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Plague! Public Health, Community Memory, and HIV/AIDS
Get PDFHow does individual trauma influence collective memory? Within queer communities, key social institutions are responsible for communalizing experiences of suffering, forming group narratives of trauma that are shared across vast spatial and generational gaps. These narratives continue to influence individual behavior years after the initial trauma, informing ideas of collective identity within the queer community. In my analysis of 10 interviews, I examined how experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic were influenced by understandings of HIV/AIDS. My interviewees were self-identified members of the queer community spanning many age groups; some of my participants were old enough to remember the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in America, while others had only learned of it through second-hand information. I observed that those who had lived through the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic drew on personal experiences when comparing the two pandemics, reflecting more specific, individualized trauma. However, the institutions through which older participants processed this trauma, namely gay bars, schools, and family networks, created and spread broader, more general narratives of HIV/AIDS that younger interviewees related to their COVID-19 experiences. All of my respondents made comparisons between COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS mitigation strategies that reflected greater awareness of public health policy within the community, generating greater investment in public health. These findings suggest that pandemics are trauma-generating, with lasting, intergenerational effects that impact a community’s future public health outcomes
Creating Cowboys and “Playing Indian”: Football and White Supremacy from 1890-1980
Get PDFThis honors thesis argues that football is a location of leisure which reinforces and (re)creates a comforting white male supremacist American empire through its use of imaginary frontiers, distortion of Native imagery and culture, and its development of mythic cowboy-heroes— which serve as escapes from ubiquitous national anxieties. I use textual and visual analysis of primary sources from the 1890s, 1920s, and 1970s to describe how football developed as a comforting space of leisure for white people in the face of national crises of masculinity, rights movements, and disillusionment with America’s empire
The Stars Told Me About You: Reclaiming Filipino Mythology Through Film
Get PDFThe Philippines holds a long history of colonization and occupation from Spain, Japan, and the United States of or (the US). Today, the Philippines is heavily influenced by Western culture, holding ideologies paralleling their past colonizers. For this project, I would like to explore the culture of pre-colonial Philippines and how it is reviving itself in the present, which I frame as the postcolonial. Looking specifically at Filipino folklore and mythology I am interested in understanding the scars of colonization and how lore and rituals have sought to heal these pasts through its remembrance of traditional thought. In this moment we can witness the production of post-colonial Filipino culture through mythology/folklore in present-day media. As a media making project, I am thinking about the ways my own work contributes to this postcolonial moment. I am interested in the ways that experimental media such as Bontoc Eulogy (1995) and Trese (2021) have been utilized by Filipino animators and media artists. Through Marlon Fuentes work in Bontoc Eulogy, he demonstrates the emotions of his heritage and recounts his grandfather’s experience in the St. Louis World’s Fair. As Budjette Tan, the author of Trese, states, it is the stories from generations back, stories that stem back to our indigenous roots that are the most compelling. Through my research and film project, I examine the question, is Philippine folklore a possible form of healing from colonization, and how has it become a pathway, through art, to their pre-colonial beliefs
“It was Real to Me Too”: Emotional Storytelling and Character Development through Motivic Relationships in the Black Widow Soundtrack
Get PDFSince her introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the 2010 film Iron Man 2, Natasha Romanoff has not had a strong musical identity. The 2021 film Black Widow changes this trend as Natasha assumes the role of the titular character rather than that of a supporting character. Black Widow’s soundtrack allows the absurd superhero film to tell a personal story of familial bonds, struggles with individual identity, and childhood trauma through motivic relationships and the changes in various iterations of themes and motifs as they appear in the film
Educating to Compete: Pandemic-Era Patterns of Technology Incorporation in the Southern Cone
Get PDFEducation has become a championship match. Global competition has defined many periods in history, but in the last two decades it has emerged within the knowledge economy, shaping education systems across the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the different levels of perceived educational resilience exhibited by states shaped their global competitiveness. Focusing on the Southern Cone of Latin America, this thesis explores the connection between globally competitive educational systems, access to Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and educational resilience during the pandemic through a multivariate regression model. Considering the profound disruption of education caused by the pandemic, I utilize a comparative study to explore the political history of education public policy on ICT in Argentina and Uruguay as well as how these countries handled contingency plans during 2020. In order to explain the varying levels of educational resilience that the international community perceived it is necessary not only to analyse the effectiveness of ICT-oriented responses but also the way these countries ensure education continuity for the most vulnerable sectors of the population. My findings hint at patterns of global positioning in both the degree of pre-pandemic ICT incorporation in education as well as the differentiated educational priorities addressed during 2020
Peer Reviewing the World: Increasing Civil Society Participation in the United Nations Universal Periodic Review
Get PDFThe Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is an exceptional mechanism within the framework of international human rights. The fact that it evaluates all UN member states’ human rights records on a universal basis sets it apart from other enforcement mechanisms that do not give equal time to all countries or do not seek to cover all human rights. Following the introduction of hybrid modalities in the third cycle, the UPR faces a turning point in terms of who is included in the process and how. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with UN officials, diplomatic mission members, civil society representatives, and academics, as well as personal reflections on my experience attending the 40th session of the UPR in Geneva, this project examines the participation of states and civil society actors throughout the existence of the mechanism. In regard to state participation, it finds that as states have learned “what to expect” out of the UPR process, they have become increasingly adept at using the language of human rights to make it appear as though they are engaged while maintaining ultimate control over their fate in the outcome of their review. Conversely, while civil society actors possess extremely limited agency within the formal UPR process, their strong engagement with the mechanism through informed, specific recommendations demonstrates their potential to exert “public pressure” on states if given the platform to do so. Given these findings, as well as the solidification of the mechanism after fifteen years of existence, I argue that visible civil society participation at the review stage is a risk worth taking
Rural Resiliency: The Cause and Effect of Minnesota\u27s Maternal Health Crisis
Get PDFThe United States is experiencing a maternal health crisis that disproportionately affects those who give birth in rural communities. Rural birthing people have higher maternal mortality rates, increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage, non-indicated cesarean sections, and other adverse health outcomes. Despite the enhanced risks of rural birth, rural communities are losing access to hospital-based obstetric care at an unprecedented rate. Minnesota has vast rural territory, with one-fourth of its population living outside the urban sphere – making it a strategic area of study. As of July, 2021, 31% of Minnesota’s 91 rural hospitals were at risk of closing. The repercussions of obstetric loss reverberate through rural communities, leaving indelible physical, emotional, and economic impacts. This paper seeks to identify why American rural communities are experiencing the loss of hospital-based obstetric services and how local communities in rural Minnesota respond to the lack of maternal healthcare. Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper compares findings from a systematic literature review to survey responses and ethnographic interviews with birth workers and birthing people across Greater Minnesota. This research intentionally seeks out and uplifts rural knowledge to highlight the resiliency of Greater Minnesota. Findings from interviews suggest that communities identify macro-level issues as barriers to equitable, high-quality care. Minnesota’s rural communities respond to the maternal health crisis with place-based and community-specific public health measures. This study highlights the lived experiences and local knowledge collectively held by rural communities and provides critical insights into the reality of rural birthing across Minnesota
Quilted Archives
Get PDFMemory and identity are rooted in the experience of being in material spaces and the process of remembering is often prompted by associative places. Quilted Archives is a series of four collages that combine the mediums of printmaking and oil painting in the pursuit of exploring nostalgia. In each work I use brightly colored intaglio aquatint prints, sepia intaglio etchings, patterned linocut prints, and oil paint to embed memories of childhood play and pretend in the flora of the landscapes where each memory takes place. The flora is collaged in a colorful geometric style to reference quilting and is used in tandem with embossed pattern prints to explore the warped nature of remembering through visual fragmentation. These collages are records of delightfully simple scenes that work to uncover, celebrate and archive the beautiful ordinary
Abundance
Get PDFMy Studio Art honors project identifies a parallel between the standards of ceramic beauty and human beauty. Symmetry, a smooth surface, perfect curves, weightlessness and clear functionality all contribute to the “perfect” ceramic vessel and similarly the “ideal” human form. Abundance is a rebellion against these standards. I investigate how ceramic forms can appear heavy and drooping under gravity, and how bumpy textures and speckled glazes intensify forms’ deviation from the standard. Alluding to fatness, my project took the final form of semi-figurative wall-hanging ceramic protrusions, which serve to disrupt the flat, smooth, white gallery wall with overflowing color, texture and weight
This way kids: the roles of locativity in Korean queer identity creation
Get PDFThe study of queer linguistic practices in East Asia as a whole, and especially in Korea, is an area in desperate need of scholarship. While extensive research exists on the linguistic practices of people with non-heteronormative sexual identities in an English-speaking context (see Bucholtz and Hall, 2004; 2005; Eckert and McConnel-Ginet, 1992 as examples), only two paper touches on queer identity in a Korean linguistic context, namely King (2008) and Kim (2016). King’s paper discusses the roles queer identity plays in English learning among three Korean gay men in Seoul, and Kim’s paper deals with the othering of queer Korean voices through television. This paper seeks to begin to fill the immense gap in understanding of queer linguistic practices in a Korean context by proposing an analysis of the locative phrase ijjok, meaning this way or this direction, as well as non-standard English use as resources for queer identity creation in Korean. Using Bucholtz and Hall’s tactics of intersubjectivity (2004) and interactionist (2005) frameworks as a theoretical framework, this paper analyzes speech produced by queer streamers and seeks to show that ijjok serves the following functions: (1) as an indirect index for queer identity; (2) as a mechanism through which to maintain conversational harmony and aesthetics; (3) as a mechanism to authenticate queer identity and in-group membership; (4) to project the social alienation and erasure of queer Koreans onto abstract linguistic space; and (5) to subvert the hegemony of earlier queer self-reference terms. Furthermore, this paper grounds itself in ethnographic research and dialogues with post-structural, feminist, and queer theories