Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, German

Reparations and victim reconciliation have become a popular topic in the 21st century. In the fight for apologies, compensation, and corrections for human injustices, civil society actors play a necessary role in varied facets. Through qualitative research and case study comparison, I seek to investigate the questions: How did civil society organizations fight for successful reparations from the German government? Which factors lead to a successful or satisfactory outcome, and which to failure? By using Germany as the common perpetrator and respondent among the reparations claims, the study contrasts the experience and success of civil societies in their push for financial indemnifications and reconciliation. My focus is on the Jews following the Holocaust, the Ovaherero and Nama peoples for the Namibian Genocide, and the Roma and Sinti after the Porajmos. My research found that successful victim mobilization through civil society organizations relies on a combination of factors, including support from the diaspora, government connections, international support, and solidarity among civil society organizations. Additionally, this thesis finds that the advent of the internet has become widely beneficial to victims as they organize and mobilize efforts for transitive justice.

Committee: Christina Guenther Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Scott Piroth Ph.D. (Committee Member); Edgar Landgraf Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Holocaust Studies; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Molecular Genetics

TP53 does not fully comply with the Knudson's two-hit model in that a reduction of constitutional expression of p53 may be sufficient for tumor predisposition. To determine whether the TP53 gene dosage affects the transcriptional regulation of target genes, we performed oligo-array gene expression analysis using isogenic cells with different TP53 gene dosage. We identified 35 genes whose expression is significantly correlated to the dosage of TP53. These genes are involved in a variety of cellular processes including signal transduction, cell adhesion, and transcription regulation. Among those genes, CSPG2 [chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 2 (Versican)] was selected for further study because it contains a p53 binding site in its first intron and its expression highly correlates with TP53 dosage. Using in vitro and in vivo assays, we showed CSPG2 to be directly transactivated by p53. In search of tumor suppressor genes in Papillary Thyroid Cancer (PTC), we previously used gene expression profiling to identify genes underexpressed in tumor compared with paired unaffected tissue. While searching for loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in the genomic regions harboring candidate tumor suppressor genes, we detected LOH in a ~ 20 kb region around marker D9S176. Several ESTs flanking D9S176 were underexpressed in tumors, and for one of the ESTs, downregulation was highly associated with the activating BRAF mutation V600E, the most common genetic lesion in PTC. A putative novel gene, NAMA (noncoding RNA associated with MAP kinase pathway and growth arrest) containing the affected EST was cloned and characterized. Several characteristics of NAMA suggest that it might be a non-coding but functional RNA. NAMA is inducible by knockdown of BRAF, inhibition of the MAP kinase pathway, growth arrest, and DNA damage in cancer cell lines. We suggest that NAMA is a noncoding RNA (ncRNA) associated with growth arrest. Thus, this study identified a list of genes affected by TP53 gene dosage inc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Albert de la Chapelle (Advisor) Subjects: Biology, Genetics

Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2013, Anthropology

In the 1904-1908 genocide in German South-West Africa, the German colonial power eliminated 80 percent of Herero and 60 percent of Nama indigenous communities. Following Namibian independence from South Africa in 1990, descendants of genocide survivors began petitioning Germany for reparations. While legal scholars have debated the technical merits of their case, this project adopts a legal anthropology perspective to examine the Herero/Nama reparations movement in its contemporary sociolegal context of localized political disputes, ethnic identity contests, and international justice initiatives. Based on eight weeks of ethnographic research in Windhoek, Namibia in the summer of 2012, the project focuses on the ways in which reparations activists imagine and invoke domestic and international law as they establish continuities between their historical memories of domination by the German colonial authorities, and their lived experiences of marginalization by the Namibian state. Their demands for symbolic acknowledgement and material redress foreground their colonial-era victimhood in ways that challenge the hegemonic narrative of the Namibian liberation struggle -- a hegemonic narrative that canonizes the anti-apartheid resistance efforts of the ruling SWAPO party and devalues earlier Herero and Nama wars against the German colonial regime. I find that reparations activists' traditionally political claims about memory, ethnicity, and cultural survival are being contested in legal arenas, and that despite their pessimistic approach to domestic law, they hold faith in international law as neutral, fair, and on the side of justice. Herero and Nama reparations activists draw on the global normative discourse of genocide to present legal claims in ways that challenge not only the German government's refusal to pay reparations, but also the Namibian government's exclusionary practices of ethnic favoritism and corruption.

Committee: Haley Duschinski (Advisor); AnnCorinne Freter-Abrams (Other) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology