Intuitive to use, polyhedral dice hold meaning in the nerd and geek communities as a storytelling tool for tabletop games. Dice are rolled to advance a game’s plot by limiting the action of a scene and opening options for the story to move forward. The artifact is a product, and its image is used to advertise to the nerd and geek communities. Further research would explore polyhedral dice in relation to history, psychology, and marketing.

Is it true that “It’s the thought that counts”? When we give and receive greeting cards in a variety of situations, we are not only documenting our thoughts towards a person or event but also enacting an internalized sense of human connection and care. This project explores the exigence for greeting cards, especially the pushback against digital versions of cards as impersonal and not as meaningful as handwritten notes, as well as, the different ways that greeting cards embody thoughts and intentions.

This study focuses on media coverage of the opioid epidemic. We analyzed local media coverage from 2013-2018 in the Times-Standard, North Coast Journal, and Lost Coast Outpost. The study is inspired by cultivation theory, which indicates that prolonged exposure to mediated messages influence how people perceive reality. Results indicate that the majority of articles containing the term “heroin” are focused on crime rather than a health, legislation, community engagement, or other key factors that could potentially affect the future outcome of this epidemic.

Disney Princess movies are beloved by many, and, on the surface of the most recent renditions of the trope, the lead female characters portray many pro-feminist messages. However, there is a discrepancy between the surface meanings and the implied meanings of the movies. Hidden beneath these pro-feminist surface meanings, the implied meanings present a vastly different message - one contrary to the beliefs of feminism. Through this discrepancy between the surface and implied meanings of Disney Princess movies, this poster aims to illustrate the anti-feminist rhetoric of Disney Princess movies.

The Giving Tree is a children’s story where a personified tree gives away pieces of herself to a boy whom she loves. She gives him her apples and branches as a means of further his prosperity, never taking into account her own happiness. In this project, I analyze it as a reflection of society’s view of women’s bodies. The tree in the story needs to be seen as their own character; she is a woman is a state of suffering and abuse.

My project focuses on invasive plant management in Humboldt County. I partnered with the California State Parks Environmental Services division to identify, combat, and manage some of the more aggressive plant species found in Patrick's Point State Park.

My paper will touch on the Coachella Valley Aquifer and the Cahuilla tribe, which is centered around the Agua Caliente case. Specifically focusing on how the Cahuilla tribe gaining rights over the groundwater, could change future cases on groundwater rights.

In a sociopolitical climate where hate is so clearly permeating through our country, it is important to recognize battles that have conquered evils of the past in the form of reparations. My research looks at the reconciliation process that has occurred on Indian Island and how the 1862 massacre contextualizes the events taking place today. Through a difficult history and unique form of restitution, Indian Island provides insight into current Native Politics unparalleled anywhere else in the United States.

In “The African-American Experience as portrayed by Minstrels” I examine how the African-American experience in Antebellum America was inaccurately portrayed by minstrel-performers; slaves were largely portrayed as happy field workers; lazy and good-for-nothing buffoons. The disparity between the entertainment art form and the reality of the black-slave offers a historical viewpoint of the American people of this era, their white nationalist values, as well as their prejudicial practices.

Conventional wisdom in academia and media often paint recent challenges to liberal democratic  norms and institutions as a a result of “populism”. In this lenses, the anti-pluralistic, and tribalistic  tendencies of the demos, or people, of a political community challenge the ‘liberal’ element of  liberal democracy. In this project I challenge this conventional wisdom, and argue that such an  analysis does not take into account the ​causes​ of the what is referred to as ‘populism’’. To  understand the causes, I argue that we must take a look at the cultural, political and economic  changes that have been unfolding since the late seventies.