Pei (Tony) Zhao
On one hand, determinism claims the necessity of physical laws, together with the state of the universe at any moment, entails that what happens next must happen. On the other hand, when a person acts wrongly and gets blamed for his action, we seem to presuppose that he could have acted differently. Does determinism, or the objective view of science in general, threaten the notion of moral responsibility? Is our practice of holding people responsible ultimately unjustifiable? Incompatibilists say yes; compatibilists say no. In the summer of 2008, Tony will […]
Kyle Dunbar
A renewable energy source is becoming a necessity as fossil fuel reserves dwindle. Using microbial fermentation processes, it is possible to harvest plant biomass and convert it into second-generation fuels. Current industrial focus has been placed on ethanol production. However, this compound is not ideally suited for a liquid fuel replacement. A biochemical pathway has been expressed in Escherichia coli that produces 1-butanol, a much more suitable fuel source in terms of both transportation ease and energy density. Experiments have shown that the pathway is active, but there is a […]
Lijia Xie
Based on Lijia’s travels in China in summer 2008, she composed a collection of three chapters of prose poems intercut with verse as cultural narratives of gender, reanimated as myths of Chinese history and femininity situated onto an invented milieu, the neither/nor setting of contemporary China hosting a global event. The first chapter, (public airing), seeks deconstructed understandings of this setting beyond the partial, i.e. incomplete, privileged, and relentlessly deferred by emerging phenomena. The second chapter responds to a French feminist discourse on criture fminine, particularly a fascination with how […]
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 […]
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, […]
Geoffrey Brookshire
There is a wealth of literature documenting the asymmetric role of the two cerebral hemispheres in different aspects of cognition. Although this has been most exhaustively studied with respect to language and spatial cognition, robust laterality effects are also present in emotion. Experiments performed on right-handed subjects associate the left hemisphere with approach-based behavior and positive emotional states and the right hemisphere with withdrawal and negative emotions. Right-handers, along similar lines, are quicker to respond to stimuli of positive valence when they are presented on the right side of space […]
Mehmet Seflek
Legislation banning the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities has caused a political and social uproar over the last two decades, but the effect of the spillover of politics into women’s private lives has often been overlooked. Mehmet will research the extent of the discrimination against women who wear the Islamic headscarf in the Turkish labor-market and, if it exists, the effect of this discrimination on the career choices of female university graduates. Mehmet will examine the class and religious inequality that discrimination may be creating, how the headscarf affects the […]
Sina Akhavan
In remote Kosovo camps and villages, Roma are isolated from government-run medicine, relying on their own traditions for common sickness. Conversations with Kosovo Roma and field experts indicate some Roma are practicing traditional medicine undocumented in scientific literature. Sina will travel to Kosovo, distributing questionnaires and engaging in interviews with Roma folk to understand which plants are used in healing, and how they are used. There is little academic literature on Roma – mostly on history and music – and less in scientific journals. Sina’s hope is that this project […]
A. Nicholas Santascoy
Research on rejection sensitivity, the anxious expectation of and hostility to perceived rejection, has focused on mapping its possible causes and negative consequences. Positive emotion research, though, has revealed gratitude’s tendency to foster positive affect and pro-social behavior. Nicholas plans to examine the efficacy of gratitude in reducing negative aspects of rejection sensitivity while increasing positive emotions and behaviors within close relationships. In study 1, high rejection sensitive people will daily express gratitude in writing for the behavior of loved ones for two weeks. In study 2, high rejection sensitive […]
Kyle Rentschler
Often understood as a film genre, melodrama is more accurately understood as a particular mode of expression which is actually highly prevalent in most forms of Western mass media. In his paper, Kyle will be addressing melodrama’s existence in video games. Focusing on narrative, design, and gameplay, Kyle will be taking an historical approach at analyzing how melodrama’s varying forms of integration in video games have changed over time and why this is important to how games are played. Through reading video game literature, interviewing game theorists and developers, and […]