Sociology of Culture Commons^™

Aging Intimately, Niamh Mcdonnell, Giulia Hjort

Capstones

We’re both familiar with grief after the loss of family members over 75. This project is our way of giving back in a small way by listening, but also as a way of remembering the people we unexpectedly lost. Each person we’ve met on this journey has inspired us in their own way, with their stories of resilience through grief and aging. All of our collaborators on this project are constantly learning, taking risks, and moving forward through loss and pain. They aren’t defined by their age. Rather, they embrace it with a willingness to reinvent their approach to romance …

Latinx Millennials Won’T Surrender To Tech-Industry Bias, Josefina F. Bruni

Capstones

Organizations like Techqueria, which seek to improve the odds of Latinx in the tech labor market, have been popping up since 2014 among minorities and other marginalized social groups, with names like LGTBQ in Tech, Blacks in Technology, Latinas in Tech and Lesbians Who Tech. They’re free, fluid and informal, with members constantly exchanging information and support. While they offer many opportunities for face-to-face gatherings, they are powered by social media.

Some of these collective efforts are no more than Slack workspaces. Others cross multiple platforms or even have web pages. Some have even incorporated. But all …

The Never-Ending Lap, Ennica D. Jacob, Alexis Reese

Capstones

This personal film documents the journey of a Haitian-American woman dealing with sexual trauma in a culture that doesn’t speak candidly on the topic. How can women of the African- American diaspora break the cycle of sexual trauma and what are coping mechanisms to navigate their life choices with awareness?

The Never-Ending Lap will follow Ennica’s own healing process, delving delve into the cycles of sexual trauma. The film will explore past experiences through journal entries, therapy sessions and her love for track and field as she is on the road to search for coping mechanisms and healing.

Link: https://ennicajacob.myportfolio.com/videos

Reimagining The Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, And Embodiment, Sarah Carrier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies.

Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes …

Infinity Wars: Post 9/11 Superhero Films And American Empire, Peter J. Bruno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last two decades, superhero films have accounted for some of the most popular and financially lucrative films of all time. This thesis analyzes some of the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of various superhero films following their post 9/11 boom. Beginning with America’s response to the events of 9/11 and a subsequent retreat into a Manichean world of good versus evil, I introduce the term “empirical reality” in order to account for the ways daily American life is shielded from the worst effects of U.S. foreign policy. On screen this manifests by perpetuating the myth of the “clean war” …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Restoring Solidarity: "Accountability" In Radical Leftist Subcultures, Sarah M. Hanks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In radical left activist subcultures, ‘accountability processes’ are a form of DIY transformative justice dealing with abuse and sexual assault, focusing on the needs of the ‘survivor’ and transformation of the ‘perpetrator.’ Within activism identifying abuse is particularly difficult because it means acknowledging abuse by a person considered politically virtuous. The specifics of a process are situational and provisional. The overwhelming pattern is male identified people abusing female identified, gender non-binary, and transgender people. My research examines why activists are developing processes to address problems and whether or not they are successful.

Within the subculture, the topic is important enough …

Illicit Psychoactive Medication Use: Experiences Of Medicalization And Normalization, Mark Pawson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores illicit psychoactive medication use among young adults. Overwhelmingly, the literature on this drug trend, particularly among this population, is grounded in a study of pathology. However, my research demonstrates that this obscures a significant portion of how youth practice and make meaning of their consumption of these controversial medications. The following phenomenologically based dissertation presents and unpacks the experiences, practices, and perspectives of young adults who illicitly consume psychoactive medications. Through analyzing 162 interviews of 18-29 year olds who report recent misuse of a prescription stimulant, tranquilizer, sedative, and/or opioid, I present the ways youth medicalize and …

Queerness, Witchcraft, And Embodied Presence: Aesthetic Knowings Of What A Body Can Do, Megan Bigelow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Taking as a point of entry the critique of representation and affirming the limitations of the cuts that language makes, this capstone project explores the imbrications and assemblages between Foucault’s concept of subjugated knowledges, witchcraft and other body-based ways of knowing and being, and the consciousness of non-human forms such as plants and through the framework of non-representational theory, process philosophies, aesthetics, queerness, and the concept of difference itself.

Since such theories themselves are living, breathing entities, this capstone project explores the ideological split that has occurred between sacred and secular beliefs, moving through different figures such as nuns and …

Sweeping Exposures: Lead Poisonings And Black Working Poor Populations In The United States, Shirley Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of my thesis is to explore some of the realities that the impoverished urban black poor populations face in America today. The goal of my thesis is to illustrate how poverty is reproduced within impoverished neighborhoods through the idea and mechanism of lead exposure, by recognizing how specific exposure to the element lead and its by-products is both a symbol and a material cause of black urban poor illness and disability. There is no mistake that people living in the U.S. are aware of the social injustices against black populations in the form of racial injustice. However, …

Navigating Colorism And Racial Identity In Dominican Women, Christine Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Colorism has been perpetuated in Dominican culture across generations. That along with a colonial mentality has shaped the racial identity and ideologies of their people. I explore what historical and societal factors play into identity in Dominican women. Additionally, I delve into the history of blackness on the island of Hispañola and how it has led to the perpetuation of colorism. I show how this perpetuation influences the racial self-identity of Dominican women through different forms of media and culture.

Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis documents and analyzes representation of abortion in American adult animated comedy, charging that it is under-examined and significant because representation on television in other genres has traditionally been absent or misleading. It covers theories on how pop culture communicates social norms, and posits that greater truthful representation of abortion in popular culture may be effective in reducing prevalent abortion stigma in the U.S. amongst the young by normalizing and more accurately representing the procedure. It reviews why our culture should be concerned about reducing abortion stigma in the U.S. It also identifies the “taboo ratings paradox,” wherein television …

Finding The Public: Models Of Interaction Between Curatorial And Education Departments In Three American Encyclopedic Museums, Liam Sweeney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Curatorial and education departments have coexisted for the last half century in American art museums, and have often had differing attitudes about who the museum is for and how best to convey the current and historical meaning of the works they display. This results from trends and transformations in the field, which have recently yielded an increased attention on broadening the definition of the public that the museum serves. This thesis examines interactions between curatorial and education departments in three encyclopedic art museums across the United States, in order to better understand how meaningful collaboration can be fostered between these …

A Parade Of Identities: Negotiation Of Ethnic Identities In Three New York City Cultural Parades, Julia M. Herrera-Moreno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“A Parade of Identities” is a digital project that applies social theories of international migration, psychology and cultural anthropology to ethnographic visual data in order to analyze ethnic identity and urban space appropriation found in three of New York City’s cultural parades. The project traces and analyzes the historical meaning and emerging directions in terms of ethnic identity construction, of NYC immigrant parades through the use of the author’s photography and video collections (2012-2018) of St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day and Chinese New Year parades, in association with a website and blog via digital humanities’ platform. Additionally, by activating the …

Rituals Of Remaindered Life In The Films Of Kidlat Tahimik, Alison R. Boldero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Kidlat Tahimik, who achieved international renown during the Marcos regime for his film Perfumed Nightmare (Mababangong Bangungot, 1976), is relatively unknown outside of international film circles. Considered a pioneer of Third Cinema in the Philippines, a radical film movement from Latin America that has since inspired similar movements globally, Tahimik challenged cultural hegemony in a postcolonial, post-World War II Philippines through the production of imperfect films. This paper looks to three of Tahimik's films - Perfumed Nightmare, Turumba (1983), and Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari, 1994) …

Do Readers Judge Books By Author Gender? Results From A Randomized Experiment, Adam Kapelner, Dana B. Weinberg

Publications and Research

We run a randomized experiment to examine gender discrimination in book purchasing with 2,544 subjects on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. We manipulate author gender and book genre in a factorial design to study consumer preferences for male versus female versus androgynous authorship. Despite previous findings in the literature showing gender discrimination in book publishing and in evaluations of work, respondents expressed no gender preference across a variety of measures, including quality, interest, and the amount they were willing to pay to purchase the book. This nonfinding, if it holds up to additional research, suggests that book consumers may not express the …