Graham Shapiro
Does there exist a relationship between the times of past earthquakes and the time until the next earthquake? Recent research suggests that there exists patterns in earthquake occurrence that exist between long sequences of earthquakes. Most current earthquake models assume earthquakes are either memoryless or only incorporate short-term memory. The purpose of this research is to develop a statistical earthquake model that incorporates time-dependence as well as long-term memory. Specifically to create a computer implemented time dependant statistical model of temporal sequences of earthquake features to estimate the effect of […]
Faith Gardner
This research explores three pulp novels by 20th century American writer James M. Cain and their subsequent film adaptations of the 1940&Mac226;s: The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity. These three movies are a few famous examples of film noir, an American cinematic style that reached its heyday in the 1940&Mac226;s. My research explores the text of these novels in comparison with their film translations, along with theoretical, historical and other secondary resources. I hope to better understand how instruments such as syntax, narrative structure and point […]
Karlyn DeSteno
All musical compositions borrow some material. It is not always easy for the law to draw the line between theft and inspiration. Recent changes in copyright law point to new systems of valuation of musical elements, both cultural and legal. This summer Ill be tracing these changes through a musical and legal analysis of music written for television and commercials, focusing on compositions which seek to copy elements of other, original works. Ill spend one month in Washington, D.C. using archives at the Library of Congress, and will also conduct […]
Jeremy Soh
In my ethnography I explore the question of justice and memory in the aftermath of mass atrocities in Cambodia. For Cambodians, who have had to engage in a daily process of reckoning with the memory of (social) death, re-making a world has necessarily involved a delicate reweaving of kinships torn asunder by the violent alterations of life. I wish to look more carefully at these everyday practices of living as practices of bearing witness. With the anticipated commencement of the Khmer Rouge Tribunals, I seek to interrogate the role of […]
Andy Chang
Hao Li
Amanda Pojanamat
In developing capitalist countries such as Thailand, many women migrate every day from the rural areas to Bangkok in search of the better life. I would like to explore how their understandings of the good life are influenced by modern discourses and whether their constructions and reconstructions of these modern discourses contain resistance either to oppressive conditions in the rural areas or in the urban. Do their interpretations of modernity ultimately provide them with the discursive tools they need to improve the conditions of their lives? To answer these questions […]
Susan Soojin Yi
The representation of any minority group in film or television often results in a heated debate regarding either the film or television show’s reinforcement of negative stereotypes or its “white washing” of the group’s identity. With my research project, I intend to explore this polarizing argument within the construction of black identity by black filmmakers starting with Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), a film intended to dispute the “Uncle Tom-ing” of Sidney Poitier’s noble black characters, and ending with the films of contemporary black filmmakers such as […]
James Yushang Lin
In the 1950s, modernization theory became the driving factor for American foreign policy as a reaction to the beginning of the Cold War. In the decades to follow, modernization theory slowly subsided in popularity, until a recent revival in the 1990s by several prominent American neo-conservatives in response to the presumed victory of the Cold War. This project plans to explore the reasons for the revival of modernization theory and its adoption by the neo-conservatives in the US. In preparing my answer in a 30-50 page paper, I will focus […]