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- All Subjects: history
- All Subjects: development
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
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Description
The history of Arizona is filled with ambitious pioneers, courageous Natives, and loyal soldiers, but there is a seeming disconnect between those who came before us and many of those who currently inhabit this space. Many historic locations that are vital to discovering the past in Arizona are both hard to find and lacking in information pertaining to what happened there. However, despite the apparent lack of history and knowledge pertaining to these locations, they are vitally present in the public memory of the region, and we wish to shed some much-needed light on a few of these locations and the historical takeaways that can be gleaned from their study. This thesis argues the significance of three concepts: place-making, public memory, and stories. Place-making is the reinvention of history in the theater of mind which creates a plausible reality of the past through what is known in the present. Public memory is a way to explain how events in a location affect the public consciousness regarding that site and further events that stem from it. Lastly, stories about a place and event help to explain its overall impact and what can be learned from the occurrences there. Throughout this thesis we will be discussing seven sites across Arizona, the events that occurred there, and how these three aspects of study can be used to experience history in a personal way that gives us a special perspective on the land around us. The importance of personalizing history lies in finding our own identity as inhabitants of this land we call home and knowing the stories gives us greater attachment to the larger narrative of humanity as it has existed in this space.
ContributorsMartin, Austin Richard (Co-author) / Martin, Trevor (Co-author) / Fixico, Donald (Thesis director) / O'Donnell, Catherine (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Historians periodize the ancient past in order to better facilitate its study. From period to period, the ideas, figures and discussions that define as distinct become trapped within the walls that historians have artificially imposed. However, history is not nearly so clean, and that which we have selected to define each period may be carried forward beyond their period or retrojected into a past period. This thesis will explore how ideas and concepts travel backward and forward in time, through construction of memory and through cultural hybridity and intertextuality, by casting the royal ideology of the Hasmoneans as seen in I and II Maccabees in light of the legacy and memory of the Achaemenid Persian Dynasty. The first two chapters discuss the development of Achaemenid Royal Ideology, beginning with the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus II and his adoption of the ancient Near Eastern “Restorer of Order” literary paradigm to restructure the past for political legitimacy, and continues to the rise to power of Darius I, who in many ways built off of the Restorer of Order paradigm but innovated in establishing a new, more equal relationship between the divine and the royal receiver of the divine mandate to rule. The second two chapters begin with a discussion of II Maccabees and its use of the Restorer of Order paradigm, but goes more into detail on how it constructs an “idyllic past” that not only connects the Maccabees to mythic biblical figures but also reconstructs the Persian past of the Jewish people that mirrors and legitimizes Hasmonean royal ideology in sacred time, and ends with a discussion of how the innovations of Darius might have shaped the eventual conflict between the Hasmonean dynasty and their opponents over the correct responsibilities of the High Priest in Jerusalem.
ContributorsDanesh, Hal Tzvi (Author) / Langille, Timothy (Thesis director) / Mirguet, Francoise (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is one of the latest developments in the world of African politics. It influences several key policy arenas, including the focus of this paper: developmental policy. The AfCFTA hopes to integrate the intra-African trading system, as well as implement several measures to integrate their entire economies. This paper examines the intersection between the AfCFTA and developmental policy defining how it helps and hinders African development goals. This thesis intends to give a clear picture of how this agreement coincides with developmental policy through both economic and political research. The goal of this paper is to provide readers with a detailed report on how this economic agreement could be shaping the developmental policy of the African world.
ContributorsZeleny, Dylan Peter (Author) / Wong, Kelvin (Thesis director) / Hill, Alexander (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
While some stress during pregnancy is normal, continuous stress during pregnancy could have negative lasting impacts on a child’s health. The type of stress that is harmful during pregnancy is “the kind that doesn’t let up” (Watson). This type of stress is chronic and is more intense than the normal stresses of everyday life. Researchers have shown that when fetuses are continuously exposed to such levels of stress, their bodies react in unhealthy ways. Given all the data showing that varying stressors experienced by pregnant women negatively affect their children’s postnatal health and development, it is important to identify the specific impacts of these stressors in order to understand how they affect the health of children.
By conducting a literature review, I have found a number of studies reporting links between a pregnant woman’s stress and the development of health issues in her child. For example, researchers of one study found that infants born to women who were depressed during pregnancy had early brain development issues and difficulty regulating emotions and stress (Hayes, et. al). In another study, researchers observed a positive association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and asthma in offspring (Cookson, et. al). Such findings indicate the significance of the prenatal period in healthy child development. However, while we may suspect that there are some negative outcomes for children born to chronically stressed women, there was interestingly a lack of information in areas where we may expect to find effects on the child. This gap in the literature indicates that we do not fully understand the effects of stress during pregnancy, and it seems that we do not know what really seems important to know about mental health during pregnancy. Thus, the results reflect that the existing knowledge in this area is lacking, making it challenging for medical specialists to understand how they may best intervene in order to promote the healthiest pregnancies and children.
By conducting a literature review, I have found a number of studies reporting links between a pregnant woman’s stress and the development of health issues in her child. For example, researchers of one study found that infants born to women who were depressed during pregnancy had early brain development issues and difficulty regulating emotions and stress (Hayes, et. al). In another study, researchers observed a positive association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and asthma in offspring (Cookson, et. al). Such findings indicate the significance of the prenatal period in healthy child development. However, while we may suspect that there are some negative outcomes for children born to chronically stressed women, there was interestingly a lack of information in areas where we may expect to find effects on the child. This gap in the literature indicates that we do not fully understand the effects of stress during pregnancy, and it seems that we do not know what really seems important to know about mental health during pregnancy. Thus, the results reflect that the existing knowledge in this area is lacking, making it challenging for medical specialists to understand how they may best intervene in order to promote the healthiest pregnancies and children.
ContributorsKeller, Carrie Angelique (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / Abboud, Carolina (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
In recent years, it has become evident that American civic literacy is in a sharp decline. Many scholars agree that young adults are becoming increasingly less engaged in activities involving the application of civics and that this may hinder the democratic process. This thesis will focus on how historical perspectives can improve contemporary application of civics in order to solve the civic literacy crisis. The report will evaluate different approaches to improving civic engagement in order to gauge their effectiveness and the potential for their use in the United States. In analyzing the decline, we will look at work from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) like A Crisis in Civic Education and A Crucible Moment. Subsequently, we will provide a review of Megan McClure’s Tackling the American Civics Education Crisis and Robert D. Putnam’s Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. We will present historical perspectives from the 19th and 20th century such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexis De Tocqueville and John Dewey in order to apply them to contemporary solutions for the decline. The contemporary perspectives of Harvard scholar Danielle Allen and various professors in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) at Arizona State University will be analyzed and critiqued. The results of our research prove that historical perspectives, when applied to contemporary solutions, are an effective way to bout the civic engagement crisis in the United States. This information can be used to alter the curriculum in the classroom to encourage and prepare students to become civically literate and engaged in order to protect the democratic process.
ContributorsGiambanco, Niccolo Giuseppe Salvatore (Co-author) / Boering, Avery (Co-author) / Seagrave, Adam (Thesis director) / Voboril, Jakub (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
A common challenge faced by students is that they often have questions about course material that they cannot ask during lecture time. There are many ways for students to have these questions answered, such as office hours and online discussion boards. However, office hours may be at inconvenient times or locations, and online discussion boards are difficult to navigate and may be inactive. The purpose of this project was to create an Alexa skill that allows users to ask their Alexa-equipped device a question concerning their course material and to receive an answer retrieved from discussion board data. User questions are mapped to discussion board posts by use of the cosine similarity algorithm. In this algorithm, posts from the discussion board and the user’s question are converted into mathematical vectors, with each term in the vector corresponding to a word. The values of these terms are computed based on the word’s frequency within the vector’s corresponding document, the frequency of that word within all the documents, and the length of the document. After the question and candidate posts are converted into vectors, the algorithm determines the post most similar to the user’s question by computing the angle between the vectors. With the most similar discussion board post determined, the user receives the replies to the post, if any, as their answer. Users are able to indicate to their Alexa device whether they were satisfied by the answer, and if they were unsatisfied then they are given the opportunity to either rephrase their question or to have the question sent to a database of unanswered questions. The professor can view and answer the questions in this database on a website hosted by use of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service. The Alexa skill does well at answering questions that have already been asked in the discussion board. However, the skill depends heavily on the user’s word choice. Two questions that are semantically identical but different in phrasing are often given different answers. This is because the cosine algorithm measures similarity on the basis of word overlap, not semantic meaning, and thus the application never truly “understands” what type of answer the user desires. Improving the performance of this Alexa skill will require a more advanced question answering algorithm, but the limitations of Amazon Web Services as a development platform make implementing such an algorithm difficult. Nevertheless, this project has created the basis of a question answering Alexa skill by demonstrating a feasible way that the resources offered by Amazon can be utilized in order to build such an application.
ContributorsBaker, Matthew Elias (Author) / Chen, Yinong (Thesis director) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The purpose of this essay is to determine how the narratives of veterans who served in combat roles during the Vietnam War have affected how historians have written about the war. First, this project will briefly cover the history of the general public’s view of the war and it’s veterans, looking at how feelings towards Vietnam War veterans have shifted over the past fifty years. Next, this project will analyze two books about the Vietnam War that focus primarily on the veteran experience, rather than on the internal politics of the United States and Vietnam or on the successes or failures of battle, and determine the extent to which these books contribute to public understanding of the war. This essay will then determine the role memory plays in crafting these narratives and how historians have an obligation to include or at least consider the complex perspectives of veterans and their families when they write on topics as controversial as warfare.
ContributorsArroyo, Jose Maria (Author) / Miller, Keith (Thesis director) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05