Aisthesis: The Interdisciplinary Honors Journal

Friend, Foe or Franco?: Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik Propaganda in WWII Spain

2025-02-10T18:29:11-06:00

Contemporary media often conflates antisemitism and Nazism, yet the Nazis are certainly not the only regime in history to target Jewish communities. The Spanish Inquisition (1470s-1853) and the Reconquista (711-1492) were perhaps the second- and third-most famous persecutions of the Jews, resulting in the forced conversion, exile, or execution of Jews across the Iberian Peninsula. By the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, historical anti-Jewish policies ensured that few members of the Jewish community remained in Spain. It is curious, then, that in 1936, anti-Jewish sentiment was once again on the rise in Spanish society. The golpe de estado that installed Franco as the leader of Spain also saw a far-right, antisemitic regime come to power, one that would offer little help to the Jewish community during the Holocaust, and even turn the attitude of everyday Spainards unsympathetic to their plight. The foremost vehicle used to perpetuate these prejudices was the Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy: the idea that the Jewish community was attempting to destroy Spain from within using Freemasonry and Communism. As World War II grew into a full-scale conflict, La bestia judeomasonica was an important symbol used by both German and Spanish governments to tie their enemies into a single international threat. This paper explores how these symbols changed the attitude of Spanish society through the use of official government policy, the rewriting of school curriculum, and strategic cooperation with the head of German propaganda. It concludes that had WWII been tipped in favor of the Germans, the Spanish government's allegiance would have remained with their ideological allies. Instead, Franco managed to fool the international community into believing his government was a neutral party and maintain his power until his death in 1975, when the political parties of Spain agreed to forget the horrors of the regime and move forward.

Reproductive Coercion: A Systematic Review

2025-03-05T23:04:57-06:00

Carotid Dissection: A Stroke of Insight into Safer Work Conditions

2025-03-02T18:48:00-06:00

A 51-year-old man was admitted to hospital on the basis of dysarthria, left-side facial paralysis, pharyngitis, proximal loss of vision, left-arm paresis, and asphyxiation. Through various neurological testing, the patient was confirmed to have an ischemic stroke caused by an arterial dissection with a subintimal hematoma in the area of the carotid artery (carotid dissection). The patient was released from the hospital 3 days after being admitted with post-incident treatment instructions to ensure recovery.

In this case study, detailed clinical assessments, radiological findings, and therapeutic interventions will be reviewed to provide a holistic understanding of the patient's journey from injury to recovery. Through a meticulous analysis of real-life patient care, this thesis aims to help highlight the early symptoms of strokes and their impact on individuals, particularly those in physically demanding and dangerous work conditions, such as the patient, who worked as a roofer. By shedding light on the unique challenges faced by individuals in such occupations, I seek to contribute to the growing body of knowledge in stroke medicine. Ultimately, the goal is to improve clinical management and outcomes for individuals affected by carotid dissection while advocating for safer working conditions for those at risk.

Keywords: Psychology, Psychobiology, Evolutionary Studies, Honors, Neuroscience, Neurology, Carotid Dissection, Stroke, Medicine, Work Conditions

Historical Redlining Practices: Influences on Rising Contemporary Infant Mortality Rates in Richmond, Virginia

2025-03-05T22:38:17-06:00

Redlining was a discriminatory practice employed in the 1930s of denying loans, credit, and other services to families based on the economic status of their neighborhoods. The

practice began when the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) drew maps of residential neighborhoods in 239 cities across the United States between 1935 and 1940 and assigned each neighborhood a grade. The practice of redlining was used to target neighborhoods that had large minority populations, thus reducing their social mobility and quality of life and often leading to dramatic racial disparities in healthcare outcomes. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned redlining, but the consequences of this discriminatory practice still affect people living in these neighborhoods today. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of historical redlining on infant mortality rates in Richmond, Virginia. A literature search of relevant articles from electronic databases was performed from January 2010 to December 2024 to identify original research pertaining to the impact of historic redlining on current infant mortality-related healthcare outcomes. The redlining status of all the neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia was analyzed to find patterns related to infant mortality, and infant mortality rates were found to be significantly higher in previously redlined neighborhoods due to less access to resources, worse environmental conditions, and racial disparities. Legislative actions to alleviate the effects of redlining such as building hospitals and healthcare facilities, improving access to educational resources, and increasing access to economic opportunities in these neighborhoods are recommended.

Keywords: Redlining, Historical Discrimination, Racial Disparities, Health Inequity, Infant Mortality, Preterm Birth

Rewriting Racism with Prager University: How the Modern Political Propaganda Outlet is Shaping Global Slavery Curricula within the American Educational System

2025-01-21T14:09:04-06:00

Modern political propaganda like that of PragerU has retroactively changed the way slavery is viewed by discounting its severity, whitewashing the abolitionist movement, and labeling contemporary anti-racism as anti-Americanism. By analyzing myriad examples of this social messaging, this paper demonstrates that many modern views of enslavement have been fundamentally reformed into less drastic outlooks by political propaganda, particularly within the educational system. I argue that a concentrated effort by the US government to address propaganda within the educational system is the only way to adequately combat this phenomenon, as the issue lies largely within the nationwide educational system and its historical curriculum. As long as organizations like PragerU are given a platform in American schools, there will never be an end to the spread of political propaganda regarding slavery and racism. The United States must overhaul its current historical education curriculum, lest impressionable young people continue to be affected by propaganda.

Postures and Perceptions: Expansive and Contractive Postures on Perceptions of Power and Likeability

2025-02-18T07:43:19-06:00

Posture (expansive, neutral, contractive) serves as non-verbal cues that convey meaning influencing perceptions of power and likeability. Expansive postures are often linked to dominance and power, while contractive postures are associated with approachability. We hypothesized that expansive postures would lead to higher perceptions of power than contractive poses with a stronger effect for men. Additionally, we predicted that women in contractive poses would be perceived as more likeable, whereas men would appear more likeable in expansive poses. We assessed 128 University of San Diego participants, who rated images of men and women in expansive or contractive postures on power and likeability. Results supported our prediction that expansive postures convey greater power, with men in expansive stances receiving the highest power ratings. However, contrary to our hypothesis, women in contractive postures were not rated as more likeable. Instead, contractive postures overall were viewed as more likeable than expansive ones, regardless of gender. These findings suggest gender influences the interpretation of postural cues, with broader implications for social and professional interactions.

The Cost of Education: A Summary of Financial Transactions of Enslavement at the University of Alabama

2025-02-03T23:13:40-06:00

A study of the history of enslavement at the University of Alabama offers critical insight into the implications of enslavement in higher education in the United States. The purpose of this project is to digitize financial transactions dating between 1828 and 1864 and develop descriptive statistics as a baseline for future historical inquiry. Data was collected from the Boole Special Collections of the University of Alabama between August and November of 2024. Transactions were parsed and organized into a dataset and key trends were visualized with the R Tidyverse. Among the 185 documents analyzed, a total of $523,042.25, adjusted for inflation, not accounting for overlap, was found to be spent by the university for the purchase, hire, and board of enslaved individuals. With this baseline investigation, future statistical and social network analysis is possible to answer deeper questions about the university’s history of enslavement and its contemporary financial impact.

Neuromuscular Deficits Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Require Increased Duration of Rehabilitation in Collegiate Athletes

2025-02-12T16:15:17-06:00

One in four athletes who have experienced an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury will experience a second ACL rupture within the first year of returning to their sport. This illustrates the importance of comprehensive and effective rehabilitation and return to sport progression following ACL reconstruction for injury prevention and long-term health of the athletes. Objective: To our knowledge, no systematic review exists analyzing the relationship between the length of recovery time and reinjury rates attributed to neuromuscular deficits in collegiate athletes who have undergone anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are prevalent among collegiate athletes and often require surgery and extensive rehabilitation. Despite advancements in surgical techniques and rehabilitation, reinjury rates remain a large concern with a considerable number of these instances attributed to neuromuscular deficits. Methods: Eight articles were found that matched criteria for the search. The search terms used were “neuromuscular,” “anterior cruciate ligament,” “reconstruction,” “neuromuscular deficit,” and “athletes.” Results: A two-year recovery period is optimal for neuromuscular re-education to address the deficits lost following injury and surgical intervention. A revised comprehensive rehabilitation and return to sport protocol is introduced that includes neuromuscular testing to address neuromuscular deficits following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Conclusion: Understanding the implications of recovery duration on neuromuscular rehabilitation and reinjury rates is crucial for sports medicine professionals, coaches, and athletes. This is important for developing appropriate rehabilitation strategies and injury prevention protocols for collegiate athletes that have undergone ACLR, not only for return to sport, but for lifelong function. Future research is needed to address disparities in the reinjury rates related to these different factors, including the length of time that neuromuscular testing should continue after athletes return to sport.

Key Words: Anterior Cruciate Ligament, Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Neuromuscular Deficit, Neuromuscular Reeducation, Collegiate Athlete

Assembling Disassembly: An Exploration of Normativity, Gender Performativity, and Assemblage Theory

2025-03-05T23:31:22-06:00

Identity is a concept that is constantly evolving and under discussion, and such has been the case across human history. It is a key component of a person’s legibility in a given culture, and the variety of identity markers in existence shows that we are constantly trying to explain the experience of being human. But what does it mean when the labels themselves uphold a normative structure that restricts the very fluidity people are trying to explain? This paper uses the works of Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity alongside Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s assemblage theory to examine identity, normativity, and fluidity in the particular context of gender. The goal in doing so is not to condemn or undermine pre-existing structures and identities—both in a broader sense and on a more personal matter—but rather to prompt further exploration of theoretical frameworks that recognize movement among static labels more explicitly. As it is, more “traditional” frameworks, while providing for identities to be societally recognized, often inadvertently reinforce oppressive power structures, which subsequently limit personal expression and undermine the more dynamic nature of individual identity. This essay argues that by combining Butler’s critique of normative identity with assemblage theory’s recognition of fluidity, we can work toward deconstructing more rigid identity structures to create a framework more inclusive of individual selfhood and its variance within societal categories. Of course, while this paper is limited to discussing gender identity specifically, this concept can extend to other facets of identity, which suggests a broader application of the discussed theories.

Preventing Language Deprivation Syndrome in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children: A Focused Intervention in Philadelphia's 19144 Zip Code

2025-02-21T13:25:12-06:00

Language deprivation syndrome (LDS) is a preventable developmental disorder occurring primarily in Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children (Hall et al., 2019). LDS occurs when a child does not have access to language from birth to five years old, which is the critical period for language development (Hall et al., 2017). Less than 6% of Deaf children in the United States receive access to sign language in early childhood, yet the primary prevention measure for LDS is exposure to a natural language at the earliest point in a child’s development (Murray et al., 2019; Hall et al., 2019). Hearing aids, cochlear implants, and spoken language are ineffective as sole methods of language acquisition (Hall et al., 2017). Additionally, a DHH child needs exposure to sign language. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s 19144 zip code, 2.1% of the population under five years old has a hearing difficulty, compared to 0.4% of the same group in Pennsylvania as a whole (United States Census Bureau, n.d.-f; United States Census Bureau, n.d.-c). With the heightened prevalence of hearing difficulties in children under five, and the existing neighborhood resources such as Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, Philadelphia 19144 is an ideal place to hold an intervention to prevent language deprivation syndrome in Deaf and Hard of Hearing children.

Golden Shovel / Write Anything About Nothing

2025-03-04T10:04:38-06:00

Horyuji of the Southern Capital

2025-03-03T10:57:10-06:00

Drawn during the Covid lockdowns that stopped travel between East Asia and the United States, this drawing scroll depicts Horyuji Temple in Nara, Japan, the oldest extant wooden structures in the world, in an environment of steep cliffs and lonely pine trees reminiscent of the Yellow Mountains in Anhui Province in China. This merging of scenes demonstrates the merging of two cultures and an expression of harmony and peace. Although the five-story pagoda and the kondo of Horyuji serve as the main subject of the drawing, I also added a three-story pagoda on each end to reference the two pagodas at Taima-dera temple located south of Horyuji. The emphasis on architecture derives from my personal interests in the wooden architecture of East Asia, particularly the wooden bracket sets between the columns and the roofs. I completed the scroll using only a #2 pencil over a period of four months in 2022 and added a short inscription in Chinese to discuss the scenery depicted in the drawing and to recognize the shared cultural heritage between China and Japan.

Impermanence

2025-01-26T21:30:26-06:00

2025 Author and Artist Biographies

2025-05-25T12:35:25-05:00