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The (In)Visible Begam: Royal Mughal Women and the Visual Language of Kingship
No full textAwarded Magna Cum Laude with High HonorsImperial Mughal art of India was inherently political, and paintings made by artists of the royal ateliers gave the ideology of Mughal kingship a visible form in portraits, reproducing the likeness of emperors in codified, allegorical representations. From emperor Akbar in the late 16th century to Jahangir and Shah Jahan in the 17th century, miniature painting became a powerful device for communicating imperial power, and the depiction of courtiers as witnesses to the trappings of imperial power became commonplace in the representation of emperors. Thus, the conception of visibility and observance as a manner of acknowledging power became an integral component of Mughal imperial art. The depiction of women of the royal household, however, required a different approach than the images of their male counterparts.
Women were immensely powerful in their own rights in the public sphere, but their lives rendered their representation more challenging to fit into the visual conventions developed for the visibility of emperors. Mughal women lived within the rules of purdah, or a social order that separated royal women from the bulk of the men at court, keeping them guarded and out of sight from all but the most high ranking men of their families. Their invisibility ran counter to the conceptions of visibility that dominated images of royal men. Yet, my research shows an abundance of painterly moments where the issues of women's visibility and imperial gaze crystallize and resolve themselves in the images of Royal Mughal women. The thesis examines those instances that demonstrate how painters grappled with the purdah rules regarding the visibility of women. A detailed analysis of images where women were idealized and eroticized, or included as a group of witnesses or performers to affirm the imperial gaze, shows the various ways in which the Mughal painters leverage visual conventions of painting and ideology to communicate the political power of those women.
The thesis draws primarily on art historical research on how Mughal kingship was constructed in visual terms. I use a large body of scholarship and engage with scholars including Ebba Koch, Annemarie Schimmel, Mika Natif, and others, for understanding the conventions for imperial presentations in Mughal art. I also rely on works by historians such as Ruby Lal and Ellison Banks Findly on royal women and their political role in court. In emphasizing women, this work serves as an intervention into the larger art historical understanding of Mughal visual ideology that has remained centered around images of men. It seeks to both explore how the Mughal political ideology was enacted using images of women, as well as offers an understanding of an innovative hybrid visual language that translated both purdah rules and the visual language of masculine power to indicate the female imperial presence in Mughal painting.Art Histor
4 Continents, 33 Countries, 5 Non-Profit Organizations, 1 Lynk
No full textDuring my internship, I worked with the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), a network of civil society organizations that invest in promoting quality basic education for all students. During my time at GNECC, I learned how the privatization of education influences the quality, affordability, and access of basic education for all students. Within a few years, the privatization of education in Ghana has increased rapidly. Private companies worldwide are coming into Ghana, establishing private schools in rural areas and prompting parents to pay low school fees. This is a good initiative; however, the ways in which these companies operate the schools is poor. In addition, the intentions of these companies are to make profit from improvised communities who can’t afford governmental-based school fees. In my presentation, I will focus on the Omega School Franchise, which is a private company that promised to invest in building quality and affordable schools in rural areas. However, their main motive is to make profit from impoverished communities. Are these private companies doing more harm than good? While at GNECC, I learned how to navigate my voice and opinions in a large crowd and with that I have developed better leadership skills that I will carry on outside the gates of Mount Holyoke College.Navigating nonprofits from different organizational perspectives, our summer experiences involved engagement with both local and global missions. While one panel member aided families in the transition from unsafe living conditions to sustainable housing in North Carolina, another panelist in New York provided legal services to LGBTQ and HIV-positive individuals. From Washington DC, our third panelist used digital media to raise awareness about human rights violations in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Our fourth panel member helped create policies that advocate for quality education inclusive to all students in Ghana. Our final panelist in Boston contributed to research to further resettlement efforts for refugees overseas. The non-profit organizations where we worked spanned the globe; the projects we pursued were as diverse as the communities with which we engaged
Chasing Rainbows: The Insider, The Outsider and Post-Apartheid Xenophobic/Afrophobic Violence in South Africa
No full textIn May 2008, newspapers in South Africa and around the world carried gory news of Black African nationals in the land-locked Gauteng province of South Africa forcibly beaten, raped, and driven out of their communities by other Black South Africans. The targeted violence caused alarm for local, regional and global communities for two major reasons: the selectivity of its victims and the uncannily replicative apartheid ideology of the insider and the outsider marshalled by Black South Africans as justification of the violence. My independent research grapples with the dynamics of this violence through a multi-scalar and multi-temporal lens. Drawing upon a curated archive of reportage from 2008 - 2018 from Gauteng-based newspapers, I examine how territorial and spatial regulations underpin categories of belonging and how these insider/outsider designations challenge state-led efforts towards social cohesion as rooted in the philosophy of ubuntu - “I am because you are, and because you are I am.” The logic of elimination forms the basis for my conceptual framework as I argue that there are ideological continuities in the apartheid and post-apartheid periods and that these come to bear in the enactment and justification of post-apartheid xenophobic/Afrophobic violence. I further contend that the insider and outsider identity categorizations shape social cohesion beyond South African borders, especially with regard to efforts at African regional integration. Taken together, this research theorizes about violence and the structure and logic of historic systems of oppression to analyze how such processes inform experiences of belonging both in the past and in the present. In doing this, it makes an important contribution to International Relations scholarship by questioning canonical understandings of statehood in the context of political analyses on Africa, and suggests new ways to think about the centrality of identity in the enactment and justification of extralegal violence.International Relation
Who is in Charge?: An Evaluation of Lived-Experience in Working-Class Community Organizations and Their Leadership
No full textPolitic
Sleep Paralysis (a short film)
No full text"Sleep Paralysis" is a narrative short film that falls into the realm of the horror and supernatural genres, with a dash of comedy throughout. My goal was to also challenge myself as a producer and director. In the end, the cast and crew for "Sleep Paralysis" consisted of fifteen individuals. The crew included positions such as costume designer, makeup artist, production designers, and more—it was an entirely collaborative effort. Filming took place throughout the entire month of October and part of November. The story unfolds in the fictional small-town of Landow, Massachusetts after a series of mysterious disappearances occur. Max Morales is brought into town by their father, a big city Detective who has been called in to solve the mysteries. Max meets the local outcast, a homeschooled kid, Remington “Remmy” Callaway, who believes she knows what—or who—might be behind the unsolved case. The duo then embark on a mission to unravel this mystery. Little do they know is that there are Eyes everywhere. Their investigation brings them up against an undead florist, a possessed Glee Club, and, behind it all, the spirit of a wrongfully murdered Witch—and she’s out for their heads.Film Studie
Chaperone-Like Activity of Human Small Heat Shock Protein-Derived Peptides in Response to Cellular Stress
No full textSmall heat shock proteins (sHsps), a family of molecular chaperones that prevent
aggregation of partially unfolded protein substrates, are present in many different
organisms across all domains of life. They work to maintain cellular function and
survival under stress conditions, such as high temperatures, by binding
non-natively folded proteins in an ATP-independent manner. This is followed by
either promotion of proper protein folding or facilitation of protein degradation.
Malfunction of sHsps in humans has been implicated in the development of
several morbidities, particularly in neurological diseases where accumulation of
misfolded proteins leads to neurodegeneration. sHsps contain an “alpha-crystallin
domain” (ACD) flanked by an N- and C-terminal region (NTR and CTR,
respectively) of varying length and sequence. These terminal regions are believed
to participate in substrate and quaternary interactions. Their quaternary
interactions result in the formation of dynamic oligomers whose physiological
relevance and role in chaperone activity has yet to be determined.
This work includes two projects, both with aims to identify functional regions of
sHsps that contain chaperone activity. In the first, purifying the relatively
unstructured N-terminal sequence from human HspB1 and analyzing its
interaction with model substrates, we have identified an 88-residue sequence that
exhibits chaperone activity in solution. We constructed gold nanoparticles
(AuNPs) conjugated to the HspB1 NTR to explore the importance of the
oligomeric interactions of the molecular chaperone in binding to its substrate.
These sHsp-AuNPs were found to exhibit chaperone activity, with the chaperone
capacity varying by substrate and AuNP diameter. Our combined results indicate
the particular importance of the NTR in sHsp chaperone activity and demonstrate
the therapeutic potential of sHsp-AuNPs.
The second project evaluated the chaperone-like activity of mini alpha-Crystallin
A (CryAAID1), residues 70-88 of human sHsp alpha-Crystallin A. This peptide
was also conjugated to AuNPs and results confirmed CryAAID1 maintained
chaperone activity in the absence of other sHsp domains. Substrate specificity
AuNP diameter dependence were also demonstrated.Biochemistr
Dipping Your Feet in Familiar and Foreign Waters: Gaining Transferable Skills Near and Far from Home
No full textInterning for the international office of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice offered insight to the ways in which an office job in Italy differs from one in the United States. My summer experience deepened my understanding of Italian culture and caused me to question preconceived notions while challenging me to gauge what was expected of me both socially and professionally. How do you gain trust and establish credibility in a new and foreign job environment? How do you engage with a new city and get to know its hidden spots and mysteries? What is there to learn from a position unrelated to your field of interest? How dolce is the Italian work culture and is there such a thing as too many coffee breaks?Taking positions either abroad or back home domestically, our respective internships called us to evaluate the needs of our workplaces without compromising our individual learning expectations. Navigating new and familiar environments, our panel gained new appreciation for the places in which we found ourselves learning. We came to new workplaces with fresh eyes and enriched our perspectives using previously-acquired skills learned at Mount Holyoke. Whether it was translating marketing publications in the French countryside, assisting the senior site director in resolving critical and delicate situations in the Eternal City, supporting the international office of a major Italian university, or conducting research in a psychology lab in Eastern Massachusetts, we all gained transferable skills that will contribute to our remaining time at Mount Holyoke and to our future careers. Although working with a wide range of academic interests and internships, as interns, we found commonalities in the ways that we adjusted to our work placements and acquired knowledge that transcends specific fields or locations
Statistical Justification: Is racial profiling based on accurate statistics justified?
No full textMy thesis is about whether we are justified to apply accurate information about a group onto an individual in the group. More specifically, it’s motivated by our different intuitions towards the following two cases. I have a justified belief that, statistically, slopes covered with ice are more likely to be slippery than flat ground covered with ice. All else equal, am I justified in believing that a particular icy slope is more likely to be slippery than a particular icy flat ground? The answer seems to be yes here. Now consider a very similar case. I have a justified belief that, statistically, black people are more likely to commit some crimes than white people are. All else equal, am I justified in believing that a particular black man is more likely to commit such a crime than a white man is? The answer seems to be no. Even though the two cases seem structurally similar, we have very different intuitions towards the two cases. In my thesis, I attempt to give a reasonable account for our different intuitions by considering two types of solution: moral encroachment, solutions that are compatible with strong evidentialism, and finally, my own solution, which is also compatible with strong evidentialism. I argue that the projected beliefs in both cases are both justified and morally ok. What our intuition identifies is in fact a moral wrong, and it’s not the moral wrong of the projected belief itself. Instead, the moral wrong resides in the downstream acts or speech that may be licenced by the projected belief. These acts and speech are morally problematic because they reinforce the current social injustice in the world by delivering false implications. Since there is no discrimination against sloped ground, there is no social injustice to be worried about in Slippery Slope, and therefore the actions are not morally wrong in that case.Philosoph
Bridging the Gap: A Participatory approach in Architecture and Urban Planning: Case Study of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
No full textThe development of an extensive system that guides the growth of a city calls for the integrated work of every party involved.
Those systems mostly concern but are not limited to housing, transportation, sanitation, land use and communication.
They are the link between the providers (usually governmental organizations) and the recipients of the services (the
inhabitants of the city). However, when those systems fail to provide the services successfully, public frustrations
arise. Miscommunications or lack of communication and engagement between the public and the government is a common
factor in the failure of plans and projects.
The investigation of public frustrations is a key element in moving toward more effective planning processes. To do so,
this project studies the historical development of Addis Ababa. It thoroughly analyzes the pattern of settlement and the
formation of the current city scape.
This historical analysis of Addis Ababa shows that most of the public has had no voice in the various plans of development.
Finally, I argue that the lack of community engagement and public participation has ignited severe ethnic conflicts and
resulted in widespread human displacements. Therefore, by understanding the lack of public engagement, this study set
out to engage with the public intending to identify their basic needs and other preferences. To do so, this study performed
research through surveying and site analysis over a period of one month. By doing so, it collected a set of data that
represented the public’s voice in various demands.
Finally, this study combines the data with the general goals of the government that prioritize densification and
standardization for public housing to provide a design proposal that illustrates how a thoughtful process can bridge the
gap between government planning and human need to arrive at better housing solutions.Architectural Studie
Doing Strong Collaborative Fieldwork In Human Geography
No full textAlthough increasingly common in the academy, collaboration is not yet the norm in human geography. Drawing on insights from ten years of experience with collaborative event ethnography (CEE), we argue that strong approaches to collaborative fieldwork offer rich opportunities for human geography. CEE involves teams of researchers conducting fieldwork together at large international events, collaborating on all aspects of the research process from research design to analysis and writing. This paper considers the benefits and challenges of CEE. Some of the benefits associated with strong collaborative fieldwork include: robust, collective interpretation of embodied data that makes room for difference; intellectual and social support for individual researchers; professional development and mentoring; and adaptability. Challenges encompass: Collectively interpreting data produced through individual, embodied experiences; managing team dynamics related to seniority, gender, and disciplinary training; meeting professional and institutional expectations and norms; valuing and recognizing individual contributions; and ensuring sufficient funding to support team preparation, data collection, and analysis. Strong collaborative approaches to fieldwork, like CEE, can cultivate slow scholarship and innovative knowledge production