Anca Giurgiulescu
Within the AIDS public health crisis currently affecting the African continent, Senegal stands apart from its African counterparts throught its succcess in controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This relative success is attributed to the early and timely government response, as well as to the joint efforts of multiple actors of the Senegales society including community religious leaders. But what were the already existent political bases and networks that facilitated the implementation of a national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic? This summer, I will work from Dakar with local and international actors […]
Moises Yi
This project will deal with the economic implications of the most recent waves of immigration to the U.S. (1970-2000). Specifically, this study will focus on the impact on housing prices immigrants have by looking at the evolution of real estate prices in the 40 cities with the highest immigration rates in the country. During this summer, I will work on gathering and processing data from the U.S. Census. I will also work on developing an appropriate model to use as the basis of my empirical approach, as well as for […]
Stephanie Lo
This summer I will be investigating why Asian Americans engage in (inter)cultural viewing of Korean soap operas. I am interested in tying this question in with the Korean wave, that is, the general enthusiasm for Korean pop culture, but also to larger questions of pan-Asian identity, language and cultural proximity. To answer these questions, and hopefully more that I have not yet thought of, I will be viewing the most popular Korean soap operas and interviewing other viewers. I will also be engaging in Internet ethnographynetnography to further explore viewers […]
Devin Burnett Beaulieu
After half a decade of political turmoil and the rise of social and indigenous movements in Bolivia, elections in 2006 and early 2007 have put the new party “Movement Towards Socialism” lead by Evo Morales in power with the charge of “refounding” the state and writing a new constitution. This summer I will travel to the constitutional capital Sucre, and observe the ongoing process of drafting new articles in the constitution under the categories of “Land and Territory” in the Constituent Assembly. Through onsite research and interviews, I hope to […]
Caroline Akiko Yamamoto
The Sannai Maruyama site, located in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, is currently considered to be the largest Jomon Period settlement in Japan. While ongoing excavations have significantly contributed to our understanding of Jomon hunter-gatherer lifeways, there is still much to learn about Sannai Maruyamas functionality. My research will focus on analyzing the charred seed remains gathered from soil samples collected during an excavation of a Middle Jomon pit-dwelling this summer. This will allow for a preliminary assessment of the pit-dwellings functions, depositional sequences, and activity areas. More importantly, a comparison of […]
Felice Lin
An alarming number of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections have begun to surface in communities due to a particular strain USA300. USA300 carries a single conjugative plasmid, pUSA03, which confers multiple antibiotic resistance. This is of great concern because the plasmid has been suggested to be able to acquire additional resistance genes in response to changing antibiotic uses. To study the evolution of pUSA03, I hope to characterize the pUSA03 plasmid found in USA300 isolates infecting patients by whole plasmid PCR scanning that could detect any structural changes in the plasmid […]
Joshua Jones Begley
James Plemon Coleman was the Mississippi Governor who, in 1957, assured his fellow citizens that a baby born in Mississippi today will never live long enough to see an integrated school. He vowed to resist the federal mandate handed down by Brown in 1954, and became the first head of the controversial State Sovereignty Commission. But due to his later ties with the Kennedy-Johnson Administration and an eventual reputation of being a racial moderate, many think segregationist is a title he did not earn. In order to better understand the […]
Bryan Joseph Welch
After the Meiji Restoration opened Japan to the West in 1868, many of the traditional Japanese martial disciplines (budo) were reinvented, incorporating modern Western concepts of mass education and competitive sport. However, some disciplines resisted these reforms in an attempt to preserve their traditional method of individualized apprenticeship. Through participant observation at a large gymnasium in Tokyo, I will explore school structure, pedagogy, and power relationships between expert and novice within several budo communities. I will look for correlation between these elements and the degree to which each style has […]
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 […]
Beatrix Chung-Yiu Chan
While the application of humor to the Holocaust may seem difficult and even offensive, humor during the Holocaust was employed as a means of critique and rebellion, aiding in developing solidarity amongst prisoners and as a mechanism for coping with trauma. Though such rationales exist for the use of comedy during the Holocaust, there is no such theorization for post-Holocaust comedy written in response to the event. In looking at the British filmmaker Peter Greenaways post-witness portrayals of the Holocaust, specifically, his 1980 film The Falls and his latest novel […]