2,593 research outputs found

    The Wendland Movement: Anti-nuclear energy resistance in Gorleben

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    Towards a Pedagogy of Human Connection : Understanding Teachers’ Experiences of Connection During a Pandemic

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    During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools shuttered quickly and re-opened slowly. These decisions impacted the well-being of teachers and students. Upon re-opening, schools in New Jersey adopted a range of instructional approaches—including virtual and hybrid models—that prioritized safety and diminished human connections. This came at a time when rates of isolation and loneliness were increasing and the US was already experiencing a crisis of connection. To understand teachers’ experiences with human connection during the winter and second spring of the COVID-19 pandemic, this dissertation study recruited nine high school teachers from one school in New Jersey who met a total of nine times from January, 2021 through June, 2021, to discuss their experiences of connection. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis and a theoretical frame of human connection, this study found that teachers’ experiences were best described as dis/connections. Teachers’ pursuits of connection were undertaken to support learning and develop relationships. However, these efforts were not always reciprocated by students, administrators, or parents during the pandemic context, leading to experiences of disconnection. Multiple obstacles yielded a “wall” of disconnection, however, teachers adopted practices and perspectives to overcome this wall. Successful experiences of connection were marked by reciprocity and mutuality, supported by a capacity for vulnerability. Additionally, the group itself became a site for professional connection during a time of isolation. Teachers’ experiences of dis/connection during the pandemic reflected the political realities of teachers’ lives and the ways that mutual vulnerability and authenticity are necessary in schools and classrooms if human connection is expected to thrive. Implications from this study include the emergence of a framework for a pedagogy of human connection that aims to humanize teaching and learning in a context of cultural and social dehumanization

    Contextualizing Trumpism: Understanding Race, Gender, Religiosity, and Resistance in Post-Truth Society

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    From within the discipline of religion and culture studies, this thesis contextualizes the intersecting discourses surrounding race, gender, and religion underpinning “Trumpism” as an exclusionary populist rhetoric in the United States with similar trends emerging in Canada, Europe, and parts of the Global South. In the US, Trumpism represents not only the political style and rhetoric of its namesake, but the mentality of a distinct voter base compelled to “make America great again.” Pressurized by contemporary social realities and a sensationalist media culture, Trumpian rhetoric can be understood as a “whitelash” response to changes in the American social fabric enmeshed in a cultural history of (white) Christian nationalism. To better understand the cultural and political undertones embodied by Trumpism, this research project presents four Focused Cultural Examples (FCEs) to engage critical discourse/media analysis in dialogue with academic literature. Each FCE examines an event or cluster of topics at the intersections of race, gender, and religion, including antithetical political movements and counter-narratives which challenge and resist Trumpism and what it represents. The synthesis chapter includes brief Canadian comparisons and considers some strategies for building more equitable and informed communities

    The Slightest Attachment: When Psychiatric Spaces Enact Affinities

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    While the disciplinary architecture of hospitals has long prevailed in psychiatry, many care teams now work in smaller structures, within communities. The author explores one of these places: Drawing on fieldwork in a psychiatric day center for teenagers, she traces how spatial arrangements matter in the care practice. From a corner in which one can withdraw, to a kitchen inviting to hang around, or displayed artworks that pique one's curiosity, caregivers use the material environment to stir up the slightest affinity from teenagers. This study thus expands our idea of what attachment is, and makes us more able to recognize the subtle dynamics between care, things, and spaces. With a preface by Jeannette Pols

    Unnatural Naturalization: The Ottawa Indians and U.S. Citizenship, 1854-1978

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    Examining the history of the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma, this dissertation looks at U.S. citizenship as a complex site of Native activism from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth century. It assesses how Ottawas harnessed U.S. citizenship in their struggle for power with the federal government and used it in conjunction with their political and social formations, practices, and patterns of movement to ensconce their tribal community within the United States. Ottawa experiences challenge dominant progressive narratives that outline U.S. citizenship as an aspirational status reflecting the virtues of American liberal values. Instead, this dissertation underscores tribal elimination as a longstanding element of U.S. citizenship and how Native people subversively harnessed U.S. citizenship to escape the illiberal colonial control imposed by the United States.Ottawas sit at the nexus of expanding democracy and dispossession that characterizes American history. To avoid removal and federal maladministration, Ottawas looked toward protections associated with U.S. citizenship and acquired formal citizenship via treaty in the 1860s; however, federal officials tied the extension of U.S. citizenship to policies intending tribal elimination. Ottawas refused to give up their tribal polity as policymakers intended, and federal officials barred Ottawas from the rights and privileges afforded to U.S. citizens. As a result, Ottawas remained subject to Indian Office authority. To escape this federal control, Ottawas repeatedly sought substantive citizenship by embracing policies intending tribal elimination, including allotment in the late nineteenth century and tribal termination in the 1950s. These policies failed to eliminate the Ottawa Tribe. In defiance of dominant imaginaries, Ottawas carved a foothold for their tribal community in American society. Ottawas adapted to sustain their community within and through American society and traversed new spatial, social, and racial divides by adjusting existing traditions of mobility, interconnection with outsiders, heterogeneity, and kinship.Rather than merely embracing American ideals, Ottawas pursued their own sense of American belonging, and at the same time, redefined American belonging. Reshaping and contesting the meaning of U.S. citizenship, Ottawas undercut popular conceptions of U.S. citizenship and altered the outcomes of federal Indian policies.Doctor of Philosoph

    The Impact of Academic Libraries on LGBTQ+ Undergraduates

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    LGBTQ+ undergraduates may use, perceive, and value their academic libraries differently than previous generations, particularly if their campus has an LGBT resource center. This qualitative study employed Vaccaro, Russell and Koob\u27s Minoritized Identities of Sexuality and Gender (MIoSG) Students and Contexts Model as a theoretical framework to determine how and where LGBTQ+ undergraduates find safe space on campus. Through semi-structured interviews with white and BIPOC LGBTQ+ undergraduates, the researcher constructed ecological maps that illustrated how students see themselves within the campus context and the internal and external factors that shape their use, perception, and value of the library, the LGBT resource center, and other campus spaces. Thematic analysis generated strong themes related to safe space, as well as how students use, perceive, and value the library, LGBT resource center, and other spaces on campus. Significant differences exist between white and BIPOC undergraduate definition and assessment of safe space, how that impacts their use, value, and perception of different spaces on campus, and what spaces they identify as supportive for identity development. Significant differences also exist between white and BIPOC information seeking strategies and information format preferences, which also impact how they use and perceive library and LGBT resource center resources and services. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher makes recommendations on how to create a student-centered, inclusive, intersectional academic library through partnerships and shared programming with all identity centers on campus, as well as how to create a safe, inclusive learning space for LGBTQ+ students in a potentially hostile environment

    When “Riot” is in the Eye of the Beholder: The Critical Need for Constitutional Clarity in Riot Laws

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    In the twenty-first century, American streets are frequently filled with passionate protest and political dissent. Protesters of diverse backgrounds range from those waving flags or lying on the ground to re-enact police killings to those carrying lit torches or hand-made weapons. This Article addresses how, as between such groups, it may initially seem clear which has a propensity to engage in violent riots, but too often, “rioter” is in the eye of the beholder, with those both regulating and reporting on riots defining the term inconsistently. And ironically, while police brutality is often the subject of protests, non-violent protesters who take their outrage to the streets are frequently met with police decked out in militarized riot gear who engage in disproportionate heavy-handedness culminating in mass arrests, including of the non-violent protesters. The irony is compounded when the police turn a blind eye to comparatively violent counter-protesters, some of whom were the actual instigators of the violence for which comparatively non-violent protesters were later blamed and labeled “rioters.” This Article documents conflicting descriptions of the same protests either as riots or not, both by media sources and even by court opinions. The Article explains how the problem of inconsistent interpretations of “riot” is rooted in and aggravated by the unclear and overbroad language of a substantial number of riot laws. Whether due to sloppy drafting or less benign reasons (as may be the case with riot laws granting immunity to those who drive vehicles into crowds of protesters), such flawed legislation endangers the liberty and potentially even lives of protesters. A misplaced comma can thus potentially become a matter of constitutional crisis, as poorly drafted legislation risks violating due process prohibitions on vague laws that foster discriminatory or arbitrary enforcement, First Amendment prohibitions on overbroad laws that chill and punish constitutionally protected expression. To address the problem of inconsistent and unclear riot laws, this Article engages a comparative analysis of litigation in which riot statutes have been challenged as unconstitutional. Correspondingly, the Article also catalogs dozens of state statutes that remain on the books despite being dangerously vague or overbroad in a variety of respects. The Article proposes various specific revisions legislators should make to constitutionally flawed legislation, while also making substantive suggestions for those challenging the laws. Fundamentally, riot laws must provide sufficiently clear standards that unambiguously limit the potential prosecution of “rioters” to those with intent to commit imminent violence. Riot laws must carefully, clearly, and precisely define their key terms and delineate the intent requirements and requisite violent conduct to constitute rioting, rather than risk being struck down as unconstitutional. While there is a strong governmental interest in protecting public safety, even that interest does not excuse laws that fail to clearly define what constitutes unlawful rioting, resulting in sweeping dragnets that ensnare non-violent and violent protesters alike. It is imperative that when history has its eyes on these unfolding chapters of political dissent and division, what it records is a respect for constitutional rights, not a continued pattern of those in power violating the rights of passionate, but non-violent, protesters

    Representing Reactive attachment disorder in contemporary fiction: creating new paths for neurodiverse characters

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    The first element of this work is a novel titled June in the Garden, which follows a neurodiverse protagonist with a diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder. The next section of the exegesis will provide insight into her atypical profile, particularly her traits of social disinhibition, an absence of emotion, affected cognitive processing and reasoning skills, and an inability to initiate and maintain relationships with others. The second element will include two parts: (1) a critical analysis of key diagnostic terms used in the clinical field to describe disorders relating to social-emotional detachment and disengagement, specifically reactive attachment disorder (RAD); (2) discussions on the current depiction of social-emotional detachment and, more broadly, of neurodiversity in contemporary fiction. This second part will argue that the two main pathways to depict a detachment disorder, like RAD, is heterogeneous characterisation, defined by common patterns that are exhibited in the novels selected, and typography, defined by unconventional text arrangement or a presence of visuals on the printed page. Aspects of typography will include deconstruction of the standard print form to allow for creative formatting, such as increased spacing, incomplete sentences, blank pages, and bolding of words. Another aspect will include the addition of specific visuals, such as conceptual word sharks (The Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall, 2007), black and white photographs (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer, 2005), and mathematical formulas and blueprints (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon, 2003). These two methods, heterogeneous characterisation and typography, will explain my creative process for developing a neurodiverse protagonist, showing connections between my work and the work of other fiction writers. However, primarily this research will convey a new pathway for an atypical protagonist with a disorder relatively unknown in the wider community, to recontextualise the presentation of social-emotional detachment in fiction. I also hope to highlight the gaps in RAD research, particularly at the adult level, and to show how RAD can be portrayed realistically in a contemporary novel, without being too ‘gimmicky’

    Ukraine's Many Faces Land, People, and Culture Revisited

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    Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine's history, national identity, culture and society. Addressing readers from diverse backgrounds, this volume approaches the history of Ukraine and its people through primary sources, from the early modern period to the present. Each document is followed by an essay written by an expert on the period, and a conversational piece touching on the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this ground-breaking collection, Ukraine's history is sensitively accounted for by scholars inviting the readers to revisit the country's history and culture
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