Agenda: February 1–2, 2018

The agenda for the 2018 Weatherhead Center Undergraduate Thesis Conference is being finalized—stay tuned for further updates. (Please note that most of the presenters’ theses are due in March and are works in progress.)

[ Agenda with abstracts | PDF Download ]

Thursday, February 1

11:30–12:15 p.m. Light lunch and coffee served outside of S020

12:15 p.m. Welcoming Remarks

Bart Bonikowski, Director of Undergraduate Student Programs, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; Faculty Associate. Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.

12:30–2:30 p.m. POLITICS, BUREAUCRACY, AND NATIONALISM

Chair: Peter Hall, Faculty Associate. Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University.

• Sarah Anderson (Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Why Do Some Global Terrorist Organizations Bureaucratize? Analyzing Global Terrorist Organizations' Structures and Their Impacts on Counterterrorism.
• Daniel Ott (Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Proportionality and Turnout: A Comparative Study of the Scottish Parliament and the UK House of Commons.
• Theo Serlin (History), Frank M. Boas Undergraduate Fellow. Poverty and Un-British MPs: Transnational Politics and Economic Thought in Britain and India, 1885–1936.

2:30–2:45 p.m. Coffee break outside of S020

2:45–5:30 p.m. ISLAMIC ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, AND HEALTH

Chair: Rabiat Akande, Graduate Student Associate. SJD candidate, Harvard Law School.

• Cengiz Cemaloglu (Social Anthropology and Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Capitalist Ethics of the Halal Economy: Islamic Banking in Malaysia.
• Kamran Jamil (Social Studies and Global Health & Health Policy), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Disease and Democracy: An Ethnographic Study of Public Hospitals and Public Health Reform in Karachi, Pakistan.
• Junius Williams (African and African American Studies), Rogers Family Research Fellow. Ties of the Past, Deals for the Future: Oman’s Contemporary Economic Relationship with East Africa.
• Iman Masmoudi (Social Studies), Rogers Family Research Fellow. When Books Become Teachers: Understanding the Modern Crisis of Islam through the Bureaucratization of Traditionally Embodied Knowledge.

5:30–6:30 p.m. Reception outside of S020  

Friday, February 2

7:45–8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast outside of S020

8:30–10:30 a.m. DEMOCRACY, SCIENCE, AND SUSTAINABILITY

Chair: William Clark, Faculty Associate. Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy, and Human Development, Harvard Kennedy School.

• Puanani Brown (Environmental Science and Public Policy) Kenneth I. Juster Fellow. Food Sovereignty and Traditional Hawaiian Agriculture in the Context of the Global Food System.
• Alexandra Smith (Government and Environmental Science and Public Policy) Kenneth I. Juster Fellow. Deliberative Democracy and How it Can Shape Public Opinions on Solar Geoengineering.
• Ikenna Ugboaja (History), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. How the West Ford Experiment Helped Shape the Relationship between the Scientific Community and the American Government.

10:30–10:45 a.m. Coffee break outside of S020

10:45–12:45 p.m. AIDING AT-RISK COMMUNITIES

Chair: Ajantha Subramanian, Faculty Associate; Harvard Academy Senior Scholar. Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University. 

• Maria Amanda Flores (Social Anthropology and Ethnicity, Migration, Rights), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. The Land and the Law in the Llajta: Challenges in Housing Rights Advocacy in Bolivia.
• Angela Leocata (Social Anthropology), Frank M. Boas Undergraduate Fellow. The Lay-Counselor Experience through a Framework of Caregiving in Goa, India.
• Margot Mai (Joint in Anthropology, Romance Languages & Literatures, and Global Health & Health Policy), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Women in Transit: Violence and Care among Nigerian Street Workers.

12:45–1:45 p.m. Lunch provided outside of S020

1:45–3:45 p.m. MIGRATION AND BELONGING

Chair: Paul May, William Lyon Mackenzie King Postdoctoral Fellow, Canada Program. PhD, Political Science, Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

• Benjamin Grimm (Comparative Study of Religion and German and Scandinavian Studies), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. Being Muslim, Becoming Swedish: Muslim Identity and the Challenge to Secular Nationalism. 
• Jennifer Shore (Social Studies), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Fellow. “Employees of the Refugees”: The Improvement of Services and Governance through Refugee Protest in Zaatari Camp.
• Sohyun (Kate) Yoon (Social Studies), Undergraduate Canada Program Fellow. Kant, Cosmopolitanism, and Migrants as Political Agents in Canada.

3:45–4:00 p.m. Coffee break outside of S020

4:00–5:15 p.m. THE IMPACT OF LOCAL ADVOCACY

Chair: Jocelyn Viterna, Faculty Associate. Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.

• Jullian Duran (Economics and Government) Kenneth I. Juster Fellow. Education Reform, Student Socioeconomic Mobility, and the “Citizen’s Revolution” in Ecuador.
• Anthony Volk (Government and East Asian Studies) Kenneth I. Juster Fellow. Foreign Residents and Fureai: Local Differences in Foreign Resident Political Rights in Japan.

5:15 p.m. Closing Remarks

Theodore J. Gilman, Executive Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.