Category: Topic paragraphs

When looking at women’s health policy in America, there seems to be a severe lack of a scientific perspective on the matter. Like most topics in politics, opinions tend to interfere with sensible policy making. But why, in the United States, is women’s health policy seemingly shaped by opinions rather than scientific data? When looking specifically at birth control methods and regulation, the political climate has been tumultuous to say the least. In the current political climate, there’s a disconnect between developing policy and science, and I want to explore why that’s the case.

Since a women’s ability to control her reproductive facilities is fundamental to her autonomy (although some would argue against this), why is there such a polarized debate surrounding birth control? I want to address the possible reasons the rhetoric surrounding birth control is controversial and lacks scientific understanding and discussion. Why is birth control a different health issue both scientifically and politically? Further, I will discuss how we can reshape the rhetoric and policy regarding birth control using a scientific perspective and what are the pros and cons of using that particular perspective.

The resources I would like to include in my thesis are; news articles regarding developing policies surrounding birth control and Planned Parenthood, scientific articles regarding the mechanisms of birth control, and various databases on teen pregnancy rates in states with and without heavy control over teens accessing birth control. Lastly, books that would discuss the history of birth control policy, also any books that would discuss the development of science surrounding birth control.

Medicine as we (Western society) know it is a field where every illness and disease has a natural and purely scientific cause. We use this notion to find out the definitions, etiology, and possible treatments and cures for the disease. However, despite our perception of this as a fact, we are just one culture among the many that exist and each with their own perceptions of diseases and illness, many of which would appear completely nonsensical to western views. This discrepancy in beliefs often creates conflicts in the medical world as it becomes very challenging for one culture to understand another culture and find a middle ground so that both parties feel quality care is being given.
As a result, patients may not receive the best care and treatment due to miscommunications, incompliancy of patients towards medical instructions, and even unwillingness of medical professionals to hear their patients out completely. My research will focus on the manifestation of Bengali culture and beliefs in regards to medicine and how it is viewed by both western society and Bengali society. My aunt may be a prime example of someone who believes they are sick for no real illness, but as a product of her cultural beliefs. I want to explore how the beliefs in this particular culture develop conflicts in terms of health and wellbeing and the root causes of it. The resources that will be beneficial to me would be anything relating to health care in Bangladesh, their different cultural views (both related to medicine and not), and how these views may lead to perceived illnesses that otherwise may not exist. Also helpful would be sources about other cultures that have misconceived ideas about illness as a result of culture.

Virtual conversational agents, by and large, are notoriously ineffective at human-like conversation (albeit fun for humans to interact with). At worst, these agents’ responses come across as gibberish, and at best, they feel unnatural to interact with. Previously, the “best practices” for the construction of these agents has not centered around human-like speech behaviors, but rather around the appearance of human-like behavioral capabilities, the byproduct of machine-learning methods which essentially “train” the agent to mimic patterns which emerge from corpora of conversations.

The work I did at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) this past summer in programming a virtual conversational agent centered around human-like conversational behaviors is a jumping off point for creating a virtual agent which portrays human-like conversational abilities for casual conversation. At ICT, we used an alternate method of constructing these virtual agents: we programmed dialogue policies modeled after the conversational behaviors of humans. The virtual agent I would like to create will have: a memory of what it has said and of what the user has said within a conversation; the functionality to recognize what the user has said; a method of using what the user has said in an effective manner; human-like speech utterances and conversational behaviors; and a way to remember this information for use in future conversations. It is my goal this year to create either a method of authoring such an agent, or to construct such an agent myself.

In Spring 2015, I created a photo project that explored the distinction between ‘house’ and ‘home’ by documenting the ways people filled and used their spaces. For my springboard project, I’d like to continue with a focus on people that have two homes or houses, however they might define the places where they sleep at night. I’m very interested in the way space is used to create the feeling of home and what “home” means to different people. Specifically, the way children of separated or divorced families define their spaces and create belonging within inconsistency. Personally, I have always struggled with the concepts of ‘house’ and ‘home’ and utilized my first project to visualize and explore the concepts further. Being a child myself that traveled back and forth between houses on a near daily basis, it often meant having duplicates of belongings, or half remnants of slightly different version of myself at each house. I want to explore the concepts of space, identity, materialism, belonging, and separation through the ‘house’ versus ‘home’ dichotomy.

The method I’d like to utilize would include conversations, writing, photography, and possibly video. The culmination of the work will be in an exhibition of photos, writings, and video. I want to select a core group of people with diverse situations to focus on in interviews and photography. I plan on first conducting interviews with the subjects to obtain a background about who they are and their unique situation/perspective. Then, I want to visually document them in their home spaces and houses. It would be interesting to recognize the dichotomy of the two houses. I would seek my subjects through friends and friends of friends and incorporate a self-portrait portion.

Research Help: I am really interested in finding literature on divorce/separation affects on the children, home vs. house theory, and examples of photojournalistic work that could help inspire/show me how to conduct the interviews and photographs.

Originally my thesis idea was a cloud of seemingly clashing thoughts that I was trying to fit and piece together. These clashing thoughts ultimately highlighted my interest in almost everything creative and the process of connecting concepts that seem far-fetched was exciting to me. Thus, I defined my idea as “a mixture of fashion, tech, music, culture, multimedia and maybe even the idea of empowerment and how it relates to the Black community.” Since then I’ve found the connection between the keywords that floated through my mind and I have narrowed down my idea to hip hop feminism and its ability to empower young Black women.

I envision my completed thesis to illuminate the instrumental power that lies within the hip hop industry for Black women. Overall the purpose of my thesis will be to deconstruct the stereotype of hip hop being detrimental to society and instead showcase it as a musical genre that supports Black women living under a Eurocentric male-dominated society. In the past, hip hop has been used to express experiences with oppression while also serving as a means for coping with that oppression. And black women have long used the spoken word to challenge racial inequality and sexism. I hope to prove that despite its limitations, hip hop can be emancipatory for Black women and empower them as well.

My research will not only study the current state of the hip hop industry and contemporary feminism, but will also look into the history of both. I also plan to dissect lyrics and various elements within music videos (including fashion) of performers, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj. By analyzing them, I seek to answer the following questions: How are Black women in the hip hop industry redefining modern feminism through their music? And how is this modern form of feminism (hip hop feminism) empowering and inspiring young girls and women?

The sources I want to look into might include something on the evolution of feminism, the evolution of hip hop and the black woman’s role in the fight for women’s rights (at a time when they were also fighting for their own civil rights). I would also love to read something about how society can empower and inspire young girls and women especially Black ones.

Today’s rapidly changing technological world advances in modern medicine have allowed for machinery to replace the physical need for doctors in many respects, such as taking vitals or even surgical procedures. If this progresses, will it eradicate the need for doctors? Furthermore, what defines being a good doctor? In such a humanistic field like medicine, one must be aware of his/her responsibilities to humanity. “Good” is only a relative term, for people have varying opinions on what the true essence of a proper doctor is. However, it is the branching of application from paper to patient that truly defines how well one can function in reality.

The recent changes in the MCAT have integrated a new section called Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior. The implementation of such humanistic subjects are of utmost importance, since they allow for a new division of testing one’s ability to understand the human mind and behavior. In order for a person to treat another, they must understand and use the gifts of reasoning and compassion, which sets us apart from not only machinery but the rest of the animal kingdom. My capstone project will focus on this distinction of mankind and the need for its use to forge a change in modern medicine.

The sources I would like to consult for my thesis paper include: information on medical school curriculum, historical articles on physicians and their roles in pre-technological society, physician memoirs, and/or documents on lawsuits in regards to physicians and their behavior towards patients.

 

Chinese immigrant students going abroad to travel usually run into problems both socially and educationally. Chinese culture is generally different from most European and American cultures. Chinese cultures are more collectivistic and more reserved than European and American cultures, which brag about the individualistic natures students. In Chinese cultures, students are told to try to not stand out and to be more reserved in thought. These culture clashes impede Chinese immigrant students from succeeding in other countries. Professors have used other students studying abroad to their advantages by asking foreign students for advice in order to put together a culturally sensitive class to ready their Chinese students for other countries expected norms.

Examples of Chinese students that unable to thrive in other school settings are that Chinese students are more likely to not participate in class or they are less likely to raise their hand to ask questions even if the professor asks for questions. In American schools, participation is sometimes considered a grading point. How do we make studying in different countries more effective for all students especially when cultures are completely different? How do we become culturally fluent to serve students effectively?

I am interested in using a feminist lens to undertake an intense character analysis of Harley Quinn (aka, Dr. Harleen Quinzel), a supervillain in the DC comic book universe. She was created in 1992, and since her inception as a cartoon character in Batman: The Animated Series she has appeared in countless comic books, video games, and films (including the recent Suicide Squad), becoming a fan favorite. As a psychiatrist who later develops schizophrenia – a working clinician attempting to reconcile her own escalating mental illness with her professional duties even as she begins to identify more with her patients than with her colleagues – she has a complex backstory that is too frequently dismissed in favor of her more ubiquitous, grossly reductive label: the Joker’s girlfriend. Furthermore, she is often (but not always) portrayed as an oversexualized, battered puppet, as much a victim of the Joker’s cunning as she is the brilliant psychiatrist who originally treated and analyzed him. In this way, she is a constantly shifting figure – almost a barometer for the prevailing (anti)feminist sentiments of any given work, and a powerful statement on the double standard facing female characters who must manifest countless traits (sexy, strong, weak, mature, infantile, battered, empowered, intelligent, foolish, vulnerable, naive, calculating, etc.) somehow simultaneously.

In order to undertake this multifaceted analysis, will use previous scholarship examining the origins of the comic book genre as well as its evolution through the decades. I will investigate how the comic book “universes” have permeated popular culture and, having emerged from their subcultural niche, how prominent characters like Harley Quinn now more than ever inform/are informed by prevailing conceptions of femininity, sexuality, and heightened or fetishized subversions thereof. Studying Harley Quinn is also a singular opportunity to assess current attitudes toward and understandings of mental illness; therefore, I will also incorporate relevant scholarly articles or passages from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Finally, I will have access to a wealth of comic books, television shows, zines, movies, video games, and other media from which to cull more information and thus create a psychobiography. In summary, I will attempt to present an appropriately nuanced portrait of a complex character and map her metamorphosis in popular culture against shifting sociocultural schemas.

I am looking to explore faith transitions through the lens of music. Tyler Glenn’s release of a music video called “Trash” as a response to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS)’s change in policy to deny baptism to children of gay and lesbian parents inspired me to incorporate music into this discussion.

For a number of reasons, I intend to focus on Mormonism specifically and the people who leave it. First, Mormonism is a young religion relative to the major world religions, yet it also is large enough that it is a global faith with a significant number of adherents. Second, it is doctrinally uniform and most members subscribe to the orthodoxy of their religion. Because it is generally assumed that all LDS members are taught the same doctrine, members from different regions share the same background in LDS sacred music. Third, ex-Mormons tend to form strong communities of their own, whether in person or online. This makes it easier to locate information that is relevant to my topic.

It would be helpful to have information on the history of LDS musicians in general (from Donny and Marie Osmond on up), the role of music (including sacred music) in Mormon life, the history of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, how LDS hymns compare to music that predominates in other faiths, music and the religious experience in general, LDS doctrine and the main points that bring people to leave (it would probably be helpful to have a copy of No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie, as it is cited as a common text for people working through difficult doctrines for the first time), the history of intellectualism in the LDS Church (the September Six, etc.), Mormon culture and how it differs from doctrine (though it differs from doctrine, some elements of Mormon culture have been de facto elevated to doctrine), back issues of church publications, Sunstone Magazine, Dialogue Journal, and information on the history of the Brigham Young University (BYU) Honor Code.

Note: If my topic needs to be narrowed even further, then I can always focus on a specific group of people who are leaving (intellectuals, LGBT+ individuals, young adults, feminists, etc.) or the experience of people who leave who are already marginalized in society (persons of color, persons with disabilities, persons with mental illness etc.). Literature on these areas is very welcome.

Here’s the link to Tyler Glenn’s music video: https://youtu.be/JNqnLdX4TM8