The early 20th-century publishing landscape in England remains largely undocumented in a structured dataset, despite the availability of bibliographic records in The English Catalogue of Books. Issued annually by Publishers’ Circular, these catalogs document books, laws, and government reports published in the United Kingdom from the mid-19th to early 20th century. Digitized versions, made available through the HathiTrust digital library, contain Optical Character Recognition (OCR)-generated text that often includes errors and inconsistencies, making automated data extraction challenging. Our project focused on refining and formatting bibliographic data from these files by developing tailored regular expressions and Python-based parsing techniques for each catalog year. This work was a necessary step toward the eventual creation of an open-access dataset covering books published between 1900 and 1928. In Summer 2024, we refined parsing methods to identify and correct inconsistencies in the raw OCR text for catalog years 1902–1922, building on prior work. These improvements increased the number of extracted publication entries by 15.4% across the catalog collection, adding approximately 16,500 additional book records. The structured data enabled content analysis of bibliographic trends, including authorship patterns, publisher prominence, and thematic categorization. Using SQL-based keyword searches, we examined colonial publication networks, identifying the prevalence of colonial discourse and associated geographical trends. Additionally, we parsed Hebrew-language publications to analyze Jewish authorship and the locations of Hebrew book publishing in early 20th-century England. By structuring historical bibliographic data, this project provides a valuable resource for researchers studying literary trends, publishing industry shifts, and broader cultural patterns. Our work contributes to ongoing efforts to digitize The English Catalogue of Books and deepen insights into the evolution of the British literary landscape.

This research project is my English Honors thesis. I am researching Asian American history and feminism, taking stock of current Asian American depictions in media, drawing off existing Asian American literature, and theorizing and practicing comedy as a way forward. I want to push past the Model Minority stereotype and the current sad, intergenerational conflict heavy tone of Asian American literature. To do so, I’ll draw off sources like the UW Press published Asian American Feminism and Women of Color Politics book and employ Asian American feminism and comedy to bring a lighter tone to Asian American Literature. Asian American Feminism is characterized by an “invisible” yet active praxis of mobilizing the diverse, heterogenous Asian American community and constantly occupying and pushing to improve conflicting perceptions such as the submissive, assimilated female caretaker and the threatening yet sexualized foreign agent. I am textually analyzing books like Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu) and Minor Feelings (Cathy Park Hong). I am analyzing how raunchy and unconventional comedians like Ali Wong layer their jokes into a stand-up comedy special form. All of this will come together in a scrapbook. Drawing together book arts and the resilience of Asian American identity against fragmentation driven by oppressive laws, I will dive into prejudiced legislature and significant Asian American novels. My scrapbook will chronicle uncovering Asian America together and look towards the future. The scrapbook will serve as a meeting place to first condense historical context, then honor existing Asian American works, and put them in conversation with each other across time and medium. After my scrapbook facilitates these scraps becoming something new together as a whole, I will shift to comedy. I will theorize what makes Asian American comedians like Ali Wong so effective at reaching wide audiences, and I will write comedic bits myself.

In Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton, frontman Rivers Cuomo laid his heart on the table, completely bare, in often grotesque detail. This uncomfortable exercise in intimacy didn't work well for audiences or critics, until recently. Despite its problematic themes, the album has gone on to go platinum, and later critical reception praises this awkward honesty. This example goes against the established order of scrutiny, or defies the conventions of-- as reactionaries may put it-- 'cancel culture'. Conversely, the work of David Foster Wallace has been put under intense social scrutiny, as more people have become aware of Mary Karr's abuse allegations against him. These two deeply flawed, yet undeniably talented, men showcase the issues with these creatives we hate to love-- be it from their actions or ideas. What was it that allowed Pinkerton to flourish today, while its controversial contemporaries have fallen from their pedestals for the exact same reasons? Starting with art from the nineties, this lecture works forward in time to evaluate modern audience's embrace of retrospective re-evaluation of art that has been fundamentally changed since publication by progressing social attitudes and the revelation of scandals. 

The Jewish people span international and political borders in a widespread diaspora. Today, many Jewish people worldwide oppose Zionism and the existence of the nation of Israel due to religious, cultural, moral, and philosophical reasons. How was this opposition founded, and what can be learned from it? In essence, what is the early history of the anti-Zionist movement in the Jewish community? This literature review examines the shared histories of Eastern European and American Jews to explore this organized Anti-Zionist Judaism, through analyzing and comparing accounts and articles detailing the major groups, ideologies, and figures of the movement. I use this historical information to create an organized synthesis of events and locations that are especially significant to the development of the current anti-Zionist Jewish movement, revealing its roots in organized struggle. I focus on the years 1897-1948 and organizations at the forefront of this movement like the General Jewish Labor Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia and the American Council for Judaism. I further explore how this history has led to the current modern reality of anti-Zionism in Judaism. This literature review uncovers a rich history of the early Jewish anti-Zionist movement, supporting the conclusion that the current Jewish-led anti-Zionist movement is neither unfounded nor a sudden development. This finding suggests a precedent for further Jewish-led organized labor parties and anti-Zionist organizations to draw upon the history set by the earlier anti-Zionist groups to organize more effectively and affirm the legitimacy of their movement. Looking to the future, research conducted by any person, whether that be Zionists, anti-Zionists, or unaffiliated groups and individuals, can use these findings to better inform their understanding of accurate anti-Zionist history and improve the understanding of anti-Zionism today.

In recent years, soft end-effector prototypes for agricultural harvesting applications have seen a rise in research and development from numerous sources. Soft robot manipulators in agriculture are necessary because of delicate produce requiring a wide area of force application to reduce bruising, as opposed to small points of contact through rigid gripper materials. Novel designs for delicate and clustered fruits and berries such as blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries are of highest demand. This is because of their small size, fragility, and the narrow windows of fruit harvest due to ripeness. These limitations for berries and vine plants necessitate the use of manual labor as opposed to assisted labor for harvesting other fruits and vegetables like apples and pears, and full harvest automation of other fruits and grains like corn and wheat. As novel proof-of-concept designs describe solutions to these limitations, sensing mechanisms for control loop compensation such as visual and tactile are required to control the parameters required when harvesting fruits. These parameters of surface roughness, overall ripeness, blemishes, etc. require thorough and precise sensing capabilities to reduce fruit waste and resulting costs. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the state of novel agricultural end-effector prototypes for harvesting non-automated produce. This review describes the materials and methods of actuation for end-effectors of small, difficult to automate, and/or delicate agricultural needs with focus on sensing methods, variability and scalability to differently sized produce, and cost-effectiveness. End-effector design prototype and case study research papers are used to produce conclusions through analyzing qualitative data and subjective results. Design improvements, future considerations, and gaps in research are covered to aid the advancement of the most promising prospective designs and potential innovation.