Reed Digital Collections (Reed College)
Not a member yet
8045 research outputs found
Sort by
The Escapist Manifesto
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/0d47a991-3fb1-4005-9406-494c57baf28b/thumb/128.jpgArt as a tool for escape is the predominant motive for my own art practice. In reflecting on my desires to escape and the methods I use to do so I have created this Escapism manifesto to guide future artists in their quest to escape their own reality in favor of a curator utopia of playing and creation. In studying many other artists, we can see this sentiment is already prevalent and utilized among artists. Culminating from this research and practice comes my installation, Yaya’s Friends
The Land of Equal Opportunity: Changing Dehumanization Towards Latinx Immigrants Through Storytelling
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/65beaf8a-60ec-4fa5-96f9-6006d092f461/thumb/128.jpgDehumanization can often be a precursor for violent events. Here, I examined whether a storytelling intervention in which typically dehumanized targets are humanized in some way, will improve attitudes towards these Latinx immigrants. Additionally, I considered whether the anticipated benefits of such storytelling will emerge for people with strong vs. weak internal motivation to respond without prejudice, when they are instructed to close-read the story (assumed to elicit systematic-logic-driven processing of the story) compared to either skim- reading it (assumed to elicit heuristic-driven processing of the story) or not reading the story at all (control condition). Data from 580 undergraduate students showed that although the intervention did not sway White participants’ dehumanizing attitudes towards, or willingness to help Latinx immigrants for those internally motivated to respond without prejudice, it did improve attitudes for their less motivated counterparts. Results also revealed a surprising negative (not positive) effect on both measures amongst Racial minorities. Specifically, dehumanization of Latinx immigrants increased amongst Racial minorities, when they either close-read or skim-read the story relative to the control condition. In particular, the effect of skim-reading was visible for those Racial minorities with a weak internal motivation to respond without prejudice, while the effect of close-reading manifested for those with a strong internal motivation to respond without prejudice. These results suggest that storytelling could actually have the unintended consequence of hardening (rather than softening) attitudes toward the intended targets, especially amongst Racial minorities
Crosslinguistic Indexical Transfer of the Perception of Rhotics in Beijing Mandarin and Canadian French
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/61f1152b-7ea6-4968-9ea9-f06307348a67/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis is a perceptual study to determine the crosslinguistic saliency of rhotics and the social information that they carry. The motivation for this study is to extend the literature on crosslinguistic indexical transfer, a speaker using knowledge and judgments about their own language to evaluate a speaker of an unknown language (Boyd et al. 2021, Moreau et al. 2014).Through a perceptual survey, native Mandarin speakers and native French speak- ers listened to two audio clips either in French or Mandarin, respectively. The par- ticipants rated the voices on scales such as “professional to inexperienced” and “less masculine to more masculine”, based upon Zhang’s (2008) work on the persona of the Beijing Smooth Operator. The rhotacization feature in both Canadian French and Beijing Mandarin carries social information, with varying degrees of saliency. For Mandarin speakers, rhotacization is heavily commented on in the metadiscourse, while French Canadian speakers are much less aware of this feature. In addition, rhotacization in Mandarin is used by speakers for stylistic work thorough strong so- ciocultural associations. I hypothesized that the Mandarin speakers would be more likely to exhibit indexical transfer, due to the elevated status of the feature.The French-speaking participants rated the non-rhotic Mandarin guise as signif- icant more uncertain than confident. This points to an underlying judgement about rhotacization, since Canadian French listeners sometimes fail to perceive rhotacization on the mid, fronted vowels even when it is pointed out.The native Mandarin speakers rated the rhotic French guise as more masculine and somewhat more confident. This indicates that their recognition of the social information conveyed through the rhotacization of the ‘Beijing Smooth Operator’ and Beijing Mandarin in general is able to be extended to languages unknown to the listener. The rhotic feature has reached a level of consciousness within some Beijing Mandarin speakers that allows the social information that rhotacization carries to cross language barriers. For both languages, there is evidence for indexical transfer, but higher-level indexical linkages do not appear entirely necessary
Da Bin Lou: Understanding My Chinese American Identity
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/a44302f1-171a-4ffc-a11b-3c6845102dc1/thumb/128.jpgMy name is Sidney Fong. I am a third generation Chinese American woman trying to better define my cultural identity and explore my relationship with my cultural heritage living in the United States. I explore my cultural identity by first looking to Chinese and American cuisines that resonate with me. These cuisines are rooted in my family’s home cooking, and the different restaurants and grocery stores that define the social landscape of Sacramento, California, where I was born and raised. I used clay hand building methods to create lidded bowls and cups that were not only physically imbued with my identity through my finger impressions, but also all my thoughts and energy as I listened to Cheuk Kwan’s book Have You Eaten Yet?: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World. He shares his exploration of Chinese restaurants located outside of China and the United States, which opened my eyes to the resiliency of these small restaurant owners who are ethnically Chinese but also proudly associate themselves with the country they live in. I used the medium of Da Bin Lou (hot pot) to engage my hand-built ceramic plate ware in an interactive installation with my friends. Da Bin Lou is a food medium that is rooted in my family gatherings at home during winter, but I have realized the ingredients and the soup base is dependent on each household’s preferences. The Da Bin Lou dinner and ceramic ware reflect on my family’s traditions and authentic Chinese influences, but most importantly represent my approach to further understanding my cultural identity
Inclusive Course Content Shifts in Higher Education: Driven by School Classification, Socio-Demographic Diversity, and Departmental Creation
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/254458a0-aabd-484e-88cb-47e482f0c589/thumb/128.jpgWhat factors shape the amount of race- and gender-focused course content across time on college and university curriculum? Previous research identifies race-and gender-inclusive course content as promoting the academic success of marginalized students, highlighting the need to understand adoption of inclusive content. Though scholars tend to focus these solutions on individual faculty members and departments, I consider how individual actions invoked in the syllabus writing process are also shaped by institutional cultures and decision-making. Little is known about the factors and processes that shape the adoption of inclusive course content at the institutional level, including variation across different institutions and across time that have led to changing levels of course content within a given institution. I use a novel dataset of over a million college syllabi to explore the nature of changing inclusive course content across high activity research doctoral (R1) and liberal arts institutions from 2000–2018. Utilizing a time-series regression model, I predict race- and gender-focused content according to a school’s socio-demographic composition, regional and status diffusion, organizational identity, and department creation. I find that liberal arts schools have substantially more inclusive content than R1s, though both institution types see positive gains in race-focused content when they have more academic departments. At liberal art schools only, gender diversity increases inclusive content while racial diversity and regional diffusion decreases inclusive content. I conclude with a discussion of these results and their implications for the adoption of more inclusive academic spaces for diverse student bodies
The L-Systems Explorer: An Introduction to Generative Art
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/3783eb58-577e-4ae3-a147-95b1790c5faf/thumb/128.jpgThe world is a mess of systems. I hope to establish the context for one system that interests me and build it up for you so that you may feel the same wonder that I have felt. There will be an overview of the structure and function of L-Systems, later followed by the brief introduction of some different types of L-Systems. I’ll explain the program that allows users to learn about and explore L-Systems, followed by a demonstration of its capabilities and its development. I will also discuss some related work, and go on to explain possible extensions. Wrapping things up, I take a step back from the program to ask some larger questions
Past Brown: The Supreme Court's March Towards Resegregation
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/147a132c-bfe0-4f40-b755-563465655134/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis is an exploration of the Supreme Courts march towards resegregation. In school we are taught about Brown v Board of Education which was supposed to end segregation. Often, we are taught that segregation is a shameful fault of the past, but that is not true. I argue in this thesis that the Supreme Court has an explicit racial project of resegregation which we see play out in K-12 education cases. This work will explore six different Supreme Court cases in K-12 education spanning from 1971-2007. The exploration of these cases will highlight how the Supreme Court, through its rulings, have established a system that will lead to resegregation. To establish this pattern this thesis utilizes Racial Formation Theory. This theory looks to explain and understand the interaction between race and institutions. The notion of a racial project from Racial Formation Theory and explains how interactions dealing with race form a project. In this thesis the Supreme Court has set up a racial project of resegregation. This argument is further supported through an understanding of the neoliberal agenda in the United States, which looks to build the façade of color blindness. The neoliberal influence on the Supreme Court can be seen in how the Court justifies its rulings. The cases in this thesis will build upon each other to show the path towards resegregation as laid out by the Supreme Court
Urban Regimes in Transit: A Case Study of Boston, Portland, and St. Louis
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/b6ed6596-6d7c-4a6f-ac9e-a8571e3c3a2b/thumb/128.jpgHow can policy choices around the development of public rail transportation networks be understood? Against the backdrop of historical theories of policy choice in political science, I conduct a case study investigation on the expansion of rail networks in the Boston, Portland, and St. Louis metropolitan areas, aiming to determine the extent to which each is compatible with an urban regime model for policy outcomes. I leverage the narratives found in municipal planning documents, trends in housing prices, and measures of transportation system growth to conduct my analysis. I find that expansion in Portland exhibits a strong development narrative, rising housing prices, and positive rates of system growth, providing significant evidence for an urban regime model. St. Louis’ network shows positive system growth, a moderate development narrative, and no increase in housing prices, while Boston shows neutral system growth and a weak development narrative. I propose subjects for future research, including a narrowed scale of examination to specific expansion efforts as opposed to analysis of whole rail networks, as well as investigations into interstate coordination
Cringecore Ethics: Nabokov’s Poshlust Versus the Apathetic Imagination
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/716a5f56-1716-4d64-9552-700aa2483a83/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis investigates how in place of clear-cut didacticism, Nabokov’s stylization interrogates bad taste as a form of habituated apathy, usurping conventional ethics to valorize aesthetic perception as an exercise of empathetic alertness and independent spiritual consciousness. By stylization, I’m considering rhetoric devices of defamiliarization, especially irony and satire, appropriating imagery of bourgeois consumerism and cinematization characteristic of the Golden Age of Weimar Berlin as the novels’ historic setting. As a precursor to Lolita depicting aesthetic vulgarity through ethical transgression, Laughter in the Dark functions as a cautionary tale against bad taste, specifically the sort of bad taste Nabokov defines as poshlust, the “deadly label” whose application denotes the moral consequences of aesthetic crimes. Far from amoral, Nabokov’s position as a non-éngagé author reflects a radically optimistic faith in the empathetic force of the critically observant reader and a deep regard for spiritual independence
Virtual Reality and Theatre: Defining Lenses Through Which to Understand Virtual Reality Theatre and Audience Relationships (supplementary files)
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/3d646ac8-d571-4019-b427-5d8261fcd857/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis explores how incorporating Virtual Reality technology into theatre performances augments the experience that audiences receive by discussing different lenses through which one can understand the relationships that audience members and actors have to the digital space they inhabit during a virtual reality (VR) performance. By taking these lenses and viewing different VR-centered productions through them, this document then compares those productions and the process of their creations to a VR performance created by me over the course of a week-long physical workshop during Paideia 2022 specifically for this thesis. In doing so, I document the process I took to create my own production informed by the workflows and lenses used to understand the other productions I look at, and how audiences and actors react to such performances in, and finally discuss what benefits and/or detriments a production produced within the VR medium has over its physical Proscenium performance counterparts