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Assessing Conservation Risks In Photographic Media: A Study Of Gelatin Silver And Inkjet Prints
No full textThis thesis examines the conservation challenges of gelatin silver and inkjet photographic prints, two materially distinct yet culturally significant media. While gelatin silver prints—widely used throughout the 20th century—are susceptible to deterioration such as silver mirroring, emulsion cracking, and yellowing, inkjet prints introduce newer concerns due to their variability in inks, paper coatings, and overall stability. Drawing on case studies, scientific analyses, and museum conservation practices, this study compares the chemical and physical vulnerabilities of each print type and evaluates strategies for their preservation. It also addresses the ethical and practical implications of replication, digital intervention, and preventive conservation in institutional settings. By situating traditional and contemporary photographic media side by side, this thesis offers a framework for understanding and managing the evolving risks inherent in photographic collections
Bodies in Work, Bodies of Work: Intersections of Alternative Photography and Complicated Embodiment
No full textAbstract
The practice of photography, throughout its evolution over the past 203 years, has ebbed and flowed but ultimately rests in a steady state of documentary and archival impulse. In the context of disability studies and subsequent examinations of embodiment, we may observe this evolution and fluctuation as a means for documenting expression, embodiment, and representation within the photographic medium. In such observation, there appears a noticeable gap in theoretical inquiry of the relationship between an evolving photographic practice and representations of invisible disability and chronic mental/physical illness. This thesis examines analog self-portraiture as a recently-alternative mode of expression and a means of exploring complex notions of embodiment through non-normative processes. With a focus on 21st-century practitioners Aurora Berger (United States) and Nelly Ating (Nigeria and the United Kingdom), the analysis develops an understanding of alternative photographic processes as conduits for unconventional physical manifestation.
These case studies inform a developing necessity for alternative photographic practice as an effective and rounded mode of embodiment and expression in largely invisible medical conditions. A well-rounded pursuit of embodiment therefore behooves non-digital, often experimental photographic expression in a void of facile visual representation. Section one of the following analysis examines the spectrum linked with such alternative processes, section two provides a synthesis of means of embodiment through analog creation, and section three outlines the intricacies of self-archivization central to illness–and–disability–(in)formed experience
Une comparaison des indicateurs de stress dans les populations de Bruants à couronne blanche de Gambel et de Tohis de Californie au sein d’habitats naturels et suburbains
No full textL’urbanisation continue de transformer les paysages naturels à un rythme accéléré, menaçant souvent la biodiversité locale et remodelant les habitats de la faune. Cette étude vise à évaluer la qualité de l’habitat dans des zones naturelles et suburbaines en utilisant les rapports hétérophiles/lymphocytes (H/L) et la condition corporelle comme mesures à moyen terme du niveau de stress chez deux passereaux communs du sud de la Californie : le Bruant à couronne blanche de Gambel (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii), une espèce migratrice présente le long de la côte ouest entre le sud de l’Oregon et la Californie, et le Tohi de Californie (Melozone crissalis), résident permanent en Californie. Nous avons comparé des populations dans deux environnements : un habitat naturel protégé à la station biologique Robert J. Bernard (BFS) et un quartier suburbain à Claremont, en Californie. Nous avons prédit que les Bruants à couronne blanche et les Tohis de Californie auraient des rapports H/L plus élevés et une condition corporelle plus faible en milieu suburbain par rapport au BFS. Les données de terrain collectées au printemps et à l’automne 2024 comprenaient l’utilisation de caméras automatiques pour observer les oiseaux bagués, des procédures standards de baguage sur les oiseaux capturés, des mesures morphométriques, ainsi que des frottis sanguins analysés au laboratoire pour compter les hétérophiles et les lymphocytes. Contrairement à notre prédiction, les rapports H/L des Bruants à couronne blanche étaient plus faibles en milieu suburbain qu’au BFS, ce qui suggère qu’ils subissaient un stress moins élevé dans les banlieues. Aucun effet similaire n’a été observé chez les Tohis de Californie. De plus, la condition corporelle ne différait entre les sites pour aucune des deux espèces. Cependant, les Bruants à couronne blanche présentaient une condition corporelle plus faible à l’automne qu’au printemps, peut-être en raison d’une perte de poids récente liée à la migration automnale. Cette recherche en cours explorera comment l’expansion urbaine affecte le stress et la qualité de l’habitat pour ces espèces
A Perspective on Imbalance: A Memoir Through the Lens of Eating Disorders Anonymous
Full text linkA Perspective on Imbalance uses a crab shell essay format within the adjusted framework of Eating Disorder Anonymous’ “Perspective on Balance” letter. This original letter speaks to how physical, social/emotional, and spiritual balance came to exist in the founder’s life after working the 12 steps of the program, but the author of this thesis felt more inclined to examine what life looks like in each of those categories before the 12 steps, as well as what happens when you choose not to work them (as this has been her experience thus far). The resulting linear prose essay includes themes of loss, friendship, heartbreak, sexuality, faith, and chronic illness and mental illness. Each section examines core life events from different angles, all of which evoke powerful feelings of frustration, grief, optimism, and nostalgia that will resonate with readers who have grown up or are currently growing up in a world that wrongly demands perfection at every turn--especially for women. The perspective of a young author with niche identities that are relatively unexplored in modern literature creates extremely necessary discourse, and provides a rare opportunity for young readers to feel seen and heard as they navigate their own physical, social/emotional, and spiritual journeys
“IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE”: REPRODUCING THE NORMATIVE FEMALE BODY THROUGH MASS CONSUMERISM IN POST-WWII WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
Full text linkIn the Post-War era, women’s magazines took on a key role in cultural production, publishing literature, non-fiction articles, and advice on everything from marriage to fashion. Women’s magazines served a a form of propaganda, promoting a specific form of femininity that upheld the status quo. And that form of femininity was overwhelmingly affluent and White. By establishing magazines as a solution to women’s personal problems, editors served to shape the image of the post-war American woman. Nowhere is this vision more intimate than the way it was applied to the female body and reproduction. In this thesis, I analyze how magazines attempted to influence women’s reproductive decisions to promote mass consumption and whiteness.
By investigating women’s magazines, I show how whiteness and capitalism become naturalized through the relationships we form with our bodies. The body is a space of many meanings, meanings that have significance not simply in the way we move about our individual lives, but as representations of the communities and society we belong to. What we consume, from media to products, influences our perception of the world, the opinions we have about our bodies, and how we choose to treat them. Perception and choice do not exist in a vacuum. What we feel has meaning and power. It is only through understanding how these conceptions came to be formed that we can hope to dismantle a culture that seeks to profit off of making the female body into an object for consumption and not an extension of the self
Records of Love, Justice, & Spirituality
No full textFramed by Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s concept of ‘spiritual activism’ and the conversations about love, justice, and spirituality I recorded this year, I will explore lineages of radical social change that emphasize love and spirituality. Love and spirituality are often minimized in both social justice (i.e., movement) and academic spaces, despite being central in the lives and therefore everyday practice of many people – particularly those who are women, queer, of color, and/or Indigenous. In conversations with people I admire who are doing work for communal and systemic change, I sought to trace how people’s “conocimiento” (spiritual awareness) of their interconnection with others deepened their commitment to social justice and broadened their solidarity. This thesis is a container to explore those stories in detail and draw out the traditions and contested histories that shape them. I show that love and spirituality are critical to how many people mobilize themselves towards, imagine, and practice justice
Reaching for resilience: Habitat heterogeneity, burn severity, and Indigenous fire management practices in the Sierra Nevada
No full textAs climate change intensifies, higher summer aridity, droughts, lower spring snowpacks, and other compounding factors will likely contribute to increased forest fires in the western US and especially California’s Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is characterized by high habitat heterogeneity, with elevation the main factor in vegetational composition changes. Due to decades of US Forest Service fire suppression policy originally used as a tool of colonial oppression of Indigenous peoples, buildup of dead woody fuels over the decades provides excessive fuel when fires do start, contributing to faster-spreading, higher intensity fires. I ask 1) what is the relationship between habitat type in the Sierra Nevada and response to fire?, and 2) what is the relationship between the type of habitat and the amount of dead woody fuel build up on the Burger Sierra Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary property? Regarding 1), comparing statewide historical burn severity map from 2000-2024, I found out of the 6 ecological zones studied, the Upper Montane, Lower Montane and Foothill Shrubland/Woodland zones had the highest number of hectares burned across all severity levels. These ecosystems should be a priority for fire management efforts to minimize future stand-killing high severity fires. At the Burger Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary, I found that finer fuels are especially dominant in sage scrub, willow, and aspen habitats. Given the colonial roots of fire suppression and the urgent need for adequate fire management, future management plans for this property should prioritize Indigenous leadership, balancing fuel mitigation, ecological resilience, and cultural values
A Click Chemistry-Based Approach to Assessing sAPP⍺ Derived-Peptides as an Alzheimer’s Therapeutic: Evaluation of Blood Brain Barrier Permeability and Identification of its Molecular Targets
No full textAs the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., Alzheimer’s disease (AD) poses a challenge to the health of individuals and public services that support them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves 5 medications that manage the symptoms of AD, though no treatment for AD exists. Research demonstrates the therapeutic potential of the secreted amyloid precursor protein alpha (sAPP⍺) as resistant to AD neurodegeneration. However, its relatively large size of 30 kDa prevents permeation of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) necessary for effectively treating AD. The Rose Lab from the Open University in the UK has identified the arginine-glutamine-arginine (RER) tripeptide sequence as the smallest, active domain of sAPP⍺ capable of crossing the BBB and resists amnesia. While they claim that both fluorescein- and biotin-labelled RER crosses the BBB, private communication with the party responsible for their syntheses revealed a conjugated linker not disclosed in their papers. They also proposed the collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2) as the binding partner for RER, but lacked characterization of its binding. In collaboration with Parfitt Lab in the Neuroscience Department at Pomona College, this study aims to determine whether these peptides permeate the BBB, identify their molecular targets, and characterize their binding. Following the solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), desired N-terminal modifications, then in vivo administration of these peptides, novel approaches featuring “click” chemistry will be used to evaluate the permeation of the BBB and identify molecular targets of these tripeptides. Such results would support the therapeutic efficacy of sAPP⍺-derived peptides and advance AD treatment as a whole
How to Catch a Con: The Rhetorical Strategies of Fraudulent Political Leaders
Full text linkThe United States faces persistent challenges in controlling political fraud. Government agencies exhibit the second-highest fraud rate of any industry, and corruption levels have only worsened over the last decade, contributing to declining public trust in national leadership. Current fraud detection efforts generally catch late-stage, large-scale fraud, highlighting the need for earlier-detection mechanisms. One way this could be accomplished involves identifying rhetorical patterns that are commonly used by political frauds in order to flag high-risk individuals. Leaning on the Theory of Planned Behavior, it was hypothesized that political frauds would exhibit more rhetorical appeals to fear, blame, pathos, and self-promotion than non-frauds. To test this, a matched pairs design was employed, pairing six Congressional frauds with non-fraudulent counterparts. Five media appearances per politician were identified, transcribed, and coded (both deductively and inductively) using computer-aided text-analysis. ChatGPT Plus has been shown to be a fairly reliable coder of qualitative datasets (k = .66-.95) and thus was chosen. 18 rhetorical strategies were coded for raw instances per speaker, transformed into per-1,000-word frequencies, and analyzed with paired-samples t-tests. Results showed that fraudulent Congressmembers exhibited more combative, hyperbolic rhetoric, more national-level discourse, less measured policy discussion, and less local-level discourse than non-fraudulent Congressmembers. This supported our hypothesis and suggests that fraudulent political behavior may be commonly preceded by measurable linguistic patterns. Fraud-fighting agencies may benefit from using these insights to flag potentially fraudulent politicians earlier in their criminality
The Front
Full text linkIn 1980s San Francisco, a journalist named Jon Gillespie investigates the mysterious murders of several Vietnamese American journalists