2011 Winners

Matthew King (Latin & History)
Faculty Advisor: Purnima Dhavan, History
We’re on a Mission from God: A Translation, Commentary, and Essay Concerning The Hierosolymita

This project is a translation, essay, and commentary about the Hierosolymita by Ekkehard of Aura. Written in the early 12th century, the Hierosolymita is a First Crusade chronicle that has been largely ignored by historians. The translation portion of my thesis provides an entire Latin to English translation of the Hierosolymita, a text that has never been professionally published in its entirety. The commentary analyzes Ekkehard's thematic tendencies and contextualizes the Hierosolymita by comparing its narrative to other crusading chronicles. The essay component explores Ekkehard's place in crusading thought and historiography. I discuss how this chronicle can be seen as Ekkehard's attempt to reconcile his belief that crusading is a God-ordained enterprise with the failure of the Crusade of 1101. I also explain how Ekkehard's critique of the Crusade of 1101 and glorification of the First Crusade allow the Hierosolymita to be read as a manual for proper crusading.

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Geoffrey Morgan (International Studies & Engineering)
Faculty Advisor: Stevan Harrell, Anthropology
A Critique of Developing Through the Analysis of Potable Water Projects in Rural China

Over the last decade there has been a push from NGOs to reach a larger number of people and to reach them in more isolated and impoverished regions. However, the success rates of these projects, particularly drinking-water projects, is quite low and in some cases can leave the people they were designed to help in worse conditions than before. In the 2007-2008 academic year and again in the summer of 2010, I conducted an independent research project in the mountains of southwest China to gain insight into why these success rates are so low. Findings suggest that the primary reason for the “failures” of the water projects is due to the project evaluation criteria coming from the development institution itself and not from the people it is intended to help. This discrepancy is the fundamental flaw in many forms of development work, not just in NGO water projects.

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Zachary Smith (History)
Faculty Advisor: Purnima Dhavan, History
Radical Politics and Emotional Liberation: Thane Summers’ Road to the Spanish Civil War

This paper is a case study that looks at what mobilized one volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Thane Summers, who did not have the kind of social experiences associated with members of the Brigade and why they volunteered. It shows how leftist political activism, was associated by Thane with an alternative, and more affirming, set of emotional standards than he had previously internalized, and that this drew him to the left and invigorated his political commitments.

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Steffani Bennett (Art History)
Faculty Advisor: Cynthea Bogel, Art History
The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: A Reevaluation of the First Edition

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, first published in 1679, has been hailed as the most influential guide to painting ever produced in China, yet there is little evidence in support of this assertion. A close examination of the aesthetic qualities of extant prints from early editions of the manual, the social environment of the early Qing (1644-1911), and the nature of commercial book publications in this period clarifies the significance of this publication in contemporary society. In exploring each of these facets, I argue that the manual functioned as a luxury commodity, a symbol of elite status in a changing social order. For wealthy and socially ambitious members of the early Qing a high-quality, beautifully produced publication like the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting was not only a physical embodiment of elite culture, but was also a means of cultivating oneself for entrance into high society.

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Adam Farley (Psychology & English)
Faculty Advisor: Alex Morrow, History
"There Were Years of Neglect": The Ship Scalers Union and Seattle Progressivism in the 20th Century

The present research presents a case history of the Ship Scalers, Dry Dock, and Miscellaneous Boatyard Workers Union, Local 541, through the use of archival material including correspondences, newsletters, and Seattle Times articles about the union. During its brief existence (ca. 1935-1986) Local 541 served as an activist organization and presents a critique of Seattle’s near folk adoration as a “blue” city. From WWII on, the Ship Scalers Union played an active and integrated role in Seattle’s social history, and especially Seattle’s black community in their fight for equality. By allying itself with Seattle civil rights organizations, using its union hall as a meeting place for activism, and allowing both communists and African Americans to be freely admitted to its ranks, Local 541 effected some of the most significant civil rights reform in the city and causes a re-imagining of Seattle’s progressivism during the past century.

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Elizabeth Poole (History)
Faculty Advisor: Alex Morrow, History
Pushed Ashore: Coast Guard Screening on the Seattle Waterfront

In the 1950s, the United States Coast Guard operated under security regulations which vested them with absolute power in determining what laborers had access to maritime employment in national ports. At the end of World War II the economic and strategic importance of Seattle as a port city intersected with the growing fear that West Coast maritime labor unions were infiltrated by Communism. The 1951 Coast Guard regulations created an elaborate screening program, designed to eliminate subversive workers from maritime employment. This paper examines the lives of Seattle dockworkers and seamen who were disenfranchised by the Port Security Program in the 1950s. I argue that, while the Port Security Program was created as a deliberate effort to sift out Communist and radical laborers from the West Coast maritime economy, pre-existing ethnic, racial, ideological, and inter-union struggles in Seattle were played out through the mechanisms of the Federal screening program.

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Peter Wu (Biology)
Faculty Advisor: Billie Swalla, Biology
Molgulid Ascidians Share a Unique Gene Complex

Typical chordate features found in ascidian tadpole larvae have been evolutionarily lost several times independently within the Molgulidae family. While tailed molgulids retain a tail with muscle cells, a notochord, and a dorsal neural tube, they have been lost within the tail-less species. A locus containing an unusual gene arrangement of the Bobcat gene within the first intron of the Manx gene has been shown to be essential for the development of chordate features in molgulid larvae. Sequencing and closer examination of ascidian genomes shows that there is a unique gene rearrangement of the NA-14 gene adjacent upstream to Manx and Bobcat only within the Molgulidae. Expression of these key genes could be affected by one another’s close proximity, disturbing normal larval development and may be responsible for the numerous instances of the evolution of tail-lessness found in the Molgulidae larvae.

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Brian Hardison (English)
Faculty Advisor: Thomas Foster, English
Coding Gender: Performance and Gender Identity in a Synthetic World

Building on Lisa Nakamura’s exploration of race and racial performance in her essay, “Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet,” my project is an examination of the depiction of gender and its performance within the context of the contemporary massively multiplayer online role-playing game, EverQuest II.

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Helen Elizabeth Olsen (Geography & International Studies)
Faculty Advisors: Tish Lopez, Geography; Victoria Lawson, Geography
Creating Systems of Care: Integrated Health Delivery Programs and the Work of PATH

In "Creating Systems of Care", I critique vertical and horizontal health deliver systems using a framework of relational poverty knowledge and care ethics. This paper looks critically at PATH’s Andhra Pradesh Immunization Initiative (APII) as an example of a successful melding of vertical and horizontal systems into an integrated approach to providing care. I begin with a discussion of care ethics and the evolution of a feminist ethic of care. From there, I contextualize the work of PATH through an analysis of the dominant discourses on Neoliberalism; the geography of development; the concept of care as the work of social justice; and a discussion of the evolution of global health delivery strategies. From there, I delve into an analysis of PATH’s APII as an example of a successful integrated health delivery program.

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