Coup De Grâce, Violet Rea Mass

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project, composed of an introduction and a fiction piece, explores the complex power dynamics at play on the university stage put into perspective of the Human Rights study. The fiction follows young Olive as arrives for her first term at a university in a secluded valley where she must come to terms with a darkness greater than she had ever imagined.

Cutting The Puppet Strings: Confronting The Singularity, Gabriel Joesph Weiss

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Modern technology has excelled at an unprecedented rate. The rise of artificial intelligence raises many ethical questions and concerns for humanity, as it has incited many pressing debates between philosophers, computer scientists, and social critics who share concerns for the future of humanity but conflict with one another regarding whether or not we should rely on technology to govern human affairs and control society's infrastructures. Drawing from Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, Hubert Dreyfus, and others, this project weighs out the probabilities and problems of the technological singularity posited by Ray Kurzweil, confronting our habits of addressing technology and the way …

Increasing Numbers Of Chinese Students At U.S. Higher Education: Theories, Discussions, And Survey Findings In Context Of Chinese Education And Social Stratification, Youren Yu

Senior Projects Spring 2022

The U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement reports that Chinese international students have been increasing continuously for over a decade, and they are also the biggest group of international students in the U.S. Reviewing key theories and literature on social stratification such as the rational choice model, maximally maintained inequality, and effectively maintained inequality, and conducting in-depths surveys with 15 Chinese students studying in U.S. higher education institutions, I discuss micro and macro level reasons why some Chinese students choose U.S higher education. I argue at the micro level, the decision can be explained by individual disagreement with the Chinese education …

The Effects Of British Colonialism In India On Indo-Caribbean Communities, Katherina K. Wahi

Senior Projects Spring 2022

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

The Elusive Rainbow Nation: Assessing Post-Apartheid Reconstruction Strategies In Johannesburg, South Africa, Ashley May Eugley

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This paper examines how South Africa’s political and economic orientation following the nation’s democratization in 1994 enabled a continuation of Apartheid-era patterns in the City of Johannesburg. In particular, it contends that governmental decentralization, neoliberalism, and global city aspirations—enshrined in both local and national policy documents—turned attention away from addressing internal deprivations. Rather than redistributing social and economic power, uplifting the Black-majority, and allowing urban stakeholders to play a central role in policy formation and decision-making, Johannesburg’s City Government catered to elite outside interests, effectively introducing new forms of segmentation and disenfranchisement. Although the African National Congress committed to transform …

Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: How The Growing Treatment Is Altering The Landscape Of Modern Medicine Along Racial And Class Lines, Joshua Marteen Lopez

Senior Projects Fall 2022

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

Pleasure, Politics, And Patriarchy: Women’S Intimacy In An Authoritarian Egypt, Sadia A. Saba

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This research project explores the question: To what extent is Egypt’s patriarchal household structure, especially in regards to its treatment of female sexual autonomy, a pillar of authoritarianism and therefore an obstacle to democracy? This paper takes a deep look into the intimate sexual lives of Egyptians and explores its implications for regime type in the country. Widespread practices such as virginity testing, hymen reconstruction, female genital mutilation, etc. along with phenomena such as sexual dysfunctions, community morality policing and other normalized behaviors demonstrate the different ways in which women’s sexual autonomies are widely hindered. This is the result of …

From The Black Panther Party To Black Lives Matter: Lessons From The Arab Spring And The Prospects For Social And Political Change In The Post-Ideological World, Raphael Lewis

Senior Projects Spring 2021

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

The Intersectionality Of Anti-Fat Prejudice, Lily Moerschel

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Abstract

Anti-fat prejudice has received little to no attention in social justice discourse. Fat Americans are discriminated against in healthcare, education and in the workplace. This discrimination includes, but is not limited to, lowered salary, unexplained termination from a job, unsolicited medical advice, body scrutiny, bullying, social exclusion, and being denied in vitro fertilization. Situating anti-fat prejudice in an intersectional framework will facilitate the dismantling of weight-normative doctrines. In the present study, participants completed a race IAT and a weight IAT, as well as a demographic questionnaire and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM). Implicit racial bias was positively correlated …

The Race For Time: Experiences In The Temporality Of Blackness, Eboni Cymone Grooms

Senior Projects Spring 2020

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

From Colonial Agriculture To Community Resilience: A History Of The United States Gulf Coast, 1718-2005, Olivia Champion Johnson

Senior Projects Fall 2020

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

Delivering Identities: A Symbolic Interactionist Study Of Doulas And The Decline Of Medical Professional Dominance, Madeline Lucie Firkser

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Doulas are non-medically affiliated people who provide emotional, physical, and informational support to people before, during, and after childbirth. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of the doula beyond its typically-assumed value as a superficial or consumerist entity and in relation to the broader maternal health care system available within the United States. Through six in-depth interviews with doulas about their conceptions of their personal identities, as well as their relationships with their medical counterparts and their clients, this project contributes to extant literature on symbolic interactionist linkages between identities and occupations. I examine how doula …

Beyond Repair: An Investigation Of The Experiences, Interpretations, And Self-Construction Of Black Women Welfare Recipients In The Deep South, Eniyah C. Willingham, Eniyah Willingham

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Based on six in-depth interviews with Black women in the Metro-Atlanta area who have at some point in the past ten years received welfare assistance, this project serves to understand how Black women relate to the welfare system in the current moment. To best understand their circumstances, I set forth a three-part question: how do Black women welfare recipients experience the welfare system in the current moment?; how do they interpret these experiences?; and lastly, how do these experiences and interpretations lend to how they conceptualize, construct, and/or manage their identities as Black women welfare recipients? I argue that my …

Enforced Sitting And Authoritarianism In Schools: The Myth Of The Body-Mind Divide, Greta Belina Keller Grisez

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Artist Statement

Greta Grisez

When I say that I am doing a Dance and Human Rights joint senior project people often look at me like I have 3 heads instead of one perfectly sane one that just so happens to want to explore the way we live in this world through both overlapping lenses. In this brain of mine that works just fine, the two subjects are intricately linked.

Due to my interest in this connection, I have become frustrated with human rights work that is often written with a sole focus on the global/big view, distant, technical, theoretical rather …

Punishing Assemblages: A Queer, Decolonizing Theory Of The American Prison, Liam Hopkins

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

The Chopped Cheese: Traversing Upscale Foodways And The Struggle For Community Control, Matthew Fields Sprague

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

The South Bronx: Exploring The Critical Role Of Neighborhood Attachment In Education, Financial Security, And Aspirations, Sabrina Sultana

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Based on qualitative interviews in the South Bronx, a residentially segregated area in New York City notorious for its historically concentrated poverty and physical urban decay, this study explores lived experiences that reveal the impacts of living in an urban poor neighborhood on quality of life. Neighborhood attachment is one lens to evaluate residents’ subjective perceptions of quality of life in relation to objective qualities of neighborhoods. Contrary to previous research linking strong neighborhood attachment to wealthier residential environments, a majority of South Bronx residents who participated in this study share a fairly strong sense of neighborhood attachment. This study …

The Transformation Of Self In Everyday Life: How Undocumented Latino Youth Perform Citizenship, Caley Emmaline Cross

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The purpose of this extended case study is to determine what institutional, social and cultural factors contribute to undocumented Latino youth identity formation. Based on one month of qualitative interviews and participant observation at Peachtree University, a modern day freedom school for undocumented youth in Georgia, I examine how undocumented Latino youth identity evolves within state and societal pressures, and the formation of a commitment to activism through these youths’ experiences. Taken as a whole, this study traces the transformation undocumented Latino youth make from a position of social and political exclusion to actively claiming rights, recognition, and inclusion in …

The Effect Of Controllability Beliefs On Attitudes About Weight And Socioeconomic Status, Marna Nicole Dunne

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Many studies have shown that weight and socioeconomic status are related, such that people of low socioeconomic status are much more likely to be obese than people of high socioeconomic status (Drewnowski, 2009; Ljungvall & Zimmerman, 2012; Pudrovska, Reither, Logan, & Sherman-Wilkins, 2014; J Sobal & Stunkard, 1989; Jeffery Sobal, 1991). Additionally, people are biased against both the poor (John-Henderson, Jacobs, Mendoza-Denton, & Francis, 2013; Williams, 2009) and the obese (Puhl, Andreyeva, & Brownell, 2008). Through two empirical studies, I investigated the relationship between people’s attitudes about weight and people’s attitudes about socioeconomic status. In study 1, which was conducted …

Three Essays On Inequality Of Opportunity And Intergenerational Mobility, Thinh Truong Pham

Senior Projects Fall 2015

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