A mother’s treatment toward her child has a direct influence on the happiness, companionship, and maturity of that child in adulthood. In Shirley Jackson’s 1959 work ​The Haunting of Hill House​, I argue that the most effective way for the heroine of the story, Eleanor ‘Nell’ Vance, to find happiness and live a fulfilling life is by overcoming the trauma she experienced from her overbearing mother. Nell, who begins the story as a single woman in her thirties with no place of her own, is drawn to Hill House as it is a chance to mingle with others her age-- making Hill House an opportunity for Nell to find companionship, belonging, and happiness. After arriving at Hill House, she meets the sexually-charged Theodora, greedy Luke, and rational Dr. Montague. No matter how Nell presents herself to these characters, she is always just short of taking her companionship with these characters to anything past a non-emotional, mutual acquaintance. Just three months after the passing of Nell’s mother, it is evident that her mother’s influence continues to affect her, and is malicious and parasitic in nature. Ultimately, it is her mother’s lasting influence that causes Nell’s sexual repression, as evident through her character foils of Theo and Dr. Montague. Sexual repression, for my purposes, can be understood as the inability to form and ​maintain ​romantic and sexual relations with another person. Further, the continuing influence of her mother, as well as the novel’s direct application of the supernatural, causes Nell to be highly susceptible to the supernatural within Hill House-- catalyzing her untimely death.

If one were to go to Virginia today and visit Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson, they would find a building that resembles a museum more so than a home. Inside are paintings, maps, sculptures and even the antlers of many great beasts. But the first thing that will come to a visitor's sight aren’t these wonders, but rather the busts of two men that glare at each other at the entrance of the home. One stands on a pedestal, large and draped in cloth, the other a simple marble statue of a younger man. The former statue depicts Monticello’s owner and the latter is of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton . One may find this curious, as the two didn’t have a friendship and were often thought of as the cause for the United States becoming a two-party system, due to their disagreements. For Thomas Jefferson the placement of these busts seemed natural as it put him into eternal combat with a man he considered his main political rival.
These two men could not have had more different upbringings; Thomas Jefferson was born to a wealthy family that owned land and slaves, whereas Alexander Hamilton was born on a Caribbean island in poverty, only to be orphaned early on in his life . Despite these differences both men found a common goal in fighting for independence for the American colonies. Jefferson would do so as a diplomat and author of the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton would be a patriot through being a soldier and assistant to General George Washington. Once the war was over, the two continued their service to the country and would find themselves as the first heads of the United States’ cabinet departments. By being in Washington’s cabinet, the two came in conflict with one another frequently on the policy of the time such as the country’s neutrality in foreign affairs. No issue put them more in conflict than their stances on the country’s economic state.

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human- rights violation. And it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth.
~ Kofi Annan, Seventh United Nations Secretary-General

The Ghanaian culture is deeply entrenched with patriarchal beliefs and ideologies. Male supremacy is widespread throughout all spheres of life. Patriarchy ideologies in Ghana ascribe the qualities of a good wife and constrain the possibilities for girls and women. Furthermore, the doctrines of patriarchy in Ghana contribute to the state of violence. There are various forms of violence faced by Ghanaian women such as domestic violence, social violence, psychological violence, physical violence, economic violence, and sexual abuse. Women are not empowered to be independent with the capacity to defend their human rights. Men occupy most of the leadership positions hence making the critical decisions further propagating patriarchy.
Additionally, the attitudes by women accepting the patriarchal culture as the norm justify men to continue the bad habits that discriminate against women. The prevalence of violence is high with one in every three women experiencing some form of violence in Ghana. The Ghanaian Government has made significant strides in fighting violence by enacting the domestic violence act of 2007. The bill has created a platform through which victims of abuse can access justice. This paper will argue that violence against women and girls in Ghana is deeply ingrained in the culture that it has become normalized and for changes to be made, Ghana needs to look at a radical shift in attitudes towards men and women in terms of dismantling the patriarchal ideologies.

Keywords: Ghanaian Government, Ghana, violence, patriarchal ideology.

America has been widely considered a great democratic experiment, which is a characterization attributed to Thomas Jefferson. An experiment can be designed to use trial-and-error methods to find a certain outcome. While not a conscious effort, the United States has experienced a trial-and-error experimental process in developing legislation that will restrict dangerous misinformation without violating the speech and press clauses of the First Amendment. In several of his personal writings and official speeches, Jefferson advised against additional government intervention with regard to filtering true and false information published by the press or distributed by citizens. His argument is a guiding theme throughout this thesis, which explores that experimental process and its relation to contemporary efforts to address and prevent future phenomena like the fake news outbreak of 2016.
This thesis utilizes an examination of examples of laws designed to control misinformation, past and present, then using those examples to provide context to both arguments in favor of and opposing new misinformation laws. Extensive archival research was conducted to ensure that accurate historical reflection could be included in offering information about historical examples, as well as through application of relevant literature. The possible effects on the electorate and the practices of the press by those laws of the past and potential proposals for new legislation are also discussed in an effort to provide further context to, and support for, the conclusions reached. Those conclusions include that additional regulation is necessary to discourage the creation and distribution of fake news and misinformation in order to protect the public from the violence or imminent unlawful action they may cause.

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is one of the latest developments in the world of African politics. It influences several key policy arenas, including the focus of this paper: developmental policy. The AfCFTA hopes to integrate the intra-African trading system, as well as implement several measures to integrate their entire economies. This paper examines the intersection between the AfCFTA and developmental policy defining how it helps and hinders African development goals. This thesis intends to give a clear picture of how this agreement coincides with developmental policy through both economic and political research. The goal of this paper is to provide readers with a detailed report on how this economic agreement could be shaping the developmental policy of the African world.

British Neuroscientist Adrian Owen documents in his book Into the Grey Zone difficult cases of patients between a state of brain death and consciousness. His team collected evidence that sug- gested patients—presumed to be brain dead—were partially or, in some cases, fully conscious. The two culturally dominant metaphysical accounts of consciousness, Cartesian dualism and eliminative physicalism, are unable to explain the presence of consciousness in Owen’s cases. To better understand the consciousness present in Owen’s cases I argue we should look to Ned Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness.

While some stress during pregnancy is normal, continuous stress during pregnancy could have negative lasting impacts on a child’s health. The type of stress that is harmful during pregnancy is “the kind that doesn’t let up” (Watson). This type of stress is chronic and is more intense than the normal stresses of everyday life. Researchers have shown that when fetuses are continuously exposed to such levels of stress, their bodies react in unhealthy ways. Given all the data showing that varying stressors experienced by pregnant women negatively affect their children’s postnatal health and development, it is important to identify the specific impacts of these stressors in order to understand how they affect the health of children.
By conducting a literature review, I have found a number of studies reporting links between a pregnant woman’s stress and the development of health issues in her child. For example, researchers of one study found that infants born to women who were depressed during pregnancy had early brain development issues and difficulty regulating emotions and stress (Hayes, et. al). In another study, researchers observed a positive association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and asthma in offspring (Cookson, et. al). Such findings indicate the significance of the prenatal period in healthy child development. However, while we may suspect that there are some negative outcomes for children born to chronically stressed women, there was interestingly a lack of information in areas where we may expect to find effects on the child. This gap in the literature indicates that we do not fully understand the effects of stress during pregnancy, and it seems that we do not know what really seems important to know about mental health during pregnancy. Thus, the results reflect that the existing knowledge in this area is lacking, making it challenging for medical specialists to understand how they may best intervene in order to promote the healthiest pregnancies and children.

Many philosophers have attempted to define what it is to be rational. Yet, each attempt faces insurmountable objections, throwing it away in place of another. This lack of success has motivated some authors to seek a deflationary theory of rationality, particularly Sinan Dogramaci and his epistemic communism, hoping that reducing the breadth and obligation of the theory lessens the obstacles. This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I highlight previous attempts to define rationality. In the second part, epistemic communism is explained. In the third part, I argue that the answer of the virtue epistemologist Ernest Sosa to the knowledge-related “value problem” can parallel to show that rationality has intrinsic value. And if rationality has intrinsic value, then rationality is not fully accounted for in epistemic communism.

This paper seeks to emphasize how the presence of uncertainty, speculation and leverage work in concert within the stock market to exacerbate crashes in a cyclical market. It analyzes three major stock market events: the crash of Oct. 19, 1987, “Black Monday;” the dotcom bust, from 1999 to 2002; and the subprime mortgage crisis, from 2007 to 2010. Within each event period I define determinants or measurements of uncertainty, speculation. Analysis of how these three concepts functioned during boom and bust will highlight how their presence can amplify the magnitude of a crash. This paper postulates that the amount of leverage during a crash determines how long-term its effects will be. This theory is fortified by extensive research and interviews with experts in the stock market who had a front row view of the discussed crises.

The thesis reviews the historiography of American Populism in the late 19th century, through an evaluation of Richard Hofstadter’s thesis presented in The Age of Reform and The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Though Hofstadter related the Populist movement to proto-fascism, racism, paranoia, and jingoism, many historians before and after the publication of The Age of Reform have objected and presented a more positive view of Populism. By examining the lives and careers of three of Hofstadter’s primary examples of Populists—Mary Lease, Ignatius Donnelly, and Thomas E. Watson—the author proves that Hofstadter’s own evidence does not support his thesis. Though Hofstadter is certainly correct about some aspects of the Populist movement, including their tendency to engage in conspiracy, his claim that Populism is heavily characterized by racism is not borne out by the facts. The Populists studied are each unique individuals, with their own eccentricities and deviances from the larger Populist movement, and each must be considered within the context of their own lives and their own time. In the case of Tom Watson, for instance, Hofstadter’s quotes date to a point in Watson’s life where his beliefs could no longer be considered representative of the Populist movement. Major parts of Hofstadter’s evidence—including Mary Lease’s The Problem of Civilization Solved—were not influential or widely read within the Populist movement. The paper attempts to sort out what parts of Hofstadter’s evidence are valid, what parts are divorced from their proper context, and which parts are contrary to his actual thesis, through the format of three biographical chapters.