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From Shadow to Spotlight: Minoritarian Characters, Representative Failures, and High School Powerarchy in Teen Television
No full textThis thesis examines representations of girlhoods of color and their character networks in contemporary teen television, which at first glance seem to be radically reinventing the script for minority representation today. They engage in feminist discourse, use social justice-oriented discourse in their scripts, and include more people of color, queer, and disabled people in their casts. Despite these television shows’ attempts to be subversive by representing diverse and seemingly intersectional networks, they are often caught providing ornamental diversity, wherein the presence of non-normative characters does not automatically qualify the show as sensitive to race, gender, and sexuality stereotypes. Focusing on two contemporary teen television shows: Glee (2009-2015) and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2020), I examine and deconstruct the gender, sexual, and racial power hierarchies present in these shows, and explore how these diverse networks are informed by ideologies of white supremacy and heteronormativity. I highlight how racial-minoritarian characters are almost always resigned to the status of secondary character, kept in place behind their white, cishet counterparts. I also offer strategies on how to examine character networks present in teen television, and I expand upon the critical, reparative, and political possibilities of developing relationships with fictional characters who embody minoritarian subjectivities
What\u27s Outside the Window? : Evil, Literature, and Detection in Roberto Bolaño\u27s Fiction
No full text[Abstract embargoed
This Is All for You: Stories
No full textThis Is All for You: Stories is a collection of short stories exploring the complex subjectivity of women. Why do we do the things we do? What does it look like to act for ourselves? This project aims to capture woman as heroine and antihero and believes that both can coexist in one figure. This collection is a work of fiction
Live imaging of somatic homolog pairing in \u3ci\u3eDrosophila\u3c/i\u3e supports a button-based mechanism for pairing facilitated by the genetic insulator \u3ci\u3egypsy\u3c/i\u3e
No full textIn the somatic cells of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster, homologous chromosomes will pair from end to end during embryogenesis and once paired, remain paired throughout development. Somatic homolog pairing begins following the maternal-to-zygotic transition of transcription and pairing rates increase with embryonic time. Recent literature suggests that somatic homolog pairing initiates through a set of random independent contacts that occur along the length of the homologous chromosomes between regions of the homologs which have a highly specific affinity for one another, called “pairing buttons”. Some evidence supports that the molecular basis for these pairing buttons are genetic insulators and/or the architectural proteins that bind them. Here, I show that gypsy, a genetic insulator, increases the proportion of homologous loci pairing in the earliest stages of the maternal-to-zygotic transition of transcription. Using a transgenic live imaging system to fluoresce and therefore tag homologous loci, I imaged the pairing dynamics of homologous loci with adjacent gypsy insulators on both homologs, neither homolog, and on only one homolog. I observed that gypsy’s presence at both loci increases the number of loci that are transitioning from a stably unpaired to paired state in nuclear cycle 13 and early cycle 14. Furthermore, I found that gypsy does not increase the proportion of homologous loci that experience a chance to pair, supporting a random walk model for pairing initiation. My results demonstrate that the gypsy insulator likely functions as a pairing button, stabilizing chance contacts that occur between homologs and facilitating end-to-end somatic homolog pairing
Identifying crustacean neuropeptides and precursor-related peptides by LC/MS: An investigation of strategies for extraction and orthogonal separations
No full textCrustaceans, including the lobster, Homarus americanus, are excellent model organisms used to study nervous system function. This is especially true because of the role neuropeptides play in modulating rhythmic motor pattern generators. However, the identification of neuropeptides and precursor-related peptides in these organisms is challenging because of sample complexity– the large number of peptides found in a tissue matrix containing compounds that include larger proteins, phospholipids, and salts. Furthermore, the peptides exhibit a range of analyte properties (size, charge, hydrophobicity) that are impacted by post-translational modifications (amidation, pyroglutamation, sulfation, and disulfide bond formation). The goal of this study is to compare techniques for neuropeptide extraction (including extraction with 8 M urea vs acidified 65% methanol) and neuropeptide fractionation (offline or online liquid chromatography, in connection with reversed-phase (RP) or hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) stationary phases) using nanoLC-Q-TOF/MS/MS for neuropeptide identification. Techniques were tested using the analysis of brain neuropeptides from H. americanus in combination with the prior identification of over 100 neuropeptides and over 100 precursor-related peptides. This study will report a comparison of these techniques for better separating neuropeptides to further research in the field of neuropeptide identification. With respect to neuropeptide extraction, the 8 M urea extraction solvent was not advantageous over acidified 65% methanol. With respect to neuropeptide fractionation, the HILIC stationary phase did not demonstrate improved separation of neuropeptides; however, the data collected in this research allowed for new discoveries about polar compounds in H. americanus brain samples
Ethnicity and Territory: Cultural and Political Autonomy for African Descended Colombians through Law 70
Full text linkColombia has the second largest African descendant population in all South America due to the transatlantic slave trade that stripped millions from their homeland and brought them to present day Colombia. While African descendants have been a part of the region’s history for over five centuries, it was not until 1993 with the establishment of Law 70 that the Colombian government acknowledged the culture and rights of African descendants. This thesis analyzes the historical, social, and political underpinnings of Law 70, its implementation, and aftereffects. I argue that Law 70 acknowledges a lived identity of rural African descended Colombians as the mechanism for Black communities to obtain rights. The thesis addresses the deep connection between ethnicity and territory, and how Law 70 recognizes that, for rural African descendants, ancestry, culture, and territory, cannot be separated. Law 70 codified a legal transition from a racial to an ethnic frame, which was necessary for African descendants to live their difference and be recognized by the nation
Sociocultural Orientations and Mental Illness Stigma: A Novel Mediational Model
Full text linkThis study proposes a novel mediational model to investigate the relationship between sociocultural orientations and mental illness stigma by exploring empathy and controllability attributions as mediators. Past literature suggests that understanding these variables may contain important implications for guiding stigma-reducing efforts. Questionnaires assessing sociocultural orientations, empathy, blaming attributions, and general mental illness stigma were administered to 109 students at a small liberal-arts college in the northeast United States. The sample consisted of 80 female-identifying participants, 28 male-identifying participants, and 1 non-binary participant. Questionnaires administered included the Individualism and Collectivism scale (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998), the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (Reniers et al., 2011), a modified version of the Attribution Questionnaire (Corrigan et al., 2003), and Day’s Mental Illness Stigma Scale (Day et al., 2007). Analysis showed that vertical sociocultural orientations were associated with more blameful attributions and heightened stigma. Horizontal collectivism was associated with increased empathy and less blameful attributions, but empathy did not mediate this relationship. Controllability attributions, but not empathy, partially mediated the relationships between both vertical orientations and stigma. These findings demonstrate the importance of sociocultural orientations, particularly the equality preference dimension, as predictors of mental illness stigma. Efforts to counter societal stigma should consider the role of sociocultural orientations and their interaction with empathy and blaming tendencies
The effect of early life adversity on basolateral amygdala projections to the prefrontal cortex in male and female rats during development
No full text[Abstract restricted
A multifaceted analysis of Semaphorin-induced neuroplasticity in the nervous system of \u3ci\u3eGryllus bimaculatus\u3c/i\u3e
No full textThe auditory system of the Mediterranean cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus, is an optimal model for neuroplasticity. Following unilateral deafferentation, the Ascending Auditory Neurons 1 and 2 (AN-1 and AN-2) sprout across the previously respected prothoracic ganglion midline, forming connections with contralateral auditory afferents. Class 1 Semaphorin transcript, sema1a.2, encodes chemotropins that guide auditory axons during development. Deafferentation causes the significant downregulation of sema1a.2 18 hours post-injury. The present study investigated the following two biological questions: 1. Whether a knockdown in the levels of Sema1a.2 affects crickets’ behavioral and physiological response to predatorial sound stimuli; and 2. Whether particular physiological outputs correlate to specific behavioral responses and whether those characteristic physiological outputs can predict behavior. Here, we injected 7th instar larval stage crickets with double-stranded RNA targeted to knockdown sema1a.2. Following injection, crickets were isolated until reaching adulthood, where they were then flown and presented with predatorial bat ultrasound. A sufficiently trained DeepLabCut neural network was used to analyze cricket behavior. The results were computed by a modified R pipeline to visualize and quantify cricket movement. Once flown, physiological recordings of cricket auditory neuronal responses were obtained in response to the same sound stimulus presented during behavioral experimentation. While this study did not find any statistically significant results, there was an observable difference in the turn angle and physiological output between sema1a.2 KDs and GFP control crickets. An increase in sample size in the future will further elucidate the impact of Sema1a.2 on the maintenance and plasticity of the cricket auditory system
