Rampant voter suppression post Shelby County v. Holder has targeted Black southern voter participation. Despite these deterrents, Black voter turnout remains consistently high. I posit that this paradox can be explained by the countermobilizing efforts of Black socio-cultural institutions (the Black church and Black civic and community organizations) serving as cost reducing mechanisms for Black voters. I argue that while voter suppression increases the cost of voting, these institutions reduce the cost of voting by increasing voters’ willingness to commit Counteractive Political Activities - activities that directly counteract the barriers placed by voter suppression. I posit that these non-traditional and rarely measured activities are critical to bolstering political participation among Black voters in environments where voting is not a straightforward or easy task.

To investigate this, I ask three research questions: 1) To what extent does involvement in socio-cultural institutions influence voters’ willingness to overcome voter suppression? 2) What factors influence the effectiveness of Black socio-cultural institutions in mobilizing Black voters against suppressive electoral policies? 3) To what extent do Black socio-culturalinstitutions influence Black voter turnout in jurisdictions implementing suppressive electoral policies, ceteris paribus? I answer these questions with a mixed methods approach, utilizing original survey data of Black and white respondents nationally, original survey data of Black religious voters, in-depth interviews with leaders of a prominent mobilizing institution, and election data from the 2022 midterm election. Using the state of Texas as a case study, I show that engagement in socio-cultural institutions works to reverse the negative effects of being low-income and less formally educated on political participation for African Americans. I show that among Black religious voters, when an individual’s church works to ease the logistical burden of voting, that individual increases in willingness to overcome voter suppression. I uncover the strategies of one of Texas’ prominent political churches qualitatively and quantitatively and show that their mobilizing strategy is made effective by partnering material resource provision with racial and spiritual appeals toward civic participation. The findings of this dissertation extend our understanding of Black political participation and the critical role that Black institutions play in countering the effects of voter suppression.

JOYGRIEF is a multiple-channel sound installation. It is an 8-channel interview collage involving field recorded samples of interviews conducted by the artist. The main focus of the interviews are death, mortality, and joy, and go into more specific topics such as the deaths of loved ones, war, suicide, feelings regarding one’s own mortality, cultural practices surrounding death, and more. The clips are played randomly from random speakers interspersed with silence in order to create a confrontational and uneasy environment that is at the same time immersive, reflective, and minimalist. Within this sound collage common and divergent themes emerge, connecting visitors to the human experience and leaving them to meditate on some of life’s most difficult feelings.

Speakers are arranged in an evenly-distributed circle (or, octagon) within a plain white-walled space. People can stand in the middle of the speakers or walk around and between them. The speakers are placed on stands to be nearer to ear-height. The speakers are connected to an 8-channel interface and interview clips are randomized and distributed by a Max patch.

This piece is an exercise in exorcising my own personal experiences with and feelings toward death and mortality as well as tackling the Zeitgeist of this era. This Zeitgeist is metaphorical and actual death and destructive change that is happening politically, socially, economically, ecologically, religiously, intellectually, etc. all over the world and which can be seen plainly even within our own UCSC microcosm.

In my thesis I aim to develop novel antibiotics in the fight against Gram-positive bacteria. In Chapter 1, I summarize the outlook of antibiotic resistance and how a new antibiotic, teixobactin, serves as a promising antibiotic candidate for drug development. I provide a summary on the mechanism of action of teixobactin, structure-activity relationship studies of teixobactin, and the limitations of teixobactin as an antibiotic drug candidate. In the last section of Chapter 1, I review isoacyl motifs and their use in the development of prodrugs and in the synthesis of aggregation-prone peptide sequences.In Chapter 2, I introduce my work in the design and development of O-acyl isopeptide prodrugs of teixobactin analogues, which we have termed isobactins, to overcome the limitations of teixobactin. The antibiotic teixobactin is a promising drug candidate against drug-resistance pathogens, such as MRSA and VRE, but forms insoluble gels that may limit intravenous administration. O-Acyl isopeptide prodrug analogues of teixobactin circumvent the problem of gel formation while retaining antibiotic activity. The teixobactin prodrug analogues contain ester linkages between Ile6 and Ser7, Ile2 and Ser3, or between both Ile6 and Ser7 and Ile2 and Ser3. Upon exposure to physiological pH, the prodrug analogues undergo clean conversion to the corresponding amides, with half-lives between 13 and 115 min. Prodrug analogues containing lysine, arginine, or leucine at position 10 exhibit good antibiotic activity against a variety of Gram-positive bacteria while exhibiting little or no cytotoxicity or hemolytic activity. Because O-acyl isopeptide prodrug analogues of teixobactin exhibit clean conversion to the corresponding teixobactin analogues with a reduced propensity to form gels, it is anticipated that teixobactin prodrugs will be superior to teixobactin as drug candidates. In Chapter 3, I present my work in the investigation of additional isobactin analogues of teixobactin. I present nine new isobactin analogues that exhibit a reduced propensity to form gels in aqueous conditions while maintaining potent antibiotic activity against MRSA, VRE, and other Gram-positive bacteria. These isobactin analogues contain commercially available amino acid residues at position 10, replacing the synthetically challenging L-allo-enduracididine residue that is present in teixobactin. The isobactins undergo clean conversion to their corresponding teixobactin analogues at physiological pH and exhibit little to no hemolytic activity or cytotoxicity. Because isobactin analogues exhibit enhanced solubility, delayed gel formation, and are more synthetically accessible, it is anticipated that isobactin prodrug analogues may be superior drug candidates to teixobactin. In Chapter 4, I describe my efforts towards the synthesis of natural teixobactin and isobactins A, B, and C. The previous two chapters highlight the design of prodrugs of teixobactin analogues, which replace the synthetically challenging L-allo-enduracididine residue at position 10 with commercially available amino acids. Therefore, to obtain natural teixobactin and the prodrugs of teixobactin, isobactins A, B, and C, the native L-allo-enduracididine residue must be introduced. Chapter 4 describes the efforts in the synthesis of L-allo-enduracididine and the synthesis of natural teixobactin and isobactins A, B, and C. This chapter serves as the groundwork for future graduate students that may work on the synthesis of these isobactins.