14th Annual Symposium (2011)

Kylie Anderson: Can You Dig It? Black Masculinity in Contemporary American Film

Scholars focused on studies of masculinity, as studies of 'American men' as men, have to some degree failed to appropriately address the multiplicity of masculinity. Studies of masculinity, as scholars have constructed it, focus on a particular type of American man. These studies are dominated by work concerned with a privileged group of men, namely white men. As such, these studies effectively leave out those with different intersections of identity, unless an examination of an 'othered' individual is framed in opposition to the norm.

In an attempt to acknowledge these individuals who have been rejected from our societal interpretation of the hegemonic norm, I have chosen to more closely examine black masculinity. In studying black masculinity, I am looking at primarily intersections of race and gender. Black masculinity then is studying both how the dominant (white) culture has affected black men in America personally, as well as how depictions of dominant as white have affected our society at large. Furthermore, studying black masculinity involves examining how black men have defined their own masculinity, whether or not in relation to the dominant paradigm, as well as a different interpretation of the 'crisis of masculinity'. It is also important to note that black masculinity, as it has been constructed, can also serve as a form of hegemonic masculinity, in the way that it devalues non-normative sexualities and gender identifications.

My work examines how black masculinity plays out in film, looking at gender through American films in which I explore many intersections of identity, including race, gender, class, and sexuality. In doing so, I examine films by engaging with works on film and gender theory, as well as delving into how masculinity has functioned historically. My work focuses on films within a twenty year period: 1971 to 1991. As such, the film history I trace focuses on the development of black male identity in film in the early 1970s, and how that image has changed and evolved through the 1980s and into the early 1990s. I examine not just how black men have been shaped and have shaped perceptions of masculinity, but then also how these perceptions have affected other marginalized groups within the black community, namely women and gay men.

My paper focuses on how Shaft (Parks, 1971) and Boyz N the Hood (Singleton, 1991) both participate in hegemonic representations of black masculinity while also subverting this paradigm. Shaft on the one hand upholds the hegemony in that it asserts only one identity for black men, while on the other hand it subverts the dominant paradigm in that the film offers representations of strong, empowered black men, especially in light of the time of its production, which was during the Civil Rights movement. Boyz N the Hood reinforces hegemonic representations of black masculinity in that much of the film is misogynistic; still, the film manages to also offer a different kind of black masculine identity, one not steeped in violence.

Erica Asbell: Child Soldiers and Their Emerging Position in the International Legal System

My overarching question was:

1) How does the international legal system address the role of child soldiers as both victims and victimizers in post-conflict situations?

My sub-questions were:

1) How does the UNICEF's "Convention of the Rights of the Child" apply to child soldiers?

2) What rights are violated when child soldiers fight as combat members of rebel forces?

3) What peacekeeping efforts are available to child soldiers once the conflict has ended?

4) Are peacekeeping efforts successful in reintegrating child soldiers back into the community; specifically back into an appropriate childhood role?

I answered my driving questions by writing an 18 page normative paper that compared Uganda's The Lord's Resistance Army and Sierra Leone's The Revolutionary United Front. I used basic research on the conflict situations and the groups, scholarly articles about the use of child soldiers within these groups, testimony from child soldiers, and scientific data on the post-conflict psychological state of children to reach my conclusions.

I concluded that (these conclusions follow the outline sequence of my paper):

1) Within these failed states, an ideological breakdown occurred regarding the concept of war and soldiers, which resulted in rebel forces recruiting children because children did not demand a paid salary; children were easily replaced by abducting a school or village; children could be trained or programmed to fight; the forces believed they were giving children a better opportunity compared to other options within the failed state.

2) Child soldiers were first and foremost, victims because they were kidnapped or systematically recruited; were dependent beings, unable to survive alone, who joined the forces once they could no longer feed or protect themselves; were forced to take drugs, such as cocaine, by the rebel groups.

3) Although child soldiers were victims, they were also victimizers because 1/3 of these groups consisted of child soldiers who were committing acts of genocide and torture; these child soldiers were often ruthless and extremely violent due to the loss of family and community; the African court systems viewed the age of adulthood as younger than the Western standard and prosecuted soldiers 15 ages and older.

4) United Nation's and NGO's Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration programs (DDR) did not assist child soldiers because the DDR programs did not address post-traumatic stress disorder found within child soldiers; left a large demand for recreating a normal life for children that centered on school and play; avoided the fear of communities unwilling to accept children who symbolized the forces that terrorized them; a gap in the international legal system to assist and prosecute child soldiers in order to benefit both the communities and the children.

Margaret Bond: The Fin-de-siecle Stands Erect: Masculine Imagery in Art Nouveau

While the last decades of the 19th century seemingly radiated positivism, nationalism, capitalism and progress, dark undercurrents of "decline, degeneration, and death" fueled anxieties over modernity at the fin-de-siècle. Art Nouveau, a movement historians overwhelming portray as dominated by female imagery and forms, represented artists' attempts to mollify the fears that characterized the turn of the century. Within the common constructs of Art Nouveau, this "inherent" femininity and seeming lack of the male figure links the sexuality portrayed in the movement with male reactions to women's struggles for liberation during the period. To an extant this is certainly true; despite the fact that feminist achieved relatively modest legislative gains, fin-de-siècle anti-feminist rhetoric contained within science, literature, philosophy and art reached tones that were "near hysterical." However, ".the nineteenth century's obsessive preoccupation with fixing both the nature of the female body and its cultural locations ultimately and inadvertently brought the body of the bourgeois male to the attention of medical and scientific authorities." Scientific and psychological insights into the male body proved it (and perhaps incited it) to be a site of great anxiety to the turn-of-the-century, bourgeois man. France represents the apex of this fin-de-siècle anxiety over the male body as French, urban middle and upper-middle class men were peculiarly worried about challenges to their masculinity such as impotence, satyriasis, disease and neurasthenia. Concurrent with these anxieties, masculinity became, albeit implicitly, an ever-present force within French My paper argues that fin-de-siècle anxiety and the need for a hetero-normative, sexually healthy society were the sources for the implicit expressions of masculine vitality contained in French Art Nouveau.

Kyle Brennan: The Memphis Coalition: Organized Labor, Civil Rights, and the 1968 Garbage Strike

This paper, begun in the Reconsidering the 1960s seminar and completed in The Practice of History capstone course, explores the relationship between public employee unionism and the black civil rights alliance present in Memphis in the 1960s culminating in the famous 1968 sanitation workers strike. My thesis suggests that while this coalition was ultimately successful in achieving its stating goals, tensions existed between factions that threatened to divide this historical alliance along racial and class lines. This paper looks at some of these tensions, as well as the ways in which they were or were not resolved.

Mari Giovanna Colaiacomo: Benning Wentworth and the New Hampshire Grants: Sowing the Seeds of Vermont's Independence

This paper discusses the creation of the state of Vermont. It proposes that Benning Wentworth, the royal governor of the Province of New Hampshire from 1741 to 1767 played a much larger role in the creation of Vermont than historiography concerning the topic indicates. Typically historiography on the subject credits one of two things with the creation of the state of Vermont: the legal dispute over its land or the efforts of Ethan Allen. Neither of these approaches credit Benning Wentworth whose land grants brought settlers to the area, initiated the legal dispute and created the cause which Ethan Allen would champion.

In 1749 Governor Wentworth began to grant land between the Connecticut River and the eastern border of the Province of New York citing the 1739 determination of the borders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the Crown as justification. Wentworth believed that this determination fixed the eastern border of the Province of New York at the same line as the western border of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and left all of the land above the northern border of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the jurisdiction of the Province of New York. The Province of New York disagreed citing letters of patent from 1664 and 1674 as evidence that the land in question was rightfully theirs. Governor Wentworth, in spite of the contention by the Province of New York, granted tracts of land in this area totaling some 3,000,000 acres. It was these grants that brought settlers to the land that is now Vermont, these grants that initiated the legal dispute between the Provinces of New Hampshire and New York, this dispute which created the cause the Ethan Allen would champion. And it was Governor Benning Wentworth who made these grants.

This paper concludes that Vermont became a state because of the series of events put into motion by Governor Benning Wentworth of the Province of New Hampshire. His actions and steadfast support of said actions in the face of opposition were the first stones of Vermont's road to independence.

Jennifer Compton: Women in Parliament: Cause and Effect, a comparative study of Rwanda and Afghanistan

Despite near universal cultural repression, in the past decade, women have finally begun to be heard in international decision-making. After a long history of a changing normative framework of women's roles in government and peacemaking in the UN and international community, there has recently been a surge in women's political participation, specifically in higher numbers of women in national parliaments. Astonishingly, this movement has been led not by the most powerful countries like the United States, but by many developing and postconflict nations. Many of these states have instituted constitutional provisions in the form of quotas to ensure a certain percentage of women in government. In 2003, Rwanda became the first country to have almost equal gender representation in government, with the highest percentage of women in parliament at 48.8% (International Parliamentary Union http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world-arc.htm). Afghanistan leads Arab nations, and ranks above many Western nations, with high numbers of women in parliament as well. Although the international community has agreed that women's political participation is desirable, the factors that actually lead to it are still disputed, and the effects even more so. Through case studies of Rwanda and Afghanistan, my paper seeks to draw connections between two situations where women have overcome cultural gender barriers to have greater representation in parliament, and begins to examine the extent to which this representation holds the possibility for social change. After looking separately at developments in these states, as well as outlining the broader historical developments of the research and discourse surrounding women in parliament, I conclude that while pressure and strong influence from the international community is a factor in ensuring women's voices are heard in the peace building process, local women's movements are equally important in incorporating women into politics. Contrary to some beliefs that cultural traditions will block greater gender equality in governments, I also examine the restrictive cultural barriers to entry in politics in Rwanda and Afghanistan and find that neither culture is so adverse to women's rights that parliamentary representation is an impossible goal. Instead of culture, it is stability and rule of law that now limits the extent to which women are able to enter into this traditionally male realm. These case studies also show that greater female representation does not equate to gender equality or even gendered legislation, however it can provide strong role models and bring about new cultural norms that offer women greater freedom and voice. Rwanda and Afghanistan remain unique cases, yet the motivation exists to create this change on a global scale. Their success allows them to be models for other states by showing how to include all voices in governance, eventually working toward a more stable and equitable peace.

Benjamin Cost: Hunting for Masculinity

The following essay will explore the rise of hunting and fishing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of the romanticization of the frontier of old spurred on by a movement to reaffirm upper-class masculinity in the face of industrialization. Specifically, it will analyze how the romantic Turnerian philosophy of the frontier manifested itself in the way in which people hunted and fished during this era. In turn, it will prove that ultimately the rise of hunting and fishing provided the aristocratic male with venues through which he could resurrect his lost masculinity through reliving the bygone frontier era. Through analyzing everything hunting and fishing-related from modes of dress, advertisements, equipment, methods of hunting and fishing, and even hunting and fishing environments we discover that often hunting and fishing dress, tools, and techniques were not as much innovative as they were reflective of the Turnerian vision of the frontier. They frequently mimicked the trappings of "old-school" frontiersman such as Daniel Boone or echoed the philosophy of battling nature on a level playing field. By utilizing sporting methods such as fly-fishing or bow-hunting, the late nineteenth and early-twentieth century sportsmen distanced himself from urbanization and resultantly proved that he could best the wilderness in the same fashion as his frontier forefathers had-without the aid of the feminizing influences of mechanized society. However, we must keep in mind that the goal of hunting and fishing was not to reconstruct the era of the frontier according to its own terms, but to recreate it in a manner that resurrected the urban male's lost sense of manhood. Consequently, we find that the hunting and fishing techniques, tools, modes of dress, and environments during this period did not necessarily represent the real frontier but rather corresponded to Turner's romanticized frontier, a solution to the confused identity of the urban male fomented by the advent of industrialization.

Claire de Rochefort-Reynolds: War on the Page: How Popular American Children's Magazines Represent World War I

My paper is an analysis of the ways in which American children's magazines portrayed World War I. It examines Boys' Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, and St. Nicholas Illustrated Magazine for Young Folk, the premier children's literary magazine of the time, and compares these magazines' approaches to writing about the war to the ways in which adult magazines, represented by The Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic, address the topic. The scope of my paper extends from August 1914 to December 1919. Despite popular Victorian views insisting that children were "officially ignorant" of the war, children were reading everything they could to understand what was happening across the Atlantic. Their fascination left children's magazine editors with little choice but to include the war in their publications. Both Boys' Life and St. Nicholas approached the conflict through four windows on the war. First, there are articles written by "experts", generally public officials or heads of charitable organizations, who wrote letters or messages to the young readers in hopes of influencing their behavior. Second, encyclopedic articles written by adults describe aspects of the conflict to children. The third window on the war explains the European conflict to children through stories of fictional characters. The fourth, and most unique window, are stories, poems, letters, and drawings created by children as a way of explaining the conflict to themselves and to their peers. My paper addresses war-related material in children's publications through both thematic and chronological perspectives. In 1914, the war is portrayed as barbaric, antiquated, and a threat to humanity. As early as the spring of 1915, there are murmurings of American involvement and ways American children can help the warring nations. By 1916, publications widely promote helping charitable organizations and, by the United States' declaration of war in April 1917, children's magazines are at the forefront of mobilizing America's shortest army. My thematic analysis is divided into five sections: War as it Comes; Inspiring the Shortest Army to Carry the Nation; Life in Wartime: Learning to Live Without; Somewhere, France; and A Unique Narrative. Children's magazines sent a very powerful message to their young readers that is entirely missing from the pages of adult publications. The effect of reading the stories printed in Boys' Life and in St. Nicholas is a sense of control. The articles printed in beloved children's magazines reassured young readers that the war was not something to fear. The conflict in Europe gave children an opportunity to do their bit and to show the nation that they could help it win. The story of how American children's magazines represented World War I is the story of how a society chose to tell its children about the most unsettling event in their recent history. Yet, it is also a story of empowerment through the written word and of children's desire to prove through action their love for their nation and their dedication to helping it win the greatest war the world had ever known.

Kaitlyn Esula: Adolescents' and College Students' Participation in and Perspectives on Oral Sex

Over 50% of adolescents engage in oral sex (NBC News & People Magazine, 2005), yet sex education rarely addresses oral sex and there is limited research on oral sex. The research that has examined oral sex showed that adolescents are strongly influenced by peers to engage in oral sex (Prinstein, Meade, & Cohen, 2003), and adolescents do not have accurate information about health and emotional risks associated with oral sex (Remez, 2000). Importantly, much of the existing research fails to distinguish between giving and receiving oral sex, and the relationship contexts in which oral sex occurs. These omissions are critical because the limited evidence available suggests that female adolescents feel pressure to give oral sex, even in casual relationships. Giving oral sex in casual relationships places females at risk without clear benefits for themselves. The present research explores adolescents and college students' perceptions of and participation in oral sex. Several hypotheses were tested, including that: females experience greater social pressure to give oral sex than males, especially in casual relationships, and adolescents do not receive sufficient information about oral sex in sex education so they rely on less reliable information from friends and the media. Adolescents thus become vulnerable to health risks, such as STI's, and social and emotional distress, such as guilt (Chambers, 2007). A sample of 62 males and 88 females participated in the current study. Participants filled out a questionnaire that addressed topics related to oral sex, such as, giving and receiving oral sex, sex education, and partner communication. Analyses demonstrated that females experience significantly more pressure to give oral sex, whereas males experience pressure to receive oral sex. Males are more likely than females to receive in every relationship context (i.e. committed, casual, hook-up, and friends with benefits). When asked to indicate percent of time spent giving versus receiving oral sex, males reported receiving oral sex significantly more often than females in every relationship context, except in committed relationships. Males also indicated being more comfortable receiving oral sex when in a situation where they do not want to have intercourse. Furthermore, females were more likely than males to report giving oral sex in order to avoid intercourse. When asked where they learned about oral sex, it was found that participants learned about oral sex predominantly from media and peers. Oral sex was rarely included in school-based sex education, even among those who received comprehensive sex education. Past research has shown that adolescents experience pressure to engage in oral sex (Barrett, 2004). The findings of the current study expand on the research by indicating that males and females experience different pressures. Research has shown that more school-based education about oral sex is related to less sexual behavior (Somers & Surmann, 2005), but the current study found that students are rarely learning about oral sex from school. Most importantly, the current study found that females are expected to give oral sex, even in casual relationships, and males believe they should be receiving.

Emily Galvin: Jewish Deportation in Occupied France : The (micro)power of representation

The role that France played in the deportation of Jweish citizens during WWII is a subject rife with emotions and guilt, a question that the French continue to wrestle with even today. Given the phenomenal emphasis placed on publishing propaganda at the time, it is necessary then to ask: What was the popular image of Jews at the time that helped to create such an anti-Semitic environment, and why was it so effective? There are three phenomena that highlight the public opinion of the French people during the Occupation. The first is the mass deportation of Jews the 16th of July 1942, known as "la rafle du Vél' d'Hiv" (The Roundup at the Vélodrome d'Hiver). The second is the popular acceptance of propaganda images. Finally, the third is the exhibition "Le Juif et la France" (The Jew and France), created to teach French citizens the morphological differences between Jews and Europeans. To truly understand the dynamics behind these horrific events and the motivation that drove them, it is necessary to look at two theories: National Identity, and Foucaultien Power, here called "micropower." Support for the idea of public opinion as formed by National Identity is found in Benedict Anderson's text "L'imaginaire national" (2006) and in Edward Said's theory of Orientalism (1995) - a discussion of the creation not only of "us" and "them," but also of the self-definition that comes from recognizing others as different. After considering the formation of groups and communities within the human race, it is then helpful to look to the micropower that lies in the support given by these groups. In his work "Histoire de la sexualité I : La volonté de savoir" (1976), Michel Foucault explores the phenomenon of adherence to an authority even without direct imposition, as well as the necessity of citizens in creating and nurturing a political movement. Applying a close examination of the theories laid out by Foucault, Said and Anderson to the questions left behind by occupied Francebrings us to the conclusion that the common support (or passivity) of the French people; the Vichy government; and a created culture of "us" (the citizens of France) and "them" (Jews) all came together to create an environment that allowed for the diffusion of propaganda, and thus, the dehumanization and deportation of thousands of Jewish people.

Julia Graves: Morocco to Mexico: Public Opinion and Policy on Illegal Immigration in Spain and the United States

In the past decade Spain has become one of the top immigration destinations in Europe, an influx due not only to the economic boom that began at the end of the '90s, but also to the passage of a law in 2000 that guaranteed universal access to public healthcare services, regardless of one's legal status. With the onset of the global economic crisis, illegal immigration has become the focus of national debate. This paper will review the Spanish government's recent efforts to stem illegal immigration, mainly through border reinforcement and several amnesty programs. Spain's attempts to curb illegal immigration invite comparison with the United States' own ongoing national debate on the issue. Comparing public opinion polls from Spain and the United States reveals that citizens of both countries agree on several points. For example, polls show that citizens view patrolling and securing the countries' physical borders as one of the most important methods to combat illegal immigration, an approach that betrays both populations' perceptions that most illegal immigrants are not "like them". However, the United States and Spain differ in several important respects. For example, while neither country favors giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status, the majority of U.S. citizens gives priority to enforcement (e.g., securing the borders, fining employers), while Spaniards view sending foreign aid as the most effective method of fighting illegal immigration. Despite the increasing preference for deportation over integration, at least half of Spaniards still support an illegal immigrant's right to access public health services, a number that is not impressive until compared with the mere thirteen percent of US citizens that support illegal immigrants' rights to public services. Two countries with similar problems, sharing similar attitudes toward illegal immigrants, and yet differing in important questions of public policy: Why? Despite arguments that the main problem with illegal immigration is the financial burden on host countries, facts do not appear to support this claim. I will argue instead that Spain and the United States diverge in important public policy issues because of differing values of each society, mainly the American tradition of individual responsibility compared with the Spaniards' sense of collective social responsibility, values forged by the unique experiences of each country.

Ruth Jacobs: Traumatic Memory and Representing War in Poetry and Music

This project explores the complex relationship between language and violence. Many theorists, such as Elaine Scarry, argue that language is silenced by violence and that extreme trauma inherently defies representation. Despite the impossibility of representing trauma, its preservation is a cultural and historical necessity. I am going to examine the different ways extreme violence is depicted in both poetry and music and the complex moral issues that are raised by these representations. Ezra Pound wrote The Pisan Cantos while imprisoned in a cage at the DTC in Pisa. I plan on exploring the role of personal and cultural memory in the Pisan Cantos as well as his depictions of WWII and in particular, the way he aligns the current war with ancient history. H.D.'s Triology explores similar questions and her personal experiences in WWI caused her to evaluate very directly, the role of writing and preservation in the face of destruction. I am also planning on comparing these works with the way the Holocaust is represented in Steve Reich's Different Trains and Shoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, focusing on questions of authenticity and the limitation of traumatic memory.

Dave Keep: Brahms the Individual: Understanding A Unique Compositional Philosophy

Amidst the heated musical debates of nineteenth-century Europe, Johannes Brahms maintained an individual voice as a composer. His compositional philosophy did not clearly align with the polemic ideals of Hanslick, Wagner, or other contemporaries. Yet today, it is often assumed that Brahms was the leading proponent of anti-Wagnerian "absolute" music. Not only are "absolute" and "programmatic" misleading terms, they were not categories that defined Brahms's concept of meaning and expression in his music. The differences between text-based and instrumental music were the fuel for division in Brahms's musical world, but passages from his compositions demonstrate that he was able to seamlessly incorporate the two contrasting types of music. By intertextual allusion and quotation, Brahms effectively weakened the polarity between "absolute" and "programmatic" types of music. This paper will investigate Brahms's individual position in the musical politics of nineteenth-century Vienna, and also illustrate how his unique compositional philosophy is reflected by the intertextual gestures between the B-flat Piano Concerto, Op. 83, and two of his Lieder: "Todessehnen" Op. 86, No. 6, and "Immer Leiser wird mein Schlummer" Op. 105, No. 2.

Sylwia Matlosz: The Potato: The Pillar of Peruvian Society

The fascinating history of the potato begins eight thousand years ago in Peru. Centuries of domestication transformed the potato into a staple crop in Andean diet. The process diversified the potatoes, producing potatoes that are well suited to extreme climates. Now, the potato is the world's fourth major food crop - grown in more than 125 countries - and nearly 200 species have been documented. It is valued for its nutritional content and taste. Beyond this role as a source of nutrients, the potato stands out in its cultural, historical, and economic value. The potato supported the development of Peruvian society and culture; it became incorporated into myths and Peruvian world vision, enriching traditions and rituals. Today, the potato maintains an important role in Peru, but it finds its existence threatened by climate change. In Peru, the potato is more than a source of nutrients; it is also an integral part of history and culture.

Anais P. Mendez: Skepticism in Pedro Calderón de la Barca

El médico de su honra and La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Lazarillo de Tormes, anonymous, treat a common theme of the Spanish Renaissance: reliance on the senses and on reason. The frequency of this theme highlights how important limitations of knowledge are for character development. Characters act according to reason and their senses. In El médico de su honra, don Gutierre and his wife trust implicitly in their senses of sight and hearing to determine what is "truth" and what is "lying." Subsequently, their senses betray them. In the picaresque story of Lazarillo, el Ciego, because he lacks vision, bases his knowledge about life solely on the use of reason. Contrary to El médico and Lazarillo, in La vida es sueño, Calderón de la Barca creates a work in which the theme of knowledge appears to be intertwined with the theme of reasoning and the senses. His characters do not base their actions only on the use of knowledge over senses or viceversa. Calderón de la Barca, through his works, expresses the idea that human knowledge is inherently imperfect and, thus, we cannot focus ourselves so much on epistemological questions but rather on ethics.

Patrick Miner: Mapping a Century of Process: A New Research Program for Analyzing the Effects of Urban Form on Ethnolinguistic Segregation in Chicago, 1833-1933

The initial intent of this research is to analyze the relationship between urban form (both intentional, i.e. constructed or planned, and unintentional) and the segregation of ethnolinguistic groups into neighborhoods around Chicago. As the project moves forward, its three main goals are: 1) To present a new research method that emphasizes context, refined detail, and the interconnectedness of historical processes. 2) To expand a series of pointillist ethnolinguistic maps of Chicago -- the most detailed population maps for any location in the U.S. prior to 1910. 3) To use this new method and these new maps to analyze the relationships between urban form, segregation, and language in a variety of places and times. This project draws on the fields of history, linguistics, cartography, landscape architecture, and mathematics for its theoretical foundation. My approach, though initially applied to Chicago, is applicable to any city. I hope to continue research in this area in future months and years in order to formulate an interdisciplinary research program that will change how we do urban, spatial, and population history.

Anna Reiser: The Life of Handel's Theodora

American director Peter Sellars has been staging plays and operas in non-traditional ways for several decades. Past and present are juxtaposed in his productions through the use of modern day settings. Some critics say Sellars updates these works of art, while others say his productions create distinctions between past and present. I believe Sellars' approach allows the past and present to exist simultaneously. This simultaneous existence encourages the audience to trace a trajectory from the past to the present and hypothesize a continuation of this trajectory into the future. Sellars' approach is based in humanism. He believes in the power of each individual and has a great capacity to identify the good in every person. The works of art that Sellars stages often deal with serious issues. For example, Euripides' The Children of Herakles deals with immigration and refugees and Handel's Hercules portrays war veterans and post traumatic stress. Sellars uses these productions as a vehicle for discussion of these critical issues. He has organized panel discussions and other events around his productions to give people like refugees and war veterans an opportunity to be heard. Sellars approaches Handel's oratorio Theodora with the same humanist perspective in his 1996 production at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival. However, there has been less discussion of this work, most likely due to the fact that it treats the issue of sexual violence. Theodora is the story of a 4th century Christian virgin martyr and Sellars sets the oratorio in present day America. By staging the work in present day America, important themes are revealed. As an audience, we begin to understand that some of the same issues that were prominent in the 4th century are still a part of our world today. For example, Sellars traces a clear trajectory of sexual violence and victimization over 16 centuries from the 4th century to the present. Peter Sellars explains that when he approaches a work of art in this way, he asks himself what is missing. If it is missing he feels it is necessary to put it there. I do not believe that Sellars is insinuating that these works are in some way inadequate. Rather, he looks for what is missing for a modern day audience. He asks himself what could make these works more relevant to an audience today. My paper identifies what was missing in the traditional version of Handel's Theodora and the ways in which Sellars put what was missing back. The themes I discuss include virginity, rape, shame, doubt and faith. I discuss the musical and dramatic devices that Handel and Sellars use and how they interact with these issues. Finally, I relate these themes to our world and discuss why this format is effective and important.

Amy Sandquist: Louis Sullivan's Transcendental Art Nouveau

My paper analyzes the degree to which architect Louis Sullivan was successful in creating a distinctively American style of Art Nouveau architecture. Throughout his architectural career, Sullivan was absorbed in American Transcendental philosophy, and I argue that by fusing the theories and ideologies of European Art Nouveau with American Transcendentalism, Sullivan succeeded in establishing an American strain of Art Nouveau architecture. I identify three major ideological similarities between European Art Nouveau and American Transcendentalism: the movements' relationships to nature, their nationalistic influences, and their overarching goals of metaphysical unity. By identifying the ways in which Art Nouveau and Transcendentalism's ideologies intersect in Sullivan's buildings, I suggest that his architecture reconciled the two to create a uniquely American architecture.

Dorothea Schurr: Yan'an's Influence on The Evolution of Propaganda Music in China

The practice of taking music and changing it to suit the needs of the government is a common custom in China dating back to the Zhou dynasty, but few political regimes have used music so successfully to sway the people of China as the Chinese Communist Party. A modern turning point for the creation and management of propaganda music within China in the 1900s is the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942. By looking at the period leading up to 1942, the policy enacted during the Yan'an period, and the resulting music coming out of those policies, it is possible to see how aggressively and effectively the Chinese Communist Party was able to take control of music and use it to their political advantage. This presentation will explore the ways in which preexisting notions towards music as propaganda within China, Yan'an policies, and the characteristics of Chinese Communism influenced propaganda music within China from the 1940s through today

Jihyun Shin: Coerced Collaboration? Japanese Assimilation Policy and the Pro-Japanese Collaborators of Korea, 1910-1945

Among numerous legacies from the colonial period of Korea, 1910-1945, the matter of Korean collaboration with the Japanese colonial government seems to be most enduring. Sixty years of post-colonial history has witnessed a prolonged effort to purge "pro-Japanese Korean collaborators" from Korean society, which has been symbolized by the attempt to dispossess the collaborators' descendents of their property as well as recent publication of the Biographical Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators (Ch'inil inmyŏngsajŏn). Yet, prior to all these fairly recent efforts, a special law to punish colonial collaborators was created in 1948 and an investigation committee to examine their cases was established the same year. Contemporary Korean popular opinion portrays pro-Japanese collaborators as ambitious members of the elite who eagerly wanted to be a part of the Japanese Empire. However, a closer look at the investigation records and trial transcripts of investigations and trials carried out against the collaborators shows that it was the elite's pre-existing social or economic position that led the Japanese government to target them in the collaboration process for the successful implementation of assimilation policy in Korea. Through a close examination of trial transcripts and investigation records of two representative cases - a businessman and a Christian minister, we are able to see how the Japanese government identified specific Korean elites and what strategies they used to effectively co-opt the Korean elites. The contents of the investigations and trials suggest that the collaborators who were reported to the investigation committee and the court were representative Koreans of specific occupational categories. They already had a leading position in their fields, which allowed the Japanese government to easily identify them as targets of the co-opting process. A close analysis of investigation records and trial transcripts also allows us to see the strategies that the Japanese government used in order to co-opt the identified Korean elite; the Japanese government adopted inducement and coercion as its strategy to co-opt the selected Korean elites. A new perspective on the contents of the investigation records and the trial transcripts has allowed us to see a connection between two seemingly separate issues - Japanese assimilation policy and pro-Japanese Korean collaborators.

Arielle Steinberg: Street Harassment and the Negotiations of Public Space in Cairo

The thesis of my project is that the recently epidemic problem of street harassment in Cairo acts as a powerful and revealing indicator of social upheaval in modern Egypt. The emergence of more women into the workforce and higher positions in the public sphere, economic policies that make it harder for men to find gainful employment, and an intensification of traditional gender roles under the influence of fundamentalist Islamic reform movements all intersect to create a societal tension that releases itself in street harassment. Antagonizing women on the street is a way for men to regain social control and demonstrate their masculinity in light of their own unemployment and resentment towards women's gains in the public sphere. It is also a way to vent frustration at the encroachment of Western values on traditional culture, and the constraints put on them of an authoritarian government. The themes of my paper will explore the nature of street harassment, the social/economic changes from the 1970's to the present including the rise in Islamic fundamentalism, the creation of the megacity and its breakdown of the village system (traditional way of life), the Intifah economic policies that had negative effects for unskilled workers in the economy and mass migrations to Cairo, the authoritarianism of the Egyptian government, and the emergence of women into the working world. I will then explore how these changes in Egyptian society play out in the daily use of public and private space. This will cover the dynamics of street harassment in the public sphere: women's mobility becomes a battleground for male frustration and the preservation of traditional values. In response, women deal with this social problem by adopting the headscarf, which in this context enables women's public movement and protects them from unwanted attention. The adoption of the headscarf is a compromise that, while appeasing the more traditional public, also allows women to have more public roles, thus allowing them to adapt successfully to the social changes in Cairo while maintaining traditional values.

Shin Wei Ting: Gender-based Violence in Post-Conflict Situations: The New Face of Gender-based Violence in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone

This project examines the impact of widespread gender-based violence (GBV) in conflict situations on the treatment of women and girls in post-conflict situations. It demonstrates that widespread GBV against women and girls does not only occur in armed conflicts, but also occur in times following the end of armed conflicts. GBV against women and girls has been a common feature in many armed conflicts where it is used as a strategic military tool against enemy. To cite a few examples in recent history, the civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina involved widespread and systematic GBV against female civilians where rape is used as a "tool of war" against targeted ethnic groups in order to advance ethnic cleansing. While the end of armed conflicts intuitively suggests that women and girls no longer suffer GBV since its military function is no longer necessary, this is however not the case in many post-conflict societies. Women and girls continue to suffer widespread GBV in post-conflict situations after having experienced it extensively during armed conflicts. GBV against women and girls that occur in post-conflict situations also take on different forms from those that occur in conflict situations. This project concludes that widespread GBV in conflict situations has significant impact on the treatment of women and girls in post-conflict situations, causing GBV to perpetuate even after armed conflicts have ended.

Adam Tyson: The Mystical Debate: Constructivism and the Resurgence of Perennialism

The term "mysticism" has so many definitions, both colloquial and academic, that it can seem nearly impossible to arrive at a solid answer to the question: "what is mysticism?" There are, however, several traditions, academic and otherwise, which have offered answers, some of which have stood the test of time, and some of which are still hotly debated. By understanding the main points of contention, through two of the most notable ideological camps, the landscape of debate can at least be understood. In this essay I sought to do the following: +Provide a brief history of mysticism as a subject in academia +Explore some of the most fundamental and longstanding definitions +Objectively assert the claims of two prominent ideological camps on mysticism -Describe the points of contention between the two -Establish possible pros and cons to each approach +Explore two trends of mysticism supported heavily by textual evidence =>Absolute Unitary Being(AUB)and the Pure Consciousness Event(PCE) +Finally, weigh these two trends in the face of the different ideological camps -And promote these trends as valid and sound examples of mysticism Ideally, by illustrating a landscape of the academic debate surrounding mysticism, and exploring the most prominent definitions, a relatively accurate definition can be arrived at. The two mystical trends AUB and PCE will then be seen to fit this definition securely and explored in detail as they describe two specific, dominant trends in mystical experience. These trends will be reevaluated in the face of the debate, criticisms from both sides being offered against each of the two trends. Given textual support from mystical traditions spanning several cultures and throughout history, the AUB and PCE events will be seen to be securely within the boundaries of mystical experience. Further these events will appear to cover the range of mystical experiences fully. Ultimately the two trends PCE and AUB will be seen to be historically and textually supported but also not at odds with the main academic approaches to mysticism.

Colin Vize: Using After-school Enrichment to Promote Self-efficacy in Young Children: Pre-enrichment Comparisons

My project is part of a larger community research project that began during the summer of 2010, and will continue until the spring of 2012. The purpose of the research is to explore whether enriching after-school programs with weekly visits to a local children's museum will increase Kindergarten to 2nd grader's self-efficacy, creativity, and problem-solving skills. A total of 114 children participated in fall 2010 pre-testing in one of three groups: children who had after-school programming plus the enrichment experience, children who had after-school programming only, and children who did not have any type of after-school programming. The children were socioeconomically and ethnically diverse; 62% of children were considered low socioeconomic status, and 38% of the children were ethnically diverse. The children participating in the study were assessed prior to enrichment (fall 2010), and post-enrichment assessment will occur during the spring of 2011, the fall of 2011, and the spring of 2012. My project focused specifically on the domain of self-efficacy using the pre-test data from the fall of 2010. Self-efficacy is defined as the belief that an individual can perform the necessary behaviors or activities to produce a desired outcome (Bandura, 1977). I tested two main hypotheses. First, I hypothesized that children who participated in any type of after-school programming would have higher levels of self-efficacy than children who did not participate in after-school programming. This hypothesis reflects previous research demonstrating the positive effects of participation in after-school programming such as constructive social behaviors ((Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010) and increased academic achievement (Roth, Malone, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010). Thus, I hoped to find that after-school programming would also positively affect self-efficacy, which little research involving after-school programming has addressed. Second, I hypothesized that self-efficacy would increase with grade, as greater school experience should increase self-confidence, though little research has addressed this question with young children. The results from the pre-test data confirmed both hypotheses. Children who participated in after-school programming had significantly higher overall self-efficacy than children who did not participate in after-school programming. Our second hypothesis that self-efficacy would increase with grade was also confirmed by the pre-test results. Second graders had significantly higher overall self-efficacy than first graders and kindergartners. Notably, the pre-test data also showed that self-efficacy can be reliably measured in young children, given the lack of previous research that has explored self-efficacy in young children. In February, focus groups were conducted with children who were in the children's museum enrichment group. The qualitative data gathered from the focus groups showed promising results that suggest the weekly visits to the children's museum are positively affecting children's self-efficacy beliefs. The pre-test data confirmed both hypotheses regarding after-school programming and grade, and also showed that self-efficacy can be accurately assessed in young children. Thus, the findings from the pre-test data show that after-school programming promotes self-efficacy. This finding is important because self efficacy has been shown to predict academic achievement (Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1986) as well as other positive social behaviors (Bandura & colleagues, 2003).

Katie Van Marter: Peace by Rock Concert

As the 1960s drew to a close, mainstream America realized that the rebellious youth counterculture was not going to go away quietly. Meeting the problem head on as the authorities had in Kent State resulted in violent deaths and even more protests. This trend broke, possibly for the first time, at McIver Park in Portland, Oregon during the first ever state-sponsored rock concert. To make the concert, called 'Vortex One,' possible, the Governor of Oregon, Tom McCall, and The Family commune joined forces to create a peaceful alternative to possible violent opposition to the American Legion's National Convention. The concert, however, did much more than was intended; it provided an ideal setting for humble learning and peaceful conversations between the Right and Left. It marked the beginning of the right's cautious acceptance - or at least tolerance - of this counterculture, and the counterculture's re-assimilation into mainstream society. There being only one secondary source on the topic, this paper seeks to establish a timeline for the history of Vortex one. It examines previous violent student protesting as a possible reason for the governor's concern for the American Legion's visit. Aside from investigating the motivation for and organization of the concert, it also looks at its social implications. By interacting the right and left learned about the positive side of both groups' messages. The left began to better understand how to work within the government system to prompt wanted change. The right got a better understanding of the peaceful world their local youth wanted instead of just dismissing them as filthy children. Furthermore, the government realized that the left often had reasonable demands. The republican Governor McCall listened to the left's request and was able to meet them half way. Even he believed doing so was going to be political suicide, however, in the end Oregonians liked his open way of dealing with problems and re-elected him (McCall, 144). Not very many people know about Vortex because it did not change the course of American history; The Vietnam War did not end and the student protesting in other parts of the country continued. What it did do though was exhibit that conflicts could be peacefully resolved when people cooperated. It gave normal citizens on both sides a chance to have their views expressed and taken seriously. Portland and Vortex became places where differing opinions could coexist, learn from one another, and maybe even change. Work cited/Bibliography Love, Matt. The Far Out Story of Vortex I. Pacific City, Ore.: Nestucca Spit Press, 2004 McCall, Tom, Steve Neal, Tom McCall: Maverick (Portland:Binford and Mort, 1977).

Richard Wanerman: For Fear of Progress: The Premature Efforts to Enact National Labor Welfare Protections during the Second Administration of Theodore Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt enjoyed many impressive successes with policy proposals during his presidency, but one notable exception was in ensuring protections for labor welfare during his second term in office. In this paper, I have sought to answer how and why the efforts to improve labor welfare in the years 1905-1909 stalled for President Roosevelt and the Progressives. The result of this research is that the prevailing political realities of the 1900s and philosophies of government pre-World War I precluded the success of any serious effort to increase government guarantees of the rights and benefits of workers on a national scale, in spite of the widespread popular support of Progressives in general and President Theodore Roosevelt in particular. In brief, labor welfare may be best thought of as a package of benefits that workers are guaranteed at any job they hold, whether guaranteed by the employer or by the government. These benefits include workplace safety, injury compensation, minimum wage, maximum hours, limitations on children's and women's labor, the right to unionize and bargain collectively, and the right to sickness insurance. In the post-Civil War industrial era, the clamor for these rights steadily increased from the 1870s onward, as more and more industrial workers became ill, maimed, or were killed on the job, with no means of supporting their families while out of work or ensuring that they could return to work in a timely manner. The Progressive movement grew out of the concerns of the new industrial United States, and Theodore Roosevelt became a champion of the cause of greater equality and expanded rights, thanks to his background. When he became President in late 1901, he took the Progressive cause to the Presidency and to Congress, and was buoyed in his efforts by the successful federal intervention in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902. President Roosevelt did not count on the conservative resistance to his efforts, though, and even after winning a sweeping victory in the 1904 election, he could not get Congress to support his efforts, particularly after the 1906 midterm election, which saw a strengthening of the power of the conservative Republican Congressional leadership. Likewise, the Supreme Court took a legal philosophy that the role of the government in labor contracts and working conditions should be as minimal as possible, and readily struck down both state and federal laws designed to promote labor welfare. The private sector did take up the cause to some extent, driven mostly by the efforts of the National Civic Federation, but it was still a voluntary and uneven implementation. President Roosevelt left office in 1909 deeply frustrated with Congress's lack of action on labor welfare in his second administration, as his later presidential speeches indicate. Although future administrations would have greater success in expanding workers's rights, especially with his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, President Roosevelt's effort represents a fundamental failure to understand the broader political environment for social legislation, and the hazards that a president can encounter if support in Congress is not solid.

Jennifer Wankat: The New Girl: Reconciling Femininity and Independence in Girls' Literature, 1890-1915

My paper focuses on American girls' books written from 1890-1915. During this time period, American conceptions of femininity were in flux, as the rise of women's education and employment challenged traditional views about women's roles in the world. Traditionalists feared that women's self-sacrificing charm would be lost as women gained new opportunities for education, employment, and freedom, while women's rights activists feared that traditionalists would never allow women to take full advantage of their new freedoms and take their proper place on the public stage. I suggest that the most popular girls' literature at the time - books like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Anne of Green Gables, and the tremendously popular Little Colonel series - tried to chart a middle course between traditionalists and women's right activists. They present a world where women enjoy many of the fruits of independence, particularly education, while retaining the unselfishness that many identified with femininity. But unselfishness has been subtly redefined: it is no longer identified with self-abnegation, as it often was in books written earlier in the century, but is instead a way of sharing the self with others. Furthermore, these books obliquely suggest that men as well as women ought to cultivate this kind of active unselfishness. Unselfishness would create a kinder society: a society which would more closely resemble the female-controlled spaces in which these books generally take place. The greatest limitation of these books is their failure to engage with the male power structure. Rather than have their heroines wrestle with patriarchal restrictions, the New Girl books retreat to a world where the proximate authority figures are all female. This makes the New Girl books feel disconnected from the real world; they seem to take place in the kind of castle in the air that many of their heroines love to imagine. But it is this disconnect that gives the New Girl books their strength. In a society where women's opportunities, though expanding rapidly, were still sharply limited, they envisioned an alternative. The limitations that wider, male-controlled society imposes on women occasionally peek through the narrative; as Rebecca Randall sighs, "Boys always do the nice splendid things, and girls can only do the nasty dull ones that get left over." But the narratives often set out to disprove Rebecca's dictum, and present the women's world as a lively, engaging space that is rich in possibility. This quote describing Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables encapsulates the appeal of the turn of the century heroine: "her greatest attraction was the aura of possibility surrounding her.the power of future development that was in her. She seemed to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen."

Sarah Young (2010 Harrison Award Winner): Joseph Beuys and the Coyote: Healing the Wounds of Postwar West German Masculinity

Joseph Beuys was one of West Germany's leading artists of the 1960s and 1970s. He was renowned throughout Europe and visited and shown at diverse locals from Italy to Ireland. However, for most of his career he avoided visiting and presenting his works in the United States, only presenting his first work here during his second visit to the country in May of 1974. The aptly titled I like America and America likes me was a performance piece in which Beuys lived for three days in a gallery space with a live coyote. He claimed that his interaction with the coyote would heal the symbolic wounds caused by the destruction of the Native Americans caused by the white European settlers. Yet other than a belief in the value of all of humanity resulting in the need to address universal human issues, Beuys had no real reason to address the past traumas of a country that he had only visited twice making it is necessary to consider how this work relates to issues within his homeland. This paper examines how Beuys' interaction with the coyote functions as a tool for him to work through the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with Germany's past. Specifically, this paper considers the relationship between Vergangenheitsbewältigung and postwar West German masculinity to argue that Beuys' interaction with the coyote becomes a way to symbolically heal the arrested development of this masculinity that developed in the aftermath of the Third Reich.

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