Salve Regina to award six doctorates during Commencement
Salve Regina will award doctorates in humanities to six candidates during the 63rd Commencement ceremony Sunday, May 19. The doctoral program provides an interdisciplinary investigation of the question: “What does it mean to be human in an age of advanced technology?”
Fully accredited in 1994, the program was developed to integrate philosophical and humane insights into the educational process while addressing current and anticipated technological challenges.
Michael Paul Boudria
“Inventing a Hypertypology: A Synthesis of Perspectives on Collective Consciousness”
Boudria’s dissertation offered a relational analysis of key constructs drawn from theology, philosophy and psychology with a view toward re-conceptualizing the idea of balancing the needs of community with those of the individual.
John Richard Mathis
“Atomic Cinema: Defining a Cold War Film Genre (1945-1989)”
Mathis’s dissertation provided a comprehensive survey and content analysis of Cold War-era films dealing with nuclear themes contributing to a reinterpretation of the sub-genre.
James Walter Menzies
“Belief in an Age of Technology: C.S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell on Myth and Christian Faith in a Technological Society”
Menzies’s dissertation developed a comparative study of the lives and works of Lewis and Campbell as a framework for reevaluating traditional ways of distinguishing belief from myth.
Jeffrey Michael Shaw
“Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on Technology and Freedom”
Shaw’s dissertation presented a comparative investigation of Merton and Ellul’s technological critiques and study of the influences that shaped their views on freedom, human dignity and technology.
Charles Lionel Stuppard
“The Impact of New Technology on Abraham Lincoln’s Military Leadership During the Civil War”
Stuppard’s dissertation surveyed the techniques, systems and technologies that characterized the Civil War era and their role in Lincoln’s approach to strategy and decision-making.
Kenneth Walsh
“The Birth and Demise of Newport’s Maritime Trading Empire: From the Colonial Era to Beyond the War of 1812”
Walsh’s dissertation reexamined the influencing factors and causes that led to the decline of Newport as a significant center for maritime trade.
