This paper argues that a discourse of “commercial colonization” permeated the writings of early European explorers of the Pacific Northwest, which fundamentally shaped how colonizers understood the spaces and peoples with whom they interacted. In doing so, I have examined the writings of several late eighteenth century European and Creole American colonizers of the region, especially Juan Perez, James Cook, and Robert Gray. From this basis, I was able to explicate the content and function of the economic discourse in these colonial texts as well as the colonial process more broadly. The discourse of commercial colonization in this region emphasized reciprocity in all encounters yet consigned Indigenous peoples to inherently inferior status in relation to colonizers and was used to justify colonial violence. My work with these texts shows that when the idealized practice of European commerce was challenged, instead of revising their guiding ideals, colonizers relegated those who challenged their theories to subordination. I illuminate how Cook, Gray, and others portray relationships in transactional terms, motivated by profit above all else. Thus, this paper argues that the tensions in these colonial texts are examples of an emerging Capitalist worldview that links the European colonial project in the Pacific Northwest to modern theories of race, commodification, and exploration, allowing us to better understand the relationships between each

In 2017, Israeli artist Shahak Shapira released his online art installation, “Yolocaust.” In this installation, he downloaded tactless selfies and artsy photographs from people’s public social media accounts which were taken in front of the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” in Berlin. He then replaced the background with real images of the Holocaust - inmates on bunks, corpses stacked in piles, etc. His mission was to call attention to the thoughtless and insensitive photographs that people take in front of this key memorial to the Holocaust. In the age of social media, the internet is littered with tweets, Instagram pictures, Facebook statuses, and Tumblr posts about the Holocaust. It begs the question: has social media chipped away at the authenticity at the core of Holocaust remembrance? In my research, I argue that many aspects of social media have been detrimental to Holocaust memory. It has helped to commercialize and trivialize the Holocaust in a new way; however, this phenomenon is not new. For years, the film industry has “dumbed down” the Holocaust in order to make it easy to digest for the average viewer and has greatly romanticized the event in many instances. My project analyzes the Holocaust in film, as well as in Social media in order to argue trends of commercialization and simplification regarding Holocaust memory did not develop newly in the last 15 years. With more digital technology, how we remember this event has been greatly shifted, often at the expense of historical truth, but not as a rule. This project hopes to warn viewers about the price of conveying Holocaust memory through such digital mediums as social media and film, but concedes that the wide-reaching arm of such sources is not always inherently negative and may be exploited as a memory tool in the future.

  Throughout his administration from 1998-2002, Colombian president Andrés Pastrana collaborated with the United States in Plan Colombia, a foreign aid program whose stated purpose was to eradicate the drug trade in Colombia through US military assistance and social development programs. Plan Colombia has been predominantly studied through the exploration of the economic reasons that have prompted US officials to acknowledge the Plan as a successful policy, regardless of its exacerbation of violence in Colombia and its failure to eradicate the drug trade. The lack of scholarship on Plan Colombia from the Colombian perspective fosters a narrative of US imperial imposition. Although this narrative is clearly justifiable, it disregards Colombian agency, and it obfuscates the internal racial and social hierarchies that sustained the Plan's implementation. Therefore, to explore the Colombian State’s project behind Plan Colombia, this research analyzed the Plan through a framework of intervention by invitation. Furthermore, it investigated how the Colombian government utilized hegemonic racial and social hierarchies to facilitate said intervention. Through detailed analysis of Pastrana's presidential speeches, I propose that through Plan Colombia his administration conflated a rhetoric of peace with participation in a modern neoliberal extractive economy. Colombia invited US intervention because it needed its aid funds to build the infrastructure and train the labor force necessary to bring Colombia to the fore of neoliberalism, which would consequently resolve the armed conflict. Furthermore, I argue that through such a conflation, his government instrumentalized Colombian social and racial hierarchies to mobilize impoverished campesinos to become the labor force necessary to sustain a licit neoliberal extractive economy that could attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to Colombia's agricultural and mining sectors. Therefore, this research illuminates the rearticulation of 19th century land struggles and racial and social hierarchies that have historically subjected—and continue to subject—campesinos to political violence.

This presentation discusses, through a series of historical case studies, how the issue of nuclear waste on indigenous lands is a reproductive justice issue. Drawing on bioethical theory, secondary historical and sociological analysis, and primary source accounts, the presentation demonstrates that the impacts of nuclear waste on indigenous lands and communities are the result of systemic racism against indigenous communities, and that those impacts, including high rates of miscarriage and reproductive cancers, remove bodily autonomy and reproductive choice. Negative health outcomes make communities unsafe places to raise children, and the potential for increased exposure to toxins through traditional cultural practices impacts a community’s ability to raise children with those cultural practices. This history and attention to nuclear waste as an issue of reproductive justice must be part of the conversation as energy and waste storage policies are developed to address climate change.

Judaism has a long history in Yemen and the Horn of Africa, with community folklores and oral histories often tracing their origins to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and a textual history which highlights unique cultural and religious practices and communal resilience. However, the Jewish communities of Yemen and the Horn of Africa are often underrepresented in sources on Jewish history or presented with sensationalist, Orientalist tropes. Similarly, Ge’ez, Amharic, and Judeo-Yemeni Arabic are significantly understudied in Jewish Studies and in mainstream linguistics and literary studies more generally. In this project, I will develop a digital exhibit using Google Sites or Omeka about the history and culture of the Yemenite Jewish community and the Ethiopian Jewish community known as Beta Israel. I will also discuss the Jewish-origin foundation myths for the Somali Yibir clan and the implications of this legend within broader Somali and Jewish contexts. In the online exhibit, I will incorporate multilingual and multimedia elements, including historical work on Yemenite Judeo-Arabic and Beta Israel Ge’ez scriptures and texts, trade documents showing these communities in context, and modern cultural projects with which Yemeni and Ethiopian Jews, the vast majority of whom emigrated to Israel in the second half of the twentieth century, have navigated their often-marginalized status and moves toward integration/assimilation or cultural preservation. In this interdisciplinary project drawing on the tools of the digital humanities while using language as a lens for historical study, I hope to present an innovative perspective on the role of oral and written literatures in the formation of peoplehood and of Jewish identity specifically, and to contribute an underrepresented angle to the broader body of digital Jewish history.

In 2016, Captain America brought comic books to the forefront of national discussion with a single phrase: “Hail Hydra.” These two words proclaimed Captain America’s allegiance to Hydra, one of Marvel Comics' most recognizable villains which has historically been used as an allegory for the Nazi Party. The moment incited a riot not only among comic book super fans, but casual onlookers as well. Many claimed that by aligning Captain America with Hydra, author Nick Spencer disregarded the character’s origin as an anti-Nazi propaganda piece and later history as a defender of American values, and gave fuel to the growing Alt-Right movement in the United States. However, this moment was not the first time that Captain America had joined the other side. In 1979, Captain America was briefly brainwashed into joining the National Force, an organization which acted as a clear allegory for the various white nationalist movements gaining power in the United States at the time. While Hydra and the National Force are comparable villains, the lenses through which the writers of both storylines present them reveal how views of white nationalism have changed in the United States. Through a comparative analysis of these two storylines, this paper examines the ways in which the Captain America comic books have reflected the shift in white nationalist movements from a largely condemned movement to a viable political force. This project provides a new lens to examine the history of white nationalism in the United States while building on the current body of scholarship arguing for the importance of comic books as a historical source.