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Mechanized Isolation: Addressing The Crisis of Mental Health in American Farming and Rethinking Agricultural Policy and Mental Health Support for Farmers
No full textThis thesis investigates the mental health crisis among industrial farmers in the United States, focusing on the systemic and historical factors contributing to high suicide rates. I examine how the industrialization of agriculture, specifically mechanization, economic instability, and climate change, has alienated farmers from their labor and exacerbated self-blame, isolation, and financial stress. By analyzing historical trends, farmer testimonials, and contemporary data, I critique existing mental health solutions for overlooking the humanity and lived experiences of farmers. I advocate for localized, farmer-led interventions that prioritize agency and community-driven decision-making to address the crisis effectively
A President or a Prince? Tracing the Development of Unitary Executive Theory
Full text linkThe theory of the unitary executive – a constitutional idea that considers expansive presidential authority to be rooted within the text of Article II of the Constitution – has gained considerable traction among constitutional scholars and government actors in the years since Reagan’s presidency. To account for this growing support for the idea, I propose and elaborate upon a developmental theory of how ideas about constitutional meaning change over time. More specifically, insights from relevant scholarship are utilized to build out a framework to trace how an idea becomes a plausible reading of the Constitution. The theory attends both to the distinct arenas or domains in which an idea is discussed, promoted, and acted upon as well as how the idea itself develops new definitions over time. I demonstrate these dynamics and processes, with particular attention to relevant ideational and political entrepreneurs, through a case study of the theory of the unitary executive. The thesis discusses how the idea of a unitary executive has gained support and exposure within four distinct domains – legal academia, public-facing media, the executive branch, and the judiciary – as well as how the idea’s meaning changed over the course of two generational waves. Ultimately, I suggest that in order for an idea to gain traction as a plausible reading of the Constitution, it must be situated within a habitable environment, or be able to remain salient within all four of the aforementioned domains
The Absented Maternal: The Colonial Fetishization of the Racialized Maternal Body in Shakespeare
Full text linkThis thesis examines the intersection of motherhood, identity, visibility, and race in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus, focusing on how these texts construct and deploy the stripping of women’s identities to interrogate societal hierarchies. Across these works, motherhood emerges as a contested site, simultaneously defining and devaluing women, while racial and sexual anxieties manifest through the fetishization and erasure of their bodies. These dynamics illuminate the mechanisms by which patriarchal systems maintain power and marginalize women. In The Tempest, Sycorax’s motherhood is reduced to a narrative device used to justify the enslavement of her son, Caliban, while her body becomes a focus of both fear and fascination, reflecting anxieties around racial and sexual differences. Antony and Cleopatra highlights the precariousness of visibility, as Cleopatra’s hypersexualization and public persona are leveraged to strip her of maternal and political power. In Titus Andronicus, Tamora’s maternal identity is weaponized against her, while her actions expose the cycles of violence tied to patriarchal and racial fears. Lavinia’s brutalized body becomes a symbol of purity lost, rendering her unfit for the roles of wife and mother within Roman ideals. Ultimately, I argue that by fetishizing the maternal body, colonial powers attempt to simultaneously erase aspects of motherhood, while reducing women to its construction, perpetuating a cyclical and self-serving logic
Investigating Educational Outcomes for Providence Community Advocacy
Full text linkEducation systems in multilingual communities face unique challenges, particularly when balancing equity and accessibility for students of diverse linguistic backgrounds. Within Providence, a city heavily comprised of Latin American, as I am, and English as a Second Language populations (ESL/ELL), Early-Ed students are struggling to meet the appropriate proficiency standards. Using data analysis methods present in R, we investigated the discrepancies of ELL and Non-ELL student performances under a variety of factors. The results obtained showed that on each test, ELL students performed significantly worse, even including the long-term solutions of Charter Schools and Takeovers. These findings underscore the failures of the Takeover and Charter Schools as an equitable solution to increase performance for all students. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of restructuring the pedagogy present in Providence and creating more effective solutions for all students of all demographics
Royal Guards, The Mixi Sword, and Political Identities: Mongols as Co-Founders of the Ming Dynasty
Full text linkAbstract
This thesis argues that the Ming court regarded the Mongol soldiers in the royal guards as core collaborators and supporters of royal power on equal footing with the Han Chinese.
The targeted breakpoint of this project is a type of sword named Mixi sword which was equipped by the Ming Royal Guards regiment. By implementing the method of analyzing archival arms and armor in my research, I claim that the Mixi sword was not native Chinese, but originated in the Mameluk Sultanate (al-Misri) and was transported to the Steppe by Muslim merchants and soldiers, becoming a prestige weapon among the Mongols. When some Mongols surrendered to the Ming, these swords became iconic for Mongol members of the Ming royal guard. Since the sixteenth century, during the most solemn royal ceremonies, Han-Chinese royal guards who marched alongside the emperor imitated and commemorated their Mongol predecessors in the regiment by equipping the Mixi sword that these Mongol soldiers once carried into battles for the Empire in the past two centuries.”
Building on the analysis of the Mixi sword. I challenged the arguments that describe the Mongols’ ethnic identity dissolved under the Ming rule as the result of assimilation, and some of their noble titles as mere tools to maintain their loyalty and pacify the hostile Mongols outside the Ming’s northern borders. Instead, I proposed that the existence of the Mixi sword and the connection of the swords with Mongol personnel in the Mong Royal Guards indicated that on some occasions, the high status of some Mongols was granted not as a result of political control, but instead, as sincere honor and remembrance, and integrated into the Ming’s origin narrative as an intimate core partner of the royal power. The Han Chinese soldier’s imitation of Mongol soldiers provides a noticeable glimpse into the traditional Chinese ideology of the 华夷之辨“Differentiation between Civilized and Barbaric.”
I argue that the Ming court regarded the Mongol soldiers in the royal guards as core collaborators and supporters of royal power on equal footing with the Han Chinese. The breakpoint of this project is a type of sword named Mixi sword which was equipped by the Ming Royal Guards. By analyzing material remains and administrative records, I claim that the Mixi sword originated in the Mameluk Sultanate (al-Misr) and was transported to the Steppe becoming a prestige Mongolic weapon. I challenged the arguments that describe the Mongolic ethnic identity dissolved under the Ming rule as the result of assimilation
Tautog: Few and Fleeting
No full textTautog are a cold water, benthic wrasse species native to the coastal waters of the Northeastern United States. Within the last 40 years, the commercial and recreational fisheries for this fish have grown substantially, and have placed a number of unique threats on their population. This memoir uses my own personal experiences as a commercial and charter fisherman as well as scientific research to discuss the human and naturally driven threats, as well as possible solutions to the issue at hand
