Library Award for Undergraduate Research
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Item To Resurrect a Community: Reparations for Urban Renewal and Displacement in Lakeland(2023-04-23) Nowicki, Braden; Montroso, Alan"To Resurrect a Community" is an essay which provides a detailed portrait of harmful urban renewal in College Park's Lakeland district. Taking two major lines of inquiry - theory surrounding infrastructural oppression of minority communities throughout the nation and history/context for the renewal which occurred and Lakeland - I present arguments for confronting past racist renewal and preventing it in the future.Item Alienation and Alliances: Transgender Coalition-Building from the 1970s through the 1990s(2023) Grafstein, Julia; Keane, KatarinaCoalition-building in the transgender movement has received scant attention from scholars in history or gender studies. In an effort to understand transactivists' motivations and how they worked with others, this thesis analyzes the partnerships formed within the transgender community and with potential allies of the lesbian, gay, and feminist communities. Using archival records, magazines and newspapers, published reports, and oral histories, this thesis argues that trans activism in the period between 1970 and the end of the 1990s was multifarious, fractious and inconsistent. It also demonstrates that trans activists worked to build coalitions with potential allies in the women's movement and the gay and lesbian rights movement whenever possible. Such coalitions held the promise of greater influence and of shared values. Because I have submitted three of my other chapters for publication at several journals, I am submitting the introduction and my second chapter for your consideration. This chapter focuses on transgender coalition-building within the transgender community and gives insight into the internal struggles of a nascent movement. The introduction will detail the focus of my thesis altogether and lay out key background information. The separated bibliography has all of the sources from my thesis, while the bibliography at the end of my research paper has the sources from only the chapters I am submitting.Item A Self-Portrait of Success: The Images of Jewish Masculinity in 1940s America(2023) Yang, Mason; Cooperman, Bernard“A Self-Portrait of Success: The Images of Jewish Masculinity in 1940s America” is a research paper that seeks to define what masculinity and success looked like to Jewish men in the mid-twentieth century. To do so, This paper examines New York Times obituaries throughout the 1940s and analyzes the content that prominent Jewish men had published about themselves. These obituaries represent the fulfillment of the Jewish male aspirations and what they wanted to be known for. Along with this, this paper also explores Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, a 1949 play that narrates the life and death of an “everyman.” While he strives to find success and fame for himself and his family, he fails to achieve the same aspirations as the men in the obituaries. Ultimately, this paper works to add complexity and new dialogue to the understanding of Jewish masculinity and also seeks to generate interest in comparatively working with both nonfiction and fiction primary printed sources.Item Influenza Vaccine Hesitancy Among College Students in the United States: A Review of the Literature(2023) Hofman, Isabella; Lohr, JustinA literature review that explores a pressing health issue on college campuses--influenza vaccine hesitancy. Influenza vaccine uptake among undergraduate students is shockingly-low. Through research, this work uncovers attitudes/beliefs about influenza, the relationship between influenza & COVID-19 uptake, racial/ethnic differences in vaccination, barriers to vaccine uptake, strategies to improve vaccination rates, and future directions/limitations.Item Imperialism’s Wayward Child: The Impact of Imperialist Thought on Neanderthal Reconstructions(2023-03-30) Sennewald, Kaitlin; Forrester, Mark; EnglishOur popular and scientific reconstructions of Neanderthals have varied greatly over the past 200 years, following trends in Enlightenment thought and race science. This paper traces Neanderthal reconstructions over time from the Enlightenment to the 1970s, connecting them to Western imperialist ideals and actions, and builds on previous literature by extending the imperialist influence past World War II and into the Vietnam War era. Through analyzing political thought, scientific reconstructions, and artistic/popular work, it is evident that a post-Enlightenment imperialist influence permeated not only the Western sociopolitical sphere, but also the scientific sphere. This research, through its focus on Neanderthal reconstructions, therefore additionally serves as a case study in how sociopolitical activity and scientific approaches reify each other in order to perpetuate a certain dominant narrative.Item Al-Ghazali’s Interpretation of Muslim Men and Menstruation in the 11th Century(2023-03-30) Holland, Schmitz; Yavuzer, Gamze; HistoryThe paper focuses on medieval menstruation in the Islamic religion. The primary source is Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: a Translation of al-Ghazali’s Book on the Etiquette of Marriage from the Ihya by Madelain Farah, who translated and edited al-Ghazali’s work to English. The paper explores other scholarly work on menstruation in the medieval time period or in various religions. Ultimately, the paper discovered that al-Ghazali’s writing on menstruation was a male oriented view, based in the 11th century, and was therefore very strict. al-Ghazali's views did not follow all of Muhammad’s original views on women, prayer, and menstruation.Item Cultural Chaos at Comiskey: Baseball and Disco's Intersection in 1979(2023-03-30) Roberts, Christopher; Keane, Katarina; HistoryDisco Demolition Night was an infamous promotion at Chicago's Comiskey Park in July of 1979. In between games of a Major League Baseball doubleheader, a box of disco records was exploded in centerfield. Fans left their sears and stormed the field. They set fires and destroyed the field. 44 years later, the promotion is remembered in several different ways. Some remember at the promotion as a night as a silly promotion gone wrong, while others view it as a racist and homophobic event to combat the rise of the disco era. There is a clear disparity in how the night is remembered by baseball fans and those studying disco culture in the 1970s. My research looks to answer how Disco Demolition Night happened, how it is remembered today, and how it should be remembered. I argue that it should be viewed as a transitional moment in baseball and disco culture in 1979. Disco Demolition Night demonstrates both the modernization of professional sports, and the the widespread anti-disco sentiment in the late 70s. Viewed through different lenses, Disco Demolition Night can be a part of telling many stories about American culture in the 1970s.Item Getting from Sesame Street to Sesamstrasse: The Development of Sesame Street's International Adaptations, 1970-1978(2023-03-30) Richardson, Evan; Keane, Katarina; History“Getting from Sesame Street to Sesamstrasse” looks at the American children’s television show Sesame Street and its international adaptations in the early 1970s, tracing the development of a iterative model of co-production that sought ever-greater collaboration between the Children’s Television Workshop and native producers and educators. Through adaptation, Sesame Street proliferated into many nationally unique programs within the umbrella of the original program, emphasizing the benefits of adaptation against an imperialist model of cultural diffusion. A narrative not present in extant historiography, the coproduction model provides a valuable case study into intentioned cultural adaptation, pointing to a successful model for education and for television production.Item Homosexual Investigations: The CIA’s Contribution to the Lavender Scare from the 1950s to the 1980s(2023-03-30) Hough, Cecelia; Woods, Colleen; HistoryThis research paper analyzes why and how the CIA participated in the “Lavender Scare,” specifically why and how they discriminated against gay and lesbian employees from the 1950s to the 1980s. The CIA discriminated against gay and lesbian employees because they feared that they could be blackmailed into revealing United States secrets and that they were unreliable and immoral. This justification remained largely the same from the 1950s to the 1980s. Additionally, they were able to discriminate against gay and lesbian individuals for longer than other agencies and departments of the federal government. This is because of their extensive use of polygraph examinations, or lie detector tests, as well as the lack of both internal regulations from the CIA itself, and external regulations from areas like the U.S. government. It’s important to remember this history of CIA discrimination given their recent hiring campaign targeted at LGBTQ+ individuals. This research aims to contribute to the historiography on the Lavender Scare, and specifically the CIA’s involvement in it, both of which are under-discussed.Item Break the Chain: Incarcerated Women Fight for Prisoners’ Rights in the 1970s(2023-03-30) Hernandez, Layla; Keane, Katarina; HistoryMy research focuses on incarcerated women. Specifically, their contribution to the Prisoners' Rights Movement in the 1960s and the 1970s. I explain why convicted women are disregarded in society and how their status allows them to be overlooked by scholars. In addition, I give three examples of incarcerated women protesting for basic human rights all across the United States.