The agenda for the 2020 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 6
11:15 a.m. Refreshments and light lunch for conference participants and attendees available outside S020
12:00 p.m. Welcoming remarks
Bart Bonikowski, Director, Undergraduate Student Programs. Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.
12:10–2:10 p.m. Panel One: The Social Legacy of War
Chair: Anna Skarpelis, Postdoctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Scholars Program; Affiliate, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion. PhD, Department of Sociology, New York University.
- Isabel Bernhard (Social Studies), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Democratic Consolidation through Denuclearization in (Post-) Cold War Argentina and Brazil, 1983–1994.
- Alexandra Todorova (History), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. The Aryan Vikings of Hedeby: Danish Archaeology in the Shadow of the Third Reich.
- Sophia Vargas (Anthropology), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. In the Wake of War: An Ethnography of Ex-Combatant Women in Colombia.
2:10–2:20 p.m. Coffee break outside of S020
2:20–4:20 p.m. Panel Two: Education and Public Policy
Chair: Naima Green-Riley, Graduate Student Associate. PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University.
- Benjamin Sorkin (Sociology and Educational Studies), Kenneth Juster Fellow. The Role of Education Diplomacy on US-Russia Relations through the Experiences of American English Teachers in Russia.
- Nick Stauffer-Mason (Government and East Asian Studies), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. China’s Ghost Cities and the Bureaucratic Politics of Urban Growth: Evidence from Lingang New City.
4:20–4:30 p.m. Coffee break outside of S020
4:30–6:30 p.m. Panel Three: Culture and History
Chair: Lowell Brower, Director of Undergraduate Studies and a Lecturer for the Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard; Weatherhead Center Graduate Student Associate, 2015–2018.
- Julie Ngauv (History), Julian Sobin Fellow. Roots of Resistance: How the People of Cambodia Survived Genocide through Quiet Acts of Rebellion.
- Isabel Parkey (History & Literature), Rogers Family Research Fellow. The Right to Tell All Stories: Copyright Law, National Development, and the Management of Folklore in Ghana.
- Russell Reed (Special Concentration in Geography and Development), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Savage Guerrilla, Sacred Ape: Theorizing Subhuman and Nonhuman Agency in the Great Lakes Mountain Gorilla Borderlands.
Friday, February 7
8:30–9:00 a.m. Continental breakfast outside of S020
9:00–11:o0 a.m. Panel Four: Gender, Health, and Identity
Chair: Bart Bonikowski, Director, Undergraduate Student Programs. Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.
- Constance Bourguignon (Romance Languages and Literatures and Women, Gender & Sexuality), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. “No way to speak of myself”: French "Languagender" Resistance in the Lived Experiences of Nonbinary Quebecers and in Francophone Literary Works.
- Tom Osborn (Psychology), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Shamiri: A Low-Cost and Stigma-Free Intervention Program in Kenya for Adolescent Depression and Anxiety.
- Matthew Keating (Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. EU Member State Policies toward LGBTQ Asylum Seekers and Refugees.
11:00–11:15 a.m. Coffee break outside of S020
11:15–1:00 p.m. Panel Five: Cultural Legacies of Colonialism in South Africa
Chair: John Comaroff, Faculty Associate. Hugh K. Foster Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Departments of African and African American Studies and Anthropology; Oppenheimer Fellow in African Studies, Harvard University.
- Eve Driver (Social Studies), Rogers Family Research Fellow. Narrating Apocalypse: Cape Town's "Day Zero" and the Politics and Aesthetics of Climate Change Attribution.
- Julianna Kardish (Visual & Environmental Studies and Anthropology), Kenneth Juster Fellow. Mapping Cape Town's Spatial Apartheid: Tracing the Grounded Realities of Homeless Capetonian Women.
1:00–2:00 p.m. Lunch and coffee provided outside of S020
2:00–4:00 p.m. Panel Six: Historical Legacies Shaping Modern China
Chair: Mark C. Elliott, Faculty Associate. Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Department of History; Vice Provost for International Affairs, Harvard University.
- Angie Cui (East Asian Studies and Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Edu-plomacy with Chinese Characteristics: International Higher Education Exchange and Public Diplomacy along China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
- Charles Michael (Social Studies), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Conflicting Justifications: The Politics of Heritage Conservation in Hong Kong.
- Alyssa Resar (Government), Williams/Lodge International Government and Public Affairs Research Fellow. Regime Type and Military Decision Making in China, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan.
4:00 p.m. Closing remarks
Theodore J. Gilman, Executive Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.