Preceramic polymers are frequently used as a lower energy intensive precursor for creating ceramics, as they can be transformed into robust ceramics at lower temperatures than is required by traditional processing routes. Additionally, preceramic polymers can be used to produce structures with microstructural variability, such as porosity. Polysiloxanes are one type of preceramic polymer that have been used to create silicon oxycarbide materials. Previous research has utilized polysiloxanes in freeze casting to create porous ceramics, specifically investigating development of different pore morphologies and pyrolysis profiles. However, there has been little exploration into the differing molecular structures of various polysiloxanes impact their behavior through the freeze casting process. Investigating the molecular structure of commonly used proprietary polysiloxane Wacker SILRES\u00ae MK has provided some insight into molecular structural changes during the freeze-casting process. These can be used to improve freeze-casting microstructure from another proprietary polysiloxane, Wacker SILRES\u00ae H44. MK and H44 were characterized in powder, solution, and post pyrolysis stages of the freeze casting process. Techniques including FTIR-ATR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy, DSC, and SEM imaging were used to determine how to improve the robustness of freeze cast structures made with H44. MK was determined to be a polymethylethoxysiloxane, and H44 to be a polymethylphenylsiloxane. The high energy and high steric strain phenyl groups in H44 require additional energy to facilitate crosslinking during the freezing process for H44. Both MK and H44 converted to silicon oxycarbide upon pyrolysis. Adding crosslinker improved the desired porous microstructure and robustnesss of freeze-cast structures made with H44, as evidenced by SEM imaging. Future exploration into other preceramic polymers should consider the impact of high energy functional groups upon the processing methods to create desired microstructures.
" }, { "name": "Nandi, Ankita", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2024", "title": "Thinking Queerness and Forming Intimacies: Understanding Identity, Relationships, and Queerness in South Asian Diasporic Contemporary Literature, 1981\u20132022", "advisor": "Murphy, Dana", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:03192024-215940431", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Nandi", "given": "Ankita" }, "id": "Nandi-Ankita", "orcid": "0000-0002-8158-8509", "display_name": "Nandi, Ankita" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Murphy", "given": "Dana" }, "id": "Murphy-Dana", "orcid": "0000-0003-1710-5768", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Murphy, Dana" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "english", "matsci" ], "doi": "10.7907/6v3z-tw65", "abstract": "Reading intimacy in South Asian diasporic texts requires a nuanced framework to understand the impersonality of sex, and blurrings within relationships and intimacies. Intimacy, both emotional and physical, depends on vulnerability to connect with others. I use a queer diasporic framework to analyze a selection of scenes from different contemporary South Asian diasporic texts, from 1981\u20132022. Specifically, I analyze their portrayals of intimacy and relationships to disrupt binaries invoked on how we might view intimacy. Such a framework also affords insights into how the diaspora and queerness both influence identity and disrupt heterosexual readings of texts to allow for deeper emotional intimacies. The framework is grounded in queer theory, history of the LGBTQ+ community and the queer body, and history of the diaspora to allow for nuanced readings of the texts. Through exploring the queer diaspora in these contemporary texts, I challenge binaries of both the queer and diasporic frameworks in ways that encompass the complexities of the relationships we find ourselves in." }, { "name": "Jiang, Abigail Yuan-Shan", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2023", "title": "Who\u2019s Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Visions of Urban Progress in Los Angeles Chinatown, 1970-2020", "advisor": "Dykstra, Maura", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06202023-215355092", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Jiang", "given": "Abigail Yuan-Shan" }, "id": "Jiang-Abigail-Yuan-Shan", "orcid": "0000-0001-8003-8380", "display_name": "Jiang, Abigail Yuan-Shan" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Dykstra", "given": "Maura" }, "id": "Dykstra-M", "orcid": "0000-0001-6036-6440", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Dykstra, Maura" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "Wiggins", "given": "Danielle L." }, "id": "Wiggins-Danielle-L", "orcid": "0000-0001-8457-8827", "role": "chair", "display_name": "Wiggins, Danielle L." } ], "option_major": [ "history", "matsci" ], "doi": "10.7907/94nx-2495", "abstract": "This thesis explores the dynamics of urban development in Los Angeles (LA) Chinatown since the 1970s until present day. The historical narrative is driven by broad demographic shifts across LA County, alongside municipal and community politics that shape the material and cultural demands behind neighborhood change. Through this narrative, I challenge the traditional framings of resident versus business interests in Chinatowns, and instead highlight the complicated and often competing visions of progress throughout the community. I argue that \u201cthe youths\u201d and \u201cthe elders\u201d serve as key figures in this history: first, as dynamic actors and activists directly engaged in the process of development, and second, as subjects of discourse that actors mobilize towards different goals of development. Finally, I illuminate tensions between organizing as a representative of a community and organizing in solidarity towards the tangible needs of a community." }, { "name": "Liu, Grace", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2023", "title": "\u201cIt\u2019s Our War Too\u201d: Barriers to Authorship by Women Writing Vietnam War Poetry", "advisor": "Jurca, Catherine", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:04262023-070455932", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Liu", "given": "Grace" }, "id": "Liu-Grace", "display_name": "Liu, Grace" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Jurca", "given": "Catherine" }, "id": "Jurca-C", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Jurca, Catherine" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "biology", "english" ], "doi": "10.7907/r3ec-ev97", "abstract": "Even though American women had higher rates of involvement in the Vietnam War than any previous war, poems about their experiences were extremely scarce until over a decade after American troops withdrew. A major contributor to the lack of literary representation is the critical dismissal of women\u2019s war poetry as being unable to teach readers meaningful \u201ctruths\u201d about war. This thesis examines two collections of female-authored poems, Visions of War, Dreams of Peace and Shallow Graves, which were published in 1991 and 1986 respectively. The former contains poems from 40 women, most of whom served as army nurses; the latter combines the experiences of Wendy Wilder Larsen, an American woman who lived in Vietnam for two years, and Tran Thi Nga, a Vietnamese woman who immigrated to America. The collections reveal that most American women responded to critical expectations either through self-erasure or active rebellion. In contrast to the American women, Nga is granted authority by critics because her Vietnamese perspective is unique in English literature, but her authorship is instead challenged during the process of adapting her story for an American audience." }, { "name": "Cheng, Myra Miaobo", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2022", "title": "Female Inventors and Narratives of Innovation in Late Twentieth-Century Computing", "advisor": "Dykstra, Maura", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:08012022-200204789", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Cheng", "given": "Myra Miaobo" }, "id": "Cheng-Myra-Miaobo", "display_name": "Cheng, Myra Miaobo" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Dykstra", "given": "Maura" }, "id": "Dykstra-M", "orcid": "0000-0001-6036-6440", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Dykstra, Maura" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "compsci", "history" ], "doi": "10.7907/79me-jr94", "abstract": "I examine the history of women\u2019s labor and representation in computer science by studying two distinct categories: women involved in authorial, creative work versus manual, computational labor. Building off the work of historians of technology, I question why we tell the histories we do about the \u201cforgotten women.\u201d The gaps in the histories of computer science innovation are mirrored by shortcomings in the actual practice of computer science: Both the historiography of computer science and the field itself have been shaped by the myth of the lone genius. I trace the shortcomings of this myth throughout the history of modern computer science, finding that narratives of female innovators and movements to incorporate more women into computing only perpetuated connections between individual genius, masculinity, and scientific progress. I explore community-based perspectives from feminist epistemology as possibilities for shifting away from the myth of the lone genius." }, { "name": "Du, Yun Emily", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2022", "title": "Surveying Notions of Queer Asian American Community Through Literature: 1972\u20131998", "advisor": "Dykstra, Maura", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06082022-220335559", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Du", "given": "Yun Emily" }, "id": "Du-Yun-Emily", "orcid": "0000-0003-0634-910X", "display_name": "Du, Yun Emily" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Dykstra", "given": "Maura" }, "id": "Dykstra-M", "orcid": "0000-0001-6036-6440", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Dykstra, Maura" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "chemistry", "history" ], "doi": "10.7907/43ya-7t94", "abstract": "The history of queer Asian America has, to date, largely been studied as a history of organizations. This has lent a particular tilt to both the preservation and the study of queer Asian America: the activism of the late 20th century has been archivally and academically preserved, while records of everyday queer Asian American experiences -- of the ways individuals discovered their identities, formed communities, found loves, and filled their days -- have been more rarely preserved and written of. This thesis seeks to fill that gap by analyzing the history of queer Asian American literature. Specifically, the thesis offers a broad survey of queer Asian American writing from the 1970s through the 90s. It then uses methods of literary and historical analysis to shed light on how individuals have grappled with the question of what it means to be queer and Asian American. Ultimately, the thesis turns to the queer Asian American community and asks, \"Who are 'we'?\"
" }, { "name": "Hu, Laura D.", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2021", "title": "Navigating the Temporal Landscape of Trauma", "advisor": "Weinstein, Cindy A.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06032021-174301989", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Hu", "given": "Laura D." }, "id": "Hu-Laura-D", "display_name": "Hu, Laura D." } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Weinstein", "given": "Cindy A." }, "id": "Weinstein-C", "orcid": "0009-0006-0352-2981", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Weinstein, Cindy A." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "compsci", "english" ], "doi": "10.7907/13ss-ch27", "abstract": "Trauma transforms time and narrative. Psychological trauma, the overwhelming mental response to distressing events, distorts the manner in which its victim perceives and experiences time. The representation of trauma is not uniform. Authors use different approaches to speak the unspeakable, to remember the unrememberable. This paper examines three novels and their depiction of time after trauma: Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s Slaughterhouse-Five, Tom McCarthy\u2019s Remainder, and Toni Morrison\u2019s Beloved. Readings of these three novels engage with one another, enhancing the ways in which trauma can be understood. The synthesis of philosophical, scientific, and literary frameworks provides the multifaceted and necessary lens through which to examine the narrative of trauma. In each of these three novels, trauma leaves a mark\u2014a remainder\u2014that the passage of time cannot erase, and that even the altered temporal frameworks cannot fully represent." }, { "name": "Anderson, Margaret Audrey", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2020", "title": "Charles the Bald: the Story of an Epithet", "advisor": "Brown, Warren C.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06032020-102905204", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Anderson", "given": "Margaret Audrey" }, "id": "Anderson-Margaret-Audrey", "orcid": "0000-0002-0355-0994", "display_name": "Anderson, Margaret Audrey" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Brown", "given": "Warren C." }, "id": "Brown-Warren-C", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Brown, Warren C." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "history", "physics" ], "doi": "10.7907/jsfq-q743", "abstract": "For centuries, historians have followed the lead of their forebears by using standardized names to refer to people and events. The use of 'Charles the Bald' to refer to Charlemagne's grandson has been reinforced via centuries of copying, paraphrasing, and citing historical documents. The sobriquet is now inextricably linked to the man. But in the simple process of writing the epithet, it is easy to forget how much complexity is distilled into one word. Any sophisticated metaphors or hidden meanings have been nearly erased by time. But, this one word carries a wealth of nuance in meaning and intentions. Any analysis of this nickname must attempt to reconnect with the medieval mindset and understand how to reconcile the simplicity of the epithet with the complexity of the man. The investigation of Carolus Calvus (Charles the Bald) must consider not only Charles' own legacy and physical reality, but also evaluate the nickname as part of a larger naming phenomenon. Furthermore, understanding the way the medieval mind saw hair and baldness is instrumental in understanding the possible deeper meanings behind Charles' epithet.
\r\n\r\nWas Charles the Bald actually bald? Here are the facts: first, the true origin of Carolingian epithets (nicknames given to the kings of Charles' dynasty) will never be known, but their use and proliferation were certainly fueled by the need to distinguish between the overlapping names of the Carolingians. Second, the alliterative nickname Carolus Calvus, could come from as early as 869 or as late as the 10th century. The earliest written use of the epithet appears in a manuscript dated to the 10th century. However, the document is a copy of a text originally drafted before 869. Thus, the nickname could either be contemporary with Charles as a part of the original text or created up to a century after his death and added for clarity in the tenth century copy. Third, Hucbald's incredible alliterative poem on baldness, his Ecloga de Calvus (In Praise of Bald Men), was not written for Charles, as many historians once believed, but it does demonstrate that bald men were ridiculed in the ninth century and symbolically ties baldness to virtue and holiness. Fourth, Charles' grandson, Baldwin II of Flanders was known as 'the bald' by the 11th century; he seemingly inherited the nickname despite not being bald himself.
\r\n\r\nIn their analysis of Charles' nickname, many historians conclude that the meaning is obvious and undeniable, that Charles was simply bald. Regardless of how much time these scholars spend analyzing other Carolingian epithets such as Charlemagne (Charles the Great), Louis the Pious, or Charles the Simple, Charles the Bald was 'obviously' bald. From the facts and theories cultivated during this thesis, however, there is no reason to believe that Charles was truly bald. There are no images or descriptions of a bald king and a significant lack of mocking from Charles' enemies and detractors. Furthermore, Charles certainly had hair into his early adulthood and the poet Hucbald, who lived in Charles' court for a time, does not address the king directly in his poem praising of bald men. Charles may have been called the bald in his lifetime, as the adoption of the epithet by his grandson would suggest, yet the nickname's earliest recorded use can only be certainly dated to the late tenth century. It is entirely possible that Charles' byname and its use by his grandson were invented by post-contemporary historians looking to distinguish between the Carolingians and make their mark on Charles' legacy. A non-physical baldness could symbolize any number of things via its negative associations with old-age, immorality, and low status or positive associations with humility, piety, and prudence. For Charles, it likely referenced a symbolic infertility tied to Charles' difficulty in producing a suitable male heir as well as the subsequent sunset of the Carolingian dynasty.
\r\n" }, { "name": "Lopezalles, Sierra MacKenzie", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2020", "title": "The Evolution of Dragons: From Living Serpents to Mythical Beasts", "advisor": "Brown, Warren C.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06042020-035611013", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Lopezalles", "given": "Sierra MacKenzie" }, "id": "Lopezalles-Sierra-MacKenzie", "display_name": "Lopezalles, Sierra MacKenzie" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Brown", "given": "Warren C." }, "id": "Brown-Warren-C", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Brown, Warren C." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "history" ], "doi": "10.7907/st7y-3y61", "abstract": "We, at least in the modern West, tend to think of dragons as mythical beasts; they inhabit medieval epics and romances, as well as the modern fantasy stories and movies inspired by them. As such, they have been around for centuries. However, at the beginning of their life dragons were not mythical; they were in fact quite real. But the original dragons were not dragons at all \u2013 they were serpents. The modern image of dragons with legs, wings, and fire-breathing capabilities emerged in the course of the European Middle Ages. It has no place in the Classical world and would have been unrecognizable to the ancient Romans or Greeks. The evolution of dragons from simple snakes did not happen all at once. It occurred slowly over the course of three thousand years (~900BC-1700AD). Further, it did not even happen in the same order everywhere. Dragons were associated with fire and venom in ancient Greek myths and stories but lacked wings until Roman late antiquity. They failed to have their fire-breathing powers confirmed in natural history until the seventeenth century. And across the board, the number of legs attributed to dragons varied greatly between time periods, and even between different depictions in the same time period. Natural histories did not describe dragons as quadrupeds until Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century.
\r\n\r\nThat dragons existed, however, remained uncontested until the Early Modern period, and believers persisted well into the eighteenth century. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, was the person to finally cast them from the real world and firmly trap them in the realm of folklore and legends. It was their strong connection with the world of the gods, a connection that they had enjoyed from the beginning, that led dragons to develop from the real to the unreal, and finally allowed Linnaeus to slay them. Nevertheless, though the dragons that Linnaeus actually met \u2013 and he did meet some \u2013 were undoubtebly the stuff of myth, the dragons of Ancient Greece were as real as Linnaeus\u2019 dragons were fake.
" }, { "name": "Goulet, Michael Anthony", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2019", "title": "Caught in the Middle: Homosexual Guilt, Liminality, and the role of the 'Novel of Identification' in Post-World War, Pre-Stonewall America", "advisor": "Sherazi, Melanie; Haugen, Kristine L.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06172019-231303940", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Goulet", "given": "Michael Anthony" }, "id": "Goulet-Michael-Anthony", "display_name": "Goulet, Michael Anthony" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Sherazi", "given": "Melanie" }, "id": "Sherazi-Melanie", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Sherazi, Melanie" }, { "name": { "family": "Haugen", "given": "Kristine L." }, "id": "Haugen-K-L", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Haugen, Kristine L." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "compsci", "english" ], "doi": "10.7907/5CN3-9084", "abstract": "The 1950s and 1960s are often regarded as a transitory time period for the American homosexual man, overshadowed by the end of World War II and the tumultuous and radically influential Gay liberation movement beginning in the 1970s. The time period is marked by the publication and increased scrutiny of several influential novels: Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man (1964), Chester Himes's Yesterday Will Make You Cry (1937), James Baldwin's Giovanni\u2019s Room (1956), and Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar (1948). These novels highlight the tensions of competing forces of continuing repression and increasing acceptance, and complicate and explore the richness and heterogeneity of the gay identity, even before it has fully nucleated in pre-Stonewall America. The novels\u2019 protagonists often have strained relationships both with the conventional society in which they live, but also the homosexual communities that exist around them. The protagonists recast their homosexual relationships as ephemeral, exceptional in nature, or with conventional labels, revealing complex and contradictory ideas about their own sexual identities. The protagonists are forced to come to terms with their identities, a process more complicated than simply coming out to the world and crossing the not-so-singular threshold often associated with the contemporary 'gay closet.' Finally, the novels' often tragically unresolved endings challenge the idea that they may serve as \"support\" novels for their gay communities; instead, they are better understood as novels of \"identification\", since they uncompromisingly cover issues that have gone uncovered before this period, identifying the problems that the isolated homosexual may feel, and highlighting and scrutinizing a lack of conventional resolution.
" }, { "name": "Lymperopoulos-Bountalis, Filippos", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2019", "title": "Town Meeting: A Representative but Non-Sovereign Institution", "advisor": "Dykstra, Maura", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:07252019-051751946", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Lymperopoulos-Bountalis", "given": "Filippos" }, "id": "Lymperopoulos-Bountalis-Filippos", "orcid": "0000-0002-7122-7793", "display_name": "Lymperopoulos-Bountalis, Filippos" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Dykstra", "given": "Maura" }, "id": "Dykstra-M", "orcid": "0000-0001-6036-6440", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Dykstra, Maura" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "history", "mecheng" ], "doi": "10.7907/AX73-H321", "abstract": "Questions of democracy are fundamental for modern society. One of the main distinctions made in the study of democracy is between direct and representative democracy. While most democratic institutions today are representative, the roots of democracy lie in direct democracy, a system in which citizens vote directly on the issues rather than on candidates who will then make the decisions. One of the most historically significant institutions in the area of direct democracy, especially in the American tradition, is the town meeting. Unfortunately, most of the discussion on the town meeting has focused on the question of representation (for example attendance rates at meetings) resulting in a substitution of a broad discussion on democracy with a narrow discussion on representation. The aim of this thesis is not only to illustrate this issue, but also to indicate how the addition of another axis of analysis, power-external/sovereignty, can untangle some of the confusing aspects of the existing narratives regarding the town meeting. The thesis draws upon a variety of documents, such as 17th century town meeting records, the writings of Thomas Jefferson, a 20th century radio show, and present day news articles, in order to aid in the reconceptualization of core issues such as power and representation, as well as to provide new insights in topics such as the use of direct democracy for purposes of political education. The hope is to inspire more advances in our understanding of the limitations and shortcomings of our current framework of analysis for the town meeting, as well as to introduce different perspectives of analysis which, in combination with representation and power, can provide a more holistic understanding of the town meeting institution.
" }, { "name": "Li, Jessica Du", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2018", "title": "The Gun Wa Trials: Chinese Doctors, Narrative Advertisement, and Consumer Fraud in the Late Nineteenth Century American West", "advisor": "Gronningsater, Sarah", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06152018-190907854", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Li", "given": "Jessica Du" }, "id": "Li-Jessica-Du", "orcid": "0000-0001-7958-5598", "display_name": "Li, Jessica Du" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Gronningsater", "given": "Sarah" }, "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Gronningsater, Sarah" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "biology" ], "doi": "10.7907/nx3n-xf35", "abstract": "In the late nineteenth century, the United States experienced a surge of anti-Chinese sentiment that targeted both Chinese laborers and skilled Chinese professionals. Chinese doctors were thus caught between two disadvantageous developments as, during the same decades, the regular or allopathic school of medicine asserted increasing control over the medical profession and successfully lobbied for restrictive licensing laws. This thesis examines the relationship between TCM newspaper advertisements and the way Americans viewed Chinese doctors and culture in Denver, Colorado and Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1888 to 1897. In particular, it focuses on the case of Gun Wa, a fake Chinese doctor created by a handful of white men to sell their medicines, and discusses the ways in which the company exploited TCM as it faced attacks from two fronts. To understand the unique interpretation of TCM and Chinese culture the white men brought, Gun Wa\u2019s advertisements are compared to those of real Denver Chinese doctors. By combining elements of Chinese and western culture, the company was able to create a convincing persona with convincing remedies in the newspapers to attract customers. The use of narrative testimonials was particularly important to capture ethos and respectability, revealing the relative social status Chinese doctors held in their adoptive communities. The subsequent Gun Wa trials exposed the fraud and damaged relations between Chinese doctors and their non-Chinese communities. Although Chinese doctors could repair their relations with the Denver community, they would ultimately fail to obtain the approval of professional medical societies, pointing to the limitations of Denver acceptance of Chinese culture." }, { "name": "Schmidt, William Charles", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2018", "title": "What Makes a Narrative? Understanding the Portrayals of Hermenegild's Rebellion", "advisor": "Brown, Warren C.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:09252018-124342094", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Schmidt", "given": "William Charles" }, "id": "Schmidt-William-Charles", "orcid": "0000-0001-9780-9495", "display_name": "Schmidt, William Charles" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Brown", "given": "Warren C." }, "id": "Brown-Warren-C", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Brown, Warren C." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "bioeng", "history" ], "doi": "10.7907/R6G8-3B60", "abstract": "When one studies an event through the perspectives of multiple accounts, one\u2019s first instinct might be to reconcile the sources into a single cohesive narrative. One can try to assign a likelihood that various portions of each story are factually correct, and then reconstruct what happened based upon which parts seem the most trustworthy.However, in doing so, one cannot be certain of the results. Each of us has our own subjectivity and biases, as our experiences can implicitly shape the decisions we make about what is reliable or plausible and what is not. Moreover, when one tries to compile the \u201ctruth\u201d of an event from multiple sources, such \"truth\" comes at the cost of understanding what made the sources different in the first place. An account is not written in a vacuum, and the way that an author chooses to portray an event is determined by their own personal background, circumstances, and purposes for crafting their narratives. In condensing a host of different accounts into a single internally consistent version, one loses sight of how the authors themselves viewed the events. Keeping different accounts of the same event separate, and investigating each individually in its own context, may not provide a simple solution to the question of \u201cwhat happened?\u201d, but it will teach us more about the authors\u2019 motivations and what they understood to be important about an event. Such an understanding provides more substantial and reliable information than trying to reconcile the accounts would be able to provide." }, { "name": "Schneider, Joseph Edward", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2018", "title": "A Case for Ecclesiastical Minting of Anglo-Viking Coins", "advisor": "Brown, Warren C.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:10052018-064453742", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Schneider", "given": "Joseph Edward" }, "id": "Schneider-Joseph-Edward", "display_name": "Schneider, Joseph Edward" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Brown", "given": "Warren C." }, "id": "Brown-Warren-C", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Brown, Warren C." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "chemistry", "history" ], "doi": "10.7907/N382-VD72", "abstract": "Within a few decades of the first Viking conquests of England, strong currency systems developed in Viking controlled parts of England. This preceded minting and the use of coins as currency in other Viking territories by about one hundred years. Herein, a case is made that the early development of currency in Anglo-Viking England is poorly explained by secular minting by Viking authorities but is well explained by ecclesiastical minting. The implications of ecclesiastical minting are discussed in the context of other sources of information on the church in early Anglo-Viking England." }, { "name": "Edwards, Matthew Gene", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2017", "title": "Chaucer the Beginner: Imagining Chaucer's Creative Process in Creating \"Book of the Duchess\"", "advisor": "Jahner, Jennifer A.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06202017-210004773", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Edwards", "given": "Matthew Gene" }, "id": "Edwards-Matthew-Gene", "display_name": "Edwards, Matthew Gene" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Jahner", "given": "Jennifer A." }, "id": "Jahner-J-A", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Jahner, Jennifer A." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "english" ], "doi": "10.7907/Z9G15XX2", "abstract": "Chaucer's first major poem, Book of the Duchess, represents a devoted reader's best attempt at creating a meaningful and authoritative text of their own. After extensive reading, Chaucer's first attempt to write a text draws significant inspiration from past texts such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and the medieval French dream vision Romance of the Rose. It is aspects of texts such as these which Chaucer mimics in order to imbue his own text with meaning and authority of its own. Chaucer's process of composing this first authoritative text will be discussed at length below, with a strong emphasis on the function of voice and imitation, and how inspiration, a simultaneous source of ideas and motivation, drives Chaucer's entire creative process. Chaucer utilizes and manipulates a great many voices in Book of the Duchess, many of which obviously don't belong to Chaucer but rather to authors of the past. It is these multiple already-authoritative voices, in addition to a single nameless voice narrating the story, that ultimately constitute Chaucer's own, original voice.
" }, { "name": "Ann, Phoebe", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2015", "title": "Everybody Farts: Celebrating the Body and Refuting Medical Paternalism in Joyce's Ulysses", "advisor": "Gilmartin, Kevin M.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06082015-202817956", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Ann", "given": "Phoebe" }, "id": "Ann-Phoebe", "display_name": "Ann, Phoebe" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Gilmartin", "given": "Kevin M." }, "id": "Gilmartin-K-M", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Gilmartin, Kevin M." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "english", "biology" ], "doi": "10.7907/Z93N21BB", "abstract": "James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses celebrates all facets of daily life in its refusal to censor raw human emotions and emissions. He adopts a critically medical perspective to portray this honest, unfiltered narrative. In doing so, he reveals the ineffectiveness of the physician-patient relationship due to doctors\u2019 paternalistic attitudes that hinder nonjudgmental, open listening of this unfiltered narrative. His exploration of the doctor\u2019s moral scrutiny, cultural prejudices, and authoritative estrangement from the patient underscore the importance in remembering that physicians and patients alike are ultimately just fellow human beings. Wryly, he drives this point to literal nausea, as his narrative proudly asserts the revulsive details of public health, digestion, and death. In his gritty ruminations on the human body\u2019s material reality, Joyce mocks the physician\u2019s highbrow paternalism by forcing him to identify with the farting, vomiting, decaying bodies around him. In celebrating the uncensored human narrative, Joyce challenges physician and patient alike to openly listen to the stories of others." }, { "name": "Mukherjee, Eric S.", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2014", "title": "How Far from Jerusalem? Tropical Customs and the Question of Race in the Book of John Mandeville", "advisor": "Wey-G\u00f3mez, Nicolas", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06052014-141341323", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Mukherjee", "given": "Eric S." }, "id": "Mukherjee-Eric-S", "display_name": "Mukherjee, Eric S." } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Wey-G\u00f3mez", "given": "Nicolas" }, "id": "Wey-G\u00f3mez-N", "orcid": "0000-0002-4265-3443", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Wey-G\u00f3mez, Nicolas" } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "astrophys" ], "doi": "10.7907/6WP5-V229", "abstract": "The Book of John Mandeville, while ostensibly a pilgrimage guide documenting an English knight\u2019s journey into the East, is an ideal text in which to study the developing concept of race in the European Middle Ages. The Mandeville-author\u2019s sense of place and morality are inextricably linked to each other: Jerusalem is the center of his world, which necessarily forces Africa and Asia to occupy the spiritual periphery. Most inhabitants of Mandeville\u2019s landscapes are not monsters in the physical sense, but at once startlingly human and irreconcilably alien in their customs. Their religious heresies, disordered sexual appetites, and monstrous acts of cannibalism label them as fallen state of the European Christian self. Mandeville\u2019s monstrosities lie not in the fantastical, but the disturbingly familiar, coupling recognizable humans with a miscarriage of natural law. In using real people to illustrate the moral degeneracy of the tropics, Mandeville\u2019s ethnography helps shed light on the missing link between medieval monsters and modern race theory." }, { "name": "Caron, Jennifer", "degree": "Senior Thesis", "year": "2003", "title": "Edward Lewis and Radioactive Fallout: The Impact of Caltech Biologists on the Debate Over Nuclear Weapons Testing in the 1950s and 60s", "advisor": "Kormos-Buchwald, Diana L.", "url": "https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-03292004-111416", "creators": [ { "name": { "family": "Caron", "given": "Jennifer" }, "id": "Caron-Jennifer", "display_name": "Caron, Jennifer" } ], "advisors": [ { "name": { "family": "Kormos-Buchwald", "given": "Diana L." }, "id": "Kormos-Buchwald-D-L", "role": "advisor", "display_name": "Kormos-Buchwald, Diana L." } ], "committee": [ { "name": { "family": "None", "given": "None" }, "display_name": "None, None" } ], "option_major": [ "histsci" ], "doi": "10.7907/X9VM-Q970", "abstract": "The work of Caltech biologists, particularly, Edward Lewis, on leukemia and ionizing radiation transformed the public debate over nuclear weapons testing. The United States began testing hydrogen bombs in 1952, sending radioactive fallout around the globe. Earlier more localized fallout was generated starting in 1945 from tests of atomic weapons at Nevada test sites. The Atomic Energy Commission claimed the tests would not harm human health. Geneticists knew from animal and plant experiments that radiation can cause both illness and gene mutations. They spoke out to warn the policymakers and the public. Edward Lewis used data from four independent populations exposed to radiation to demonstrate that the incidence of leukemia was linearly related to the accumulated dose of radiation. He argued that this implied that leukemia resulted from a somatic gene mutation. Since there was no evidence for the existence of a threshold for the induction of gene mutations down to doses as low as 25 r, there was unlikely to be a threshold for the induction of leukemia. This was the first serious challenge to the concept that there would be a threshold for the induction of cancer by ionizing radiation. Outspoken scientists, including Linus Pauling, used Lewis's risk estimate to inform the public about the danger of nuclear fallout by estimating the number of leukemia deaths that would be caused by the test detonations. In May of 1957 Lewis's analysis of the radiation-induced human leukemia data was published as a lead article in Science magazine. In June he presented it before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of the US Congress" } ]