Digital Commons Network^™

The Namasudras And The Invited Missionary: Caste, Recognition, And Agency In 19th And 20th Century Bengal, Cedric Rule-Becker

Senior Projects Spring 2024

The Namasudra community of West Bengal is currently the focus of electoral politics in the region. As political parties attempt to gain or maintain power, this community is seen as a valuable asset to that end. The Namasudras are no strangers to this position, caught in the push and pull of outsider overtures for allegiance. This project seeks to investigate the actions of the Namasudras in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to better understand their current position. It will focus on their interactions with missionaries as a method of discussing issues of agency, caste, and recognition. The analysis …

Little Men And Big Banks: The Republican Party's Financial Policy From The Civil War To The Panic Of 1873, Miles Sebastian Hansen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Women’S Sexuality And The State: A Beginning Look At Virginity’S Relationship To The Law, Ariana Strieb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This is a beginning look at the relationship the state has with women's sexuality in the United States, specifically looking at how virginity animate the way rape trials are prosecuted.

Más Grande Que Una Isla, Georgi Elizabeth Valero

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Más Grande Que Una Isla is a film about the political leanings of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County, highlighting the dissonance in supporting policies that negatively affect the immigration process for others when they were incredibly privileged in the programs and opportunities available to them. It explores these political beliefs by tracing back to their origination, drawing out the privilege in the Cuban immigration experience that has existed for over half a century, leading us back to the present. While the film extends to a broader discussion, exploring the views of the Cuban community in Miami, it is personal at its …

Merino Wool In America: Migration, Economic Desire And Patriotism, Una R. Winn

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts and The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Commonwealth Of Independent States: A Symbolic Union Or Another Ussr?, Luka Donovan Linich

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Delicate Balance: Us-China-Taiwan Relations Under The Nixon And Carter Administrations In The 1970s, Evan H. Matthews

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This project is guided by its research question of why and how the Nixon and Carter administrations decided to maintain unofficial relations with Taiwan, despite pursuing the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China. President Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger struggled to answer this question and left it up to “historical evolutions.” The Carter administration believed in three fundamental principles, each spearheaded by different agents in the administration: (1) that the United States had a moral obligation not to jeopardize the future of the Taiwanese people, (2) that the United States must pursue normalization with the …

Revisiting The Who And The Where: A Quest To Understanding The Identities Of Second-Generation Israeli-American Youth, Yuval Elbaz

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This is a study about identity formation patters on twelve second generation Israeli-Americans. The study will be divided into three sections: economic assimilation religious assimilation, and political assimilation. I will argue that living in the United States has a significant influence on the way participants viewed their Israeli identities. Although identity will be the focal point of this study, this is not to claim that identity is a fixed category, but rather is fluid and affected by various external and internal factors. In this study, identity is defined as the way people view themselves. For all participants, growing up in …

The Washington Consensus: Conceptions Of Power And Failure In Argentina, Samaira G. Wilson

Senior Projects Fall 2022

By holding great economic power over smaller states and justifying it by saying they are helping modernize them, the U.S. leaves many countries cleaning up a mess they helped make. The Washington Consensus failed systematically largely because of its failure to understand development in developing countries. The objective of these policies were to increase GDP in Argentina, yet economic growth favored the wealthy which led to more poverty, inequality and unemployment. The responsibility to promote democratic and equitable development, as well as sustained increases in living standards, was completely neglected. Why did U.S. policy fail to deliver on its goals? …

Weaponizing Ballet: An Episode In American Cold War Diplomacy, Remy Laray Naumann

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In October 1962, as American citizens were building bomb shelters in their backyards, the New York City Ballet toured the Soviet Union, receiving raving applause from Soviet audiences. The tour is just one example of the many ballet exchanges in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the United States and the Soviet Union. In these acts of cultural diplomacy, ballet companies became ideological weapons, selling their country's achievements to audiences abroad.

Tours such as the New York City Ballet’s 1962 trip have been acknowledged in analyses on cultural diplomacy between the US and Soviet Union in the Cold War …

History, Ritualization, And The Rhetoric Of Legitimacy In Decem Libri Historiarum And Wei Shu, Bo Wen (Kent) Zheng

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Historical scholarship since the Second World War has, in general, successfully challenged the nationalist notion that ethnic identities are essential and stable markers of self-hood. One of the most influential entries from this bibliography is Benedict Anderson’s seminal study on the “horizontal” affect of the nation-state, Imagined Communities(1983), wherein the author identifies print capitalism and mass literacy as key contributors to the birth of “national communities” in the modern parlance. Less well defined in Anderson’s story of the nation, however, is the potential effect of pre-modern historical experiences on trajectories of modern state-formation. In response, this thesis explores the …

A Dazzling Détente: Exploring The Cultural Facets Of The Kennedys’ 1961 Visit To Paris And The Instrumental Role Of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Maxwell Riley Toth

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This project is an exploration into John and Jackie Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Paris, France, only four months after the former was inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States. In discussing this state visit, scholars often analyze it through a political lens—specifically, the gravity of the issues a novice President Kennedy (1917–1963) and an avuncular President de Gaulle (1890–1969) discussed tête-à-tête, and the visit’s role as a stepping stone to Kennedy’s weighty conversation with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna days later. Yet, outside of the conference room at the Élysée, cultural moments and gestures throughout the sojourn offer insights …

Voice Of Silence: Women Inmates' Perspective On Sexual Violence In The Soviet Gulag, 1936-1956, Louisa Jane Fulkerson

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Parallax View: How Conspiracy Theories And Belief In Conspiracy Shape American Politics, Liam Edward Shaffer

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Conspiracy theories have become a fact of American political discourse. It seems at times that we are inundated by conspiracy theories that are being raised and addressed before being consigned to the dustbin in favor of the next batch. Our media outlets devote precious time and resources to debunking these theories and our politicians seem more willing than ever to traffic in conspiracy theories when it is politically convenient. It is tempting to find a scapegoat for this dynamic, to identify a few discrete actors who have introduced it into our politics. If this were the case, then all we …

Revolutionaries In Form: The Russian Futurist Poets In The Cultural Politics Of The Early Soviet Union, 1917-1928, Noah Wurtz

Senior Projects Fall 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

“Communism May Be The Only Alternative If America Walks Away”: The Reagan Administration And The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act Of 1986, Abby Townend

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A History And Analysis Relevant To The Us Border: A.K.A. "Fuck The Border”, Cole Rainey-Slavick

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Borders are proliferating throughout the world today; dividing the core from the periphery, racially excluding vulnerable peoples, and facilitating the exploitation of labor. But, it has not always been like this. Borders were once limited only to a small scattering of city states, and even these borders looked little like those of today in terms of their enforcement or function. Where do borders come from? What do they do? What social forces produce and alter them? What is the history of the US border? What is the border …

Merry < Machiavellian: Exploring King Charles Ii The Puppet Master From The Fall Of Edward Hyde To The Fall Of The Cabal, Zayd Y. Normand

Senior Projects Fall 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Land In South Africa: Dispossession, Constitutionalism, Political Expediency, Dylan Anton Sparks

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This project explores the political history of land dispossession in twentieth century South Africa. It conducts a comprehensive analysis of the legal mechanisms and public policies articulated in the democratic era to address the dark history of dispossession and land theft. It concludes with the suggestion that the resurgence of land in the contemporary political debate questions the legitimacy of the democratic transition and Constitution, when, in fact, the political establishment bears a large responsibility for the glacial pace of land reform over the first twenty-five years of democracy.

Understanding Iran: Attempts At Unravelling The Structures That Determine Iranian State Behaviour, Simran Gupta

Senior Projects Spring 2019

The goal of this paper is to determine if Iran is a rational actor and to determine the basis of its rationality. If Iran is categorized as an unpredictable and unreliable state, more coercive and isolation based foreign policy decisions would make the most sense. However, if an effort is made to understand the state’s rationality there can be more effective policies that would be more likely to produce the behavior policymakers desire without causing more instability in the international community.

The Project Of German Bomb Disposal: Temporal Imaginaries And Materiality After Wwii, Zoe L. Brock

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Greedy Bastards, Nathaniel Vergoz Carlsen

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Plantain Stain, Loreli Mojica

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Portraits Of The Most Sane, David Leonard Mamukelashvili

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The project discusses Géricault's Portraits of the Insane and interprets them as his self-reflective works, interpreting the series as the projections of artist's socio-political views.

Naturalized Women And Womanized Earth: Connecting The Journeys Of Womanhood And The Earth, From The Early Modern Era To The Industrial Revolution, Maggie Rose Berke

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

'A Most Splendid Soldier': The Life Of My Great-Grandfather Major General George Bruce, Orson Fry

Senior Projects Spring 2017

When he was twenty-six years old, my grandfather John Aspinall discovered that his real father was a soldier who had fought and been decorated in both world wars. Thrilled, he began to track his father down and catch up on the lost years. Being a great raconteur, stories at once began trickling down the family line about this illustrious figure ‘Bruce’, each one more wonderful than the last. But a lot remained missing: who was this young man who had picked up four wounds on the Western Front and won medals for his leadership and gallantry? Who later commanded 28,000 …

Sanctioned Silencing, Symbolic Resistance: Race, Space, And Dispossession In A Marginalized South African Community, Killian Richard Miller

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

My field work and the written portion of my ethnography work through issues of marginality, state apparatuses, illusions of freedom, and making meaning in a context of oppression. All these power dynamics are historically-situated within the cultural context and community of Hangberg, a place forged by the race-based forced removals of Apartheid. British and Dutch colonization, Apartheid's racial regime, and the post-Apartheid oligarchical state, are all historical and contemporary authoritative forces that are impacting the everyday lives of people in Hangberg. Perspectives of power also serve as examples …

Self-Fashioning, Double Consciousness, And A History Of Representation: The Narratives Of Frederick Douglass And Solomon Northup As Compared To Runaway Slave Advertisements, Samira Leila Omarshah

Senior Projects Spring 2016

In many ways, slave narratives represent written archives of the the authors’ identities, and testaments to those identities. Through the consideration of what constitutes self-making and representing a struggle unknown to the intended reader (white Americans), the parts of an identity that are left out of the narratives become apparent. This project aims to consider “The Narrative of Frederick Douglass” and Solomon Northup’s “Twelve Years A Slave” as advertisements for abolition as well as mediums for self-making for their authors. By then comparing the two narratives to Runaway Slave Advertisements written by slave owners, deeper issues concerning relationships between slave …

It Happened At El Mozote: How Two Reporters Broke The Story That Washington Refused To Believe, Naomi Rubel Lachance

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to the Division of Languages and Literature and the Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Unintended Consequences Of The International Women's Movement: Medicalizing Rape In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Faye N. Forman

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The legal advancements made by western feminists from the 1960s continuing today mark a distinct shift for both the women's movement and mainstream radical feminist philosophy. This project examines the unintended consequences of the rise of the international women's movement as American feminists brought the law to bear as the primary instrument for reform to eradicate rape and violence against women. As contemporary political scholars demonstrate, legal remediation further codifies gender inequality and protective tropes that sexualize women's injury. Chapter 2 and 3 examines the intensified feminist efforts to criminalize domestic abuse at an international level, first at the United …