How I Learned to Suffer

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Description
An auto ethnography exploring the onset of my chronic pain and its interaction with the famously tragic female characters I have embodied over the course of the last few years. Told in four parts, this play explores Hedda Gabler (Hedda), HEDDATRON (Jane), Hamlet (Opehlia), and the Tempest (Miranda).
Date Created
2022-05
Agent

March For Our Lives: Stories of Youth Gun Violence Prevention Activists

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Description
On March 24th, 2018, over a million people from across the United States and around the world came together for the single largest single day of protest against gun violence in history. The protest, called the March For Our Lives,

On March 24th, 2018, over a million people from across the United States and around the world came together for the single largest single day of protest against gun violence in history. The protest, called the March For Our Lives, was a student-organized response to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead and another 17 people critically injured. While there is significant documentation of the historic 2018 March For Our Lives protest, there is scarcely any documentation about the stories of young organizers that have been working to promote gun violence prevention in their communities since then. This project utilizes oral histories from two March For Our Lives organizers to expand the available historical documentation about the March For Our Lives, investigate the tactics and motivations of young gun violence prevention organizers, and highlight the stories of diverse movement leaders.
Date Created
2022-05

Comprehending the Impact of Arizona Geographic Diversity on Secondary Social Studies Textbooks: A Case Study Investigation of Multicultural Perspectives Present in Textbooks

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Description
Textbooks are crucial in classrooms when it comes to developing lesson plans and curriculum for the classroom. They serve as a way for students to learn more about a certain topic in depth and can improve reading comprehension skills. However,

Textbooks are crucial in classrooms when it comes to developing lesson plans and curriculum for the classroom. They serve as a way for students to learn more about a certain topic in depth and can improve reading comprehension skills. However, as past studies have shown (Grever and van der Vlies), textbooks can be one-sided and leave out stories and perspectives from marginalized groups, such as African Americans and Indigenous peoples. Multiple perspectives in textbooks allow students to use historical consciousness to reflect how these historical events have an impact on modern society. Arizona has been in a unique political position over the past decade. In 2011, the state legislature passed a bill banning ethnic studies to be taught in schools. This was eventually reversed by the Court in 2017. Recently, the Governor signed two bills regarding education, which are improving curriculum on the Holocaust and banning critical race theory from being taught in schools. Because of Arizona’s geographic diversity, textbook content might vary since Arizona holds the most federally recognized tribes and borders Mexico. To analyze those differences, the 15 counties of Arizona are grouped into five regions, and from each region, one textbook will be analyzed. The textbooks will be coded for each racial community, which will be Asian American, Hispanic American, Black American, and Indigenous American. It is concluded that there is a direct relationship between the textbooks chosen and the racial groups that are covered in these books. Counties that had a larger Indigenous population tended to have a textbook that would cover more Indigenous history.
Date Created
2022-05

Jefferson in the Quad: A Proposed Model of Evaluation for Controversial Statues

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Description

The summer of protests which began with George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white police officer in May 2020 reignited a national reckoning with the complicated story of race in America. America’s history of and enduring manifestations of

The summer of protests which began with George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a white police officer in May 2020 reignited a national reckoning with the complicated story of race in America. America’s history of and enduring manifestations of systemic racism clash with American foundational principles of freedom and equality. One way in which this reckoning has manifested is in increased attention to monuments honoring controversial historical figures, particularly those with records of racist beliefs, attitudes, and actions, including slavery. In this thesis, I propose a guiding system of inquiry by which a controversial statue may be comprehensively evaluated and thoughtfully addressed. It drives at the heart of the issue by identifying and categorizing the six most significant and relevant attributes of the statue, with the ultimate goal of properly contextualizing a proposal for action. In order to test the efficacy of this evaluative model, I have selected the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Missouri as a case study.

Date Created
2021-12
Agent

A Tocquevillean Analysis of Imperial Germany in Defense of Sonderweg

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Description

This paper applies six components of Tocqueville's lens to Imperial Germany in an effort to demonstrate how from a contemporary's perspective the Kaiserreich can be understood to have deviated from what was conceived at the time as the standard path

This paper applies six components of Tocqueville's lens to Imperial Germany in an effort to demonstrate how from a contemporary's perspective the Kaiserreich can be understood to have deviated from what was conceived at the time as the standard path to political, economic, and social modernity, and that these deviations give a justification for the original positive understanding of a German Sonderweg that balanced the excesses of both Western Liberalism and Eastern Reactionarism whilst using the best.

Date Created
2021-12
Agent

Modern Threats to American Democracy: A Study of 21st-Century Declines in Civic Engagement

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Description

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying and defining voter education and participation as necessary contributors to civic engagement. It provides a socio-legal framework for evaluating four phenomena that have shifted in their impact on politics over the past 20 years: the roles of money and media in politics, as well as disenfranchisement by gerrymandering and by felon voting restrictions. It demonstrates how each has a new and worsening impact on voter education and/or participation, thus threatening the continued existence of modern American democracy.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

Barriers to Refugee Participation in Higher Education: A cross-national solution to enhance English acquisition for refugees in Israel

Description

In this formative research project, we seek to better understand the general barriers to refugee access to higher education. Using mixed methods research--which included surveys, interviews, and course data--we evaluate the benefits and challenges experienced by refugee students in Israel

In this formative research project, we seek to better understand the general barriers to refugee access to higher education. Using mixed methods research--which included surveys, interviews, and course data--we evaluate the benefits and challenges experienced by refugee students in Israel who are enrolled in Arizona State University's Education for Humanity programs. In the end, this case study resulted in 24 recommend programmatic changes designed to eliminate the barriers that prevent refugee students from accessing and succeeding in higher education.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

The Shackled Leviathan: Representative Sovereignty, the UN Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect

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Description

The potential empowerment of the UN System as a result of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine requires an examination of what it could mean for both state sovereignty and the authority of the UN Security Council. I argue that the

The potential empowerment of the UN System as a result of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine requires an examination of what it could mean for both state sovereignty and the authority of the UN Security Council. I argue that the Security Council is already a sovereign body within the international system that would be greatly empowered by the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the veto reform efforts of the Accountability, Transparency and Coherence (ACT) Group. I rely on Carl Schmitt’s influential definition of sovereignty and his key takeaways regarding the 1919 German constitution to illustrate the existence of two distinct levels of Schmittian-like sovereigns in the international system: state sovereigns and representative sovereigns. I will then describe the authority and structure of the Security Council followed by a brief case study of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intervention in Kosovo as an example of how real-life situations challenge the Security Council’s ability to exercise its role as a representative sovereign, including a discussion about how it can either fail to act or choose not to act and the difference between them. Afterwards, I will discuss the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and how it expands the relative power of representative sovereignty at the cost of reducing the relative power of state sovereignty, culminating in a discussion of what attempts to reform the veto power on the Security Council may do to the Council’s sovereignty. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the key takeaways of this paper and some further considerations.

Date Created
2021-05

Clear Scrims: Connecting Aspiring Gamers with Quality and Consistent Play

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Description

Esports is a rapidly growing virtual competitive space that is projected to surpass physical sports in the near future. Given that Esports is considered to be in its infancy, it has only been recently introduced at the high school level.

Esports is a rapidly growing virtual competitive space that is projected to surpass physical sports in the near future. Given that Esports is considered to be in its infancy, it has only been recently introduced at the high school level. Our group connected with local high school Esports teams in order to evaluate its efficiency. We found that players at this level are lacking a connection to other competitive teams and consistent practice. In the Esports world, practice with another team of equal level is called a “scrim”. In an effort to combat this issue, we created a platform named Clear Scrims to connect high school and collegiate Esport teams across the country with other teams of equivalent level. This platform will allow individuals to sign up, register with their competitive team, and provide available times to scrim. The platform then would be able to use their self-reported ingame rank to match them with worthy opponents for the most quality scrim experience. Teams playing into the growing sector of Esports need a structure like Clear Scrims to increase skill level and communication. In addition, our platform has a review component where teams and individuals score their opponent to see if they played as advertised. This component will help specify our matchmaking program but also work to dismantle the culture of bad manners or toxicity in Esports. Our site, Clear Scrims, will engender more competition and thus more opportunities for players to practice and hone in their skills.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

An Exploration of the Natural Law

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Description

This thesis explores the idea of the Natural Law by looking at the ideas of three thinkers: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and John Locke. It answers the question of what the Natural Law is, and further explains the derivative of this

This thesis explores the idea of the Natural Law by looking at the ideas of three thinkers: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and John Locke. It answers the question of what the Natural Law is, and further explains the derivative of this Natural Law, Natural Right. It further substantiates a relationship between the two. Finally, the thesis observes the prevalence these terms have in the American context, both in the Declaration of Independence as well as contemporary manifestations.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent