History Commons^™

“Stepsons And Stepdaughters”: Chosen Communities, Religion, Faith, And Lgbt Liberation, John Michael Erickson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the new roles the LGBT movement took on in place of religious and faith-based communities. The new discourse behind the LGBT rights movement’s recent popularity and credibility in popular culture in the U.S. created a generation of activists who grew up both within and outside of religious communities that affirmed an individual’s sexuality as an important part of their identity rather than a sinful one. While newer generations of both closeted and open LGBT individuals and religiously affiliated men and women grew up knowing about the fight for and against gay marriage, equal rights, and fair and …

Evolving Conceptions Of Sovereignty As Applied To Membership In International Organizations, Luke C. Radice

CMC Senior Theses

In the current international climate, both nations and individuals increasingly question both the validity and necessity of international organizations. This paper seeks to answer some of those questions, and to determine why countries choose to surrender significant portions of the national power that they are afforded under traditional perceptions of “Westphalian sovereignty”. This question is answered through an analysis of historical political thought on the concept of Sovereignty, then is applied to two case studies: the United Nations and the European Union, in which the benefits and downsides of surrendering sovereignty are discussed. Ultimately, this thesis concludes that the concept …

Towards A Critical Understanding Of Deepfakes: Developing A Teaching Module And More, Wentao Guo

Pomona Senior Theses

Recently, computer-generated and computer-altered videos known as deepfakes have raised widespread concerns about the harms they may cause to democratic elections, national security, people’s reputation, and people’s autonomy over their words and actions as represented in videos and other media. How can we build towards a critical understanding of not only deepfakes, but also photos, videos, and the role of many other media objects surrounding us that inform us about the world? In this thesis, wanting to take a historical approach and noting the newness of deepfakes, I first investigate a historical case study regarding a manipulated photo from a …

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …

La Modernité Tunisienne Dévoilée : Une Étude Autour De La Femme Célibataire, Madison Wagner

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explains recent accounts of discrimination and cutbacks in reproductive health spaces in Tunisia. Complicating dominant analyses, which attribute these events to the post-revolution political atmosphere which has allowed the proliferation of islamic extremism, I interpret these instances as a manifestation of a deeply rooted stigma against sexually active single women. I trace this stigma’s inception to the contradictory way that Habib Bourguiba conceptualized modernity after independence, and the responsibility he assigned to Tunisian women to embody that modernity. This responsibility remains salient today, and is putting Tunisian women in an increasingly untenable and vulnerable position.

After independence, Bourguiba …

Uncovering Alice Bag: An Alternative Punk History, Emily Macune

Scripps Senior Theses

The intention of this thesis is to provide an alternative counter-narrative to the mainstream histories of punk that center white men. By focusing on the contributions of fem queer and POC punks, I aim to legitimize punk music as a form of resistance against systems of oppression that are oppositional to the commodified forms of mainstream punk. Using Alice Bag, as my central case study as a fem queer punk that is often left out of punk historical narratives, I contextualize her work through feminist, queer, and media studies lenses to bridge the gap between academia and forgotten personal experience.

Camino A La Interseccionalidad: Una Aproximación Al Desarrollo De Ideas Feministas En La España Contemporánea, Kierra Mitchell

Scripps Senior Theses

Esta tesis utiliza la interseccionalidad como lente para hacer un análisis de los textos culturales y activistas para explicar cómo se manifiestan las ideas feministas en estos dos períodos cruciales de avance del feminismo en España: el primer cuarto del siglo veinte y las primeras décadas del siglo veintiuno. La interseccionalidad sirve como una prisma de análisis que permite entender los sistemas hegemónicos de poder. Esta tesis analiza ejemplos de textos y demandas que ilustran las preocupaciones y aparatos ideológicos que sustentan diferentes aproximaciones al feminismo en estas dos épocas. Un interés específico, en especial en la segunda parte, es …

Trading Spaces: An Analysis Of Gendered Spaces Before, During, And After The French Revolution Of 1789 And The Mexican Revolution Of 1910, Kevin Kilroy

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the affects of the French Revolution of 1789 and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 on gender roles in their respective societies. Women that contributed to political discourse challenged separations of public and private spheres, which dictated order in the late and postrevolutionary periods of France and Mexico. Given the deliberate acts by both postrevolutionary governments to send women to the periphery of their respective societies, it is vital to revisit the examples of female influence that shaped the early French and Mexican Revolutions. The understanding that comes from a detailed analysis of the parameters of gendered spaces …

The Icon Formation Of Ruby Bridges Within Hegemonic Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine Cashion

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1960, when Ruby Bridges was six-years-old, she desegregated the formerly all white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. This thesis traces her formation as a Civil Rights icon and how her icon narratives are influenced by, perpetuate, or challenge hegemonic memory of the Civil Rights Movement. The hegemonic narrative situates the Civil Rights Movement as a triumphant moment of the past, and is based upon the belief that it abolished institutionalized racism, leaving us in a world where lingering prejudice is the result of the failings of individuals. Analysis of narratives about Ruby Bridges by Norman Rockwell, …

In Sickness And In Health: Conceptions Of Disease And Ability In Presidential Bodies, Megan Gratke

Scripps Senior Theses

How has the connection between health and eligibility of the President of the United States been formed over time? This thesis uses Presidents Taft, Wilson, and Roosevelt to examine the history of disease and ability in presidential body politics, exploring the representation of the body in the highest position of America.

The Chronicle Of William Pelhisson: A Microcosm Of Early Thirteenth Century Papal Inquisition, Emily Petillon

Scripps Senior Theses

This study will use Pelhisson’s account of the Toulouse inquisition of 1230-1238 as a case study into the causes of the inquisition, the mindset of the Dominicans who carried it out, and the institutionalization of the inquisition process.

Space, Power, Policy, And The Creation Of The “Illegal” Migrant At The United States Boundary With Mexico, Catalina J. Biesman-Simons

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis discusses the relationship between space (physical and figurative) and sovereign power, with respect to the history of the United States' immigration and boundary policy. It examines spatial organization as a social product, and simultaneously a producer of mainstream associations of illegal activity at the border with Mexico. It begins with a brief introduction to a spatially informed analytical framework, a history of relevant United States' immigration policy. The paper then uses newspaper coverage from the 1970s and 1980s to examine the local and national rise of xenophobia in the United States, and the normalization of boundary control and …

Historicizing Sexual Violence Against Native American Women: Colonization, Intracommunal Shifts, And Creative Forms Of Discourse, Martha Bono

Scripps Senior Theses

The sexual assault and gendered violence Native American women face has started to garner attention from politicians, newspapers, and Hollywood producers. Most of today's discourse, however, ignores history. My historical analysis reveals how sexual violence against Indigenous women has been institutionalized since the very first days of colonization, and how these institutions ensured gendered violence would endure over time. First, I analyze how gender roles within Indigenous communities, specifically the Cherokee, led to Native women's subjugation and enabled intracommunal violence. Next, I examine particular federal Indian policies that have created a complex system of jurisdictional conflict that prevents tribal governments …

A Global Hybridity: Snakehead Influence On Identity And Migration, Teeana Cotangco

CMC Senior Theses

Through introduction of Fujian Province as home to the largest migrant population in the world, this article aims to address the negotiation of intersections between local and global forces that form new spaces throughout the diaspora. The "third space," a term coined by Homi Bhabha, addresses the fluid identity of Chinese-Filipino individuals that both acknowledges the traditional notions of "Chinese" while being influenced by a history of colonization in the Spanish Philippines. I incorporate my own personal experience as an American-born Chinese-Filipino navigating new spaces, and also the experience of my family members through interviews.

"The More They’Re Beaten The Better They Be": Gendered Violence And Abuse In Victorian Laws And Literature, Danielle T. Dominguez

CMC Senior Theses

During the Victorian age, the law and society were in conversation with each other, and the law reflected Victorian gender norms. Nineteenth-century gender attitudes intersected with the law, medical discourse, and social customs in a multitude of ways. Abuse and gender violence occurred beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability. The models of nineteenth-century social conduct were highly gendered and placed men and women in separate social spheres. As this research indicates, the lived practices of Victorians, across social and economic strata, deviated from these accepted models of behavior. This thesis explores the ways that accepted and unaccepted standards of female …

“Of Every Sort”: Conceptions Of Property Rights At The Time Of The American Founding, Zachary Wong

CMC Senior Theses

The most contentious issues of our day often have to do with political and social rights as opposed to economic rights. Through the lens of property rights I investigate whether this dichotomy existed at the time of the American founding. First, I examine the state constitutions and identify three clauses, common to the documents, which protect property rights. I examine their historical basis and reveal their connection to English common law and Locke, primarily. Then, I discuss the personal views of Madison and Jefferson to gain insight into the personal thoughts of two of the most influential Founders. Finally, I …

The Homecoming Of The Negro Spirit: Black Spiritual Intelligence As A Structural Form Of Intelligence, Quincy Brown

CMC Senior Theses

In Is Spirituality an Intelligence? Motivation, Cognition, and the concern of Psychology of Ultimate Concern, Robert Emmons develops a case for spirituality as a form of intelligence. His thesis claims that spiritual intelligence is a “set of capacities and abilities that enable people to solve problems and attain goals in their everyday lives”: “the capacity for transcendence; the ability to enter into heightened spiritual states of consciousness; the ability to invest everyday activities, events, and relationships with a sense of the sacred; the ability to utilize spiritual resources to solve problems in living; and the capacity to engage …

Arirang People: A Study Of Koreans In Transnational Diasporas Of The Russian Far East And Manchuria, 1895-1920, Hye Ok Park

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Much attention, scholarly and popular, has been given to the Japanese deployment of Koreans in their war efforts during the Pacific War from the 1930s to 1945. Much less attention, however, has been given to the subject of the pre-Colonial period prior to 1910. The main objectives of this dissertation are to: 1) present the evidences which reveal the presence of Korean nationals in the Japanese military during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, years before the formal annexation of Korea by Japan and decades earlier than the historiography has established, 2) analyze the new evidences of the presence of Koreans not …

Postwar Culture Beneath The Pines: The Idyllwild School Of Music And The Arts, 1946-1962, Clark Adrian Noone

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA) was founded in 1946 by faculty of the University of Southern California. Located in Southern California's San Jacinto Mountain region, the school's leaders sought to create a therapeutic refuge for arts education which blended outdoor recreation, art and music workshops, and multicultural education. This thesis offers a critical analysis of ISOMATA's early growth and development by focusing on how the school's leaders tailored a liberal vision of arts education to the cultural and political mainstream of postwar Southern California.