Cultural History Commons^™

Failing History: How Multinational Institutions Cannot Prevent Cultural Racketeering, Molly Luce

CMC Senior Theses

Cultural racketeering, the looting and trafficking of cultural heritage sites to fund conflict, violence, or terrorism, has become a prevalent issue across the globe in recent years. This paper identifies the main actors, the sellers and buyers, of the looted antiquities and outlines several cases. Sellers, such as ISIS or Al-Qaeda, pillage and traffic sites of cultural, religious, or historic importance as a funding source for their illicit activities. Buyers, which include museums and elite private collectors, purchase these antiquities and inadvertently fund terrorism. The international community has condemned these actors and implemented policies in response. The conventions that multinational …

Vulnerable Culture: Protecting History In War And Peace, Molly Luce

CMC Senior Theses

Cultural, historic, and religious sites and objects have a strong correlation with the identity of the community they belong to, in addition to that of humanity. Rosilawati et al. assert that “Cultural heritage and social identity exists in correlation and are interconnected. The shared identity associated with one’s cultural background and historic setting may initiate feelings of pride in one’s culture.”^[1]Essentially, the looting and destruction of such sites and antiquities is not only an attack on the tangible, but the very essence of a population. As the War in Ukraine rages on, Ukrainian cultural heritage sites and historic …

From Franco's Nightmare To A Globalized Spain: A Cinematic Analysis, Claire Maurer

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Spain has had a long history of determining its own identity through successive regime changes, national crises and shifting international alliances. With Las Chicas de la Sexta Planta (Le Guay, 2011), Torremolinos 73 (Berger, 2003), Miente (De Ocampo, 2008) and The Way (Estévez, 2010) as a guide, I examine the distinctive characteristics of Spansh identity across three notable sections of its history: Francoist Spain (1939-1975), “free” Spain (1975-1986), and Spain as a member of the supranational European Union (EU) (1986-), or the European Economic Community (EEC) at that time. These films and time periods help to shed light on important …

Witnessing Difference: An Exploration Of Living In The Aftermath Of Trauma In Post-Holocaust America In Cynthia Ozick’S “Rosa”, Anastasia Kourotchkina

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the process of witnessing in Cynthia Ozick’s novella Rosa as a crucial part of living in the aftermath of Holocaust. By using Kelly Oliver’s concept of witnessing, I approach the process of witnessing trauma as the process of restoring subjectivity. As my analysis of Ozick’s Rosa shows, what prevents both Rosa and those around her to bear witness to trauma is the failure to imagine oneself as implicated in the traumas of the other. I conclude that the tendency to ignore the essential connection and dependence that exists between the Self and the other is enabled by …

“The Spirit Of Revolution:” The Impact Of Rum On The Formation Of The United States, Charles Streator

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the impact of rum, be it the distillation, consumption, or trade of it, upon the formation of the American Revolution and the desire of American Colonists for independence. Through the analysis of three distinct subfactors: rum as an economic force, rum as a political tool, and the cultural and societal impacts of the rum trade and its subsequent removal from the American ethos, this project contends that rum as a commodity became a driving factor in the creation of the United States. While much has been written on the roles of stamps, sugar, and tea in the …

Modern Meals And Mythology: The Los Angeles Culinary Field, Lindsay Megumi Chu

Pomona Senior Theses

Throughout history, food and our relationship with it has had numerous implications. Indeed, humans have consumed food not only as sustenance, but also as ritual and as a marker of status and social hierarchy. Though food and the dissemination of culinary practices have greatly diversified in the past century, food and the culinary methods required to make it remain relevant to our understanding of contemporary society, as popular culinary practices and trends reveal our preferences, beliefs, ideals, and aspirations. While there are numerous ways to analyze the cultural impact of food in the current era, this work focuses on food …

(Re)Reading Fanon: Tracing Revolutionary Negotiations Within The Algerian Colonial Dialectic, Nina Zietlow

Scripps Senior Theses

A critical rereading of Fanon within the Algerian colonial context.

Trickle Down Nationalism: Interactions Between Liberal Nationalism And Colonialism In The Raj And Nigeria, Aaryaman Sheoran

CMC Senior Theses

The combination of nationalism and colonialism has remained understudied in academia, despite the important interaction between the two phenomena. European ideas bled over into their colonial empires and began to fill the power vacuum created by colonial enterprises. This study analyzes the impact of British colonialism on the development of national identity in British India and Nigeria.

British influences included large scale economic disruption, cultural reform through ‘westernizing’ the population and abolishing local customs, and creating a new set of institutions to replace traditional power centers. Inevitably, these factors created a nationalist surge across both the Raj and Nigeria, as …

Visualizing Participatory Politics: The Communal Power Of Street Art In Revolutionary Egypt, Warring Syria, And Divided Lebanon, Erin Baranko

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the role of street art in the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 in order to investigate the extent to which the political struggle was also a visual struggle. Through analysis of murals and graffiti, it seeks to address how revolutionary politics are created, consumed, and witnessed in images. In Egypt, protesters created street art that coopted public space in order to circumvent the state’s authority and subvert the state’s legitimacy. Due to its accessible nature, street art also democratized the protest process, facilitating a truly popular revolutionary movement. In Syria, citizens used …

Uncovering Alice Bag: An Alternative Punk History, Emily Macune

Scripps Senior Theses

The intention of this thesis is to provide an alternative counter-narrative to the mainstream histories of punk that center white men. By focusing on the contributions of fem queer and POC punks, I aim to legitimize punk music as a form of resistance against systems of oppression that are oppositional to the commodified forms of mainstream punk. Using Alice Bag, as my central case study as a fem queer punk that is often left out of punk historical narratives, I contextualize her work through feminist, queer, and media studies lenses to bridge the gap between academia and forgotten personal experience.

The Icon Formation Of Ruby Bridges Within Hegemonic Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine Cashion

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1960, when Ruby Bridges was six-years-old, she desegregated the formerly all white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. This thesis traces her formation as a Civil Rights icon and how her icon narratives are influenced by, perpetuate, or challenge hegemonic memory of the Civil Rights Movement. The hegemonic narrative situates the Civil Rights Movement as a triumphant moment of the past, and is based upon the belief that it abolished institutionalized racism, leaving us in a world where lingering prejudice is the result of the failings of individuals. Analysis of narratives about Ruby Bridges by Norman Rockwell, …

The Two Conversions Of John Newton: Politics & Christianity In The British Abolitionist Movement, Megan Keller

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis interrogated the relationship between abolition and the evangelical revival in Britain through the life of John Newton. Newton, though not representative of every abolitionist, was a vital figure in the movement. His influence on Hannah More and William Wilberforce along with his contributions to the Parliamentary hearings made him a key aspect of its success. How he came to fulfill that role was a long and complex journey, both in terms of his religion and his understanding of slavery. He began his life under the spiritual direction of his pious, Dissenting mother, became an atheist by nineteen, and …

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …

A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, I will explore the male dancer in the Iranian world, and how he came to occupy this abject position (dance, according to Zainab Stellar, being regarded by many conservative elements in Iranian society today as "the worst possible behavior of an undisciplined body in public, and symbol of all vice" (2011, 235)). Lotfollah “Lotfi” Mansouri, the renowned opera director and producer, recounted at a dinner that I attended (January 27, 2002 Peyvand Organization, San Jose), how one day as a student at UCLA, he entered Schonberg Music Hall and heard opera for the first time. He was …

Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

For this chapter I will look at Greek American music making through the eyes of a non-Greek, my younger self, who enjoyed and sought out this musical tradition for over fifty years, primarily as a folk dance enthusiast. For the international recreational dancer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Greek music has rich melodic lines and many different rhythmic patterns (5/8; 7/8; 9/8, etc.) that attracted many individuals of Anglo American background like me to learn these dances, especially in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when recreational and performance folk dance constituted a major leisure-time activity for hundreds of thousands …

All Roads Lead To The Fair: How A 2022 Los Angeles World's Fair Would Accelerate The Implementation Of Sustainable And Innovative Forms Of Transportation, Isabella Levin

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the potential impact of a World’s Fair on urban mobility in Los Angeles County by 2022. A brief historical account of World’s Fairs, and their impact on technological innovations in transportation will be given in conjunction with the development of transportation in Los Angeles. These accounts will help to contextualize an analysis of current plans to provide Los Angeles with transportation solutions, in light of the oversaturated automobile landscape in place today. Specifically, my research has revealed that the further development of light-speed rail systems paired alongside a mass adoption of autonomous vehicles would both alleviate contemporary …

Drowning In Rising Seas: Navigating Multiple Knowledge Systems And Responding To Climate Change In The Maldives, Rachel Hannah Spiegel

Pitzer Senior Theses

The threat of global climate change increasingly influences the actions of human society. As world leaders have negotiated adaptation strategies over the past couple of decades, a certain discourse has emerged that privileges Western conceptions of environmental degradation. I argue that this framing of climate change inhibits the successful implementation of adaptation strategies. This thesis focuses on a case study of the Maldives, an island nation deemed one of the most vulnerable locations to the impacts of rising sea levels. I apply a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine how differing knowledge systems can both complement and contradict one another. By …

Nostos: On Recollecting Loss And The Physical Manifestation Of Loss, Stephanie M. Huang

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper examines nostalgia in photo-poetry book Nostos, and nostalgia’s existence as a theoretical global condition arising from displacement, looking at nostalgia specifically not as a yearning for home, but a yearning for a lost sense of feeling at home. It traces the lineage of image-text hybrid art practices and examines the significance of conveying meaning through both synergistically. It studies the psychoanalytic process of transforming loss into object, or absence into presence, ultimately using the object as a lens to view oneself and the way in which nostalgia manifests itself.

The Development Of An English Antislavery Identity In The Eighteenth Century, John Gilbert Hyatt

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the growth of antislavery sentiment in the English-speaking world during the eighteenth century. I examine the institutional processes, transatlantic discourses, and ideological schema with which individuals and groups reformulated their identities as a means of extricating themselves from slavery's various social, economic, and ethical implications. I argue that abolitionism in England is best understood as the cumulative outcome to a series of identity reconstructions, and that a Histoire des Mentalités, as drawn from the Annales School, is an apt methodology for unmasking the structural underpinnings of an antislavery identity.

Making History: How Art Museums In The French Revolution Crafted A National Identity, 1789-1799, Anna E. Sido

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper compares two art museums, both created during the French Revolution, that fostered national unity by promoting a cultural identity. By analyzing the use of preexisting architecture from the ancien régime, innovative displays of art and redefinitions of the museum visitor as an Enlightened citizen, this thesis explores the application of eighteenth-century philosophy to the formation of two museums. The first is the Musée Central des Arts in the Louvre and the second is the Musée des Monuments Français, both housed in buildings taken over by the Revolutionary government and present the seized property of the royal family and …

Culture In Crisis: The English Novel In The Late Twentieth Century, Michael F. Harper

Scripps Faculty Books

Culture in Crisis begins with political and social history at the moment of the election of Margaret Thatcher. Many saw in this event the dissolution of the ideal of the liberal State once believed to be shared by both the Left and the Right. Ranging widely over such writers as Anthony Powell, John LeCarre, Samuel Selvon, Salman Rushdie, and Margaret Drabble, Harper examines various responses to this “crisis” which he shows to have roots in a pernicious ideal of “Englishness” going back many generations. With considerable skill and a masterful grasp of books and ideas, he presents the novel as …

Hiroshima. At The Intersection Of Sciences, History, And Personal Narratives. A Personal Reflection., Gloria R. Montebruno Saller

The STEAM Journal

In the city of Hiroshima, Japan, sciences, history, and personal narratives meet. Atomic bomb survivors became the keepers of this town’s history and one of the most tragic chapters in the history of humankind; and as their voices fade to old age and death, there is a sense of urgency to keep their narratives alive. These are my personal reflections.

Madrid Me Mata: Regional Identity Politics And Community Building Through The Music Of La Movida Madrileña, Winona A. Bechte

Scripps Senior Theses

Chapter 1: Formation and Early Beginnings of music in la Movida
-In the first chapter I am writing about how the early development of la Movida runs very much alongside political initiatives to stimulate cultural development in Madrid. Specifically I am writing about how popular songs and musicians at the time translated these messages of regional pride and identity that was being heavily stimulated by the government into a way that the general public could understand and support. Citing specific song lyrics and early bands of la Movida, I also track the years leading up to 1975 and how music …

Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this chapter, I look at the various ways in which different individuals--Iranians, Iranian immigrants in the West, Americans, and other non-Iranians--participated in several revival Iranian dance movements, beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the twenty-first century. The new interest in dance that began in this period coincided with a period of incipient modernity and its need to find ways in which to construct a modern national identity. As increasing numbers of Iranians made their way to the West, first as students and ultimately as immigrants and refugees, they discovered that dance as a representational field dovetailed with their …

The Myth Still Lives: Pachuco Subculture And Symbolic Styles Of Resistance, Lauren Becker

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, the emergence of pachucos and their later influence on Chicano movement ideology is examined. By visually challenging accepted racial identities, pachucos protested the discrimination of their time. Later on, Chicanos would take the figure of the pachuco and combine it with other aspects of Chicano ideology to form a synthesized symbol of resistance to inspire their fight for equal rights.

Cooking Up A Course: Food Education At Pomona College, Christina A. Cyr

Pomona Senior Theses

Cooking skills are important but declining, with significant health, social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental implications. Food and cooking education can begin to address some of the negative effects of the cooking skills decline. This thesis makes the case for cooking classes in the education system, especially in higher education. The paper begins with a history of cooking education and skills, outlines the implications of the decline in skills, and discusses the potential for cooking education in higher education. The second part consists of a course syllabus, designed for Pomona College. The third section includes a discussion of the implementation …

Vaudeville, Popular Entertainment And Cultural Division In The Inland Empire, 1880-1914, Mark Hauser

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This paper discusses the emergence of vaudeville in California’s Inland Empire region of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. It will consider the social changes underway in late nineteenth-century America and their impact on attitudes towards popular entertainment. This paper will draw on Lawrence Levine’s observations of cultural hierarchies that emerged during the late nineteenth century and shaped American understandings of culture. Entertainment of the nineteenth century will be examined for the ways it was unable to match urban trends, and contrasted with vaudeville’s appeal to a diverse urban populace. The cities of San Bernardino, Redlands and Riverside were home to …

Social Piracy In Colonial And Contemporary Southeast Asia, Miles T. Bird

CMC Senior Theses

According to the firsthand account of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, it appears that piracy in the state of British Malaya in the mid-1800s was community-driven and egalitarian, led by the interests of heroic figures like the Malayan pirate Si Rahman. These heroic figures share traits with Eric Hobsbawm’s social bandit, and in this case may be ascribed as social pirates. In contrast, late 20^th-century and early 21^st-century pirates in the region operate in loosely structured, hierarchical groups beholden to transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence suggests that contemporary pirates do not form the egalitarian communities of their …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

"A Single Finger Can't Eat Okra": The Importance Of Remembering The Haitian Revolution In United States History, Ashleigh P. Shoecraft

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis discusses the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the United States as a lens through which to view the transnational nature of American exceptionalism. It concludes with an articulation of the necessity of incorporating this relational nature of United States identity development into high school coursework, and advocates for teaching about the Haitian Revolution as an effective means through which to do this.