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The World City Network: Hierarchy and Gravity
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/f683ae11-b1f1-4e48-8ddb-02b549eac764/thumb/128.jpgThe world city network is composed of global firms and the world cities that host their office branches. The global firm challenges traditional state and market approaches to IPE, and the world city network offers a framework of the global system to situate it within quantitative analyses. World cities serve as nodes for a network analysis of strength centrality scores, which this thesis calculates by four different approaches for the comparison of variations in city to firm relations based on intrafirm hierarchies. These approaches are compared for their correlation to GDP per capita. World city network centrality is also tested at the country level for its effects on the gravity equation of bilateral trade to understand the role of global cities in international trade flows. The analysis considers each of the four approaches to both strength and eigenvector centrality. The first analysis shows that alternative approaches which factor intrafirm hierarchies into strength centrality calculations show greater correlation between world city network centrality and GDP per capita. The second analysis shows that in the context of the gravity model of international trade, each approach shows similar effects on the regression indicators, and that factoring the world city network into the gravity model shows small significant increases in bilateral trade flows when the importer country has higher network centrality
An Exploration of the Earth-Ionosphere System as a waveguide
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/d23f704b-ad0c-4017-9b44-794b0906bd1a/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis presents a theoretical exploration of the Earth–Ionosphere spherical cavity as a waveguide for electromagnetic waves. To achieve this, we analytically derive the Schumann resonance standing wave frequencies, assuming infinite conductivity for both the Earth and the Ionosphere. To visualize our results, we generate time-independent plots of the non-zero components of the electric and magnetic fields for the first three standing wave modes and interpret them in the context of three dimensions
"The Poor, but Necessary Pleasure”: Sex and Gender in Andrei Platonov’s “The River Potudan” and Its Two Film Adaptations
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/56405c64-fa1c-4a09-98db-cdbb8d4bca85/thumb/128.jpgIn this thesis, I examine three related works—Andrei Platonov’s 1937 short story “The River Potudan” and its two film adaptations, Alexander Sokurov’s 1978 The Lonely Voice of Man and Andrei Konchalovsky’s 1984 Maria’s Lovers. I analyze the way sex and gender are represented and employed in each work, as well as discuss the philosophical positions of the authors as reflected in their works. I furthermore study the ways the two films adapt Platonov’s original story. Overall, through this project, I explore the question of how sex and gender function relative to the ideological structure of each work and the intertextuality of the two films
Extending Zero-Knowledge PCPs Beyond NP
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/72806994-38a8-4cc7-bb32-0b3c799f1397/thumb/128.jpgThis expository paper examines the interaction between zero-knowledge proofs and probabilistically-checkable proofs (PCPs). To start, we build up much of the language and tools of modern complexity theory, in particular the variations on interactive proofs and how they can be made zero-knowledge. We also build up much of the algebraic language necessary for working with zero-knowledge proofs and PCPs. Next, we show a proof of the PCP theorem, which relates the power of probabilistically-checkable proofs and the class \NP. After that, we unpack several pieces of recent literature on zero-knowledge probabilistically-checkable proofs, including a zero-knowledge version of the aforementioned PCP theorem
Indigenizing the Blue Jean: Remaking Vintage Americana in Japan
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/90659a86-c2d2-4df9-8868-a65293b13c43/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis focuses on Japanese vintage and thrift stores as sites to examine both “thrifting” as a practice and the cultural and individual valuation of secondhand clothing. In the following chapters I sketch an outline of the political economy and global circulation of American secondhand clothing, trace the processes of distinction complicit in the emergence of the label of “vintage” clothing, and analyze digital media representations of thrifting through video “hauls” and vlogs to interrogate notions of authenticity and value. A theory of thrift emphasizes not only morals such as frugality, environmental and social concern, and generosity, but additionally recognizes the knowledge, creativity, investment of time, and sheer luck that defines thrift shopping. I argue that “vintage” clothing is socially constructed and that there is a salient spatial dimension to clothing valuation, implicating both spaces of production and places of consumption. Through the import of secondhand clothing from the United States and domestically-produced vintage replica, post-war Japan (re)made Americana fashion in a nostalgic, idealized, and arguably “more perfect” form. Western tourists’ engagement with both Japanese thrift shops and vintage replica brands therefore reflect both old and new discourses that portray Japan as a nation of imitators or, conversely, of cultural innovators. While previous scholarship has presented evidence for the articulation of a Japanese national identity through Western cultural products, I argue for a new, self- conscious search for American identity that is mediated through Japanese products
The King is Dead: A Comparative Analysis of European Revolutionary Regicides
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/34d0a24e-99b3-49d3-8409-c24973dd8c99/thumb/128.jpgRegicide, or the killing of a monarch, is not an uncommon occurrence in revolutions that successfully depose a single ruler and replace an autocracy. In some cases, more attention is given to a monarch's execution than in others -- scholars of the English Civil Wars often devote significant time to the public trial and beheading of King Charles I. Scholars of the French and Russian Revolutions, however, tend to move on from their respective regicides comparatively quickly. Scholars also tend to segregate the execution of Nicholas II from Charles I and Louis XVI, while the French and English regicides are regularly referenced together, with the contemporary French revolutionaries even referring to the deposition of Charles I as a precedent. While the trials and executions of Charles I and Louis XVI are sometimes mentioned by historians of the Romanovs, full-scale comparative studies are not to be found. This thesis attempts to fill in those gaps by discussing each revolution together to analyze how revolutionaries attempt to legitimate regicide through publicity and impressions of legality
Anti-Zionism to Zionism in Ritual, Human Dignity, and the state of Israel.
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/325c83b0-f0da-4b01-b589-366dfac5e009/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis focuses on how human dignity and ritual come together in regards to the state of Israel and a free Palestine
Voluntary Family Leave Policy: Economic Justifications for a New Paid Leave Model
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/81d6a68a-b916-45c9-bc98-ef36409e567a/thumb/128.jpgBetween 2021 and 2023, nine US states passed voluntary paid family leave policies with no obvious precedent. This thesis discusses the economic justifications and effects of such policies. Through an in-depth literature review of mandatory policy, I determined that there were no obvious economic downsides to mandatory leave that could be remedied by voluntary leave policy. Rather, voluntary policy was lobbied for by insurance companies to offer a market-based solution to the increasing demand for paid family leave. This thesis questions the political motivations for a market solution through an in-depth look at policy models, key actors in implementing policy, and correlations to political parties’ interests. Mandatory paid leave has been criticized due to its social insurance design which funds the program through payroll taxes. While voluntary policy was praised for being a less burdensome option, I found that there is no guarantee that firms purchasing paid leave insurance will not push the burden of cost onto employees and no clear economic justification. As more states look to passing a form of paid family leave policy, the implications of this thesis are important for an emerging debate between mandatory and voluntary paid leave
Our Nature and Persistence
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/7e562cc8-478f-4875-8490-fc31b3e1d0d9/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis addresses the following questions in the study of personal identity: What are we? And what conditions, if any, are necessary and sufficient for our continued existence? I present and evaluate four preeminent views in personal identity: Derek Parfit’s Reductionist View, Eric T. Olson’s Animalist View, Lynne Rudder Baker’s Constitutionalist View, and Parfit’s later Embodied Person View. I also examine Olson’s Thinking Animal Argument—which is intended to establish the truth of the Animalist thesis—and assess whether any of the other views that I consider can demonstrate that the argument is invalid or unsound. I contend that the argument in question is sound but underdetermines the Animalist thesis. One conclusion entailed by the premises—that, among all those entailed, provides the strongest justification for Animalism—is that it is possible that we are identical with human animals. However, the view under consideration defends the much stronger claim that it is necessary that we are identical with human animals. The argument thus fails to demonstrate that Animalism is true. Even so, I endorse Animalism for two reasons. First, I take the objections that I pose against the other views surveyed to be forceful—perhaps even insurmountable—whereas Animalism affirms or accommodates them all. Second, I argue that it is apparently the case that we are human animals, and that there is not a compelling reason for believing otherwise. Therefore, we should believe that it really is the case that we are human animals. However, I fall short of refuting the two objections that I raise against Animalism: that (1) psychological continuity is necessary for our persistence, and that (2) it is not the case that we are identical with human animals. Neither of these claims can be shown to be false without presupposing the falsity of the other. The present task for Animalism, therefore—which is by no means trivial—is to non-circularly refute these objections and to demonstrate that their negations are true
The Slipping
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/47c1bffa-56ea-4989-b6ca-0d2ef3610ab9/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis explores a tangled relationship between entropy, decay, and the body. In a series of abstract paintings the work investigates how forces of change shape both emotional experience and physical form. Through acts of repetitive ritual we attempt to assert control over entropy's effects by removing accumulation in the environment. Dirt and detritus are physical reminders of entropy and recall temporality; the warping of object is inevitable and complicates our conception of order—a structured and predictable pattern. Dirt is chaotic process. Adopting Timothy Morton's concept of "form as record" I build upon our relationships to accumulation to consider the body as a site of trauma and emotional memory. These metaphors inform my artmaking practice which takes place through the repeated movements of sweeping, vacuuming, and painting