Showing 411 - 420 of 564 Items

Chambers of Reflection: Rousseau, Tocqueville, and Self-Government in the Digital Age

Date: 2020-01-01

Creator: John Sweeney

Access: Open access

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Alexis de Tocqueville each warn that the dominant cultures of their days may hinder the project of self-government. Against the backdrop of advancing Enlightenment philosophy, Rousseau writes that as social visibility increases relative to intimate connection, the drive for recognition corrupts self-love. Following the American and French revolutions, Tocqueville explores the democratic erosion of social hierarchies. He writes that a rise in individualism may obscure “self-interest well-understood”—the perspective gained through collaboration with others, thoughtful reflection, and reverence for truths that lie beyond the dictates of cursory instincts. In this project, I apply these political theories to the Digital Age. I explain how the distinction between the physical world and the digital realm has actualized Rousseau’s depiction of double men, “always appearing to relate everything to others and never relating anything except to themselves alone.” In the era of social distancing, technological evolution threatens to induce regression in the sociability and reflective agency that promote our capacity for self-government. Accordingly, I argue that Rousseau’s theory of corrupted drive for recognition and Tocqueville’s theory of individualism inform a new danger to political freedom: digital tribalism.


Genetic Analysis of Cellular Adhesion in Arabidopsis thaliana

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Andrew Close Bolender

Access: Open access

Plant cell adhesion is mediated by the extracellular matrix (ECM) or cell wall and plays an important role in plant morphogenesis and development. The amount, modification, and cleavage of pectin in the cell wall are major contributors to the adhesive properties of the ECM. To gain a more complete picture of plant cell adhesion processes, Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings were previously mutagenized and screened for hypocotyl adhesion defects. Genomic sequencing of one plant exhibiting an adhesion defect, isolate 242, showed that two mutations, one in cellulose synthase (CesA1) and another in a sugar transporter, are candidates for the causative mutation. This thesis reports that CesA1 is necessary for proper plant cell adhesion, while the sugar transporter encoded at At4g32390 is not. Dark grown seedlings homozygous for mutations in CesA1 stain in ruthenium red, indicating atypical adhesion, while those homozygous for null mutations in At4g32390 do not. Previous study of another adhesion mutant revealed ELMO1, a Golgi protein necessary for plant cell adhesion, and four additional homologs ELMO2-5 in the A. thaliana genome. Two of these homologs, ELMO2 and ELMO3, fused to GFP, colocalized with mCherry-MEM1 markers in the Golgi, but not mCherry-NLM12 ER markers, indicating that ELMO2 and ELMO3 are also Golgi proteins.


A Foray into the Camp: Human and Ecological Liberation in Contemporary Queer Conversion Therapy Literature

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Mitchel Jurasek

Access: Open access

Through the analysis of two contemporary conversion therapy novels in North America, this project explores the intersections of biopolitics (specifically camp theory), queer theory, ecocriticism, and YA literature. Emily Danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Nick White’s How to Survive a Summer are paired with scholars such as Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Joshua Whitehead, Greta Gaard, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Claudio Minca, Catriona Sandilands, Luce Irigaray, and Michael Marder to create a complex and intricate understanding of how ecologies impact queer youths’ experience in conversion therapy camps. The effect of such an intersectional and ecological understanding of queer becomings creates a foundation for further discovery and offers examples for current and future people to find mutual liberation with the ecologies we exist in.


Solvent Effect on Excited State Proton Transfer Mechanism of 8-Amino-2-Naphthol

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Gabrielle Vandendries

Access: Open access

Photoacids, compounds that undergo excited state proton transfer (ESPT), have been utilized in different solar energy and lithographic applications.1, 2 The addition of functional groups and solvent can both change the ESPT mechanism of photoacids. In this study, the effect of solvent on the ESPT mechanism was explored using a model diprotic photoacid, 8-amino-2-naphthol (8N2OH). The photochemistry of 8N2OH in water and common nonaqueous solvents, acetonitrile, tetrahydrofuran (THF), and methanol, were studied using UV/Vis absorption, steady-state emission, and time-correlated single photon counting (TCPSC) emission spectroscopy. The results were analyzed using the Kamlet-Taft parameters. It was found that the ESPT mechanism of the cation in water is different from the mechanism in acetonitrile and THF. In water the excited cation forms the zwitterion, i.e. the OH site undergoes ESPT, while in acetonitrile and THF, the excited cation forms the neutral species, i.e. the NH3+ site undergoes ESPT. No ESPT was observed for 8N2OH in methanol. The effect of solvent mixtures on photoacidity was also investigated using acetonitrile and water mixtures. The solvent effects were more subtle; the time-resolved emission measurements showed the greatest stabilization of the excited neutral 8N2OH species at 20/80% acetonitrile-water mixtures. Finally, the ability to extend the solvent studies to ionic liquids, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium (Im) trifluromethanesulfonate (OTF), was demonstrated. The combined studies reveal that solvent plays a large role in determining the ESPT mechanism and stabilization of 8N2OH.


Placemaking and Community-Building among Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer (LBQ) Women and Non-Binary People during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Date: 2021-01-01

Creator: Gabby Unipan

Access: Open access

This paper draws on data collected through in-depth interviews with multi-generational participants recruited from various online sites to explore the place-making strategies among lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women and trans- and gender-non-conforming people (tgncp) during the Covid-19 pandemic. Historically denied public space, placemaking in immaterial space (i.e., digital spaces) has been essential to the production and maintenance of communities for LBQ women and tgncp. Because these populations rely on non-traditional placemaking strategies that are not always instantiated in material space, sociologists often overlook their efforts to create place for themselves. This paper corrects this omission by exploring how communities create place through the deployment of subcultural capital onto immaterial space. Introducing four main strategies of community placemaking, material-constant communities, material-transient communities, immaterial-constant communities, and immaterial-transient communities, this article expands sociological conceptions of space to accommodate the placemaking strategies of marginalized communities who might lack the economic and political resources to foster communities in material spaces. Beyond the investigation of lesbian-queer placemaking, this research contributes to the growing sociological literature exploring the multifaceted, fluid, contested, and ephemeral nature of place and placemaking in the context of increasing Internet use.


Miniature of Application of the Landau-Zener Model and Fermi's Golden Rule to Estimate Triplet Quantum Yield for Organic Molecules
Application of the Landau-Zener Model and Fermi's Golden Rule to Estimate Triplet Quantum Yield for Organic Molecules
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      Date: 2014-05-01

      Creator: Nathan D Ricke

      Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



        Miniature of Rehab, Restitution, or Reform? Drug Policy, Race, and Swing Voters in Ohio Politics, 1983-2015
        Rehab, Restitution, or Reform? Drug Policy, Race, and Swing Voters in Ohio Politics, 1983-2015
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            Date: 2020-01-01

            Creator: Grace Louise Cawdrey

            Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



              Miniature of Metabolic Inhibitors Induce Species-Specific Defects in Bacterial Glycosylation
              Metabolic Inhibitors Induce Species-Specific Defects in Bacterial Glycosylation
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                  Date: 2020-01-01

                  Creator: Ilana R. Olin

                  Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community



                    Miniature of Examination of tooth-specific <i>cis</i>-regulation of the <i>dlx2b</i> gene during zebrafish development
                    Examination of tooth-specific cis-regulation of the dlx2b gene during zebrafish development
                    This record is embargoed.
                      • Embargo End Date: 2025-05-14

                      Date: 2020-01-01

                      Creator: Yujin Moon

                      Access: Embargoed



                        Miniature of Calculating the Local Biotic Exchange Ratio of O<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> at Harvard Forest: Using Flux Measurements to Improve Past Estimates
                        Calculating the Local Biotic Exchange Ratio of O2 and CO2 at Harvard Forest: Using Flux Measurements to Improve Past Estimates
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                        • Restriction End Date: 2025-06-01

                          Date: 2020-01-01

                          Creator: Diana Katalina Grandas

                          Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community