This thesis focuses on tribal engagement and tribal consultation in the United States. In the thesis, I discuss my experience working on an interdisciplinary research team completing a formal ethnographic study which was submitted to a federal agency. Using insights gained from this experience and additional experience working with American Indian tribes, I discuss historic, contemporary, and potential future strategies for involving and engaging American Indian tribes in land and resource stewardship decisions in the United States.

Interest and concern about penitential labor practices has been growing among scholars recently. The relationship of these practices to the principles of American liberalism, and in particular its Lockean roots, have not been thoroughly studied. The present investigation traces contemporary practices to features of Lockean liberalism, and offers suggestions for how to respond to widely acknowledged deficiencies while remaining within the broadly accepted principles laid out by Locke. The advantages of such an approach include political stability.

The Sandbox and Other Short Stories is a part of an anthology reflecting on conflicting military cultures, tribal identities, and transition struggles within an enduring war and postmodernism society.

Waste-heat-to-power (WHP) recovers electrical power from exhaust heat emitted by industrial and commercial facilities. Waste heat is available in enormous quantities. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates 5-13 quadrillion BTUs/yr with a technical potential of 14.6 GW are available and could be utilized to generate power by converting the heat into electricity. The research proposed here will define a system that can economically recover energy from waste heat through a thermal regenerative electrochemical system. The primary motivation came from a patent and the research sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The proposed system improves on this patent in four major ways: by using air/oxygen, rather than hydrogen; by eliminating the cross diffusion of counter ions and using a dual membrane cell design; and by using high concentrations of electrolytes that have boiling points below water. Therefore, this system also works at difficult-to-recover low temperatures. Electrochemical power is estimated at 0.2W/cm2, and for a 4.2 M solution at 1 L/s, the power of a 100 kW system is 425 kW. Distillation energy costs are simulated and found to be 504 kJ/s for a 1 kg/s feed stream. The conversion efficiency is then calculated at 84%. The Carnot efficiency for …

Doing, undoing, and redoing gender debates have established the omnirelevance and performativity of gender. Yet, little is known about the ways that individuals "do" gender in spaces that provide the opportunity for norms to be disrupted, such as subcultures. This study offers an empirical investigation into the performance of gender within the subculture known as EDM (electronic dance music) culture. Using 20 in-depth interviews that were conducted virtually, I analyze the way ravers experience and give meaning to gender within the EDM culture. I find that individuals within the EDM culture can participate in the doing, undoing, and redoing of gender and do so through the embodiment of their subcultural beliefs and ideology, known as PLUR (peace, love, unity, and respect). I argue that the embodiment of PLUR is gendered, and describe the body-reflexive practices that are associated with PLUR.

Sprint acceleration training has been highly researched and found that resistance sleds are one of the most effective tools for maximizing training adaptations. The resistance sled is being used by many of the world leaders in athletic training but has yet to be researched for the kinetic and kinematic effects some of its key components cause. The aim of this study was to better understand the effects of the attachment height on the sled and sled rail material on the user's trunk lean and jerking effect caused by the sled. This was done because it was hypothesized that the attachment height has a direct impact on trunk lean and sled rail material has a direct impact on jerk caused by the sled. To test these assumptions, experimental and theoretical data was collected using a single subject study analyzing trunk lean and acceleration values of the sled. The results presented a significant decrease in trunk lean (more horizontal line of action) when the attachment height was raised. Additionally, no significant values were attained to support the assumption that by modifying the sled rail material, jerking effects will decrease. The results indicate that there is a direct correlation between attachment height and …

This thesis demonstrates a queer perspective stemming from a qualitative analysis of data gathered in interviews with LGBTQ+ people to analyze a transforming ethos of gayborhoods and queer desires. In particular, the research focuses on the interactive relationship between self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) participants; the cyberspace(s) of LGBTQ+ mobile-dating applications (apps); and tangible urban places. The topic of gayborhood demise and whether such places are worth saving has been debated by scholars and journalists for the last decade. The demise of gayborhoods is often thought to be a symptom of neoliberal urban processes such as gentrification within the context of the post-gay era and broader societal acceptance of homosexuality. This means the question of "if the gayborhood is worth saving" is inherently imbedded in an assumption that homosexuality is not viewed or treated as different or lesser than heterosexuality. In this imagined post-gay era, gayborhoods are declining because the dangers posed to the LGBTQ+ population are purported to no longer exist, so there is no longer a need for designated queer and/or safe places. This research destabilizes the assumptions embedded within the conception of the post-gay era by asking whether the gayborhood meets the needs and …

The Godzilla media franchise is one of the longest running media franchises, which means the character himself has gone through many changes throughout the years. However, in American pop culture, the characters of Godzilla is perceived as a hero, a friend of humanity and defender of Earth. This reputation comes from the Showa Era, where Godzilla often fought on the side of humanity, rather than trying to destroy them as depicted in the original Gojira. In recent years, Toho, Godzilla's corporate owners, have been steering the King of the Monsters back into the villain role. Despite this tone shift by Godzilla's owners, American Godzilla paratexts still generally depict Godzilla as a hero. These depictions of Godzilla are used to maintain his status as a family friendly heritage brand and keep a door open for parents to introduce their children to the brand. Such a strategy allows Godzilla to survive into the modern day as an international powerhouse franchise.

The Age of Trump witnessed the visible rise of intense culture wars and polarization in the United States. While culture wars are not new phenomena, the current iteration has digital media acting as new discursive structures and mediating battlegrounds for all sides of the cultural conflict. This project chronicles these online culture wars, demonstrating how within a neoliberal and postmodern socio-cultural condition, the rise of ambivalent, profit-driven digital technologies and platforms structure affect and mediate newly networked neo-reactionary populist (sub)cultural ideologies and discourses. The resulting online ecosystems afforded the digital formations of obscure reactionary subcultures (trolls, antifeminists, the alt-right, etc.) with particular personalized and affectively driven memetic communicative logics. These reactionary affective publics eventually began converging under perceived common ideological and social interests as online actions and reactionary discursive (re)formations and (re)networkings were catalyzed by (sub/cross)cultural conflicts and moments of sentimental activation. This led to the emergence of affectively charged and informally networked reactionary publics which began spilling out into the offline world alongside Trump's ascendancy to the White House. The increasing progressive reactions during the Trump Era also faced limitations in combatting reactionary politics due to structural dynamics of digital media and the larger culture war filtering of politics. …

Work of art sample video by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art sample video by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art in Screen Based Installation (video Projection) by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art sample of Live Stream Recording of event, by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art sample of Live Stream Recording of event, by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art in Acrylic and Marker on Fabric by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art in Acrylic and Marker on Fabric (Green Screen) by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art in Acrylic and Marker on Fabric (Green Screen) by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art, Video Still Image of superposition elements in the video artworks, combining drawing, performance, video, and projection, by artist Sean Lopez as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "The Always Girls and Forever Boys” at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX on April 17-18, 2021.

Work of art in stoneware, porcelain, wood, resin, wool, and plastic by artist Naomi Peterson as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "liminal_ties” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 12-22, 2021.

Work of art in Iridescent Vinyl by Jacob Phillips as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Unicorn Magic” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 12-22, 2021.

Work of art in Mixed Media by Jacob Phillips as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Unicorn Magic” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 12-22, 2021.

Work of art in multi by Marianna Seaton as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Golden Anecdoche” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 15-21, 2021.

Work of art in Illustrated map, inkjet print by artist Maria Villanueva as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Legend Systems: An Escape to a Hidden Land, ” in the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building Atrium on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 1-5, 2021. MFA Exhibition, view from the stairs in the atrium.

Work of art in Soils, plastic bags, labels by artist Maria Villanueva as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Legend Systems: An Escape to a Hidden Land, ” in the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building Atrium on the campus of the University of North Texas on March 1-5, 2021. MFA Exhibition, view from the stairs in the atrium.