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The Senior Project

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About the Senior Project in Political Studies
Photo by Scott Barrow

About the Senior Project in Political Studies

Political Studies Senior Projects are generally characteristic of the discipline of political science with respect to their overall structure, analytical orientations, and length. This generally means a piece of writing that is concise and driven by a compelling question or puzzle; in other words, work that is analytical rather than descriptive in nature. Students are asked to submit a short Senior Project proposal form during the spring semester of their junior year, which is used to match students with an appropriate Senior Project advisor. The Senior Project handbook outlines the basic structure and length of a Political Studies Senior Project.

Stella Frank '19: Gramsci Prize Winner for Outstanding Senior Project from the Political Studies Program

"In Fear We Trust: Anxious Political Rhetoric & the Politics of Punishment, 1960s-80s"

Stella Frank was awarded the Gramsci Prize in 2019. This award recognizes an outstanding Senior Project written in Bard's Political Studies Program. Stella won for her project "In Fear We Trust: Anxious Political Rhetoric & the Politics of Punishment, 1960s-80s" a study of the politics of fear driving increased incarceration. Stella did original archival work at the Rockefeller Archive Center, examining a range of texts, speeches, policy documents, and private letters. She discovered that the politics of fear can be disaggregated into two forms of “emplotment”: the fear that arises when crime is plotted in a “Western,” cowboy narrative; and the fear that arises when crime is plotted in a “zero-sum” narrative of economic scarcity. Together, Stella argues that these two ways of plotting fear comprise the larger emotional context in which the punitive turn in American politics could unfold. Her project combines political theory, the history of emotions, sociological studies on crime and punishment, and her own archival work.

Read Stella's Senior Project

Senior Project Documents

  • Senior Project Proposal Form
  • Senior Project Handbook

Senior Project 2019

SAÚL GARCIA AMEZCUA
New Orleans, Louisiana
Human Rights and Political Studies: “Familias Separadas: The Zero-Tolerance Policy That Changed the U.S. Immigration System”
Project Advisers: Simon Gilhooley and Miles Rodríguez

CHRISTOPHER ROBERT BLAKE
Peabody, Massachusetts
Political Studies: “How to Earn and Lose Your Constituency: A Case Study of New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District”
Project Adviser: Simon Gilhooley

ADDISON C. DOWELL
Melrose, Massachusetts
Political Studies: “The Noblest Cause of All: The Moral Turn in American Libertarianism”
Project Adviser: Kevin T. Duong

OLORIN THOMAS SOHRAB ETEMAD-LEHMER
Santa Cruz, California
Political Studies: “Man Is a Downgoing”
Project Adviser: Roger Berkowitz

STELLA MICHELLE FRANK
Pasadena, California
Human Rights and Political Studies: “In Fear We Trust: Anxious Political Rhetoric and the Politics of Punishment, 1960s – 80s”
Project Adviser: Kevin T. Duong

JOSEPH KIM
Flushing, New York
Political Studies: “Marketization in North Korea Is Corrupting the Corrupted”
Project Adviser: Christopher McIntosh

QUINN FRANCIS LEWIS
Brookline, Massachusetts
Political Studies: “Faulty Vision and Political Realism”
Project Adviser: Kevin T. Duong

EVAN RICHARDSON
Jupiter, Florida
Historical Studies and Political Studies: “Still Sitting on Men: Understanding the Continuities of Indirect Rule through Precolonial Forms of Female Resistance, Ethnic Politics, and Economic Violence in Southeast Nigeria”
Concentration: Science, Technology, and Society
Project Advisers: Sanjib Baruah and Wendy Urban-Mead


XISHIXIN SONG
Tianjin, China
Political Studies: “A Study of Chinese Immigrants and Chinese Americans in the United States: A Focus on New York City”
Project Adviser: Sanjib Baruah

VIOLETTE SWIDLER
New Orleans, Louisiana
Political Studies: “Transnationality: The Construction of an Alternative Global Order”
Concentration: Latin American and Iberian Studies
Project Adviser: Omar G. Encarnación


ALLIYAH RICHANN WILLIAMS
Brooklyn, New York
Philosophy and Political Studies: “Moving Forward by Looking Back: How Reconstruction Arguments for Civil Rights Became the Modern Argument for Reparation”
Project Adviser: Simon Gilhooley

MANDALAY MAELEE WIN
Seattle, Washington
Political Studies: “Myth Busting: Rethinking Social Contract Theory and Relocating Sovereignty from John Locke to Georges Bataille”
Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Studies
Project Adviser: Samantha Hill


LILY ANNE ZACHARIAS
Deerfield, Illinois
Political Studies: “A Rogue of Our Own: Rogue States in the American Imaginary”
Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Studies
Project Adviser: Kevin T. Duong

Senior Project 2018

MEHGAN ROSE ABDEL-MONEIM
St. Paul, Minnesota
Political Studies: “Reporting Identity: Social and Political Implications of Adding a MENA Category to the U.S. Census”
Project Adviser: Christopher McIntosh

KEVIN ANTONIO GERAUD BARBOSA
Queens, New York
Political Studies: “The Gentle Giant: Brazilian Soft Power Maximization toward a New World Order”
Project Adviser: Michelle Murray

AIDAN RICHARD BARRY
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Political Studies: “Communist China in the 1950s: A Case Study of Non-recognized States at International Conferences”
Project Adviser: David Kettler

TAYLOR DONOVAN BOND
Pembroke, New Hampshire
Political Studies: “United States Complex Relationship with the International Criminal Court”
Project Adviser: David Kettler

NATHANIEL VERGOZ CARLSEN
Indianapolis, Indiana
Political Studies: “Greedy Bastards” 
Project Advisers: Christian Crouch and Kevin Duong

ISOBEL MONIQUE COEN
Portland, Oregon
Political Studies: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: The Introduction of ‘Soft’ Deradicalization Policy in France”
Project Adviser: Christopher McIntosh

ADELINA COLAKU
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Economics and Political Studies: “Politics and the ‘Self’ vs. ‘Other’ Binary: The Failure of the Great Recession as a National 
Security Threat”
Project Adviser: Michelle Murray

CIARA COLLINS
Los Angeles, California
Political Studies: “Newsroom Action during the Lebanon War: A Look at American and Israeli Media Coverage”
Project Adviser: Samantha Hill

YAMILET ELIEZET CORTES GIL
Yonkers, New York
Political Studies: “Asilo para las mujeres: The Hesitation to Recognize Women as a Particular Social Group under U.S. Asylum Legislation and Its Effects on the Central American Migrant Crisis of Women”
Concentration: Latin American/Iberian Studies
Project Adviser: Miles Rodríguez


DALTON LEE DAVIS
Boynton Beach, Florida
Political Studies: “Human Judgment and Autonomous Weaponry: What Does It Mean?”
Project Adviser: Christopher McIntosh
 
BENJAMIN RICHARD ELLIOT FALLER
Bennington, Vermont
Political Studies: “On Citizenship: The Evolution of Civic Education from Mann to Meier”
Project Adviser: David Kettler

AROBI HANIF
Flushing, New York
Political Studies: “Do Democracies Excel: An Empirical Analysis of the Democracy-Growth Relationship”
Project Adviser: Gautam Sethi

MEDORA MCDOUGALL JONES
Frankfort, Kentucky
Political Studies: “Donald Trump and the Spectacle of the Modern American Presidency” 
Project Advisers: Charles Dixon and Marina van Zuylen

JONAS LEOPOLD HAKKE KUNZ
Utting am Ammersee, Germany
Political Studies: “WHO ACTS? Community through Chance”
Project Adviser: Roger Berkowitz

SHENGYANG LI
Shenzhen, China
Political Studies: “The Balance: Japanese Nuclear Ambivalence and Its Formation”
Project Adviser: James P. Ketterer

STEVEN THOMAS MAROTTA
Harrington Park, New Jersey
Political Studies: “Puerto Rico’s Unique Relationship to the United States”
Project Adviser: David Kettler

RISHI PRAVAH MUTALIK
Orange, Connecticut
Political Studies: “Brown Pluralism and Beyond: A New Political Vision for South Asian Americans”
Project Adviser: Charles Dixon
Theater and Performance: “Creating ‘Color Coded’,” a play exploring nonwhite imaginations
Project Adviser: Jean Wagner

ZAK WILLIAM RAWLE
Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
Middle Eastern Studies and Political Studies: “Energy Transition in Saudi Arabia: Oil, Solar, and Vision”
Project Adviser: Omar Youssef Cheta

ISABELLE LILY SCARBOROUGH
Chicago, Illinois
French Studies and Political Studies: “Securing a Seat at the Table des Grands: French Identity and the Application of Identity Management Strategies in Postwar France”
Concentration: Global and International Studies
Project Adviser: Michelle Murray


ELLE MCCORMICK TURLEY
Knoxville, Tennessee
Political Studies: “The Problem of Privacy”
Project Adviser: Roger Berkowitz

Political Studies Resources

  • Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program
  • Political Studies Library Resources
  • Hannah Arendt Center
  • Center for Civic Engagement
  • Center for the Study of the Drone
  • Bard Abroad
  • Division of Social Studies
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