Student Work
In our seminar/conference system, each course consists of a seminar (a small, highly interactive class) and a biweekly conference in which students meet one on one with professors to plan and discuss independent projects related to the course. These independent enterprises help students develop and refine their skills of analysis, interpretation, and writing, and allow them to study that which will prove most rewarding.
Below is a snapshot of recent conference projects by current students—just a small sampling of the extraordinary range of intellectual inquiry that the seminar/conference system makes possible:
Ch-Ch-Changes: Life History, Evolution, and Adolescence
Danielle Jordan ’09
General Biology | Raymond D. Clarke
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven: Goddess of New York Dada, Grandmother of Performance Art and the Proverbial Proto-martyr of Punk
Naomi Kaye ’09
Dada and Surrealism | Judith Rodenbeck
Apollo’s Gift: A Study of Ancient Greek Music and Technique
Mark Lungociu ’12
First-Year Studies: Gods, Heroes, and Kings: Art and Power in the Ancient World | David Castriota
The class focused on the political and religious history of the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and how the artwork of this period reflected these aspects and evolved over time. My project was to investigate in depth the music produced by these cultures and specifically in ancient Greece. The Office of the Dean of Studies and Student Life bought me a replica lyre to assist me in this project. I learned how to play it and sing a hymn to Apollo in ancient Greek.
Double-Edged Tools: A Study of Technology and Gender in the American Labor Force
Yesenia Marquetti ’09
Independent Study Project | Kim Christensen
Beauty and Death: The Oriental Spectacles of the Ballets Russes
Sarah Hassan ’09
Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes | Rose Anne Thom
Inter Arma Silent Legis: “In Time of War, Laws are Silent”
Amelia Woodside ’11
International Law & Political Theory | Angelia Means
Under the Geneva Conventions and habeas corpus rights, the American public continuously struggles with the actions of the George W. Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The war on terrorism blurs the boundaries between war and non-war, foreign and domestic affairs, and international and constitutional law. In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate how the Bush administration relied and built upon this lack of distinction. The analogic thinking demonstrated by the administration is characteristic of customary law and interpretative practice and examined through the laws of war. The analysis of legal formalism and the constitutionally protected right of habeas elucidates the administration’s actions at Guantánamo Bay as illegal. A case study of habeas illustrates the unacceptability of the administration’s interpretation of constitutionalism in times of war, in this case, the war on terror; case study examples include Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush. The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying legal framework and rhetoric used by the Bush administration to justify the actions perpetuated at Camp Delta (Guantánamo Bay, Cuba) in the advent of the war on terror.
Symphonies of Siren Songs
Yesenia Marquetti ’09
Stranger’s Song: Poetry Workshop | Cathy Park Hong
America’s Longest War: Portrayals of the Vietnam War in High School History Textbooks
Alexis Gordon’10
“Not By Fact Alone”: The Making of History | Eileen Ka- May Cheng
Agatha Christie’s Arsenal — Poisons Most Potent: A Biochemical Analysis of the Mechanisms by which Poisons Kill
Jesse Gelles-Hurwitz ’11
General Chemistry and General Biology | Todd Tippetts (guest faculty) and Raymond D. Clarke
I focused my project on Agatha Christie, best known for her novels of murder and mystery. Christie gained much of her chemical knowledge of poisons, her chief weapon of choice, working in a hospital and pharmacy during World War I. Human cells undergo millions of different complex processes in order to obtain their diverse functionality; the inclusion of poisons disrupts these chain reactions, destroying the functionality of cells. South American tribes coated their arrows with Curare to kill their enemies. With which mechanisms does arsenic interfere? What are ionophores? What is a common poison in killer mushrooms? In addition to poisons being extremely fascinating, they make for a useful hook for learning the processes of the cell. My scientific poster was presented in the science department poster session and was selected as one of the top posters to be displayed in the halls of the science center.
Beaumarchais et la Comedie Italienne
Hailey Bachrach ’12
Intermediate French I: Before We Met: Fictions of Origins and Reflections on Socialization in Eighteenth-Century French Literature | Karen S. Santos da Silva
Iraqi Suicide Bombing
Eli Colasante ’13
First-Year Studies: Empires to Nations: Inventing the Modern Middle East | Fawaz Gerges
Am I Better than Me? Determining Self-appraisal for Current and Past Selves and in Relation to Peers for Clinical Adolescent Populations
Alex Peters ’11
Autobiographical Memories | Adam Brown
Previous studies have demonstrated people will unfailingly maintain a high self-appraisal for their current situation in all regards, viewing their current selves as the “best version” in comparison with their past selves. People will also rate their current selves as more favorable than peers (Wilson & Ross, 2001). However, the extant research has focused primarily on non-clinical adult populations, and researchers have yet to examine this effect in other contexts. My study, presented in a science poster, sought to shed light on the relation between psychiatric inpatient adolescents’ appraisal of their current selves, their earlier selves, and in comparison to peers. Thirty individuals (n=30), hospitalized in an inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit, were administered a questionnaire assessing their appraisal of present and past self, as well as peer functioning. This study hypothesized that psychiatric inpatient adolescents would view their past as a much more desirable time compared to their current state, and worse than their peers. Contrary to the hypothesis, findings showed that even psychiatric inpatient adolescents found their current selves to be better than past selves. However, unlike previous research, individuals viewed their current self as significantly worse than their peers.
“No habla, no habla”: Exploring the Self-silencing of Rulfo and the Silenced of Comala
Kate Bedecarré ’09
Borrachita Me Voy | Isabel de Sena
Taking a Walk on the Wild Side: Spatial and Architectural Dimensions of Power Relations through a Study of Military Operations Inside, Outside, and Beyond Palestinian Space
Zeynep Goksel ’11
Dominance by Design: Technology, Environment, and War in an Age of Empire | Charles Zerner
Between the Borders
Katherine Schreiber ’10
Narrative Neuropsychology | Elizabeth Johnston
My project was both a creative and analytic endeavor examining Borderline Personality Disorder. Journal entries and life situations from a Borderline patient (with whom I am very close) were correlated with recent neuroscientific studies on the disorder, as well as psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, and developmental theories seeking to explain the disorder.
“In Wilderness is the Preservation of the World”—Examining the Historical and Economic Roots of Environmentalism in the United States
Jenn Shepard ’10
Global Geographies | Katherine Tanner
Creating a Children’s Pop-Up Book
Emily C. Krupin ’11
Children’s Literature: Developmental and Literary Perspectives | Charlotte Doyle and Sara Wilford
Untitled
Alexander Lloyd ’12
First-Year Studies: Imagination on the Move: Exploring Travel in Literature | Una Chung
I wrote a creative nonfiction autobiographical novel mirroring the styles and themes of Joyce’s Ulysses. With roughly 18 sections and over 50,000 words, this novel incorporates the mundane and absurd of the daily in a way in which the reader can see through the eyes of the main character.
Understanding the Role of Culture in the Infant Feeding Practices of Low-Income, African-American Mothers
Amara M. Foster ’09
Poverty in America: Theory, Research, and Public Policy Implications | Kim Ferguson
Inventing the Ultimate Cell Biology Board Game
Emily Yuan Shuan Lin ’09
Cell Biology | Drew E. Cressma
Biracialism in America: Bridging the Gap between Black and White
Vanessa De Riggs ’12
First-Year Studies: The Realities of Groups | Gina Philogene
My conference paper reflects on the psychological and historical reasons why people of mixed race should be recognized as their own racial group. If people of mixed race could have their own category to identify with like monoracial people, the identity crisis suffered by mixed-race people have would be less severe. In my experiment, I used a questionnaire about mixed-race people to compare the answers of college undergraduate students of all races, ages, and genders. I’m hoping to prove there is a great deal of misunderstanding when it comes to knowledge about mixed-race individuals. I strongly believe that through conducting the experiment I will be able to prove that the misunderstanding is widespread.
La muestra Del Pais
Catherine Griffin ’11
Intermediate Spanish III: Atlantic Crossings, Everyday Lives | Isabel de Sena
Genetic Counseling for Adults with Non-Syndromic CHDs
Priya Ramaswamy ’09
Human Genetics | Caroline Lieber
Empathic Expression and Misappropriated Mirrors
Katherine Schreiber ’10
Bullies and Their Victims: Social and Physical Aggression in Childhood and Adolescence | Carl Barenboim
I examined empathy in conjunction with the recent studies regarding the mirror neuron system in humans. Long thought to be the basis of motor understanding—wherein one recreates another’s behavior in one’s own brain so as to interpret (and predict) the other’s behavior—activation of various brain regions within the mirror neuron system (i.e. the cingulate cortex, the insula, the premotor cortex) are observed in emotional understanding as well. Mirror neurons are fascinating in that they are activated both when one performs an action or experiences an emotion and also while one observes someone else acting or emoting. Further implications for mirror neurons lie in psychopathology, which seems to involve a misappropriation of the mirror neuron system (i.e. an internal mimicry of another’s emotional state—of, say, pain— that results in an antisocial reaction—i.e. pleasure at this other person’s pain, or apathy).
Patterns of Power and Pride in Rwanda
Anna Gross ’12
First-Year Studies: The Question of Culture: Anthropology | Kathleen Kilroy-Marac
Still Up in the Air
Shannon Habbas ’09
Media Sketchbooks II: Animation | Robin Starbuck
Kill the Indian and Save the Man: Confronting the Myth of Assimilation and Multicultural Rhetoric in Transracial Adoption Children’s Literature
Kate Bedecarré ’09
Asian American Studies | Laurie Mengel
What is most important about children’s books on transracial adoption is what they do not mention: neither race, nor adoptions in a context of war, military intervention, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, racism, or gender discrimination. The authors use four techniques to evade any acknowledgement of race or the economic and political forces behind adoption. Their focus on an Asian birth culture, emphasis on physical difference, use of domestic adoption discourse, and a central theme of love function to disregard the existence of systematically enforced racial power, fail to identify transracial adoptees as the other or give them the models of assimilation to combat their difference.
More than Raiders and Rapists: How Viking Settlements Impacted the British Isles
Christina Sweeney ’12
The Medieval Foundations of English Art and History: An Interdisciplinary Workshop | David Bernstein
The Plague of Coral Diseases
Catherine Griffin ’11
Oceans in Peril | Raymond D. Clarke
The Fear of Progress and the Importance of Language in the Debate Involving Genetic Engineering
Catherine Riddervold ’11
On the Prospect of a “Posthuman Future,” | Erik Parens
In this paper my aim is to create a platform for a new language pertaining to controversial debates over genetic engineering, because I feel that clear understanding of the mechanisms affecting our society is vital. I will attempt to do this by breaking down the relevant topics, looking at the ideas presented by the people involved, and explaining in detail the technologies in question. By doing so, I can rebuild the argument using my own thoughts and observations to create a positive language platform for the discussion of these new advances. I believe that the science behind these technologies is largely aimed at the enhancement of society for the greater good of humanity, to promote individual freedoms, and aid in the bettering of us as human beings.
Urban Design and Planning: A Case Study of Portland, Oregon
Amelia Woodside ’11
New Nature: Environmental Design in the Twenty-First Century | Charles Zerner
Why Are Some People Better Able to Deal with Life? The Influence of Personality on Coping Mechanisms
Alex Peters ’11
Psychoneuroimmunology | Leah Olson
That’s What He Said
Shannon Habbas ’09
The Eighteenth-Century British Novel in Context | James Horowitz
I studied the development of characters’ self-awareness in Joyce’s Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man through free-indirect discourse. Joyce employs a third-person narrator to portray his characters for much of both books. The paper focuses on this effect.
Composting: How it Might Remediate the Bee Dilemma and the Waste Dilemma
Eli Colasante ’13
New Nature: Environmental Design in the Twenty-First Century | Charles Zerner
Her Message is Committed: Martha Graham’s “Letter to the World”
Ian Spencer Bell ’13
Reading Modern Poetry | Neil Arditi
“Do the white folks have to learn how to be good neighbors?”: Confronting Discourses of American Liberalism and Social Science in the Yonkers Housing Debate
Kate Bedecarré ’09
Racial Politics and Political Thought in 20th Century U.S. | Jessica Blatt
My paper explores the persistence and transformations of racism and racial hierarchy in Yonkers, New York, by studying the history of the city’s housing segregation debate. The fundamental question demanded of these events is: “What were the discourses circulating around the public debate of desegregation?” I analyzed how popular, liberal, and social scientific ideas have shaped the language of this local debate and what the larger, national history is behind these arguments.
The Quest for Homonormativity: The Discovery and Translation of “Le Ramier” by André Gide
John Walker ’11
Pretty, Witty, and Gay | Julie Abraham
Lifeworlds on the Autistic Spectrum: A Phenomenological Approach
Tessa Noonan ’10
Understanding Experience: Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology | Robert R. Desjarlais
The Evolution of Mariachis
Sophia Jimenez ’12
Studies in Music and Culture | Jonathan King
I conducted a yearlong research project on mariachi bands, learning about their history as a traditional music in Mexico and as a symbol of Mexican-American identity in the United States. In addition to reading selected books about mariachis, I went to several restaurants, in Brooklyn as well as in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and watched mariachi bands live. It was a lot of fun! At the end of the year, I wrote an 18-page paper covering the changes mariachi music has gone through, both in Mexico and the United States, since its invention, and I included a companion CD of mariachi music mentioned in the paper.
A Genealogy of Black Feminism and the Black Panther Party
Cammy Brooks ’12
The Sociological Imagination | Patrisia Macías
Rhinocéros (Play by Eugène Ionesco) et les Forêts Tropicales
Eli Colasante ’13
French Intermediate I | Jeffrey Leichman
La Conferencia de Mujeres por la Raza: OUR CULTURE HELL!
Andrea Gonzales ’09
The Sixties | Priscilla Murolo
The Chicano Movement gained great strength and popularity during the tumultuous 1960s and ’70s. Mexican Americans participated in demonstrations all around the country in order to fight for equality and independence in the United States. Within the movement another battle was being fought: the feminista struggle. Rarely were women recognized as playing an integral role in El Movimiento. The Conferencia de Mujeres por la Raza was designed by Chicanas to be the first largescale meeting of Mexican American women from every corner of the nation. Very little has been written about the women who organized the conference and what happened throughout. My paper explores the role of women in the Chicano Movement and the split between Movement Feminists and Movement Loyalists that caused a walkout during the second day of the conference. It also examines how Chicano culture, the white feminist movement, and gender roles fit into the feminista agenda.
The Effects of Picture Book Illustrations on Recall in Preschool Children
Tasnim Azad ’09
Cognition, Language, and Consciousness | Research Seminar
A Rose by any Other Name: Names and Acceptable Terms of Address in the United States and China
Christina Sweeney ’12
First-Year Studies: The Question of Culture: Anthropology | Kathleen Kilroy-Marac
World Trade Center Dust: Firefighters and Respiratory Illnesses
Jocelyn Leigh ’11
Cell Biology | Drew E. Cressman
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, firefighters were in the front line of the rescue and recovery effort. As a result of the collapse of the Twin Towers, first responders were exposed to the toxic air leading to a high number of cases of respiratory illnesses reported.
Lesbian Feminism: Making the Political Personal
Cammy Brooks ’12
First-Year Studies: The Invention of Homosexuality | Julie Abraham
“No Need for Such a Bulgakov”: Theatrical Revenge in The Master and Margarita
Sarah Hassan ’09
Dostoevsky and the 1860’s | Melissa Frazier
Pioneering Genetic Counseling in Jordan
Jasmine Wong ’09
Human Genetics Program | Caroline Lieber
Jordan is a developing country with high consanguinity rates and large family sizes, which suggest a high need for clinical genetic services. This research study looks at the overall potential for the integration of genetic counseling into the Jordanian health care system. A self-administered, seventeenquestion survey was given to health care professionals. Our sample of 101 respondents was chosen from two hospitals from Northern Jordan. An interest in development for genetic services was demonstrated. A possible model is discussed: physicians may be the best health care provider to educate patients with low genetic risks and genetic counselors should deal with patients with high genetic risks. The use of premarital screening programs and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis may prove to be useful resources for the Jordanian population. Overall, I found a need and interest in introducing the field of genetic counseling into the health care of Jordan.
Sex with the Hero: The Twisted Portrayal of Women in the James Bond Series
Clara Dennis ’12
First-Year Studies: Philosophy and Film | Roy Brand
To Speak or Not to Speak: Private Speech, Sociability, and Task Performance for 4-Year-Olds
Tessa Noonan ’10
Cognition, Language, and Consciousness Research Seminar | Kim Ferguson
Science at Sarah Lawrence: A History
Kelly O’Donnell ’09
Astronomy | Scott Calvin
In 1927, Henry MacCracken wrote in a preface to Sarah Lawrence College’s first course catalog, “In natural science, the course will be descriptive and informational rather than experimental. An adequate background for more advanced work will be given, and an understanding of the chief scientific generalizations will be sought.” Yet by the 1934-35 school year, the catalog boasted, “The student learns to test the results of a scientific experience in a laboratory. Such training develops a respect for evidence, and the ability to suspend judgment based upon casual or careless observation. This type of experience obviously serves to modify the character of her thinking habits and her convictions.” As the years passed, the sciences became more prominent in the course offerings. Yet popular imaginings of Sarah Lawrence as a type of finishing school, featuring “productive leisure” as one of its most alluring requirements, do not seem congruent with these findings. How and why did SLC’s earliest students embrace the sciences? My conference project explored the development of the sciences during the early days at Sarah Lawrence, from its first year through the end of the 1930s. I drew on the resources of the Sarah Lawrence Archives, looking primarily at course catalogs and minutes of the Curriculum Committee.
Woman of Valor
Hadar Ahuvia ’10
Performing Identities: Class, Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Contemporary Performance | Shanti Pillai
Smart Drugs: The Ability to Buy Brainpower
Kady Goldlist ’11
Cell Biology | Drew E. Cressman
The Social Dimensions of Architectural Design
Amara M. Foster ’09
The Social Dimensions of Architectural Design (senior thesis) | Joseph C. Forte and Tishan Hsu
This yearlong project was my senior thesis. Utilizing methodology and theory based in architecture, urban/ environmental planning, critical theory, and user input, I aimed to understand how the built environment of the Sarah Lawrence campus forms and gives shape to our unique social atmosphere.