Pablo Seward

Bloodbaths by Western explorers, followed by various other forms of abuse, resulted in the reduction of the Rapa Nui of Easter Island to 115 people. Being the most isolated inhabited place on Earth, Easter Island has become a major tourist destination today, by means of the renowned landmarks left by the ancient population. Many of the five or so thousand Rapa Nui, all descendants of the surviving 115, believe, on the basis of oral history, in guardian spirits. I am currently living with one of the leaders of an organized […]

Julia Uyttewaal

There are over 18,000 NGOs operating in Haiti, many of which provide overlapping services in the same regions without collaboration. Recent academic debates have pitted NGOs against the Haitian state, claiming that the multiplicity and fragmentation of NGOs prevents any sort of uniform policy from being implemented and thus further undercuts the legitimacy and accountability of the Haitian state (Etienne 1997). My research project will attempt to challenge this dualistic framework by conducting participant observation with the Cap-Haitien Health Network, an organization that coordinates the operations of over seventy health […]

Anca Giurgiulescu

Within the AIDS public health crisis currently affecting the African continent, Senegal stands apart from its African counterparts throught its succcess in controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This relative success is attributed to the early and timely government response, as well as to the joint efforts of multiple actors of the Senegales society including community religious leaders. But what were the already existent political bases and networks that facilitated the implementation of a national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic? This summer, I will work from Dakar with local and international actors […]

Branda Brehm

I am researching the relationship between Marcel Prousts la recherche du temps perdu and cinema in light of how each produces images. The prose of Marcel Proust is often termed cinematic, yet it is executed in a medium that is vastly different from film. What is it then about the image at this point in its history that allows for a comparison between this major work of literature and the fundamental techniques of the cinema? To answer this question I am researching the underlying philosophy of Prousts imagery of time […]

Tweed Arden Conrad

Asclepius, Apollo’s son, was an important healing deity in ancient Greece. Asclepian healing sanctuaries existed at Epidaurus, Kos, Pergamum, the Athenian Acropolis, and Corinth. The main vehicle for healing at these sanctuaries was dreaming, where one could converse and be healed directly by the god Asclepius himself. This summer I plan to explore the various methods of worship at different Greek sanctuaries, specifically focusing upon sanctuaries that employed different healing methods. Then, I will focus in on the sanctuaries that utilize dreaming as the primary healing method. The site that […]

Adrienne Johnson

Competitive eating is a vernacular form of cultural criticism masquerading as mass entertainment. My research into the significance of competitive eating in American culture will unveil collective but inarticulated perspectives on consumerism, gender roles and our economic climate. Competitive eating is at once a glorification of American excess and an indictment of it; a direct challenge to idealized human form and a confirmation of its strength. Historically, I believe competitive eating served to homogenize immigrant diet in 19th century America. By tracking the foodstuffs of competition, I hope to prove […]

Eyal Mazor

Although considerable scholarship has debunked neo-Malthusian myths of “overpopulation,” its specters and tropes continue to be invoked in environmentalist, anti-immigration, and ‘development’ discourses. However, little historical work has been done on the origins of these discourses. My project focuses on the genesis of a particular concept that raises specters of “overpopulation” — ‘human carrying capacity’– whose various conceptual, political, and historical blind spots I will seek to elucidate and contextualize, and whose textual origins in late colonial Zambia place it at the cusp of a scientific revival of neo-Malthusian thinking. […]

Adam Cramer

Lyman Frost Mower

Stephanie Shih

Linguists have studied text-setting and proposed metrical templates for mapping text to music; however, their pioneering works on the subject have neglected music outside the Western classical genre. My research will explore the influence of music on text in jazz bop swing, since the rhythmic and artistic nature of swing differs greatly from Western classical music. Through analyzing the coupling of the rhythms of spoken language and music, I will utilize the linguistic methods of templates, rules, and Optimality Theory to answer the question, “What is the rhythmic structure that […]