Digital Commons Network^™

"A Perfect Labyrinth Of Limitations": Confronting The Restrictions Of Societal Roles In James Baldwin's Fiction, Natalie Sophia West

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Remembering Elsewhere, Amelia Ernestine Walsh

Senior Projects Spring 2017

In my works, I tried very hard to create characters with unusual perspectives. I wanted to write from the point of view of children, while avoiding anything overly precious or intentionally naive. The trauma of aging, and eventually dying, are the themes for these works. I attempted to draw forth unusual and thought-provoking imagery that could successfully draw my reader into a constructed reality and, hopefully, draw them to less common questions we might ask regarding human nature.

Producing Meaningful Work: An In-Depth Study Of Domestic Workers And Stratified Reproduction, Leigh Marie Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of how domestic workers are able to find resistance within their work place. Using eleven in-depth interviews with women working as domestic workers in New York City, this project contributes to the extant literature regarding domestic workers and stratified reproduction. I examine how domestic work is shaped by the intersections of race, class, gender, and citizenship status. These factors contribute to the conception of domestic work as low-skilled labor as well as the denigration and poor treatment of workers on the job. Though workers often have to sustain poor treatment …

The State And The People: Human Rights In Russia's Apolitical World, Benjamin Richard Lorber

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Catching A Glimpse: A Directorial Investigation & Collaboration On Procedure To Exit An Enclosed Space, Jaquan Keiandre Beachem

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Type Z, Zazie Elena Ray-Trapido

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Free Of Memory: The Importance Of The Underworld To The Completion Of The Archetypal Hero's Quest, Emily Rachel Payne

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

The Effects Of Autobiographical Growth Narratives On Math Performance In Women, Eva Briana Frishberg

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Women suffer from the negative stereotype that they are innately worse at math compared to men, which contributes to a gender gap in math fields (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). However, this stereotype has a greater negative impact on women with fixed mindsets, who believe that intelligence is inflexible and innate (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002). Mindset interventions thus far have sought to shift fixed mindset to growth mindset, characterized by the belief that effort can increase intelligence, through in-class workshops or lectures about the plasticity of the brain and the malleability of intelligence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck, 2000; …

From The Fair Labor Standards Act To Individual State Minimum Wages: Measuring State Minimum Wages And Economic Performance, Adam Charles Carafotes

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This project will analyze the historical foundation of the minimum wage in the United States prior to the first federal wage enactment in 1938 to the current federal wage as well as individual state wages. This paper will offer a historical overview along with economic ideology in determining appropriate minimum wage floors on state and federal levels of the economy. The question of raising either state or federal minimum wages has drawn great importance in the eyes of our country and in the eyes of economic thinkers, policymakers, and individuals. The minimum wage has been the backbone for working individuals …

Maids: A Resurrection Of Forgotten Women, Isabel Catherine Bennett

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Gender In Contemporary Iran In The Works Of Abbas Kowsari, Domantas Karalius

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

Does It Take A Village To Teach A Child? Lessons From Experiments In Education, Piyush Kuthethoor

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Why should we and how do we incorporate a community-based development model into the design, implementation and targeting of experimental programs? This project is motivated to create a useful theoretical framework or “lens” for development that reflects social reality, one which sees communities, the space of patterned, meaningful interpersonal relationships, as a locus of development. It is interested in ways that such a framework can help design adaptable policy innovations/developmental programs and come up with successful and sustained solutions to pressing human needs. First, a “lens” of community is developed for analysis using findings from behavioral studies, historic observations, philosophy, …

Are Immigrants The Next Great Appliance? The Effects Of Immigration On Female Labor Force Participation, Logan Daniel Callahan

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This paper argues the burgeoning idea that an inflow of low-skilled immigrants into a receiving country can provide benefits for high-skilled native women. In considering the often increased responsibilities held by women in the household, when compared to men, the introduction of immigrants of certain occupations can help ease these responsibilities. A series of regressions explain that the effect is statistically significant, especially when considering low-skilled female immigrants. Policy implications are discussed as well as areas for future research. The paper concludes with a brief secondary theory and discourse on the labor constraints of women.

A Geography Of Grief: An Exploration Of The Significance Of The Northern New Mexican Landscape In The Grieving Process, Treska Lydia Stein

Senior Projects Spring 2017

I grew up within this landscape, yet I have never tired of the way the elements of stone, dust, and sky seem to writhe and pull away from one another. Alternately piercing through the earth as craggy mountains, or slicing deep canyons into the muted grey green expanses of crumbly earth, this land seems to cower beneath a blisteringly blue sky.

In this land that fills our palms with the spines of tender cacti, and purple afternoon monsoons melt our roads into clay slicks with their deluge—I explore how the same intensity of this place, which forces drivers to relinquish …

Fundamentalism And Cultural Anxieties: Scott Lively And The Ugandan Christian Right, Wylie Milton Earp

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Gender Empowerment In The Development Economics Literature: The Language Of Choice, Preferences And Agency, Pranay Panday

Senior Projects Spring 2017

In my project, I try to trace how our present understanding of gender empowerment is formed, and how mainstream economics literature has accommodated feminist contributions to the concept. I look at neoclassical household models, feminist critiques of the same models, foundational ideas on gender empowerment, and finally the current development economics literature on empowerment. I find that the concept of choices and preferences, and in particular the formation of preferences, is central to understanding gender empowerment. I deduce that a) empowerment is both a process and an outcome, b) that the end goal of empowerment is the access to resources …

“Shutting Her Up:” An Exploration Of The Madwoman And The Madhouse In Victorian Literature, Savannah Jane Bachman

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

"The Comal Of Your Desire": Examining Representations Of Isthmus Zapotecas Through The Poetry Of Natalia Toledo, Maya Beckman Sommer

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Rustic Roots And Fiddle Hell: An Ethnography Of Fiddle Camps In The Northeastern United States, Flannery Blanchard Brown

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Can We Keep It? - A Multimedia Exploration Of Sleepover Culture, Anya Simon Kopischke

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Reframing The Ofrenda, An Analysis Of Material Culture Through The Death Cult Of Mexico, Xochitl Tarcila Salazar

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

Simulacrum And Post-Dictatorship Representation Of Violence In Argentina: Translation And Critical Reading Of Eduardo Pavlovsky’S Paso De Dos, Liliya Alexandrovna Galenkova-Riggs

Senior Projects Spring 2017

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

The Black Women Anti-Defamation Coalition: A Proposal For The Remediation Of The Negative, Controlling Images Of Black Women, Shemar Antonio Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This research sets out to highlight the life-altering degree to which negative, domineering depictions of Black women has had and continues to have on their livelihood and also to argue that due to their systemic inability to control and craft their own reputation, this should be categorized as a human rights violation and enforced on the grounds of defamation law. Although I am not a Black woman myself, as a Black man who was raised by three Black women, I have seen first hand the importance of proving this point. Many Black women scholars, many of whom I will be …

Maids: A Retelling Of A Retelling Of "The Odyssey", Emma Katharine Webster

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The New Woman: An Age Of Revolution Through The Eyes Of Twentieth Century Chinese Women Writers, Lisa Kaithland Burke

Senior Projects Spring 2017

During an age of revolution, Chinese women writers began to emerge. While the country was going through an internal struggle for modernity and cultural rebirth, women fought their own battle to make their voices heard from within the literary field. This thesis investigates various stories by Chinese women writers published between the years of the May Fourth Movement and well into the Cultural Revolution. This investigation endeavors to illustrate the changing “New Woman” ideology, originally coined at the beginning of the May Fourth Movement, as well as analyze the various themes in women’s work such as love, marriage, family, social …

Putting Microaggressions Under The Microscope: Examining The Short-Term Effects Of Microaggressions In A College Classroom, Glenisha Keiara Givens

Senior Projects Spring 2017

In 1970 Chester Pierce identified the term microaggressions as subtle insults toward African-American students that could be intentional or unintentional, conscious or subconscious, and verbal or nonverbal. In recent years following some of Pierce’s work, researchers have begun focusing on what exactly constitutes as a micro aggression, which spaces this form of racism manifest and the various effects it has victims. Most of the past findings indicate that microaggressions have detrimental effects to mental health and even effects students in educational settings. The current study aimed to explore whether microaggressions have immediate effects on self-esteem, mood, attitudes toward a professor …

Drink Coke. Don’T Steal Movies: A Queer In Pursuit Of Laughter And Empathy, Ariel Violet Gillooly

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Mainstreaming Gender: The Influence Of Women's Networks On Prosecuting Sexual Violence At The International Criminal Court, Jessica Maryanne Zaccagnino

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The fall of the Soviet Union in combination with the failures of the international community to intervene in the genocides of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda spurred a new enthusiasm for human rights as a wholly independent movement, termed the human rights wave. This paradigm shift, identified by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, was an embrace of human rights rooted in the redemption of past wrongs. This project is structured as a jurisprudential genealogy that will explore the human rights wave in the context of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, a facet of the transnational women’s network, and their quest to mainstream …

Does Globalization Enhance Countries’ Ability To Combat Human Trafficking?, Yewen Zeng

Senior Projects Spring 2017

There is much literature that argues that human trafficking (HT) is actually a down side of globalization since HT increased dramatically with globalization during the mid-1980s. However, it must be acknowledged that globalization is not the inherent cause of HT but an intermediary that helps to achieve it. Although much literature studies the nexus of globalization and human trafficking, there is a lack of publications to analyze the future impact of globalization on combating human trafficking. This project aims to fill the gap by providing an empirical analysis of whether globalization enhances countries’ ability to combat HT or not. This …

The Phallic Woman: A Reexamination Of The Problematics Of Women And Surrealism, Adrienne Anne Chau

Senior Projects Spring 2017

To see a work by a female surrealist is, perhaps, to see surrealistically. In other words, if the canonical, Western accounts of surrealism are what we are accustomed to, then the act of seeing a work of a woman completely disorients our trained familiarity with the movement, which up until the 1970s was left undisturbed. The principles of the movement, founded on the personal investigation of one’s psyche, lent themselves as an opportunity for the surrealist woman to explore the interior sources of her creative imagination. Visual expression of their self-discovery provided a different perspective of modern woman’s world and …