Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Divine Democracy: Examining The Intersection Of Religion And Politics In Civil Religion, José Andrés Serrano

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis seeks to build upon and provide a new interpretation of civil religion in the United States. In it, the history of civil religion from the 1960s, starting with Bellah, to the 2010s will be analyzed for any themes still used in the 2020s. Similarly, understanding what a religion is within this time frame will be broken apart and examined to see how it paralleled the evolution of political understanding. Building upon its history, the paper will break into four prominent chapters: Is American Democracy Like a Civil Religion?, Religious Characteristics in the American Government, American Democracy as a …

The Role Of Porn Literacy In Comprehensive Sex Education To Reduce Endorsements Of Gendered Sexual Violence And Support Healthy Adolescent Development, Kiana Harnish

Scripps Senior Theses

Due to stigmatization of sex and insufficient sexual education, modern-day adolescents rely on free online pornography as a source of education about sex and relationships. This thesis provides a review of the connections between adolescent porn use and the socialization of sexual violence (SV) and coercion against women, comprehensive sex education (CSE) and healthy adolescent sexual development, and porn literacy (PL) and sexual attitude or behavior changes. Porn literacy aims to equip adolescents with tools to critically analyze sexualied media and messages, to empower them to make informed decisions to engage or disengage with porn and their sexuality in a …

How To Build A World: Stereoscopes, Tourism, And Land In Zion National Park, Emma Duggleby

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis fundamentally questions how representations of the environment and land impact how we relate to and live in it. By examining a set of 1925 stereoscope images of Zion National Park, it considers how use-based perceptions of place – structured by the entertainment of tourism and mass media – become part of the mundane practices of consumption. By revealing how these capitalist-colonial relationships to the land have been built through time, an analysis of these stereoscope slides reveals that these stories are anything but natural in hopes of making room for other stories to be built instead. The second …

Breakwater: Anti-Blackness In Geoscience Lessons From Long Beach, Ca, Christina Marsh

Pomona Senior Theses

Breakwaters are more than just physical structures that protect against storm surges and in the context of Long Beach, CA, my hometown, they are actualizations of economic, social, environmental, geologic, and policy challenges. Inspired by Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy, and Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks, I use an extended metaphor and autoethnographic approach to connect a chronology of my educational life to the physical structure of a breakwater. Where the breakwater also acts as a signifier of my personal experiences of seeing it, questioning its purpose, and not always finding an answer. …

The Wh-Eye Of The Storm: How Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, And Arif Anwar Fictionalize Extreme Weather In Their Works, Elena Vedovello

Pomona Senior Theses

In this thesis, I used Robin Wall Kimmerer’s and James D. Rice’s ideas of “ecological imagination” to analyze three twentieth and twenty-first century works that feature historical extreme weather events. American Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston introduces her fictional characters to the historical force of the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane in her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God; British Modernist writer Virginia Woolf writes about the 1609 Great Frost in Orlando; and Bangladeshi author Arif Anwar sets his novel The Storm during and around the infamous Bhola Cyclone of 1970.

Although these authors and their novels stem …

Moving In The Underground: The Politics Of Black Joy In Roller-Skating And Funk Music In Chicago, John West

Pomona Senior Theses

Skating provides a moment of limited protection from the dangers of being Black in the after-life of slavery. Skating provides a way to temporarily escape the pain of the outside that is depicted above. The pain of a modern post-racial colorblind slave society. A society plagued with hyper-surveillance, mass incarceration, and domestic militarism targeted at Black and Brown bodies. Our joy and pleasure are what sustain us. We turn to jubilee to offer a moment of freedom from the burden of racial capitalism. Subversive Black joy, the joy that allows Black folk to restore, recreate, and reinvent themselves is how …

Ecodrama And Sustainable Theatre: A Handbook For Creating Remarkable Change, Gigi Buddie

Pomona Senior Theses

The climate crisis is not new to us, nor are the art forms that have taken shape as vital components of the many activist movements that seek to save the planet. Yet, for the first time at Pomona College, a play about environmental devastation and our hand in it finally graced the stage of this progressive institution this past year. This mini handbook is a call-to-action (of sorts), one that stems from the idea that this should not be the last ecodrama performed at Pomona College. These chapters are structured and supported by both experience and research – formulated from …

Weaving Testimonio And Territory In La Comuna Ancestral Las Tunas, María J Durán González

Pomona Senior Theses

“Nosotras las mujeres ibamos al río a lavar la ropa pero sin con tanto químico y nada de esas cosas. Ahora, pues, cómo ve…” (Tomala, 2023).

The woman’s vignette of La Comuna Ancestral Las Tunas, or the Ancestral Commune of Las Tunas is a testimonio of the territory, yet women’s testimonios are registered separately from the dominant tales of territorial resistance of la Comuna. The analysis of testimonios arises from Chicanx/Latinx feminist studies that center the voices of Chicana/Latina women to form a collective narrative emerging from silences. I aim to interlace Latinx and Latin American geography principles with …

Why Have There Been No Rich Women Artists? Examining The Gender Price Discount In The Contemporary Auction Market For Early Twentieth Century Mexican Avant-Garde Art, Lucy P. Bloomstran

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper examines the gender price discount for early twentieth-century Mexican avant-garde art in the contemporary auction market. A premium for art by men is established through the econometric analysis of a dataset of auction transactions taking place at major American and Mexican auction houses between 2000 and 2022. After this price discount for women’s art is established, a deep delve into gender discrimination in the creation and exhibition of Mexican Muralism and Surrealism is presented to provide possible art historical explanations for the results of the regression analysis.

Interpersonal Emotions As Emergent Phenomena: Social Neuroscience Beyond Western Cultural Constructions, Kaitlyn Penchina

Scripps Senior Theses

Because science as it exists today is a cultural construction of the West, studies of neuroscience have often been limited by Western perspectives. In particular, the Western proclivity towards individualism has led to a field of neuroscience which has historically focused on studying single individuals, as opposed to social or collective neuroscience. For the most part, it has just been assumed that collective phenomena such as interpersonal emotions must be able to be reduced in terms of individual phenomena such as individual emotions. However, closer review reveals that interpersonal emotions have emergent properties that individual emotions alone do not account …

We Can Do This / Juntos Sí Podemos: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Government-Sponsored Covid-19 Public Service Announcements (Psas) In English And Spanish, Katalina R. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

Communication inequities are known to negatively impact people from socioeconomically and linguistically disadvantaged backgrounds during public health crises (Gomez-Aguinaga et al., 2021). In the United States, Hispanics—especially those who speak Spanish—have been among the communities most disproportionately affected by COVID-19 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2022). The pandemic has underscored the importance of understanding the linguistic and discursive strategies implemented by institutions entrusted with disseminating public health information to reach diverse audiences, especially the most vulnerable. This paper analyzes the linguistic practices used to create public service announcements (PSA) produced in English and Spanish by health agencies at both the …

Desalination And Development: Locating The Missing Masses In Dakar’S Water Network, Marina Riad

Scripps Senior Theses

The introduction of desalination technology to the water network in Dakar, Senegal marks a monumental change in how state and commercial interests aim to solve systemic problems using novel technologies. Desalination aims to transform the ocean surrounding Dakar into potable water, a vital resource in the growing metropolis. However, this desalination project must integrate itself within a network of social, historical, political, commercial, and ecological influences shaping the role of desalination in urban Dakar. With millions of dollars and an entire ocean mobilized towards solving Dakar’s water problems, it may come as a surprise that this project will only provide …

Effects Of Indonesian Cuisine On The Dutch Kitchen And Culture Post World War Ii, Anton Syril Van Schaik

Pitzer Senior Theses

As a colony of the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies (upon independence named Indonesia) was a prodigious source of economic revenue -- first due to the spice trade and then coffee -- for the Netherlands from around 1610 to 1949. But, despite the long history of Dutch colonization in Southeast Asia, Indonesian cuisine failed to make a large impact on Dutch culture and cuisine until the 1940s. Before World War II, despite the Netherlands primarily deriving its revenue from global trade, both economically, and especially culturally, all areas, except for the economically engaged, Western cities, were extremely insulated. However, due …

(Re)Constructing National Memory In Neoliberal Chile Through Patricio Guzman's The Cordillera Of Dreams (2019), Mica Barrett

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the most renowned Chilean exile filmmakers is Patricio Guzmán. Best known for his documentary work regarding the Allende years, Guzmán has continued to make films regarding his homeland in the decades following his initial exile.

The Cordillera of Dreams is the concluding film in a trilogy exploring the natural lands of Chile and their relationship to physical remnants of the human past. The initial and most renowned film in the series, Nostalgia for the Light, centers the Atacama Desert and Chileans’ relationship to the geography as a gateway to revealing artifacts of Chile’s recent history of genocide …

From Building To Dwelling: Unfolding Infinity Through Bioregional Fulfillment, Sanjana Bhatnagar

Pitzer Senior Theses

The causes of anthropogenic climate change touch every feature of our modern-day existences. Approaches to sustainability tend to focus on material actions, but unsustainable practices are guided by an ontological orientation of individuality and human exceptionalism. This thesis provides an alternate account of being that decenters individuality through weaving the metaphysics of Fazang of the Huayan School of Mahayana Buddhism with the metaphysics of Martin Heidegger. To encompass the whole of the relational network that constitutes and conditionally defines our existence, I expand Heidegger’s account of locales as relational sites which are put forth solely by humans to an account …

Grieving Climate Change: A Psychological And Personal Exploration Of Emotionally Processing The Climate Crisis, Hava Chishti

Pitzer Senior Theses

The psychological concept of grief, although not typically associated with climate change, has strong applications to the emotional processing of climate change for human beings. Grief can be related to climate change in many ways, including the grief that individuals may feel over the anticipated loss of their future, losses that may be experienced due to climate-related disasters, and grief for the overall implications of anthropogenic climate change. A mixture of traditional literature analysis and creative nonfiction essays, which focus on personal narratives from interviews and the author’s experience, are used to outline the ways in which the psychology of …

Diversity, Equity, & Exclusion: Examining Jewish Identity & Antisemitism As Missing Pieces Of Dei And Ethnic Studies Education, Katie Meitchik

Pitzer Senior Theses

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a theory and practice that focuses on systemic structures, inequities, and social change by examining concepts such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and religion. Incorporating DEI initiatives into learning spaces can lead to a deeper sense of self, stronger coalition building, increased civic engagement, and a sense of healing, resistance, and belonging. Although a nationwide criteria for using DEI practices in education has not yet been implemented as a key component to public school teaching, there are programs emerging with the intent to utilize the theory. This has led to a movement …

The Gay Science: Power On The Body, Population, And Psyche, Nicola Augustyn

CMC Senior Theses

Michel Foucault is a philosopher of power who left behind a legacy of ideas that continue to inspire scholars today. His conceptualization of power is not limited to the figures of kings, monarchs, or the sovereign state. Rather, he regards power as a productive force that shapes subjectivity, manufactures knowledge, and engenders the truth in a particular historical context. In this thesis, I aim to provide a comprehensive account of Foucault’s analysis of power, starting with his refutation of the “repressive hypothesis” that challenges the predominant view of centralized top-down power. Then, I present Foucault’s proposal for redefining power as …

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 …

The Controversies Of (Immersion) Piss Christ And The Perfect Moment: An Argument For State Funding Of The Arts As An Extension Of Free Speech Protections, Olivia Fish

CMC Senior Theses

In 1989, artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). A short few months after the two artists became grant recipients, the funding for each of them was pulled as a result of escalating controversy and anger over the art created by both artists being funded by a federal organization. Those angered by the art and their respective grants tied the messaging of the art to the beliefs and values of the state—Serrano’s photograph being tied to a commentary on the overcommercialization of religion and Mapplethorpe’s exhibition being unabashedly queer and, at …

Sexed Propensities And Gendered Penalties?: An Analysis Of The Economic Outcomes Of Transgender People, Jiwon Chung

CMC Senior Theses

Recent research has indicated the adverse economic outcomes of transgender people. The titular question of this paper refers to the effect on gendered economic outcomes that differences related to sex assigned at birth has for a sample of transgender individuals that is plausibly correlated with being at an early stage of their gender affirmation processes (e.g. social or medical transition). For this group of plausibly early-in-transition transgender individuals, I hypothesize and test a theory that draws the following account: assigned female at birth (AFAB) transgender individuals encounter significant economic penalties as a result of labour market decisions (i.e. industry sorting) …

Gamblers And The Game Of Life: A Literary Examination Of The Professional And The Addict, Annika Ozizmir

CMC Senior Theses

The gambler is a mysterious persona in life and in literature. Who is the gambler? While we can envision the gambler as many different kinds of people, this thesis seeks to answer this question by focusing on certain literary figures who gamble. Its author analyzes two archetypes in particular, that of the professional gambler and that of the addict. To illustrate these types, the author looks to four protagonists from a mix of four novels and short stories: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, “A Gentleman’s Game” by Jonathan Lethem, “Queen of Spades” by Alexander Pushkin, and The Gambler by Fyodor …

The Stateless Agent: A Multidisciplinary Analysis Of Transboundary Air Pollution In The El Paso-Ciudad Juárez Region Of The U.S.-Mexico Border, Elizabeth Hernandez

CMC Senior Theses

The El Paso-Ciudad Juárez (EPJ) region has a history of nonattainment for ozone and particulate matter. Given transboundary air pollution in the EPJ region is not confined to the U.S.-Mexico border, it is important to implement a transnational response that accounts for the health and safety of everyone, including marginalized communities in EPJ. This thesis assesses the state of air quality and transboundary air pollution in the EPJ region through a multidisciplinary perspective that focuses on issues of data monitoring, environmental governance, and transnational environmental justice. Analysis of the quantity and placement of ambient monitoring stations reveals EPJ residents near …

Playing To Win: The Effects Of Implementing Gamification Strategies In Product Marketing, Sabrina Stone

CMC Senior Theses

Let’s play a game. What effect do you think video games have on twenty-first-century marketing? In this age defined by its nature of digitality, capturing the attention of consumers is an arduous competition. Through market segmentation, research, and the observable variables of consumer behavior, product marketing has turned to video games as a solution to appeal to younger demographics. Gamification is an increasingly applied product marketing strategy employed to increase favorable metrics. Of those key performance indicators (KPIs), boosted measures such as click-through rates, impressions, and engagement rates suggest that gamification is a strategic opportunity to persuade consumers to take …

Dress, Dogma, And Defiance: Navigating Religio-Colonialist Saviorism In The Realm Of Sartorial Liberation, Maureen Ursul Tchatchoua

CMC Senior Theses

The connection between religion, colonialism, and dress is a complex interplay rooted in historical contexts. Western clothing imposition on indigenous populations served as a tool for religious conversion and assimilation, reflecting the broader concept of the "civilizing mission." This essay explores the relationship's critical aspects and its impact on sartorial liberation, focusing on historical challenges. The thesis contends that religious groups like The Early Christian Church, 20th-century Iranian Muslims, and North American Rastafaris historically adopted the colonists' savior complex for modesty and resistance against societal impurities. It examines how clothing, including attire, grooming, and body adornment, functioned as visual communication, …