Robert Hieger

Kubrick’s work, strongly influenced by the culture of nationwide fear during the Cold War, reflected the spirit of a nation convinced that at any moment, ICBMs could be making their way from the former Soviet Union to virtually any major city in the United States. The U.S. reaction would be a counter-barrage of ICBMs targeting major Russian cities. This insanity, masquerading as national policy, was called Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, a rather appropriate acronym.

2001: A Space Odyssey, and Dr. Strangelove,  two of Kubrik's most successful films, exploited brilliant innovation of existing technologies for special effects that had never before been seen, and without the aid of a single computer. Also common to both films is a potent critique of human failings. But are these critiques misanthropic, or admonitory?

The United States is ostensibly a grand experiment in multiculturalism, a quintessential melting pot representing all peoples of the world. However, the indigenous Native Americans (the only true Americans), the African, Caribbean, South American and Asian peoples were all subject to and subjugated by the interests of the Western European settlers who saw themselves as entitled, and “the others” as less than human and therefore having no rights.

Another class of subjugated people—women—crosses all ethnic and racial boundaries and suffers even to this day the limitation and deprivation of its rights. Three women authors—Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston and Paule Marshall—serve as excellent examples of women who, through the depth and wisdom of their words, have given voice not just to the concerns of woman, but to rich cultures of humankind nearly lost in the toxic brew found at the scorched bottom of the melting pot.

In Nella Larsen's Passing, race and gender roles collide, forming a conundrum of intertwined paradigms that rend its characters, both emotionally, and, in the case of Clare Kendry, physically limb from limb. This paper examines the nature of these interlocked systems of oppression and how they act to systematically deny Larsen’s protagonists the identities they so desperately seek.

People immigrate to the United States for many reasons—escape from persecution, suffocating oppression, fear of dictatorship and unrelenting poverty, to name just a few. There are also those who came unwillingly, forcibly relocated to these shores in the name of profit, slaves of the trade triangle between Europe, Africa and America. Finally, there are those indigenous peoples of America who suffered virtual annihilation at the hands of European settlers convinced of their manifest destiny. We will be taking a comparative look at each of these scenarios through the vistas of multicultural American literature.

Deeply-seated racist and classist beliefs undergird the social fabric of the antebellum cities of Albany and New Orleans, showing mirror images of slave culture in both the North and South. The rhetoric of both historical accounts considered here are laced with fear and xenophobic zeal. However, there is also a double-edged lure to the diversity decried in both cities—latent attraction.

The World Wide Web, now past its 25th birthday, has woven itself into the fabric of quotidian life. One rarely stops to think how significantly the presence of the web has changed the way in which we research, follow the news and even how we interact with one another.

The world wide web, however, cannot and must not be taken for granted. Its openness, flexibility and availability are of paramount importance on an ever-shrinking world. Perhaps no one understands this as well as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web.

As an early proponent and architect of contract theory, Thomas Hobbes suggests that in the absence of a sovereign (or in current vernacular, a centralized government), we all inevitably descend into a state of nature in which the modus operandi is "every man against every man." Contemporary slang speaks of the dog-eat-dog world.

In response Hobbes proposes Articles of Peace that are predicated upon surrendering one's autonomy to rules laid down by the sovereign. Upon careful examination, it would appear that the peace of which Hobbes speaks might not be so peaceful, nor so free. Carried into today's world, these theories might well have wrought many of the ills of the world.

This thesis approaches a controversial and hotly debated topic, particularly in American culture—competition and how it manifests in learning scenarios. Competition permeates virtually every aspect of our lives from the time we are small children to our entry into “the real world.”
The central theme to be explored is the proposal that elimination of the competitive paradigm from the equation of education can result in both life-affirming and productive experiences with positive implications that stretch well beyond the classroom. The thesis companion project is a proof-of-concept prototype for a web-based platform called IntuCogita, intended to provide a collaborative and cooperative learning environment that rejects utterly the modus operandi of competition, and replaces it with an ethos of mutual aid, where the success of the individual equals the success of the group.

N.B.: The thesis as published here contains minor alterations to the text as submitted to the review committee of NYU Tandon School of Engineering. These changes are comprised only of corrections to typographical errors,  and minor alterations to text solely for the purpose of correcting trivial grammatical errors or clarifying phrases somewhat more awkwardly worded in the original. There is no substantive change to the content of the thesis.