Welcome to the Great Plains Graduate Review,

a peer-reviewed online publication dedicated to featuring exemplary academic work authored by graduate students in all disciplines offered at the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK). It welcomes submissions from students who are currently enrolled in a graduate level course at UNK or have been UNK graduate students within the last 2 years.

Current Issue

Volume 3, Issue 1 (2024)View issue

Featured Content

  • Article
    17 June 2024

    War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross

    Rebecca Trecek
    This paper recognizes the growth of the American Red Cross (ARC) and the contributions women throughout the network of the ARC made to various goals during World War Two. This paper focuses on the work women completed particularly on the home front. While some aspects of the ARC are publicized, others, particularly on the home front, are less well-known. As the demands for women within multiple aspects of the American workforce grew, organizations like the American Red Cross contributed to bridging the gap between women in the workforce and home needs. ARC volunteers also took on the responsibility of recruiting workers for the war effort in healthcare fields and serving as a friendly face to provide solace to those hospitalized during the war. The American Red Cross and the World War Two War Effort documents previous historiographical accounts of ARC war work from WWI to WWII, before examining key areas of war work shouldered by women of the ARC.
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  • Article
    30 April 2024

    J.S. Bach's Application of the Baroque Violin Concerto in His Violin Concerti in A minor, BWV 1041 and E Major, BWV 1042

    Stephanie Krell
    Concerti from the Baroque to contemporary times stand as one of the pillars of the violin repertoire. The form initially developed in the 1600s as composers experimented with groups of performers. It became increasingly standardized in the early 1700s, with the violin concerto advancing as a favored application. Several Baroque composers contributed characteristics that were absorbed into the violin concerti of the period, including Arcangelo Correlli, Giuseppe Torelli and Antonio Vivaldi. Johann Sebastian Bach analyzed the traits of violin concerti from earlier and contemporaneous composers, incorporating certain features while modifying others in his own works. This may be observed in his Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041 and Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042, the only two of his violin concerti currently known in their original configuration.[1] In examining his interpretation of the genre, one notes Bach’s broadened use of the ritornello form, the integration of Italian and French styles, the density of texture, as well as his unique interpretation of cadence, cadenza, and ornamentation.
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Current Articles

    • Article30 April 2024

      J.S. Bach's Application of the Baroque Violin Concerto in His Violin Concerti in A minor, BWV 1041 and E Major, BWV 1042

      Stephanie Krell
      Concerti from the Baroque to contemporary times stand as one of the pillars of the violin repertoire. The form initially developed in the 1600s as composers experimented with groups of performers. It became increasingly standardized in the early 1700s, with the violin concerto advancing as a favored application. Several Baroque composers contributed characteristics that were absorbed into the violin concerti of the period, including Arcangelo Correlli, Giuseppe Torelli and Antonio Vivaldi. Johann Sebastian Bach analyzed the traits of violin concerti from earlier and contemporaneous composers, incorporating certain features while modifying others in his own works. This may be observed in his Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041 and Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042, the only two of his violin concerti currently known in their original configuration.[1] In examining his interpretation of the genre, one notes Bach’s broadened use of the ritornello form, the integration of Italian and French styles, the density of texture, as well as his unique interpretation of cadence, cadenza, and ornamentation.
    • Article17 June 2024

      War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross

      Rebecca Trecek
      This paper recognizes the growth of the American Red Cross (ARC) and the contributions women throughout the network of the ARC made to various goals during World War Two. This paper focuses on the work women completed particularly on the home front. While some aspects of the ARC are publicized, others, particularly on the home front, are less well-known. As the demands for women within multiple aspects of the American workforce grew, organizations like the American Red Cross contributed to bridging the gap between women in the workforce and home needs. ARC volunteers also took on the responsibility of recruiting workers for the war effort in healthcare fields and serving as a friendly face to provide solace to those hospitalized during the war. The American Red Cross and the World War Two War Effort documents previous historiographical accounts of ARC war work from WWI to WWII, before examining key areas of war work shouldered by women of the ARC.

Most Popular Articles

  • Article
    17 October 2022

    Spatializing Gender and Adolescence in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

    Mara Andersen
    Romeo and Juliet create a fragile and temporary internal, private world of love and union in response to the external and public Montague and Capulet feud. In contrast to the external chaos in Verona, theirs is a world of desire, self-actualization, and fulfillment. In their adolescent union, “passion lends them power” (Prologue.13) to temporarily subvert their external realities. Eventually, their private world, fragile and unsustainable, tragically erodes with the external realities of Romeo’s banishment and Juliet’s impending marriage. Within the internal space of Juliet’s tomb, the lovers unite, consummating their marriage in Juliet’s blood. Her death, with Romeo’s masculinity thrust inside of her, becomes her ultimate rebellion to the society that would deny her the possession of her passion. Her tomb becomes the site of her greatest agency, their union their greatest defiance. Spatializing adolescence and gender within Verona locates Juliet within internal spaces, but establishes her inherent power to overtake masculinity by strength, passion, reason, and undeterred dedication to her defined honor and duty.
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  • Article
    17 October 2022

    Lost Between Worlds: Gay Men in World War II

    Braydon Conell
    While some queer World War II soldiers, like Christine Jorgensen, returned from war to become pioneers in the field of gender and sexuality, not all had the same support and experience. Anti-sodomy laws had a long history in the United States and its military, but no specific provision barred homosexuals from service until World War II. At the center of this change was the transition from a policy considering homosexual acts as a crime to a psychiatrist-controlled policy that homosexuality was an illness that made gay men unfit to fight. For those not excluded, the threat of an other-than-dishonorable discharge, or blue discharge, loomed overhead. While World War II served as a cultural shift for queer individuals’ prospects for future advancement of their civil and human rights, the threat of discharge from the United States armed forces undoubtedly conditioned a response and environment that fueled homophobic ideology as evident by the development of psychiatry and sociology on homosexuality during the war, the downplay of intimate homosocial experiences, and the trauma associated with hiding from one’s sexuality and being outed at the same time. Coming out could have also meant being disowned by one’s family, losing G.I. benefits, and struggling to find civilian work upon coming home from the war. To understand the complete psychological and social history of war, the experience of homosexual soldiers must be highlighted.
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  • Article
    17 October 2022

    Supporting Students’ Social Emotional Well-Being Using Clay: An Action Research Study

    Paul Monroe
    The purpose of this action research study is to examine scholarly recommendations on how to use clay to promote the social and emotional well-being of students in the high school ceramics classroom. This study enacts recommendations and strategies to enhance an existing curriculum to align with my school district’s educational goals of promoting social emotional learning (SEL). This study took place at a high school in Westchester County, New York in the fall of 2021. Data for this study is informed by my interviews with two specialists regarding putting SEL strategies into action, my modification of an existing curriculum as a teaching artifact to meet district goals, and my observations of how my first formal attempt to put theory into practice did or did not inform the teaching and learning process with high school students.
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  • Article
    10 September 2021

    The Girl Body at Large: Examining Fat Representation in Young Adult Literature

    Valerie Owens
    Fat representation of female heroines in young adult literature generally centers around the protagonist’s struggle to accept her body or situates her body as vehicle for the message of body positivity. Both alternatives keep the narrative focus on the body, defining it as the most important part of the character. This essay examines in depth the pitfalls of fat representation by deconstructing Jennifer Niven’s 2016 Holding up the Universe and comparing to a more commendable more portrayal of fat representation in Rainbow Rowell’s 2012 Eleanor and Park. In particular, this essay focuses on the fallacies of the body positivity movement, the correlation between the male gaze and body acceptance, the intersectionality of body image and privilege, and the complications of fat representation and sexual abuse. This is by no means a thorough scope of fat representation in young adult literature, but rather a means of beginning the conversation.
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  • Article
    10 September 2021

    Polyploidy and Pollen Grain Size: Is There a Correlation?

    Harry Sanders
    Pollen grain size has been regularly used as an indicator of the ploidy level in plants. It has been demonstrated in some plants and assumed in others that the larger the pollen, the higher the level of ploidy. However, very little work has been done to confirm that this rule is accurate in at least the majority of cases. Most correlations of pollen grain size to ploidy level have been a side note in other research and have not considered the theoretical and genomic implications involved in such a measurement. While much of the literature presents ploidy level as being correlated with pollen grain size, there are some hints that the association might actually be with C-value. It is thus important to ensure that pollen grains are an accurate indicator of ploidy level if they are to continue to be used as such in the literature.
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