Category: Abstract: Draft 2

When discussing the influence of religion on politics in the United States, the “religious right” is often what is discussed. However, in giving attention to this group, it is easy to forget about other groups that are influential on a smaller scale. One such group is the Mormons, who make for an interesting case to study given the consistency of belief among orthodox members. The aim of this project is to demonstrate how Mormonism has shaped American policy in the 20th and 21st centuries in a more significant way than might otherwise be anticipated. As an outsider, I am uniquely situated to write on this topic, as previous writings come primarily from members or former members of the LDS Church. The official position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) on U.S. public policy is emphatically politically neutral. However, as illustrated both by policies covertly supported by the institutional LDS Church and by U.S. Supreme court cases related to these policies, this is not the case in practice. The methodology for this project will be to take a case study approach. I argue that in each of these cases the LDS Church was in fact involved in the political sphere in a way that it claims not to be. The cases I intend to inspect include the Equal Rights Amendment, Proposition 8, the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, and the MormonLeaks release of internal tapes that bring into question the separation of church and state among LDS politicians. This evidence includes videos, as in the MormonLeaks case, opinions from court cases, external analysis in the form of papers, and internal writings from members. As a whole, this evidence would indicate that there is a divide between word and deed in the institutional LDS Church. For this reason, we would be remiss to ignore its influence.

A house or a home? Often these words are used interchangeably as synonyms in daily conversations. Yet, for many people the two words have strikingly different definitions, especially for those who are obligated to have two houses: children of separated families.

New York City poses interesting opportunities for kids to live close to both parents (i.e.: in the same neighborhood, within the same apartment building), yet still separated. Increasingly, arrangements are made to have children to spend equal time with parents by going back and forth between homes.  Much of the literature and resources of separation are focused on assisting parents. Very little explores the nuisances of what the children go through and how they are able to cope and understand their dichotomous life situations. Especially as a child reaches their late teenage years, the concepts of home, identity, and belonging become increasingly apparent greatly manifesting itself materialistically.

For most, the consistency of coming “home” to a physical structured “house” that is filled with personal belongings is taken for granted. For children living in two houses, they have to deal with two sets of possessions, dual cultures & religion, and considerations to what bed they will be sleeping in.

My project will be a photographic, multimedia exploration of the unique situations of children of separation in New York City. Each photographic set will explore a different aspect of being a child living between two houses. I will interview and photograph the subjects, with parent permission, about their concepts of house and home and photograph the ways they create home within two houses.

The final work is intended to visually shed light on the unique situations and ways of defining space that children of separated families utilize in correlation with their definitions of home.

Hospitals today are filled with machinery that have replaced human labor that was once the only available system of service. The rise of technology in the healthcare field not only continues to pave the way for alternative operating procedures but also for managing entire patient records. How has technology changed modern medicine and what are its implications for future doctors entering the field?

I argue that a contradiction is emerging in modern medicine: on the one hand technology can now do so much to replace what doctors used to have to do. On the other hand, patients crave human, not impersonal technological interactions. Humanoid robots and Doctor apps have allowed people to bypass the geographical and time constraints of waiting to see an actual physician. The Internet has also revolutionized the way people seek out answers to their medical related questions. With such innovations that can handle entire databases of information, the roles of modern doctors must accordingly adjust.

Doctors were once required to be knowledgeable sources of information, however technological competition has now eradicated the need for human databases. Patients today are now looking for humanistic approaches and holistic treatment, not just for the illnesses. Medical schools have also recognized the new demands of healthcare by introducing a shift in the MCAT topics, which now focus on the humanistic subjects of sociology and psychology. My research project will not only analyze articles regarding technology and its ability to revolutionize medicine, but also will feature interviews from patients, doctors, and aspiring doctors to get their perspective on future changes for the healthcare industry. Finally, I will also integrate physician memoirs to compare how doctors’ roles have changed from past to present.

Harley Quinn (alternately known as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, the Clown Princess of Crime, the Joker’s girlfriend, and Poison Ivy’s best friend and occasional paramour) is a character in the DC comic book universe who has recently experienced a meteoric rise in exposure and popularity due to her prominent inclusion in Warner Brothers’ Suicide Squad. She has established herself as a fan favorite, cultivating such a devoted following since her inception in 1992’s Batman: The Animated Series that the show’s creators felt compelled to incorporate her initial single-episode appearance into an integral series-long residency. She has since emerged as a perennial presence across almost all strata of the DC universe, garnering such audience and critical enthusiasm as to earn her own eponymous comic series.

There is a dearth of scholarship on this still-young character and her unprecedented pop cultural transmutation; most academic work exploring her multifaceted macrocosm is dedicated to psychological, philosophical, and sociological discourses on Batman, the Joker, and the larger universe they cohabit. In an attempt to rectify this disparity, I examine Harley Quinn as an unlikely proponent of a peculiar phenomenon: the acknowledgment and celebration of non-normativity in many of its varied psychosocial configurations. Using a critical lens informed by several fields of scholarship, I undertake an intensive character analysis of Harley Quinn while mapping her metamorphoses across multiple media.

Drawing upon queer theory, disability theory, and postfeminist scholarship, I probe the character’s enduring popularity and her unique translation across television shows, graphic novels, films, and fan-mediated creative spheres. I argue that the character is a prism through which audiences can situate themselves in close relation to Harley Quinn’s singular place in pop culture as a paradigm of a particularly palatable queerness.

Virtual conversational agents, or Chatbots, are quickly becoming a ubiquitous element of human-computer interaction, customer-business communications, and entertainment. Modern Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) techniques often utilize Machine Learning methodology to train a Chatbot on datasets of English language and dialogue, allowing what seem like natural English responses to emerge from the agent. However, this façade of understanding by the Chatbot is often mistaken for hard-coded reasoning taking place within the agent.

This project proposes a framework for construction of Chatbot characters capable of human-like casual conversation which integrates rule-based reasoning and human conversational behaviors into both the NLP and NLG aspects of the agent. This framework operates using an information-state-based dialogue manager called Forward Looking, Reward Seeking (FLoReS). Chatbot characters created using this framework possess conversational goals and behaviors as defined by the author, allowing for these characters to possess unique personalities and distinct utterances. Integrated into this framework is an explicit representation of memory and knowledge, also defined by the Chatbot author, which allows for the Chatbot to “remember” information from previous interactions with a user. Chatbots characters created with human conversational abilities can provide a more natural means of interaction with a user. These interactions contribute to improved human-computer communication and consumer interaction, and provide alternative and unexplored avenues for storytelling through character dialogue and behavioral design. The paper portion of this project examines background work in conversational agents as well as the motivations and reasoning behind the framework presented. The interactive portion of this project will allow a user to converse with a Chatbot character created using this framework.

Hip-hop feminism differs from traditional feminism and black feminism. It’s a way of thinking and living that is rooted in different life experiences than the traditional feminism of the Women’s Liberation Movement or black feminism from the Civil Rights Movement. Although hip hop feminism shares similarities with black feminism, it has its own distinct identity. The ideology was born out of a need to understand the many cultural, social and political conditions that women (born after 1965) of the hip-hop generation faced. These women weren’t dealing directly with issues of invisibility brought on by systems of segregation, for example. Rather, they were battling extreme visibility within the media and its negative stereotyping. Although hip hop is considered disempowering and merely reproducing dominant racist and sexist images of black women, I argue that there are many black women artists who attempt to challenge and undermine such representations. They prove that despite its limitations, hip-hop can in fact be emancipatory for black women. Scholars like Joan Morgan introduce us to this idea of hip-hop feminism. Drawing from this twenty-first century hip-hop feminist framework, this study examines where hip-hop culture and feminist thought and activism intersect. It also explores hip-hop feminism’s ability to empower and inspire young Black women. Artists Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé will be analyzed to explore the ways in which Black female entertainers produce feminist knowledge and empowerment within the realms of hip-hop culture. By examining “Flawless” and “Feeling Myself” by Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé, along with their respective lyrics and music video visuals, reviews by cultural critics, the work of contemporary women authors and interviews with young black women, this essay opens the door for further dialogue about what hip-hop feminism might add to current conversations surrounding race, class, gender, and sexuality and hip-hop’s power to liberate black women.

Humans have always sought to answer the question of what is our place in the universe. This debate has recently come to include scientists from diverse disciplines. From the Earth centered universe of the Middle Ages to the Copernican heliocentric solar system, Earth has had varying degrees of importance in this cosmic play. This shift from the literal center of the universe to somewhere off to the side is taken to mean that there is nothing special about Earth in general, that we occupy a completely mediocre place in the cosmos. Following that line of reasoning, if Earth is common then Earth-like and possibly complex life would also be common. However, with the increasing number of exo-solar systems that are being discovered it becomes hard to believe that we find ourselves in a completely unremarkable place.

I believe that a new understanding of Earth’s place is needed given our access to new alien solar systems and planets. My sources include NASA’s own data and books written by leading scientists. Using these I will suggest that Earth is neither average nor rare. In addition, the incorporation of mathematical concepts will be used to better understand what it means to be average. To understand life’s place in the universe, the origin of the universe and life on Earth will be discussed. Analyzing the bio-philic propensity of our universe and our planet will ultimately inform a strategy for searching for life elsewhere.

For the past 80 years, autism has been labeled as a disease, a disorder, and most recently as one of many “normals” in a neurodiverse community. In this paper, I will argue that how people think about autism is a major factor in how they act towards diagnosed individuals and how they choose to address the educational, developmental, and social struggles that accompany an autism diagnosis.

Some have treated autism as a disease, choosing to search for a cure and looking for genetic causes of autism. Others have considered it a disorder, and thus chose to treat it with different forms of therapy. Autism is beginning to be seen as a disability, and the response to this identification has been to adapt social, educational, and community programs to best benefit individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The identification of autism as a disability has helped humanize autism by identifying that it is not a problem that needs to be “fixed.” Instead, the autism community has shifted its focus to interventions that promote independence and help make the lives of diagnosed individuals easier.

This paper will analyze different identifications of autism through time and the development of forms of treatment that relate to those identifications, looking at the different editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, articles and papers from psychiatrists and scientific writers, and articles and webpages from within the autism community. Knowing that there is a correlation between the label given to autism and the way the disorder is then treated can help us consciously choose to support treatments that best benefit individuals with autism.

             Mental illness in Bangladeshi American women are caused by the economic and social stresses that they face, such as poverty, discrimination, and restricted gender roles. In this culture, there is a strong stigma regarding mental illness that often causes the defamation and rejection of patients and their family members. These ailments affect women the most due to the nature of their dependence and inferiority towards men. As a result of this stigma, there is an inability to confide in doctors for fear of being seen as weak. It is therefore hypothesized that Bangladeshi American women subconsciously turn their mental illness into physical symptoms such as pain, aches, accelerated heart beat, fatigue, dizziness, etc. as a way of coping with their mental health. Considering the fact that these somatic manifestations often do not have a discernible source, somatization of mental illnesses gives women the opportunity to seek treatment without the added concern of being stigmatized.

          I will interview four Bangladeshi American women with questions inquiring about their view of mental illnesses, such as depression, and how they perceive and categorize the different stressors that they are exposed to. Behaviors that are considered somatization in the interviews will be highlighted and analyzed.

           In order to combat the issue of somatization when there are underlying mental health issues, reforms to educate the Bangladeshi community both in America and Bangladesh will aid in diminishing the stigma against mental illness as well as instill more trust in the medical system. Convincing Bangladeshi women to partake in psychotherapy or even family therapy can alleviate household problems and combat fixated gender roles. By becoming more knowledgeable about mental illnesses and the role of the doctor, Bangladeshi women can take steps toward countering somatization.

Sources

Articles:

Davey, Gareth, and Mahbuba Keya. “Stigmatisation Of People With Mental Illness In Bangladesh.” Mental Health Practice 13.3 (2009): 30-33. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.

Fikree, Fariyal F, and Omrana Pasha. “Role of Gender in Health Disparity: The South Asian Context.” BMJ : British Medical Journal 328.7443 (2004): 823–826. Print.

Hanley, Jane. “The Emotional Wellbeing of Bangladeshi Mothers during the Postnatal Period.” Community Practitioner 80.5 (2007): 34.Academic OneFile. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Karasz, Alison et al. “‘Tension’ in South Asian Women: Developing a Measure of Common Mental Disorder Using Participatory Methods.” Progress in community health partnerships : research, education, and action 7.4 (2013): 429–441. PMC. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.

Lauber, Christoph, and Wulf Rössler. “Stigma Towards People With Mental Illness In Developing Countries In Asia.”International Review Of Psychiatry 19.2 (2007): 157-178. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Sept. 2016.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/somatic-symptom-disorder/basics/definition/con-20124065

Parveen, Shahana et al. “It’s Not Only What You Say, It’s Also How You Say It: Communicating Nipah Virus Prevention Messages during an Outbreak in Bangladesh.” BMC Public Health 16 (2016): 726. PMC. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Rogers, Anne and David Pilgrim. A Sociology Of Mental Health And Illness. Maidenhead, Mcgraw-Hill Education, 2010, https://books.google.com/books?id=CVKLBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=somatization+in+south+asian+women&source=bl&ots=vbC1EI1paT&sig=nHSo-lfYnJMxCAIJDeUKA16K5oM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSu_j2xfzPAhXBWD4KHfPODI8Q6AEIPjAE#v=onepage&q=somatization%20in%20south%20asian%20women&f=false

Selim, Nasima, “Cultural Dimensions of Depression in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study in Two Villages of of Matlab.” Journal of Health Population, and Nutrition 28.1 (2010): 95-106. Print

Personal Interviews: 4 Bangladeshi American Women

Professional Interviews: Psychologist