Humanities

Kerry Honan, Austin Kistner, Arielle Korman, Andrew Rikard, and Sara Aziz

April 12, 2017 By admin

Rock, Wall, Tomb

We are a group of students representing different academic disciplines and religious/spiritual traditions, and we have met weekly over the course of the semester to explore Jerusalem as an epicenter of religious pilgrimage. In particular, we chose to focus our study on three Old City sites that are central to the Abrahamic traditions: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Kotel (Wailing Wall), and Haram al Sharif (al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock). The course culminated in a spring break trip to Jerusalem (including five students and three faculty) during which we visited and revisited each of these sites, together and individually. The opportunity to make firsthand observations, interact with diverse locals and visitors, and experience “sacred” spaces through sight, sound, smell, and touch, transfigured our perspective on the Jerusalem we had constructed academically. Through physically engaging with the sites, and exploring their complex histories and politics, we gained a more nuanced and personal understanding of what it means to be a pilgrim. Since returning to campus, we have been collaborating to create a multimedia website that captures our personal and academic reflections. In addition, we are currently producing a syllabus to be used for a future Davidson course on these topics.

Rachel Ruback

April 12, 2017 By admin

Factors influencing efficacy of provision of maternal and reproductive health care:
a qualitative analysis of extra-governmental organizations in Nairobi, Kenya

Background: Maternal mortality is a global health epidemic with crippling economic and social consequences. It impacts women, their families and communities alike. The death of a mother increases the risk of child mortality, decreases the likelihood that surviving children will finish school, and creates a financial burden, as the family must somehow make up the income brought in by the mother and the hours of housework she completes. Many factors, such as overburdened health care systems and government corruption, prevent governments from giving the issue the attention it deserves, especially in the low-income world. As a result, extra-governmental organizations often play a key role in the reduction of maternal mortality. Kenya came nowhere near meeting the target reduction set by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which aimed for a three-quarter reduction in maternal mortality in all countries. Extra-governmental organizations play a vital role in filling in gaps in access to care. However, there are inefficiencies in the implementation of global health services. Objective: This research aims to identify key aspects within the economics, infrastructure, and social relations of the organization which allow for or hinder the efficacy of extra-governmental organizations working on issues of maternal and reproductive health, which could be used to improve implementation of services. Methods: In this study, a combination of semi-structure interviews and participant observations where used to complete qualitative analyses of five extra-governmental clinics which offer maternal and reproductive health services. These analyses were then compared to identify their successes and failures, and what contributed to those results. Results: Six key sub-themes of successful organizations were identified within the three major thematic areas. Economics included the funding and price of services. Infrastructure included evaluation and client evaluation and identification of client needs. Social relations included education and social interventions.

Natalie Skowlund

April 12, 2017 By admin

“Bailamos en Desamor”
(“We Dance in a Lack of Love”)

I began this study with the intention of exploring the question, how do female Bolivian writers interact with social justice themes through their writing, especially related to issues that women confront living in a patriarcal society? By the end of my study, however, I realized that in interviewing a literary community as diverse as that of female writers in Bolivia, to focus specifically on themes of social justice was difficult. Therefore, instead of only emphasizing the theme of social justice in my interviews, I tried to leave room so that the writers could speak about the concerns, ideas and beliefs that they found to be the most pertinent to their writing today. My study is, ultimately, more an exploration of the most relevant current topics for female writers in Bolivia, including the impact of globalization in their writing, the influence of female identity in their written works and the role of literature in modern social change efforts. I try to give voice to the variety of perspectives of female Bolivian writers, and I also include information obtained from interviews with figures who are related to the Bolivian literary community, and/or are involved in activism surrounding women’s rights in Bolivia, in order to encounter opinions beyond the boundaries of the female literary community in Bolivia. More than provide “results” of my study, I would like to recognize this study as a path to enter into discourse with this community little-known in Bolivia, and even lesser known outside of the country. The information I obtained from these authors represents a diversity of opinions, hopes, worries and beliefs that reach towards new questions and thoughts about what it is like, and what it means, to be a female author in Bolivia today. My expectation is that this study will not give definitive facts about this literary community, but rather influence others to think about the ideas that these writers present, and perhaps search for and read their written works with a new appreciation for their manipulation of the written word.

Karaz Axam

April 12, 2017 By admin

Mass Communication in Higher Education

My thesis consist of two major components. The first is a literature review of collaborative media communities and the effects on college communities and organizations. The second is an analysis of Davidson College media platforms from surveys which collected data using qualtrics and how students utilize these avenues of communication. This information will inform my research. I hope to refine my understanding of the role mass media communication plays in college academic culture and cultivating community. Focusing on how social network theory effects a higher education model of learning and community.

Elizabeth Cowan

April 12, 2017 By admin

“A Shamrock Could Arise”:
The Southern Cross and the Creation of Irish Identity in Argentina, 1875-1889

Immigrants from Ireland began settling in Argentina as early as 1806, but the Irish community experienced the most dynamic changes during the 1870s and 1880s as economic prosperity and number of immigrants peaked. The Irish immigrants were part of a broader English-speaking immigrant community in the new Argentine Republic, but they created their own distinct community, most evident in Irish Chaplain Patrick Dillon’s founding and publishing of the Southern Cross, a newspaper specifically for the Irish Catholics of Argentina. Because of the relatively small numbers of Irish in Argentina, especially in comparison to immigrants who left Ireland for North America and Australia, few scholars have studied this community, and fewer still have investigated questions of identity and assimilation that are regularly asked of other parts of the Irish diaspora, instead focusing on the economic contributions of the Irish to the growing Argentine Republic. It is my goal to begin to fill this gap in the historiography, and bring the Irish immigrants of Argentina into the larger conversation of the Irish diaspora.
Though viewed as a single cohesive community, the Irish immigrants were socioeconomically and geographically divided between laborers and small sheep farmers living the rural pampas and urban estancieros (large ranch owners) and merchants living in the city of Buenos Aires. The Southern Cross served as an intermediary between the two groups, with its editors emphasizing their shared interests in Argentina and Ireland and a common “Irish” identity to unify the Irish immigrant community. My project investigates the creation and negotiation of a communal “Irish” identity by these different parts of this immigrant group, namely between the urban editors of the Southern Cross and their rurally-based audience. Looking primarily at the Southern Cross, I argue that an attempt to create an Irish identity was based on Irish Catholicism, growing diasporic Irish nationalism and cultural pride that characterized other parts of the Irish diaspora, and an engagement with both Argentine and Irish politics to serve the Irish-Argentine community’s specific interests in both countries.

Erin Davenport

April 12, 2017 By admin

Rainclamation

Rainclamation is a collaborative installation art project that is displayed next to the elevators in Duke and Belk dorms. The art is used to reclaim the space around an elevator from an area of stress and stigma to one of calm and beauty. Thus, while the primary audience of this project is members of the disabled community, it can also serve to remind others of the humanity in disabled experiences by bringing an artistic element into a space otherwise thought of as merely functional. The medium of Rainclamation is wooden panels with melted wax. The abstract wax designs are inspired by the question of “what would rain (or water) look like running through color?”. Thus the design incorporates another level of reclamation, taking rain from a source of significant stress for people with physical disabilities and transforming it into the source of beauty. Also painted on each panel is erasure poetry derived from physical education manuals from the 1950s. The original manuals included letters emphasizing physical fitness as an essential attribute. Our project takes those documents, the false universality of which erases disabled bodies, and erases them, resulting in poignant poetry.

I hope to further explicate the creative process behind this work, as well as review linkages to queer theory. I want to discuss the positionality of the viewer and explore how viewers may bring multiple perspectives to bear in their interaction with this art. I will explain how this project is derivative of my personal experience with, and concerns regarding, disability disclosure in public spaces, and invite others to think about ways they can transform their personal experiences into public art and activism. I want to highlight partnerships at the college, such as my collaboration with fellow student Sarah Gompper, and our work with the College Archives, English department, and RLO.

Gabriel Ford

April 12, 2017 By admin

Hand-bound Letterpress Miscellany Books

Project Participants: Sana Alimohamed, Taylor Brendle, Chris Brooks, Grace Cain, Kaiya Carter, Lauren Crane, Sarah Cullen, Megan Cypcar, Olivia Daniels, Ethan Faust, Adam Ferraz, Eddie Garcia-Alamilla, Kaycee Gass, Charlie Goldberg, Alex Gould, Maeve Hammond, Crystal Ibarra, Ellie Irving, Mila Loneman, Annie Maisel, Daniel Martin, Lauren McFayden, Caroline Miller, Emi Moore, Sam Ortega, Nick Pearson, Isabelle Sakelaris, Amanda Scott, Hannah Sommerlad , Severine Stier, Darby Williams

This series of traditionally printed and bound books was designed, handset, and relief printed according to the traditional techniques of the first centuries of print culture. The students of ENG 345I “Creating Book Culture” created this series as a reflection on the technologies and structures that preserve information before the rise of digital technologies of design and replication. The pages of these books reflect the students’ semester-long study of the history of the book and of the technical processes required to create and preserve them.

Arielle Korman

April 12, 2017 By admin

The First Ember and a Mind’s Plight:
Translated Stories by Ya’aqub Bilbul (Yaakov Lev)

The exodus of the Jewish population from Iraq to Israel in the 1950’s signified the end of an era, one that had lasted over two thousand years. Jews had long been part of Iraq and Babylonia. They had contributed to politics, culture, and specifically Arabic literature. Decades later, the average Western reader does not associate Jews and Iraq. Iraqi-Jewish literature written in Arabic is scarcely known or found, as most Iraqi Jews began to write in Hebrew upon immigration to Israel. The stories and poems translated in this collection come from one Iraqi-Jewish writer, Ya’aqub Bilbul, who wrote them at the age of seventeen. Bilbul represents one of the last generations of Iraqi Jews who grew up feeling their place was within Iraqi society. He writes in elegant formal Arabic. His stories pay homage to Baghdad and to the diversity of Iraqi culture. They represent a time and place in which the labels “Arab” and “Jewish” were not in conflict and could more easily exist within the same person.