Digital Commons Network^™

A Feminist Inheritance? Questions Of Subjectivity And Ambivalence In Paul Mccarthy, Mike Kelley And Robert Gober, Marisa White-Hartman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feminist art of the 1970s was groundbreaking in many regards and importantly impacted specific projects by three male artists: Paul McCarthy's performance Sailor's Meat (1975), Mike Kelley's installation Half a Man (1989) and Robert Gober's 1989 installation at the Paula Cooper Gallery. Despite the general absence of feminist artists as possible influences in the critical literature on these artists, feminist sources have been hidden in plain sight in regards to these works. These artists all take up the problematic of identity formation within the domestic sphere, which was made a legitimate area of inquiry in art by numerous feminist artists …

Assessing Young Males' Perspectives On The Cultural Competency Of Juvenile Justice Staff And Predicting Psychosocial Functioning, Crystal Catherine Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The theory of symbolic interactionism explains how social interactions influence behavior. In this study, it is reasoned that culturally sensitive interactions may be associated with adjudicated youth behavior. The purpose of this project is to (1) examine the differences in adjudicated male youths' perceptions of the level of cultural competency in juvenile justice staff members and (2) to identify whether staff members' cultural competency is related to self-restraint, distress, and delinquent behavior in adjudicated male youth. Utilizing a cross-sectional design, adjudicated youths enrolled in a variety of re-entry and transitional programs were surveyed. Youths retrospectively assessed the cultural competency of …

The Status Of Languages In Post-Independent Morocco: Moroccan National Policies And Spanish Cultural Action, Khalid Chahhou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to assess the status of languages in post-independent Morocco from two different angles: the Moroccan national policies and the Spanish cultural action. In particular, it demonstrates that the national policy in post-independent Morocco was, to a great extent, a response to the pressure exercised by the nationalist movement since 1963, the great involvement of the Francophone elite, and the carelessness and emptiness left by Spain. As a result, the Moroccan authority has had to opt for a policy of double standards: On the one hand, to fulfill the identity claims raised by the nationalist movement, Arabic was …

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 …

"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 …

The Double-Edged Sword: Smallpox Vaccination And The Politics Of Public Health In Cuba, Stephanie Haydee Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tracks the introduction and development of smallpox vaccination in colonial Cuba from the early nineteenth century to the American occupation of 1898. Native (creole) medical practitioners utilized smallpox vaccination as an instrument for securing status as professionals and conceptualizing new identities in a colonial slave society. The smallpox vaccination program allowed licensed practitioners to create a medical monopoly, foster scientific standards and cultivate a medical ethic. Creole vaccinators initially identified with a colonial state that protected their professional interests as necessary for the maintenance of Cuba's slave-based, agro-industrial sugar complex. By the end of the nineteenth century however, …

Redefining Diaspora Consciousness: Musical Practices Of Moroccan Jews In Brooklyn, Samuel Reuben Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the role of musical practices in the synagogue life of Maroka'im (Moroccan Jews) in Brooklyn, New York. Living in an urban setting known for its diverse and robust Jewish life, community members utilize several different types of musical expression to emblematize three distinct diasporic ethnic identities: Jewish (of ancient Israel), Sephardi (Spanish), and Maroka'i (Moroccan). Based upon ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2008 and 2013, this study demonstrates how Maroka'im in Brooklyn use musical expressions to evoke more than one sense of diaspora consciousness--Jewish, Sephardi, and Maroka'i--to foster what I term a layered diaspora consciousness.

To illustrate …

Marvel Comics And New York Stories: Anti-Heroes And Street Level Vigilantes Daredevil And The Punisher, Jesse Allen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis argues that the creation of street level, vigilante heroes The Punisher and Daredevil created by Marvel Comics authors and illustrators in the late 1970s and early 1980s reflected the socio-economic environment of New York City at this same moment in history. By examining an era of New York that was fiscally and socially tense along with the development of characters created by the New York based Marvel Comics, I aim to show how their creation was directly related to the environment which they were produced in.

Politics As A Sphere Of Wealth Accumulation: Cases Of Gilded Age New York, 1855-1888, Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines political wealth accumulation in American political development. Scholars have long understood the political system selects for "progressive ambition" for higher office. My research shows that officeseekers have also engaged in "progressive greed" for greater wealth. I compare the career trajectories of four prominent New York political figures during the Gilded Age: William Tweed, Fernando Wood, Roscoe Conkling, and Chester Arthur. Using correspondence, census, tax and land records, government reports, investigations, and newspaper coverage, I explain why each political figure chose to either seize or pass up opportunities for political wealth accumulation. I also examine the principal sources …

The Presentation Of Trans In Everyday Life: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Gendered Performance, Elijah C. Nealy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The life experiences of transgender men are an understudied area in social work research. Given the negative experiences many transgender men have utilizing the medical and social service systems, greater understanding is needed about how these men negotiate their identities in an array of relational contexts. This dissertation uses autoethnography to explore how one transgender man navigates his identity as a man, father, and social work professional.

Viewed through the theoretical frame of Erving Goffman's work, and in dialogue with masculinities studies and queer theory, this study finds that trans men are continually negotiating their identities in varying relational contexts, …

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 …

Factlessness & Faultlessness: Individual Differences & Dimensions Of Philosophical Dispute, Geoffrey Scott Holtzman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project addresses the question of why philosophical disputes persist, and tackles the problem of how we might better approach them. I demonstrate empirically several ways in which personality, gender, and other factors are associated with specific philosophical beliefs. Typically, one might assume that these individual difference factors are irrelevant to philosophy, and can only serve to bias philosophical disputants. Against this view, I present four case studies, which collectively highlight the different ways in which individual differences in lived experience may be inseparable from philosophical concepts themselves.

A Gift We Can't Keep Giving: An Analysis Of The Prevalence And Consequence Of Educators' Unpaid Labor, Jared Martin Hanneman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unpaid labor by educators is an important topic of social inquiry. With over half of all urban teachers leaving the profession within five years, it is of vital importance to examine the current U.S. educational system and take steps in minimizing the teacher burnout and attrition that is so costly to both students and the educational institutions. Most of the previous literature on unpaid labor focuses on domestic labor in the home rather than work performed by an employee above and beyond their ordinary contractual obligations - either by arriving early, staying late, or bringing work into the home. With …

Latinas Converting To Islam In New York: Habitus’ Influence In Modern Identity Formation, Amalia Alonzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores the topic of religious conversion in relation to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus, with a focus on Catholic Latina converts to Sunni Islam. Bourdieu suggests that these types of religious choices are not choices at all, but predetermined by an individual's history, culture, and setting. That is, an individual already has dispositions that are taken for granted. While this study's participants report that Islam is a new religion for them and not a continuation of their Catholic faith (as habitus would suggest,) this study shows that these converts retain dispositions that are consistent with their previous religious …

Reclaiming Space: Buildings In Modernist Literature And Film, Sreenjaya Ria Banerjee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that modernists like Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and Alain Resnais construct literary and filmic works that rely on interruptions and elliptical narration to gesture towards an aesthetics of modernity that counters the interest in monoliths concurrently shown by architectural modernism. This is particularly evident in the context of the war memorial, where regimented public memory is countered by the artistic works discussed through their emphasis on private memorials that are changeable, contingent, and mutable. This is a fundamentally altered vision of twentieth century modernity than that embraced by the architectural mode.

Don't Push Me Over The (Knowl)Edge: The Social Correlates Of Latino High School Dropouts, Robert Charles Baskerville

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to the forecast of the US Census Bureau, Latinos are the largest, fastest-growing ethnic group within the United States today and will comprise the majority of the US labor force sometime during the mid-21st century. Yet today, the youth of this diverse segment of the population are plagued by alarmingly high high school dropout rates, about double that of African-Americans youth and triple that of white youth. This yawning disparity prompts the examination of the social conditions contributing to this social crisis. How do demographic, aspirational, school-level, and socioeconomic variables affect the decision that so many Latino youth make …

Ecology Of Terrorism: Cross-National Comparison Of Terrorist Attacks, Katharine A. Boyd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The term terrorism is used to describe a large range of behaviors conducted by a wide variety of groups. Terrorist groups differ in ideology, size, financial support, group longevity, and the number of alliances with other terrorist groups. Relatedly, terrorist groups conduct different number of attacks with varying intents to cause fatalities using diverse forms of violence. This study uses ecological theory to contextualize terrorist violence as a product of terrorist group traits in relation to the environmental context. It is hypothesized that terrorist violence is associated with group traits in relation to the varying political, social, and religious contexts …

Between Sites: Critical Convergences At The Personal, Interpersonal, And Institutional Levels In A Service Learning Course, Kendra Rashaun Brewster

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Set within the context of the increasing emphasis on civic engagement and transformative education, this work addresses service learning as a form of civic engagement that holds both the risks of acriticality and critical potential. This study examines the capacity for the critical consciousness and relationality that define the primary commitments of critical service learning (see Kinefuchi, 2010). Thus, this study is grounded in the ways that the circuits of privilege and dispossession were breached in a service learning course where college students travelled to mentor adolescent girls who were in a secure residential facility. The narratives of former service …

National Child Maltreatment Response And Foster Care Entries: 2005-2010, Zeinab Chahine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study involves secondary analysis of the national administrative data contained in two major federal child maltreatment and foster care data systems, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System for 2005 to 2010. The study examines the data related to screening in and determination of maltreatment reports (child maltreatment response), as well as the provision of services to children referred for maltreatment. The purpose is to determine how the child welfare services/child protective services systems responses to child maltreatment contributed to the 17% decline in foster care entries from …

Post-Treatment Drug Use, Recidivism, Analogous Behaviors, And Perceptions Of Fairness: Examining Whether Parolees With Low Self-Control Will Benefit From The Collaborative Behavioral Management Intervention, Sriram Chintakrindi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tested Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) low self-control theory and its relationship with post-treatment outcomes by conducting a secondary-data analysis of a randomized controlled trial on parolees (n=569) called the Step'n Out study (2005). The Step'n Out study (2005) compared the results of a control group (standard parole) with an experimental treatment for parolees called the Collaborative Behavioral Management (CBM) intervention which was designed to improve substance-use treatment outcomes, reduce drug use, and reduce recidivism for parolees participating in the study.

Low self-control theory states that individuals with character traits that are impulsive, risk-seeking, self-centered, and display volatile temper …

Moral Motivation And The Authority Of Morality: A Defense Of Naturalist Moral Realism, Lily Eva Frank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Moral realism has been continuously accused of positing the existence of queer properties, facts, judgments, and beliefs. One of these queer features is supposed to be the normative force of morality-that is the way in which morality guides our actions. Critics of moral realism argue that nothing else in the world has this feature. This is a reason to doubt that moral facts and properties exist at all. This objection can be interpreted in at least two ways. One way to interpret it has to do with moral motivation, this is the internalism objection. The other has to do with …

Cisgenderism In Gender Attributions: The Ways In Which Social, Cognitive, And Individual Factors Predict Misgendering, Erica Jayne Friedman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current program of research investigated the ways in which social representations of gender, cognitive processes, and individual factors can be integrated to predict "misgendering," an example of cisgenderism in which people are categorized as a gender with which they do not identify. I proposed an (In)consistency Processing Model of Gender Attribution in which perceivers make a gender attribution by interpreting the stereotype-(in)consistencies of a target's gender characteristics through either a biology- or identity-based schema. Five studies were conducted to test different aspects of this model, the first of which was a secondary data analysis on a sample of students …

The Lived Experience Of Young Adult Burn Survivors' Use Of Social Media, Marie S. Giordano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to illuminate the meaning of social media use by young adult burn survivors. Five females and four males, aged 20-25, who sustained burns > 25%, were interviewed. Van Manen's (1999) phenomenological methodology provided the framework for this study. The meaning of the context of the lived experience is described in the five essential themes of identity, connectivity, social support, making meaning, and privacy. These young adult burn survivors, having experienced the traumatic effects of a burn during adolescence, use social media as a way of expressing their identity, while being cautious about privacy. Part …

Enchanted Entrepreneurs: The Labor Of Esoteric Practitioners In New York City, Karen Gregory

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this dissertation weaves portraits of urban esoteric practitioners together with contemporary social theories of labor in order to explore the embodied and subjectifying project of becoming a psychic or intuitive practitioner capable of offering emotional and psychological "support" to city dwellers. By placing this project in a larger, contemporary political-economic framework, this dissertation looks to explore how spirituality is "entangled" (Bender 2010) in both social structures and cultural practices, as well as shifting configurations of work and the nature of labor. Here, we meet a network of individuals who are predominantly Tarot card readers …

Run For Health: Health(Icization), Supplements, And Doping In Non-Elite Road Running, April D. Henning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Running races are commonly viewed as one of the clearest examples of competition and it is less common to view training or racing as a non-competitive health practice. However, the majority of non-elite runners who participate in races do so in order to reap benefits from the training process many undertake in preparation for a race. This dissertation is a study of non-elite or amateur runners' pursuit of health, their varied understandings of health, the ironies and inconsistencies of healthism, and the folk measures of health employed within the running community. Through qualitative interviews with amateur runners in New York …

Translator, Traitor: A Critical Ethnography Of A U.S. Terrorism Trial, Maya Hess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Historically, the role of translators and interpreters has suffered from multiple misconceptions. In theaters of war, these linguists are often viewed as traitors and kidnapped, tortured, or killed; if they work in the terrorism arena, they may be prosecuted and convicted as terrorist agents. In United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a/k/a "Abu Omar," a/k/a "Dr. Ahmed," Lynne Stewart, and Mohammed [sic] Yousry, 02 Cr. 395 (JGK) (S.D.N.Y. 2003), Yousry, an Arabic linguist and scholar of Middle Eastern history, was labeled such an agent, his work as translator/interpreter construed as material support to terrorism, and his expertise recast as dangerous …

Assembling Autism, Kate Suzanne Jenkins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autism is a growing social concern because of the epidemic-like growth in diagnoses among children. The lives and experiences of adults who have an autism diagnosis, however, are not as well documented. This dissertation project seeks to resolve that dearth of research. I conducted a year of participant observation at four locations of social, self-advocacy, and peer to peer support groups. I also conducted interviews with leaders and participants. I also participated (as a researcher) in an experiment in social skills acquisition led by participants from my ethnographic field work, fulfilling the planned participatory action research component of my original …

Successful Aging: Use Of Communication Technology In An Adult Day Program, Wendy Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigated the relationship between learning digital communication technologies in an intergenerational intervention and successful aging among older adults. The specific goal of this study was to uncover the effects of this intervention on the cultural constructions of aging in an urban Adult Day Program in Trinidad and Tobago. This mixed method study utilized the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Sheikh & Yesavage, 1986), a life satisfaction scale, well-being measurements, open-ended survey questionnaires and a focus group session. The results from the quantitative items indicated no significant differences after the intervention; however, the focus group discussion and open-ended surveys provided …

An Equine-Facilitated Prison-Based Program: Human-Horse Relations And Effects On Inmate Emotions And Behaviors, Keren Bachi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Policy makers and correctional authorities are seeking ways to enhance effectiveness of incarceration and reduce recidivism. Equine-facilitated prison-based vocational programs aim to rehabilitate inmates. Informed by the theories of attachment and desistance, this study evaluates the emotional and behavioral effects of such an intervention utilizing a quasi-experimental methodological triangulation design.

Recidivism and disciplinary misconduct are examined by clinical data-mining of institutional records. Propensity Score Matching, binary and multinomial logistic regressions are applied in a discrete-time event history analysis. Semi-structured interviews revealing the subjective experiences of participants are analyzed via the Listening Guide methodology. Quantitative questionnaires, exploring attachment and closeness to …

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 …