2019-2020 Projects

Arnold Arnez

Indigenous Assimilation to Latinx Identity explores impasses in the settler colonial model that is employed against Indigenous peoples across the Western hemisphere to create homogenous forms of nationhood in Latin America and the Latinx immigrant community in the US. Focuses on how both the Spanish language and anti-Indigenous nationalism inculcate indigenous people in assimilation in the Latinx community. (Mentor: Professor Linda Alcoff, Philosophy)

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Santana Alvarado

Downbeat Collective: A Music Mentoring Program for Children and Community. Engages students in Bronx to make and mix their own music pursuing theory of pedagogy of the oppressed (Professor Desha Osborne, Africana, Puerto Rican/Latino Studies)

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Kiara Cintron

The “Welfare Queen” and Contemporary Poverty explores the history of the idea of the Welfare Queen in the United States and shows what it misses and masks about poverty today. (Professor Linda Martín Alcoff, Philosophy)

Robert Cleary

A Queer Sort of Gentrification considers some intersections among queer and other countercultures that inadvertently advanced gentrification in Brooklyn during the early twenty-first century. (Professor Matthew Lasner, Urban Policy and Planning)

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Hagar Dan

Visual Representations of Women and its Effect on #MeToo Criticism explores visual representations of women in art-history and popular culture, from the 19th century to present day, and how such representations influenced the reception of #MeToo. (Professor Rebecca Connor, English)

Folashade Fakoya

Black Women Health Outcomes explores medical racism, specifically in black maternal health contexts. Focuses on social justice movements and the Black radical tradition of challenging the idea that the individual failings of Black people are responsible for racial health disparities. (Professor Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Anthropology)

Shakila Khan

Visual Representations of Sexualized Muslim Bodies and the Ideological Rationalization of the War on Terror analyzes photographs to understand how rhetoric of the sexually deviant Muslim body was employed to justify the War on Terror. (Professor Robyn Marasco, Political Science)

Yash Mahtani

Theater Criticism as a Public Discussion explores the difference between theater criticism as written/printed and as discussed in a public forum. The project focuses on Theater Matters evenings in New York City and how the events create an intellectual discourse between the professional and non-professional. (Professor Jonathan Kalb, Theater)

Mounira Makar

Egyptian Surrealism argues that Egyptian surrealism was a reaction to growing nationalism within Egypt and fascism throughout Europe. The diverse members of the “Art et Liberté” group posed a threat to a nationalist government which sought to create a homogenous, Egyptian national identity. (Professor Michael Lobel, Art History)

Danielle McGrath

Rhetoric of Science in Science Skepticism addresses how and why science skeptics (e.g. anti-climate change and the anti-vax on-line communities) are often drawn toward ideas of scientific expertise, and offers methods to rebut those arguments. Focuses on developing a Values Approach to reach science skeptics. Such values were defined through research in the fields of philosophy of science and sociology of science. (Professor Justin Garson, Philosophy)

Juliana Poroye

Education and Resistance for African Americans argues that the public school classroom is capable of catalyzing intellectual emancipation for Black public school students. (Professor Robyn Marasco, Political Science)

Julissa Valerio

Latinx Students at Hunter College explores the opinions of Latinx students at Hunter and suggests ways the college administration can better address the needs of this community. (Professor Arlene Torres, Africana, Puerto Rican/Latino Studies)