Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Prefigurative Politics Of The Black Panther Party, Howard Kraskow

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Effects Of British Colonialism In India On Indo-Caribbean Communities, Katherina K. Wahi

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Re-Rooting/ Re-Routing, Elisabeth Hanson Sundberg

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This paper is the story of a community art project with the goal of thinking through the two questions: How can an understanding of land, specifically the colonial and indigenous histories layered within it, facilitate acknowledgement of the relationship of local and non-local food to food access efforts? How does acknowledgement of the roles of local and non-local food in food access efforts, facilitate understanding of times when it is productive to gather as a community? The text is organized as components of a set table: the table supports, the seats, the table top, the table cloth, the dishes, and …

Gentrification And Control: An Analysis Of New Urbanism, Form Based Code, And Kingston’S Rezoning Process, Gem Sorenson

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Kingston, a small city in upstate New York, is currently experiencing a housing crisis in the midst of a massive real estate market boom, and an update to their zoning law is long overdue. In 2018, the city began the process, hiring New Urbanist planning firm Dover Kohl & Partners to develop a brand new form based zoning code. As a critique of the New Urbanist planning and architecture movement, with Kingston's rezoning process as a case study, this project outlines the history of the development of neotraditional planning and form based code and the implications that the code type …

Single Parenthood And The Gender Wage Gap, Gabriel Scribner

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Indoor Vs Outdoor Bacteria In The Air, Jyoti Kumari

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Airborne microbes are not really a researched topic along with concerns regarding airborne toxins passed from one sick person to the next through the air, without physical contact, causing irritation. Airborne diseases are a threat to the common public and need to be studied correctly more to protect the public. This paper aims at a difference in the bacterial distribution in the air based on indoor vs. outdoor locations on Bard campus by exposing agar plates in the air at the respective sites. The results show that there was not a significant difference in the indoor vs outdoor bacteria because …

Price Is What You Pay: An Analysis Of Government Pricing Power, Denton Penn Lane

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Marketplaces for goods and services are defined by the existence of prices. In a market economy, the price is an important determinant for production and consumption. We analyze theories describing how private firms price their goods and how government activity affects those prices. This description of government pricing powers is done through the lens of Modern Money Theory so as to provide a detailed view of the current monetary system. Through exploring a series of fiscal policy options, this paper has shown government pricing power to be present and undertheorized. The resulting discussion is aimed at providing theoretical background for …

“Gaining Control” Women’S Health On Period And Pregnancy Trackers, Stecy Mbemba

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This project conducts a discourse analysis on four FemTech platforms: Clue, Flo, Ovia, and Sprout. It interrogate how these apps market their services and shape user attitudes about health. This analysis takes place in four sections: (1) visuals, (2) language, (3) services, and (4) terms of use and privacy. This project makes an argument for how FemTech replicates rather than mitigate disparities in the U.S healthcare system.

This Is The Sky That I See, Gavin T. Mckenzie

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This is the sky that I see, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, reflects the power we hold in defining and redefining spaces, and how ordinary places can be reimagined for the Othered body. I produced this show to allow the characters to shape and decide their worlds, centering on their relationships and feelings. This is the sky that I see establishes a completely queer world that centers Queer joy and friendship.

The Effects Of D2 Receptor Modulation On Locomotor Development In Danio Rerio, Isaiah Thomas Mcroberts

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This study utilized a novel design to investigate the sensitivity of D2 dopamine receptors to modulating compounds through multiple exposures over early development of zebrafish larvae. Zebrafish were dosed for 30 minutes from 5-8 days post fertilization (dpf) with 16µ/mol of either a D2 antagonist, haloperidol, or a D2 agonist, quinpirole hydrochloride. Two other groups were then dosed with these compounds from 9-12dpf. The effects of D2 receptor modulation were measured by analyzing motor activity on measures of movement distance, frequency, and velocity. Results indicated that larvae dosed with haloperidol on 5dpf had increased activity after the first dosage, but …

The Chinese Communist Party’S National Minority Policies: An Analysis Of Geopolitical Determinants, Aja Melville

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Plagued by centuries of humiliation and foreign occupation, Chinese dignitaries, from as early as the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC), saw a relationship between national unity and a strong, impenetrable Chinese State. China has long struggled to balance the needs of national minorities with the goals of the Communist Party. As a result, swift attempts to strengthen national unity through infrastructure development and land cultivation projects in minority-dominated regions have yielded unfortunate hardships for the inhabitants. As long as national unity is the key to maintaining China’s status as a global superpower, meeting national production quotas and narrowing the poverty gap …

The Affordable Housing Crisis In Kingston, Ny: Knowledge Is Power, Madeline Rose Millerick

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Grant Proposal For The Effects Of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response On Sleep Quality In Older Adults, Julia Grace Kim Morin

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), first coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010, is a term used to describe an automatic emotional and physiological response to certain auditory and visual stimuli. This sensory phenomenon is characterized by feelings of pleasure, calmness and a tingling sensation down the scalp and back (Poerio, 2020). What originally started out as a phenomenon some people experience in everyday life evolved into an internationally recognized and sought-after media made available on a variety of platforms including YouTube. ASMR’s popularity may be attributed to its reported sleep, relaxation, and mood improvements in younger adults (Barratt and Davis, …

Cyber-Gezi: How The 2013 Taksim Gezi Park Protests In Istanbul Subverted Historical Neoliberal Domination, Violence, And Revealed President Reccep Tayyip Erdoğan’S Repressive Cyber-Authoritarian Goals, Joseph John Nadler

Senior Projects Spring 2022

My project is organized around the 2013 Gezi Park protests, and the political, cybernetic, and cyberspatial developments that followed them. My argument is that through cybernetic, political, and legal means, President Erdogan of Turkey has failed to present alternatives to the Turkish people which would positively answer their expressed desires for change. My research method is one of comparison and analysis, as well as referring to virtual images by which I hope to provide a visual representation of models used to explain cybernetic expressions of power organization, communication, and expression. My project will hope to explain how internet users in …

Predicting League Of Legends Ranked Games Outcome, Ngoc Linh Chi Nguyen

Senior Projects Spring 2022

League of Legends (LoL) is the one of most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games in the world. For LoL, the most competitive way to evaluate a player’s skill level, below the professional Esports level, is competitive ranked games. These ranked games utilize a matchmaking system based on the player’s ranks to form a fair team for each game. However, a rank game's outcome cannot necessarily be predicted using just players’ ranks, there are a significant number of different variables impacting a rank game depending on how well each team plays. In this paper, I propose a method to …

“Nappy Hair, Don’T Care”: Storytelling Through Strands, Sasha D. Onyango

Senior Projects Spring 2022

There is a Kiswahili phrase that goes “intelligence/the mind is like hair, everyone has their own’. Following that logic, how Kenyan women relate to their hair is unique to the individual yet there remains collective and shared experiences. The questions that I raise throughout the paper explore: 1) how images and narratives of hair throughout Kenyan history have influenced the way women today understand how they interact with their hair, 2) the ways Kenyan women are taught about hair grooming and the journey of learning to care for their hair, and 3) Kenyan women’s understanding of their hair and how …

Environmental Social Governance: Uncovering Strengths, Weaknesses, And Misconceptions In Esg Disclosure And Rating, Kirsten Helena Ostbirk

Senior Projects Spring 2022

ESG is a metric designed to assess the extent to which a company has mitigated its risks with regard to environmental, social, and governance factors. In the past two decades, ESG investing and adoption has risen significantly, and ESG evaluation and practices are increasingly being introduced to governments and the private sector. However, today, ESG disclosure is not mandated in the United States, leading to asymmetries in disclosure quality and divergence in ESG scores issued by ratings providers. These massive discrepancies have consequences for companies (e.g. cost of capital), investors (e.g. investment hesitance, lost potential returns), and the ESG metric …

Wandering Wombs And Wandering Truths: How Physician Dismissal Impacts The Self-Trust Of Patients With Endometriosis, Isabella Anna Pihas

Senior Projects Spring 2022

“Oh don’t worry these are normal cramps” “Have you been treated for anxiety?” “It’s just everyday aches, there’s no issue” These dismissive statements are too often said to patients with endometriosis, an often debilitating and painful disorder when attempting to diagnose their condition. Whereas the limited existing research on physician dismissal focuses mainly on the medical system, this study aimed to understand the experience of dismissal from the patient’s point of view. Namely, how does dismissal impact the way patients trust their physicians, but more importantly: themselves. The study employed a mixed-methodology approach utilizing the Trust in Physician Scale (Anderson …

An Analysis Of Sexist Communications: Women’S Resistance To Harassment, Katherine M. Ritter

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This paper analyzes the nature of sexism, sexual harassment, and women’s resistance and coping strategies. Sexual harassment takes on many different forms, and the specific types of harassment impact how a women will respond to the perpetrator. Harassment consists of verbal and nonverbal interactions, microaggressions, and other forms of sexual objectification. Previous research has concluded that women’s imagined reactions to harassment vary from their real responses. In actual situations of sexual harassment, women feel fear more than anger. Psychological distress was a repeatedly reported repercussion of sexual harassment. The current study focuses on specific sentiments of insults, such as age, …

Accommodation And Coping In Medieval Catholic England: A Historical Dramaturgy Casebook For The Chester Mystery Cycle’S Play 14: Christ At The House Of Simon The Leper, Christ And The Moneylenders, And Judas’ Plot, Andrew J. Roberge

Senior Projects Spring 2022

In this historically focused dramaturgy casebook for the medieval Catholic Chester Mystery Cycle's Play 14, Christ at the House of Simon the Leper, Christ and the Moneylenders, and Judas’ Plot, I offer suggestions for Play 14's production as it might have appeared in the cycle's final year of performance, 1575. I contextualize and grapple with the play's antisemitisms, and also offer a brief history of antisemitism in medieval Europe. I also analyze Play 14 and the Chester Mystery Cycle for their rhetorical appeals to the medieval vernacular language, contexts, and events, as well as their anachronistic temporal and geographic …

Blending Borders: Transboundary Protected Areas And Their Role In An Intersectional Future, Alexandra Rogalinski

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Protected areas serve the vital role of designating spaces worthy of protection from and for human use. Transboundary protected areas are especially useful in thinking about the interconnected nature of the relationship between human societies and ecological systems as the latter, despite not conforming to the former, are managed as though they did. By learning from frameworks developed specifically for the two in tandem, systems can adapt to different locales and communities world-wide and build resilience in place for the future in which resilience will most assuredly be needed.

Data And Tenant Choice: Exploring The Relationship Between Limited Liability Company Ownership And Block Conditions In Norwood, Bronx, Albert Rosario-Pichardo

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Effects Of Music-Induced Emotion On Memory, Jessica C. Rylander

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Emotion can play a highly influential role when it comes to enhancing memory. Research has shown that emotional valence and emotional arousal are two key aspects of emotion responsible for facilitating this (APA, 2013). However, various studies have found contradicting results when it comes to which type of valence (positive or negative) and which level of arousal (high or low) have the greatest memory enhancing effects. Similarly, the majority of previous research has specifically investigated this emotion-memory relationship in terms of memory for emotional content. The present study aims to address this gap by separating emotion from the to-be-learned stimuli, …

The Rise And Fall Of Venezuela’S Pacted Democracy: A Story Of Coups, Oil Riches, And Political Pacts, Maria Salazar Hernandez

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Of Archives And Ghosts, Zara Ruth Franke

Senior Projects Spring 2022

This project, is about Bard's history of ghosts, subcultural lore and what makes something "home" to you. In a place and time, in students life, when things seem dispossessed and temporal. As the subtitle of my written sproj suggests:Temporal spaces of home for Bard students now and then, their connections with each other and how we process memories, ghosts and subcultural lore.

My installation is about these moments in life, when everything seems to freeze for a second, hold still, and you feel like this moment is forever but also not at all. "Ephemerality", in academic, theory terms but also …

Constructing The Landlord Identity: An Analysis Of Kingston's Eviction Crisis, Elsa G. Ackerman

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Regulating Latina Sexuality: Unlearning An At-Risk Framework To Make Meaning Of Sexual Autonomy, Victoria Jaqueline Amezcua

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Fragments Of An Anarcha-Transfeminist Sociology Of Sex Work, Veronica Andrek

Senior Projects Spring 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which feminist and sociological theory can be expanded by looking at the experiences of transgender women who are engaged in sex work specifically with an eye for transfeminist and anarchist political theory. Based on qualitative interviews with five transfeminine sex workers, I found that transfeminine sex workers, while facing substantial obstacles such as criminalization, transmisogyny, and poverty, are capable of building communities and forging new meanings in their lives. Within sex work are opportunities by which to reimagine labor and its role in our lives, with the possibility of abolishing …

The Foundations Of Behavioral Finance: A Case Study Of Robinhood Users And The Impact Of Biases In Financial Markets, Robert Michael Arciola

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Financial markets play a vital role in economies around the world. They facilitate the interactivity between those who are in need of capital and those with capital to invest. While its own separate entity, the stock market is correlated with the economy in various ways in which one may significantly impact the other on a regular basis. Thus, investors and firms participating in markets have much power in influencing the economy. Human behavior is prone to biases that are not accounted for in standard finance theory but is the subject of behavioral economics by utilizing psychology and sociology to aid …

Tek Dem Han An Tun Fashion: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, And Placemaking In The Jamaican Transmigrant Network, Brenique Bogle

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.