Sam Burgess Undergraduate Library Research Award

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/585

This award recognizes excellence in undergraduate research projects. Winning projects will incorporate extraordinary skill and creativity in the application of the services and collections of the IUB Libraries.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 26
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    Analyzing Gendered & Raced Editorial Scrutiny of Lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K.
    (2020) Bourkland, Julia S.; Nichols, Vanessa Cruz
    Content analyses in gender and politics scholarship find that female elites are often discussed in different and degrading ways in news media compared to their male counterparts, with additional intra-group differences between white female elites and female elites of color. Feminist political scientists have long critiqued the way women in politics are portrayed in the media as these narratives facilitate public-political conversation and therefore perceptions of women in office. This project contributes to the media literature on gender and politics by analyzing editorial treatment of two female elite groups: women lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and the U.K. House of Commons. I build two original datasets of editorials and opinions pieces from reputable and widely read U.S. and U.K. newspapers collected with LexisNexis (n = 120 for each group). My data is extensively coded with Amazon Mechanical Turk. The study tests four hypotheses: whether editorial scrutiny arises from sexist treatment determined by language (using dictionary resources from Daku & Conroy and Roberts & Utych), party, positionality on a policy issue, or as a result of time and evolving media expectations. This work adds to the understanding within the discipline of how and when misogynist and racist treatment of female elites occurs in news media. This submission presents the base paper that inspired this experiment along with the mTurk appendix. The extensive mTurk coding is currently in progress.
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    Beneath the Fabric: An Ethnographic Exploration of the Meanings Behind Bras
    (2024-04-01) Westbrook, Christina
    I set out to meet with people who are close to me and talk to them about their feelings and their relationships with their bras. My interviews took place as casual conversations and my participants freely shared their experiences and feelings with little to no hesitation. I interviewed my mom and my sister (Hope), a close family friend (Arden), and a friend of mine who has recently graduated from IU (Lyn). Everyone’s name has been anonymized, though I acknowledge that my mom and sister are participants. A lot of ideas and factors related to bras and breasts came to light during my interviews and research into how people choose to wear bras or not. These topics include the inherent sexualization and objectifaction of breasts, wearing a bra as a significant life marker, religious perspectives, queer perspectives, breastfeeding, performative aspects of wearing a bra, bra industries, and the cultural and global influences of bras and breasts. Conversations about bras and their significance revealed quite a lot about my participants’ experiences. A diverse range of factors that influence people’s decisions to wear a bra is clear, whether it’s influenced by our culture, personal circumstances, or societal expectations. Throughout this sort of ethnography, I aim to discover the connection between people and their bras and provide a more nuanced understanding of this relationship with a very common and mundane garment that also has deep symbolism.
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    The Controversy of Conservative feminism: How a Conservative Ideology Hinders Republican Women’s Electability and What This Means for Women’s Issues
    (2021) Lynch, McKaylyn; Clapper, Laura
    The core of women’s issues in America are deeply rooted in long-standing political barriers. Despite advancements that have narrowed the gap between men and women in terms of voting rights, reproductive rights, and workplace and education rights, we still see significant discrepancies between the number of men and women who hold important positions in politics. There is a particularly large gap when comparing the number of Republican women vs Democratic women who are elected. When women are prevented from holding these positions of power, their ability to develop adequate representation for women’s issues becomes severely obstructed. This paper will analyze the historical trends of congressional elections, with particular focus on the influence of the 2018-2020 elections, to demonstrate how a conservative ideology creates a barrier of its own for women’s electability. By framing these facts around the “paradox controversy” of conservative feminism, this data will illustrate how the rejection of identity politics – specifically gender politics – and lack of emphasis on women’s issues in the Republican party has contributed heavily to preventing Republican women from getting elected, or even running in the first place. To conclude this research, the feminist discussion section will explore how conservative feminism tends to be in opposition with non-conservative contemporary feminism1, and how a reanalysis of this relationship through political representation can benefit women’s equality.
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    Cultural Heritage Management and International Law: Restitution of the Benin Bronzes
    (2022) Jackson, Joelle; Parrish, Austen
    In this paper, I examine the situation surrounding the Benin Bronzes through a lens of international law. I will first provide a background on the Benin Bronzes themselves, including their cultural and artistic value, the colonial context of their theft, and their current place in museums around the Western world. This will include an overview of current debates over ownership of these objects, as well as a broader look at what cultural heritage management is and why cultural heritage is more than merely property. Diving into a more specific case, I will describe the state of African object repatriation in France. I will then give an overview of the international legal regime relating to cultural heritage management, covering major international conventions that govern the protection of cultural property. This discussion will also look at national legislation in France, which is currently being used as a domestic legal means to push the repatriation of African objects. This paper will conclude with a critique of the current international legal framework for cultural heritage management, which allows the restitution of the Benin Bronzes to fall through the cracks. These stolen items must be returned to their cultural owners, so that they no longer sit as trophies and sources of profit in the halls of those who stole them. I argue that, in an ideal world, this solution should come in the form of an international, binding legal code, but that the complexities of colonial restitution mean that voluntary national restitution laws may presently be the most realistic legal solution available.
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    Harmony and Discord: The Political Symphony of Venezuela’s Musical Landscape
    (2024-05-01) Hernandez, Eva
    Venezuela is currently known as one of the greatest exporters of immigrants in the world. Despite being a wealthy country in resources, the oppressive dictatorship of the state during the last few decades has led to a collapsed society. During the 90s, political turmoil and corruption generated widespread distrust of both political parties in Venezuela; this led voters to elect political outsider Hugo Chavez during the 1998 presidential election (Grau, 2019). Chavez’ government, promising to put an end to corruption, implemented a wide variety of aggressive wealth distribution policies and social programs. Over the course of time, these policies created financial instability, high unemployment rates, and scarcity of goods like food and medicine. Due to this, the political polarization in Venezuela became so extreme that tolerance between groups is nonexistent. Venezuelans can be either for or against the government, and in the eyes of the society, and even if you are dependent on government programs, utilizing them makes you part of “the problem” according to many in opposition. From traditional Venezuelan genres like Gaita, to modern sounds like rock, many different types of music have become part of the soundtrack of Venezuela's political crisis. Songs and hymns are used by both sides of the spectrum as a means of recruitment and activism.
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    La plaza del diamante y el abuso de relaciones personales y políticas
    (2021) Kurpius, Sarah; Johnson, Rhi
    La plaza del diamante muestra cómo lo personal y lo político están conectados. En su novela La plaza del diamante, que se publicó originalmente en catalán en 1962, la autora renombrada catalana Mercè Rodoreda crea un matrimonio abusivo entre dos de sus personajes principales –Natalia y su esposo el Quimet– que tiene la enfoque antes de y durante el principio de la guerra civil española. La examinación de esta relación abusiva entre Natalia y el Quimet en La plaza del diamante por Mercè Rodoreda crea un paralelismo extendido para la relación entre Catalunya y España en tres aspectos: la represión de identidad, la explotación económica y la violencia; todos que han afectados a Catalunya negativamente durante todo el franquismo y han dirigido la región a su movimiento moderno para independencia.
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    Olympe de Gouges: More than a Proto-Feminist
    (2012) Howland, Catherine; Spang, Rebecca L.
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    Saving Face: Embodiment and Play Through Masks in Commedia dell’Arte and Kathakali
    (2020) Castaneda, Bre; Barker, Brandon
    Masks, as used in performance, designate the face as a bodily play space, with the mask becoming a facilitator for play and amusement. This concept of fully, yet momentarily embodying someone else to conform with the iconography of a character is a fundamental tenant of theatre performance. Theatre masks serve as a more direct method for performers to ‘become’ their character, wherein the performer is playing with the audience’s perception of identity and suspending disbelief in order to foster a narrative within the performance-reality of the stage. In literally putting a different identity on oneself, there is a clear indication that the mask-wearer has commenced a performance – something to be appraised as distinct from the regulations of reality. On a material level, the way actors interact with the composition of the mask itself in efficiently playing their character – whether that be detachable from or affixed to the face of the performer – conveys a new insight into theatrical embodiment as a whole. Masks serve as a stylistic convention within theatre forms such as kathakali and commedia dell’arte, but their respective uses of the mask in performance extends beyond theatre theory, but into the realm of play. By adapting the mask into a plaything for performance, kathakali and commedia dell’arte embrace the foundations of play that encapsulate theatre performance.
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    Society through Whist and Gaming In 18th Century Britain
    (2020) Parnin, Ben; Guardino, Peter
    Card games had been an established formed of entertainment in Britain since the 15th century. However, the trick taking card game whist grew in popularity during the 18th century. This caused a societal craze over the new game. The British aristocracy was especially drawn to this game, spending vast amounts of time and money playing the game. Gambling and idleness quickly became associated with whist causing British society to question the worth of this game. This caused a counterculture in British society to oppose what they saw as morally destitute game. The debate about the worth of whist in British society led to uncertainty about the behaviors a person should display in public while playing whist. In order to justify their own actions, male aristocratic whist players responded to the critics by developing an unofficial standard of proper and acceptable roles for whist players. The expected role for a whist player was dependent on their social class and their gender. Male aristocrats sought to portray themselves as enlightened intellectuals while limiting female whist players and portraying commoners as rooks and thieves.