Freedom Dreams Occur at the University: A Comparative Study of Black Student Activism in the United States and South Africa

In 2015, Black student movements emerged in the United States and South Africa, respectively: Black Liberation Collective and Rhodes Must Fall/Fees Must Fall. Existing research is taking notice of students’ frustrations with universities, by exploring their protests, which are centered on transforming higher education and decreasing tuition fees. The literature on student movements overlooks the role of identity politics in mass student mobilization. However, social media is exposing a trend of Black student activism in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. Yet, academic accounts and articles focus solely on Black student movements within the confines of their nation-states or institutions. By conducting a comparative study, this research explores the political, social, and economic factors causing the resurgence of cross-institutional Black student activism. I combine my comparative study with content analysis and auto-ethnography to insert lived experiences of engaging in student activism at Macalester College and direct action alongside Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, to add my own subjectivity into my research. In this study, I found Black students in the United States and South Africa are discontent with the broken promises of neoliberal post-racial democracy, are frustrated with the colonial and racist culture embedded in universities, and so seek to repurpose universities while simultaneously fighting for racial liberation. Ultimately, I encourage Black activists to form transnational networks to aid each other in redressing contemporary Black struggles

Introduction to Tapestries Volume 7: Breaking the Shackles of Silence: Knowledge Production as Activism and Resistance

Introduction to volume 7 of Macalester College\u27s journal Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

Exploring Perceptions of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Abandonment (FGM/C) in Kenyan Health Care Professionals

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) remains a global problem. We aimed to explore Kenyan health care professionals’ (HCPs) perceptions of FGM/C abandonment and, in particular, those focused on those serving Maasai communities who continue to practice FGM/C. Using a grounded theory Straussian approach, 18 interviews were conducted with HCPs in Kajiado County, Kenya, to understand perceptions of FGM/C as a cultural practice, identify barriers and facilitators to abandonment, and explore attitudes to medicalization (FGM/C conducted by HCPs) and alternatives of FGM/C. Within a substantive theory, one core category (“FGM/C persists but can be abandoned”) comprised two subcategories: “exploring the influencers of persistence” and the “roadmap to abandonment.” HCPs believed collaborative multilateral efforts were necessary to support successful abandonment and that “enlightening” the community needed to focus on changing the perception of FGM/C as a social norm alongside a health risk educational approach. Future effective intervention is needed to support the abandonment of FGM/C in Kenya

Instruct-NeRF2NeRF: Editing 3D Scenes with Instructions

We propose a method for editing NeRF scenes with text-instructions. Given a NeRF of a scene and the collection of images used to reconstruct it, our method uses an image-conditioned diffusion model (InstructPix2Pix) to iteratively edit the input images while optimizing the underlying scene, resulting in an optimized 3D scene that respects the edit instruction. We demonstrate that our proposed method is able to edit large-scale, real-world scenes, and is able to accomplish more realistic, targeted edits than prior work.Comment: Project website: https://instruct-nerf2nerf.github.io; v1. Revisions to related work and discussio

Numerical evaluation of dry-stacked masonry walls against blast loading

This research intends to numerically study the out-of-plane behaviour of confined dry-stacked masonry (CDSM) walls against blast loading. CDSM is a mortar-less interlocking masonry system consisting of Interlocking Compressed Earth Block (ICEB) laid in stretcher bond with reinforced concrete (RC) confining elements. A nonlinear numerical model is developed using advanced finite element software ABAQUS to study the response of CDSM walls subjected to explosive loads of 8 kgs Trinitrotoluene (TNT). The blast load was detonated at 2m from the walls of confined masonry at a height of 1m above ground. The resulting damage distribution and displacement time history were compared for two walls with different reinforcement. This study helps to visualize the effect of diagonal reinforcement along with the performance of CDSM walls against blast loading using ABAQUS. The results shows less damage for diagonally reinforced wall