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Toxic Roots: The Remnants of White Minority Rule in Zimbabwe
Get PDFHonorable Mention for Best Work of Criticism2018 Northwest Undergraduate Conference in the HumanitiesThis paper discusses the complex history of the intersection of sexuality and gender within Zimbabwe, specifically the chiShona tribe. It builds on the work of Zimbabwean anthropologist Josiah Taru, and African Studies scholar Tabona Shoko to uncover queer tribal identities and their position within precolonial chiShona tradition. This challenges efforts to naturalize homophobia in Zimbabwe in its current context. In relation, the role of colonial masculinity, power, and how it is interconnected in current political discourse is examined, problematized and complicated. Finally, the ways in which lesbian chiShona women challenge this discourse and lesbian invisibility is highlighted through the work of Tinashe Mupedzapasi. Colonization has left toxic roots within chiShona masculinity, sexuality, power dynamics, and gender identity reinforcing hierarchical understandings within chiShona culture. Yet non-normative identities persist. Thus, this project also addresses the critical question: can this discourse be decolonized?Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Linda Heidenreich-Zuñig
“The Sweetest Savor”: Active Male Penetrators and Societal Anxieties in Arthurian Legend
Get PDFThe expected gender dichotomy of medieval European heterosexual relationships was simple. There was an active male penetrator and a passive female acceptor. This dichotomy is supported by court records from late medieval France, analyzed by Joseph Roelens, in which two women are put on trial for female sodomy and much importance is placed on the masculine character of one woman and the submissiveness of the other. In this paper, I examine two different stories from Arthurian Legend, Sir Thomas Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur” and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife’s Prologue and Tale” from The Canterbury Tales, that depict sexual relationships between the main male and female characters that function within the social norm of the gender dichotomy. In doing so, I argue that these stories use this active and passive gender dichotomy in an attempt to police men’s actions in their sexual relationships with women. I chose to examine these stories because they demonstrate the societal importance placed on this gender dichotomy in a very concrete way. The men in these stories who refuse to become passive, Sir Lancelot being the most prominent among them, are willing to sacrifice not only their life, but the life of the women they love (whether or not the women agree with this decision), in order to avoid breaking the gender dichotomy.Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Elizabeth E. Tavare
“With middal smal and wel ymake”: Objectification and Power in Medieval English Love Songs
Get PDFThrough reading sets of medieval love songs one can notice trends that are connected to the conventions of fin’amor or courtly love. Troubadours, medieval French poets, would compose and sing songs that reflect the trends of courtly love during the time period. Within the lyrics of these songs there are two main trends when it comes to the objectification of the female beloved. First, they spend a great deal of time in describing the physicality of the beloved, but make no inferences or connections to her interior life—going so far as to animalize her. Even when those beautiful features may be manufactured, their artificiality still supersedes her personhood. Second, they use the lyric technique of reprisal to formally reinforce sense of woman as inanimate. Using the anonymous “Alison” and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Complaint to his Purse” as example cases, in this essay I demonstrate the techniques that effect this displacement of power, as well as how they are still prevalent in popular music today.Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Elizabeth E. Tavare
Who’s to Blame?: Chivalric Projection and the Gender of Guilt
Get PDFTo what extent did chivalry promote a power difference between the sexes? In romantic works of medieval English literature, knights are commonly seen to project their values onto a female counterpart, which consequently leads them to pin their narrative successes or failures onto that person. This article examines “Le Roman de Tristan” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” under the framework Stephen Ahern presents in “Listening to Guinevere”. The chivalric Tristan idolizes his beloved Ysolt to the point of delusion, causing him to condemn her when she fails to meet his unrealistic expectations, and thus to illustrate the temperamental nature of the relationship between knight and lady. “Sir Gawain” complicates the issue, as Gawain lacks the expected devotion to a lady. Using Amy S. Kaufman and Michelle Sweeney’s models of the configuration of power as lenses, I analyze Lady Bertilack’s manipulation of Sir Gawain’s chivalric values, and his resulting display of frustration towards himself, as a critique of gendered morals. By comparing these knights and their respective treatments of failure, I argue that the chivalric code’s inconstant values ultimately encourage its followers to see any female-encoded morals, whether external or internal, as the cause of knightly failure.Faculty Sponsor: Elizabeth Tavare
Dining Hall - New Commons Kitchen
No full textA man retrieving a can of pineapple juice from the storeroom of the new commons kitchen, 1962.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/john_foster_photos/4112/thumbnail.jp
Homecoming Queen and Princess
No full textThe 1962 homecoming Queen Carol Berglund and Princesses Myrtle Kinaka and Zoe Best on a parade float.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/john_foster_photos/4091/thumbnail.jp
Home Economics Kitchen
No full textA woman prepares a salad in the home economics kitchen, 1962.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/john_foster_photos/4111/thumbnail.jp
CWU Faculty Senate Minutes 5/03/23
Get PDFThese are the official Central Washington University Faculty Senate minutes for the May 3, 2023, regular meeting
Combat Robot
Get PDFIn the sport of combat robotics, the goal is to build a robot that can incapacitate an opposing robot before it becomes incapacitated itself. For this project, a combat robot was designed and tested to compete in Western Allied Robotics’ first competition at Central Washington University. The robot was built to compete in the beetle weight class which means the entire robot had to weigh less than 3 lbs.
To ensure the robot was competitive, a number of important design choices were made. Firstly, an effort was made to ensure that the design was simple and easy to take apart and put back together in the event that parts needed to be replaced. Secondly, durable, yet light materials were selected such as TPU and carbon fiber so that the robot could survive impacts while being under the 3 lb. weight limit. Finally, a kinetic weapon that could output a lot of energy due to its high mass moment of inertia and rotational velocity.
The robot was able to drive at a speed of 6 mph. The time it took to replace the most tedious electronic component was 6.67 mins. Finally, the weapon blade deflected 0.0441 in. under a 500 lb. load
CUDA implementation of the antlion optimization algorithm
No full textA parallel version of Ant Lion Optimizer algorithm using the CUDA platform is introduced in this paper. Efficient kernel, memory and thread management approaches have been developed to maximize its performance. The new algorithm was tested against the canonical algorithm on 15 scalable problems of different sizes, with a total of 172 experiments. The solution costs and the execution times were compared using relative percentage difference and significance tests. The results showed the CUDA antlion algorithm significantly improves upon the execution time, while retaining the same solution quality