Digital Commons Network^™

Confucius, Yamaha, Or Mozart? Cultural Capital And Upward Mobility Among Children Of Chinese Immigrants, Wei-Ting Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the determinants of upward mobility among children of Chinese immigrants. While most studies emphasize ethnic cultural capital as a primary determinant of Chinese upward mobility, this study proposes three new concepts to illuminate understudied processes promoting mobility. Specifically, this study argues that Chinese immigrants' interactions with classical music schools in the Chinese community help generate globalized cultural capital (resources from immigrants' participation in transnational networks), navigational capital (the ability to connect social networks together to facilitate community navigation through higher-status educational institutions) and aspirational capital (the ability of parents to acknowledge the barriers to upward mobility). These …

Systematics And Evolution Of Leandra S.Str. (Melastomataceae, Miconieae), Marcelo Reginato

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Phylogenetic studies in the Melastomataceae have demonstrated the need of taxonomic rearrangements in the current classification. Melastomes are among the most diverse groups of plants and several cases of known artificial taxa are observed and awaiting further resolution. One example is the Leandra s.str. clade, which includes the majority of the taxa traditionally treated in the genus Leandra. Some attempts have been made to infer the relationships of Leandra s.str., but the sampling in these earlier studies was sparse and the resolution low inside the clade. The main objective here is to propose a comprehensive phylogenetic framework for this group …

Tv Audience Fragmentation: Measurement, Causes, And Economic Consequences, Jaroslaw Marek Schellner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern video distribution has increased the quantity and variety of programming available to viewers. Multichannel broadcasters using high-bandwidth distribution mechanisms such as satellite and cable television are able to deliver hundreds of channels to each home. Video on demand (VOD) allows users to select and watch video content at will. Digital video recorders (DVRs) have made it possible to watch any program at any time using an electronic program guide and recording shows onto a hard disk. Yet attention remains limited, as audience members are able to watch only a limited number of programs offered by different networks. As a …

Conflict And Playmaking: The Impact Of A Recess Enhancement Program On Elementary School Playgrounds In New York City, Elizabeth Lake

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As time demands for schooling increase and children's freedom to play is under threat, the question of how play during school recess can best be designed to serve children has grown in importance. This research examines whether a peer-training program can influence children's activity choices and social behaviors and reduce conflict on elementary school playgrounds during recess and what aspects of such a peer-training program are important to this goal. Three general recess issues are considered: conflict, activity level and choice, and gender inclusion. The data was collected as part of a Recess Enhancement Program in a select group of …

"My People Is A People On Its Knees": Mexican Labor Migration From The Montana Region And The Formation Of A Working Class In New York City, Rodolfo Hernandez-Corchado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the contemporary proletarianization via migration of the indigenous and mestizo people from the Montaña region, in the Mexican southern state of Guerrero, to New York City. The dissertation demonstrates how the region was transformed since the 1980s into a migrant labor supplier and how its inhabitants became proletarians, and a major pool of labor supplying the North American transnational migrant labor market.

Far from being homogenous, the people of the Montaña region are ethnically and class diverse. Based on the oral narratives of an indigenous Mixteco, and a mestizo teenager dweller of the city of Tlapa, the …

Ecological Niches, Species Distributions, And Biogeographic Processes In Rodents On Neotropical Sky Islands, Mariano Soley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focused on the methodological and theoretical improvement of correlative ecological niche models (ENMs) to better understand the processes governing species distributions and associated evolutionary divergence in rodents inhabiting mesic conditions in the Neotropics. Focusing on a widespread rodent from northern South America (Heteromys anomalus), in the first chapter I proposed and tested a methodological approach to surmount the challenge of incorporating environmental information from the margins of species geographic ranges into ENMs. In so doing, I argue how populations that exist on the borders of species' local ranges (spatial margins) can lead to exaggerated estimates of their niches …

Policy Partners In The Neoliberal Age: Corresponding School And Prison Reforms Since 1970, Jeremy Paul Benson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a comparative policy study of changes in education and incarceration of the past 40 years. Following national and global trends, New York City saw public school and carceral policies converge as the city experienced massive deindustrialization and governmental cutbacks while its political economy shifted to one driven by finance, investment, real estate, and the growth of a low-wage service sector. These changes dramatically increased economic inequality across racial lines, and spurred the intimate linkage of public education and state incarceration as institutional tools for the mass management of low-income communities of color. Following from a growing policy …

Ridiculous Geographies: Mapping The Theatre Of The Ridiculous As Radical Aesthetic, Kelly Aliano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a comprehensive study of the artists associated with the Theatre of the Ridiculous. The discussion begins with Charles Ludlam, the most famous practitioner of the form and then extends to artists with whom he collaborated, including Jack Smith, the Play-House of the Ridiculous, Ethyl Eichelberger, and Charles Busch. The argument traces the overlapping aesthetic qualities of all of these theatre practitioners; they all shared a reverence for popular culture of the twentieth century; they all blended references from high and low culture in their dramaturgy; and they all created performances that took a unique approach to cross-dressed …

Ulu Al Amr & Authority: The Central Pillars Of Sunni Political Thought, Hisseine Faradj

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation evaluates the political history of Islam through the prism of the Sunni conception of authority. It finds an historical red thread that explains the legal and political evolution of different types of Islamic government that have, instead of a European-type sovereign, the Ulu Al Amr (those in authority). In addition, it argues that it is the authority of Ulu Al Amr that legitimizes temporal power via legal rulings such as Wilayah al ahed (allegiance to a dynastic monarchy) and Wlayah al qaher (obedience to coercive power and rule). Those rulings are essential to legitimating historical change. Historical legal …

Different Placements Of Spirit: African American Musicians Historicizing In Sound, Casey Hale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines two recent projects by African American musicians that enact critical and historiographic agency by reconstructing the music of the past: William Parker's project The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield, dedicated to re-imagining the works of the soul music icon with an ensemble featuring the poetic recitation of Amiri Baraka; and Marcus Roberts's reinvention of the Jazz Age rhapsodies of George Gershwin and James P. Johnson, Rhapsody in Blue and Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody. Rooted in African American interpretive traditions, and working both within and against such discursive categories as "jazz," "black music," and "American music," these artists …

"With The Class-Conscious Workers Under One Roof": Union Halls And Labor Temples In American Working-Class Formation, 1880-1970, Stephen Mcfarland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a historical geography of interior spaces created by labor unions and other working class organizations in the United States between 1880 and 1970. I argue that these spaces-- labor lyceums, labor temples, and union halls-- both reflected and shaped the character of the working class organizations that created them. Drawing on Neil Smith's theories of geographic scale, I spatialize Ira Katznelson's framework for understanding working class formation. I demonstrate that at their best, these labor spaces furthered working class formation at multiple scales, enabling collective action across lines of racial, ethnic, and gender difference, and bridging the …

Planetary Improvement: Discourses And Practices Of Green Capitalism In The Cleantech Space, Jesse Adam Goldstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is money to be made in saving the planet. A whole host of actors, such as investors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and policy makers have mobilized around our ecological problems, seeking to innovate new `green' and `clean' technologies that can serve a rapidly changing environment. The presumption that such technologies are both necessary and necessarily profitable anchors visions of a `green' capitalism that can and must be brought into existence.

However, just as free markets have never been all that free, why should we presume that green capitalism would be all that green? Instead of attempting to arbit whether or not …

Science Identity Transformations Through Place-Based Teaching And Learning In The Natural World, Amy Defelice

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation includes three main components related through a sociocultural lens of identity transformation. The first component describes the Field Studies program for ninth grade students at Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment (BASE High School), and explores how outdoor settings and place-based pedagogies can be used to enhance urban students' science identities. Student researchers took digital photographs of their Field Studies experiences and met in cogenerative dialogues with me, their teacher, where we shared our reflections. The second component explains students' experiences and reactions to a week-long place-based geoscience program held over spring break at Prospect Park. This …

Essays On Robust Estimators For Non-Identically Distributed Observations In Spatial Econometric And Time Series Models, Suleyman Taspinar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis proposal consists of three essays on the estimation methods and applications of spatial econometric models and one essay on the generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (GARCH)-type models in financial time series. The first essay discusses the heteroskedasticity robust generalized method of moments estimator (RGMME) for the spatial models that allow for spatial dependence in both the dependent variable and the disturbance term (SARAR(1,1)). First, we show that the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is generally inconsistent in the presence of unknown heteroskedasticity. Then, we extend robust GMM approach in Lin and Lee (2010) to SARAR(1,1). The large sample properties are …

The New Star Of 1572 And The Ascendancy Of The Mathematical Over The Causal Epistemology Of Natural Philosophy, Douglas William Godley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The arrival of the new star of 1572, the first nova recorded in the western canon of natural philosophy startled and challenged the scientific community of the age. As they worked to observe and to understand the nature of this new star, astronomers across Europe quickly discovered that the traditional intellectual tools that they had come to respect and rely upon when observing the heavens were by and large useless in helping them to gather data, and thus to come to conclusions about the star's location, its physical nature and its meaning. In the records that contemporaries have left, modern …

Women In Foreclosure: Social Reproduction & Mortgage Strain In The Subprime Era, Amy Baker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Advisor: Professor Mimi Abramovitz

This research captures the experiences of 31 single female homeowners with risky lending markets and mortgage foreclosure in the city of Philadelphia. In-depth, semi-structured interviewing was employed to build knowledge about single women's experiences with seeking a loan, buying a home, entering default and attempting to stall foreclosure. Thematic analysis of the data demonstrated that risky lending and foreclosure did not mark the onset of financial instability among study participants. Instead, it functioned as a tipping point for single women unable to access upward mobility and asset accrual throughout the lifespan. Women's status as the strongest …

The Role Of Water In The Rise, Prominence, And Decline Of Nabataean Petra, Dennis Cummins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper evaluates the rise of Nabataean Petra, its prominence, and eventual decline. The predominant context is effective water management as a pivotal driving factor in the growth of the Nabataean kingdom, which fostered an environment in which its famous incense trade could develop. Rising incense demand was the catalyst for growth from the first century BC through the first century AD; in AD 106 when Rome annexed the Nabataean kingdom, Petra began its gradual decline. In AD 363 an earthquake destroyed much of the city, and Petra did not return to its earlier prominence. From the outset, water played …

Saudi Aramco And The Politics Of Cultural Heritage, Anahid Hanounik Huth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Culture Heritage in recent decades has become a catch word within world discourse. It is increasingly receiving generous attention in both money and time form private and public sectors on preservation policy. The application of so-called preservation and restoration projects, the alleged care for Cultural Heritage, has become a motive and battle cry of UNESCO, World Bank, private companies, banks, NGOs, European Council, and Western governments' foreign policy. This leads us to ask what is behind this increasing attention, and whether we should see it as Christina Luke 2013 suggested in her article--is Heritage increasingly being seen as a soft …

Aging Out Of The Spectrum Of Cultural Visibility, Darthea M. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I argue that the valorization of youth and the subsequent quest for agelessness has caused such an explosion of ageism that the elderly have been relegated to a culturally invisible status. The intersection of age and gender is doubly problematic for women due to sexism and the perennial objectification of the female body. Thinking of visibility as a measure of social acceptability, the consequences of cultural disappearance for the aging woman is an important site for investigation and theorizing. This thesis depicts the erasure of aging women from the cultural landscape as an effect of media representation and self-care work …

Gay And Lesbian Travel Writing: A Present In Need Of A Different Future, Michael Verdirame

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The first half of this thesis will detail the history of travel, as well as the primary reasons why people travel and why it is such a lucrative industry. This will be followed by an account of the history of travel writing, with a specific emphasis on the various types of avenues available to travel writers and the reasons why people feel compelled to write about their travels. The first half will then conclude with a content analysis of three current gay and lesbian travel publications available on different media platforms--Passport Magazine as an online magazine, Man About World as …

Ethnic Language Maintenance: A Case Study Of Second-Generation Iranian Americans In The Northeastern States, Maryam Moeini Meybodi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a relatively new, highly educated and professional group, Iranian Americans show distinctive language usage patterns. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and 48 interviews with East Coast Iranian Americans, this thesis explores the attitudes and behavior of children of Iranian immigrants and their parents toward learning and preserving their native language: Persian. Although the literature points to the erosion of parental language among the second generation and its extinction by the third generation, the results of this study suggest otherwise, at least for young children. Findings show that parents and children had positive attitude and behavior toward …

Paris And Havana: A Century Of Mutual Influence, Laila Pedro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to trace the history of exchange and influence between Cuban, French, and Francophone Caribbean artists in the twentieth century. I argue, first, that there is a unique and largely unexplored tradition of dialogue, collaboration, and mutual admiration between Cuban, French and Francophone artists; second, that a recurring and essential theme in these artworks is the representation of the human body; and third, that this relationship ought not to be understood within the confines of a single genre, but must be read as a series of dialogues that are both ekphrastic (that is, they rely …

Provisional Fictions: Discontinuous Selves And The Making Of Meaning, Tara Roeder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My project is an exploration of trauma-based meaning-making practices and reader response across a variety of sites. By teasing out some of the complex connections among trauma, narrative, and audience that may occur in spaces ranging from non-linear memoir to courtroom testimony to the writing classroom, I engage with the inherently dialogic nature of making meaning from trauma, and examine some of the ways in which women who engage in recursive, embodied rhetorical practices can productively disrupt conventional expectations of the function of trauma narratives. Chapter One examines the formal, linguistic, and philosophical choices made by women memoirists who challenge …

How Silently Sheela-Na-Gig Speaks: Memory, Mythos, And The Female Body, Amber C. Snider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How and why do we destroy female agency, still today? Focusing on some of the mythical foundations and formations found in ancient Celtic and Greek imaginings, the "bodily" aspects in particular, this thesis traces the ways in which some of the modern women intellectuals receive or reject the typical feminist or female elements found in mythologies; the elided nature of the female trinity and the life giver-destroyer circularity inherent in goddesses and archetypes, for instance, appears to mirror our cultural impulse to destroy the female body. It is then not enough to create a new mythology by and for women--we …

Brothers In Motion: Religious Practice, Political Action, And The Mobilization Of The Early Muslim Brotherhood, Ian Henry Vandermeulen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In light of Randy Martin's proposal to use dance as an analytic tool for understanding social movements, this article seeks to reconstruct the early mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood as "bodies in motion." Through a re-examination of both primary and secondary source material, this study highlights the ways in which founder Hasan al-Banna appropriated both Islamic and colonial choreographic logics into the Muslim Brotherhood's pious training regimen, scouting programs, political expression, and social welfare projects. I argue that the Muslim Brotherhood was mobilized through al-Banna's revival of traditional Islamic practices concerning the body, reconfigured for the goal not of otherworldly …

Sharps, Squares, And Scalpers: Gambling In The Urban Underground, Annemarie Cesario

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study was conducted to examine the role of bookmakers in urban communities. Although bookmaking dates to 1780 in London, there has been little academic research on the bookmaker, or "bookie," and his role in neighborhood life. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research across three U.S. cities, I sought to answer two questions: 1. What is the relationship between the bookie and the neighborhood he serves, and how is his deviant identity managed in the larger community; and 2. How is trust established and maintained among actors in illegal gambling transactions? Once established, does this strengthen social networks and …

New York Fashion Industry Goes To The Fair, Luisina Silva

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the beginning of the twentieth century New York City was the garment manufacturing capital of the United States of America, but it was not considered a fashion reference for the world. This study examines the role of the New York World's Fair of 1939/1940 as the first event where the New York fashion industry presented itself as a consolidated enterprise. To capture this important moment in fashion history, I examine the overlooked New York World's Fair archives from the New York Public Library and engage them with secondary research on American fashion history. With the use of digital tools …

In Harm's Way: How Philadelphia's Urban Renewal Practices Steered Marginal People To Marginal Land, Katera Ya'shea Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dumping of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) on marginal communities has been well documented, however environmental justice scholars have rarely written about how marginal groups have come to occupy their landscapes, particularly when natural hazards lie beneath.

This dissertation research focuses on a broad definition of the environment that includes the built, social, and physical. I am interested in extending Logan and Molotch's Growth Machine theory to consider how the political and economic elite guided the urban renewal process to place particular communities on particular landscapes, despite the presence of a flooding hazard. To understand this issue, I examined …

Origins Of The Movement And The Development Of Protest: The Birmingham Campaign, 1963, James Munro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social movement theory in the late twentieth century has offered competing explanations for the origins and development of protest. In an attempt to explain the American Civil Rights Movement, scholars from the resource mobilization (RM) and political process theory (PPT) schools have provided somewhat mechanistic and formulaic explanations for how the black protest developed in the southern states. This study takes the emergence and development of protest in Birmingham, Alabama, culminating in the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, as a case study to examine the claims of RM and PPT. An evaluation of the Birmingham Campaign suggests the emergence of protest …

For Love And For Justice: Narratives Of Lesbian Activism, Kelly Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the role of lesbians in the U.S. second wave feminist movement, arguing that the history of women's liberation is more diverse, more intersectional, and more radical than previously documented. The body of this work is five oral histories conducted with lifelong activists and public intellectuals for the Voices of Feminism project at the Sophia Smith Collection: Katherine Acey, former Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; Dorothy Allison, author and sex radical; Suzanne Pharr, southern anti-racist organizer and author; Achebe Powell, activist and diversity trainer; and Carmen Vázquez, LGBT activist and founding director of the …