Matthew Wheelock Stahl
Using a combination of participant-observation and interview methods, Matt will study a local subculture of “indie” rock musicians, in order to theorize this marginal subculture’s relationship to the mainstream music industry. A community “insider” as both a performer and producer, Matt will be in an excellent position to analyze the community’s unique features and to determine the extent to which it may be pioneering a new type of relationship to the mass culture industry. Matt’s Senior Honors Thesis in Mass Communications will situate the data he collects in the field […]
Loren Yukio Kajikawa
Loren will undertake a case study of a group of musicians who have recorded for the AsianImprov Record (AIR) label. These musicians have pioneered a musical sensibility commonly known as “Asian American Jazz,” which combines traditionally African American musical styles with Asian instruments and approaches to composition. Through a combination of oral histories with key members of the music community on the east and west coast, a musical analysis of albums recorded under the AIR label, and a review of the theoretical literature on ethno-racial formations, Loren will explore the […]
Rachel Faye Giraudo
This summer, Rachel will travel to Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe to conduct a community-based study of rock art sites, dating from approximately 9,000 years ago when San hunter-gatherers painted images on rock shelters. Her goal is to develop a collaborative interpretation of the sites, through empirical research and qualitative interviews with local inhabitants, including Shona, Ndebele and white Zimbabweans. With the official endorsement and support of the museum that administers the sites, she will be well positioned to deepen our understanding of the effects of tourism and archaeological study […]
Lorna Macmillan and Francisco Nanclares
Lorna Macmillan and Francisco Nanclares propose to undertake ethnographic research that examines the shift in gender power relations among Padaung Karen refugees resulting from the influx of tourism to the Mae Hong Son province in northwestern Thailand. Their goal is to build on previous research to explore the ways in which the economic power that tourism has provided the so-called long neck women affects their familial and communal roles. They will do ethnographic field research in Thailand, resulting in a senior honors thesis in anthropology. Macmillan and Nanclares anticipate that […]
Susannette Burroughs
The “Last Judgment” (“Golden Gate”) mosaic is located on the southern exterior of Saint Vitus’ Cathedral at Prague, a fourteenth century Gothic monument. The mosaic was a framing device for activity which occurred before and behind it: it functioned to separate and relate sacred and secular pasts and presents as a permeable barrier, one which separated and joined secular and ecclesiastical realms of functionality. This project is an investigation of the high degree to which this mosaic promoted powerful localized and international messages of imperial, dynastic, and religious power in […]
Matthew Gracia
Matthew hopes to contribute to discussion within scholarship of the Ancient Near East on the study of the Mitanni state, a polity in Upper Mesopotamia that attained international power during the second millennium BCE. He proposes to elucidate one, fairly restricted aspect of the larger question regarding the Mitannian system of governance by comparing recently published information on palatial administrative architecture from a site in the Mitanni heartland, Tell Brak, with the much more extensively documented peripheral sites of Alalakh and Nuzi. Through this cross-comparative study of the three administrative […]
Seryna Thai
The most valuable possession is a person’s life. This is a statement in Dang Thy Trms memoir, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace. Seryna Hanh Thai will be creating a documentary on the Vietnam War and her direct relation to it. Having two brothers who fought on different sides of the conflict gives Seryna a unique and untold perspective of a national conflict that shaped the history of her family and her native country. However, instead of creating a standard documentary-style approach, the lasting impression of works by Rea Tajiri, […]
Tamarind A. Rossetti-Johnson
Tamarind will create an experiential multimedia performance piece that involves viewers in exploring processes and representations of communication. Live performers will interact with video documentation, photographs and drawings of visual symbols of technological communication, such as satellite dishes, telephone wires and television antennae. In order to add a global dimension to her performance piece, Tamarind will be traveling to Mexico this summer, where she will be researching, collecting and documenting images and interviewing people in Mexico City and Oaxaca City, focusing particularly on the traditional dances of Oaxaca performed during […]
Marisa M. Jahn
Marisa’s project combines historical research and creative expression to explore the gentrification of one of San Francisco’s historically working class neighborhoods. Formerly a shipyard and port-based community, the China Basin/Mission Rock district has undergone recent rapid development, leading to the demolition of historic buildings and the displacement of native locals. Marisa intends to research and document the history of the neighborhood and to create a site-specific installation accessible to the public at an abandoned lookout point overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Finally, she will create a website combining a live […]
Krisa Fredrickson
Krisa will travel this summer to Japan and Laos in order to explore the complex relationship between aesthetic and environmental practices through a case study of aloeswood, a highly valued ingredient in many Japanese incenses that is harvested in Southeast Asia. She plans to produce an ethnography of the incense culture of Japan and to explore the environmental impact of harvesting practices by the Lao suppliers of the raw material used by traditional incense arts practitioners. Krisa’s research will serve as her Honors Thesis for her self-designed Individual Major in […]