Reed Digital Collections (Reed College)
Not a member yet
8045 research outputs found
Sort by
The Rhetoric of Sex and Gender in Politics: a Close Reading of Aeschines’ Against Timarchos and Apollodoros’ Against Neaira
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/78727637-681f-41e3-bea2-e744e507ce1a/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis examines the way in which two mid-fourth-century Athenian orators, Aeschines and Apollodoros, exploit gender and sexuality to construct an image of their opponents Timarchos and Stephanos as threats to the Athenian civic body. Aeschines, in the Against Timarchos, accuses his political rival Timarchos of illegally addressing the assembly as a prostitute. In the Against Neaira, Apollodoros accuses his legal adversary Stephanos of illicitly introducing foreigners into the citizen body. These two speeches are striking for the sexually explicit argumentation used to demonize their opponents. Together, the speeches address a fundamental issue of citizenship: who is allowed to be a citizen? What makes a proper citizen? By including the historical context alongside a close reading of each of these two speeches, this thesis explores the political implications that arise from these questions of citizenship and considers the function of sex and gender in political oratory. In the 340s BCE, as Philip II of Macedon gained power and threatened to conquer all of Greece, Athenian citizens appeared to be fatally divided as they repeatedly questioned each other’s loyalty to Athens, perhaps when unification was most crucial. This thesis goes beyond scholars’ typical approaches to these speeches by emphasizing the politics of sex and gender. In its conclusion, this thesis offers possible explanations for the significance of sex and gender in these orations
Defining Abundance: Investigating Oregon Salmon Conservation Policy Negotiations Through the Lens of Ethopolitics
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/d5f2f61e-e815-4bd8-934c-c8f9e25df7a6/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis examines Oregon salmon conservation (OSCon) as a site of "ontological ethopolitics" where competing moral frameworks determine acceptable relationships between humans and salmon. Through historical analysis and investigation of recent policy negotiations, it demonstrates how colonial processes systematically displace Indigenous knowledge systems that regard salmon as sovereign beings worthy of reverence, replacing them with frameworks that commodify salmon as exploitable resources. The study traces how commercial fishing, logging, and hydroelectric industries established conservation approaches that prioritize economic gain over ecological integrity, while other stakeholders such as tribal authorities, environmentalists, and anglers developed competing ethical frameworks. Four recent policy developments—ODFW's diversification of its rulemaking processes, the Private Forest Accord, the establishment of Elliott State Research Forest, and the PacifiCorp Habitat Conservation Plan—reveal both progress toward more inclusive conservation negotiation processes and the persistence of structural inequalities that marginalize Indigenous perspectives. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from multispecies ethnography and critical Indigenous studies, I argue that effective conservation requires reconceptualizing the very purpose of conservation itself—moving beyond mere resource management toward restoring reciprocal human and interspecies relationships. This research contributes to broader conversations about decolonizing conservation by revealing how power dynamics shape which ethical frameworks dominate policy outcomes and what is ultimately being "conserved" by the prescriptions American wildlife management
Aelia Pulcheria Augusta: Imperial Authority, Divinity, and Gender Construction in 5th Century Constantinople
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/f4a05822-be43-433e-bb94-f017330663ee/thumb/128.jpgPulcheria Augusta was the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, empress during the first half of the 5th century. This thesis focuses on the ways Pulcheria interacted with social structures such as imperial authority, the Christian Church, and constructions of gender, as well as the material legacy she left behind. The goal of this research was to propose a new analysis of Pulcheria’s role within both the Roman Empire’s government, as well as the 5th century Christian Church. Over the course of her life, Pulcheria was heavily involved in the development of both institutions. As such, this thesis analyzes the course of her life in order to understand the distinct cultural and religious identities which influenced Pulcheria. The first chapter follows Pulcheria's life and discusses several important chapters within it. The Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon are of particular interest when discussing Pulcheria's role in the development of the Christian Church. The second chapter focuses on the material legacy that relates to Pulcheria. By analyzing the public works Pulcheria contributed to, coinage that depicts her, and an ivory carving, the second chapter aims to understand the role material culture played in Pulcheria's life and rise to power. The third chapter deconstructs the specific ways Pulcheria used the various identities presented to her as tools of political power. The chapter proposes a new way to analyze Pulcheria's relationship to gender performance and discusses the influences that helped Pulcheria create her own individual public persona. The aim of this thesis is to understand and deconstruct Pulcheria's life in order to contribute to the larger discussions surrounding both classical studies and gender studies
Explorations in Programmatic Composition for Pierrot Ensemble
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/aa6f64f5-17ab-4ba2-aed8-493e6ed38eaf/thumb/128.jp
Reassessing the DHS Wealth Index as a Proxy for Socioeconomic Status: Insights from Large-Scale Surveys in the Middle East and North Africa
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/1b76e3be-c454-4114-a699-f643dea0244a/thumb/128.jpgDevelopmental progress and inequity have been long-standing issues across the world, but particularly affect vulnerable populations and/or low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) the most. There has been analysis work to measure the effectiveness of policies, monitor changes and assess conditions in many regions. However, a common issue we face is that there is a lack of income or consumption data either because they are routinely collected by the State, or because the structures of the economy are such that most wage earners are not employed in the formal sector, with regular monthly pay. This led to the development of the DHS Wealth Index in 2001 to attempt to proxy socioeconomic status from demographic surveys (Filmer & Pritchett, 2001). There has been an exceedingly high usage of the Wealth Index in research and articles (Gaumer et al., 2021) (Aitsi-Selmi et al., 2012); however, the Wealth Index has two major shortcomings. First, it has a pro-urban bias, which results in a misclassification of those households as richer than they are (Booysen et al., 2008). Second, it uses the household as the primary unit of analysis, even though demographic research shows that household structures and membership are incredibly fluid and variable across different countries, especially compared to the “nuclear family” definition operationalized in demographic surveys. Both of these shortcomings matter as they lead to inconsistent, inconclusive, and sometimes contradictory results regarding the effects of socioeconomic position on health burden (e.g., HIV prevalence and mortality) and limit policymakers’ abilities to allocate resources efficiently. This thesis investigates the shortcomings of the Wealth Index through using governmental surveys conducted in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine that have household asset data, but also household income and expenditure data. I find empirical evidence to show a weak relationship between socioeconomic status and the Wealth Index. Correlation scores ranged from 0.17 to 0.54, and the poor performance was consistent across all 3 countries from 1999 to 2017. I also explore alternative dimension reduction techniques like Factor Analysis of Mixed Data (FAMD) and find that the choice of a dimension reduction technique isn’t the root cause of the weak relationship. Finally, from a simulation-based theoretical assessment, I find that the binary coding of household assets significantly hinders the performance of the Wealth Index
How to Market the “Chinese Identity”: A Case Study on the Ethno-Corporation of Portland’s Chinatown
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/1ef0a59f-5f1b-4ac3-9c6a-026b43eef9d2/thumb/128.jpgIn this thesis, I examine the marketing of the “Chinese identity” through looking at Portland’s Chinatown. With the usage of the “Chinese identity,” I mean to discuss the understanding of the seemingly monolithic identity perceived by non-Chinese and non-members of Chinatown rather than the one experienced by oneself. I pose Portland’s Chinatown as an ethno-corporation that uses the “Chinese identity” to build profit. Using phenomenological theory to describe space, place and sense, I locate the existence of Portland’s Chinatown from its conception in 1850 to understand the power dynamics of the spatial configuration of social relationships between the Chinese community and the broader city of Portland. I explore how the leadership of Chinatown “pander to the white gaze” in order to develop the “Chinese identity” that it markets first in a form as labor, and then culture
From Quasi-Completeness to Gelfand--Pettis Integral: Extending the Framework of Functional Analysis to Non-normable Spaces
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/f789ca31-e9e8-4975-8e01-c9a4eb5674cc/thumb/128.jpgAs mentioned in the preface, the notion of quasi-completeness is essential for extending the machinery of integration to the more general setting of vector-valued functions whose codomain is non-normable. However, the concept of a bare vector space alone fails to capture the analytical structure needed to discuss quasi-completeness meaningfully. Thus, before addressing quasi-completeness, we introduce the appropriate topological framework: namely, a topological vector space (TVS). A topological vector space, in broad terms, is a vector space equipped with a topology that renders both addition and scalar multiplication continuous. In this thesis, we regard it as the natural and general environment in which quasi-completeness becomes a coherent notion. Later, we will also see that this structure is one of the crucial requirements ensuring the integrability of the Gelfand–Pettis integral. After presenting several preliminary results related to quasi-completeness, we will then shift our attention to the Gelfand–Pettis integral, a generalization of the Lebesgue integral to vector-valued functions taking values in a locally convex quasi-complete space
Crimean Headlines and Scattered Truths: The American Consequences of Information Warfare in the 2022 Ukraine War
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/8fd69ce7-1d77-45ca-9599-af661609a07b/thumb/128.jpgThis paper will use context from the 2014 Ukraine war and the conflict’s resurgence starting with Russia’s invasion in 2022 to explain the use of information warfare from Russia and Ukraine to influence the United States. The introduction emphasizes the idea of the “theater” of politics being demonstrated by both Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to convince outside viewers such as Americans to understand and sympathize with a particular side. The introduction hypothesizes that this constant flow of information warfare has overwhelmed and unsettled Americans into distrusting actors from all sides, instead desiring to break from this status quo. Chapter 1 introduces the idea of the “theater of politics” and expands more on how various forms of media are used in information warfare. Accessible public media platforms can be useful in providing information to the public, but irresponsible actions including governments withholding facts, individuals self- aggrandizing through posts or users directly sabotaging one another become drawbacks that outweigh the freedom of information. The chapter expands on Russia as an example of using propaganda and disinformation to discredit Ukraine and the United States government, using “whistleblower” organizations to accuse their alliance as a collaboration to commit war crimes. For the average American, it becomes confusing trying to discern accurate information concerning the U.S. government and Ukraine due to the overflow of information and its potential to be abused. Chapter 2 covers the basis of how Ukraine particularly compels the U.S. to keep supporting it during the conflict, trying to find accurate information or have government officials such as President Zelensky testify on behalf of their country’s need for aid. There is also a contention towards Ukraine using subtle networks to inspire Americans to pressure their government to help. The hypothesis formed in this chapter, however, considers that since the U.S. government is already contributing a surplus of resources over a long period of time, its close alliances and the manipulation of media can create an inverse effect of inspiring public doubt. This doubt becomes powerful due to the influence of the U.S. government – especially under the Biden administration governing a partisan America - and the uncertainty that comes with the overflow of media not delivering a clear narrative regarding the U.S.’s validity in supporting Ukraine. This in turn motivates Americans to disagree with one another and wish their government would act to directly end the war rather than continue supporting a particular side. Chapter 3 covers all of the data concerning how Americans feel about the current Ukraine conflict, and measures how much they trust their government to do the right thing. The polls and graphs later demonstrate a decrease in faith in their administration, which suggests that Americans live in doubt of their government’s actions due to the overload of information, and in response desire a swift end to the conflict. This also in turn allowed partisan Americans to actively support populist leaders that claim to possess direct solutions
Imagined Lines & Hands that Bind: The Social Lives and the Power of Maps in the Pacific Northwest
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/96dbda83-624c-4c35-9172-27833e6969ed/thumb/128.jpgMaps have been given considerable power in seemingly portraying social dynamics neutrally or objectively, and by analyzing them in isolation we are unable to look at the relationship between how interests, identities, and preferences change over time, and how the very definitions of those change. Maps are co-constitutive in shaping the material conditions of a place as much as a specific type of value to those conditions, sometimes purposefully and sometimes not. Exploring a series of maps used in the Pacific Northwest and the city of Seattle, this thesis includes varying theoretical frameworks between history, anthropology, geography, and philosophy that attempts to understand the form and function of maps as related to power and authority. Anthropological literature concerned with the effects, structure, and rhetoric of settler colonization has particular approaches to history, geography, and political science in a way that allows for the exploration of maps included in this thesis as encounters between different agents and forces that were transformed in the process of their interactions. From the late eighteenth century when American and European voyagers sought out the Pacific Northwest; to an exploration of how maps were used by various actors to the following century of settlement and urbanization until the late 1960s; the central question of this thesis asks: what is presumed to be known that makes maps dispose us to certain actions, opinions, and valuations of the map itself, and the world it seeks to depict. I take into account various theorists of space and its relationship to power in the realms of geography, anthropology, and philosophy. The empirical focus is on maps, as well as how they are contextualized and could be contextualized with given frameworks, and question the assumptions they rely on in order for maps to present a particular kind of coherent and accepted reality, and how they operate as persuasive arguments. A rethinking of their power in conversation with their historical use and context may provide a better path forward to the conceptualization of space and belonging
Exploring Raytracing in Four Dimensions
No full texthttps://rdc.reed.edu/v1/resources/15318758-18e1-4e3d-ba0c-3a161d74d138/thumb/128.jpgThis thesis considers a 4-D world with 4-D objects. It describes a web application that allows one to visualize such worlds. The application uses a technique called raytracing to render a 2-D image of a 4-D world. In order to describe this process we describe traditional 3-D raytracing and show how it can be adapted to raytrace 4-dimensionally