Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 19 No. 1 (2021)

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/26382

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    Art Feature—“A Child’s Map to a Future World”
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) von Raven, Billy
    “A Child’s Map of a Future World” is a mixed media work on wood panel that investigates how a future descendant might map a world of climate breakdown using accumulated everyday fragments. These fragments were chosen according to how a child might respond to materials: regarding felt knowledge, relationships, or experiences, not just aesthetics. Both nonhuman and human-made, the materials embody inextricable relationships between the social world and the nonhuman world. Since neither maps nor relationships are fixed, each arrangement of the world is of its moment and therefore always in flux but, at the same time, is specific, differentiated, and relational. This dynamic world-building is fundamental to producing culture and remaking human relations with each other, place, material, nonhuman kin, and ecosystems. The map supposes an alternative to a fear-based apocalyptic future but does not offer a didactic solution or a moral imperative. It is rather a story, a door, a way into a future—because engagement in specific, material relationships is a method of inquiry, a way of reconfiguring the extractive paradigm that is driving the current climate crisis.
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    Letter from the Editor
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Chambrose, Starla
    As for many students this past year, the COVID-19 pandemic completely derailed my research plans. I had been working on my thesis in a lab in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution since the winter of my sophomore year. By the spring of 2020, the end of my junior year, I felt like my project was close to completion. Just a more months of benchwork, I thought, and I would have finished with all my data collection. But then the pandemic hit, and I was prevented from entering the lab for the foreseeable future. I brainstormed with my thesis advisor, but by mid-summer we had reached a sad conclusion; even if the lab were open by the end of the summer, there was no possible way for me to finish my project. I had to scrap my entire thesis. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end. In early June, I finished my thesis—not in biology, but in history instead.
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    How Egocentric Biases Maintain Social Anxiety: A Literature Review
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Mingus, Kyra
    Biases and heuristics are mental shortcuts that help guide our daily decision making and cognitive processing but can often lead us astray when they account for inaccurate or misinterpreted information. In this review I aim to understand how the spotlight effect (Gilovich et al., 2000), the overestimation of how attentive others are to our actions, and the illusion of transparency (Gilovich et al., 1998), the overestimation of how easily others can discern our internal state, maintain social anxiety by disrupting the anchoring component these shortcuts rely on. Through a detailed analysis of major research conducted by Brown and Stopa (2007) and Haikal and Hong (2010), I was able to synthesize the empirical findings, discuss clinical implications, and propose future directions for research.
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    “Don’t Kill My Buzz, Man!” – Explaining the Criminalization of Psychedelic Drugs
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Sproul, Conrad
    In the 1950s, psychedelic drugs were the subject of extensive psychiatric research in the United States. By 1960, they had been found to be non-addictive, to have remarkable safety profiles, and to potentially be able to treat a range of psychological conditions. However, in 1968, the possession of psychedelics was criminalized by the US federal government. Consequently, medical research has been stifled, and today the possession and distribution of psychedelics are punished more severely than for more dangerous recreational drugs such as methamphetamine. Most scholars argue that psychedelics were criminalized due to a “moral panic” in the late 1960s. However, this theory overlooks several important aspects of the political process that led to psychedelic criminalization. This essay takes an alternative stance. First, early 20th century temperance advocates instilled an anti-drug moral framework into the American cultural consciousness. Then, in the early 1960s, safety concerns and professional biases led most mainstream psychiatrists to reject the therapeutic use of psychedelics. These factors interacted to cause both a moral panic and severe criminalization, but the moral panic did not itself cause criminalization.
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    Art Feature—“Intertidal Intricacies”
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Lake, Anna
    This photo series was taken while out in the field for a class at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), the coastal campus of the University of Oregon. These pictures represent the small intricacies in the beautifully diverse world of the rocky intertidal. Shown is the wide spectrum of organisms one can find from invertebrates to many forms of seaweed. My hope is to shed light on how delicate and beautiful this world is to inspire others to search and find this beauty themselves here on the Oregon Coast. This series captures a side of the work done by STEM students at OIMB that is connected to their research. Scientific work needs to draw the attention of the general public; it is important to have an artistic and aesthetically pleasing presentation of scientific work in order to capture interest at first glance; the intersection of art and science is needed to drive innovation.
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    Cover Art—“Indigenizing Neuroscience”
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Bauer, Temerity
    Our research community at the University of Oregon is a brain. Each researcher represents a singular neuron, microglia, ion transport channel or other part of the complex machinery that plays a crucial role in our ‘brain’ as a top tier research institution. My Native American Heritage often makes me feel like an outsider because research, especially scientific, is a predominantly white field. At the University of Oregon, I have been able to express myself and strengthen my connection to my culture and my passions in research. My PI, Dr. Jaramillo, has helped me connect with other Native American researchers through opportunities like the SACNAS conference. We also have a journal club where once a month we read a paper about diversity, socioeconomic problems, and more which helps make me and other students in our lab feel more supported and empowered. So now, instead of a small neuron hiding, I am empowered and confident in my work, as represented by the singular Native neuron. This drawing represents me, indigenizing a field where my people and other minority groups have not been welcomed before. This drawing also represents the beauty that can be found when indigenous people or other minorities are empowered and work in normally predominantly white fields. Most importantly, this image represents the need for more Indigenous students and faculty to diversify and strengthen our scientific community, instead of one neuron there needs to be a push for several more to benefit our ‘brain’ as a whole.
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    Meet the Editorial Board
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06)
    Editorial board for Volume 19 Issue 1 Spring 2021 of Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal
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    Burning Woman: Sexualized Robots and the Vilification of Women in Metropolis and its Precursors
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Grove, Cassian
    The vilification and subsequent destruction of feminine robots is a surprisingly common trope in film and literature. This essay draws connections between three very different works—Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Villier’s Tomorrow’s Eve, and E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Sandman—and posits a shared narrative reason for the deaths of the three artificial women: male projection. Comparing and contrasting the three death scenes with each other as well as other texts on feminine literature and projection demonstrates how little substance there is to these “out of control” women/technologies beyond the faults of the men who create them. Furthermore, this essay brings up a prudent question: could these artificial women have become something more if it were not for the displaced guilt and projected egos of the men around them?
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    Guest Editorial—“Building Research Communities During a Pandemic”
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Millar, Lanie
    What does it mean to do research during a global pandemic? Many of us have grappled with challenges and tragedies over the past year, but we also acquired new skills as our educational lives shifted largely or entirely online. Students and professors have learned to use online technologies to create new scholarly communities, to share resources, and to work around limitations to accessing faraway materials. Together, we have explored new kinds of engagements with our scholarly topics through avenues that we might not have discovered if our research had not been interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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    The Anthropocene Commons – A New Paradigm of Scale Variance: Commons Frameworks and Climate Change Theory
    (University of Oregon, 2021-06) Aghel, Parsa
    The term Anthropocene, denoting the era where human activity is the greatest influence on the environment and climate, marks a new era of climate change theory and understanding. This paper, though, looks at existing promising works surrounding the Anthropocene and argues that the dialogue lacks holistic conceptions of agency and spatial and temporal scale variance in order to fully grasp its complexity. Agency refers to the flawed understanding of the Anthropocene as simply human without consideration for other assemblages, which denotes the other stakeholders apart from humans. Temporal scale refers to the need for a varied consideration of time and the creation of assemblages. Spatial scale refers to the different levels of interaction (national, international, socioeconomic. This understanding of scales, or scale variance, relies on Derek Woods’ theory that multiple scalar levels are necessary to encapsulate the Anthropocene. This paper will approach scale variance by constructing the Anthropocene Commons model. The model, based its theoretical framework on Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons on resource, will utilize the three levels of scale absent in other scholarship. The paper will examine other models used to address climate change and discuss their lack of the necessary scope and holistic framework and how their prescriptions for addressing climate catastrophe fall short. Using scale variance in the Anthropocene commons, then, will seek to correct it and offer a standardized but flexible framework to better address the ongoing and impending crisis.