Vassar College Digital Library

Vassar Scholarship

Vassar Scholarship, the institutional repository formerly known as Digital Window, reflects the research and scholarly output of the Vassar College community.  It provides access to a variety of collections, including senior theses and projects across a wide range of disciplines.

Automatic control: the vertebral column of dogfish sharks behaves as a continuously variable transmission with smoothly shifting functions

Publication Date
2016-July-07
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Document Type
Abstract

During swimming in dogfish sharks, Squalus acanthias, both the intervertebral joints and the vertebral centra undergo significant strain. To investigate this system, unique among vertebrates, we cyclically bent isolated segments of 10 vertebrae and nine joints….

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Cabinets on Campuses: Reimagining the Museum Through the History of Collecting

Publication Date
2023-April-14
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Department or Program
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Abstract

This thesis looks at the history of collections, tracing cabinets of curiosities to natural history specimens at colleges and universities during the 19th century. It will explore the trajectory of academic museums as art galleries became more prominent at colleges...

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Coalition for Abolition: Strategic Alliances and Antiprison Activism in California's Central Valley

Publication Date
2013-January-01
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Authors
Department or Program
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Abstract

There are currently over 3 million people locked behind bars in United States prisons, jails, and detention centers. In this era of mass incarceration, prison abolitionists envision a world entirely without prisons. The politics of abolition are complex, and the...

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Covering Islam: National Trauma and The Politics of the Imagination

Publication Date
2015-January-01
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Authors
Department or Program
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Abstract

My thesis scrutinizes the U.S. media construction of the events of September 11, 2001 as "national trauma," and the way in which this framing of the attacks has allowed '9/11' to invoke a visceral imagination of the deterministic relationship between...

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