Tag: Read Speak and Act

Visual Analysis of Kōshirō Onchi’s Family of the Field from Poem no. 2

Presenter: Alivia Stiles – Business Administration

Faculty Mentor(s): Cecilia Rosenow, Alexandria Nanneman

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

Kōshirō Onchi is the father of Sōsaku-hanga, a form of Japanese print popularized in the 20th century during the Shōwa Era of Japan. Sōsaku-hanga, often considered an evolution of the print form Shin-hanga, became a global fine art phenomenon and its development as a result of increased Westernization has been explored by many scholars. This essay contributes to this conversation by additionally lacing the Western influence, particularly among cultural driving events of the 20th century like World War II and the Great Depression, with Eastern tradition and response to these circumstances. This combination provides us with a crucial insight: how these global players affected Kōshirō Onchi’s personal life and identity, thus affecting the art form of Sōsaku-hanga. This delineation is done through the examination of Onchi’s print Family of the Field from Poem no. 2, using a visual analysis to further understand historical and contextual elements presented by previous research in the field. What is indicated by this comprehensive analysis is that there is a certain balance to the contextual and historical influence on Sōsaku-hanga which occurs not only in a culmination of Eastern and Western culture, as well as global events, but also the personal impact of these elements on a single artist, which manifest clearly in the work if one knows where to look. This insight provokes us to think more broadly about what might have influenced visual aspects of a certain artistic piece.

Emasculation of the Other: Meiji Ukiyo-e War Prints and Japanese Identity

Presenter: Eun-Jai Shin – Art History

Faculty Mentor(s): Akiko Walley

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 was one of the most monumental moments of East Asian history, featuring Japan’s rise as an imperial power. Rigorous nationalistic development helped it achieve its first victory in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). However, these feats were not without insecurities, and Japan as the new ‘Empire of Asia’ necessitated validation of its reformed identity and influence. Ukiyo-e, woodblock printing from the Edo Period, was revitalized during this time and served as a new form of reportage, providing a popularly consumable and replicable source of current events. Furthermore, its realist agenda- assured credibility- enabled it to become an ideal platform for propaganda. This presentation will focus on marginalization- specifically the emasculation– of subaltern others during the First Sino-Japanese War- and how its compositional, figural and symbolic depiction of China and Korea assisted in the Japanese assertion of superiority and dominance.

Economic and Political Aspects of Peruvian Immigration in the US during the Late 20th Century

Presenter: Kai Angel Augusto Sanchez-Pajuelo – Economics

Faculty Mentor(s): Iker Saitua

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak, and Act

“Not in Luxury, But to Get Along:” Economic and Political Aspects of Peruvian Immigration in the United States during the Late Twentieth Century”

The present paper studies Peruvian immigration to the United States during the late twentieth century. More specifically, it analyzes emigration from Peru caused by the sociopolitical and economic instability of the 1980s. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Peruvian economy went through a series of deep and prolonged economic crises that affected the country’s economic growth. The great depression of the Peruvian economy was mainly due to the negative effects of external shocks, political instability, limited national entrepreneurial capacity, and the lack of capacity to develop new export economic activities. Such depression pushed many Peruvians to emigrate to the United States to make a new start. Motivations of those immigrants were not limited to economic needs, but were framed in a wider context of lack of prospects in Peru. This wave of immigration into the United States was characterized by professional, qualified and semiqualified immigrants, remarkably working either in the service or clerical sectors. Educated people and skilled workers migrated from Peru to the United States during this period rather than unskilled labor force from rural areas. Furthermore, this immigration wave was characterized by family reunification and an occasional wave of refugees.

Professionalism: Swearing in the Workplace

Presenter: Victoria Pineiro – Environmental Studies

Co-Presenter(s): Andi Van Laanen

Faculty Mentor(s): Melissa Baese-Berk, Myrihe Rohbock

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

In recent years, swearing has moved from somewhat of a taboo topic to a more common and acceptable practice in day to day life. This particular research examines how swearing impacts perceptions of professionalism in the workplace, with gender stereotypes as a sub focus. To investigate this, two surveys were distributed to primarily college aged individuals, and each survey had two sets of audios with the same scripts, one with a woman swearing and man not swearing, and the other with a man swearing and a woman not swearing. Participants were then asked about their perceptions of the speaker in each audio and to reflect on their feelings towards each as a whole. Overall, we found that swearing and professionalism have a negative relationship, regardless of gender. In conclusion, by conducting this research we are able to investigate the various ways professionalism is portrayed through different linguistic choices.

What Makes A Voice Sound Black?

Presenter: Mary Mugeki – Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Rachel Weissler

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

This research explores the nature of linguistic perception upon hearing African American English versus Standard American English. By having speakers from each category and low pass filtering their speech, we can explore how people perceive both vernaculars given the emotional prosody (the emotion reflected in the melody of their voices). Low pass filtering the audio is beneficial since it removes the acoustic characteristics of speech and leaves only the melody. The importance in exploring the relationship between emotion and race is due to the cultural stereotyping that is prevalent in the U.S. which has an influence on perceptions of these two factors. The hypothesized results are that the Happy guises will be perceived as more white, the Angry guises will be perceived as more black, evidencing the power of emotional prosody on the perception of the speech signal. This research impacts the broader fields of speech perception and sociolinguistics, focusing on specifically the parts of the speech signal which influence socio-cultural perceptions in day to day life.

Reforming the Self and Re-Forming the Other: Revisiting the Political Potential of Baldwin’s Fiction

Presenter: Kyra Lauersdorf – English, Sociology

Faculty Mentor(s): Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, Matthew Norton

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

The existing scholarship pertaining to James Baldwin tends to examine either his nonfiction essays or his fiction novels, but it rarely places the two alongside each other. This project aims to bridge the schism between the two bodies of work, using the political theory that Baldwin outlines in his nonfiction as a lens through which to analyze his literary fiction. Such an analysis reveals how, in many ways, Baldwin utilized his fiction as a space in which to engage and examine his own political theory. As such, the fiction that Baldwin produced during his lifetime contains as much if not more political ideation than his nonfiction –– and warrants just as much consideration from scholars for its political potential. This project seeks to contribute to existing scholarship on James Baldwin through its interdisciplinary analysis of the author’s works. Ultimately, it argues that Baldwin’s literary fiction possesses significant potential to effect political belief changes among its readers and ought to be valued accordingly.

Reopening wounds: Processing Korean Cultural Trauma in Park Chan-wook’s Revenge Trilogy

Presenter: Emma Koontz − Planning Public Policy and Management

Faculty Mentor(s): Ulrick Casimir

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act, Poster Presentation

The democratic reforms of the 1987 June 29 Declaration opened the floodgates for Korean New Wave films. The repeal of censorship regulations gave Korean filmmakers the autonomy to actualize their creative vision for the first time since Japanese colonialism. The result were films that grappled with the trauma of eighty years of colonialism, war, and authoritarian dictatorship through biting political commentary. This study explores Park Chan-wook’s representation of 한 (han) Korean cultural trauma in his New Wave films Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Literature on trauma, film, and Korean history was reviewed and combined with film analysis to explain Chan-wook’s critique of revenge fantasies and conscious and unconscious ignorance. His films demonstrate that the only way to heal한 is to acknowledge and accept all wrongdoing, even one’s own, and mourn the consequences of the atrocities. While 한 is specific to Koreans, cultural trauma is not. From the effects of Apartheid in South Africa, the Rwandan Genocide, the legacy of slavery and ongoing atrocities committed against BIPOC Americans, the ubiquity of cultural trauma makes the lessons in Chan-wook’s works of paramount importance. While resolution of trauma is never final, Chan-wook’s films are both a guideline and a performance on how cultures can begin to heal in the face of moral atrocities.

The Roles of Theatre and Drama in the Criminal Justice System

Presenter: Hannah Joel − English, Sociology

Faculty Mentor(s): Aryn Bartley, Ce Rosenow

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

Prisons deter the public from engaging in criminal behavior and reform the incarcerated. Despite the goal of deterrence, however, statistics reveal flaws within current U.S. rehabilitation practices. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study that followed 404,638 incarcerated individuals upon their release from prison, 67.8% were rearrested within three years of release. 76.6% were rearrested within five years. The alarming recidivism rates suggest that the criminal justice system is failing to properly rehabilitate incarcerated individuals and that they are not given a chance to transform their lives. The criminal justice system is overlooking a critical aspect: the importance of prison education. Theatre and drama programs are examples of prison education that can be highly effective in transforming an incarcerated individual. To analyze the roles these programs play in the criminal justice system, I researched the benefits such programs bring to the lives of incarcerated individuals. Since this is a preliminary study, I relied on the testimonies from incarcerated individuals and articles on prison education programs. These sources demonstrate that theatre and drama programs helped change incarcerated individuals’ lives by developing empathy and reflection on their deviant behavior. Recognizing the role that such programs play in the prison system is crucial in terms of understanding and considering what we can do to mitigate the chances of recidivism in the future.