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Nancy McCadden-O\u27Brien Artist Work and Statement What Falls Away
Full text linkArtist Statement: What Falls Away
Nancy McCadden O’Brien
Like a portrait can elevate a figure, still-life wields the power to hoist the mundane.
My charcoal still-life drawings beautify and glorify discarded natural and man-made objects and spaces, inviting the viewer to contemplate the passage of time, age, and mortality. My practice involves scavenging wooded and domestic areas, seeking materials in varying degrees of decay and disrepair—removing them from their original environment and curating them into controlled compositions. A deliberate nod is made toward the genre of Vanitas, in particular, the still-life painters of the Dutch Golden Age as objects are placed to interact and contrast with each other to reflect the tension around the desire to control the cyclical nature of life. By rendering objects at their actual size, the still lifes invite the viewer to relate to the drawings on a human scale. This collection of large still-lifes will be paired with a series of small companion drawings featuring the debris and detritus that accumulate and fall away during the process. This thesis will explore the ideas surrounding time, age, and mortality and how they can be related to and expressed visually through still life
Editors\u27 Introduction: Digital Feminisms, Women, and Gender Dynamics in Online Spaces
No full textIdentity Light Stories and their Retellings
No full textThis project looked at entertaining stories and the different audiences they may be told to. The goal was to learn more about the relationships of the storyteller through their entertaining stories, specifically focusing on those they have told the story to and those present in the story they tell. Ten emerging adults from ages 18 to 29 were interviewed and asked to tell an entertaining story and then recount a time they remember telling it. Participants were all English-speaking from the northeastern United States and had completed some level of college. These interviews were coded to look for themes of agency and themes of communion. Themes of Personal Development, Self-Interest, and Learning About the Self were found within agency, while themes of Camaraderie, Family, and Bonding were found within communion. Prior tellings of shared entertaining stories were found to prioritize bonding as a purpose for sharing, supporting previous research regarding entertaining stories (McLean & Thorne, 2006). Learning about how stories are used to bond also has implications in a time many stand divided
System Administration Practices and Experimentation
No full textThis undergraduate departmental honors capstone project experiments with and demonstrates System Administration practices that are used in enterprise environments. The skills and practices of System Administrators are crucial to maintain large-scale IT infrastructure. This project aimed to gain a deeper, practical understanding of the role of a System Administrator in an emulated environment. Through hands-on experimentation, this project addressed the responsibilities of a System Administrator, such as controlling user access, adding hardware, automating tasks, monitoring systems, overseeing and developing a backup strategy, maintaining local documentation, and security practices. This project demonstrated some of the complexities that lie in each of these processes, and goes on to explain where more potential for growth and improvement is possible. User access for a large scale environment was deployed, and automation that can scale to an arbitrary size was applied. This process successfully deepened my understanding of System Administration practices, with these systems deployed I have been able to understand how networks and tools interact in a way I haven’t been able to before
Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization
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“Mommy with a Different Body”: Rethinking Motherhood through American Breast Cancer Memoirs
Full text linkMotherly guilt and anxieties about reproductive choices are often a significant source of psychological trauma in women who decide to have a child after being diagnosed with breast cancer (BC), but these themes are less visible in breast cancer memoirs. Patriarchal societal norms about women’s roles have long influenced women’s ideas about their bodies and motherhood. However, women with BC who are already in a vulnerable position, struggling with a life-threatening disease, feel helpless and guilty about their desires to be mothers, as society often considers them to be bad or selfish mothers. The present study examines Tig Notaro’s I’m Just a Person (2017) and Caitlin Brodnick’s Dangerous Boobies (2017) to reveal the psychological and moral dilemma of women with BC, whose infertility issues can be partially solved with the help of advanced technologies. Their emotional turmoil regarding motherhood and fertility suggests the need for more empathy and concern from both physicians and families. These selected memoirs by two celebrated American comedians also reflect how even financially independent women in the Global North often feel anxious about their reproductive choices at the onset of BC. Therefore, many such studies are needed to understand the psychological trauma of such women from different cross-sections of society and culture. This article reveals the need to respect the autonomy of women with chronic illnesses, to support them with their individual decisions, and also to help them to overcome their feelings of guilt and shame
The Ethical Quandaries of Commercialized Surrogacy in India and Its Representation in Bollywood Films
Full text linkAssisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has been seen as a blessing for couples and individuals who desire to have children and who do not want to adopt. A common technique of ART is surrogacy—the process by which a woman agrees to carry and give birth to another individual’s or couple’s child, often as an act of philanthropy. Because of the costly medical expenses for this process in high-income countries, many clients have sought surrogates in lower-income countries, such as Nepal, Thailand, and India, to lessen the cost. This has contributed to what is known as “surrogacy consumerism,” in which women are paid to be surrogate mothers. In these Global South nations, many women living in poverty have turned to commercial surrogacy in order to survive. India became the most sought-after destination for commercial surrogacy because of its well-established medical infrastructure and the legalization of commercial surrogacy in 2002. However, concerns regarding the potential exploitation of women and children prompted the Indian government to ban commercial surrogacy with the Surrogacy Regulation Act of 2021, which came into force in January 2022. This study explores the multifaceted landscape of surrogacy and its representation in popular culture in India, unravelling the motivations behind its popularity and the challenges associated with its practice. The discussion explores the economic, legal, and cultural factors that contributed to India’s emergence as a hub for surrogacy services between 2002 and 2022. The lower cost of medical procedures, coupled with lax laws, made India an appealing option for international couples facing financial constraints in their pursuit of parenthood. This paper argues that the once altruistic act of surrogacy became a tool for the global elite to exploit and commoditize the womb, motherhood, and Indian women. Apart from discussing the Indian social and legal scenario, this paper analyzes three famous Bollywood movies, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, Filhaal, and Mimi, in order to discuss their depictions of surrogacy and how films represent the changing societal, cultural, and legal landscape in India