2023 - 2024 Research Conference

Slavery is a stain on America’s record due to the sheer brutality that American slavery perpetuated. The after-effects of slavery remain expansive: voter suppression, public lynchings, and the infamous racial wealth gap. These issues have coalesced to make it incredibly difficult for American Descendents of Slavery (ADOS) to get ahead in America economically and socially. According to Pew Research Center, in 2019 63% of Americans felt that slavery still affected Black Americans a great deal or... Read More

The “Democratic Advantage” hypothesis suggests that within international borrowing and lending markets, democratic nations benefit from cheaper borrowing costs compared to non-democratic nations. In theory, democracies can make more credible and time-consistent commitments to repay their debts, meaning that even in “bad” states of the world where debt default is preferred to debt repayment, democracies will continue to honor their commitment to repay. The empirical and theoretical literature... Read More

In 2015, El Salvador held the highest homicide rate out of any country, labeling it as the “Murder Capital of the World”. In 2022, President Nayib Bukele enacted mano dura ("iron fist") policies amid high violence and associated with MS-13 and Barrio-18 - among other armed groups - in El Salvador. These policies have been understood by many as being responsible for dramatically reducing the homicide rate. Such policies, however, invoke the delicate balance between state security and civil... Read More

Psychological and social pressure can make adolescents more vulnerable to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, including non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicidal ideation (SI). Simultaneously, adolescents place a greater emphasis on peer feedback, which can give rise to body disturbances and, subsequently, disordered eating behaviors. Crucially, comments on social media (SM) may encourage both appearance comparisons and appearance consciousness, potentially contributing to eating... Read More

Emily Wilcox, a scholar of Chinese dance, defines the notions of kinesthetic nationalism, dynamic inheritance, and ethnic and spatial inclusivity, to investigate Chinese Dance as a modernist project, in dialogue with earlier and contemporary modern experiments in the U.S. I propose that the radical dance projects she discusses should be understood as an attempt to redefine dance form. Closely reading the ways in which concert dance is created, discussed, and interpreted, I argue that these... Read More

Cultural centers play a pivotal role in the development and well-being of college students, particularly within predominantly white institutions. Where large university settings can make marginalized communities feel isolated as the only minority in their class. Cultural Centers provide a home away from home, where they can be reassured in their identities, and experiences. The significance of these centers go beyond just providing space, rather they foster the growth of student’s personal,... Read More

In recent years, the world has witnessed a retreat from democracy as right-wing populist leaders and parties who attack the norms of liberalism from within have won strong electoral support in several countries. Democratic backsliding is the process by which duly elected government officials gradually erode democratic institutions, rules, and norms. The prevalence of democratic backsliding has led to a growing body of literature dedicated to analyzing its causal mechanisms, but little is known... Read More

 A concern of mine is the preservation of my history and culture, considering so much of it is being either erased, stolen, or falsely interpreted. Recently, I am interested in opening an archive of the student activism on campus, particularly that which was accomplished by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Endowment Justice Collective (EJC) coalition. Many of these student organizers remain anonymous due to doxxing that they may experience, therefore only they have access to... Read More

Goethe’s Faust, widely considered the birth of German poetry, is an epic concerned with what it means to sell your soul. This project traces how the play renders Faust’s desire and its various implications of pedagogy, semiotics, cliché, ideology, economics, and rhetoric. It draws on a rich history of Goethe scholarship and contributions from literary studies, linguistics, history, and media studies.  Faust’s desire is symbolic: it orbits language. The wager he makes with Mephistopheles in Part... Read More

With the rise of social media, a phenomenon known as Blackfishing has become increasingly common. Non-Black influencers have been accused of 'pretending' to be Black, usually by tanning skin, wearing stereotypical Black hairstyles, longer nails, and in general adopting Black aesthetics. Backlash can be found on 'Black Twitter', where Black users react and reaffirm the authenticity of Blackness and Black culture online. My research focuses on what Blackfishing looks like, and how Black Twitter... Read More

The Partition of 1947 is one of the largest mass migrations recorded in history. This catastrophic event implemented a two-state solution creating a Muslim-majority Pakistan and a Hindu-majority India. The Partition caused immense psychological trauma for survivors due to the violence, displacement, and suffering they witnessed. This subsequently led to the eventual transmission of their trauma to future generations. Intergenerational trauma can present itself in a variety of symptoms,... Read More

Studentification is the process of urban change distinct to university towns associated with the increased concentration of postsecondary students (Smith, 2005). This process has consequences for residents within the urban environment, with aspects of displacement similar to gentrification. Studentification has recently been fuelled by the rise of off-campus Purpose-Built Student Housing (PBSH), apartment buildings built specifically to market towards students, addressing specific demands for... Read More

The contemporary American political landscape is characterized by polarization, hyper-politicization, and extremism, driven by a interplay of media engagement and societal disconnection. While existing literature often focuses on the direct influence of media on political trends, this study proposes a broader examination, considering media's impact on societal patterns, particularly among Gen-Z and Millennials given their unique understanding of social media and technology. The proposition... Read More

The turn of the century brought with it a new age of technology and the rise of social media. Early platforms like MySpace quickly gave way to others like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and various others, thereby shaping digital activism into what it is today. Partisan polarization, an older trend, has grown sturdier and uglier since the turn of the century as radicals in each party have (seemingly) grown in numbers. By chronicling the rise of social media and polarization, this paper aims to... Read More

The elementary narrative around enslavement, the Civil War, and Black history in general has characterized the South as the villain and the North as the heroes. This simplification obscures the reality of mistreatment, discrimination, and racism that has been equally persistent in the northern states of the U.S. My goal is to challenge this narrative by presenting a holistic local history of my hometown, Hopewell, New Jersey, incorporating the experiences of Black people. As a student of... Read More

Sexual violence against women is a pervasive public health and safety crisis in the United States, particularly on college campuses. Recent research suggests that the sexual violence rate in higher education sits at about 20 percent, but given that sexual violence is one of the most underreported crimes, this is likely a gross understatement. Most women do not report sexual assault for fear of being blamed or not believed. Not only do women have to grapple with the fear of not being believed,... Read More