Undergraduate Humanities Forum 2012-2013: Peripheries
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Publication Tuzo Wilson in China: Tectonics, Diplomacy and Discipline During the Cold War(2013-04-01) Kearney, William SCanadian geophysicist John Tuzo Wilson's transform fault concept was instrumental in unifying the various strands of evidence that together make up plate tectonic theory. Outside of his scientific research, Wilson was a tireless science administrator and promoter of international scientific cooperation. To that end, he travelled to China twice, once in 1958 as part of the International Geophysical Year and once again in 1971. Coming from a rare non-communist westerner in China both before and after the Cultural Revolution, Wilson's travels constitute valuable temporal and spatial cross-sections of China as that nation struggled to define itself in relation to its past, to the Soviet Union which inspired its politics, and to the West through Wilson's new science of plate tectonics. In so constructing these cross-sections, Wilson acts as a kind of cartographer of science, mapping the tectonic shifts during the Cold War, which revolutionized his understanding of the earth, of politics, and of the discipline of geophysics.Publication Furious Acts: AIDS and the Arts of Activism, 1981-1996(2013-04-01) Herren, Joshua JIn "Furious Acts," I explore the different ways in which art and artistic production were used in AIDS activism between 1980 and 1996 by such artistic and activist organizations as ACT-UP, the Radical Faeries, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Gran Fury, the NAMES Project, and the Gay Men's Health Crisis. My project is organized thematically to understand how artistic practice influenced collective identity, safer sex education, and the role of mourning in AIDS activism. I also examine how different artistic media (video, photography, performance, craft) were used for unique purposes and audiences. Ultimately, I aim to show that the artistic practices of AIDS activism were far more than aesthetic and creative outlets; they were also vital forms of communication, education, and advocacy.Publication Turkic Identity and the Depoliticization of Culture: A Case Study of the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TÜRKSOY)(2013-04-01) Sawyer, JamesSince its installation as the new capital of Kazakhstan in 1997, Astana has served as an urban synecdoche for the country's post-Soviet nation-building project. Boasting a futuristic architectural landscape punctuated with abstract references to the past, the city melds universalizing aesthetics with a mythological historical narrative. My paper explores Kazakhstan's nation-building project through the activities of TÜRKSOY, a multinational cultural organization self-styled as the "UNESCO of the Turkic World," which declared Astana the first capital of the Turkic world in 2012. I argue that as a counterpoint to the city's narrative of the future projected through architecture, TÜRKSOY has helped project a narrative of the past onto the supposedly blank slate of the cityscape, albeit one that has been carefully edited. Actively reaching into both the future and the past, Astana sits on the margins of tradition and global modernity.Publication Peripheral Peoples: Istanbul on the Margins of Modernity in Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence(2013-04-01) Mathew, ShajTo be on the periphery is to be on the edge, to not quite belong. My research examines how the characters in Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence—a rich portrait of the 1970s Istanbul bourgeoisie—coped with their marginality, attempting to fashion themselves as modern and Western despite the highly conservative attitudes they espoused. Many temporal, museological, and even sexual peripheries operate in the novel as well, as does Edward Said's idea of Orientalism—how Western constructions of "Otherness" affect the daily lives and attitudes of those living in Pamuk's Istanbul. I also consider how, in a deft metafictional move, Pamuk has traversed another periphery in creating an actual Museum of Innocence in Istanbul.Publication Peripheral Phenomena: The Colliding Evolution of Darcy and Dracula(2013-04-01) Ogden, ElaineIn this study, I examine aspects of Jane Austen, vampire fiction, and contemporary culture through the lens of vampire adaptions of Austen's work. Although a study of vampire fiction may seem peripheral to any serious study of Austen's novels, I contend that studying those adaptations is central to understanding Austen in modern culture, as her work is recycled and reapportioned. Vampire fiction's success in today's marketplace and the prevalence of modern vampire adaptions of Austen's work can reveal much about how the two disjointed parties have been united, and what it says about our culture, which so eagerly consumes them together.Publication The Ecology of the Ideal Villa(2013-04-01) Rubin, Lane RaffaldiniThe villa is more than a farmhouse in the country. According to James Ackerman, the villa is the most articulate architectural typology of the ideologies of its makers. For at least three millennia, its anthropological role has changed very little, serving as a periodic rural residence for urban élites who seek to escape from the city and engage in agriculture and contemplation. While in residence, the patron reflects on the virtue and beauty of the landscape and becomes aware of the wonders of dwelling within it. Villa builders try to construct a terrestrial paradise—an ideal place that expresses fundamental consonance with nature and the cosmos. The villa, then, becomes an expression of its makers apotheosis. How and where do the makers of villas give form to that aspiration, and what conditions are required for its realization? Through examinations of the built villas of Andrea Palladio and others, we can begin to read the villa as the architectural means best suited to express the philosophical dreams of its patrons.Publication Ghostly Trajectories: The Supernatural Theme in Henry James and James Joyce(2013-04-01) Barr, MelanyJames Joyce and Henry James are brought together by a set of well-explored aesthetic and biographical similarities, namely their commitment to an elliptical, ambiguous style; their cosmopolitan, émigré lifestyles; and their frequent returns to their homelands in writing. In both authors' work, the questions of exile and nationality are often explored through supernatural devices, with such stories as "The Jolly Corner" and "The Dead" reaching their narrative climax through the appearance of a ghost. This suggests that the natural experience of exile contains something beyond realist or 'natural' notation, something that poses a representational problem solved through supernatural means. The investigation of the stakes of this problem and effects of its resolution in the two authors' work will serve to illuminate the core problem of the representation of the movement between center and periphery exhibited by émigrés like themselves.Publication Reading Gaudí's Great Book of Nature: Reconsidering the Peripheral Reception of Proto-Environmental Architecture(2013-04-01) Pantano, MarkAt the turn of the 19th century, Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi gave physical expression to an environmental consciousness that was emerging from the peripheries of many Western societies in the midst of industrialization. Significantly, most of Gaudi's famous works stand at the physical periphery of Barcelona, affirming the moral supremacy of natural settings over the urban core. Within his intellectual context, Gaudi surpassed all standards of environmental sensitivity. He innovated structural systems by combining ruled geometry with natural anatomies. Further, his projects utilize recycled and local materials as well as prefabricated construction, methods that even contemporary green architects have not fully explored. Beyond proto-environmentalism, the reception of Antoni Gaudi's work depends entirely on peripheral conditions. Barcelona, a politically inconsequential city with burgeoning industrial wealth, sought to establish a central identity in part through cultivating a unique taste for exuberant architecture. These conditions converged in a culture that financed and celebrated Gaudi's vision. However, both Spain's peripheral location in Europe and the dominance of modernism in mainstream architecture sharply curtailed Gaudi's global impact.