The rise of standardized testing and zero­tolerance discipline measures in the United States over the last decade has resulted in public schools that prioritize order and obedience over deep learning and interpersonal relationships. While detrimental across the board, these austere measures have done particular harm to low­income students of color in cities, many of whom have been pushed out of schools and into the criminal justice system for minor misbehaviors­­ a phenomenon scholars and activists have termed the "school­to­prison pipeline." However, resistance to the criminalization of vulnerable students has blossomed in New York City in recent years. One of the primary ways educators and advocates have engaged in this resistance is through discipline practices based in restorative justice, rather than punitive, or retributive justice. This movement for restorative justice in schools is counteracting the effects of the school­to­prison pipeline, in addition to cultivating democratic and caring school communities. In this thesis I describe and analyze interviews with nine educators in three different NYC public schools in order to illuminate how restorative justice actually works in schools that practice it , and how it constitutes a powerful challenge to the zero­ tolerance logic that has permeated the way we think about safety and learning.

Space is inherently embodied–to be in space one must physically, three-dimensionally, encounter it. But what would happen if the sensory, affective, embodied human was at the center of spatial design? What would be the role of the senses and how would designers use media to physically evoke this type of spatial experience? These questions developed into my investigation on what I came to call "sensual spaces". Sensual spaces are the intersection where architecture and art meet human experience. Together these spaces illuminate a trend in art, architecture, and design that aims to create vivid spatial experiences that evoke sensory and affective response within the inhabitant.

We use the word catchy to describe a song that gets stuck in our heads, but how do these songs get stuck in our heads in the first place? What actually makes music catchy? <em>Hooked </em>is a podcast that deconstructs recorded music into physical, social, and cultural hooks in an effort to uncover what makes music catchy. It activates physics, neuroscience, psychology, musicology, music theory, culture theory, and media studies through sound, laying the foundation for a framework and methodology for understanding catchiness that can be applied to any and all types of music, from that which has already been created to that which is yet to come.

Gender remains a primary issue in the culinary, area, and a diachronic analysis of the portrayal of women in food media highlights the role that representation plays in both reinforcing and easing this divide. By examining the personas of Julia child and her televisual descendants, Food Network stars Anne Burrell and Ree Drummond, it becomes apparent that commercial celebrity has become dependent on the fulfillment of the traditional gender norms that are encoded within "chef" and "cook" types. However, the continuous diversification of media forms has spawned and informal breed of culinary star, and women have been able to scramble the gendered codes being emphasized in broadcasting; Christina Tosi and Molly Yeh serve as prime examples of how the new media environment is affording women the opportunity to forge their own public personas.

Opening a discussion about digital voices in contemporary spaces and popular music in two parts: 1) An essay that traces discourses of disembodiment and the rise in prominence of digital voices in electronic music, enumerates the ways in which they are enacting physical change via examples like the virtual star Hatsune Miku, and situates their arrival within an emerging trend to materialize digital forms and blue the line between physical and digital creation. 2) An audio project for which I employed pop, experimental, and electronic music techniques in order to create a science fiction-inspired narrative featuring as the central instrument digital voices.