This presentation examines emperor Nero’s use of food and dining practices as a way to invert social class in public and private life. Through an examination of accounts by the ancient authors, secondary scholarship, and archeological evidence of the Domus Aurea, it is evident that Nero had a complicated reign, but his actions related to dining practices and public life made an intentional effort to equalize Roman social class while including the common Romans in aspects of life to which they were not previously privy. The investigation is separated into three sections: the first examines the history and basis of the ancient authors with respect to their relationship with Nero; the second looks at the public spectacle and how that contributed to the change in public and private life; and finally the third demonstrates the scale of the gestures in which Nero partook, thus illustrating how he was courting the non-elite and simultaneously debasing the elite. Each section is supported with overlapping evidence; however, certain aspects are highlighted within each section. The first focuses primarily on examining the perspective of the elite authors with some support from secondary arguments. The second uses some archeological evidence but mostly uses secondary analysis with some support from the contemporary authors. Lastly, the third uses a combination of the three, but it mostly focuses on the Domus Aurea and the impact of this space. With these three clearly identified points of examination, the complex reign of Nero is emphasized while further discussing his intentional use of food and dining to promote his agenda. Nero worked to change public and private life in order to put himself forward as the sole ruler of Rome. Most important, all of his actions were intentional and calculated in order to create his new empire through food and dining.

A century of U.S. government-backed, anti-Asian discrimination culminated in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Despite U.S. government insistence that anyone with up to 1/16th Japanese blood had to be incarcerated, the existence of white-looking children in concentration camps presented a segregation crisis. Race was segregation’s litmus test: if white was assumed loyal, Japanese was assumed disloyal. My paper uses original archival research to study attempts to reconcile this monoracial logic with the multiracial reality that exposed it - the U.S. government’s Mixed Marriage Policy (MMP). The MMP permitted some multiracial Japanese Americans to escape or avoid mass incarceration. My project argued that U.S. treatment of multiracial Japanese Americans rewarded the disavowal of Japanese identity with “integration” to project an image of liberal inclusion whilst allowing a reality of surveillance and segregation. When attempts to quantify racial mixtures became impossible, the MMP attempted to strip the trait of race from multiracial subjects in a policy of institutional “colorblindness” by evaluating loyalty on “objective” criteria alone. Individuals eligible for integration became symbols for the U.S. government to project an image of inclusive humanitarianism and racial tolerance in the post-war empire. However, these seemingly neutral criteria upheld U.S. imperial practices of racial segregation. The perceived disavowal of the racism behind incarceration sanitized the image of the U.S. government while quietly reproducing racial hierarchies through new domestic surveillance policies. Shifting segregation policies to subtler forms of institutional colorblindness strengthened the United States as an empire of white supremacy. Racism was at its most intractable and pervasive when acknowledging the existence of race became taboo. As the title “It Must be Odd to be a Minority” (Spanish translation) alludes, this research is significant to Asian American Studies because the current literature rarely address inter-sectional struggles with the greater community of color.

This project is an environmental and political analysis of the 1968 creation of Redwood National Park in northwestern California. As the most expensive public lands acquisition ever authorized by Congress, Redwood National Park represents a crucial point in the evolution of the American conservation movement. This paper examines the cause and nature of the conflict that arose between the Sierra Club and the Save the Redwoods League—two of California’s oldest and most influential conservation organizations—over the location and scope of a Redwood National Park; and what effect that conflict had upon the final iteration of the Park once it was signed into law on October 2, 1968. I examine the methods of political influence through which the Sierra Club and the Save the Redwoods League each fought for the Park that they believed to be most essential to the continued protection of the Sequoia sempervirens. This paper will scrutinize the successes and failures of the populist-driven approach of the Sierra Club and the elitist-driven approach of the Save the Redwoods League, and the ways in which those opposing approaches clashed. Finally, this paper delineates how the last remaining virgin redwood stands on Earth were held hostage to a political standoff and will highlight what can be lost when two organizations dedicated to the same cause refuse to compromise over the methods through which they seek to achieve their shared goal. Through the examination of political influence and environmental agency, this paper contributes to our understanding of the modern conservation movement in the United States.

Before the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, the Republic of Venice’s relations with the Ottoman Empire were tumultuous and tentative. As the most powerful Mediterranean maritime force in the 16th century, it was Venice’s mission to protect Christendom from Ottoman Islamic armies. To fight this maritime crusade Venice employed privateers and corsairs, individuals who, in exchange for payments, supplied their own vessels to police the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean in search of Ottoman vessels. Since Venice relied on trade for basic provisions, Venetian authorities approached naval aggression as a necessary defensive measure. Venice’s lack of self-sustainability meant that protecting its imperial holdings was critical to the longevity of the city itself. As Venice won the Battle of Lepanto, destroying the Ottoman fleet, Venetians regained their sense of naval supremacy. Although Venice lost the larger Ottoman-Venetian war, as in the three previous was, the Battle of Lepanto marked a pivotal moment in Mediterranean history, driving Venetians to recapture some of what they had lost and to rebuild their once vast merchant empire. Confident in their naval prowess, Venice’s merchant galleys spread far and wide across the Eastern Mediterranean to forge new trade relations with the Ottoman Empire. Through these relations, Venice portrayed themselves as the gateway to the East by supplying themselves and Western Europe with exotic goods. I argue that The Battle of Lepanto ushered in a new era of economic expansionism grounded in a Venetian sense of naval superiority that allowed Venice to end its reliance on privateering and corsairing to protect its empire.

Rather than assuming the transhistorical existence of Kurdish nationalism, this paper identifies and explains the material motivations behind the formation of the short-lived Mahabad Republic in 1946. I argue both the tribal chiefs and urban elites of Kurdish society felt compelled to break from Tehran as they, along with the rest of Kurdish society, became more connected to a wider economy than ever before. Previous political movements within Kurdish society against unjust treatment from the Iranian central government had been led by the tribal chiefs whose hegemony over the rural areas had made them powerful forces to be reckoned with. In 1946, with the tribal chiefs undermined by anti-tribal policy from Tehran, and the urban population and wealth in Kurdish society growing at a rapid rate, the Mahabad separatist movement emerged as the first Kurdish rebellion to be directed and inspired by the urban elite. Yet the success of the movement still necessitated the cooperation of the landholding tribal elite, as they provided the military organization crucial for victory. Both groups, who held the bulk of power within Kurdish Iran, were motivated by adverse treatment associated with the Iranian state, including manifest corruption, cultural oppression, and economic recession. In that context, I argue, the landholding tribal chiefs and the emergent urban elite forged a secession movement away from Iran to establish the first successful Kurdish ethno-state.

In the US more than 100 million people are living with diabetes or pre-diabetes. The economic burden caused by these conditions, including medical costs, is approximately $322 billion annually as of 2013. Conventionally, transgenic Escherichia coli has been the primary source of commercial insulin production, a process that requires extensive purification to ensure shelf stability and complete removal of contaminants. This study seeks to establish an alternative mode of insulin production using polyethelyne glycol (PEG) to transform the oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, with the human insulin gene. P. ostreatus is a valuable target for genetic transformation due to its lack of endotoxins and fully sequenced genome. P. ostreatus was transformed using PEG with a plasmid containing the human insulin gene and a carboxin resistance gene. Transformed cells were selected using carboxin, extracted, and regenerated on plates composed of yeast extract, malt extract, and glucose (YMG). Integration of the human insulin gene in to the mushroom genome was confirmed through PCR analysis of the transformants. Successful PEG transformation of P.ostreatus offers a new avenue for insulin production, potentially diversifying the market and treatment options for diabetics.