Digital Commons Network^™

Individual Thought Patterns: Women In New York's Extreme Metal Music Scene, Joan M. Jocson-Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme metal music (EMM) is both an umbrella term and a sub-category of heavy metal. Although women have a small but steady presence in heavy metal, this number shrinks when applied to the EMM scene. Using ethnographic research, participant-observation and interviews, this study surveys women in New York's EMM scene to address participation, gender performativity and feminist musicology.

Broken: How New York Systems Fail Vulnerable Youth And Send Them To Sex Work, Megan Cerullo

Capstones

The very places where homeless youth seek refuge have become breeding grounds for those who sell sex to bait young people into what they refer to as “the life.” Homeless youth, particularly those who have already been sexually abused, by family members or neighbors, or in the foster care system, make vulnerable prey for exploiters, who loiter outside of shelters, and other organizations providing services to the disadvantaged population. Unwitting youth who are broke and homeless and former foster care kids often turn to pimps for food, clothes, shelter -- and affection.

Many victims are youth who have aged out …

How Drugs And Incarceration Tore One Family Apart, Deonna Anderson

Capstones

My capstone project follows the life of a mother and her children after her addiction to drugs and a prison sentence. It explores the impact of the criminal justice system on women and families.

Link to capstone project: http://deonnareports.com/2016/12/12/how-drugs-and-incarceration-tore-one-family-apart/

The 11 Percent: Black Conservatives In America, Janae M. Hunter

Capstones

For years, most African-Americans have voted democrat in presidential elections. But this year, Republican and president-elect Donald J. Trump got 8 percent of the black vote. And as of 2014, 11 percent of black Americans identified as a republican. Who are some of America's black republicans and conservatives, and did they vote for Trump? For this project, I spoke with several black republicans and black people with conservative ideologies about whether or not the voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election, and what it's like to be in the minority among other African-Americans.

https://medium.com/@janae.hunter/the-11-percent-black-conservatives-in-america-a57e37c02691#.5xs5my5mh

Institutionalizing Environmental Justice: Race, Place, And The National Environmental Policy Act, Keith K. Miyake

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I examine ways that the US National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and its primary enforcement mechanism, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, have reshaped the state as a site for racial and environmental conflict by institutionalizing a particular form of environmental justice within governmental decision making processes. Combining archival methods and legal analysis, I develop three case studies involving community struggles over the social production of space that each engage the EIA process to different effect. The case studies were selected based on what they reveal about the ways that the environmental justice framework intersects …

The Consequences Of The State Implementation Of A Nationally Standardized Teacher Performance Assessment As A Certification Requirement: A Mixed Methods Study, Deborah Greenblatt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The edTPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) is a nationally distributed and scored standards-based teacher performance assessment being promoted throughout the country (AACTE, n.d.-a). This mixed methods study investigated the experiences of New York City teacher candidates and teacher educators with the elementary education edTPA portfolio. It was found that teacher candidates experienced various supports and challenges based on their personal demographics, school of education, and student teaching placements. Additionally, the edTPA affected participants' personal, professional, academic and student teaching experiences. Furthermore, the study revealed ways that implementation of the edTPA affected teacher educators and the teacher education curriculum.

Based on the …

Petite Politique: The British, French, Iroquois, And Everyday Power In The Lake Ontario Borderlands, 1724-1760, Greg Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the exercise and limitation of power at the interpersonal and intercultural level in the contested borderlands region around Lake Ontario in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Beginning in the 1720s, the region underwent an intensification of geopolitical competition among the British and French empires and the Iroquois Six Nations. During this time that Iroquois Confederacy granted competing trading posts to the British at Oswego and the French at Niagara in an effort to secure goods, balance neighboring rivals, and maintain their own sovereignty. Despite these cessions, the social and diplomatic interests of the Iroquois remained …

The Geography Of Financial Technology (Fintech) Companies In The New York Metropolitan Area, Frank C. Riggio

Theses and Dissertations

The Financial Technology (FinTech) industry uses technology to provide financial services more innovatively and competitively than traditional banks. A survey was conducted collecting original data of NY metropolitan area FinTech firms. Findings include a start-up heavy industry stemming from the 2008 financial crisis, prioritizing locational access to clients and funding.

Techno-Environmental Analysis Of Generating Animal Feed From Wasted Food Products, Melissa Hall

Theses

The scope of this thesis was to investigate the technological and environmental parameters related to producing animal feed from wasted food products (FFP). An analysis was conducted to understand both the global and local (New York) factors affecting food waste diversion to feed. In the case of New York, the State has great potential resources for FFP, however, it is currently lacking in both visibility and a motivating factor to incentivize industry growth.

Published literature was analyzed to understand deployment of FFP operations in other global regions, including Japan, Korea, and Europe. Food waste resources available in New York State …

Media Representation Of Asian Americans And Asian Native New Yorkers’ Hybrid Persona, Min Huh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Asian Americans, having been degraded in the realm of popular media and neglected in the consumer market, have been unable to obtain a voice or leave a trace in American pop culture. The meager representation that Asian Americans rarely have is highly controlled through a distorted lens, inclined to paint them in a grotesquely exaggerated light for comic relief. The absence of Asian Americans in the media has compelled the Asian American youth to adapt the personas of different cultures in their desires for social and cultural mobility. These factors have given birth to a hybrid persona among Asian Native …

Suburbs In Black And White: Race, Jobs & Poverty In Twentieth-Century Long Island, Tim Keogh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Suburbs in Black and White” examines how economic development shaped African American suburbanization on Long Island, New York from 1920 through 1980. After 1940, the fortunes of Long Island’s growing black population shifted from widespread poverty to upward social mobility, though by the 1960s, a divide emerged between the rising black middle class and black working poor, and distinctly ‘black’ suburbs emerged with problems familiar to postwar inner cities. While urban racial inequality is often framed in terms of housing segregation and the city/suburb divide, census and labor market data reveal that structural economic change across the New York metropolitan …

Windows On The World: The Aesthetics Of Difference In Neoliberal New York, Nicholas Gamso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to refine critical methods for interpreting global cities and their cultures, charting an aesthetic history of neoliberal New York — from the 1929 regional plan to the present. Surveying a range of literature, art criticism, and planning discourse, I argue that the global has served as the dominant motif of spatial production and political power during this watershed era. I trace this argument through analyses of midcentury planning’s global spatial imaginings, gentrification and imperial metaphor, transnational encounter in World literature, and the city’s contemporary waste and recourse imaginaries. While I follow the Marxist account of the New …

Guns In America, A Comparative Study Of Firearm Policies In New York And Texas, Ashley Milosevic

Political Science

No abstract provided.

Export / Import: The Promotion Of Contemporary Italian Art In The United States, 1935–1969, Raffaele Bedarida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Export / Import examines the exportation of contemporary Italian art to the United States from 1935 to 1969 and how it refashioned Italian national identity in the process. I do not concentrate on the Italian art scene per se, or on the American reception of Italian shows. Through a transnational perspective, instead, I examine the role of art exhibitions, publications, and critical discourse aimed at American audiences. Inaugurated by the Fascist regime as a form of political propaganda, this form of cultural outreach to the United States continued after WWII as Italian museums, dealers, and critics aimed to vaunt the …

Bilingual French Initiatives In Public Schools: A New York Story: New Opportunities, Diversity And Shared History And Values, Claire Jm Arnod Horikawa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The French bilingual programs in New York City public schools show the liveliness and diversity of the Francophonie. The French dual language programs in particular also reunite very different interests. There are the expected interests of communities wanting to keep a home language strong. Francophone parents wanting their children to use the language as an asset for a head start in the education race. English speaking parents, attracted by the language and its culture and wanting to give a head start to their monolingual children, as the world of business, and of science is multilingual. Schools and school principals are …

Madison Vanguard: A Novel, Berni Moestafa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project takes the form of a popular fiction novel that introduces parts of the academic discussion on capitalism to a wider audience through storytelling. Using a fictional fiscal crisis in New York as its setting, the novel discusses the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It therefore aims to address the underrepresentation of the debate on capitalism in popular entertainment and raise awareness about some of the debate’s key issues.

Popular culture be that music, film, books, media, videogames or advertisement surround our lives and expose us to a plethora of messages that help shape our understanding of the …

Have Traditional Auction Houses Been Affected By Online Ones?: The Case Of Phillips And Paddle8, Heejae Chung

MA Projects

There is always a strong demand for high quality art and collectibles. With the analysis of the case study and the interviews with experts from different auction houses, this paper will show whether the traditional auction markets have been affected by online ones.

Phillips is taking a strong hold over the middle market. In particular, Phillips’ Contemporary art department is known for focusing on younger artists, which represents lower prices than other areas. To compare in a fair way in terms of price and genre of artworks, Phillips’ Contemporary Art Day Sales in New York from 2006 to 2016 will …

"The Nest Of Tories Which Has Invested This Precinct": The Loyalists Of Newburgh, New York, Kieran John O'Keefe

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis uses a case study approach to examine loyalism during the American Revolution, by considering the Loyalists of Newburgh, New York. I examine the Loyalist community by exploring its origins before the Revolution, analyzing its composition, examining the Loyalists' wartime experiences, and by considering their post-war exile. Studying Newburgh's Loyalists allows for a nuanced understanding of loyalism both in the Hudson Valley and more generally. I argue that migration, religion, wealth, and geographic location shaped Loyalist communities and their experiences.

My thesis is divided into four chapters, the first of which considers the origins of the Loyalist community, which …

The Museum, Julie Yucai Jarema

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The Museum takes the form of a novel. It has a window carved into its steel garage door for the viewer to observe and puzzle over the assortment of ephemera inside the small space. Mia, a girl who does not know her roots, ends up working as a research assistant for the reclusive author who owns the museum. Her life becomes increasingly more chaotic and unstable as the author, Mr. E, sends her and her newborn daughter on an absurd scavenger hunt through Manhattan. Mr. E constructs each of Mia’s assignments around the plot of the novel that he is …

Exploring Mortuary Behaviors During The Rural Cemetery Movement In The Capital District Of New York State, Jeanette Carioto

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation investigates the leading causes behind mortuary behaviors in the Capital District of New York during the Rural Cemetery Movement. Four cemeteries were sampled: Oakwood Rural Cemetery, an established rural cemetery; Waterford Rural Cemetery and Blooming Grove Rural Cemetery, two smaller, non-sectarian cemeteries; and St. John’s Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery. The built and natural landscape was the focus during data collection and analysis, to reveal how the cemetery was experienced and how that experience was affected by and affected society. This study combines a quantitative statistical analysis and a qualitative phenomenological study of the cemeteries’ designs, gravestone data and …

Symbols Of Independence, Love, And Sorrow: Georgia O'Keeffe's Skyscraper Series, Kelly Allen Gentry

All ETDs from UAB

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) became known as one of the first and most prolific American modern artists of the twentieth century. Her expansive oeuvre, which spans over six decades, is primarily comprised of pure abstractions, large-scale flower paintings, and series of landscapes, crosses, and bones from the southwestern landscape of New Mexico, where she spent the latter half of her life. In the mid-1920s however, O’Keeffe created approximately twenty images of the skyscrapers of New York City, her home from 1918 to 1949. This thesis argues that within this skyscraper series, O’Keeffe fully realized her uniquely personal and recognizable language. This …