Honors Projects
Showing 1 - 50 of 662 Items
I Am Bearing Myself in the Mouth of the Sun This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2029-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Dylan Austin Richmond
Access: Embargoed
The Sacralization of Absolute Power: God's Power and Women's Subordination in the Southern Baptist Convention
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Sydney Smith
Access: Open access
Mechanisms underlying variable responses to isoforms of the neuropeptide C-type allatostatin (AST-C) in the cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster, Homarus americanus
Date: 2019-01-01
Creator: Evalyn Mackenzie
Access: Open access
- Central Pattern Generators (CPGs) are neural networks that produce steady, rhythmic patterned outputs that activate particular muscles and consequently create recurrent rhythmic movements. The cardiac ganglion (CG) of the American lobster (Homarus americanus) is a useful model system for the study of CPGs. Neuropeptides modulate cardiac contractions driven by the CG in H. americanus and accordingly elicit a range of effects. Post-translational modifications such as amidation can impact function of a peptide neuromodulator. C-type allatostatins (AST-Cs) are a group of neuropeptides that modulate the cardiac neuromuscular system of H. americanus. The objective of this study was to determine what structural aspects of the peptides were responsible for the similarity in responses elicited by AST-C I and AST-C III and the difference in responses evoked by AST-C II in comparison. AST-C I and AST-C III are not C-terminally amidated, whereas AST-C II is C-terminally amidated. We first hypothesized that amidated AST-C peptides would evoke similar responses to one another in contraction amplitude and frequency. Our second hypothesis was that exchanging the amino acids alanine and tyrosine at a specific location in AST-C II and AST-C III would affect the conformation of the peptide, and consequently impact peptide binding and elicit different effects. In contrast to our predictions, we did not see similar responses evoked by all amidated or all non-amidated peptides among lobsters. In support of our second hypothesis, there was a significant difference in percent change in contraction amplitude elicited among AST-C II Y, AST-C II and AST-C III.
Leadership from Within: Founders, advocates, and organizational networks operating in Maine's immigrant community
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Samuel Robert Kenney
Access: Open access
- Much of the discourse surrounding African immigration to Maine has centered on the provision of public services that facilitate community development and integration. This project investigates different types of leadership strategies employed by African individuals in Maine that advance community objectives. When African immigrant leaders are empowered to affect public policy, they re-frame traditional conceptions of aid-dependency and vulnerability commonly applied to African immigrants in media and popular culture. Through leadership in nonprofit and civic spheres, African immigrant community leaders translate grassroots connectivity with informal networks into meaningful influence in the realm of public policy. This project focuses on the evolution of community leadership in Maine’s Somali community, the network of immigrant-serving organizations that provide specialized public services across the state, and the capacity of one organization in particular, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC) to ensure accurate representation of policy initiatives to civic officials for individuals unable to participate in the electoral process. This project evaluates the political utility of ‘lived experience’ as a component of diversity in the realm of public policy.
The effects of manipulated afterload pressure on heartbeat frequency, active force, and cardiac output of the American lobster, Homarus americanus Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Gina Fickera
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
An alternative almost sure construction of Gaussian stochastic processes in the L2([0,1]) space
Date: 2019-05-01
Creator: Kevin Chen
Access: Open access
Assessing parameters influencing interhomolog proximity of paired homologous chromosomes in Drosophila This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2026-05-20
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Molly Margaret Moore
Access: Embargoed
“The Spirit of Turbulence”: East Indian Political Imaginaries in Early 20th Century British Guiana
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Faria A Nasruddin
Access: Open access
- After the abolition of slavery, the Colonial Office instituted an indentured labor scheme that lasted from 1838 to 1917, in which they brought East Indians to the plantation colonies as laborers under five year contracts. Due to the planter class’ desire for permanent sources of labor in British Guiana, the Colonial Government incentivized East Indians to permanently settle. East Indians thus dominated the British Guiana’s agricultural landscape and became the single largest ethnicity in the Colony by 1920. This thesis explores the early negotiations of the meaning of diaspora and diasporic citizenship for East Indians in British Guiana. They comprised a diverse conglomerate of different socio-economic positions: agricultural estate laborers, village residents, and middle-class business professionals. Each socioeconomic group had a different lived experience in the colony and different outlook on what it meant to be a creole-born East Indian. This thesis traces the multiple and contingent ideas of citizenship and nationality that were circulating at the time. Against a backdrop of changing imperial politics that promoted modernity and the discourse of the nation, East Indian visions centered around how to construct permanence, and negotiate belonging. By drawing on colonial documentation–local reports, commission transcripts, personal correspondence–and documentation produced by East Indians–memorandums, speeches, and books–this thesis ultimately argues that East Indians came to view culture as integral to their self-worth and definitions of place within the imperial system. Culture thus became the primary lens to negotiate the various meaning of citizenship and place in the imperial-national moment.
Strange Progress: Politics of Sexual Violence in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings from 1991 to 2018 Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Rebecca Berman
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The impact of temperature on the sea star oscillatory gait This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Emma Victoria Bertke
Access: Embargoed
Conifer forest photosynthetic seasonality: exploring the effect of winter severity and the efficacy of different remote sensing methodologies This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2026-05-20
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Anneka Florence Williams
Access: Embargoed
A Men’s College with Women: Masculinity, Sexist Laughter, and Stories of Solidarity during Bowdoin College’s Transition to Coeducation, 1969-1975 Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Emma D. Kellogg
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Dendrites of Cardiac Ganglion Regulate Heartbeat of American Lobster, Homarus americanus, Through Stretch Feedback
Date: 2014-05-01
Creator: Mara R Chin-Purcell
Access: Open access
- Central pattern generators are neuronal networks that produce reliable rhythmic motor output. A simple pattern generator, known as the cardiac ganglion (CG), controls the heart of the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Previous studies have suggested that stretch feedback relays information to the cardiac ganglion about the degree of filling in the heart, and that this feedback is mediated by stretch-sensitive dendrites extending from CG neurons. I sought to determine the mechanisms behind this stretch feedback pathway. One hundred second extension pyramids were applied to each heart while amplitude and frequency of contractions were recorded; 87% of hearts responded to stretch with a significant increase in frequency of contractions. To ascertain the role of dendrites in this feedback pathway, the accessible branches along the trunk of the CG were severed, de-afferenting the CG. In de-afferented hearts, stretch sensitivity was significantly less than in intact hearts, suggesting that the dendrites extending from the CG are essential for carrying stretch feedback information. To separate the effects of active and passive forces of heart contraction on stretch sensitivity, the CG was de-efferented by severing the motor nerves that induce muscle contraction. Hearts with only anterolateral nerves cut or with all four efferents cut were significantly less stretch sensitive than controls. These results indicate that the CG is sensitive to active stretch of each contraction. Hearts with reduced stretch feedback had more irregular frequency of contractions, indicating that a role of stretch feedback in the cardiac system may be to maintain a regular heart rate.
High Resolution Molecular Analysis of the Hedgehog Pathway in Tooth Development This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2026-05-20
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Claire Christine Havig
Access: Embargoed
Motives Underlying China’s Foreign Aid Allocation Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Cecilia Markmann
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
It’s #PrisonAbolition Until the Bad Guys Show Up: Conflicting Discourses on Twitter about Carceral Networks in 2020
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Tam Phan
Access: Open access
- “Twitter Revolutions” in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, and Moldova illustrate social media’s capacity to mobilize citizens in uprooting systems of injustice. As non-democratic regimes, these “Twitter Revolutions” offer insight into how Twitter’s microblogging, hashtags, and global user connections help broker relations between activists hoping to challenge the government. However, this thesis focuses on the democratic regime of the US and how Twitter plays a role in aiding the prison abolition movement in their effort to dismantle carceral networks that inflict racial and political violence on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and People of Color. The thesis outlines how, under the US’ classification as a democracy, the US utilizes infrastructural power to coerce American citizens into accepting carceral networks of violence as essential institutions to maintain civil society. The following sections explain the abolitionist movement’s history of attempting to dismantle the discrete formal and informal institutions of political violence, and includes the complicating development of liberal-progressive reformism that attempts to co-opt the goals of the abolition movement. The thesis focuses on the Twitter hashtag #PrisonAbolition in 2020 to explore how American Twitter users perceive the US carceral state and the prison abolition movement. The research concludes that #PrisonAbolition does not currently possess the capacity to evolve into the social mobilization seen in the “Twitter Revolutions” of non-democratic regimes because the US’ infrastructural power effectively engrained into the minds of Americans that prisons protect civil society. However, the tweets still show a promising development as American Twitter users become more engaged in abolitionist conversations.
Predicting Anionic Pharmaceutical Sorption to Soils Using Probe Compounds Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Francesca Ann Cawley
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The Photocatalytic Degradation of Ibuprofen and Three Beta-Blockers using BiOCl: An Investigation into the Mechanisms Responsible for Photocatalytic Activity Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2027-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Jeffrey Charles Price
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Urban Pastures: A Computational Approach to Identify the Barriers of Segregation
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Noah Gans
Access: Open access
- Urban Sociology is concerned with identifying the relationship between the built environment and the organization of residents. In recent years, computational methods have offered new techniques to measure segregation, including using road networks to measure marginalized communities' institutional and social isolation. This paper contributes to existing computational and urban inequality scholarship by exploring how the ease of mobility along city roads determines community barriers in Atlanta, GA. I use graph partitioning to separate Atlanta’s road network into isolated chunks of intersections and residential roads, which I call urban pastures. Urban pastures are social communities contained to residential road networks because movement outside of a pasture requires the need to use larger roads. Urban pastures fences citizens into homogenous communities. The urban pastures of atlanta have little (
Metabolic Glycan Labeling in Bacteria Using Rare Azido L-sugars Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2027-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Phuong Luong
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Re-envisioning the Tropics: Nick Joaquin's Philippine Gothic
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Ella Marie Jaman
Access: Open access
- This paper examines selected stories from Filipino author, Nick Joaquin, through a gothic lens. Drawing from recent development in Gothic studies, I work within a tropical gothic and postcolonial gothic framework to suggest a localized "Philippine gothic" represented within Nick Joaquin's work. Stories examined include the novel "The Woman Who Had Two Navels," as well as the short stories "Summer Solstice, Mass of St. Sylvestre," and "The Order of Melkizedek."
Role of the Dopamine Subtype 1 Receptor (D1R) Modulation of the Ih Current in Rhythmic Spinal Mammalian Motor Networks Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Grace Soeun Lee
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Enhancer usage variation assessed via chromatin-conformation within and among three species of Drosophila This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-19
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Maia B. Granoski
Access: Embargoed
The Current Hunt for Nitric Oxide's Effects on the Homarus americanus Cardiac Ganglion
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Joanna Lin
Access: Open access
- The crustacean heartbeat is produced and modulated by the cardiac ganglion (CG), a central pattern generator. In the American lobster, Homarus americanus, the CG consists of 4 small premotor cells (SCs) that electrically and chemically synapse onto 5 large motor cells (LCs). Rhythmic driver potentials in the SCs generate bursting in the LCs, which elicit downstream cardiac muscle contractions that are essential for physiological functions. Endogenous neuromodulators mediate changes in the CG to meet homeostatic demands caused by environmental stressors. Nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous neuromodulator, inhibits the lobster CG. Heart contractions release NO, which directly decreases the CG burst frequency and indirectly decreases the heartbeat amplitude, to mediate negative feedback. I investigated NO’s inhibitory effects on the CG to further understand the mechanisms underlying intrinsic feedback. Using extracellular recordings, I examined NO modulation of the SCs and LCs when coupled in the intact circuit and when firing independently in the ligatured preparation. Using two-electrode voltage clamp, I additionally analyzed the modulation of channel kinetics. Based on previous studies, I hypothesized that NO decreases the burst frequency of the LCs and SCs by modulating conductance properties of the voltage-gated A-type potassium current (IA). My data showed that NO decreased the burst frequency in the LCs and the burst duration in the SCs in a state-dependent manner. Furthermore, NO increased the IA inactivation time constant to decrease the LCs’ burst frequency. Thus, NO mediated inhibitory effects on cardiac output by differentially targeting both cell types and altering the IA current kinetics.
Determining the influence of proximal Zeste binding sites and promoters on rates of transvection This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2026-05-17
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Molly Henderson
Access: Embargoed
Modulation of ionic currents by nitric oxide negative feedback in the lobster cardiac ganglion Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2026-06-01
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Emily Renee King
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Education Amid Stabilization: The Varied Effects of Military Intervention on Public Schooling in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Arjun S. Mehta
Access: Open access
- At the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and war consequence studies, this paper seeks to evaluate the effects of supportive foreign military intervention on education provision in three neighboring Central Sahel countries: Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. In the wake of a Tuareg insurgency and a 2012 coup d’état in Mali, the proliferation of jihadist violence in the tri-border Liptako-Gourma region has been met by a proliferation of foreign interveners. Does stabilization— the form of intervention in the Central Sahel— improve education provision, as measured by diminishing jihadist attacks on schools and school closures due to violence? This paper hypothesizes that where there is a larger scale of intervention, there is more security— and thus an environment more conducive to education provision. Although insecurity in the three Central Sahel countries has shared origins, each country has a distinct scale of intervention. In placing Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso on a spectrum of stabilization (from largest- to smallest-scale), this paper conducts a comparative test to determine how intervention affects education provision. Qualitative and quantitative data analyses reveal that, while a larger scale of intervention (in Mali) guarantees neither better security nor more favorable education provision, the absence of intervention (in Burkina Faso) facilitates unfavorable security and education outcomes. This paper concludes that destabilizing security-centric conceptions of stabilization may lead to more lasting peace and more accessible education in the Central Sahel and beyond.
On the Dirichlet L-functions and the L-functions of Cusp Forms
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Nawapan Wattanawanichkul
Access: Open access
- The main objects of our study are L-functions, which are meromorphic functions on the complex plane that analytically continue from the series of the form \sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{a_n}{n^s}, where {a_n} is a sequence of complex numbers. In particular, we are interested in two families of L-functions: ''The Dirichlet L-functions" and ''the L-functions of cusp forms." The former refers to the L-functions whose a_n's are determined by Dirichlet characters, whereas cusp forms determine the latter. We begin our study with the celebrated Riemann zeta function, the simplest Dirichlet L-function, and discuss some of its well-known properties: the Euler product, analytic continuation, functional equation, Riemann hypothesis, and Euler's formula for its critical values. Then, we generalize our exploration to the Dirichlet L-functions and point out some analogous properties to those of the Riemann zeta function. Moreover, we present our original work on computing the critical values of the Dirichlet L-function associated with the primitive character mod 4, or what is known as the Dirichlet beta function. Lastly, we establish some knowledge of the theory of modular forms and cusp forms, which are nicely-behaved modular forms, and discuss some properties of the L-functions of cusp forms.
Plant-mediated interactions within the milkweed insect community
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Katie J. Galletta
Access: Open access
- Induced defenses following herbivore damage can modify a plant’s chemical or physical characteristics and alter the plant’s interactions with subsequent herbivores. Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) provides an excellent system with which to study plant response-mediated interactions given its small but highly specialized herbivorous insect community and its ability to increase toxic cardenolide concentrations and latex production throughout its tissues upon attack. I conducted observational field surveys quantifying leaf damage to examine whether the indirect plant-mediated interactions amongst the milkweed herbivore community as demonstrated in other studies also occur in situ, as well as how foliar herbivory impacts insect flower visitation on A. syriaca. I found that four-eyed milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) damage had a negative effect on subsequent monarch (Danaus plexippus) larvae and swamp milkweed leaf beetle (Labidomera clivicollis) damage. I also found that monarchs laid more eggs on milkweed with no herbivore damage. Additionally, I observed a negative relationship between A. syriaca foliar herbivory and flower visitation, which has not been previously demonstrated but illustrates the various potential costs of herbivory to plant fitness. My work’s focus on observing the effects of natural herbivore damage offers insight as to how plant-mediated interactions operate among the milkweed insect community in situ. Furthermore, this study demonstrates how plant responses to herbivory in general can modulate ecological relationships between species that do not directly interact with each other.
A Comparative Perspective on Colonial Influence in the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid in South Korea and Algeria
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Viv Daniel
Access: Open access
- South Korea and Algeria are both formerly colonized nations with a history of dependence on foreign aid. Their former colonizers, Japan and France respectively, collaborated closely throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, despite colonial linkages and similarities in early developmental trajectories, South Korea has grown into a donating member of the OECD and one of the world’s largest economies, while Algeria continues to struggle both economically and politically. This paper engages existing literature on postcolonial development and foreign aid by arguing that the attitudes towards colonization and the motivations for undertaking it on the part of colonial powers can have as large an impact on the success of foreign aid as the endogenous circumstances of the states receiving such aid.
Experiments in Gender: A Comparative Analysis on the Literary Representation of Women in Medicine and Science during the Weimar Republic Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Rachel Bercovitch
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Characterization and Quantification of AST-C Peptides in Homarus americanus Using Mass Spectrometry
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Amanda Howard
Access: Open access
- Neuropeptides are small signaling molecules found throughout the nervous system that influence animal behavior. Using the American lobster, Homarus americanus, as a model system, this research focused on an allatostatin type-C (AST-C) peptide, pQIRYHQCYFNPISCF (disulfide bond between underlined cysteine residues), and a structurally similar crustacean peptide, SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide. These neuropeptides influence cardiac muscle contraction patterns and stomatogastric nervous system activity in the lobster. To understand their roles, this study sought to develop a method to quantify peptides in the pericardial organ (PO) and other crustacean tissues. Overall analysis involved microdissection to isolate tissues, tissue extraction, extract purification and concentration, and analysis by chip-based nano-electrospray ionization-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (nanoESI-LC-MS). In the present study, pQIRYHQCYFNPISCF was identified in the PO. To quantify target peptides, internal standards were tested as recovery and calibration references. However, experiments with pQIRYHQCYFNPISCF and other peptides showed evidence of adsorptive losses during sample preparation and analysis, with improvements in recovery resulting from the use of isopropanol-prewashed polypropylene vials. Preliminary results also suggested that introducing polyethylene glycol (PEG) in solution reduced adsorptive losses for hydrophobic peptides, but may have compromised hydrophilic peptide detection. Future directions include characterizing other sources of analyte loss and developing techniques to recover these signals. Since both target peptides as detected in the lobster are post-translationally modified, other directions include identifying modified and unmodified forms of these peptides in H. americanus. Ultimately, quantifying AST-C peptides and viii identifying their modified and unmodified forms will help explain how neuropeptides regulate behavior within the lobster and more complex systems.
Modern Love and Marriage: The Problems and Insights of Rousseau, Beauvoir, and Plato Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Isabella Angel
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Transforming the Humane: Human/Animal Relationships in Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand and Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Joosep R. Vorno
Access: Open access
- In this project, I investigate Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (1915) and Marlen Haushofer’s Die Wand (1963) through a magic realist interpretive strategy. I identify how, as a result of a mysterious opening premise, the two texts accomplish a human/animal transformation in the protagonists. While the transformations differ in several aspects, even at times being direct opposites, the way in which the characters navigate their new nonhuman selves poses many important questions about care and humaneness, the human condition, and social and familial structures. By drawing on discussions of magic realism – from its roots in Weimar German art criticism, its contemporary features in literature, and the inherently subversive nature of the narrative mode – I discuss how the lens of magic realism becomes a helpful tool in recognizing, exploring, and appreciating the human/animal transformations as a defamiliarization of the familiar.
Divinity School: A Novel
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Ella Marie Schmidt
Access: Open access
- I wrote Divinity School, an Honors Project for the Department of English, under the auspices of my project advisor, Professor Anthony Walton, and my readers, Professors Marilyn Reizbaum, Ann Kibbie, and Aaron Kitch. Divinity School is a novel whose conflicts are religious, generational, and familial. Set mostly in Hoboken, New Jersey with vignettes in Manhattan, Vienna, the west coast of Ireland, and an anonymous New England college town, it is the story of one family and the open secrets that keep them apart. Hal Macpherson is a Divinity School professor uged into premature retirement by allegations of misconduct; his wife, Annie Price, is a withdrawn would-be actress. They are parents to Amelia Macpherson, a woman in her twenties who rejects her father’s righteous claims of innocence and her mother’s exhausted but unwavering devotion to him. This project is concerned with sex and pedagogy, youth, want-it-all politcs, parenthood, getting old, Protestantism, and domestic life. Using third-person free indirect style, I traverse the public-private planes of literature. As an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, I have enjoyed the privilege of a great English education in literature, creative writing, and independent work. Divinity School is the culmination of these studies.
The experience of crunch in the video games industry amongst current and aspiring developers
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Radu Ioan Stochita
Access: Open access
- The video games industry relies on crunch - overworking the developers, usually towards the end of the project in order to meet a required deadline. In this paper, I analyze the different relationships that aspiring and current game developers have with the games industry and how they position themselves when it comes to crunch. Passion is a major component of people's desire to join the games' industry, later being used to justify one's need of staying overtime: "Since I am passionate about video games, it did not feel like work at all." Other aspiring or current developers are more skeptical when it comes to crunch and are developing secondary plans, either to quit the industry, join labor unions or push for better working conditions.
An Alternative Perspective on Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs): Underpricing in the “No Target" Phase
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Anna G Constantine
Access: Open access
- Special Purpose Acquisition Companies marked a restructuring of the often-fraudulent 1980s blank check company, an entity gathering funds to merge or acquire another business entity. Based on the Special Purpose Acquisition Company structure, “the stock price should be greater than or equal to the pro-rata trust value, discounted from the SPAC’s expiration date, at all times prior to the shareholder vote date.” In this study, I research the “no target” phase of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company’s lifecycle to evaluate whether there is a difference between their trust value and their market capitalization. Based on previous research, we know that there is a discount to trust value prior to 2009; however, I postulate the decoupling of the SPAC merger approval vote and the vote for investors to redeem may eliminate this discount. Using a first difference regression to establish the premium to the average trust value of 1,057 Special Purpose Acquisition Companies traded between 2005 and 2022, we find that both the period before 2010 and after 2010 trades at a negative premium, or discount. Because the decoupling of the merger vote and the redemption vote did not eliminate the negative premium to trust value, I postulate that the structure of SPAC redemptions, modeled as a call option with decaying time value, may be responsible for this mispricing. I also draw opportunities for future research to investigate if the embedding of a call option into the SPAC redemption structure discourages shareholders from desiring merger outcomes early in the SPAC lifecycle.
Student Activism and Malaysian Politics, 1955-74: Revising the History of the Malay Language Society (PBMUM)
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Song Eraou
Access: Open access
- In the literature on student activism in Malaysia, the years from 1967 to 1974 are emphasized as vibrant years—students organized large-scale demonstrations, regularly asserted their opinions in the political arena, and even participated in electoral politics. This period was followed, however, with the imposition of strict laws in 1975 limiting freedom of speech and expression. Such laws were part of the broader containment policy pursued by the state after the May 13, 1969, racial riots, which allowed the state to stifle any form of political dissidence to ensure peace between different ethnic groups. One particularly active organization in this period was the Malay Language Society (PBMUM) of the University of Malaya. While PBMUM began with a dream of using language as a mode to foster national unity, after the riots it would be remembered as a race-based organization oriented toward Malays. This thesis offers a historical analysis and reinterpretation of the PBMUM, characterizing it as a platform for students at the University of Malaya to meet, discuss, and mobilize around the most important issues concerning Malaysian society. Importantly, members exhibited a continued devotion towards changing the fate of the rakyat (the people). In revising the history of PBMUM, this thesis also offers a deeper understanding of the Malaysian political landscape in the ‘60s and ‘70s, focusing on political discussions around nation-building in the lead up to the May 13 riots and its aftermath.
Liberty and Its Legacy An Analysis of Freedom and Liberty in American Political Rhetoric
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Ryan S. Kovarovics
Access: Open access
- The concept of freedom has always been central to the American identity, but its meaning has never been agreed on by all and has long been the subject of debate. An abridged explanation of the evolution of liberty’s meaning in political thought and American history is presented in the first chapter of this project. It demonstrates the long-standing importance of individual freedom in America and highlights some historical moments when liberty has come into conflict with other societal values. When used in American political rhetoric today, “freedom” and “liberty” typically take on a “negative” meaning that is focused mostly on individual freedom from government intervention. This is especially clear with regard to issues each party claims to “own” in the context of freedom, including abortion for the Democrats and the covid-19 pandemic response for the Republicans. To verify this partisan ownership of freedom and compare how each party uses freedom in political rhetoric, an empirical analysis was conducted of the uses of “freedom” and “liberty” in candidate tweets and campaign ads from the 2022 midterm elections. The analysis found some support for partisan ownership of freedom rhetoric surrounding these and other issues, but the most interesting finding was that Democrats and Republicans invoked “freedom” and “liberty” in their rhetoric at virtually identical rates. This shows that neither party can lay an exclusive claim to be the “party of freedom.”
Identifying crustacean neuropeptides and precursor-related peptides by LC/MS: An investigation of strategies for extraction and orthogonal separations Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2028-06-01
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Emily Grace Herndon
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Indigenous Rights in International Law: A Focus on Extraction in the Arctic
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Aine Healey Lawlor
Access: Open access
- This paper seeks to evaluate the evolution and future of Indigenous rights in extractive industry on a global scale and uses the Arctic both to explore the complexity of these rights and to provide paths forward in advancing Indigenous self-determination. Indigenous rights lack a strong international foundation and are often dependent upon local and domestic regimes, yet this reality is currently shifting. The state of extraction internationally, particularly in the Arctic, is also facing major uncertainty in the coming decades as demand continues to rise. Indigenous rights and the rules governing extractive industry intersect because much of the world’s remaining mineral resources are on or near Indigenous territories and Indigenous communities are disproportionately impacted by the environmental degradation and socio-cultural consequences of extractive development. The Arctic is arguably the most important setting for the world’s future resource needs and is also home to many Indigenous peoples who operate in complex legal, political, and social webs. This paper argues that as a result of these dynamics, the Arctic offers opportunities to advance forms of non-traditional sovereignty and to promote recognition of Indigenous self-determination through diffusion and international norm development. This paper proposes a multi-faceted approach to further promote Indigenous rights on the international level which involves using the Arctic Council as a platform for diffusion, the US ratification of UNDRIP, the creation of standards and guidelines for transnational corporations in development projects, and investment in Indigenous communities to support Indigenous empowerment, advocacy, and voices.
Clones, Corporations, and Community: Cyborg Bodies Onstage
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Grace Kellar-Long
Access: Open access
- For my honors project, I selected, wrote, directed, and produced an adaptation of a science fiction novella for the stage. I chose Nino Cipri's Defekt as the source material for my adaptation because I wanted to adapt a text where the novum, or science fiction novelty, is located in the bodies of the actors. During the written adaptation process, I worked from my memory of the novella, highlighting and expanding on the themes of queer found family, empathy, and anti-capitalism that were already present in the text. I repeatedly attempted to contact the author, their agent, and the publisher to secure the rights to adapt the novella, but I did not receive a reply from any of the copyright holders. After I adapted the novella into a script, I conducted a staged reading. Following that reading and further revisions of the script, I began rehearsals for the full production. During the rehearsal process, I guided the actors to create a shared vocabulary of movement to communicate that they were portraying clones, the embodied novum I focused on in my adaptation. In addition to leading rehearsals, I also coordinated the logistics to produce the play, including working with two designers, creating rehearsal schedules, and working with the tech staff in the Theater Department. The final performance examined the boundaries between human and non-human bodies, inviting audiences to think about how capitalism and empathy determine how we interact with marginalized bodies. This packet contains the program and program notes from the production.
Music Streaming Services, Programming Culture, and the Politics of Listening
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Walker Kennedy
Access: Open access
Discovery and characterization of novel crustin family antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in the American lobster, Homarus americanus, using transcriptomics and peptidomics Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2027-06-01
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Emily Yuan-ann Pan
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Love is Real & I Just Had Some for Dessert: Legacies of Communal Care & Compassion in Asian Diasporic Women's Food Writing
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Miki Rierson
Access: Open access
- In this project I work to recover influential yet often erased Asian American female immigrant chefs and food authors from the mid-twentieth century to the present, situating their contributions in a deep-rooted tradition of diasporic women who used cooking as a means of communal agency and care. Immigrant Asian cookbook authors and chefs have long faced internal criticisms from their own diasporic communities of either inauthenticity or engaging in “food pornography,” to use writer Frank Chin’s term—a line of criticism that Lisa Lau has elaborated on as “re-Orientalism.”Though these criticisms should not eclipse the works themselves, I discuss and counter them in my project because they reflect broader challenges faced particularly by Asian female diasporic authors even today. , I seek to address a broader scholarly gap through my project. Presently, much important work exists on the legacies of historical trauma and violence on marginalized communities, work that highlights the insidious ways violence manifests in academia, pop culture, and everyday lives. This project is a personal pursuit to focus on the healing and beautiful aspects of diasporic community and identity, an ode to the parts of us that are not defined by the pain and suffering but that seek self-affirmation beyond them.
The Crossroads We Make: Intergenerational Trauma and Reparative Reading in Recent Asian American Memoirs (2018-2022)
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Josh-Pablo Manish Patel
Access: Open access
- This project extends reparative reading practices to recent Asian American memoirs, specifically trauma memoirs from the past five years (2018-2022) that detail personal trauma and communal, intergenerational trauma. Reparative reading is explored within five memoirs: Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know (2022), Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias (2019), Phuc Tran’s Sigh, Gone (2020), Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings (2020), and Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know (2018). In considering the reparative turn in Asian American memoirs, this thesis draws on and extends Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s reparative frameworks and bell hooks’ theories on pedagogy and love. A critical analysis of self-writings through pre-existing reparative reading models alongside traditional Asian American scholarship on racial melancholia resists the monopolistic dominance of overwhelming negative affects (such as shame, guilt, and anger) that saturate Asian American lives and life-writing. Instead, this alternative interpretative practice exposes how authors seek love, pleasure, and positivity within their texts and within their own lives, while also exploring the methods through which the memoirists themselves embody the reparative in writing and self-analysis. Thus, shaping the reparative turn for Asian America illuminates the productive ways reshaped methods of writing and criticism, and its resultant ethics of living, can push back against lived racial oppression and pain as well as decades of cultural erasure and intergenerational trauma. This varied engagement with love-based and reparative frameworks allows Asian American authors to begin healing from trauma, and this is evidenced through non-traditional psychiatric healing methods, literary methods, and strategies of communal formation.
Photoacidic properties of 8-amino-2-naphthol in imidazolium salts Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Rachel E Nealon
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
"Know-Nothingism, Abolitionism, and Fanaticism:" An Analysis of the Collapse of the Second Party System in Maine
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Justis Dixon
Access: Open access
- The 1850s were a tumultuous period in American politics, with a complete partisan realignment fundamentally shifting the balance of power away from the status quo and toward possibilities for change. This paper focuses on the collapse of the Second Party System in Maine, and understanding how we can explain this stunning and rapid shift. The varying factors can be placed into two broad categories First, ethnocultural issues were primarily responsible for much of the growing turmoil within and between the major parties throughout the 1840s, and accelerating greatly in the early 1850s with rising levels of immigration and the increasing draw of the temperance movement, which was then followed by the passage of highly controversial legislation concerning these issues. Second, national-level issues such as the Fugitive Slave Act and detailed reports of the violence out West in local newspapers brought the consequences of the unfettered expansion of slavery closer to home for many Mainers. Scholars of this period have expressed varying opinions as to the relative importance of local and national level issues in generating a change to the political system. Using Maine as a case study due to its position as a leader in the temperance movement and its geographical distance from the battlegrounds of national politics at the time, I conduct an in-depth examination of the political history of the state and conclude that rising tensions on both local and national levels were necessary to cause such transformational change.
Components and Mechanisms of Total Alkalinity Variability in an Intertidal Salt Marsh Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: Lloyd B Anderson
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Ethnicity and Territory: Cultural and Political Autonomy for African Descended Colombians through Law 70
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Ayana Opong-Nyantekyi
Access: Open access
- Colombia has the second largest African descendant population in all South America due to the transatlantic slave trade that stripped millions from their homeland and brought them to present day Colombia. While African descendants have been a part of the region’s history for over five centuries, it was not until 1993 with the establishment of Law 70 that the Colombian government acknowledged the culture and rights of African descendants. This thesis analyzes the historical, social, and political underpinnings of Law 70, its implementation, and aftereffects. I argue that Law 70 acknowledges a lived identity of rural African descended Colombians as the mechanism for Black communities to obtain rights. The thesis addresses the deep connection between ethnicity and territory, and how Law 70 recognizes that, for rural African descendants, ancestry, culture, and territory, cannot be separated. Law 70 codified a legal transition from a racial to an ethnic frame, which was necessary for African descendants to live their difference and be recognized by the nation.