Arts and Humanities Commons^™

David Versus Goliath: The Power Of Weakness In Asymmetric Warfare—Lessons From History, Nicholas K. Petaludis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, should—given these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms …

Challenges Of Repatriation: Asante Artifacts At The American Museum Of Natural History, Abdul-Alim Farook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Inspired by calls for the repatriation of famous artifacts like the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles, for this capstone project, I have analyzed and catalogued 250 sampled Asante artifacts at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Through this analysis, I discuss the many ways museums in North America acquired their collections. By doing so, I explore the difficulties that arise in debates surrounding repatriation due to the manner in which these artifacts were acquired. I argue that due to the many different types of donors of the Asante artifacts to the American Museum of Natural History, the Asante …

Ethnic Conflict In Côte D’Ivoire, Ayouba Doumbia

Dissertations and Theses

Since the early days of independence, the African continent has been the theatre of many ethnic conflicts. While people, in general, assume these conflicts to be political and blame the conflicts on authoritarian regimes, they dismissed the fact that conflict between ethnicities is a phenomenon that has occurred for hundreds of years and in all corners of the Earth. Entire countries have been devastated by years of ethnic strife. Once ethnic conflict breaks out, it is difficult to stop. Conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda, Chechnya, Iraq, and Darfur are among the deadliest examples from the late 20^th and early …

The Berbers: Constructed Identities By Foreigners On African Soil, Zineb Askaoui

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the textual evidence pertaining to the identity of the local North African population of Morocco. In examining the literature about North Africans and the inscriptions in North Africa, I wish to determine who their authors were. Since North Africa has been invaded and colonized multiple times throughout history, the available literature written by both the foreigners who colonized it and the locals yielded interesting and sometimes contrasting results.

The names that address the local North Africans are pertinent expressions of identity or of forceful submission. This study examines four different terms that have been used to describe …

Positioning And Repositioning: Transnational Identity (Re) Construction And (Re) Negotiation By American-Senegalese Children, Aminata Diop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The main aim of this dissertation is to study the ways American-Senegalese children position and reposition themselves as they (re) construct and (re) negotiate their transnational identity upon returning to the U.S. from Senegal. This project explores the following questions: 1) why do US-residing Senegalese parents send their children back to their homeland to be raised by relatives? 2) how do these American-Senegalese children (re) construct and (re) negotiate their multiple layers of identities upon returning home after being raised by extended family members for more than a decade?3) and how do the American-Senegalese children (re) story their racial, class, …

The Guinea-Bissau Constitutional Reform Debate, Watson Aila Gomes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The enactment of law is not to be confused with the rule of law, and simply having a constitution does not guarantee political order. In Guinea-Bissau there have been calls to write a new constitution, but whether that helps Guinea-Bissau become a more stable country is questionable. Currently, there is a gap in the research of social science, history and political science examining how the processes of instability have unfolded in Guinea-Bissau. Few studies attempt to examine the correlation between a country’s stability and its constitution. A paradoxical situation exists in many countries in Africa where the political system is …

Black Hair In Local Television: When Will Hair Just Be Hair?, Shari Straker

Capstones

Hair is used as a form of identity and self expression. Oftentimes black hair is perceived as a political statement, unprofessional and unruly. Society has deemed any type of kink or curl as unattractive. In turn women of color have gone to great lengths to conform to this European beauty standard–specifically black women who are reporters and anchors in local news.

You don’t stop seeking help or understanding your pain when you’re sad. The same applies to women of color when discussing the topic of their natural hair. History and present day events have proved that this topic is still …

The Spark That Lit The Flame: The Creation, Deployment, And Deconstruction Of The Story Of Mohammed Bouazizi And The Arab Spring, Elizabeth Ann Cummings

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The story of Mohammed Bouazizi is credited with being the "spark that lit the flame," first of the Tunisian Revolution, then the Arab Spring as a whole, creating a domino effect that brought down the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan and Yemeni leaders, and threatened to topple still more. In this thesis I explore the narrative structure of the Tunisian revolution, how the story of Mohammed Bouazizi represented that structure and how the narrative sparked the Arab Spring. I also ask how narrative is created and what role social media played in allowing this particular story to become a part of the …

Black Like Me? A Narrative Study Of Non-Anglophone Black U.S. Immigrant Selves In The Making, Yvanne Joseph

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished discriminatory national origin quotas that favored European immigrants. The U.S. has since experienced steady flows of immigrants of color. These diverse groups have brought their racial, social, cultural and historical experiences, which adds greater complexity to the existing Black/White and ingroup/outgroup models that shape group relations, and psychological theorizing about identity. This dissertation focuses specifically on the smaller, less visible, yet growing segments of these immigrant populations. It presents a study of the lives of ten individual immigrants of African descent originating from a non-Anglophone country within Africa, Latin America …

Jean Sénac, Poet Of The Algerian Revolution, Kai G. Krienke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work presented here is an exploration of the poetry and life of Jean Sénac, and through Sénac, of the larger role of poetry in the political and social movements of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, mainly in Algeria and America. While Sénac was part of the European community in Algeria, his position regarding French rule changed dramatically over the course of the Algerian War, (between 1954 and 1962) and upon independence, he became one the rare French to return to his adopted homeland. I will argue, sometimes polemically, that Sénac was and should be considered a properly Algerian …

Mind, Media, And Techniques Of Remediation In America, 1850-1910, Dominique Zino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation describes the way a renewed interest in picturesque aesthetics engaged the imaginations of writers, visual artists, philosophers, landscape designers, and collectors during the second half of the nineteenth century, reinvigorating a mode of inquiry that sanctioned the act of composing representations--mental, visual, and verbal--as a suitable response to social, political, and philosophical problems. The chapters that follow describe the understanding of the relationship between language, visual representation, and feeling that picturesque aesthetics formalized alongside the surface discourse of picturesqueness that was circulating through everyday genres, such as illustrated viewbooks, by the second half of the century. This dynamic …