Digital Commons Network^™

Terror Management Theory And Legislation: An Analysis Of How Patterns Evolve And Change, Elizabeth Roth

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Recent legislation passed in states including Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky have included clauses that govern “divisive” material and the manner in which this material is discussed, particularly in schools. The term “divisive” is never truly defined beyond content that is “patently offensive to prevailing standards.” The emphasis has been placed on the fact that students should not be biased by the information that they are taught or allowed to access, but definitions are lax as to what constitutes inappropriate information. The loose criteria as to what counts as “unsuitable” opens up divisive material to easy censorship based on partisan and …

Kids, Culture, And Queerness: The Progression Of Lgbtq+ Representation In Children's Media, Sarah Stevens

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Historically, popular media has functioned as a window into society’s ever evolving idea of normalcy. Children’s popular media, which contains elements of both entertainment and didacticism, is further burdened with the responsibility of influencing the perspectives of upcoming generations. This truth is particularly salient for the LGBTQ+ community, who have faced consistent misrepresentation or utter erasure from children’s media in the recent past. While there have been marked improvements in both the quality and quantity of queer representation in children’s media since 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges case, there is still a significant need to acknowledge intersectional queerness and queer gender …

Crafting Character: Exploring Elder Identity Through Story, Cameron Fontes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The following thesis is a culmination of several key activities I have engaged in as a creative writer with a single focus: to create fiction that employs the perspectives, the voices, of persons at later stages of their lives, a population vulnerable to disease and, more insidious, loneliness. First, I discuss my experiences reviving the Western Kentucky student organization Companions of Respected Elders. C.O.R.E. allowed undergraduates to work with local residential centers (nursing homes) by engaging their residents in the collaborative act of creating stories from picture prompts and encouraging questions, following the training and paradigm of TimeSlips^TM. …

No Day But Today: The Social And Cultural Impacts Of Rent, Emily Lancaster

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

No Day but Today: The Social and Cultural Impact of Rent addresses how Jonathan Larson’s musical changed the theater industry and the lives of those living in the shadows. Rent gave struggling artists, drag queens, and those suffering from HIV/AIDS a voice during a time in which they were being pushed aside and disposed of by the mainstream media. Larson’s untimely death the night before his Off-Broadway premiere did not allow him to see his masterpiece soar, but the message of love that his show promotes is still being spread across the world by anniversary tours and interviews with original …

Emmie And The Enchanted Orchid: Portraying Positive Disability Representation In Children's Media, Adrianna Waters

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Disability representation in media and storytelling is often negative or inaccurate, with disability narratives equating disability to evil or lesser than abled bodies. The harmful representation is especially prevalent and dangerous in children’s media as the depiction of characters with disabilities may be children’s first introduction to disability, and thus the portrayal is likely to stay with them, especially as stories for adults continue to perpetuate the inaccurate representation of disabilities. “Emmie and the Enchanted Orchid”: Portraying Positive Disability Representation in Children’s Media seeks to examine the harmful portrayal of disabilities in children’s media while also recognizing how disability can …

Dark Magic Part 1, Rachel Quaid

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Dark Magic is a novel that mixes old folklore with fantasy and a splash of modern day. This first part of the novel readies the readers to enter the world of the old Irish Aos Sì. Ophelia is a witch, living in the land of the fae. She signs up to help with a research study to better her chances at succeeding as a healer. Rhea is a member of the Tuatha de Danann, the fae folk who rule the land from their courts of old. She is sent by her caretaker to observe this study. Everyone knows witches and …

The Bird, The Oak, And The Stories That Build Us, Alicyn Newman

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This is a project combining creative writing and oral history research surrounding the life of my late grandfather, Kenneth Wesley Newman. In its pages, I delve into memory, history, and storytelling, seeking to identify which stories have held meaning for my family over time, and why. I have written my way chronologically through my grandfather’s life and interwoven his narrative with what I know now, what I remember, and the stories we continue to tell as a family. The interdisciplinary nature of this project led to a combination of creating writing and research, which included reading war-era letters, watching home …

Through Children's Eyes: Teaching Inclusivity And Understanding Of Communication Disorders With Children's Books, Rachel Peavler

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

“Through Children’s Eyes” is a series of children’s books that focus on describing different aspects of four different communication disorders. The topics covered in the books include augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dementia, and dysfluency. The illustrations were drawn and colored by hand, and the text and background were added digitally. The goal of this project was to create materials to effectively inform and instruct children about the nature of various cognitive, speech, and developmental differences to foster greater understanding of and tolerance towards people with communication differences.

Appalachian Goodbyes, Emily Houston

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This is a collection of poetry and nonfiction using the Japanese poetic form of haibun (a back and forth between haiku and prose, both sections attempting to clarify and further each other while approaching the subject in entirely different manners) as a form of memoir instead. This collection is about my home that has not always felt like home and what it means to love and hate an Appalachian identity. It is also about my relationships, both with Appalachia and the world outside it and with the people who call it home and the people I have met when I …

Why Do You Want To Teach? Interpreting Stem Pre-Service Teachers' Motivations Through A Semantic Lens, Delaney Holt

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This qualitative study sought to examine the relationship between the motivational profiles that pushed undergraduate STEM pre-service teachers (N = 181) to enter the teaching profession and the word choice used to articulate those motivations. Through the application of a semantically-analytical lens, this study aimed to uncover preliminary patterns that could predict STEM pre-service teachers’ overall commitment levels to the completion of the STEM education major and overall certification. Written responses to the question “Why did you want to become a teacher?” were gathered from a longitudinal survey administered from spring 2011 to fall 2016 as part of the Knowing …

Fighting The Good Fight: Transforming Expectations Of Women In Front Of And Behind The Camera, Victoria Mills

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The film industry is a male dominated field. This is not new information. Directing, cinematography, and musical composition are the most heavily male governed above-the line crew positions, with women only making up 12% of directors as of 2018 (Quick, “The data…”). There is an unfortunate hesitation in support for female filmmakers from the part of studios. Melissa Silverstein of “Women and Hollywood” writes that there are quite specific visual expectations of a director to be a “white male with greying hair,” as this is what people are used to (Smith, “Female trouble…”). To go along with this, only 35% …

A Kingly Trichotomy: Spirituality, Lineage, And Deeds In Beowulf And The Lord Of The Rings, Lydia Anvar

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings both present complex narratives of an individual using spiritual favor, heroic deeds, and a notable heritage to affirm their right to rule as king. By doing a close reading of this ancient epic alongside J.R.R Tolkien’s modern fantasy, one can understand the various ways that the kings in these texts have drawn power from these distinct realms of authority. In Beowulf, the title character’s successful acts of warfare affirm his spiritual favor, and the poem demonstrates that one can construct a heritage using their self-made reputation. Unlike Beowulf, Aragorn’s solidified, sacred …

Writing Under The Influence: The Effects Of Opium On John Keats' Poetry, Katherine Moffitt

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The poetry of John Keats, a Romantic Era poet who lived from 1795 to 1821, has been widely studied, but most critics have dismissed his use of drugs, specifically opium, to alter his writing. This thesis looks at the scientific effects of opium along with personal accounts of the drug’s use and combines such an investigation with a close reading of Keats’s later poetry to determine what effects opium may have had upon his writing style and content. Particular areas of poetic content include Keats’s sensory imagery and dream-state references.

Strong Female Characters: Jane Austen's Vs. The Mashups', Rachel Mccoy

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The comparison of Strong Female Characters in Jane Austen’s novels Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility, with the altered characters in the monster mashups by Seth Grahame-Smith and Ben Winters, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, respectively, reveals differences between the two society’s understanding and portrayal of strength and femininity. Because these texts are so closely connected – Austen is listed as a co-author of both mashups – the differences evident in the representations of women more clearly reveal the differing cultural values. Close textual analysis of the development of three primary female …

Shaking Up Shakespeare: Teaching For The Contemporary High School English Classroom, Megan Sampson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Contemporary high school English students find Shakespeare distant because they believe Shakespeare is hard to understand. Pairing Shakespeare with thematically-similar contemporary texts can make his works more accessible to students. Using different angles on the same theme shows students that Shakespeare presented some universal issues that still have relevance today. The Literacy Design Collaborative modules included within this thesis use Shakespeare in cooperation with other texts to focus on a specific theme. Using the module structure, teachers can organize the unit’s overarching goals and can include all handouts and necessary materials. This structure of design incorporates literacy-centered practices in order …

The Transformation Of Gender And Sexuality In 1920s America: A Literary Interpretation, Taylor Gilkison

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The 1920s in America marked a new decade of freedom and exploration for youths. With the conclusion of the First World War in 1918 and the addition of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919, women gained more prominent roles in both politics and society. The early twentieth century ushered in a new age of sexual expression and attempted gender balance. Secular thinking became more widespread than ever, which was reflected in the arts throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Artists and writers alike were not only expressing themselves through their works, but documenting the …

Language Choice Of Bilingual Musicians, Macy Lethco

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Often unconsciously, every bilingual makes a choice in each interaction of which language to use. These choices have many motivating factors but are mainly based on the content of the message and the identity of the speaker. This may occur in seconds and without hesitation. If even here, a choice is taking place, how much more in the writing, composition, and production of a song or album? Artists, unlike speakers in a conversation, can choose the audience the communicate with. Musicians and music listeners who choose to define themselves in a personal bilingual identity, which at the same time is …

The Language Of Fashion: Communication, Conceptual Clothing, And The Runway Performance, Jarred Johnson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Scholars have long neglected the study of fashion as anything other than a socioeconomic and cultural phenomena that reflects the more substantial political and historical zeitgeist of a time period. This study takes up Gilles Lipovetsky’s plea for a “theoretical facelift” of the study of fashion. Using an original theoretical framework that delineates the communicative structures of fashion as fabric, drape, and accessory, this work analyzes the conceptual meaning of runway performances by designers Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. Though conceptual fashion shows are often described as spectacles intended to stir up a label’s recognition and ultimately bolster sales, the …

Mythological Influences On Southern American Authors, Natalie L. Hayden

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

A major influence upon many parts of society is that of Greek and Roman mythology. While there are several interpretations of what myths are, this study will define them as stories from Greek or Roman origins that seek to explain some natural or social phenomena or to provide moral lessons. Myths were especially influential during the Southern Renaissance, a period of literary reinvention in America during the 1920s and 1930s. Authors used myths to give deeper meanings to their works as they struggled with issues of race, religion, and social changes. Myths appeared in plot lines, as major symbols, and …

Targeting Nonconformity In Elizabethan England: Colonial Rhetoric As A Tool Of Religious Differentiation, John Corum

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Christopher Marlowe’ early modern plays were unequivocally controversial and often seen as testament to his presumed atheism. However, these assumptions focus on the depicted conflicts using religious terms, sometimes overlooking the geopolitical implications of the portrayed demographics. In this project, I argue Marlowe examines not only the religious institutions of early modern England, but also the moral compromises necessitated by England’s colonial endeavors. Through close readings of The Jew of Malta, Tamburlaine, and The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus as well as contributions from various scholarly perspectives, I conclude that Marlowe’s analysis critiques the treatment of religious minorities as …

A Miniseries Of Unfortunate Events: Realizing The Full Potential Of Lemony Snicket's Book Series Through Television Adaptation, Ryan T. Pait

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of 13 children’s books, seemed like it had the potential to become a massive franchise in a similar vein to the Harry Potter film series. Snicket’s books feature three plucky protagonists, a sinister villain, and constantly-shifting settings—all elements that could make a successful movie series. A film adaptation, titled Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was made in 2004. It adapted the first three books in the series, and became a moderate financial and critical success. Despite the success, no further films were made.

As a fan of Snicket’s …

Heaven's Disco Dances, Savannah Leigh Osbourn

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Heaven’s Disco Dances is a collection of poetry about finding identity through defamiliarization and displacing oneself from reality to better understand it. Within the literary community, there is a great deal of derision toward writing that fails to be “real” or “serious” enough, and poetry is an excellent example of how sometimes the extraordinary speaks to us in ways that realistic fiction cannot. The marvelous and fantastic might serve as an escape from the world, but not necessarily from reality. Rather, they give readers a different lens on life, and sometimes that makes it a more powerful one, because people …

老人与海: The Cultural Classroom Handbook, Jessica Ann Brumley

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea has gained global recognition as a literary masterpiece. This novel, although written by an American, is set in Cuba and features cultural elements from Latin America as well as North America. Classrooms around the world use this novel as a means of teaching English to second-language learners because of the comparatively simple grammatical structure and concise word choice.

One specific instance of this is the Chinese classroom, where some students have used The Old Man and the Sea as an introduction to American literature. Hemingway’s work, which has since been translated …

No Absolutes: A Fantasy Collection, Tiffany M. Hughes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Genre fiction, particularly fantasy and science fiction writing, has a mixed reception in academia across the world. The notion that make-believe characters and worlds could not be intellectually fulfilling is an old stereotype that reduces some of the most profound fiction of our era down to children’s tales. This fantasy collection serves as an example of how genre fiction can contain impactful stories that challenge our understanding of traditional values. As the title suggests, life, from relationships to self-identity, offers no absolutes for the future. Humanity faces uncertainty of the past, present, and future every day. These stories reflect the …

The Wizarding Words Of J. K. Rowling: Literary Merit In The Harry Potter Series, Brenna Sherrill

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Since hitting bookshelves in 1997, the Harry Potter series has taken the popular culture world by storm in an unprecedented way, breaking sales records for both books and films, and dramatically increasing readership among young readers. Despite its immense and unique success, this series, like many other examples of pop culture, doesn’t often receive the credit it deserves with respect to its literary merits. However, it is undeniable that the Potter books reflect many of the traits found in all great works of literature, including complex character development and abundant literary devices that elevate the intellectual level of the series. …

Bones, Frogs, And Killers: The Corporeal Oppression Of Women In The Patriarchal, Christian South, Shawna F. Felkins

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Both Alice Walker and Dorothy Allison create female protagonists who face corporeal oppression in their works The Color Purple and Bastard out of Carolina, respectively. It these protagonist’s feminine gender that allows the men in their lives to control them. Connecting these two authors and validating there assertions of the power of patriarchy to oppress women through the physical body, is author Lillian Smith and her work Killers of the Dream. There is a connecting thread running through these works that explains the reign of patriarchal oppression in the South: Christianity. Women, especially those in the Christian culture of the …

(Re)Incorporating Poetry Into The Secondary English Curriculum, Bethany L. Riggs

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This essay and unit plan examine and defend the teaching of poetry in high school English courses as a vital, practical, and major component of a curriculum. The instruction of poetry in public schools is strictly limited today, yet students gain skills through humanities classes that cannot be learned through other courses, such as critical thinking, self-expression, and analyzing abilities. These skills are translatable to additional subjects as well, including composing music, interpreting languages, evaluating arguments, solving problems, drawing conclusions, and understanding difficult concepts. How poetry is taught must also be examined, with regards to specific strategies, structural guidelines, and …

Written In Stone, Michelle Day

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

John Peter Zenger, Elijah Lovejoy, Gordon Parks, Walter Winchell and Katherine Graham were five famous journalists who impacted the industry in enduring ways. Whether writers, publishers or a photographer, these storytellers have had their stories told countless times over many years. This project seeks to combine journalistic research with a personal experiment in creative writing. Each chapter consists of story about one of the journalists, told either from their own perspective or someone else’s. Each piece should be considered historical fiction — not nonfiction — but the overall message and basic facts are true. Each story is different but reflects …

Youth And Legends: A Short Story Collection, Jennifer Kiefer

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

While young narrators or protagonists have been included in many famous works, such as J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, or Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, typically the main character of a work of fiction is mature. The pieces in this collection of stories, however, are centered around children. Adolescents act as the protagonists of the stories, exploring an adult world. The goal of this collect is not to contribute to young adult fiction or child fiction, but to appeal in style and form to adult readers in a mature, adult writing style. …

The King, The Cardinal, The Concubine, And The Chronicler: A Lesson In Fluid Prejudice, Sarah Crites

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

George Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey is one of the best known contemporary biographies from the Tudor era. Written during a time that has fascinated historians for centuries, Cavendish’s work has been used and quoted by many authors from many different time periods. These writers produced biographies of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the subject of Cavendish’s biography; Henry VIII, whom Wolsey served as chief minister; and Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s love and eventual queen. The dynamics among these three individuals is shown in Cavendish’s work and in subsequent biographies related to that era. As time passed, authors became more and more suspicious …