Zoë Pollak
Current Bio: Zoë is a PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University (MSt in English from Oxford [2016]) writing a dissertation on small forms in 19th century poetry. Haas Scholars Project: More than once, Marilynne Robinson has invoked Henry Thoreau’s Walden (1854) as an influence on her novel Housekeeping (1980). Zoë’s project investigates the philosophical resonances between these two texts written in the tradition of American Romanticism. Rather than wed Walden to history and read Housekeeping as a modern-day (and specifically feminist) response, Zoë develops a […]
Rachel Gottfried-Clancy
On November 18, 2011 federal law #12,528 created the National Truth Commission (Commiso Nacional da Verdade, CNV) in Brazil. The truth commission was created to examine the events carried out by the government, Foras Armadas, during the countrys military dictatorship and produce an official, truthful account of the period. The hope was that by embarking on a collective search for truth, the Brazilian population would work towards national reconciliation, and in the process strengthen their democracy. However, one year after the commission began, criticisms flood the process: many argue that […]
Sara Sol Linck-Frenz
Collapsing the Frame delves into the space between two categories contemporary and commercial dance to ask how the moving body functions as a site both for composing and deconstructing normative conceptions of embodiment, physicality, identity, and sociality. By researching the particular case of commercially produced choreographies, the project not only problematizes the categorical divide between high culture and popular/commercial culture, but intends to ask how dance productions that cross this boundary function as corporeal and public experimentations with collective identities. Through a comparative analysis of three sites of dance practice […]
Thatcher Combs
Thatchers research explores the relationship between the increasing social legitimacy of the LGBT movement in the U.S. and their marginalization of transgender voices. He will examine the historical reasons for the fracturing of the “T” from the LGBT community and its effects on the transgender community. Thatcher will examine the archives at the GLBT Historical Society beginning in 1973 and ending with current national debates on marriage equality, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and conduct in-depth interviews with transgender people. While this project […]
Jess Genevieve Bailey
Enshrined in a Kyoto temple, the 13th century Portrait of the Holy Man Kya sculpturally visualizes the verbal practice of nenbutsu or chanting the buddhas name. Six small sculptural buddhas emerge on a wire extension from the icons mouth, embodying the chanted syllables. Icons are understood in Japanese Buddhism as animate objects, informing and guiding devotional practice. What does it mean to see the voice of an icon? Jess will examine this icons materiality, viewership, and history in order to negotiate the representation of sound in the visual culture of […]
Ayden Parish
Ayden is exploring the metaphors used to describe transgender identities and experiences. Cognitive linguistics understands metaphor as central to language and human cognition, allowing us to grasp abstract concepts via physical sensations and everyday experiences. There has, however, been very little put forward for a cognitive linguistics of gender: How are the meanings of gender expressed and perceived? What are the effects of particular linguistic structures on how gender is thought about and performed? How are identities in general rendered meaningful? Ayden will collect data from public sources such as […]
Yanyue (Adelina) Wang
As Chinese economic reform deepens and widens its scope, finding a model for sustainable growth is of paramount importance. In this research, I will investigate how changes in the personal income tax structure would boost domestic demand as a stable driving force for economic development, focusing mainly on a flat tax structure. I will analyze past income tax reforms, collect and analyze empirical data and personal stories, build and extensively test models, develop a policy proposal, and analyze its international impacts. Since income tax directly affects the disposable income of […]
Muska Fazilat
Every thirty minutes an Afghan woman dies due to birth complications. Skilled providers attend only 5% of births. My research compares traditional cultural practices of midwifery with Western medical practices. I will explore the role that the cultural practice of Purdah separation of women from men plays in shaping maternal health. Since the U.S. occupation, USAID has funded midwifery schools. However, current political tension between the Taliban and the U.S. military generates a concern for the future of maternal health care. I will investigate how midwifery practices have evolved from […]
Kaitlin Kimmel
In the 1980s, newborns with complex congenital heart disease (CCHD) began to survive into adulthood in larger numbers than ever before due to advances in cardiothoracic surgery and cardiovascular medicine. Growing up, many were told they would either be fixed, once they reached adulthood, they would die in childhood, or that their prognoses were unknown. Now that the first generation of CCHD children has survived into adulthood, there is a gray area between cure and death. Kaitlin will conduct ethnographic interviews with CCHD adults who have undergone major cardiac hospitalizations, […]
Christina Marie Hamilton
Marine-atmosphere gas exchange plays a major role in the global carbon cycle. A key parameter of oceanic CO2 uptake and sequestration is the biological carbon pump (BCP). The BCP is composed of planktonic organisms that fix CO2 in photosynthesis, converting it to food and tissue. The biomass of these organisms turns over about once every week, exporting the carbon they contain away from the ocean-atmospheric interface to greater oceanic depths as they are consumed and expelled in the form of particulate organic carbon aggregates. This process, known as sedimentation, is […]