JBC Commons (New College of Florida)
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The Art of Self Defense: An Exploration of Art as a Spiritual and Political Means for Manifesting Black Power
No full textIn a society fearful of revolution, revolutionary artwork serves as a catalyst for a blissful awakening to the necessity and magic of collective paradigm shifts. Instead of shying away from the most challenging aspects of our society, revolutionary artists believe we should embrace them through dialogue and action. I believe we can be liberated from the complacency and discord that plagues our world when art is weaponized for self-defense. Through a depiction of empowering and electrifying imagery, I explore the intersections of identity, class, and spirituality. My paintings are meant to energize people as well as celebrate marginalized folks in positions of power. The pieces occupy the gallery as spiritual tools created with the intention to manifest a blissful collective future. Primarily, my artwork is a way for me to get closer to experiencing and expressing the most honest representation of myself. As a Black, Queer, and Jewish abolitionist, so many facets of my identity are politicized. In respect to this, I believe documenting and sharing my self-exploration is a radical act
SYMBIOSIS: ILLUSTRATING THE TRANSNATIONAL GENRE OF ANIME AND A NEED FOR DIVERSITY WITHIN ANIMATED MEDIA
No full textAnime’s sphere of influence continues to increase as technology advances and allows the genre to become increasingly globalized. This project aims to represent the transnational audiences who consume anime within the art form they enjoy by creating a fantasy universe that reflects a need for real world representation within anime. I honor the cultural tradition of anime and Japanese animation while addressing the lack of diverse identities within the medium. My project aims to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, African and Black peoples, and people with disabilities within anime as technology increasingly connects the Americas and Japan. This project serves as a call to improve representation in pop-culture media as we move into an increasingly global age
La conservation coloniale au service de l’exploitation : Changing Conceptions of Land and Environmental Policy in French Algeria and Indochina
No full textAt its core, this thesis is an environmental history on Algeria and Indochina as French colonies. The period of study starts with pre-colonial, Old Regime Enlightenment texts on Algeria that were published in 1838, after colonization began, and follows a progression of colonization until the beginning of the twentieth century until just before the Great War. The main goal of the thesis is to analyze how and why certain environmental and land use policies were implemented in the colonies, and how these laws eventually supported the expropriation of land from the native populations to colonists. In the thesis, the pre-colonial Enlightenment works are used as a case study to detail how the declensionist narrative came to be and serve as a reference for how it progressed throughout the process of Algeria’s colonization. I then move on to analysis of how a variety of colonial conservation was used to preserve parts of land in order for it to be expropriated to colonists. The final chapter is concerned with what happened to the land once it was expropriated. The last chapter analyzes the interconnectedness of the mise en valeur of the colonies and colonial development projects before mise en valeur became codified colonial policy
DRAWING THE LINE: AN ANALYSIS OF RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN CHICAGO
No full textInstitutional racism is pervasive across many different economic and social sectors. This thesis studies the relationship between these sectors and residential segregation in hopes of better understanding the degree to which institutional inequity is driven by racial differences in location. The literature review examines these relationships nationally, while the second and third chapters look specifically at Chicago. We examine demographic data from 76 neighborhoods in Chicago as reported by the 2019 American Community Survey to empirically evaluate the effects of segregation, educational attainment and unemployment on median income. We also complete a sector analysis on Chicago Public Schools and the extent to which these inequalities exist within that system. Our results indicate that there are statistically significant differences between Black and non-Black neighborhoods in Chicago as well as nationally. The sector analysis showed that though some policy measures have been attempted, they are not consistently effective at reducing inequality between white and Black schools
FROM ELITE ENCLAVES TO COMMON COMPOUNDS: GATED COMMUNITIES IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
No full textAlthough gated communities are prevalent throughout Miami-Dade County, few scholarly research exists that explains how and why they became so popular. In this thesis, I chronicle the development of gated communities in Miami from elite enclaves to common compounds, with an analysis of newspaper archives, GIS data and interviews. The first case study focuses on Doral, Florida, a suburb on the fringe of Miami-Dade, initially built out with sprawling gated estates. Because of spatial constraints today, developers have shifted to constructing high-density residences in a newly created downtown area. The second case study focuses on Liberty Square, a public housing complex under renovation. It is not a “traditional” gated community, but the entrance is secured and the building is designed to promote community surveillance. Because of the lack of available space, sprawling gated communities may not be the future of development in Miami but they continue to grow in popularity in cities with more room to grow around the US and the rest of the world
PROTEIN MODELING AND BINDING CHARACTERIZATION OF C. ELEGANS 3-HYDROXYISOBUTYRATE DEHYDROGENASE
No full textAmino acids have many important roles in biology. For example, amino acids are linked together by peptide bonds to form proteins. Also, in metabolism, amino acids can be broken down via the process of transamination, in which they lose their amine group and are converted into keto acids. Keto acids can then be converted into precursors for many other biological pathways, such as to produce energy, fat or glucose. 3-Hydroxyisobutyrate dehydrogenase is an enzyme that plays a role in amino acid metabolism, specifically the catabolism of L-valine. In humans, this is encoded by the HIBADH gene and is responsible for catalyzing the oxidation reaction of 3-hydroxyisobutyrate to methylmalonate semialdehyde. One goal of this study was to characterize the kinetics of the B0250.5 gene found on chromosome 5 of Caenorhabditis elegans. While information on or studies of this gene are limited, it is expected to encode a protein very similar to the human 3-hydroxyisobutyrate dehydrogenase enzyme and as such, is also expected to have a similar role in the catabolism of L-valine. Another goal of this study was to model the crystal structure of the B0250.5 protein in C. elegans and study how different substrates bind to the protein. The B0250.5 plasmid was successfully cloned into the expression vector pET303/CT-His. The vector plasmid was then used to transform T7 Express Competent E. coli cells (C3566H). However, there was no sign of successful overexpression of C. elegans 3-hydroxyisobutyrate dehydrogenase. A solution to this expression issue may be to attempt protein expression using a different cell type, such as E. coli strain BL21 (DE3) pLysS or Rosetta2, in future studies. The crystal structure of C. elegans 3-hydroxyisobutyrate dehydrogenase was modeled using SWISS-MODEL software. The docking of 3-hydroxyisobutyrate and NAD+ was performed by the AutoDock Vina program and was visualized in Pymol 2.0. The active site for 3-hydroxyisobutyrate was predicted to contain Gly123, Gly124 and Asn176 resides. Additionally, NAD+ was found to be very close to the active site and was surrounded by Thr128. Thr132, Thr134, Asn158, Asn176, Trp215, Thr219 and Asp286 residues. While AutoDock Vina was able to perform the docking, there were a few limitations. In future studies, a more sophisticated ligand-protein docking software may be able to provide better results and allow for more complex and accurate interactions
TIME TO CLOCK IN: WORK-SHARING POLICY IN THE UNITED STATES
No full textWork-sharing programs allow firms to reduce their workers\u27 hours on the payroll during times of economic crisis, with pro-rated unemployment insurance benefits making up much of the lost compensation. Considering that such policies are favored by both liberals and conservatives, but are not utilized uniformly across the United States, does work-sharing noticeably work? I use federally-accumulated U.S. labor market data to assess whether or not work-sharing programs helped to curb unemployment during the 2020 calendar year and the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While past literature focuses on how work-sharing is effective in maintaining jobs relative to standard unemployment insurance, I find that at their current scale of usage, American work-sharing programs do not have a statistically or substantively significant impact on overall unemployment levels. However, past academic literature and policy work suggests scaling up such programs would be greatly beneficial to altering unemployment insurnance for the better. Additionally, through descriptive investigation of states with work-sharing programs, I find that there are no clear reasons behind relative work-sharing success, regarding topics like advertising breadth and balanced budget requirements. Lastly, I discuss the ability of work-sharing to alter American norms around working hours during all economic times, such as in the future for union action and federal labor policies
REMEMBERING HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VALERIE SOLANAS! : AN EXPERIMENT IN DEVISNG NEW THEATER FROM TEXT, ARCHIVES & RESEARCH
No full textThis thesis documents the creative process & performances of a devised theater experiment titled Happy Birthday, Valerie Solanas! Performed at New College of Florida in March of 2018, the piece took shape over the course of two months of research and table work, documented in the first chapter of this thesis, and two subsequent months of improvisational experimentation, development, and rehearsal by the creative ensemble. Through my documentation of our process, I trace our transition from an initial goal of devising politically charged performance material adapted from Euripides\u27 The Bacchae through a period of background research and exploration of other Bacchae adaptations\u27 archives, on to our discovery of and fascination with Valerie Solanas, her SCUM Manifesto, and her shooting of Andy Warhol in 1968, which thereafter became the central element our performance aesthetic. The second chapter consists of a performance archive including our script, photo gallery, publicity and pre-show literature. The final chapter provides my individual reflections on production, process, and practical implications in my personal and professional lives. The concluding analysis points to the centrality of memory and forgetting to both the aesthetic of the performance and the subsequent documentation in this final reflection
DISTANCE, MOVEMENT, AND TURNOUT: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRECINCT POLLING LOCATIONS AND TURNING OUT TO VOTE
No full textOf the numerous costs to turning out in an election, distance to polling location has been gaining traction as a notable cost to voting with a consistent negative effect on turnout the further a voter lives from their polling place. However, one of the major shortcomings of existing research in this area has been the limited scope of these studies - due to data challenges, most have been significantly limited in their geographic breadth, conducting analysis at the county level or lower. Taking advantage of the 12 million citizen Florida voter file, this study uses a far larger amount of data in a cross-sectional design to analyze the relationship between individuals’ distance to polling locations and turnout, as well as the type of turnout, across the entire state of Florida. The scale and detail of the data allows us to gain leverage on a variety of related questions in greater precision than before as well, including the extent to which distance plays a role in voters opting for mail or early voting, interactions between distance and demographic variables, as well as whether alternative distance measures provide a clearer picture of the costs of. This study underscores the importance of understanding the role that local voting policies and choices have in influencing the conduct—and possibly outcome—of elections
REVISITNG SPINOZA’S TRACTATUS THEOLOGICO-POLITICUS IN LIGHT OF GADAMER
No full textIn this this thesis, I analyze Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise with an aim to explicating Spinoza’s hermeneutics. In my analysis of Spinoza’s Scriptural hermeneutics, I pay close attention to the features of the project which I think can be translated to literary texts in a meaningful way. My criterion for what can be translated to literary texts in a meaningful way is in large part based on Gadamer’s own criticism of Spinoza’s use of the “methodological ideal of the natural sciences”. I follow Gadamer on his point that this adoption of scientific methodology is clearly out of place in the case of Scripture and also in the case of art more broadly. I find a theory of art suggested in Spinoza’s accounts of Biblical narratives and Prophetic imagery, which make use of artistic voices and the way in which they provoke a kind of imaginary identification with the artist which in turn makes the recipient of the voice amenable to what is being communicated. Having retrieved this positive content from the TTP, I switch to determining what falls within the scope of Gadamer’s criticism and accordingly limits the hermeneutical potential of the TTP, at the very least in its application to literary art. These strands are developed alongside Gadamer, who acts a contrast case demonstrating the unrealized hermeneutical potential of the TTP. I then turn to a brief literary application of the hermeneutic ideas discussed throughout the thesis, where I focus in on the literary device of stream of consciousness as a means of synthesizing Gadamer’s interest in dialogue with Spinoza’s interest in voice