1320 research outputs found
Sort by
Building Love Outwards: Modeling a Pedagogy of Lovingness Through Peer-to-Peer Storytelling and Artmaking
Get PDFThe Importance of Intersectional Programming for Developing Black Middle School Girls’ Future STEM Identities
Get PDFNeutrality and Accountability in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement: Historical Faults and How to Ameliorate Them
No full text
The Crowd as Interruption: Politics of Invisibility and Protest Photography in the Anti-ELAB Movement in Hong Kong
No full textSince its invention, photography has played an important role in capturing and shaping understandings of social movements. In the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong, while many Western audiences have been emotionally moved by the media coverage of the movement, people in mainland China seem to remain “immobilized” and share the feelings of fear and anger. This thesis suggests that the hostile attitudes towards street politics and social movements in mainland China are not only caused by political ideology (i.e. Capitalism and Communism), but also by the imaginary of the public and the political crowd. Instead of only looking at photographs in this movement, I ask, how have the social imaginary of social movements and crowd politics in China influenced mainland audiences’ understandings and feelings of the movement? By studying the role of images in journalism, the imagery of ‘the crowd’ in Chinese recent history, the visual representation of the city of Hong Kong as a simulacrum, and the iconic photographs of the Anti-ELAB movement, I argue that the protest photographs shown to the mainland audience are interruptions of the narrative of national development, and have invoked memories of crowd politics during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. At the same time, by looking at protest images created by both Chinese and Western media, the thesis reveals the tension between the different frames of representations in social movements and their limitations in visualizing collective actions. In the end, I suggest looking for more complex imaginations and representations of the crowd in this interruptive juncture of global movements
Virgil’s Bumpkins: An examination of rural idealization and denigration in Virgil’s Georgics and 21st-century American culture
Get PDFVergil’s Georgics has been known throughout history as a didactic, “how to” guide on farming. However, as scholarship has progressed, the Georgics is now seen less as a guide on farming and more as a “self-insert” farming fantasy for the elite (similar to the Gen-Z “Cottagecore” craze). Vergil was writing for an elite audience, many of whom did in fact own land. However, most were not out working the land themselves. Instead they used slave labor and tenant farmers to perform the day-to-day tasks. It is clear from writings of the Roman elite at the time that there was a wistfulness for the countryside, yet it was paired with a clear distaste for the working class. This is exemplified in the term agrestis, a derogatory term for a countryman, similar to the word “bumpkin” or “rube” today. The antithesis of this, in line with the fantasy of the “elite farmer,” is the idea of an agricola, a benevolent, knowledgeable, land-owning farmer. My thesis sets out to analyze this dichotomy through a close reading of Virgil’s Georgics and to apply what we learn from this analysis to rural life in 21st century America, paying particular attention to the rise of populist politics in recent years
It\u27s Gotta be the Shoes : A Case Study on Shoes, Distance Running, and Technology in Sport
Get PDFOver one weekend at the beginning of October 2019, Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon in the INEOS 1:59 Challenge and Brigid Kosgei’s world-record-breaking Chicago Marathon win reset the clock in terms of what was believed to be humanly possible in the marathon. Both Kipchoge and Kosgei’s feats were accomplished thanks to the help of Nike’s carbon plate shoes, as well as developments in training, pacing, and a myriad of other factors that play into athletic performance. Earlier versions of the shoes they wore first had the potential to change performance outcomes in 2016, at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles. Networks of people had engaged in a discourse about the shoes beginning in 2016, but these debates exploded in late 2019. Throughout this period, academic and anecdotal evidence more or less proved that Nike’s carbon plate shoes conferred a very real performance advantage to the majority of athletes wearing them. Three general camps of thought emerged in these discussions: that the shoes were ruining the sport; that the shoes were impressive and not inherently damaging, but that they were introduced to the sport in a way that enhanced inequalities; and that the shoes were awesome and were helping to move the sport forward.
Because of the proven advantage some runners experience while wearing the carbon-fiber plate Pebax-foam shoes, the running community has been forced to grapple with how to regulate “fairness” with respect to new technologies and how to manage the tension between innovation and tradition. Debates about the shoes’ use are especially contentious among elite runners but have been relevant for runners at every level; the shoes reflect broader human concerns about the boundary between what is “natural” or “artificial,” as well as challenge our communal understandings about technology’s place in sport and human performance
Tuskegee and the Health of Black Infants
Get PDFFor nearly half a century, the American government funded the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” As the name suggests, this experiment abused black men from Alabama and required medical professionals to withhold care from the test subjects. The “Tuskegee Study” is credited with increasing medical mistrust among members of the black community. Specifically, black men, particularly those similar to the original test subjects, experienced a decline in health following the 1972 “Tuskegee Study” disclosures. In this thesis, the health of black infants is viewed through the lens of the “Tuskegee Study” revelations. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a difference-in-differences methodology demonstrates that the disclosures did not negatively impact the health of black infants. Furthermore, data from the General Social Survey indicates that potential southern black mothers did not experience meaningfully high levels of medical mistrust following the revelations
