to recognize the structural and institutional injustices that exist in this country. Social innovation allows collaboration between people from different sectors, disciplines, industries, and backgrounds; in order to create sustainable change to complex social issues. Design thinking is an iterative process used in business to create innovation and products; it’s also used for social impact.

The goal of the Equity + Catalyst Framework is to bridge concepts that include design thinking, and embodiment, as well as lived experiences and community care …

"Standing In The Gap": Combating Sexual Abuse In The Protestant Church, Hayley N. Carter

Honors Projects

Sexual abuse in the Christian Church has been a problem for many decades, and scholars have written extensively about sexual abuse occurring in the Catholic Church. However, abuse occurring in the Protestant Church has not been given that same attention. In 2017, the #MeToo movement went viral and has inspired many sexual abuse survivors to share their stories. I will argue that the Protestant Church should acknowledge the #MeToo movement’s accomplishments, and that this acknowledgement would lead to positive changes in how it approaches sexual abuse. I also will discuss financial abuse, which is a correlating behavior along with sexual …

Shifting Identities: Professorial Identification During Covid-19, Anthony Survance

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Building on existing studies of identification, this paper melds crisis research with studies of identity to understand how crises influence workplace identities. To accomplish this, the study addresses two research questions: (a) How are professors’ identities enacted during the COVID-19 crisis? And, how, if at all, does university rhetoric shape the enactment of identity during the COVID-19 crisis? This paper uses qualitative methods to get rich descriptions of professorial identities allowing research to get at the heart of how changes during the pandemic affected professors’ organizational, personal, professional, and workgroup identities. Overall, this study shows the pandemic encouraged professors to …

Sex With Robots And Human-Machine Sexualities: Encounters Between Human-Machine Communication And Sexuality Studies, Marco Dehnert

Human-Machine Communication

Sex robots are a controversial topic. Understood as artificial-intelligence enhanced humanoid robots designed for use in partnered and solo sex, sex robots offer ample opportunities for theorizing from a Human-Machine Communication (HMC) perspective. This comparative literature review conjoins the seemingly disconnected literatures of HMC and sexuality studies (SeS) to explore questions surrounding intimacy, love, desire, sex, and sexuality among humans and machines. In particular, I argue for understanding human-machine sexualities as communicative sexuotechnical-assemblages, extending previous efforts in both HMC and SeS for more-than-human, ecological, and more fluid approaches to humans and machines, as well as to sex and sexuality. This …

Amjambo Africa! (April 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Community updates .............2/3

Remembrance ....................... 4/5

Novruz celebration ...................7

Financial Literacy/Professional Development

Français ...................... 8/9

Iswahili ..........................9

Somali ......................9/10

Ikinyarwanda ........10/11

Português ...............11/12

Espanõl ...................12/13

English .........................33

Candidate Mana Abdi ........... 14

Legislative update ...................15

Skin bleaching ........................16

Paul Farmer .............................17

Jacob Lawrence at Colby .......18

Checking in with businesses .20

French renaissance .................21

Tips & Info

Covid 2 ................................2

Driving ........................30/31

Work permits ...................35

Health&Wellness ...............24-30

In 7 languages

Columns ............................32-37

New Voices columns ........34/35

Gashi/Roseline Souebele

Poems by Maya Williams

Vedantic Basis And Praxis Of The Integral Advaita Of Sri Aurobindo, Debashish Banerji

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The integral nondualism of Sri Aurobindo can be traced to the great pronouncements (mahāvākya) of the Upanishads and later commentaries. This study examines teachings on the Supermind (vijñāna) and the other four kinds of consciousness that define human reality: Matter (annaṃ), Life (prāṇaḥ), Mind (manaḥ), and Bliss (ānanda). Through Yoga and Tantra, one learns and embodies the pathway to the divine.

Digital And Spatial Humanities Mapping: Eurasia-Pacific Early Trade And Belief Linkages, Igor Sitnikov, David Blundell

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The Eurasia-Pacific is a dynamic region of rapid economic growth, cultural awareness, natural resource exploration, and military buildup. The concept of the region is relatively new, featuring contested vast areas of geo-resource space of numerous cultures and languages. The current findings in anthropology and archaeology and even its more specific subfields such as folklore are important contribution to the understanding of periodic environmental changes and technical innovations were the main forces of transformations in social structures that have determined the mechanisms and levels of cross-cultural trade activity across the region. We have traced early trade and belief linkages across Eurasia-Pacific …

Tusha Hiti: The Origin And Significance Of The Name, Deepak Shimkhada

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

In this article, the author examines the royal bath called Tushā Hiti located in Sūndari Chowk (Beautiful Courtyard) of Pātan Durbar Square, using six different methods of investigation. The question: What is in a name? started the ball of investigation rolling and along the way were added more supporting blocks such as history, iconography, function and purpose, notion of purity and impurity, and finally the hiti in popular culture to get a complete picture of the subject in question.

Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: Perspectives From Contemporary India And 6th Century Jain Yoga, Christopher Key Chapple

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Times New Roman

Ganges In Indian Sculpture And Literature: Mythology And Personification, Nalini Rao

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The river Ganges is a symbol of wealth, purity and eternity, and its sacred waters have inspired sages, philosophers, and artists in India who have immortalized its divine imagery. However, it has rarely been understood from a historical point of view, as to how it became so sacred and to view it from a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary perspective with an accumulation of layers of historical thought and practices, provides a rationale for the living practices around the river. The paper explores the evolution of the concept of sacredness and eternity of River Ganges through art- historical and archaeological evidence. It …

“Passive Revolutions” After The Crisis Of Globalization: Gramsci And The Current Culture Of Populism, Yuri Brunello

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article compares the ways in which two scholars, the anthropologist Kate Crehan and the philosopher Diego Fusaro, analyze Gramsci’s thought, verifying its current relevance and effectiveness in interpreting populism. In Crehan’s recent Gramscian studies the categories of senso comune and buon senso become crucial. Crehan utilizes categories such as “culture” and senso comune to explain both the Tea Party experience and Donald Trump’s election. Fusaro, on the contrary, is an Italian public intellectual who declares himself a sovereignist and who often includes, among the theoretical references of Italian contemporary sovereignism, the author of Quaderni del carcere. In the …

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari (2020): Having An Amerikorean Life, Nagehan Uzuner

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Minari by Lee Isaac Chung is a drama which chronicles the life of a Korean family who moves to the USA during 1980s in pursuit for a better life. The acculturation process is experienced differently by family members. Children are mostly bored with their new life in the rural area of Arkansas while their mother, Monica, is terrified of living in a mobile home which is made of a truck trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the grandmother joins the family from Korea to take care of the kids with a more positive approach dealing with their struggles. The …

Amjambo Africa! (March 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

Welcome Center .......................4

Spotlight on business ...............5

Hazard Pay ................................5

Community Food Center ........7

Poem by Nyamuon Nguany

Machar .......................................8

Fufu & Math ........................... 14

Legislative Update ..................15

Singer Clarisse Karasira ........37

DEI/Lewiston............................ 3

Translations French ......................9/13

Swahili ....................10/13

Somali ...............11/13/36

Kinyarwanda .........12/32

Portuguese .............30/32

Spanish ...................31/32

Health&Wellness. ..............20-27

Nutritious eating

In English & translation

Columns New Voices ................8/34/35

Professional Development ... 7

Ask the District Attorney....16

Bureau of Motor Vehicles ...16

Ask the Doctor ....................19

Finance ................................. 33

Community organizations. 28

Beautiful Blackbird .............18

Let’s Talk ...............................35

Maine Immigration .............36

Iraqi immigration freeze ....39

Sensing Brownness: On Racialization, Perception, And Method, Amber Jamilla Musser

Publications and Research

Maureen Catbagan’s Dark Matter (2020) photography series invites us into sensing brownness. In these images of museum passages and stairwells, silhouettes of museum guards, and evocative shadows, Catbagan presents the landscape of the museum. However, this may not be immediately recognizable because the photographs draw focus to the parts of museums to which we rarely pay attention. In particular, Catbagan’s attention to the presence of guards allows us to perceive dynamics of racialized and gendered labor and laborers who, in an echo of their architectural focus on minor, peripheral spaces and shadows, hover between the underrecognized and oft-neglected, thereby allowing …

2022 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2022 IGGAD Conference: Who Owns This? Communities, Heritage, and Preservation.

Amjambo Africa! (February 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Afghan Resettlement ............2/3

Lunar New Year ........................4

Maine Youth Network .............5

Afrofuturism with MHC......... 7

Editorial .....................................8

Translations French .........................9/13

Swahili .......................10/13

Somali .......................11/13

Kinyarwanda ............12/13

Portuguese ................28/30

Spanish ......................29/30

MCF grant opportunities ......14

Legislative update ...................15

Tips & Info ........................16/31

New Roots Farm .....................17

The Samosa Story .............18/19

Health&Wellness... ............20-27

Cardiac Health In English & translations

Columns ..................................32

Maine Equal Justice South Portland Sustainability MIRC

Tax Season...33

In English & translations

New Voices columns ..............34

Rupal Ramesh Shah Roseline Souebele

Hope in Augusta .................... 37

Hudson Yards: Hybrid Capital's New Home, Massimo D. Scoditti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the material and metaphysical aspects of the Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US History. With its roots in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the site is representative of neoliberal ideology. It is also one in which cultural production is central. This is in terms of the rationalization and mythos of the building of the space itself and the dreamworlds created to obscure the mechanisms of extraction and accumulation that make such a complex possible. The Hudson Yards is particularly interesting because, as Cindi Katz might suggest, topography lines connect it to transnational capital. And …

Queer And Trans Prison Voices: A Podcast Archive On Prison Abolition, Josefine Ziebell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is located at the intersection of Critical Prison Studies, Gender Studies, Sound Studies, and American Studies. It highlights the importance of sonic modes of anti-carceral resistance by featuring the recorded voices of incarcerated people through the creation of a sonic archive of prison writings. By integrating that sonic archive into the podcast medium, this project functions as a digital archive for incarcerated voices, consisting of two tracks: a collection of short-spoken readings by queer and transgender incarcerated authors, and podcast-style interviews with activist scholars, organizations, and sound artists working towards prison abolition. In this paper, I establish …

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

Topics In Collaborative Storytelling Scm 490, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Pre-Event Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

The Stars Told Me About You: Reclaiming Filipino Mythology Through Film, Tara Renee Masangya Mercene

Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects

The Philippines holds a long history of colonization and occupation from Spain, Japan, and the United States of or (the US). Today, the Philippines is heavily influenced by Western culture, holding ideologies paralleling their past colonizers. For this project, I would like to explore the culture of pre-colonial Philippines and how it is reviving itself in the present, which I frame as the postcolonial. Looking specifically at Filipino folklore and mythology I am interested in understanding the scars of colonization and how lore and rituals have sought to heal these pasts through its remembrance of traditional thought. In this moment …

Amjambo Africa! (January 2022), Kathereen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Editorial ....................................6

Translation

French/Portuguese ...............8

Swahili ...................................9

Somali ..................................10

Kinyarwanda........................10

Spanish ................................11

Liberation Farms ....................12

Equity in education ................13

Cross-racial conversation ......13

Special feature....................15-18

History of Medieval Africa Contributed by USM student authors

Finance Advice for the New Year .... 19

Poetry ......................................20

Contributed by South Portland student poets

Legislative Updates Permanent Commission ....21

Priority bills for the 130th

session .................................21

Mental health: home begins in the body ..................................24

Columns ..................................27

Maine Equal Justice

ILAP

IntWork

Let’s Talk

New Voices ........................28/29

Zabrina Richards

Nsiona Nguizani

Gashi

Bénédicte Wonganombe

Rupal Ramesh Shah

Coco McCracken

Mayor Deqa Dhalac of …

What Is "Speedrunning?" Industry, Community, Identity, Riley Scott Kelfer

Senior Scholar Papers

What drives interaction in online contexts? How do “internet communities” form, and how do they generate a sense of interpersonal closeness? I address such questions through a cultural analysis of video game “speedrunning,” an emergent online community that some commentators have noted for its remarkable commitment to compassion and mutual advancement. While several game scholars have explored the narrative and temporal implications of the live-streamed and recorded speedrun, few have directed their attention to the ways in which video game speedrunning, as a community of dedicated practitioners and spectators, is informed by historical precedents and contemporary social processes. I place …