Grounded in subaltern studies, a body of work that analyzes the viewpoints of those who are outside of the social, political and geographic power structure, this paper strives to illuminate the Nueva Canción, or “New Song” movement. Emerging in Latin America during the 1960s, Nueva Cancion celebrated the lives of indigenous and laboring class communities, but was largely made up of figures from positions of racial and economic privilege within the larger system. Investigating the seemingly contradictory politics of representation present, this paper discusses how the movement sought to champion disenfranchised figures, while simultaneously casting such figures as incapable of representing themselves; thus rendering them voiceless. At the center of my inquiry is Mercedes Sosa, a prominent Nueva Cancion figure of local and international recognition, who, as a woman of mixed European and indigenous ancestry, attempted to traverse the gap between the movement and its sentimentalized subject matter. By using Sosa as a focal point, this paper aims to illustrate the complex dynamics of the social and political climate in Latin America from 1960-1982, that enabled Sosa to function neither as producer or subject, but as what can be referred to as a “knowledge mover,” circulating the dominant ideology at the same time as effectively challenging it.

NSFW (“Not Safe For Work”) is an acronym used to indicate that a website, a picture, or a link contains inappropriate (usually pornographic) content. One could say that all of 4chan.org is NSFW. 4chan is an imageboard where communication takes place in the form of pictures and images posted by anonymous users and deleted minutes after they appear online. This anonymity and ephemerality of communication unleashes levels of racism, sexism, homophobia, and general malevolence unseen in Social Web communities like Facebook. However, 4chan operates with virtually no advertisement (or profit-motive) while Facebook is now a publicly traded corporation, with a mandate to generate revenue for its stockholders by monetizing its assets, which happen to be the words, pictures, jokes, and plans of its more than 1 billion users. Discourses surrounding the Social Web speak in terms of “openness,” “connectivity,” and “transparency,” promising a more civil online community. However, these trends make personal data and communication susceptible to appropriation by capital. How has 4chan remained a largely non-commodified space in the midst of the corporate colonization of the Social Web, and what do we make of its sociopathic ethos? I studied the community and signifying practices of 4chan's random board /b/, finding that although the fundamental anonymity and ephemerality of communication on the board free up participants to be racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally malevolent to degrees unseen in the Social web, these same conditions create a space for truly free speech (in both the monetary and behavioral sense), creating a novel mode of signification and a space for subversive political consciousness in the process.

Research in our lab has demonstrated that stimulation of the spinal cord may enhance rehabilitation and restoration of forelimb function after spinal cord injury. Building on previous experiments, the goal of this project is to see how the combination of Chondroitinase (a treatment of enzymes) and spinal stimulation could promote the recovery of forelimb function in rats with chronic spinal cord injury. We trained animals on a skilled forelimb reaching task and determined their dominant hand. Once trained to proficiency, animals received a contusion injury to the lateral aspect of the 4th and 5th cervical segments resulting in paresis of their dominant forelimb. Animals were then randomly assigned to groups receiving stimulation, Chase treatment, or the combination of the two treatments. We are conducting a battery of forelimb functional tests, including skilled forelimb reaching, each week for the duration of the study in order to record their progress and observe their improvement using the injured forelimb. It is the anticipated result that the addition of Chonroitinase during rehabilitation will result in an increase of the formation of synapses in circuits bypassing the lesion, which may be investigated using neuroanatomical tracing techniques. If successful, our results can be utilized in human medicine to improve the healing of a spinal cord-related injury and promote rehabilitation.

Cervical spinal injury can result in a loss of function in the hands and arms. Restoration of hand and arm function is nearly 5-fold more important to patients than restoration of other functions. A major difficulty in restoring function lies in overcoming the formation of perineuronal nets (PNNs) and the accumulation of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs), which contribute to the scar around the lesion site. The disruption of CSPGs in both the scar and PNNs is possible with Chondroitinase ABC (ChABC), and more chronically, through the use of a novel intracellular sigma peptide (ISP). The inhibition of CSPGs allows for axonal regeneration, which may be guided through the use of intraspinal microstimulation (ISMS). Preliminary results shows that the combination of these approaches act synergistically, leading to much greater recovery than through ChABC and ISMS alone. Functional recovery is assessed through a series of behavioral tests, including a trained forelimb reaching task and the Irvine, Beatties & Bresnahan test (IBB). These behavioral tasks are designed to measure attributes that are important for upper limb rehabiliation, such as spasticity, ability to grasp, movement in the wrist and digits, and plantar contact. If successful, this treatment may be used to rewire spinal circuits around a lesion and restore function below the site of the lesion.

Colonization in the 16th century permitted the creation of borderlands of indigenous groups in Mexico. As Mestizos became the majority in the country, indigenous groups rested in a borderland of injustice and inequality. To this day, indigenous groups still live in the struggle for justice. My aim is to research Los Triquis from San Juan Copala, Oaxaca and explore the realities surrounding the conflict that is taking place there; especially the implications in shaping Triqui identities around this conflict. Though various scholars have examined the paramilitary conflict in San Juan Copala, Triquis along with a study of their identify formation have been left out of the picture of the conflict. I intend to focus on the direct consequences on the individual rather than on the nature of the conflict itself through analyzing interviews with experts on the conflict and videos with first-hand accounts by Triquis who have escaped such violence. Since 1988, rising Triqui paramilitary groups allegedly helping Triqui people in San Juan Copala against injustices from the government, have created a paramilitary conflict. The resulting violence has led to the displacement of thousands of Triquis, who find it impossible to return home as they are attacked by their own people once they try. The particularity of this conflict is the government’s hidden involvement and it has affected every age and gender group in San Juan Copala thus changing the dynamics of interaction.

The infamous dictator Augusto Pinochet came to power through a bloody coup on September 11, 1973 and drastically changed the face of the Chilean government. His regime instituted strict policies of neoliberalism that led to the privatization of the university system. Forty years after the coup, many of these policies remain in place, untouched and accepted as the reasons behind Chile as the ‘economic miracle’ of South America. However, tensions under these neoliberal policies, specifically in the university system, fomented a recent eruption of political activism in May of 2011. Why is it that Chile, one of the most economically ‘successful’ countries in South America and the ‘pride’ of the IMF and World Bank models, is seeing the rise of a powerful student movement against neoliberal legacies? My research juxtaposes the master narrative of Chile as a ‘model country’, in terms of hegemonic modernity, against the experiences of the Chilean university students who have fought to challenge it. I argue that the catalyst behind the student movement can be in part explained by the legacies of Pinochet’s repression and the political struggles of past generations. This contradictory temporal space forms a ‘generational borderland’. These generational ruptures combined with the legacies of repression, have led to the emergence of new forms of innovative and marketable protest, cultivated longevity for the movement through the mistrust of politicians, and inspired a reinvigoration of the Communist Party of Chile.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is a leading cause of death worldwide, but the full details of how the human immune system responds to these bacteria are not known. Our lab studies CD1 proteins, which allow T-cells to recognize and respond to lipids which are the major constituents of the mycobacterial cell wall. We recently discovered that low expression of CD1A on dendritic cells is present in ~10% of the population and is associated with increased susceptibility to tuberculosis in Vietnam. In addition to low surface protein expression, CD1A transcription is also impaired in CD1A-deficient individuals. The molecular mechanism of CD1A-deficiency is unknown. I hypothesized that CD1A expression is regulated by a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that alters transcription factor binding. I cloned and analyzed the CD1A 5’ untranslated region (UTR) from four CD1A-deficient and five control individuals. There was one SNP, rs366316, that showed an association with CD1A-deficiency. I genotyped 163 individuals and examined the association of the rs366316 genotypes with CD1A expression. I found that the C/C genotype (N=9) was associated with CD1A-deficiency in comparison to the C/T and T/T genotypes (N=154, p<0.01). Based on this association, I examined whether the C/C genotype regulated transcriptional activity. I isolated 5’UTR sequences in normal and deficient individuals that were identical except for rs366316. I used site-directed mutagenesis to generate C to T mutants and T to C mutants. I made separate luciferase expression vectors for each of the four 5’UTR constructs and found that the normal and mutated 5’UTRs with a C allele showed 44% less expression than the normal and mutated 5’UTRs with a T allele (p<0.001). These data show that a SNP in the 5’UTR of CD1a is causally associated with human CD1A-deficiency. Together, these data suggest that CD1A-deficiency is common, regulated by a SNP, and important in MTB pathogenesis.

How did the Indian English novel function within the Indian independence movement? Literature illuminates unique narratives not necessarily communicated by other forms of print media like newspapers and history books, and these stories exert a very different kind of influence. In the particular instance of Indian English novels around the time that India gained independence from Britain, literature established power through its inherent cultural capital, its role in imagining nations, and its critical abilities. These novels embodied traits of both the colonized and the colonizer, allowing them to occupy a position of notable political and cultural influence. Drawing on theories on literature and nationalism, this study employs close readings of novels by Rabindranath Tagore and Mulk Raj Anand within the context of historically evident politics and cultural phenomena of the time period to explain the role Indian English novels played in revolutionizing India. An understanding of the factors enabling the novel’s influence will illuminate how India’s independence was imagined and realized. Situating Indian English novels of the Indian independence movement in their historical and social context may yield further understanding to the way historical events played out and reveal more of literature’s effect on the societies in which it is produced.