Digital Commons Network^™

Online Feminisms: Feminist Community Building And Activism In A Digital Age, Taryn Riera

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores both what feminism looks like in a digital age, as well as how the Internet and technology inform the ways in which feminists interact, build communities, and form identities. I found that online feminist spaces are built as communities of validation and support, education and empowerment, as well as spaces of radicalization and contention. Ultimately my thesis leads toward a new understanding of feminist activism that incorporates the unique characteristics and abilities of online feminism.

Beneath Still Waters: An Exploration Of Transmedia Narratives And Twitter Fiction, Anjali Gupta

Scripps Senior Theses

Beneath Still Waters is an original transmedia mystery narrative that explores the possibilities of an interconnected media landscape as a unique platform for creative use and audience engagement. Transmedia storytelling refers to the building of a fictional world comprised of multiple parts across different platforms, where each component makes a valuable contribution to the whole. This project uses the tools and strategies of social media to tell a complex and interactive multi-platform story.

Voices In Crisis: An Exploration Of Masculine Identity In Modernist Narratives, Amy Cannistraro

Scripps Senior Theses

The period following World War I can be characterized in literature by the trauma and changes that promoted crises of masculinity. These crises, however, are not discussed between the men that suffer similar feelings of insecurity and anxiety; not approached as a tension in need of resolution. Exploring the narrative voices of Nick, Jake, Darl and Anse in The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and As I Lay Dying, this thesis addresses the ways in which this unspoken phenomenon is essential to the modernist male narrative. I propose that, despite the widespread nature of this phenomenon, …

The Intersection Of Women, Aestheticism And Dance In The Scripps College Dance Department, Christiana K. Ho

Scripps Senior Theses

This is a creative writing: nonfiction thesis investigating how the Scripps College Dance Department came to be and serves a testament to the tenacity of the Scripps College Dance Department. This thesis explores different interconnected histories, regarding women's bodies, women's colleges and dance pioneers at the turn of the twentieth-century, to help explain why dance has the place it does in higher education, offering dance as a space for aestheticism in academia and focusing on the particular intersection of dance, aestheticism and women in a dance department at a women's college. Perhaps by looking at these histories, the current state …

Caving Into The Will Of The Masses?: Relics In Augustine's City Of God, Jessica Gadis

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines Augustine of Hippo's support of the cult of relics through the lens of Peter Brown's revision of the two-tiered model which was proposed in his 1981 book The Cult of Saints. More specifically, this thesis attempts to explain the introduction of saint's relics in the final book, book 22, of Augustine's magnum opus The City of God (De Civitate Dei). After providing proof of the theologian's opposition to the cult of relics in his youth, historical, biographical, and textual evidence is used to trace his later change of heart. This change in position is crystallized in …

Grotesque Depictions And Seduction: Exotification Of Asian/American Women, Mabelle Bong

Scripps Senior Theses

My senior art project is an exploration of contemporary representations of women of Asian descent in the United States, specifically looking at issues of body image, sexuality, and exotification. I will examine the lack of representation of Asian women in America in media and art, specifically painting and mixed media. Ultimately, I will elucidate on why I chose this topic and used certain techniques and materials to explore the contemporary features and symbolic representations of Asian women in America.

This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land: An Analysis Of Presidential Immigration Rhetoric In The "Nation Of Immigrants", Hilary Slauson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the function and limitations of presidential immigration rhetoric, using Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as examples to show the development of rhetoric across their presidencies. Reagan and Clinton are theoretically ideologically juxtaposed, though examples found in their public speech on immigration politics show patterned language that contributed to harmful discourses, kept legislation ineffective, and promoted anti-immigration sentiment. Most persistent since Reagan’s response to the fourth and current wave of immigration to the U.S. was the description of the United States as a “nation of immigrants.” Reference to the “nation of immigrants” was often conflictingly coupled with …

The Christian Influence Over Secular Understandings Of Marriage In The United States: A Critical Analysis Of Augustinian Theology, Rebecca C. Shin

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I seek to contextualize the exclusivity of traditional marriage in the United States. I investigate the use of Christian beliefs applied to the American legal system, consequently becoming the foundation of American commonsense. I draw out the ways in which Augustinian thoughts on marriage have inadvertently been used to justify institutional favoritism toward heterosexual, monogamous couples. Through examining the Christian-American lens that shapes our understanding of traditional marriage, I argue that previous and current secular opposition to non-traditional marriage is fundamentally grounded in Christian faith, furthermore, American cultural understanding of marriage is unconsciously lined with Augustinian thought.

Switching Screens: An Examination Of How House Of Cards And Scandal Represent Shifting Strategies In Television, Laura Rossiter

Scripps Senior Theses

Both House of Cards and Scandal have similar conceits (White House? Check. Sex? Check. Murder? Check.) but use different platforms: House of Cards is a Netflix Original production while Scandal is a broadcast television program on ABC. Through the course of this paper, I will examine how the platform and type of consumption affects the content and distribution of the show and the types of relationships they forge with their viewers.

Pattern And Disorder: Anxiety And The Art Of Yayoi Kusama, Susanna S. Ferrell

Scripps Senior Theses

Yayoi Kusama is undoubtedly one of the most esteemed artists today, and yet she is continually written off as "crazy." Kusama's work draws not from insanity, but from her experiences with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and acts as a tool to both process and temper her obsessions and compulsions. In my own work, I reflect on the necessarily obsessive faculty of hand-drawn animation, in an effort to communicate the feeling of OCD.

Being "Like A Girl" In The Twenty-First Century: Branding And Identity Through Cultural Conversation, Jane A. Condon

Scripps Senior Theses

Branding exists at the intersection of culture and economics and is an increasingly important tool in distinguishing commodities. Over the past few years, more and more companies have started to use discourses of female empowerment, celebrating femininity, womanhood, and all things “girly” to sell their products - spiking sales, racking up millions of online views, and starting important conversations in the process. Procter & Gamble's “Like A Girl” campaign for Always creates a productive tension and way of thinking about both brand and buyer. The “Like A Girl” campaign is unique because it presents a feminist message to and about …

Losing Vision: What Can Art Gain In The Absence Of Sight?, Seana Rothman

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper addresses the relationship between the visually impaired and the visual arts. The first section focuses on the scientific background of sight and vision disorders, as well as touch. Current research indicates that the blind can process complex spatial information through touch, just as the sighted can through vision. Thus visual art can be accessible to visually impaired people if it contains tactile information, such as 3D shapes or textures. However, galleries traditionally display art that visitors are only able to interpret visually, excluding the visually impaired and blind. My Fall project aims to challenge the dominant visual mode …

"A Great Man's Madness": An Inquiry Into Sanity And Gender In Jacobean Tragedy, Vittoria Mollo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis delves deep into an analysis of madness in two seventeenth century tragic plays: William Shakespeare's Macbeth and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. The first portion of the dissertation will provide historical background and context. The rest will be a critical literary analysis centered around the argument that both plays present an inextricable connection between loss of mental clarity and gender.

Interior, Concept And Clay: A Study Of Self And Space, Lily Alan

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper considers theories of perception, interaction, and being as a historical and philosophical foundation for themes of space and the self within art; namely, my senior installation, Interior, Concept & Clay. Beginning with a biological discussion of the eye’s perception, the paper moves on to Kant’s theories of Differentiation of Direction in Space. From there, I discuss Gaston Bachelard’s text The Poetics of Space as an investigation of personal awareness within domestic interiors. Finally, I study the vast and varied philosophical notions of selfhood and no-selfhood with the help of John Canfield’s The Looking-Glass Self: An Examination of …

Explicit Content: A Discussion Of The Mpaa Film Rating System And The Nc-17 Rating, Caroline H. Miller

Scripps Senior Theses

The United States film industry is controlled by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its six signatories--the major productions studios (Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Time Warner), and through this joint-partnership they have monopolized prime production, distribution, exhibition and classification of the U.S film market.

The objective of this project is to shed light on biases present in the MPAA rating system's treatment of sex and violence under the X/NC-17 rating in order to demonstrate the lack of viability of the system in today's world.

Queer Content In Science Fiction Allegory And Analogue: Is It In Disguise?, Anna C. Marburger

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis performs a textual analysis of two for-profit science fiction texts in which the authors implanted queer content: Bryan Singer's X-Men films and James Robert's Transformers comic series, "More Than Meets the Eye". The argument incorporates queer (referring to attraction and gender variance) media representation and western identity politics lenses into its critique.

By interrogating reality through the masquerade of an impossible universe, science fiction affects how subversive a text can be. When authors designate the natural and the unnatural in a strange universe, they designate what and who belongs in our society. Whatever they imagine has an effect …

My Way Or The Highway And A Correspondence: Visual Representations Of The City, Larkin J. Sheldon

Scripps Senior Theses

This Capstone Project encompasses two videos, each representing different ways to visually structure the experience of “the city”.

The first video, "My Way or the Highway", is a 5 minute piece examining Los Angeles Transportation systems. Through observational footage and a poetic editing style, I compare and contrast the experience of traveling via public and private transportation. Through this video I aim to encourage the viewer to consider their own transportation options whether it is in Los Angeles or anywhere else around the world.

The second is a 12 minute video, titled "A Correspondence" structured as a …

Monsters Without To Monsters Within: The Transformation Of The Supernatural From English To American Gothic Fiction, Tryphena Y. Liu

Scripps Senior Theses

Because works of Gothic fiction were often disregarded as sensationalist and unsophisticated, my aim in this thesis is to explore the ways in which these works actually drew attention to real societal issues and fears, particularly anxieties around Otherness and identity and gender construction. I illustrate how the context in which authors were writing specifically influenced the way they portrayed the supernatural in their narratives, and how the differences in their portrayals speak to the authors’ distinct aims and the issues that they address. Because the supernatural ultimately became internalized in the American Gothic, peculiarly within female bodies, I focus …

The Impulse To Punish: A Critique Of Retributive Justice, Devika Agrawal

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the strength of the two major theories of punishment, consequentialism and retributivism. It also explores the two most critiqued systems of punishment in the world: The U.S and Norway. By presenting the idea that retributivism is the only plausible theory that can morally justify the U.S. penal practises, I argue against the theory by incorporating various objections delivered by Antony Duff, Michael Zimmerman, and Jeffrie Murphy. I then explore the question of what could possibly ground the Norwegian justice system, for the answer to this is crucial, if we hope to demand prison reform and tailor our …

Corpus Intactum: La Subversion Corpotextuelle Féminine Des Constructions De Dualité Et D'Objectivité Du Discours Colonialiste Dans "Le Pied De Momie" Et "Le Roman De La Momie" De Théophile Gautier, Hannah R. Swan

Scripps Senior Theses

In “Corpus Intactum,” I explore the possibility for the subversion of dominant orientalist narratives in Théophile Gautier’s short story “Le Pied de momie” and his later novel, “Le Roman de la momie”. I propose that Gautier’s works demonstrate the beginnings of colonialist critique, but that his capacity for subversion is ultimately hampered by the constraints of popular orientalist discourse. I argue, nevertheless, that through a figurative conflation of the feminine mummified body with the text that at once writes her and exists within her own narrative, Gautier is able to subvert the systems of domination within orientalist academic discourse. The …

Norton Simon: The Man With "Two Hats", Helen Ragen

Scripps Senior Theses

Norton Simon was a unique collector because he let passion guide his collecting interests, but he controlled his passion by making his purchases based on smart economic decisions bolstered by years of experience in successful business negotiations. The Norton Simon Museum, today in Pasadena, California, displays the eccentric collectors life work as he created one of the greatest and most recognized collections on the west coast. By examining the progression and establishment of Norton Simon Inc., alongside the creation of the Norton Simon Art Foundation, multiple parallels can be drawn between Simons’ unique approach to business and the application of …

Queer 'Paradise Lost': Reproduction, Gender, And Sexuality, Emily R. Kolpien

Scripps Senior Theses

In the span of this thesis, I investigate the queer nature of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, and argue that in spite of the biblical subject matter it is in fact a text filled with instances of queer transgression. I focus on preexisting feminist critiques of Milton in my introduction in order to ground myself within the academic field, and in order to illustrate how I will be branching out from it. In my first chapter, I discuss the queered nature of the poem’s landscapes, such as Chaos and Hell, and the specifically queer and masculine nature of …

Making History: How Art Museums In The French Revolution Crafted A National Identity, 1789-1799, Anna E. Sido

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper compares two art museums, both created during the French Revolution, that fostered national unity by promoting a cultural identity. By analyzing the use of preexisting architecture from the ancien régime, innovative displays of art and redefinitions of the museum visitor as an Enlightened citizen, this thesis explores the application of eighteenth-century philosophy to the formation of two museums. The first is the Musée Central des Arts in the Louvre and the second is the Musée des Monuments Français, both housed in buildings taken over by the Revolutionary government and present the seized property of the royal family and …

Pour L'Orgueil Et Contre Les Préjugés: Mémoires De George Sand Et Valérie Trierweiler, Femmes Répudiées, Vittoria Mollo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the themes of Pride and Prejudice in two texts written roughly two hundred years apart. The first work that is analyzed is Elle et Lui by George Sand, published in the year 1859 . The second book that is explored throughout this dissertation is Merci pour ce moment: a best seller penned in 2014 by the ex french Première Dame Valérie Trierweiler. In particular, this thesis takes a closer look at these womens' use of a biography as a means to redeem their image as perceived by the public.

Claiming Images: The Production And Preservation Of Desire In Richard Prince's Re-Photography, Meghan M. Gallagher

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the re-photography of contemporary artist, Richard Prince. Using Lacanian theories of the gaze and of the drive cycle, it attempts to establish desire as the central theme of Prince's work. It looks primarily at the Cowboys, Girlfriends, and New Portraits, in order to combat the dominant perception of Prince's work as critical commentary on contemporary consumer culture.

Le Nationalisme Et L'Identité Nationale Dans La Préservation Des Jardins Historiques: Vaux-Le-Vicomte, Le Potager Du Roi, Et Champ De Bataille, Mikayla E. Raymond

Scripps Senior Theses

Cette thèse analyse la relation entre la préservation des jardins historiques et l’identité nationale. Pour les français, leurs jardins historiques sont une source de fierté. Cette thèse va analyser comment cette place d’importance dans la narrative nationale peut influencer la préservation des jardins historiques. Les trois sites de Vaux le Vicomte, le Potager du Roi à Versailles, et Champ de Bataille servent de mieux comprendre le rôle de l’histoire dans les efforts de préservation. Vaux le Vicomte illustre l’importance de la préservation sur comment nous percevons les sites historiques. Cette site était en tres mauvais état mais avec beaucoup d’efforts …

The Germ Theory Of Dystopias: Fears Of Human Nature In 1984 And Brave New World, Clea D. Harris

Scripps Senior Theses

This project is an exploration of 20^th century dystopian literature through the lens of germ theory. This scientific principle, which emerged in the late 19^th century, asserts that microorganisms pervade the world; these invisible and omnipresent germs cause specific diseases which are often life threatening. Additionally, germ theory states that vaccines and antiseptics can prevent some of these afflictions and that antibiotics can treat others. This concept of a pervasive, invisible, infection-causing other is not just a biological principle, though; in this paper, I argue that one can interpret it as an ideological framework for understanding human existence …

#Flawless: The Intersection Of Celebrity Culture And New Media In The Modern Feminist Movement, Laurel Schwartz

Scripps Senior Theses

People have organized around gender equality in modern America for the last century. However, with the advent of new technology, people largely organize in around social movements in online spaces. This thesis explores the ways in which new media expands a popular understanding of the Feminist movement.

The Question Of Child Abandonment In South Korea: Misplacing Blame On Personhood, Margaret Hong

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I argue that traditional notions of Confucianism and its growing modernity within Korean society have contributed to the continuing issue of child abandonment, inhibiting Korean mothers from gaining bodily, social, and economic independence. There are a variety of governmental and societal pressures, including the emphasis on motherhood and the nuclear family, and expectations for the women, that push these unwed mothers to make undesirable decisions on whether or not to keep their child.

Challenges Surrounding The Conservation And Replication Of Eva Hesse’S Sculpture, Kaela L. Nurmi

Scripps Senior Theses

The sculpture of German-born American artist, Eva Hesse (1936-1970), presents many conservation challenges. Hesse’s experimentations with latex and fiberglass created stunningly innovative works of art in the late 1960s bringing these unorthodox materials into the world of fine art; but now these materials are creating major conservation problems. Her artwork is an extreme example of the conservation challenges of contemporary art. This thesis examines the challenges surrounding the conservation and replication of Eva Hesse’s large-scale latex and fiberglass sculptures. The latex and fiberglass materials that captivated Hesse are compromising the structural integrity of her large-scale sculptures today. Hesse’s art forces …