Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons^™

I Believe, Rusudan Dushuashvili

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how products become believable and desirable through the stories that surround them, and how design enables the continuous cycle of desire that defines consumption. Drawing on  the underlying structures of myth-making, identity, and belonging that allow consumer culture to function, it argues that consumer culture operates through the same instruments older systems of belief have always used — narrative, ritual, sacred objects, and shared language — and that design is what makes the story stick to the object.

“I Believe” is an archive of objects collected from contemporary consumer culture. Half are products found in the marketplace; …

Evaluating Team Formation Strategies With Algorithms, Ethan E. Lopez, Andy Vo

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Effective teamwork is essential for collaborative learning, yet forming compatible student groups remains a persistent challenge. This study explores how algorithmic team-building methods influence students’ social and academic compatibility overtime. To support this investigation, we designed a visual survey system called “The Disco Ball." Evaluating work ethics, lifestyles, behaviors, and communication styles, students were initially assigned to project teams using one of three conditions: (1) random assignment (control), (2) a “most matches” condition maximizing similarity between students, and (3) a “diverse communication styles” condition designed to balance differing interaction preferences. After an initial collaboration period, students were given the opportunity …

Building Collaborative Capacity For Coexistence With The Montana Beaver Working Group, Shane Randle

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Despite beavers’ recent surge in popularity, prevailing negative attitudes and the persistence of beaver removal practices remain obstacles for those advocating living with beavers. The Montana Beaver Working Group (BWG) advances beavers’ role in ecological and community resilience through members’ collaborative efforts, including beaver-related restoration and conflict resolution projects. Bringing together people with diverse values and perspectives, the BWG builds collective understanding, develops a holistic vision for beavers in Montana, and supports members in pursuing it. As the group’s impacts and membership have grown, so too has their need to adapt. For my Civic Engagement Project, I strengthened the BWG’s …

9th Gsep Research Symposium - 2025

GSEP Research Symposium

The Ninth Annual GSEP Research Symposium, themed "Building Bridges to Elevate Humanity: Innovations and Insights in Education and Psychology", was hosted by the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) on June 19–20, 2025, at the historic Château d’Hauteville in Switzerland and virtually via Zoom.

This hybrid symposium convened a vibrant global community of students, alumni, faculty, and scholars to share research that addresses real-world challenges, advances scholarly inquiry, and builds pathways for inclusive collaboration and leadership. Spanning a wide array of topics—from artificial intelligence and mental health to trauma-informed practices, educational equity, social justice, and cross-cultural leadership—the …

Not Meant To Be Read: The Stories They Silence, The Resistance That Speaks, Cristina Onea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the evolution of surveillance from overt state violence to the more insidious forms of ideological policing embedded in everyday life. Through lived experience, oral history, and critical autoethnography, I explore how surveillance moves through bodies, families, institutions, and memory—not simply as external control, but as internalized rhythms of fear, vigilance, and self-surveillance. I move between my father's life under Romanian dictatorship, my own embodied inheritance, and the contemporary struggles of librarians facing ideological suppression to reveal surveillance as a structure that persists through generations, mutates across contexts, and demands new forms of resistance.

I argue …

For The Time Beings, Tori Hong

Masters Theses

For the Time Beings is a socially engaged installation and artist book exploring the material consequences and future possibilities of sociocultural time theories. Time, in the West, is typically associated with Newtonian linearity, while in the East, time theory relies on Buddhist principles. These epistemologies reinforce hierarchical and patriarchal structures. Centered on Indigenous Asian and Asian American perspectives, For the Time Beings challenges dominant ideologies of existing in time and space.

For nearly a year, I’ve burned handwritten prayers on new and full moons. The ashes of these prayers are incorporated into reverential drawings of chosen ancestors, made with charcoal …

A New Theater For Age-Old Social Patterns: An Exploratory Study Of Interpersonal Dynamics And The Overlay Of Gender Within Ai Companionship, Miriam Wolff

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) companions fundamentally shifts the landscape of interpersonal communication, introducing artificial entities as relational partners rather than mere facilitators of human-to-human interaction. This exploratory study examines the interplay of machine gendering, self-disclosure, perceived partner responsiveness (PPR), and interpersonal satisfaction within human-AI interactions. Participants engaged in conversations with gendered AI companions through the program Replika, completed structured surveys, and participated in qualitative interviews. Findings indicate that users' willingness to self-disclose was influenced by their perceptions of AI responsiveness, while gendered characteristics of AI significantly shaped user expectations and communication patterns. Specifically, users often attributed distinct personality …

The Ascendance Of Influencers: Saints Of Capitalism In The Digital Age, Riley R. Hourihan

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis examines the rise of social media influencers as modern-day saints within the cultural and economic framework of late capitalism. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship from religious studies, media theory, and cultural criticism, it argues that influencer culture does not replace religion but retools its structures—ritual, authority, devotion, and community—for the digital age. Through detailed case studies ranging from Hailey Bieber and Taylor Swift to Ballerina Farm and MrBeast, the paper explores how influencers shape identity, mediate ethics, and mobilize affect through algorithmic rituals and parasocial relationships. Influencers perform a form of digital sanctity that parallels traditional hagiography, guiding followers …

A Theoretical And Empirical Adaptation Of Signaling Theory For Digital Communication: Examining Organizational Brand Identity And Credibility, Victoria Barbeisch

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation adapts signaling theory for digital communication and tests its relevance in strategic communication, specifically concerning unobservable organizational traits like brand identity values. Signaling theory explains how parties with unequal information (senders/signalers and receivers) use signals to bridge knowledge gaps and influence decision-making. While rooted in biology and economics, its application in computer-mediated communication (CMC) remains limited. This research addresses this gap through two primary aims. Aim 1 presents the first comprehensive theoretical adaptation of signaling theory for digital communication, consolidating fragmented research across multiple disciplines. Aim 2 investigates the theory's relevance in strategic communication related to unobservable brand …

Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices Against State Violence, Andrea Michaels

Feminist Pedagogy

The following book review of Shreerekha Pillai’s Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices against State Violence (2023) is an expansive and timely collection of essays on the carceral state in its implications for feminist educators. This review focuses on the connections and connectivity of two essays in the collection that attempt to address a minor examination of the person as political.

Estranged Temporality: How Time Tells Stories In Science Fiction, Phillip H. Howells

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

According to Darko Suvin in his influential critical treatise, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, estrangement in Science Fiction (SF) gives authors the ability to build worlds related to but distant from our own using specific metaphors. This dissertation takes up this term and applies it to the fulcrum of time in SF as a method of creating possible futures and imaginative pasts in order to illuminate the realities of the present. The realities of the present are congruent with the material circumstances of the past, and this can be seen in the kinds of SF worlds built by members of …

Forbidden Fruit: Mary Cassatt’S Mural Of “Modern Woman” At The World’S Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893, Tricia Cusack

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper considers a large mural of “The Modern Woman” painted in France by the American artist Mary Cassatt for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It focuses in particular on the large central panel of the mural titled Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge or Science that depicts women and girls apple-picking. Cassatt’s mural drew on various traditions and myths. Apple harvesting was a common sight in America. Cassatt’s title though points to the story of Eve and forbidden fruit, in which Eve seeks knowledge, but is severely punished for it. Cassatt …

A Performance-Based Exploration Of Vocal Anatomy And Pedagogy: Maximizing Technical, Stylistic, And Physiological Frameworks For Superlative Vocal Technique In Artistic Function, Michael J. Civitano

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of specific frameworks in performance and vocal pedagogy on artists' capacity to enact evidence-based learning outcomes, with emphasis on vocal physiology and educator-performer relationships. Employing an experimental design, five philosophies that support capacity-building were tested across two trial settings, varying in intensity. The participant utilized narrative reasoning, diversified methods, and mentorship from specialized educators to apply frameworks. Findings indicate that, in practicing evidence-based learning and maximizing anatomic foundations of the voice, substantial developments in artistic capacity ensued. Educator-performer relationships mediate this process through reciprocal collaborations that foster capacity-building. Performers display optimal artistic capacity by effectively …

The Drivers Of Academic Novelty In Digital Capitalism: Job Insecurity, Mental Illness And Time Poverty, Adalberto Fernandes

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The present-day digital capitalist academy increases novel academic results by leveraging factors such as precarious academic employment, time poverty, and mental illness. This paradigm reveals a confluence that turns seemingly negative aspects into productive elements. The consequence of this hypothesis is that by enhancing work, time and mental health conditions, there may be a reduction in the number of novelties, with an enhancement of academic's role as producers of truth.

Harnessing The Power Of Cliftonstrengths®: How Multinational Corporations Can Use Deep-Level Diversity To Enhance Organizational Inclusion, Trapper Kay Pace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research explicitly investigated how multinational corporations can enhance workplace inclusion through the novel use of the CliftonStrengths® assessment as a dimension of deep-level diversity. The study gleaned insights from employees’ perspectives, employing a constructivist grounded theory approach to explicate their experiences in rich qualitative narratives. Through open-ended surveys and intensive interviews, participants were selected using purposeful sampling to ensure meaningful data collection from the study organizations’ three global regions. The researcher conducted the analysis systematically through the constant comparison of data utilizing the NVivo14 software to assist in constructing codes, themes, and a theoretical schema. Results highlighted the significance …

Algorithmic Love: Twenty-First Century Organizations Of The Romantic, Sandra Moyano Ariza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the highly computed and accelerated experiences of digital love as well as their cultural and artistic representations in order to shed light on the human and more-than-human entanglements producing the algorithmic love experience. The recent turn to love in critical theory and cultural studies examines how love circulates in neoliberal societies and in the subjective processes of the users, foregrounding the control of populations and the very much lamented “end of love” (Illouz 2019). My study of love supplements the neoliberalist critique of algorithmic love with a posthuman and media theory approach that attends to the material …

Digital Phobia: An Inquiry For Mapping The Unseen Dimension Of New Digital Anxiety, The ‘Digiphobia’, Amarjit Kumar Singh ,Library Assistant, Md. Arshad Ali , Professional Assistant, Dr. Pankaj Mathur, Deputy Librarian,

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Background: As technology continues to advance, individuals' interactions with digital platforms have become integral to daily life. Amidst this technological evolution, a novel concern emerges—Digital Phobia, hereafter referred to as “Digiphobia.” This phenomenon, although not previously explored in scholarly literature, necessitates an in-depth investigation due to its potential impact on individuals' well-being. Our research employs a two-step methodology to investigate its existence, implications, and manifestations.

Introduction: This research paper introduces and proposes the term "Digiphobia" as a comprehensive conceptualization of anxiety arising from interactions with digital spaces, applications, and environments. The proliferation of digital technologies has led to the emergence …

Outpatient Fall Prevention In Ambulatory Adults 65 Years Old And Over, Dorothy L. Osborne-White

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects - Archive

Background: In the United States (U.S.), falls are the leading cause of injury among adults 65 and over, resulting in 36 million falls yearly (Moreland et al., 2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in four older adults experiences a fall each year. Falls are the world's second most prominent cause of accidental deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults (Moreland et al., 2020).

Methods: A quality improvement project that included a fall bundle was implemented in a primary clinic. A …

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 …

Autopathography Across Media: Trauma And Fluid Embodied Subjectivity, He (Kristen) Shen

Honors Theses

Illness memoirs with first-person point of view have gained more attention in recent years among medical sociologists and anthropologists. Different from traditional “case histories”written by doctors that are in danger of ignoring patients’ voices, autopathograhical works delineate narrators’ transformative experiences of persons to patients, emphasizing the importance of gaining social understanding of illness. Focusing on three works within the category of autopathography across genres and media forms in the late 1950s and contemporary periods, The Cancer Journals (1980) written by Audre Lorde, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019) written by Esmé Weijun Wang, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) directed …

Architectural And Heritage Experience Through Playful Learning (An Interdisciplinary And Exploratory Action Research Focused On The Egyptian Context), Atheer Ahmed Salama

Theses and Dissertations

“The lack of awareness of the value of heritage and the lack of opportunities to engage in preserving and safeguarding heritage in the public sphere not only puts the heritage in risk of being irremediably lost. It also impoverishes the younger generation’s sense of identity and belonging within its respective socio-cultural continuum, and thus limits its ability to engage and contribute meaningfully to society at large” (UNESCO, 2021). With conducting this research, the researcher believes that heritage-themed analog games may carve the younger generation’s memory of heritage, allowing them to boost their sense of identity and belonging; thus, widening their …

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 …

The Politics Of Expertise And The Articulation Of Authority In Democracy: Cognitive Style And Intelligibility In The Education Of Problem-Solving And Professional Decision-Making In The Domain Of Law, Michael W. Raphael

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Computational complexity refers to the representational aspect of problem-solving. This representational aspect is commonly understood to describe the regularities that organize the definition of the problem-situation, the qualities that designate its difficulty, either in terms of the process of arriving at a definition of the problem or in the process of arriving at a solution. It is for this reason, that it is commonly said that “representational design precedes computational efficacy.” The point of this maxim is to serve as a reminder that an efficient use of resources begins with the design of near decomposability, the specification of the properties …

Chatgpt As Metamorphosis Designer For The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai): A Conceptual Investigation, Amarjit Kumar Singh (Library Assistant), Dr. Pankaj Mathur (Deputy Librarian)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore ChatGPT’s potential as an innovative designer tool for the future development of artificial intelligence. Specifically, this conceptual investigation aims to analyze ChatGPT’s capabilities as a tool for designing and developing near about human intelligent systems for futuristic used and developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also with the helps of this paper, researchers are analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT as a tool, and identify possible areas for improvement in its development and implementation. This investigation focused on the various features and functions of ChatGPT that …

Salty: A Diffractive Inquiry Of Visceral Knowing And Embodied Aesthetics, Mei Ling Chua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes a diffractive, onto-epistemological approach to everyday practices with salt in order to articulate an expanded understanding of meaning making and knowledge production. This research reckons with and challenges dominant modes of knowing that engage a Cartesian perspective to situate knowing as the exclusive domain of the mind in both form and topic of inquiry. This research acts simultaneously as both a direct practice of and metacognition about knowledge production by examining 1. the embodied (including sensory and emotional aspects) and 2. the relational (including interpersonal and socio-cultural) dimensions of experience as visceral knowing. This articulation of …

Queer Ecologies: A Final Syllabus/Zine Product Of Our Independent Study, Yeh Seo Jung, Ray Craig

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This zine is the product of our independent study course Queer Ecologies, which is an exploration of bio-social systems using a queer and feminist theoretical lens. We aim to look critically at knowledge formation and construct alternative visions for more just and sustainable relationships between science, nature, and ourselves. While queer theory most directly interrogates the normative structure of heterosexuality both in humans and in biology more broadly, these studies include analyses of hierarchy, power, and value. Queer Ecology can be used to examine phenomena such as climate change, extinction, pollution, species hierarchies, agricultural practices, resource extraction, and human population …

An Event-Without-Witness: A Nietzschean Theory Of The Digital Will To Power As The Will To Temporalize, Talha Issevenler

Publications and Research

This article offers a Nietzschean theory of digital will to power to conceptualize the temporality of social media feeds run by algorithms. Stylistic and methodological temporalities of Nietzsche are discussed as well as their influence in subsequent social theory of political technologies. The paradox of heavy investment in both subjective expression and nonhuman temporalization in social media milieus is addressed with the concept of an event-without-witness drawn from Nietzsche’s account of himself as the solitary thinker of catastrophe of nihilism and psychoanalytical and deconstructive literatures on the catastrophes of the 20th century. Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to and fascination with the …

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 …

Patient And Family Engagement: Bridging Together Interprofessional Practice And Patient- And Family-Centred Care, Yuchen Gao, Sylvia Abonyi, Pamela Downe, Krista Baerg, Heather A. Ward

Patient Experience Journal

Patient and family engagement as part of the health care team is increasingly recommended to meet the objective of providing safer and more coordinated care, as well as enhancing patient satisfaction. This project explores both health care professionals’ and patients and families’ experiences with patient- and family-centred care (PFCC) and interprofessional practice (IPP). Data were collected through individual interviews with 29 health care professionals and 17 patients and families on medicine and pediatrics at a tertiary care teaching hospital. Inductive coding and thematic analysis outcomes are presented using qualitative description. We used communicative action theory to interpret the gap that …

Healing Racial Injustice With Mindfulness Research, Training, & Practice, Danielle "Danae" Laura

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis offers a collection of authors and studies in support of improved research, training, and practice connecting mindfulness with racial justice through intergroup applications. The paper identifies barriers at work (e.g., colorblindness, spiritual bypass, white fragility, and implicit bias) in contemplative science, Western Buddhist communities, and secular mindfulness centers, which block the sizeable contributions possible in studying the intergroup application of mindfulness practice—specifically Lovingkindness Meditation, among others—when used as an intervention with anti-racist aims. Through secondary qualitative research, I reviewed six key works from Black authors on mindfulness and race, as well as six sample studies on the prosocial …