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.

Covering Islam: National Trauma and The Politics of the Imagination

Publication Date
2015-January-01
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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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Duelling and the Fantasmatic Spectre of Male Honour in Imperial Germany: The Kaiser’s Will and Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest

Publication Date
2022-May-15
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Underneath the historiographical disagreements about military honor and dueling in Imperial Germany there lurks a consensus that most duelists simply internalized the dictates of honor. This article troubles that presumption by attending to the Prussian-German military honor code’s mixed messages...

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The Captain of Köpenick and the Uniform Fantasies of German Militarism

Publication Date
2022-June-15
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This article examines a famous 1906 event that occurred when a con man dressed in a captain's uniform commandeered two small contingents of soldiers in Berlin and took them to nearby Köpenick, where he proceeded to arrest the city’s mayor...

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The Emperor’s New Uniforms: The Uniform Fantasies of Wilhelm II and His Critics

Publication Date
2024-February-15
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In light of Wilhelm II’s well-known predilection for military uniforms and displays, many of his contemporaries regarded him as a real-life version of the titular figure in Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” This essay uses the concept...

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Trust and the Law

Publication Date
2017-January-01
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Department or Program
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This chapter provides a selective review of the literature on trust and the law. We highlight the psychological and game theoretic mechanisms underpinning the role of trust in relationships with incomplete contracts. We also discuss evidence on whether behavioral trust...

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