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Defining the Enemy Within: Examining the Case for a Federal Mechanism to Designate Domestic Terrorist Organizations in the United States
Full text linkDomestic terrorist incidents are on the rise within the United States. Activities of domestic terrorism increased by 357% between 2013 and 2021. While the United States has experienced a dramatic growth in domestic terrorism from violent organizations, other countries have faced this similar problem with a different approach as they have created mechanisms to officially designate domestic terrorist organizations. In this thesis, I will answer the question: Could and should the United States create a federal proscription mechanism for domestic terrorist organizations? Chapter 2 explores whether the Proud Boys, a domestic organization within the United States, could be considered a domestic terrorist group. It will weigh the arguments for and against the designation of the Proud Boys as a domestic terrorist organization. If the organization could be considered a domestic terrorist institution, then that contributes to the argument that there should be a proscription mechanism for domestic terrorist organizations since there is a terrorist organization operating freely within the United States. Chapter 3 explores why the United States has not created a federal crime of domestic terrorism and consequently a formal process to designate domestic terrorist organizations. The chapter looks at the political and social considerations surrounding the creation of a federal crime of domestic terrorism and examines the arguments for and against creating such a crime to understand the feasibility of implementing one. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the effectiveness of a proscription mechanism for domestic terrorist organizations. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, have approached domestic terrorism differently than the United States and have created formal mechanisms to designate domestic terrorist organizations. Chapter 4 specifically looks at Canada and its designation of its own chapter of the Proud Boys as a domestic terrorist organization. The chapter examines Canada’s definition of domestic terrorism, discusses how the country approaches freedom of expression, and then evaluates the proscription mechanism and its impact on the Canadian Proud Boys’ membership and potential to carry out future activities. Chapter 5 does the same but instead focuses on the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has dealt with an organization similar to the Proud Boys, National Action, and has designated the group as a domestic terrorist organization. Chapter 6 offers a concluding analysis on the potential for the United States to establish a proscription mechanism for domestic terrorist groups–weighing both the necessity and implications of such a move. It explores the potential benefits and drawbacks of creating such a mechanism, using insights from the case studies of Canada and the United Kingdom. Additionally, it compares the findings from Chapter 3 regarding the practicality of creating a proscription mechanism in the United States with the lessons learned from the international examples
Systems of Survivance: Exploring Armenia\u27s Ancient Past Through Dungeons & Dragons
Full text linkSystems of Survivance: Exploring Armenia’s Ancient Past Through Dungeons and Dragons is an English Honors and Classics undergraduate thesis that brings the hidden voices of Armenia’s past into dialogue with the present. Opening with an exploration of D&D and a reflection on the field of Ancient Studies from an Armenian-American perspective, Janigian questions the priorities of “Classics” and its amplification of Eurowestern voices. This thesis draws inspiration from the fantasy anthology Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, where a team of writers tell folkloric stories of their cultures through a D&D setting and adventure. Likewise, Janigian provides scholars and tabletop players alike with an imagined fantasy world adapted directly from Armenian folklore, personal family stories of immigration, and historical research. Systems of Survivance provides a geographical index and ethnography of the fictional nation of Mayrenik and her people, their beliefs, and their history. This gazetteer is preceded by an adventure titled Wings of Memory that uses the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition system to bring residents and refugees of Mayrenik together to locate one of its sacred artefacts.
This thesis aims to assert the academic credibility of tabletop roleplaying games as active forms of what literature has always promised: seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. By adapting Armenian history and mythology into a game-setting, Janigian invites a contemporary audience to contribute to an ancient world, to resist the notion that Armenia’s past revolves around tragedy, and to perpetuate Armenian stories of beauty and triumph in today’s world
International Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies
No full text12:00 P.M. | Evelyn Schneider (Faculty Mentor: Denis Kennedy) Defining the Enemy Within: Examining the Case for a Federal Mechanism to Designate Domestic Terrorist Organizations in the United States (Honors thesis) 12:20 P.M. | Thomas Cacace (Faculty Mentor: Denis Kennedy) The United States and the International Criminal Court (Washington Semester) 12:40 P.M. | Olivia Wahl (Faculty Mentor: Denis Kennedy) Consolidating the Israeli Occupation of Palestine: the Role of Agreements and Development Projects (Washington Semester) 1:00 P.M. | Worcester World Affairs Council Faculty Mentor: Timothy Joseph Kyle Keelan \u2725 Molly Landis \u2727 1:20 P.M. | Peace & Conflict Studies -- Senior Reflections Faculty Mentor: Timothy Joseph John Gavin \u2725 Caleb Kenney \u2725 Jackson Lauber \u2725 Molly O\u27Connor \u2725 Catherine Pfau \u272
Silent Holy Spirit, January-March, 2025
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Notes on the Invariance of Tautness Under Lie Sphere Transformations
Full text linkAn embedding ϕ : V → Sn of a compact, connected manifold V into the unit sphere Sn ⊂ Rn+1 is said to be taut, if every nondegenerate spherical distance function dp, p ∈ Sn, is a perfect Morse function on V , i.e., it has the minimum number of critical points on V required by the Morse inequalities. In these notes, we give an exposition of the proof of the invariance of tautness under Lie sphere transformations due to ´Alvarez Paiva. First we extend the definition of tautness of submanifolds of Sn to the concept of Lie-tautness of Legendre submanifolds of the contact manifold Λ2n−1 of projective lines on the Lie quadric Qn+1. This definition has the property that if ϕ : V → Sn is an embedding of a compact, connected manifold V , then ϕ(V ) is a taut submanifold in Sn if and only if the Legendre lift λ of ϕ is Lietaut. Furthermore, Lie-tautness is invariant under the action of Lie sphere transformations on Legendre submanifolds. As a consequence, we get that if ϕ : V → Sn and ψ : V → Sn are two embeddings of a compact, connected manifold V into Sn, such that their corresponding Legendre lifts are related by a Lie sphere transformation, then ϕ is a taut embedding if and only if ψ is a taut embedding. Thus, in that sense, tautness is invariant under Lie sphere transformations. The key idea is to formulate tautness in terms of real-valued functions on Sn whose level sets form a parabolic pencil of unoriented spheres in Sn, and then show that this is equivalent to the usual formulation of tautness in terms of spherical distance functions, whose level sets in Sn form a pencil of unoriented concentric spheres
A Study of Knots and Quandles
Full text linkWe explore the mathematical theory of knots through the lens of algebraic structures known as kei and quandles. We begin by introducing classical knot invariants and then study the fundamental kei of a knot as a tool for distinguishing knot types. We generalize this approach using various kinds of quandles, including Alexander and dihedral quandles, and investigate their associated polynomial invariants. We also examine the connection between quandles and group theory, as well as their algebraic representations in quandle rings. Moreover, we analyze idempotent elements in quandle rings over finite fields, providing both general results and specific examples