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 […]
Eli Wirtschafter
In 1849, two competing performances of Shakespeare’s Macbeth sparked a deadly riot in New York City. What began as a rivalry between two actorsan American star with a working-class fan base and a British tragedian with an aristocratic followingbecame a conflict over class divisions, British cultural influence, and permitted conduct in the theater. Previous scholarship tends to focus on the two actors, at the expense of understanding what led audiences at the time to invest so heavily in performances of Shakespeare. Using a mix of archival documents and secondary sources, […]
Rose Gephart
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Angkor War has become central to the Cambodian economy through the utilization of international tourism in the past few decades. My SURF project looks at local tour guides in Siem Reap, Cambodia and their discursive relationship to international tourists. I will address three issues: how does tour guide folklore relate to the cultural heritage of Angkor Wat, how state intervention and licensing creates a spectrum of official versus unofficial tour guides, and thirdly how the narrativization of Angkor Wat is dependent on the exchange […]
Emily Booker
Ancient Cyprus has generally been shadowed by its neighbors Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia, yet the small island, is an ideal entrpot. In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1050 BCE), the influence of internationalism can be seen in the appearance of cylinder seals on Cyprus. This summer I am researching the interesting mix of locally and internationally produced cylinder seals and what they can tell scholars about Cypriot society. This study investigates the seals’ use on Cyprus, like what new roles they played and which Cypriot needs they fulfilled. I will study […]
Stephanie Lo
Because reading any piece of literature is a personal experience for me, I was drawn to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre because of how its first-person narrative voice strongly solicits feelings of sympathy from the reader, thus emphasizing the importance and necessity of the reader’s role and response to the novel. My interest in Jane Eyre led me to read Bronte’s Villette, a novel which still conjures sympathetic feelings from the reader, but makes problematic this sympathy with its narrative voice that minimizes the role of the reader and which treats […]
Alex Siegel
How does the urban geography of San Francisco shape access to education? By studying the San Francisco School District archives and exploring the city on foot and by bus, I seek to illuminate the relationships between transportation, housing, and the quality of public of schools. In light of the Districts unique student assignment policy, how does the relative accessibility or inaccessibility of a school lend shape to its demographics, performance, and ability to meet students needs? In order to understand the present conjuncture in San Franciscos school system, my research […]
Maia Wolins
The 2003 war in Iraq displaced 4.2 million Iraqis, deployed over 170 thousand American troops, and changed the lives of many. Its repercussions are seen among the 40 thousand Iraqi refugees in the US, most of whom left behind successful lives as doctors, journalists, and artists. The wars aftermath is also evident among American veterans, who returned home to a community that had a shallow connection with the intense experience the troops had just lived in Iraq. For my senior honors thesis, I will examine the local effects of the […]
Kristopher Gibson
In his diary after the initial 1848 gold strike, the Scottish artist and writer J.D. Borthwick described the terribly violent bull & bear fights drawing crowds of as many as six thousand. Soon after, those fights would be banned, paving the way for new ventures like the Empire Casino in San Francisco. Finally, Jackson Lears describes the abolition of the casinos, only to be replaced by more ‘civilized’ and contemporary speculative ventures. My research question asks what factors fostered the emergence of such a seeming anomalous California gambling culture between […]
Megan Clement
The mirror literally and symbolically reflects opposites. In medieval times, it seems that the mirror symbolized a gateway to the divine; now the mirror is more often associated with the monstrous. Spending the summer studying Dante’s Divine Comedy, I will begin my research into how the evolution of the meaning of the mirror perhaps parallels the move from a societal focus on religion to a focus on individual actions and psyches. I aim to prove or disprove the assertion that the perceived split between the body and soul mirrors the […]
Jessica Lopez
My research will look comparatively at how the ideology of public education, the ideology of American parenthood, and the ideology of the Latino cultural community come to intersect into existing and developing parental practices. Using participant-observation methods and a framework of discourse theory, I will analyze the linguistic practices of the Latino mothers and fathers at the Centro Latino for Literacy in Los Angeles as they index values of parenthood, education, and power hierarchies. By engaging in ongoing discussions about parenthood and conducting personal interviews, I hope to gain an […]