Scholarworks

ScholarWorks is an open access repository for the capture of the intellectual work of Montana State University (MSU) in support of its teaching, research and service missions. MSU ScholarWorks is a central point of discovery for accessing, collecting, sharing, preserving, and distributing knowledge to the Montana State University community and the world.

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Scholarship & Research

Recent Submissions

Ghosts of the High Country: Photographing Mountain Goats in the Bridger Range of Montana
(Montana State University, 2025-05) Anderson, Madison
Not only do mountain goats live at the top of the world, but they have also adapted to incredibly harsh climates where few other species are found. After spending time with and observing this particular herd, I’ve learned so much about their mannerisms and personalities. The group dynamic is incredibly complex and operates similarly to how humans participate in these dynamics. Every encounter I have with these special animals gives me a deeper awe and appreciation for how capable and resilient they really are. This herd lives in a harsh, rocky, alpine environment that yields little water and lots of temperamental weather. Despite the adverse conditions these animals face, they are able to live up to between fourteen and eighteen years of age. Their adaptations such as guard hairs, leather-like hoof soles, and salty, high-fiber diets allow them to navigate and thrive in an extremely unforgiving environment. These photographs are unique and special to me because of the relationship I’ve been able to cultivate with this herd, and this goat specifically. I am incredibly grateful to have captured this moment and be able to share it with everyone. The storytelling aspect of my photography is a huge part of my mission to share the beautiful places and creatures I find on my adventures to help protect them. Awareness and admiration will hopefully lead to the conservation and preservation of not only these wonderful creatures, but also the environments that they know as home.
Laundry Room Jungle
(Montana State University, 2025-05) Mills, Kylie
“Laundry Room Jungle” is a fun poem about the difficulties of doing laundry in a college dorm. At face value, it is a good laugh and an easy read. Looking deeper into the writing, readers will see themes of human nature and selfish individualism. I wanted this poem to represent what it feels like going to college as a freshman, surrounded by people who are already familiar with the campus and so engrossed in their day-to-day lives that they have no time to entertain newcomers.
Portraits of a Planet in Crisis
(Montana State University, 2025-05) DiGiano, Amelia
The climate crisis makes my future, and the future of humanity, feel alarmingly precarious. I started to develop this series as a way of documenting this sensation, the chronic fear associated with climate change. But as I began approaching people to include in the project, it became clear that we do not all conceptualize climate change in the same way. To some it feels existential, but to others it feels fabricated and to many, it feels entirely beyond human control. Portraits of a Planet in Crisis explores and documents this broad spectrum of human stories that transpire within stories of environmental devastation.
The Paradox of Language: An Exploration of Abjection and Language in Play it as it Lays
(Montana State University, 2025-05) Durrell, Josiah
In Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion, we are presented with a character in the midst of a crisis of identity. Maria, a failed actress in Hollywood, is beset by many of the problems commonly associated with a rising star in the industry. A reliance on drugs, a commodification of the self, and a deteriorating sense of who she is all play into her downward spiral. Yet when we examine the reason that Maria lacks an actualized sense of self, the reader is presented with a paradox. If we take the words of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to be true, then language serves to create a filter through which a subject is distanced from the true nature of the world. They are placed into the symbolic order, a realm of socially constructed understanding that shapes the way we interact with the outside world. Our identity is tied to a sense of self that exists within the outside world, separate and unique from others. Yet we see that Maria is driven away from the symbolic order and toward a state of collapse, as the boundaries of her identity are dissolved through language.
Ghosts of the Landscapes
(Montana State University, 2025-05) Paul, Sierrah
Having recently inherited a set of cameras and film from a great uncle, Ray Wilmot (1923–1993), this work, Ghosts of the Landscapes, works to explore more about the life of a family member that I was unable to meet, having been born 11 years after his death. Ray Wilmot was an avid photographer, who pursued photography throughout his adult life until he was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis (MS) about 10 years before his death. This led him to leave his cameras and film sitting for the rest of his life, along with them sitting for 30 years beyond his death. I embarked on the journey of developing the film Ray had never been able to see and after studying them I chose to visit Livingston, Montana and photograph the landscapes my great uncle once photographed. The landscapes of Livingston were photographed on expired film that once belonged to my great uncle using his cameras.