Digital Commons Network^™

Back To Square One: Understanding The Role Of The Egyptian Armed Forces, Ahmed A. Ahmed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Six years ago, in 2011 the Egyptian youth took to the streets across Egypt demanding freedom from the corrupt, autocratic, and authoritarian Mubarak government. Within days, tens of millions of Egyptians demanded the resignation of President Mubarak, who had ruled the country for 30 years. Millions of Egyptians were fed up with the rampant corruption of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Democratic activists warned that presidential election slated for September 2011 were not going to be competitive, rather successional so that Mubarak’s son Gamal would be president. Most analysts argue that the vast masses of protests severely damaged the …

The Expansion Of The Mandarin Mind, Tyler Okney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study will examine and contrast two periods of xenophobia and stagnation, late Qing dynasty China, and the PRC under Mao, with a genuine market place of ideas, Shanghai and the other foreign treaty ports in the period 1849 to 1949, and explain how this period of cosmopolitan ferment has had beneficial effects on China today. Countries that have shut themselves off from the outside world have frequently suffered first stagnation, and then decay. While this might appear a commonplace in the abstract, the application of this insight in the development of particular nations has been neither as thorough or …

Post-9/11 Media Coverage Of Terrorism, Zachary S. Mitnik

Student Theses

Media coverage of terrorist attacks plays an important role in shaping the public understanding of terrorism. While there have been several studies analyzing coverage of terrorist incidents prior to 9/11, there has been little research examining post-9/11 coverage. This study fills this gap by examining the media’s coverage of terrorism in the United States between the dates of September 12, 2001 and December 31, 2015. The analysis is based on a list of terrorist-related incidents and New York Times articles written on each incident. This study documents the amount of coverage received by these incidents and identifies the variables influencing …

Two Types Of Gods: Narratives And Imagined Orders Of Islamic Spain, Brian Beegan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role in contemporary Spanish cultural politics of two historical narratives from Spain’s Islamic era: St. James and Convivencia. I argue that these narratives serve different political agendas as Spain comes to terms both with its past and the challenges of Muslim immigration in the present.

My Giants, Teodora Altomare

Theses and Dissertations

My Giants is a thirty minute documentary about two journeys. During the first, in 2015, the filmmaker documented the story of Xylella fastidiosa, a bacteria responsible for the loss of many thousand-year-old olive trees in the Italian region of Puglia. During the second visit, in 2016, she witnessed the illness of her father.

By weaving together the two stories, My Giants is a snapshot of a transitional moment in the filmmaker’s life, a moment when illness became an opportunity to reconnect with her roots.

The Force Of Seduction: The Use Of Rape Narratives In The Plays Of Aphra Behn, Caitlyn Piccirillo

Theses and Dissertations

The English Restoration’s heightened interest in sexuality promoted the use of rape narratives on the stage. Aphra Behn, the first woman to earn her living as a playwright, used these narratives in her work (specifically in The Rover and The City Heiress) as a means of social critique.

Forced Migration Populations And Terrorism, Liam Egan

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the relationship between refugee populations per capita and terrorism incidents per capita in a host country. Using data from UNHCR and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), I conduct cross-national time series poisson and OLS analyses for 164 countries during the years 1992-2013 to explain their relationship.

Horizon Of Possibilities: Artists And The City In Postwar Beirut, Tatiana Mouarbes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis narrates a history of postwar cultural production framed by urban redevelopment in Beirut, Lebanon (1989-Present). Focusing on artists engagements with the city, this thesis demonstrates how artists thought through the legacies of war inflicted upon the beleaguered city of Beirut in order to construct livable futures.

"A Vigorous Propaganda": The Peace Conferences Of 1899 And 1907, The Peace Palace, And Internationalism Through Design At The Hague, 1899–1920, Daniel Pecoraro

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uncovers the history of the Peace Palace and The Hague’s role in the early days of the internationalist movement. In the process of localizing the early twentieth century history of The Hague, this thesis examines the development of international imagery and culture through design. The Peace Palace as we know it today was ultimately a result of tensions between internationalist ideas (cooperation, arbitration, modernity) and the pride of Old World nationalism. The final design by Louis Cordonnier and J. A. G. Van der Steur repudiates the feeling of modernity surrounding the idea of peace through arbitration. It is …

Military Intervention In Interstate And Civil Wars: A Unified Interpretation, Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

Military intervention into interstate and civil wars is both common and important. It lengthens wars, makes them more severe, and shapes how they are fought. Even the mere possibility of intervention can alter the course of a war as belligerent powers alter their strategies to either encourage or dissuade potential interveners. These effects of military intervention are found in both civil and interstate wars. Yet, is state intervention into interstate and civil wars essentially one phenomenon or are they distinct phenomena? By looking at which states are likely to intervene, why and when they intervene, and which wars are most …

Teaching The French Revolution From A Global Perspective, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The French Revolution (1789-1799) is a process of events in world history that had a tremendous global impact. Regardless of this fact, it is, however, still rather taught in its European context. Without this revolution, it seems, Western modernity could not be the same and many countries in Europe remember the impact of the events at the beginning of the so called “long” 19th century in their national historiographies. While the First World War, called “the seminal catastrophe”3 of the 20th century by George F. Kennan (1904-2005) in the late 1970s, marks the end of this long century, the French …

Broadway As Global Brand, David Savran

Publications and Research

For people around the world, "Broadway'' means the Broadway musical, the epitome of singing and dancing, glamor and dazzle. Although the Broadway musical is customarily perceived as the most distinctively U.S. theatre form - whose national and municipal identity is embedded in its name - it has circumnavigated the globe countless times. As the globalized cultural economy increasingly facilitates the worldwide circulation of multinational theatrical productions, Broadway-style musicals are being manufactured from Hamburg to Shanghai. They are no longer a specifically U.S. form, but a global brand that freely crosses borders, genres, and styles.

The Ticker, March 20, 2017

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All political communities set normative limits to the acceptable use of force. A threshold of atrocity indicates the point at which acceptable violence meets the boundaries of the unacceptable. In liberal democratic states such norms are ostensibly set higher. Hence, there is a theoretical threshold to the modern state’s ability to act in ways that violate norms it claims to uphold. Paradoxically, thresholds of atrocity are almost never breached and unconscionable violence occurs regularly. This study seeks to explain the persistence of extreme violence by developing a theory of atrocity grounded in moral vision. Liberal democratic nation-states are able to …

Violence Against Architecture: The Lost Cultural Heritage Of Syria And Iraq, Heidi James Fisher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines ancient architecture within Syria and Iraq that has been deliberately destroyed by violence. The act of destroying architecture and monuments in both Syria and Iraq, which is often-historical UNESCO protected, will invariably violate various laws, such as the 1954 Hague Convention or the Rome Statute. Since post-2011 Syria, all of humanity has been shocked by continuous warfare that, in addition to causing untold loss of human life and suffering, has included a series of episodes of violence against architecture, all of which is so egregious that foreign governments and non government organizations are constantly engaged in efforts …

Intelligent Bodies And Embodied Minds: Reading Religious Performance In Middle English Writing From Syon Abbey, Nicholas Love, William Langland, And John Gower, Paul Holchak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues for a new reading of the relationship that texts have to performance, bodies have to agency, and that social construction has to literary criticism as these matters relate to the study of religious practice in late medieval England. The project first asks what it meant to participate in religious practice in two, early fifteenth-century Middle English prose texts, The Myroure of Oure Ladye and The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. The former work is a gloss of the Divine Service performed by the Brigittine sisters at Syon Abbey, and the latter consists of …

Ecologies Of The Passions In Early Modern English Tragedies, Roya Biggie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ecologies of the Passions recovers a neglected model for understanding early modern relationality, one that turns the seemingly inward experience of emotion outward toward the environment. Drawing on early modern medical texts, I argue that the period’s dramatists imagine bodies as humorally vulnerable to other bodies, both human and nonhuman, within dynamically affective environments. As such, my project illustrates the intimate configurations of human and nonhuman life in early modern tragedies. Building upon recent work in the emerging fields of ecocriticism and affect theory, I argue that the period’s dramatic literature exposes the porous fluidity of the Galenic body—its embeddedness …

Customer Management In The Internet Age, Joshua Sperber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how companies in the twenty-first century are utilizing the Internet to use customers to assist in managing employees, and what the effects and significance of this online management are. While customer management has existed since the early twentieth century, it has quantitatively and qualitatively expanded via the Internet. The Internet’s ubiquity enables almost every customer to cheaply and easily monitor and report on employees to management, intensifying labor discipline. Customer management is significant for demonstrating capitalism’s success in incorporating new technologies to reduce costs in general and in recruiting customers to perform unpaid labor in particular. Examining …

Terrorism: A Tool For Shaping Public Opinion, Jonathan E. Voisich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public Opinion matters on issues of foreign policy. This makes controlling public opinion very important for governments. In this paper I will argue that elites use terrorism both as a tool for instilling fear and by creating a certain image of groups they wish to support or destroy in order to shape public opinion. I will examine both literature on framing and public opinion data on foreign policy to show why public opinion is so important and how it can be shaped. The two case studies showing terrorism being used in these ways will be the Ronald Reagan administration’s policy …

Synthesis Of Complex/Multifunctional Metal (Hydr)Oxide/Graphite Oxide/Aunps Or Agnps Adsorbents And Analysis Of Their Interactions With Chemical Warfare Agents, Dimitrios A. Giannakoudakis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One of the most widely used chemical warfare agent (CWA) is mustard gas, which is a highly toxic blistering agent. In this study we investigated the interactions of mustard gas surrogates’ vapors on zinc and zirconium hydroxides and their composites with graphite oxide (GO) and/or Au or Ag nanoparticles. Even though a small quantity of reports about the detoxification of CWAs on metal oxides is reported in the literature, almost all of these studies are performed in the liquid phase. Both herein reported Zn(OH)₂ and Zr(OH)₄ showed a good adsorption performance, with the former being photoactive under visible …

Great Power Politics In The Twenty-First Century: The Ukrainian Example, Oksana Byeha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The rebirth of the Cold War threatens a potential nuclear crisis. This thesis draws attention to this danger if the ongoing US - Russian confrontation is ignored. Its main focus however is on the behavior of the Russian Federation: and how its domestic and foreign policies have contributed to this situation. The thesis consists of an introduction, two chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction provides a short history of the Cold War and a brief preface to the first chapter. Chapter I, Russia Versus the United States, focuses on the Western-Russian differences and the policies derived from this. In …

Bcc His 20 Oer: History Of The Us, Stephen R. Duncan

Open Educational Resources

This is the syllabus for an open educational resource for a United States History Course, with a link to its primary source documents.

Lyric X-Marks: Genre And Self-Determination In The Harp Poems Of John Rollin Ridge, R. Arvo Carr

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

How The Willowbrook Consent Decree Has Influenced Contemporary Advocacy Of Individuals With Disabilities, Kristen S. Addessi

Student Theses

The existence of the Willowbrook State School was a culmination, of over a one-hundred-year history of Western society’s attempts to provide adequate care, and treatment for individuals with disabilities. The residents housed there, suffered violations of their human and civil rights in various forms of severe abuse, neglect, and violence. Following a three-year legal battle in 1975, as a result of the travesties that occurred, the legal doctrine known as the Willowbrook Consent Decree was written. The Consent Decree was implemented to ensure that the residents’ human and civil rights are met and protected. The Willowbrook State School and the …

Ionic Liquids Tethered To Activated Carbon For Capture Of Airborne Toxins, Devin Peck

Dissertations and Theses

Ionic liquids (ILs) were investigated for functionalization of activated carbon (AC) adsorbents for the filtration of warfare toxins. Preliminary steps were taken by testing absorption capacity of neat ILs and tethering ionic liquids to the surface of AC. AC is known to have good adsorption ability for warfare agents. Functionalizing the AC with ILs could enhance the capture ability significantly. ILs have been found to be good absorbents for a variety of gaseous species. The absorption selectivity and capacity can be tuned by changing the anion-cation pair. By tethering ILs to AC, the beneficial properties of gas absorption from ILs …

T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars Of Wisdom And The Erotics Of Literary History: Straddling Epic., Václav Paris

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Rationality, Parapsychology, And Artificial Intelligence In Military And Intelligence Research By The United States Government In The Cold War, Guy M. Lomeo

Theses and Dissertations

A study analyzing the roles of rationality, parapsychology, and artificial intelligence in military and intelligence research by the United States Government in the Cold War. An examination of the methodology behind the decisions to pursue research in two fields that were initially considered irrational.

Documenting Internationalism: The Instituto Cubano Del Arte E Industria Cinematográficos As A Cultural Extension Of Cuban Foreign Policy, Vella V. Voynova

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the connection between the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos and the Cuban Revolution's internationalism and argues that it made ICAIC documentarians, their methods of production, and their documentary films a valuable asset to Cuban foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Introduction: Reframing The Inequality Debate Toward Opportunity And Mobility, Norman Eng, Allan Ornstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Ticker, October 24, 2016

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.