Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Principal Agency 50 Years After The Lau Decision: Building And Sustaining Bilingual Education Programs For Asian Languages, Kevin M. Wong, Zhongfeng Tian

Education Division Scholarship

This study examined how three champion principals of Asian language dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs—Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin—in California have navigated the oscillating language-in-education policies after the Lau decision. We explored principals' various roles through a lens of agency in a social justice leadership framework, specifically considering the opportunities and challenges for agentive leadership from three different phases: foregrounding and engaging, planning and implementing, and evaluating and sustaining. Findings demonstrate that the success of DLBE programs goes beyond the overarching language policies that supposedly enable bilingual education; rather it hinges on the bottom-up commitment, collaboration and resilience of principals, …

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Towards Sustainable Development: Civic Architecture As Material Banks, Kathleen O'Gara

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This thesis posed the question, “How can buildings be designed to be disassembled and reused to reduce construction and demolition waste and reduce our unsustainable reliance on raw materials?” Designing for disassembly and reuse has the potential to dramatically increase the life of building materials, thus decreasing construction and demolition waste relating to architecture. When designing with deconstruction and reuse in mind, designers must consider the next life of these materials. The thesis was further narrowed to push the adaptability of these materials by designing a structural kit of parts. The structure system is often seen as a stable and …

Healing A Generation; Implementation Of Higher Education Curricula For Venezuelan Journalism Students Living Under Structural Violence To Promote A Transition Into Democracy, José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti Prof.

The SUNY Journal of the Scholarship of Engagement: JoSE

Venezuela's sociopolitical landscape has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, culminating in a profound humanitarian crisis. This ethnography, conducted from 2015 to the present, explores the experiences of a study group comprising 2000 Venezuelan communication college students, aged 17 to 25, who navigate structural violence while striving for quality higher education. The research employed a multifaceted approach, encompassing interviews, focus groups, and observations. Additionally, this qualitative study examines the outcomes of implementing an interdisciplinary journalism curriculum grounded in human rights and media activism, complemented by online sessions and an environmental education component. This educational project aims to foster critical thinking …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

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 …

Constructing A Theological Framework That Revitalizes The Missional Nature Of Churches Of Christ In South Australia, Mark Daniel Riessen

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This thesis addresses the need for a theological framework that revitalizes the missional nature of Churches of Christ in South Australia. The problem identified within this ministry context was a lack of clear theological principles that informed a common understanding of identity for missional engagement. The purpose of the project was to create a study guide that informs common theological commitments and grounds congregations for missional vitality. A research and development team made up of seven Church of Christ ministers from different backgrounds was assembled to design a curriculum that addressed the problem. Through eight two-hour sessions over four months …

Contemporary Art Exhibitions As Places Of Learning About Reflexive Food System Localization, Andrew Bieler

Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts

[From first paragraph] This paper describes the role of socially engaged art practices in opening up our pedagogical imaginations to foster reflexive and creative approaches to building the local food movement. These contemporary artistic engagements with local food or ‘food system localization’ are in the genre of what has been called social practice artwork or, in other words, art practices that focus less on the production of a singular aesthetic object and more on the relational and experiential aspects of participatory interaction in a creative process (e.g., Kester; Finkerpearl). In this context, I examine social practice artworks that create experimental …

Volume 5, Issue 1 (2022) Migration, Community, And Environment During A Pandemic

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.

Weathering The Storm: Navigating Urban Ecologies Of Communication In Times Of Crisis, Austin Hestdalen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project explores cities as urban ecologies of communication in which crises emerge and are given significance within the dialogic relations cultivated among public actors attempting to make a living, together, within the shared historical-cultural contexts of everyday life. To describe cities as urban ecologies of communication is to describe them in terms of urban communication and its interdisciplinary foundations in the study of rhetoric, philosophy, planning, policy, architecture, sociology, geography, and media. The first chapter introduces the challenges of urban risk and crisis management within the complex ecologies of communication constituted by cities and reviews how ‘risk’ and ‘crisis’ …

Inaccessible Interpolated Imagery: How Coffee Farmers In The State Of Chiapas Might Access Political Economic Opportunity Through Representation, Paolo Fiann Bicchieri

Master's Theses

Here is a useful parable to boil down the idea of this project and set the tone: when one goes to the bar to tell a story about a fight at the bar, they would never venture to place themselves as the hero of the brawl, taking out three drunkards in a single punch, unless they were really in the bar, at that time, fighting a good fight. One would never do this as the bartender, locals, and regulars would all know if this were the case or not. Yet transnational corporations, governments, and even consumers do this all the …

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

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors 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 …

Equity + Catalyst Framework Guide, Naomi M. Silas

Culminating Experience 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 …

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 …

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

Visual Storytelling In The Context Of Marshall Mcluhan’S Media Theory: Rita Leistner And Her Socially Engaged Photography, Kalina Kukielko-Rogozinska, Krzysztof Tomanek

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

The main character of our story is Rita Leistner, one of the most famous Canadian war photographers in the world. She studied at the International Center of Photography (New York) and has a Master of Arts degree in French and English (University of Toronto). For six years Rita taught the history of photojournalism and documentary photography (UoT). She is the co-author of several books, such as Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on Iraq, and The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story. Her first monograph, Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan, a work on photography, technology and war, was …

Using Visual Storytelling To Design Solutions-Based Approaches To Homelessness, Peggy Peattie

Dissertations

Despite millions of dollars spent over several decades on assistance programs, the nation’s homeless population has increased for the last four years in a row. The number of people reporting as homeless for the first time doubled in San Diego between June 2019 and June 2020. Trying to impose a one-size-fits-all model of care on a population comprised of unique individuals has resulted in many homeless opting for the street rather than subjugating themselves to rules they feel do not treat them with respect and dignity. Yet, the perspectives of homeless individuals are excluded from decision-making dialogue around policies and …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Strategies Exemplary Social Studies Teachers’ Implement When Facilitating Discussions About Race, Candice Nicole Jasmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers experience difficulty in introducing some sensitive and controversial issues in the classroom environment. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to identify strategies that exemplary secondary social studies teachers implement when facilitating classroom discussions about sensitive and controversial issues, specifically, racial issues framed within Singleton and Linton’s 4 agreements of courageous conversations: stay engaged, speak your truth, experience discomfort, and accept and expect nonclosure. This study utilized qualitative data collection. Semi-structured, online one-to-one internet-based interviews were used to document the lived experiences of exemplary secondary social studies teachers and the strategies they use when facilitating discussions about …

Free Battered Texas Women: Survivor-Advocates Organizing At The Crossroads Of Gendered Violence, Disability, And Incarceration, Cathy Marston Phd

Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice

This article recaps my symposium presentation, where I argue that feminist organizing strategies are central to healing our society and creating restorative justice from my perspective as a survivor of occupational injury, battering, and criminalization for self-defense. This includes the creation of Free Battered Texas Women. We prefer to think of ourselves as survivor-advocates who use a variety of tactics to empower ourselves, incarcerated battered women, and citizens. These strategies include pedagogy; poetry and other written forms; art; and legislative advocacy. I blend this grassroots activism with feminist disability theory, radical feminist theory, feminist ethnography, and feminist criminology.

The Afterlives Of Government Documents: Information Labor, Archival Power, And The Visibility Of U.S. Human Rights Violations In The “War On Terror”, Rachel Daniell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is about access to information.

It examines the different ways that access to U.S. government records related to the “War on Terror” is generated through the intersection of law, bureaucratic policy and procedure norms, and the everyday work of archivists and transparency advocates. I argue that, both through their labor pushing for access to government records via complex records searches, Freedom of Information Act requests, and legal action, and also through their labor layering those records with new forms of metadata in public digital circulation platforms, these individuals, in the context of their organizations, generate new forms of …

2020 Mlk Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Michelle Alexander, Rosanne Somerson, Matthew Shenoda

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI.

In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as "striking in the intelligence of her …

Envisioning Critical Social Entrepreneurship Education: Possibilities, Questions, And Guiding Commitments, Mark Congdon Jr., Liliana Herakova

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Higher education institutions continue to be increasingly interested in examining how social entrepreneurship and community engaged approaches to education can work together. In light of the recent growth and interest in such programs, scholars and educators have called for attention to specific considerations when developing SE and community-based education, which can be summed up in three areas - pedagogy, relationships, and impact. The present essay builds on such propositions, and calls for a critically-orientated approach to SE, grounded in community engagement, collaborative dialogue among diverse voices, and a commitment to transforming oppressive structures

Répresentations De La Banlieue Dans Le Cinéma Français Contemporain, Yaw Owusu Sekyere

Honors Projects

Inhabitants of the poor French banlieues are rejected and isolated from the larger French society, who refuse to acknowledge their marginalization. As a result, the cycle continues where no political change is made. The French film genre, cinéma de banlieue, seeks to explain the perspectives of the underrepresented and marginalized groups within France. This honors project analyzes the representations of the banlieue through the films of La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz), Wesh wesh qu’est-ce qui se passe ? (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche), Bande de filles (Céline Sciamma), Divines (Houda Benyamina), and Banlieusards (Kery James & Leïla Sy). These films focus on the …

Communication Infrastructure Theory: A Rural Application, Callie S. Embry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The health of a community’s communication infrastructure influences their efficacy and efficiency in dealing with societal problems. The majority of previous communication infrastructure research has focused on multicultural urban centers. This study looks at the communication infrastructure of one rural Arkansas town, specifically looking for the places residents report as communication assets and the subjects discussed within the storytelling network. I used a combination of communication asset mapping and semi-structured interviews to identify the physical locations within the community where residents regularly converse with one another. The interviews along with observations also provided insight into the subject matter that residents …

Black Lives Matter: Understanding Social Media And The Changing Landscape Of Social Trust, Diana Carolina Cascante

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to understand how social media is changing the landscape of social capital. Current research indicates a paradox between the growing use of mediated sources that are building social capital and low levels of social trust found in social media. People are skeptical of whether social media is trustworthy because there is no mechanism for fact-checking or verifying the information posted online. Since traces of social capital postulate social trust, it is needed to promote communal change. To understand this paradox, the Black Lives Matter movement is examined as an online platform that brings people together who have …

Activism And The Fossil Fuel Industry By Andrew Cheon And Johannes Urpelainen, Alexandra Watt Simpson

The Goose

Review of Andrew Cheon and Johannes Urpelainen's Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry

La Construcción De Espacios Para La Memoria: El Rol De Los Actores En Tres Ex Centros Clandestinos De La Ciudad De Buenos Aires, Quentin Bernhard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En esta investigación, cuento la historia como espacios de memoria de tres ex centros clandestinos en la ciudad de Buenos Aires y noto aspectos importantes de ellos que me conocí a través de entrevistas con trabajadores en los sitios en visitas ambas formales y informales. Analizo el rol de los actores sociales como el gobierno, el barrio y los visitantes en el funcionamiento de cada sitio, y a partir de eso exploro la identidad única de cada uno y cómo construyen la memoria por medio del espacio de memoria.

Este trabajo se base en parte en la cantidad de obras …