Honors Projects
Showing 221 - 230 of 298 Items
From “a Journey for Peace” to the “Butchers of Beijing”: How Presidents have Used Rhetoric about China to Win the Two-Level Game
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Juliet Halvorson-Taylor
Access: Open access
- This thesis is an exploration of how American presidents have used rhetoric for strategic ends in the US-China relationship. Whenever a president speaks, he is speaking to multiple audiences at the same time, yet he also must balance a number of important considerations. I used Robert Putnam’s “Two-Level Game Theory” as a framework for understanding the conditions surrounding a moment of significance in US-China relations in order to decipher a president’s rhetorical choices. The project is divided into five main parts. First, I used the UCSB American Presidency Project to identify broad trends in rhetoric towards China across presidencies. I found that every president has spoken more about China than his predecessor since the 1980s and that presidents are increasingly using negative rhetoric when talking about China. Then, I conducted three case studies, within the Putnam framework, on important points in three presidencies: Truman’s decision to withdraw aid from the KMT, Nixon’s visit to China, and Clinton’s reversal on the issue of MFN status for China. Lastly, I concluded that when “win-sets” on both sides (in these examples: on both the American and Chinese sides) are either large or small, a president should speak about China more frequently. I also looked at Trump’s presidency and the beginnings of Biden’s in order to see how these trends are playing out currently.
Skin Deep: Analyzing Black Representation in the Teaching of Visual Arts
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Destiny Arianna Kearney
Access: Open access
- My honors thesis argues that at Bowdoin College, failure to provide Culturally Relevant Teaching in art studio courses dismisses the representation of Blackness in the Visual Arts Department. Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) recognizes the importance of all students' cultural experiences in different aspects of learning. It allows for equitable access to education for students of diverse backgrounds. CRT is crucial to reconstructing Art Education to represent diverse student bodies. My position as a Black-Indigenous artist enables me to reflect on the intersection of these frameworks and to build upon them in order to highlight the need for pedagogical practice in studio art courses, that doesn’t center technical training derived from the Western canon of art production in Bowdoin’s Visual Arts Department. My research lives on a digital format, where you will engage with the history of Art at Bowdoin from 1794 to the present, oral histories from Black identifying alumni who have navigated the department, theoretical frameworks, and an auto ethnography that breaks down my self-taught pedagogical practice in response to the representational gaps in the curriculum. As you navigate this site, I ask you to follow the written instructions and engage with the interactive material. I will virtually guide you through this project chronologically, and through the lens in which I have experienced personally and through observation.
From Left to Right? White Evangelical Politicization, GOP Incorporation, and the Effect of Party Affiliation on Group Opinion Change
Date: 2013-05-01
Creator: Devon B Shapiro
Access: Open access
- While most white evangelicals in America have advocated moral, cultural, and social conservatism since the Founding, the group’s fiscal and social welfare preferences have been more volatile. Early 20th century evangelicals tended to be socially conservative, fiscally liberal, and, to the extent that they were politicized, mostly Democratic partisans. Since that time, not only have white evangelicals abandoned the Democratic Party, but also they have largely become fiscal and social welfare conservatives. I attempt to explain that transformation. I first examine the dynamics of white evangelical politicization and GOP incorporation, providing social and historical context to the political and partisan calculations of white evangelicals since the 1970s. Further, I propose a party affiliation effect that helps to explain white evangelical fiscal and social welfare conservatism. This effect asserts that partisanship penetrates individual conceptions of political issues. In the case of white evangelicals, I argue that the group affiliated with the GOP largely on the basis of socio-moral issues and concerns. Partly as a result of that affiliation, group opinion on fiscal policy began to drift to the right, toward the Republican Party status quo. Consistent with this claim, I provide longitudinal analyses of ANES and GSS data that shed light on the timing of opinion changes. As we would expect, white evangelical opinion on economic issues was closer to Democratic partisans during the 1960s and moved moved toward Republicans during the 1980s-1990s.
Bodies, Memories, Ghosts, and Objects or Telling a Memory
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Natsumi Lynne Meyer
Access: Open access
- I think it started in December 2017, when my Mama sent me to Japan to take care of my grandparents, Baba and Jiji, alone. I had been to Japan almost every year since I was eleven years old, and several times before that too, but this was my first time without Mama. When Mama was there, Japan was filtered through her. I could poke bits of myself through her editing and approval. I could read street signs because of the way she read them, and I could understand my grandparents’ sighs from the timbre of her translation. That December, though, I had to see and hear alone. The tiny shakes in Baba’s legs and the indentation in Jiji’s forehead from when he fell down the stairs crystallized in my memory, and I had to write about it. This project includes a series of creative nonfiction and fiction pieces centered around telling my family stories. Writing from interviews, observations, and generational memories, I weave together these story fragments to discuss Asian American identity and immigration, WWII trauma, aging, and inheritance.
Modeling the Development & Expression of Political Opinion: A Zallerian Approach
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Avery C Ellis
Access: Open access
- Research focused on John Zaller's famous RAS model of political opinion formation and change from "The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion" (1992). Analyzed the mathematical and psychological underpinnings of the model, the first paper to do so in over fifteen years and the first to do so through an analysis of motivated reasoning and Bayesian reasoning. Synthesized existing critiques of Zaller's model and other literature to suggest ways to build on Zaller, utilizing fundamental reunderstandings of opinions and messages from political and mathematical perspectives. Found verification for Zaller's model, confirming its value, but also found support for the proposed RAIS model, which suggests foundational changes in the way citizens interact with information in the current political environment. Confirmed the utility of a Zallerian framework for analyzing shifts in mass opinion over time and suggested ways to improve the creation of surveys and polls for understanding elections and reported opinions on issues.
New Institutional Economics: Political Institutions and Divergent Development in Costa Rica and Honduras
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Maynor Alberto Loaisiga Bojorge
Access: Open access
- For most of their histories, Costa Rica and Honduras were primarily agricultural societies with little economic diversification. However, around 1990, after the implementation of Washington Consensus reforms, the economies of both nations began to diverge. Costa Rica’s economy rapidly expanded for the following 30 years, while Honduras remained stagnant. Through a New Institutional Economics approach, I argue that institutional differences between Costa Rica and Honduras are responsible for the impressive economic growth Costa Rica has been able to achieve in the past few decades. Specifically, early political developments in Costa Rica have deeply imbedded relatively egalitarian values into the population, helping shape formal and informal inclusive political institutions. Meanwhile, Honduras experienced the development of extractive political institutions, as political and economic power was heavily concentrated in the hands of a select few. These political institutions were crucial during the implementation stages of Washington Consensus reforms, as strong and inclusive political institutions attracted Foreign Direct Investment that helped propel the Costa Rican economy and materialize its position as an outlier in the region. In contrast, lack of institutional guarantees discouraged foreign investors from investing money into the Honduran economy. Through a deep dive into the political histories of both nations, from European discovery to modernity, I conclude that the political institutions of these Central American nations have determined their economic growth paths.
Empire of Horror: Race, Animality, and Monstrosity in the Victorian Gothic
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Grace Monaghan
Access: Open access
- This project examines Victorian England through the analysis of three Victorian gothic novels: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903/1912), and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle (1897). The end of the nineteenth century and the final years of the Victorian era brought with them fears and uncertainties about England’s role in the world and its future, fears that the Victorian gothic sought to grapple with, but inevitably failed to contain. In examining this genre, I draw on “Undisciplining Victorian Studies” (Chatterjee et al, 2020), which calls for the field of Victorian studies to center racial theory. As such, I foreground race and whiteness in these novels, in conjunction with animality, empire, and sexuality, all of which were crucial tools in the imperial gothic’s project of constructing the monstrous Other. The British empire relied on the establishment of a physical and moral boundary between itself and the colonized Other, in order to justify its imperialism and maintain its own perceived superiority. Yet, ultimately, this project demonstrates that the boundaries between the self and the Other, between morality and monstrosity, and between mainland England and its empire, were dangerously porous.
Diatom blooms in Harpswell Sound: seasonality, succession, and origin
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Charlie Francis O'Brien
Access: Open access
- Harpswell Sound (HS) is an inlet in northeastern Casco Bay that exerts control on Gulf of Maine ecosystem health, yet its complex phytoplankton community dynamics have not been characterized with sufficiently detailed analyses. In this research, high-resolution automated microscopy and current velocity observations were used to test the seasonality, ecological succession, bloom origin location, and potential toxicity of populations in HS between 2020 and 2022. Winter months could exhibit slow accumulation of diatom biovolume. Cold, salty surface water has net outflow in winter as nutrients from depth are replenished during net upwelling conditions, and populations could be exported from the inlet at the surface. Extreme current velocity variability in spring due to the Kennebec River plume in HS destabilizes spatially uniform populations. Warm, low-salinity surface water with net inflow in summer (net downwelling which retains populations at the head of the sound) corresponds with temporally separate dinoflagellate and diatom blooms. Large, multi-peaked spring and fall diatom blooms are recurrent, contrasting small, short-lived blooms in summer. A successional pattern from diatoms to dinoflagellates is confirmed for summer but refuted for other seasons. The hypothesis that diatom succession during all blooms in HS is characterized by large centric cells preceding small cells or pennate cells was explored but no clear pattern in decreasing cell size was observed. Observed tidal effects on biovolume concentration could mask that blooms develop at coherent times but spatially separated. A diverse community of toxic phytoplankton, including dinoflagellates and Pseudonitzschia, are observed throughout the year.
The Role of ELMO5 in Arabidopsis thaliana Cell Adhesion
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Isabel Kristina Ball
Access: Open access
- Plant cell growth and development relies on proper cellular adhesion. As the extracellular matrix serves as the area of connection between two cells, its synthesis and maintenance are essential for cellular adhesion. The middle lamella region, the layer of the extracellular matrix between two adjacent cell walls, is diffuse with the polysaccharide pectin due to its delivery by Golgi vesicles early during cell division. A Ruthenium Red screen for cellular adhesion mutants identified the family of 5 ELMO proteins that are critical for proper cellular adhesion. To further our understanding of plant cellular adhesion and pathways of pectin synthesis and modification, this work investigates ELMO5. Plants homozygous for a T-DNA insertion in ELMO5 and a new deletion mutant allele generated using CRSPR do not have a cellular adhesion phenotype, suggesting it is either not critical for cellular adhesion or is redundant with another gene. Redundancy within the ELMO family is identified through the analysis of double mutants of elmo5 and each of the other four elmo genes. Both elmo1-/- elmo5-/-and elmo4-/- elmo5-/-mutants have a visibly worse cellular adhesion defect phenotype, suggesting partial redundancy through the ELMO family. The mutants are also rescued by growth on agar, pointing to the importance of turgor pressure and osmotic potential in modulating cellular adhesion. Both ELMO4 and ELMO5 were found to localize to the Golgi using a GFP fusion, consistent with a role for ELMOs as scaffold for pectin biosynthesis.
The role of modulation on the pyloric neurons and the neuromuscular junction in a pattern generator-effector system
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Jackie Seddon
Access: Open access
- Neuromodulation, the process of altering the electrical outputs of a neuron or neural circuit, allows an organism to control its physiological processes to meet the needs of both its internal and external environments. Previous work shows that the pyloric pattern of the kelp crab (Pugettia producta) stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) neurons responded to fewer neuromodulators than the Jonah crab (Cancer borealis). Since the kelp crab diet primarily eats kelp, it is possible that the movements of the foregut that control digestion may require less flexibility in functional output compared to an opportunistic feeder. To determine whether a reduced flexibility is correlated with diet, this study compared the modulatory responses in Pugettia to two other species of majoid crabs: Chionoecetes opilio and Libinia emarginata, which are both opportunistic feeders. Pooled data for this study found that Libinia and Chionoecetes responded to all twelve modulators tested. When considering the effect of modulators on stomatogastric ganglion (STG) motor outputs, we must consider whether these modulators also alter the excitatory junction potentials (EJPs) at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), and whether there are differences in responses across species. To test this, the dorsal gastric nerve (dgn) was stimulated while recording intracellularly from the muscle fibers of the associated gm4 muscles. The NMJ of the gm4 in Cancer borealis did not appear to be broadly modulated, as only RPCH and CabTRP showed increases in amplitude, and RPCH decreased facilitation at 5 Hz.