Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gerrymandering And The Impossibility Of Fair Districting Systems, Danielle Degutz

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Voting district boundaries are often manipulated, or gerrymandered, by politicians in order to give one group of voters an unfair advantage over another during elections. To make sure a system of voting districts is not gerrymandered, the population size, the shape, and the voting efficiency of each party in each district should be taken into consideration. Following recent work of Boris Alexeev and Dustin G. Mixon, we discuss mathematical criteria for each of these three aspects, and we prove how problems arise when attempting to apply all three at once to a districting system--first to a simplified districting system and …

Donald Trump And The Spectacle Of The Modern American Presidency, Medora Mcdougall Jones

Senior Projects Spring 2018

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. A former reality TV star with no prior political experience, his ascendance to most powerful position in American government shocked the country. News outlets and political analysts portrayed him as an unprecedented outlier, describing his demagogic appeals and grand gestures as anomalies detached from the typical features of presidential leadership. Yet, Donald Trump is not a glitch in the American political system, but rather a unique manifestation of the qualities inherent to the spectacular status of the modern presidency. His rise to the Oval …

Towards Improving Learning With Consumer-Grade, Closed-Loop, Electroencephalographic Neurofeedback, Zall Soren Hirschstein

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Learning is an enigmatic process composed of a multitude of cognitive systems that are functionally and neuroanatomically distinct. Nevertheless, two undeniable pillars which underpin learning are attention and memory; to learn, one must attend, and maintain a representation of, an event. Psychological and neuroscientific technologies that permit researchers to “mind-read” have revealed much about the dynamics of these distinct processes that contribute to learning. This investigation first outlines the cognitive pillars which support learning and the technologies that permit such an understanding. It then employs a novel task—the amSMART paradigm—with the goal of building a real-time, closed-loop, electroencephalographic (EEG) neurofeedback …

(Ab)Normality, Adolescence And The Politics Of Need Interpretation In Three American Sex Education Programs, Analiese R. Dorff

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Who Was The Man In Mexico? The Degree To Which The Mexican State Enjoyed Autonomy And Sovereignty With Respect To Its National And International Relationships From 1958 To 1964, Sebastian Carrasco

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Energy Transition In Saudi Arabia: Oil, Solar And Vision, Zak William Rawle

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Losing Shahrazad: A Distant Reading Of 1001 Nights, Taysa Mohler

Senior Projects Spring 2018

This project is a distant reading analysis of seven 19th and 20th-century English translations of One Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights. Through the use of computer programming and distant reading, it becomes clear that the Nights' frame tale is the carrier of the internal logic and generative power of the story cycle. Further, the frame tale expresses the Nights' self-representation, which serves to undermine the historical use of the Nights as synecdoche for the Orient. Therefore, the translators that remove the frame story from their versions further the Nights' use as an Orientalist object, …

From The Headwaters To The Bay: Stories Of The Saw Kill, Tierney Jo Belle Weymueller

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

The Politics Of Distinction And Exchange In Displacement: How Aesthetics Become Ethical, Joy Huda Al-Nemri

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Knowing Water: Science And The Politics Of Knowledge Production Along The Saw Kill, Carlo Diego Raimondo

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Beginning with globally oriented ideological constructions of water as resource, this project explores the materiality of water and how it comes to understood within our current geological era. Specifically exploring the politics of scientific knowledge production, I follow the methodological processes of the Bard Water Lab as they monitor water quality of a local stream, exploring how different apparatuses of observation are utilized in order to make a stream a legible and knowable object.

The Specter Of Caste, Kabir Raj Khanna

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

A Womb With A View, Briauna Marie Falk

Senior Projects Spring 2018

I found my mother’s pregnancy diary when I was 12. The diary presents not only the story of my origin, but also the story of how my biological father left my mother. The diary gave me insight into what unfolded while I was growing inside her, and yet, many questions still remain unanswered. I have heard that trauma experienced by the mother is felt in utero alongside her – I worry one of the first feelings I felt was true sadness. Ideally the diary could answer my unresolved questions, but instead I am left to my imagination. The diary cannot …

Place Accumulation: Kingston/Ulster, Callan F. Fish

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Since February 2018, I’ve been listening and recording around Kingston and the town of Ulster; synthesizing interviews, bird song, passing cars, protests, conflict, unique perspectives and oral histories, meetings, optimisms, water, as part of a project called, Place Accumulation: Kingston/Ulster. Using the Dynamic Listening Instrument, an interactive sound sculpture which uses a venn-diagram of electromagnetic fields to allow sounds to be handled as a tactile entity and bended dynamically, sounds are arranged and dispersed back into different locations and events in Kingston. Using a sounding bucket, people in Kingston can listen in, re-arrange, explore, and play with sounds from their …

The Motivations And Effects Of The Nba Salary Cap, Jeffrey M. Goldrosen

Senior Projects Spring 2018

The National Basketball Association’s (NBA) use of a salary cap to restrict player salaries and team payrolls is commonly seen in other professional sports leagues throughout the world, but it is unique in many ways which affect its efficiency in achieving its alleged purposes. Introduced in 1984, the salary cap was supposed to help the league restore competitive balance, as it theoretically would have prevented wealthier teams from overspending and dominating the less wealthy teams. As time has passed, it has become evident that competitive balance was not achieved following the adoption of the salary cap, and it has been …

The Oppressive Nexus Of Socioeconomic Status And Gender In Egyptian Society: A Marxist Exposition, Stephanie Attar

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

The main purpose of this paper is to argue that women from lower socioeconomic status (SES) position are, on the whole, subjected to higher rates of exploitation within the household. This is done by exploring the implications and flaws within traditional neoclassical economic models of the household, and offering a Marxian model of domestic production as an alternative. I argue that incidence of lower SES exacerbates the rate of exploitation by lowering women’s bargaining power within the household. Two forms of bargaining power are posited to be particularly important: (1) the bargaining process over the distribution of resources within the …

'Once Were Warriors', Now We're Unemployed: A Solution For New Zealand's Persistent Unemployment, Jack Eammon English

Senior Projects Fall 2018

The economic policies of New Zealand have tended to reflect the economic orthodoxies of academia at any given time. Given that adherence to economic ‘truth’ as espoused by neoclassical economics is supposed to engender allocative efficiency and general equilibrium, this paper takes just one variable - unemployment - and explores why its market has continually failed to clear. Both demand and supply side factors are explored through a survey of the literature on employment determination, and a theoretically robust solution is proposed in the tradition of Modern Money Theory.

The Shady Persecution Of Doping: Performance Enhancement Drugs And Meaning In Sport, Tyrin Antwan Stevenson

Senior Projects Fall 2018

This project deals with the debate around performance enhancement drugs, utilizing a philosophical approach to meaning in sport to shed light on the topic.

From Lucky Strike To Chunghwa: The Development Of China’S Tobacco Industry In The Twentieth Century, Yi Chen

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Shanghai Made: The Trade Off Between Global Transformation And Social Equity In A Chinese City., Nikhil Amar Inalsingh

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Understanding The Shifting U.S Retail Environment: A Theoretical Economic Cause And Affect Analysis (1996-2018), John P. Palermo

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

In this paper is a theoretical analysis that provides rationalization to identifying and understanding the main determinants that have led to a shifting retail environment. Effectively over the last 20 years the traditional retail industry has had to modify its traditional ways of businesses strategy to better accommodate the latest behavioral pattern shifts of consumer spending in retail environments and non-retail environment externalities. Some of the major factorial determinants that have and are producing retail shifts are; the developments of new technology being introduced into the retail environment, …

Climate Control: The Case Of Chilean Destabilization, Andrew Arlotto

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

The Muslim Question: France’S Reconstruction Of The Clash Of Civilizations Story, Shayna Koczur

Senior Projects Spring 2018

rench Republicanism used Muslim immigrant groups in order to re create a “clash of civilizations” novel in France as a way to preserve Republican Values. In order to argue this, I will explain how Republicanism functions, how it was challenged, and how it was mutated against Islamic Post Colonial immigrants in order to justify its worth when France was faced with a change in demographics and modernization. This paper will aim to answer why non secular Muslims in France seem non- integratable and will pull on France’s Republican past, immigration model, and history with Islam in order to answer this …

Reporting Identity: Social And Political Implications Of Adding A Mena Category To The U.S. Census, Mehgan Rose Abdel-Moneim

Senior Projects Spring 2018

The Census Bureau has been testing a new category called MENA for the 2020 census that would better describe the Middle Eastern and North African population in the United States, but in January of 2018, the agency announced that the category requires further research. In this work, I connect the development of a MENA identity category to historical events, sociological theory, current politics and public concerns related to the following questions: What are the social and political implications of including a MENA category on the U.S. census? What does the movement to add a MENA identifier to the census tell …

“A Healthy Gorilla Makes A Healthy You”: Preventing And Predict-I-Ng The Next Pandemic Disease, Mark Anthony Williams Jr.

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Perón And The Argentine Paradox: An Investigation Into An Economic Mystery, Antonio Luis Gansley-Ortiz

Senior Projects Spring 2018

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

Evaluating The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: Its Effects On Reducing Poverty, 2012–16, Rhett J. Maiorana

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

This study is based on the continuing effort to broaden and improve our understanding of the antipoverty effects of SNAP. The purpose of has been to provide estimates of the lower and upper bound effects of accounting for SNAP benefits on the poverty headcount, gap, and severity indices from 2012 to 2016, thereby (1) extending previous research by Tiehen, Jolliffe, and Smeeding (2016), providing the most recent update to their work, and (2) contributing to the growing literature on the impact of SNAP on poverty under full participation, illustrating the full range of the program’s potential to reduce poverty. At …

On The Consequences Of Having A Central Bank With An Open Market-Policy Transmission Mechanism When A Financial Crisis Hits. The Case Of The Federal Reserve And A Minskian Call For A Return To The Discount Window As The Primary Tool Of Monetary Policy, Domenico Viola

Theses - Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy

This thesis analyzes the case of the Federal Reserve and highlights the negative consequences of having a Central Bank that normally prefers the open market rather than the discount window as the primary tool for the provisions of legal reserves to member financial institutions when usual private short-term credit markets get frozen. The two main negative consequences identified are from both a financial-economic efficiency point of view of the Central Bank’s lender of last resort primary responsibilities, and from a juridical-legal point of view with respect to the interpretative problems concerning the emergency liquidity Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve …

Transition On The Han: The Agricultural Roots Of Development On The Korean Peninsula, Ivan Glinski

Senior Projects Spring 2018

One of the crucial preconditions for growth in the East Asian Economic Miracle were high levels of human capital, yet an explanation for their origin has not been forthcoming in the economic literature. This project investigates the origin of these high levels of human capital in South Korea through the frameworks of induced development and labor-intensive growth. By examining both long-term processes and the effect of policies during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) in the Korean countryside, it's argued that labor-intensive modes of production, particularly in the case of rice cultivation, induced changes in economic preferences and behaviors. These shifts …

Contested Identity And Making Sense Of Atrocity: Understanding The Rohingya Crisis In Myanmar, Christopher Andrew Long

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Myanmar’s recent transition towards democracy has caused western leaders to become increasingly optimistic about the future of human rights within the country. However, since emerging on the international stage in 2012, the Rohingya crisis has drastically upset such expectations, leaving the international community in complete shock over the issue. Attempting to shed light on this human rights tragedy, international media coverage has produced an overly simplified depiction of the Rohingya crisis. In addition, very little academic literature exists seeking to explain the root causes of the issue. By utilizing interviews conducted at the University of Mandalay this paper attempts to …

Girls' Education: A Behavioral Analysis, Syeda Zahra Ahmed

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Universal education has been an international development goal for a very long time, and gaps still exist in gender parity in developing countries. This project aims to address the fact that while the provision of affordable and accessible education in- stitutions have seen great successes in the past, perhaps the way forward now is to analyze the demand side issues. Due to cultural norms, demand for girls’ education in developing countries is lacking. The first part of the paper explores the psychological constraints of present bias, role model effect and stereotype threat in the context of girls’ educational demands. The …