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Road Trip Infinity
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UNDRIP Implementation in Canada: The Wet’suwet’en Case and The Limits of Indigenous Human Rights in Contemporary Settler-Colonial Contexts
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/84558ab4-4487-48fa-9e37-d350fb0b11d2/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis analyzes Canada’s implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through an Indigenous Environmental Justice (IEJ) theoretical lens to deduce whether or not Canada’s efforts to allign its domestic laws and indigenous rights framework with UNDRIP represents a transformative shift in Canadian interpretation of Indigenous rights. This thesis applies IEJ theory to assess Canada’s implementation policy and official statements, which reveals that despite Canada’a percieved efforts to meaningfully implement UNDRIP it’s political framework remains limited by and entangled with it’s contemporary imperial positionality as a settler-colonial state. This understanding of Canadian implementation through the framework of IEJ, is subsequently applied as a mechanism to understand the Human Rights Abuses against the Wet’suwet’en Nation hereditary chiefs, and land defenders. This analysis claims that Canada’s interpretation of the Indigenous human rights in UNDRIP, particularly the especially transformative principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) continues to reinforce settler-colonial power structures in it’s implementation procedures. Despite affirming UNDRIP in legislation and political statements, the Canadian state continues to prioritize resource extraction and capital gain over the protection of Indigenous human rights. The Wet’suwet’en case reveals the tangible consequences of an implementation approach that centers Canadian authority over Indigenous self-determination
Mannerisms of Metforon: Mechanochemical synthesis, characterization, and biological applications of a metformin derivative
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/d917c78a-1785-45bb-8abd-faae90440544/thumb/128.jpgAccessible Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus treatment is a global public health concern, with millions of people being affected by the disease and growing. Currently, the most widely available medication, metformin, is a cationic biguanide formulated as a salt for increased thermal stability and greater shelf life. Many patients report negative side effects of metformin hydrochloride that have been attributed to the excess chloride ions upon ingestion, posing the issue of efficacy versus stability and affordability of diabetes medications. Previously, synthesis of a novel, boron-containing metformin derivative, metforon, has been achieved using traditional liquid state techniques. Here, we show that metforon may be synthesized via mechanochemical condensation of metformin, phenylboronic acid, and methanol. We report that crystalline metformin exhibits greater thermal stability than metformin and that is comparable to metformin hydrochloride. Docking studies indicate that metforon participates in hydrogen bonding and pi stacking interactions with the C1 binding site, with higher fitness scores than metformin solutions. Through in vitro studies, we show that metforon treatment causes greater decrease in cellular oxygen consumption than metformin treatment. The development of new, thermally stable pharmaceutical compounds for diabetes treatment is crucial to improve global access to care
Progress Towards the Total Synthesis of des(dimethyl)-ɑ-CPA
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/0bf38dc6-fa15-482b-9bb7-7497e669e5d9/thumb/128.jpgCyclopiazonic Acid (CPA) is a mycotoxin natural product, and is a potent and reversible inhibitor of the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ -ATPase (SERCA) in vitro, this is done through immobilizing the transmembrane helices of ATPase, which consequently inhibits the calcium pump. The Aspergillus and Penicillium mold species produce CPA and other mycotoxins, which can provoke pathological and undesirable physiological responses in humans and animals There is a gap in the literature concerning how the dimethyl group contributes to CPA’s inhibitory effect on SERCA; various other functional groups have been modified and it is well understood how the tetramic acid unit and indole group assist with CPA’s inhibitory properties on SERCA although not of that of the dimethyl groups. We plan to synthesize an analogue to CPA, des(dimethyl)-ɑ-CPA, by modifying the dimethyl group, through replacing both of the methyl groups with protons. We made progress towards to total synthesis of des(dimethyl)-ɑ-CPA by using a Suzuki-Miyaura coupling to conjoin a Boc-protected proline intermediate to an indole, tosyl/benzyl protecting the indole nitrogen, Cbz protecting the proline nitrogen, and performing a Friedel-Crafts reaction to cause an intramolecular cyclization to form ring C
Mao Dao Mao: Charisma and the Ideal Man in the Life and Thought of Mao Zedong
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/af19dfe5-4ece-4b03-860d-99845645d5c3/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis seeks to elucidate the nature of the various incarnations of Mao Zedong's ideal subject and the legacy of his charismatic authority. Mao Zedong was a prolific writer, poet, and philosopher, and the ideology composed from his writing defined social life in China for more than two decades. Chapter 2 explores the Chairman's early days as a vagabond scholar, drawing from ideas east and west in order to create a unique philosophy, attempting to bridge egoism with altruism, and promoting an ideal subject whose form resembles Mencius's junzi, differing in what he considers the élan vital of reality. This ``great man" would come to inform his later conception of the revolutionary ideal, changing the élan vital from the ego-as-self to ``struggle," a conception drawing as much from the Yijing as it does Marxism. Chapter 2 questions why the application of this ideal subject created so much chaos, arguing that the explicit utopian goals of the people were undercut by an asceticism based on Mao's own philosophy of ceaseless change, allowing for no perfect world in stasis. The chapter also explores Mao's charismatic authority and how his cult of personality developed. Chapter 3 explores the afterlife of Mao's charismatic authority, arguing that charismatic authority flows as energy. Possible inheritors are examined, including Mao's four successors and the charismatic Qigong masters of the 80s and 90s. The question of Xi Jinping's charisma is explored, noting that his centralizing tendencies are not necessarily evidence for a personality cult
Japanese-American Postwar Literature and Wartime Incarceration from the 1940s-1970s
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/ab006f1a-604b-45cb-9c46-c60fc971ade8/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis examines the post-World War II internment literature of three Japanese American authors during the final decades approaching the 1970s and argues that these works were crucial tools in marshalling the Japanese American community as the 1970s moment of socio-political activism arose. Starting with the U.S. presidential proclamation regarding Japanese enemy aliens on December 7, 1941, these influential works of literature portrayed the story of Japanese Americans struggling to find their voice as they overcame the trauma of internment as a central defining moment of this 1940s-1970s era. These three works were selected for their seminal influence in the development of subsequent Japanese American political activism. Okada’s No-No Boy was a novel ahead of its time. Fiction was the format which was available to Okada as a male Nisei writer publishing in 1957 America during the still raw postwar period. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar, published in 1973 in memoir format, provided America with an insider internment camp perspective of a young Japanese-American girl. Its less overtly political tone was better received by the general public, situated as it was decades after the war had ended. As a female author, Houston benefited from being a product of her time as Japanese American women writers rose together to write about internment during the 1960s and 1970s. Michi Weglyn wrote Years of Infamy during the same era and in so doing, she utilized direct access to U.S. government archives to rebut head-on the government’s denial and untruths about the reality of the internment. This thesis examines ways in which literature can be used as a means to understand the broader historical narrative surrounding wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. Moreover, taken together, these works were significant in galvanizing Japanese American socio-political movements of the 1960s and 1970s
Students and “The Scars of a Democracy": Political Possibilities at the West German Campus from 1967-1969
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/cf9b3394-d967-453e-a536-e261dae21d84/thumb/128.jpgComing off the heels of two decades of US-backed democratization in West Germany and a turbulent global '60s, the student movement in Germany posed a raucous threat to postwar university politics. This thesis is about a series of dialogues in West Germany from 1967-1969 between student activists and three German-Jewish professors: Ernst Fraenkel, Herbert Marcuse, and Theodor Adorno. Each professor had opposed the Nazis in the 1930s and was forced to seek asylum in the US before returning to rebuild West Germany in the 1950s and 60s. To themselves, the students were fighting against an oppressive society for the spirit of democracy and freedom on campus and across the globe. To Fraenkel, who returned to Germany out of a sense of duty to the US and to rebuild a liberal state, the students' protests raised a specter of militant Nazi fascism. Marcuse, who remained in California, saw protest, disruption, and questioning the established order as precisely the students' responsibility in society and the means to liberation. For Adorno, who went from close collaborator of movement leaders to their despised enemy, the movement ultimately became the hopeless product of sloppy social criticism and unexorcised German fascism writhing against a constrictive social-economic order. The question of my thesis is, what political potential did Fraenkel, Marcuse, and Adorno see in the student movement, and how do their responses to this moment engage with larger debates about “democracy” and “fascism”? Through examining their analyses, I argue that the West German student movement engaged in a productive immanent critique of democracy in the FRG. In the process, they enacted radical new politics of education at West German universities. Despite this, the movement’s decline, particularly its turn against the university in occupations and riots, loosed a violent, irrational politics of its own. The movement’s potentials and limits, and Fraenkel, Marcuse, and Adorno’s assessments thereof, reveal fascism and democracy as necessarily intertwined aspects of liberal capitalist politics in the state and at the university
Camas and Carbon: Collaboration, Comparative Collections, and Using Archaeology for Good
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/2325bf1b-0855-4829-8394-49419f986898/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis details my process of creating an archaeobotanical comparative collection of native plants and their traditional uses by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Archaeologists use comparative collections to identify and contextualise carbonised and dried plant remains found in the field. With this information, they can answer questions about how people interacted with the natural world. My comparative collection is one of the first for native plants in the Pacific Northwest [PNW] region. Primary research questions included: how can comparative collections be designed to promote and highlight Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK]? and how can archaeology be used to address contemporary food sovereignty issues? This project was designed and executed in collaboration with the Historical Preservation Office [HPO] and Natural Resources Department [NRD] at Grand Ronde. It primarily seeks to address their needs regarding data about archaeobotanical remains. To build my comparative collection, I experimentally carbonised and dried seven edible bulbs and roots using a muffle furnace. I then compared them under a microscope to determine how morphological, or physical, structures are preserved during the carbonisation process, and if these structures can be used to identify botanical remains in the field. Images of fresh, carbonised, and dried samples were then put into a field guide along with ethnographic information about traditional gathering and processing practices. This digital resource was distributed to the Tribe for use in First Foods educational programmes. Finally, I explored the history of the Indigenous food sovereignty movement and potential avenues for using archaeological date to enrich existing food sovereignty programmes. Overall, this project created a resource for archaeologists to make botanical analysis easier and a framework for collaborating with Indigenous communities in the development and applications of their research
“An Image of Precious Death”: Illness in the Works of Three Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Mystics
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/c2e44867-cec3-4a71-a36f-454b43baa243/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis investigates how illness featured in mystical women’s religious expression during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Germany and the Low Countries. It utilizes three case studies of mystical women to understand how illness was incorporated into a larger mystical discourse. The thesis uses three mystics - Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Beatrice of Nazareth (1200-1268), and Mechthild of Hackeborn (1241-1298) - to trace developments in women’s religious movements alongside their presentations of illness’s contributions to their theological position. Through an analysis of visionary and hagiographic texts, this thesis argues that for medieval women in the 12th and 13th centuries, mystics used illness to validate their connection to God in a way that responded to their theology and mystical or prophetic alignment. Consistently, illness demonstrated internal sanctity, detachment from their worldly body, and was uniquely primed to contrast bodily illness with spiritual wellness. Nevertheless, male hagiographic retellings frequently used the physical suffering of illness as a sign of sanctity rather than primarily as a component of internal devotion. This suggests that while twelfth- and thirteenth-century mystics exhibited a diverse range of religious positions, constraints of the hagiographic genre resulted in a flattening of religious expression and demanded conformity to a view of female religiosity based in bodily mysticism
From Schlafly to Sour Dough: Understanding the Tradwife Phenomenon and its Antifeminist Context
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/7dcffa12-351b-4bc2-8628-934aa5647d3b/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis examines the contemporary “tradwife” phenomenon, a social media resurgence of women publicly embracing traditional gender roles, and situates it within the broader historical and ideological context of American antifeminism. The first chapter defines the tradwife identity, exploring its aesthetic, rhetorical strategies, and contradictions, particularly how it engages audiences through digital platforms to promote domestic submission as a lifestyle “choice.” The second chapter draws a comparative analysis between the tradwife movement and the antifeminist activism of Phyllis Schlafly, highlighting their shared reliance on biological essentialism, postfeminist rejection of feminism’s progress, and ironic use of feminist tools to advance anti-feminist goals. The final chapter explores how nostalgia functions as a political and emotional engine in conservative and antifeminist movements, analyzing how both Schlafly and tradwives deploy idealized visions of the past to critique modern politics. Methodologically, this thesis employs cultural and rhetorical analysis of primary texts including digital content, posts, memes, and speeches as well as secondary literature in political theory, and gender studies. The thesis concludes that the tradwife movement is not a retreat from politics but a rebranded continuation of historical antifeminist sentiment, made palatable through aesthetic appeal and cultural nostalgia. It also concludes that the tradwife movement is a manifestation of persistent anxieties about gender, labor, and identity in a post 2016 conservative discourse