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Complicating the Constructed Narrative of Minnesota’s Iron Range
Get PDFIn this essay, I aimed to deconstruct the way that the history of Minnesota’s Iron Range is remembered and reveal how it supports an exploitative and harmful mining industry and system of capitalism. I identify how harm against Indigenous people and land is not a part of this collective memory of Iron Range’s history and neither is the way that racial division and racism were used as tools to exploit and suppress workers. I both complicate the narrative by revealing these histories and imagine how different the world and the Range would be if we honestly confronted and reckoned with our history
We Come from the Stars: Genealogies of Black and Indigenous Co-Resistance in Mni Sota Makoce
Get PDFIn this paper, I reflect on my experiences as an Anishinaabekwe, Sicangu Oyate queer woman organizing at Macalester College and beyond–that have shaped my major research interests on the convergences of Indigenous intergenerational healing, art, and youth organizing. From the fight to assert Anishinaabe sovereignty against the Line 3 oil pipeline in Northern Minnesota to honoring the lives of Black relatives who were stolen by Minnesotan police forces, 2020-2021 have been years of massive social upheaval. What does Black and Indigenous solidarity/co-resistance look like today, in the past and how can it continue here in Mni Sota Makoce? How is this work limited at a predominantly white institution such as Macalester College? Building on the work of Macalester Alum Guy Chinang ’20 how do institutions that practice neoliberal multiculturalism constrain radically emancipatory futures? What are the possibilities opened through intergenerational healing, art, and youth organizing? I argue that the collaborative community space opened through Powwow X: Expanded Cinema here at Macalester College–presented by Missy Whiteman and organized by P.I.P.E. and the DML on November 19th, 2021–models the abilities of art, activism, and ceremony to help Black and Indigenous peoples heal and generate new worlds. The beauty of Black and Indigenous solidarity work needs to be recognized and celebrated, while also practicing truth-telling and accountability
Solidarity Sing Alongs: Music as a Disruptive Force in the 2011 Protests in Madison, Wisconsin
Get PDFProtest music, when created and shared with intention and rooted in a social movement, can act as a force of disruption to systems of power. This paper focuses on the disruptive nature of the Solidarity Sing Alongs during the 2011 protests in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, that occurred in response to Governor Walker’s proposed Act 10, which cut funding for education, healthcare, pensions, and childcare, as well as attacked collective bargaining rights and other union abilities. The Solidarity Sing Alongs act as a case study of how music, as a part of the protests, interrupted the political powers that targeted the rights of people in Wisconsin. The disruptive power of the Solidarity Sing Alongs is evident in four main ways. First, they forged connections between past and present social movements, specifically through the reuse of old labor movement songs. Second, the location of the rotunda in the Wisconsin State Capitol was intentionally chosen as a public, central gathering space that holds political significance. Third, the decentralized leadership and organization of the Sing Alongs ensured that it was rooted in the values of the people, in direct opposition to the hierarchical structures of leadership that capitalism enforces. Finally, the Solidarity Sing Alongs created a strong network of politically active community members. With an understanding of these disruptive qualities, the paper also acknowledges some of the limitations of the Solidarity Sing Alongs, specifically the lack of connections to struggles beyond the labor movement, and a lack of racial diversity among attendees. These limitations are reflective of issues in broader progressive movements in Madison, emphasizing the need for deeper cross-struggle solidarity between movements. By exploring both the strengths and limitations of the Solidarity Sing Alongs, and ultimately understanding the important role they played in the 2011 Wisconsin protests, I assert that protest music can continue to be a disruptive force when thoughtfully incorporated into movement strategies
The Interaction of Topological Defects in Anisotropically-Elastic Nematic Liquid Crystals
Get PDFTopological defects are very well understood so long as the medium in which they exist is isotropically-elastic. They lead to director fields which are easy to calculate and superpose linearly so that a system with any number of defects is analytically treatable. They also have an interaction which is simple in form and can be accurately described by the Peach-Koehler force. In an anisotropically-elastic medium, however, such defects are very poorly understood outside of the single-defect case which was solved by Dzyaloshinskii. In this project, numerical and approximate analytical techniques are applied in order to better understand the interaction between two defects in an anisotropically-elastic medium and how it differs from the well understood isotropically-elastic case
Synthesis of Linear Dicarboximides on Aromatic Hydrocarbon Scaffolds
No full textRylene diimides (RDIs) are a class of organic compounds notable for their electron affinities charge carrier mobilities, and stabilities under oxidative and thermal conditions. These properties make these compounds items of interest in the world of organic electronics, notably as electron-transporters (as opposed to the more commonly seen class of organic compounds which function as hole-transports) 1. This work focuses on the development of a synthetic route to a related class of compounds, linear dicarboximides and linear tetracarboximides – specifically those on aromatic hydrocarbon scaffolds. While the properties of these novel molecules are not yet fully understood, we hypothesize that they are similar to those of the more wellknown RDIs. It is also of interest to obtain linear dicarboximides which have different functional groups substituted from their imide nitrogens, since these imide sidechains are known to alter RDI properties
Food Security and Dietary Diversity among Conventional and Organic Tea-Smallholders in Central and Southern Sri Lanka
Get PDFIn Sri Lanka, smallholder tea producers grow 70 percent of the country’s tea and bring in significant export earnings. However, when the country moved towards a more liberalized economy in the 1970s, growing cash crops such as tea for exports increased. As a result, there was a cut-back in food crop agriculture as farmers made space to grow more commercial crops. This research treats tea smallholder households as a unit of study. It looks at how economic status (average income and wealth rankings), level of crop diversity, and method of tea farming (organic or conventional) have influenced food security and dietary diversity outcomes. I use data collected in the summer of 2021 from 47 organic and 67 conventional tea smallholders in six rural communities of Southern and Central Sri Lanka. My findings show that organic farming is associated with greater dietary diversity among tea smallholders than conventional farming, growing a greater variety of cash crops is associated with greater dietary diversity and increasing household incomes through selling crops result in greater levels of dietary diversity. I also examine how the transition to organic farming works best with more time and planning. The country’s recent ban on imports of chemical fertilizers used by conventional tea farmers has impacted their dietary diversity and food security outcomes, since this was done in a rather haphazard manner causing declines in tea and food crop yields. Furthermore, I study how the increased income levels and increased number of cash crops grown influence better levels of dietary diversity among tea smallholders
Imperator Novus: Charting the transfer of Rome’s imperial past to the papacy’s eighth century present
Get PDFWhen did Roman imperial iconography become part of the position of pope? This thesis will highlight the eighth century as a time of notable change in papal authority and identity. The developing papacy — in competition with rival contenders for Rome’s past — produced two key documents that portrayed the pope as an inheritor of the Roman Empire. In these sources, the bishop of Rome took on an entirely new identity as an imperator novus. While the eighth century continued, the pope gradually appeared increasingly imperial, concluding with a coronation that crowned emperor and pope, alike
The Value of Education: School Policy Decisions During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking national U.S. policies, wide variation and conflict over chosen public school policy decisions emerged. What factors and guidelines informed the decision-making process in K-12 public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and who were the key stakeholders? This study examines three school district types – a large city, medium city, and small-town – across Minnesota as case studies to unpack how policy decisions were made during the pandemic. Stakeholder interviews uncovered that the school decision-making process was a) connected to a district\u27s political opinions, b) made by the superintendent and school board, c) primarily influenced by then current-day health and safety concerns, and d) justified using ethics, emotions, and take-your-pick science. In the absence of formal decision-making frameworks, school administrators justified policies based on ethical and political opinions with scientific evidence, state guidance, constituent support, and ethics. This led to conflict over the perceived \u27right\u27 choice and worsened the divisiveness of public COVID-19 opinions. Additionally, varying levels of disagreement with the U.S.’s education governance structure, particularly on local control vs state/federal imposition, emerged. This research identifies the individual nature with which COVID-19 school policies were formed and suggests a need for developing ethical decision-making frameworks for future scenarios
Confirmation and not Revelation: The Radical Imagination and Visions for the Future
Get PDFThe imagination is not a foil to reality, but holds potential for re-envisioning an existing one. The term “radical” in radical imagination implies action. We cannot just imagine and stop there. In order for the imagination to become a tool for (personal/ communal/ global) liberation, it needs to be paired with action. There is no such thing as the “standard” or the “conventional” because it is constructed by those in power. Because of this, the radical imagination has existed for years in the language of the oppressed. Drawing from Black and Indigenous thought and practice, personal experience and work, we can see how the radical imagination is born out of necessity. There is no one way of imagining so this is a collection of various imaginations
Neutrino Oscillations in the Presence of a Magnetic Field
Get PDFWe calculate oscillation probabilities in the presence of an external magnetic field in a one-generation neutrino framework that includes both Majorana and Dirac mass terms. First, we write down the Euler-Lagrange equations and obtain a system of eight differential equations coupling together eight different neutrino states that can be distinguished by helicity, chirality, and particle/antiparticle-ness. We then solve this system of differential equations in various special cases, exhibiting different types of oscillations. When the magnetic field is in the direction of momentum, there are only four oscillation channels as helicity flip is forbidden. We observe that chirality flips are suppressed by a factor of m2/E2, whereas the transitions involving active neutrinos and sterile antineutrinos are not while having a form similar to two-generation flavor oscillations