Salvador Gutierrez Peraza
In 2010, the Arizona legislature banned the teaching of Ethnic Studies in public schools (K-12) via House Bill 2281. The bill specifically targeted Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American Studies program. According to the proponents of this bill, the MAS program was dangerous because it promoted ethnic, racial, and class divisions among students. Salvador will spend the summer in Arizona investigating the historical and political factors that led to the drafting and adoption of HB 2281. Salvador’s project will directly engage with the growing historical and political literature documenting the struggle […]
Sonia Gomez
Immediately following the end of World War II, the United States stationed nearly 450,000 troops in Japan. The U.S. occupation of Japan led to intimate relationships between American Servicemen and Japanese women, resulting in a large number of marriages. Between 1947 and 1975, an estimated 45,000 Japanese women immigrated to the United States as wives of U.S. Servicemen. Most scholarship on the subject focuses on the relationships between Japanese war brides and White American GIs. However, a significant number of these Japanese women came to the United States with their […]
Armen Davoudian
The Waste Land is a metapoem that doubts whether it is a poem: a paradoxical achievement of expression through expressing an inability to express. This antithetical way of writing poetry makes new relations among different tropes possible. For instance, iron–which normally either precludes or retrospectively denies pathos–can become elegy as Eliot complains that he cannot sing, thereby singing. Armen senses a similar concern in Eliot’s other poetry, and he wonders, for example, whether the many paradoxes in Four Quartets can be explained in terms of this argument. He also wants […]
Margaux Fitoussi
Revolutionary Cuba provided international support and financial assistance to the liberation movements throughout southern African. Cuba’s foreign policy of international revolution and its liberation discourse crossed boundaries erected by the apartheid state and influenced the South African emancipation movement. Despite a strong public rapport between Cuba and anti-Apartheid leaders, the majority of research on Cubas foreign policy towards Africa has excluded South Africa. Drawing on archival research conducted at the University of Cape Town and South African national archives, Margaux hopes to contribute to the analysis of Cuba’s symbolic significance […]
Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi
Platonic dialogues usually consist of an interrogative discourse between Socrates and his interlocutor, situated in a specific setting, much like a stage, with other people present and participating somehow. Amin will investigate the role of peripheral participants and the staging of the dialogue in some essential texts known to be mostly concerning modes of discourse, namely Gorgias and Protagoras, as well as two early dialogues, “Crito” and “Meno”. Amin will examine these texts in the light of modern theories of discourse and performance while paying specific attention to cultural significations […]
Louisa deCossy
The recent influx of modernity and opportunity into Ireland has profoundly affected the countrys social, geographical and cultural framework. In response to growing social pressure and the relaxation of the power of the Catholic Church, Ireland has changed many repressive laws regarding divorce and homosexuality and has closed antiquated institutions, such as the Magdalen Laundries. Louisa will research the effects of these changes on the social fabric of Ireland by interviewing women from different facets of Irish society regarding their newly emerging cultural identity. She will also visit historical and […]
Isabella Oppen
What can a close reading of Berlin’s Book Burning Memorial offer to elucidate conflicts of remembering a turbulent past? Using libraries and archives in Berkeley and Berlin, Isabella will research the history and development of the current memorial; its public reception; and different uses of its location (Bebelplatz) over time. This research will also entail an in-person exploration of the memorial’s tactile and sculptural aspects, reading the memorial as an artwork confronting the past and processing history through its form within the city landscape. Isabella’s research will be grounded in […]
Nathaniel Klein
Nathaniel’s project will produce an experimental video and art show exploring the U.S./Mexico border as it is situated temporally, spatially and psychically. By living in Tijuana and crossing the border daily for six weeks; interviewing activists, architects and academics; and providing volunteer humanitarian aid to migrants, Nathaniel will investigate how the histories of the U.S./Mexico border are embodied by the people who pass through it, and by various sites along its path. Focusing his research on three primary border locations — the San Ysidro border checkpoint, the Friendship Park monument […]
Laura Anne Brueckner
Combining rigorous academic inquiry with the living practice of theater arts, Laura will be researching commedia dell’arte , a style of masked improvisational comedy that flourished in Italy during the Renaissance. She will devote herself to historical research and practical training this summer and will develop, rehearse and produce a commedia dell’arte production during the academic year, using a cast and crew comprised of Berkeley students. Laura plans to revive this dramatic art form in a historically informed way for the benefit of the entire University community, staging her production, […]
Anthony Vasquez
During the summer Anthony will be excavating an archaeological site near the UC Berkeley campus that was designated as female student housing from the 1920s to mid 1940s. Using both material culture collected during excavation and archival documents, Anthony will do a comparative study between the lives of male and female UC Berkeley students of the time period. Sites associated with Zeta Psi, the first fraternity in California, have already been excavated, providing Anthony a wealth of information on all-male living situations. Finding archaeological data on all-female situations is not […]