Honors Scholars 2009

 

Honors Scholars 2009

Shameema Adibzadeh, Religion

Different Types of Marriage in Egypt

As a Muslim woman studying science of Quran and Hadith at Usul Al-Deen University, I have been taught how to function as a perfect daughter, wife, mother and positive member of society. While growing up in a religious family, I read, studied and learned from the Quran and the Tradition of Mohammad PBUH. Within the past six years, I have become more familiar with scholarly Islamic viewpoints towards women at various stages in their lives. My knowledge in this field allowed me to win a Diamond Scholarship at Temple University to do my research on the topic of different types of marriage in Egypt and Iran in summer 2008. As a Diamond Scholar, I started my journey in order to determine the diversity within the types of marriage in Egypt. Prior to my studies in Egypt, I was aware of only two types of marriage that have been mentioned in Islam. But after learning of a more complex situation in Egypt, I wondered about the number of new types of marriage that already exist there. There are various reasons in appearance of these different types of marriages and result is profound disruptiveness on the core and basic of society. These types of marriage appeared under the influence of religious, economical, and political reasons. While these types of marriage weaken the structure of society and more importantly the families they also affect the traditional values of the institution of marriage. In this research, I discovered more than fifteen types of marriage present in Egypt, the reason for their appearance, the result of practice of such types of marriage and the ways in order to solve the problems occurred by appearance of these marriages.

Adam Accay, English

The Olympics, Icons and Racism: Jesse Owens and Tommie Smith/John Carlos

The following paper will assess whether the Olympic Movement established in 1896 has facilitated universal beliefs of racism and discrimination. I will also assess whether the relationship between the athlete and the iconic figure plays a role in how facts are presented in the narrative form. I will examine these formulations by drawing on two Olympic Games, the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Ultimately, I will conclude that in the 1936 and 1968 Olympic Games, the philosophy embodied within the Olympic charter was contradicted, which facilitated racial discrimination and opened the door for multiple trends of racism. Second, the shift from the athlete and the iconic figure does play a role on how facts are presented in the narrative form which ultimately affects the way history is reiterated.

Jeffrey Althouse, Political Science

Globalization and Multiple Pathways to Higher Labor Standards: Latin America in Comparative Perspective

While it is often assumed that global economic integration has placed downward pressure on labor standards, the polemics of race-to-the-bottom stood the tests of time in the face of a large body of scholarly research drawing opposite conclusions. This paper focuses on the ways in which states may overcome the obstacles towards more stringent regulation. By highlighting the role institutional legacies in traditionally labor-mobilizing countries like Argentina and Brazil, and external pressure in historically labor-repressive countries like Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, I find that there is a mixed bag of options available to countries once thought to be constrained by neoliberal economic forces. Though incomes levels and legacies of union power are important determinants of a given country’s laws, outside normative actors such as the International Labor Organization and human rights groups have considerable capacity to bring domestic labor codes within the purview of internationally recognized rights.

Danielle Country, English/Classics

Girl, Translated

I utilized the critical reading and language skills I have acquired through my two majors, English and Classical Studies, to create a thesis that will unite both of my areas of study. My paper focuses on Virgil’s Aeneid and one of the most renowned literary figures of time, Dido. I discussed selected lines from Book Four (4.305-330) that focus on Dido’s anguish at Aeneas’ hasty departure from Carthage. I examined how not only previous literary antecedents for Dido, but also contemporary living models like Cleopatra, affected the characterization of Virgil’s Dido. Ancient and modern audiences alike have grappled with the very ambiguity that makes Dido such a compelling figure, as each generation has attempted to compare Dido with the ideal women of his or her age. Finally, I compare the translation of Thomas Phaer (1607) and John Dryden (1697) to illuminate how the historically changing roles of women in seventeenth century English society have shaped the presentation, reception, and indeed the very translation of Dido.

Nicholas Daly, GUS/FMA

Removing the Lens, privileging dialogue: Cross-Cultural Communication, Visual Representation, Tourism, and the Couchsurfing Network

This paper examines the use of media in the type of tourism associated with the online hospitality-exchange network Couchsurfing known as “Intimate Tourism.” The paper sees the online site and its associated offline practices as a new media model which challenges current popular visual practices within tourism. The paper proposes that this new model progresses the relationship between a growing mobile class of tourists, the media that they produce and consume (especially media pertaining to cultural exchange and travel), and their understanding of the potential of visual language for communicating ideas. Analysis of the structure and visual rhetoric of the site and ethnographic accounts of the offline practice suggests that the model is able to progress the process of cultural understanding through tourism by abstaining from traditional visual representational practices popular within tourism which tend to reinforce normative tourist-native binary oppositions, privilege visual consumption of culture over dialogue with others, and essentialize the process of cross-cultural exchange.

Anthony DeFusco, Mathmatical Economics/ Economics

Are CRA Ratings Comparable - A Potential Method for Measuring CRA Ratings Objectivity and Discussion of Data Availability Issues

This paper proposes and econometric method for looking at several objective measures employed during the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating process and whether or not variations in these measures has a statistically significant effect on ratings outcomes. It also addresses data availability issues and how those issues would affect the results of the proposed analysis. The extent to which Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) ratings are objective and thus comparable across banks has received a substantial amount of attention in both research and policy circles. Concerns over this issue led to a complete overhaul of the CRA legislation in 1995 aimed at infusing the ratings process with a set of more measurable and objective standards. Given this increased focus on objectivity in ratings post 1995, one would expect to find that cross sectional variation in CRA ratings would be explained in large part by bank specific characteristics tied to the criteria employed by CRA regulators in assigning the ratings.

Joel Eppig, Psychology

Time of Day Effects on Everyday Action Impairment and Cognition in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) increasingly impairs a person’s ability to live independently.  Caregiver reports indicate many AD patients experience the phenomenon of “sundowning”, with more confusion and agitation in the afternoon and evening hours as opposed to the morning, and recent cognitive studies show support for this effect on episodic memory.  This pilot study examined time of day (TOD) effects on everyday functioning in AD.  Methods: 44 participants diagnosed with AD were evaluated in the morning (AM; n = 22) or in the afternoon (PM; n = 22).  The evaluation included the Naturalistic Action Test (NAT), a standardized measure of everyday action performance, and neuropsychological tests of executive functioning and episodic memory. Results: The groups did not differ on MMSE, age, education, or depressive symptoms (all p’s>0.61).  Between group t-tests showed a trend suggesting that the AM group was less impaired than the PM group on the NAT (NAT Score: p=0.07; Accomplishment Score: p=0.07).  Specifically, the AM group exhibited fewer omission errors on the NAT (Omission Errors: p<0.05).  On neuropsychological testing, the AM group also demonstrated better memory functioning (Recognition Discriminability Score: p<0.05).  Conclusions: This pilot study provides evidence that TOD effects influence everyday action performance.  The specific effect on omissive behaviors and neuropsychological tests suggest episodic memory may be especially vulnerable to this effect. Patients with AD, clinicians, and caregivers should consider the decline in functioning in afternoon and evening hours when planning assistance and supervision for important functional tasks. 

Jamie Fletcher, History

Ancient Egyptian Medicine and Mummification: A Correlation in Advancement, 3100 BCE to Present Day

The 1999 blockbuster “The Mummy”, starring Brendan Fraser, opens with the quintessential scene of Egyptian death and re-birth.  Imhotep – the fictional high priest – is brought into the embalming room where he is wrapped in linen bandages and dropped (along with a vase full of deadly computer generated scarab beetles) into a golden coffin to await being reawakened by our heroes later on in the movie.  The movie represents mummification as highly stylized and fantastical.  It is the representation that most people think about when they think about the ancient practice of embalming the dead for eternity.  This view is supported in museums visited by thousands every year.  In 1977 and again in 2007, the Tutankhamen exhibit traveled across the country, drawing record crowds who clamored to see pieces that were contained in the boy king’s burial chamber and speculation ran rampant as television specials about the theories regarding his death aired on cable. Most of the mummies we read about and see on television come from this period, the peak of Egyptian mummification, c. 1567 – 1085 BCE.  They represent the culmination of thousands of years of evolution of technique and style by the ancient Egyptians.  What is lacking in the presentation of mummification in this way is the highly skilled and technical aspect of the work done by embalmers…

Courtney Hartman, Psychology

Adolescents’ Response to Social Attack

In this study, 59 narratives conducted with urban sixth graders were examined. The reactions to aggressive episodes which were initiated with social aggression, gossip or rumors were separated and examined. After coding the episodes popularity of the victims was determined and compared. It was hypothesized that ch8ldren who responded to social attacks with social aggression are higher in popularity than children who react using physical or verbal aggression because they have more use of social networks. No statistical significance was found for the popularity of the students who responded with social versus physical aggression. In future studies a larger sample size will be needed for more significant results.

Chelsea Helion, Psychology

The Single Category Implicit Association Test as a Measure of Food Craving

Food attitudes pertaining to liking and wanting have been shown to be dissociable neurologically, and may be similarly dissociable on an implicit level. To investigate the different implicit properties of wanting and liking in regard to food craving and consumption, individuals took a single category modification of the Implicit Association Test (the SC-IAT) that required the participants to make evaluative categorizations of one of two high-fat foods. Implicit and explicit scores were assessed and compared between an experimental group who was exposed to the target food and a condition group who were exposed to a floral candle. The participants were evenly split between both conditions. Both conditions showed similar scores on the SC-IAT for food liking, and experimental participants exposed to the food showed higher levels of implicit food craving. For explicit surveys, experimental condition participants showed higher scores to wanting food while explicit liking of the food was the same across both conditions. Using the SC-IAT, it appears that food craving may be a separate implicit process from liking that may be manipulated by the presence of a target food object.

George A. Keddie, Religion

Catholic Eucharistic Theology and the Gospel of Judas: Exposing the Formative Value of Sethian Criticism

I argue in this paper that Sethian criticism in the Gospel of Judas was the impetus for a dramatic transition in Eucharistic theology—the change from an orthopraxic to a soteriological interpretation of Jesus’ Last Supper.  My paper begins by highlighting the orthopraxic aspects of the early Christian ritual: the strict exclusivity of the Didache, the community cohesion of Barnabas, and the “proper order” and “appointed times” of 1 Clement.  Then, I move into the second century to note the burgeoning emphasis on Eucharistic theology in the writings of Ignatius and Justin Martyr which prefigured the anti-orthopraxic, distinctly soteriological Eucharist interpretation of Irenaeus.  Gnostic influence, I posit, was the cause for this transformation.  In the Gospel of Judas, the author mocks the Eucharist, implying that catholics only participate because it is required, not for spiritual discernment as in Gnostic rituals.  Irenaeus capitalizes on this outsider assessment by reinventing Eucharistic theology.  The heresiologist’s new interpretation did not incorporate the soma (body) of Christ in accordance with Paul and the Synoptics, but instead glorified Christ’s sarx (flesh).  Through hermeneutics I suggest that there is little difference between Paul’s soma theology and John’s sarx theology.  The only reason the term sarx was advanced by the Church Fathers was to disgust the Gnostics and accentuate their alterity.  As a result, in both its development and its language, catholic Eucharistic theology is a product of Gnostic influence, of which the Gospel of Judas is an especially provocative example.

Paul J. Kuhne, Political Science

Engendering Grassroots Participation and Empowerment in Venezuela?: Examining Decentralization and Autonomy in Chavez’s Communal Councils

In April 2006, President Huge Chavez, in his quest to fortify a participatory democracy in Venezuela, approved a unique reform known as the Communal Council Law which encouraged communities to resolve their own problems through grassroots participation and proactive involvement. By drawing on a revolutionary new paradigm of “Communal power”, communities can evaluate the infrastructural, cultural, and socioeconomic shortcomings in their neighborhoods and submit proposals to the national government in order to alleviate their problems from the bottom up. Two years later, under growing national scrutiny, the law in practice on one hand has been considered a resounding democratic achievement while conversely, has been labeled an inefficient and politically manipulative policy  that consolidates Chavez’s power. This study seeks to evaluate both the grassroots and top-down impulses for communal council creation by analyzing the councils’ political autonomy through the lens of democratic decentralization and grassroots empowerment. Utilizing the comprehensive field research, data interviews, and academic literature that I have collected in both Venezuela during June 2008 and Temple University’s library collections, I have determined that the communal councils face a crisis of shared interests between the national government and their grassroots counterparts. Ultimately, although traditionally marginalized civil society has garnered a sense of empowerment the Venezuelan government has not effectively decentralized its power through this reform.

Rachel London, Psychology

How Parental Warmth and Hostility Concurrently Relate to Conduct Disorder Symptoms

The present study examined the relations among parental warmth, parental hostile behaviors, and child conduct disorder (CD) symptoms among an inner-city sample of ethnic minority children (N=88; 51% male; M=7.74±1.06 years old). Children and parents reported on parental hostile and warm behaviors; parents and teachers reported on child CD symptoms. Bivariate correlations examined relations between (a) parental hostile behaviors and child CD symptoms, and (b) parental warm behaviors and child CD symptoms. Child-reported parental warmth and parent-reported hostility were associated with parent-reported CD symptoms among the entire sample and among boys. Child-reported hostility was associated with teacher-reported CD symptoms among the entire sample and among boys. Correlations among girls were not significant. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Jessica Shaffer, Psychology

Unpacking Simon Says: Task Determinants of Response Inhibition in Four-Year-Olds

 It has been shown that children have a difficult time with executive function games, such as ‘Simon Says.’ We hypothesized that the difficulty with this task stems from the fact that in the standard version of Simon Says children also see the movement that they are supposed to inhibit. Four-year-old children were exposed to four experimental conditions based on Simon Says as well as the standard Bear-Dragon task, as follows: 1) One experimenter gave verbal commands and performed each action; 2) One experimenter gave verbal commands but did not perform each action; 3) Two experimenters, each of whom gave commands and carried out the instructed or to-be-inhibited actions respectively; 4) The same as the third condition but the actions were not performed; 5) The Bear-Dragon task, which resembles the fourth condition but uses puppets instead. Of the various combinations, children made the largest number of errors on the one-person Simon Says task, regardless of whether the task involved observing the movements or not. Furthermore, there was little or no effect of observing the movements on children's performance in the two-person Simon Says task. This suggests that motor contagion from the observed actions may be less important than "splitting" Simon into two separate characters.

Anna Walker, Political Science

Policy Shift: The World Bank’s Decision to Incorporate Microfinance in Development Policy

The World Bank’s decision to incorporate microfinance within its development policy is an institutional phenomenon. As one of the largest and oldest international organizations rooted deeply in neoliberal political and economic traditions, the shift to incorporate a more humanitarian and micro-level approach to development prompted the curiosity of many scholars to discover the causes influencing this shift. As part of a growing discourse on policy shifts, this paper attempts to resolve this recent phenomenon using a constructivist approach. By synthesizes internal and external theories on policy shifts, the constructivist approach solves for the limitations of both theories by bridging internal and external variables under one approach. It is argued, that the mechanism for linking both internal and external variables is rooted in [external pressures resonate with internal changes] internal and external neoliberal backlash.