Zhengyun Sun
Astonishing development that China has achieved for the past 30 years following the Open and Reform in 1978 is unquestionable. What behind, however, is notable disparity of growth between coastal and inland regions. While previous studies focus on preferential policies, the crux of my project centers on answering the question: how geographic features and construction of transportation networks on top of policies explain economic growth of Chinese regions in the last three decades? My analysis will assess the relative importance of geographic features, transportation networks and preferential policies during each […]
Allison Yates
Probiotics, microorganisms known to benefit their host, appear in curious sites: from the projected $23 billion dollar market involving upper-middle class white women searching for perfect intestinal balance – to the international struggle to treat infant mortality in the third world. My research will investigate the manner in which probiotics are discussed in scientific and clinical settings, as well as the ways they are marketed and consumed. I will interview leaders in clinical probiotics research, travel to a Bay Area creamery that uses probiotics in their products, and survey probiotics […]
Graham Haught
Jhoole, a textile production NGO based in Madhya Pradesh, India, formed in 2008 through a dialogical need from sari weavers that were working under indentured conditions. Since its formation in 2008, Jhoole has provided collective ownership, secured creative freedom over design/production, implemented sustainable agricultural practices, and supplied living wages to these female artisans. However, in March 2012 after reading Marx, Hannah Warren, the founder and Executive Director of Jhoole, un-incorporated Jhoole in an effort to dismantle institutional hierarchies that limited the extent to which local stakeholders were able to direct […]
Chryl Corbin
The Naturalization Act of 1870 ushered in a wave of immigration during the turn of the 20th century which included many from the West Indies. While they sought the same opportunities as their European counterparts they often suffered from, and organized against, discrimination and Jim Crow segregation. Thus as activists, intellectuals, and parents, these immigrants paved the way for their children who went on to become such civil rights pioneers as W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Shirley Chisholm, and Malcolm X. My research illuminates how these often overlooked immigrants helped […]
Katie McCarthy
My project is a discourse analysis of the community-donation-based Vinyasa yoga studios of Yoga to the People (YTTP). I will explore issues of embodiment, technique and aesthetics and whether they incite, affect or create a potential space for a community to form within a individualized practice. Yoga teachers at YTTP are kept anonymous (simply, their names are not placed on the schedules) in an attempt to promote an ego-less space. Yet, I believe it is the teachers – through vibrational dialogue, vocal manipulation (timbre, tone, pronunciation etc) music and movement […]
Gregory Swain
My research will look at the impact of English laws on the importation and use of coal in the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, both England and the Netherlands were prosperous nation with high demands for fuel. The English increasingly relied on coal, which influential theories tie to Englands being the worlds first country to industrialize. Due to the location of mines, however, it would have been easy to deliver coal to the Netherlands instead of central England. Various historians have examined the historical prices […]
Katherine Zepeda-Arreola
The disparity in earnings between students with and without a college degree has been growing for the past twenty-five years, and has become pivotal in determining the future stability of the nations youth. Through this research project, I will explore the college predispositions of low-income students of color recently accepted in College Track, an after school college preparatory program in Oakland. By focusing on three elements of the program: the college-focused activities, the extracurricular/supplemental opportunities, and the staff, I aim to understand the motivations that lead rising 9th graders to […]
Justin Hauver
Friedrich Nietzsche spent much of his philosophy denying Being and replacing our conception of it with a notion of becoming. In sharp contrast Martin Heidegger produced a work titled Being and Time and saw the illumination of Being as the central task of philosophy. This tension is reproduced in the way each philosopher deals with the creation of art, yet there is a peculiar way in which the aesthetic philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger interact and seem to complement each other. My research is concerned with the connection between these […]
Sarah Covington
From Homers Odyssey to Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, the average American high school graduate has at least encountered a work of foreign literature in translation. Yet those students have not likely read the same translations of the works. Where the original language text is fixed, translations can differ wildly. Whats more, there are both British and American versions of Harry Potter; because of cultural differences from one English speaking country to another, there are translations of a book from one language to the same language. How much then, does culture […]
Caroline McKusick
It’s easy to see video games as fantasy worlds designed for pleasure and escape. In this project, I plan to look further into the real-life implications of virtual worlds–specifically military first-person shooters. When we consume war as a source of fun, what happens? Military FPSes, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, involve certain assumptions–not just about global questions of the role of the United States as a military superpower, but about small-scale questions of how we are embodied in the world. These games invite us into the bodies […]