Digital Commons Network^™

Samuel Huntington's Clash Of Civilizations And Its Allure For The Past Thirty Years, Michaela Munda

Departmental Honors Projects

Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote, taught, and advised on United States defense and foreign policy for over fifty years. The 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, is by far the most prominent of Huntington’s works. Though the work pertained to the world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union, his urging to understand factors that would set up the next stages of world conflict seem to hold truth throughout the last thirty years, and even in the present. Huntington argues that culture and identity will be at the forefront of global conflict. …

“It’S In The Blood”: American Working-Class Identity And Memory Within Transformations Of Capitalism, Andy Stec

Departmental Honors Projects

This case study of northeastern Minnesota examines the economic, social, and cultural consequences of deindustrialization as it occured in the 1970s and 1980s. Operating under the understanding that deindustrialization is a symptom of the latest systemic transformation in capitalism, this case study helps us understand the interplay between global restructurings of world capitalism and the voices on the ground - those workers and residents in communities caught up in the sweeping tide of industrial decline. Through national, regional, and labor newspapers, recorded interviews, and interviews carried out by the author this research illuminates a particular reaction to economic decline: the …

Darwinian Evolutionary Theory And Constructions Of Race In Nazi Germany: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Darwin’S Works And Nazi Rhetoric, Emily M. Wollmuth

Departmental Honors Projects

First published in 1856, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is one of the most impactful scientific writings in history. While the influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory on historical events has been widely studied, no single work of scholarship has previously combined close reading of Origin’s representations of “race” with analysis of how those constructions of “racial” difference are (mis)translated across the cultural discourses of the eugenics movement and Nazi Germany. Through comparative cultural studies and close literary analysis of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Darwin’s works—including Origin, Descent of Man, and Voyage of the Beagle, this paper examines how evolutionary …

Entangled: Romantic Love And Philosophy, Sydney E. Thorp

Departmental Honors Projects

In order to do philosophy, one must understand what it is. Often one has to develop this understanding on their own, since the philosophical canon has such a range of attitudes, styles, and objects. In this paper, philosophy is a dialogue, a conversation spanning space and time, as well as the inside of one's own head. Philosophy is not something that can provide an absolute truth about reality; rather, philosophy is a means of describing how the philosopher thinks reality ought to be.

To exemplify this understanding of philosophy, this paper is written as fiction. It follows two people as …

Proto-Postmodernism: Constructing Postmodern Ethics Through Cold War Literature And Theory, Rock Lamanna

Departmental Honors Projects

While postmodern theory and literature is typically viewed as either “anti-humanist” or a rejection of Humanism, this essay reconsiders these assumptions by exploring ethical questions in early postmodern novels and theory, referred to as “proto-postmodernism.” For proto-postmodernists such as Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut, Humanism—the ethical framework that asserts a centered “self” and a collective “metanarrative” of human progress—causes and legitimates violence, yet in their theories and literature, they promote the humanist value of dignity in their critiques of modern ethics and politics. To examine this hybrid stance toward Humanism, the first section situates …

Three Pluralisms: Theories, Methodologies, And Levels Of Analysis In The Study Of World Politics, Lucas M. Dolan

Departmental Honors Projects

For much of its history, the discourse of International Relations (IR) has been characterized by clashes between paradigms, exclusion of non-positivist research methodologies, and the marginalization of various subfields. Since the fourth debate “pluralism” is rapidly becoming a buzzword within the literature, but without serious conceptual analysis “pluralism” risks becoming another intellectual fad given lip-service but not engaged with in a way that could produce positive change within the discipline. This project examines three varieties of pluralism: theoretical, methodological, and pluralism of level of analysis. A brief intellectual history of pluralism in international relations is outlined, culminating in the works …

What Experience Can’T Tell: How To Show Reality In Young Adult Fiction, A Female Warrior’S Story, Jessica A. Walker

Departmental Honors Projects

Young adult literature is a medium that catapults our youth into fictional realms, gives them courage, and prepares them for realities of our world. As a female warrior, having served as a soldier in Afghanistan, I learned firsthand what a female warrior must be. While there are many YA novels written with women warriors as main characters, there’s a significant lack of female warrior representation that resembles our modern day military and the trials female warriors face in a primarily male-dominated field.

I have examined four authors who have tackled the issue of strong female warriors. While each author depicts …