Tyler Shores
Tyler’s project will examine postmodern parody as a model of discourse, and will seek to account for parodys ubiquity in a specifically mass cultural context. Although parody is of course nothing new, there is something particularly of philosophical interest about postmodernist parody. By introducing the notion of subjectivity into the discussion, the focus will emphasize the more individual implications of postmodernist parodys effects, whereas much previous literature on the subject has tended to focus upon its ideological and political implications. The instances of parody which will be investigated will range […]
Chad Vogler
Chad will travel to New York and New Haven to perform research on the unusual interracial collaborations and intercultural exchanges which occurred during the Harlem Renaissance, and this material will be used to compose a series of 25-30 poems. Inspired by recent critical discourses that redescribe modernism as a set of interracial dynamics, these poems will be composed from the perspective of a contemporary author imagining a bicultural past in modernity that potentially effaces the concreteness of the authors racial identity through his anonymity as the poetic speaker. The primary […]
Sonia Fleury
Sonia Fleury’s project will primarily address notions of history and its construction in art and contemporary cultural media–newspapers, magazines, and political/popular prints–during the 1848 revolution in France. Receiving special attention will be the artwork of the 19th century realist painter Gustave Courbet, whose Burial at Ornans challenged traditional notions of history painting in its depiction of provincial bourgeois at a funeral. Does Courbet’s assertion that history painting is by its very nature contemporary parallel broader shifts in conceptions of history during this radical revolutionary moment, whereby history was seen as […]
Alison Joy Harrington
Alison’s Peace and Conflict Studies Senior Honors Thesis will examine the specific coalition-building efforts that have taken place historically and in the present between Irish and Mexican peoples. Alison will travel this summer both to Mexico and to Northern Ireland in order to meet with Irish nationals who are involved in the struggle for indigenous people’s rights in Chiapas. In addition, she will be researching coalition work in the United States between Irish Americans and Mexican Americans, looking particularly at the San Patricios, an organization that commemorates Saint Patrick’s (San […]
Kevin Kuanyun Huang
Kevin intends to uncover theories of history prevalent in ancient China through an examination of the representation of known historical figures in the literature from the Eastern Zhou through the Han dynasties (circa 771 – 86 BCE). Focusing particularly on Zhuangzi, a compilation of philosophical treatises whose historicity has been conventionally discredited, as well as Shiji, the first comprehensive history of China, Kevin will examine the interplay between ideology, history and legend in the treatment of historical figures in these classical Chinese texts. In addition to using traditional empirical methods […]
Carlos Miranda
Carlos’s interdisciplinary project, “Beloved: Toni Morrison’s Rhetoric of Libation,” has two aims. First, it will explore how Toni Morrison uses allegory and the West African concept of nommo to reconstruct historical representations of trauma, as well as practices of communal, cultural and self possession, in her acclaimed 1987 novel Beloved. Secondly, it will propose a literary theory that employs (but is not limited to) West African cosmologies in determining the implications of Beloved for African American communities. Following Barbara Christian’s observation that Beloved is a prayer, Carlos will argue that […]
Benjamin Goldstein
The recent growth of the Fair Trade coffee niche market in the United States suggests that consumers are beginning to concern themselves with the social conditions under which their coffee was produced. Fair Trade coffee consumers accept that the Generic Fairtrade Standards established by the International Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) provide certain de jure guarantees regarding production conditions. Yet what is the de facto situation within the coffee cooperatives? Benjamin will travel to a Fair Trade certified coffee cooperative in Guatemala this summer to investigate the grassroots application of the […]
Susana Evelyn Moreno
Latina domestic workers have come to form a pivotal role in the United States service sector, yet very little is known about their social, political and economic impact on society. Susana’s research seeks to find out how some Bay Area Latina domestic workers perceive their employment and their relations with their employers. Differences between these women’s cultures and that of their employers on issues such as parenting and family values will be identified and explored. The research will also investigate what actions these women take to cope with these differences. […]
Jordan Troeller
This History of Art thesis project will examine how the contemporary participatory art of Rirkrit Tiravanija overlaps with and departs from the work of Hlio Oiticica in 1960s Brazil. Rather than creating discrete objects, these artists engender interactive situations. Recently dubbed relational art, such installations involve the viewer in various social activities, such as cooking or dancing, thereby challenging the distinction between art and everyday life. While Oiticica’s work emphasizes the relationship between participation and political agency, Tiravanija’s art examines the interface between artifice and leisure activities. Examining the relationship […]
Jaimee Comstock-Skipp
While Orientalism in French art has been extensively studied, its relevance to British art has received less attention. Jaimee seeks to fill this void by analyzing British paintings of Egypt during the colonial age. Her study involves face-to-face visits to the actual Cairene monuments and to their illustrated counterparts in English institutions. It will investigate the inclusion of Arabic script and details of Islamic art within select paintings as to determine cultural sensitivity or ignorance given the political climate. She anticipates that as time and cultural contacts progress, the art […]