Student Works Collection

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2152/26

The Student Works collection is designed to showcase and preserve the scholarly work being done by students at the University of Texas at Austin.

All students at UT Austin are eligible to submit their scholarly work to this collection. Examples of work deposited include: honors theses, term papers, substantial projects, posters, etc.

We ask that students get a professor to sign this form. and we also need students to fill out this form. To submit your work, please send both completed forms and your electronic file to tsw@utlists.utexas.edu.

If you have any questions about this process, please email tsw@utlists.utexas.edu

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 20 of 235
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    Towards Robust 3D Robot Perception in Urban Environments: The UT Campus Object Dataset
    (2023-08-09) Arthur Zhang; Chaitanya Eranki; Christina Zhang; Ji-Hwan Park; Raymond Hong; Pranav Kalyani; Lochana Kalyanaraman; Arsh Gamare; Arnav Bagad; Maria Esteva; Joydeep Biswas
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    Khrushchev’s Corn Campaign: In Dream and Reality
    (2023-04) Nustad, Kayla
    This paper is an analysis of the agricultural campaign run by Premier Nikita Khrushchev during his term leading the Soviet Union from 1953-1964. Khrushchev became enamored with the wild success of corn in the United States and was determined to prove the Soviet Union and its communist methods could reach the same levels of prosperity and even surpass those of the U.S. Though, it quickly became apparent that there were many issues within the Soviet system that impeded the crop’s ability to grow and prosper as it did in America. While the campaign did not bring the success it promised to the Soviet citizens, it depicts an interesting aspect of the competition between world powers during the Cold War that does not involve the arms race: agricultural prosperity.
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    “Aquele Abraco”: Brazilian Protest Music in the Face of Repression
    (2023-04) Nustad, Kayla
    This paper explores the relationship between Brazilian popular music and the military dictatorship. By focusing on three singers Geraldo Vandré, Caetano Veloso, and Chico Buarque, the range of musicians’ experiences confronting authoritarianism is seen through their responses to censorship and persecution. Censorship played a large role in the repression of culture and media during the Brazilian military dictatorship. Analyzing the experiences of musical artists provides a glimpse into both how leftist voices spoke out against oppression and how the military attempted to suppress them. Through public music festivals, new mass mediums, and innovative lyricism, artists of Brazilian popular music fought official censors to attempt to maintain connection to and hope within their audiences. Studying these interactions is pertinent because it is important to look at the ways censoring art can impact the artists and audiences, and how censorship was used to hide human rights violations.
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    A Final Nail in the Coffin: The Destruction of Houston’s Minority-Owned Restaurants Following the COVID-19 Pandemic
    (2022) Sharma, Bhanu
    The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the health of small, minority-owned businesses in the United States. However, in the incredibly diverse city of Houston, Texas, the combination of decades-long and ongoing gentrification processes and, more significantly, the recent effects of the pandemic have left Black, Asian, and Latinx restaurant owners in a state of economic disarray - Houston’s minority-owned small business sector has been bleeding for years and is now on the verge of collapse. The accelerated introduction of large corporate firms in Houston over the past several decades, such as Starbucks, KFC, and Chick-fil-A, has consistently threatened traditionally “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants by boasting unmatchable low prices and efficient service - leaving smaller, minority-owned firms in a massive competitive slump. Coupled with the latter, the COVID-19 pandemic has now proved to be the fatal blow in the heart of Houston’s minority entrepreneurs, with over 90% of Houston’s small businesses reporting record low revenues in 2021. To understand the recent dwindling of Houston’s minority-owned restaurant population following the COVID-19 pandemic, minority restaurant owners in the Houston area were interviewed to gain insight into the various lockdown-related grievances, issues, and plans of action small entrepreneurs support in the hopes of revitalizing their firms. Utilizing this information, proposals that seek to expedite the recovery of and protect minority-owned small businesses can be devised. Subsequently, Houston’s historically and culturally significant stores and shops can be effectively safeguarded to ensure that Space City remains the bustling, lively metropolis it has been for years.
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    New York City Bitch: Linguistic Appropriation and Awkwafina’s Negotiation of Ethnic Identity Through Rap
    (2022) Kung, Caitlyn
    Chinese-American actress and musician Awkwafina has operated in a novel cross-cultural language space due to her unique position as a non-Black person of color who grew up familiar with African American English (AAE). Previous works have evaluated the authenticity of AAE by white and immigrant speakers, but so rarely has its usage by American-born people of color been examined. Awkwafina’s entire discography was examined in comparison to various interviews and spoken dialogue clips in order to assess the authenticity of her employment of AAE. Phonological and grammatical accuracy were evaluated in addition to Awkwafina’s usage of AAE slang terms in order to determine whether her on-stage persona was simply a face put on at the expense of African American culture or if her intimate knowledge of AAE in conjunction with her engagement with her Asian American identity provides new understandings of multi-ethnic social spaces.
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    An Investigation Into P&G's Coconut Oil Supply Chain
    (2023) Du, Cindy
    The coconut industry is rife with human trafficking and labor exploitation due to the farming practices used and the way the supply chain is structured. Though companies such as Cargill have been able to create sustainable and ethical supply chains for coconut oil by targeting these inferior practices through organizations like the Rainforest Alliance, a majority of coconut farmers are still subject to human trafficking and labor exploitation. Native deodorant claims that the natural deodorant they produce is sustainable and ethical, as being cruelty-free is a company value. However, the company, owned by P&G, uses coconut oil as one of the ingredients for its deodorant, and P&G currently sources its coconut oil from the Philippines and Indonesia, where human trafficking within the coconut industry, known as copra slavery, is abundant. Steps were taken in the research process to determine the stance of the company, the company’s supply chain, and the general supply chain for coconut oil. Though the company has entered a partnership to create a certifiably sustainable and transparent coconut oil supply
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    Pots, Pans, and Pussyhats: The Impacts and Ethics of Feminist Protest Tools
    (2022) Balasubramanian, Aira
    Feminist protest is a strong catalyzing force for change, politically and socially. However, various social groups under the overarching feminist movement view its’ goals differently, through intersectional lenses of race, class, disability, sexuality, and gender. These factors contribute to relative privilege and marginalization of subgroups within feminist ideology, and determine who has power in designing and demonstrating the goals and symbolic tools of a protest. In some cases, this acts against elevating inclusive policy that elevates feminists’ societal voice and power. This leads us to explore the effect of social and economic privilege in designing effective feminist protest tools within the historical context of Chilean cacerolazo and arpelleria protests, and the modern lens of the “Pussyhat Protest” that swept through the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.
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    The Productivity Trap
    (2022) Zhang, Emily
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    Nordhavn: Denmark’s Most Sustainable Modern Housing Development
    (2022-05) Vaidya, Rupin Sachin; Schuelke, Quentin C.; Shah, Serena
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    Disappearing Houston’s Old Chinatown
    (2022-12) Killian, Daisy
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    Collecting Ancestors: Hoa Hakananai'a in Exile
    (2022-12-06) Juroska, Hayden
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    Modernization Not Radicalization
    (2022) Gardner, Austin