Digital Commons Network^™

Cenabis Bene: A Culinary Odyssey Through Apicius, Kathryn Atkinson

Honors Scholar Theses

Apicius is the sole surviving cookbook from classical antiquity; as such it is invaluable for what it tells us about ancient feasting customs. Yet the gluttony typically associated with classical antiquity has no place in Apicius beyond the art that is inherently associated with food; we are not so much given a seat at the cena (dinner) as we are led into the kitchen, handed an apron, and instructed to cook. This critical analysis explores each recipe not only on the surface—i.e., examining the ingredients and recreating selected recipes—but also on a deeper level, lifting food above its concrete reality …

The Dreamwalker: A Novella In Progress, Camryn Johnson

Honors Scholar Theses

The DreamWalker is a fantasy novella based in the near future city of Nova where beings with extraordinary powers exist alongside "normal" humans. One night there was a mass raid on the homes of extras and they were thrown into the Centrum, a specially curated holding facility that keeps extras and their powers indefinitely imprisoned. Aybis, a Dreamwalker, is one of these beings, though she managed to escape this prison. Now she works for Marco, a handler of sorts, in the underground, using her ability to enter and sometimes manipulate dreams of the wealthy and elite clientele of Nova who …

What Makes A Salesman: Death Of A Salesman And The Politics Of Adaptation, Thomas Alvarez

Honors Scholar Theses

Arthur Miller has regularly been regarded as one of the most prominent American playwrights of all time, producing timeless and often innately political works designed in part to speak to his perspective on history as it has taken shape. This thesis will discuss the 1951, 1966, and 1985 American adaptations of Death of a Salesman—one of his greatest defining works—to draw attention to his specific perspective while exploring how this messaging can be recontextualized when decades and mediums separate an adaptation from its source text. Furthermore, this thesis will explore choices made by actors and screenplay writers, working to ascertain …

A Composer's Perspective On The Clarinet Concerto, Sarah Marze

Honors Scholar Theses

While seminal literature on concerto form analysis and compositions for clarinet and orchestra has been conducted, this undergraduate thesis is an exploration from a young composer’s perspective. My priority was discovering the breadth of what the clarinet concerto has to offer in order to learn how to place my own work as a composer into historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.
First, I present an abridged history of the clarinet concerto. Despite this musical form being hundreds of years old, concerto composition is still relevant today because it is a display of balance; the best concerti are delicate balancing acts of …

Forgotten Immigrant Voices: West Indian Immigrant Experiences And Attitudes Towards Contemporary Immigration, Danielle Cross

Honors Scholar Theses

Scholarly work and media coverage both point to the negative effect that the rhetoric and policy of former US President Donald Trump had on the lived experience and wellbeing of immigrant groups explicitly targeted by it (i.e., the “Trump effect”). Typically, the focus has been on Muslim and Latino immigrants as well as those less-explicitly targeted but still affected by Trump-era policies, such as temporary workers. This thesis explores whether Black immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, a group notably missing from the literature of “Trump effects” on immigrant experiences, experienced similar attitudinal or practical effects as a result of contemporary …

Museum Talk: Conversations Regarding Art Museums’ Practices And Policies, Eva Solano

Honors Scholar Theses

Taking the form of a podcast, Museum Talk: Conversations Regarding Art Museums’ Practices and Policies aims to explore the ways in which art museums have upheld racist policies, excluded BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals from their spaces, but also investigate what these institutions can do to become more welcoming and comfortable to people across all identities. With interviews from artists, activists, and scholars from various establishments, each guest provides their own perspectives, opinions, and personal experiences on the topic, which is beneficial to understanding the ways in which art museums are failing and what can be done better. …

“And We’Re Happy, So Happy, To Be Modern Women”: Dissociative Feminism On Screen And In Literature, Michaela Elizabeth Flaherty

Honors Scholar Theses

On-screen and literary works have increasingly represented a new, digital-age wave of postfeminism: dissociative feminism, which rejects happy-go-lucky, sex-positive fourth-wave feminism, instead embracing nihilism. Fleabag, the titular character of the hit BBC miniseries Fleabag (2016–9), embodies dissociative feminism, though she ultimately comes to reject this darkly relatable perspective. However, social media largely ignores this latter, essential aspect of her character arc and has taken to romanticizing Fleabag’s feminist ideology, effectively constructing a harmful and dangerous virtual echo chamber of dissociative feminism. Participants in this online discourse should instead turn to the HBO limited series I May Destroy You (2020) for …

Plague And Devastation In Ancient Greece: Why Mourning Matters, Hannah Kallin

Honors Scholar Theses

In 430 BC, The Plague of Athens swept through the city and left tens of thousands dead. Ancient historian Thucydides gives his account of the plague, detailing the consequent breakdown of order in the capital. Bodies could not be buried or mourned in the ideal traditional ceremonies, leaving surviving citizens unmoored and terrified. This paper explores the impact of interrupted mourning on ancient Greek society. These interruptions range from war and changing laws to periods of plague and widespread devastation. The emotional wellbeing of individual citizens depends on their ability to process death and associated grief with freedom and support …

As Seen On Screen: American Ambivalence Shown Through Death Penalty And Vigilante Films, Lisette Donewald

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States is one of the last western nations still practicing capital punishment. A history of and commitment to vigilantism and its ideals offers an explanation of America’s retention of capital punishment. Employing scholarship on law and popular culture and vigilantism, this thesis finds that pro-death penalty frames are prevalent in vigilante films while anti-death penalty frames are prevalent in films that focus specifically upon capital punishment. Since the 1960’s however, there has been a gradual shift towards anti-death penalty frames and away from pro-death penalty frames as well as changes in the themes presented in the two genres …

Starved For Knowledge: The Effect Of Language Deprivation And “Mainstream” Education On Deaf Accessibility To The United States Education System, Katherine Arpino

Honors Scholar Theses

The prevalence of language deprivation in deaf and hard of hearing youth makes the United States public education system fundamentally inaccessible to that portion of the population. Previous research has demonstrated that depriving prelingually deaf children of an accessible, visual language during the critical language acquisition period has long-term effects on their reading comprehension, mental health, social development, and cognitive development (Friedman and Rusoe, 2015; Hall et al., 2019; Cheng et al., 2019; Hall, 2017). Furthermore, the lack of bilingual-bimodal education (or purely signed education) in the United States public education system sets deaf children up for failure, as they …

The Disproportionate Impact Of Covid-19 On Women, Ava Stallone

Honors Scholar Theses

The impact of COVID-19 is placing a large strain on women. This can be seen through reports of mental health and financial concerns. Women are more vulnerable to COVID-19 related economic effects due to existing gender inequalities, which in turn may also have a negative effect on mental health. Through this study gender disproportion is looked at between mental health and COVID-19 financial concerns among women and men. The aim is to asses how COVID-19 financial concerns may be contributing to stress, anxiety, and depression. It is hypothesized that; women will report worse mental health and greater economic concerns than …

Analyzing Non-Strophic Forms Through The Facets Model: The Early Compositional Style And Technique Of Trey Anastasio And Phish, William Mandelbaum

Honors Scholar Theses

While a surprising amount of research has been conducted on the American “jam band” Phish, most academic scholarship that exists regarding the band is concerned of the cultures, rituals, and communities that surround the band and the jam band scene. Of the band’s music that has been analyzed, most analyze the band’s improvisation, leaving little to no scholarship concerning the band’s hyper-complex, fugue-like compositions, especially those composed by Trey Anastasio in the band’s early years from 1983-1989, most of which became Phish’s most popular and most performed songs in concert. This thesis will analyze the early compositional style and technique …

Explaining Reproductive Health Disparities: Violence In The “Colorblind” Institution Of Medicine, Chineze Osakwe

Honors Scholar Theses

Medical policies have resulted in violence that has a formal role in regulating the reproductive rights of women of African descent in the United States from the Jim Crow era (circa 1965) to present day (2021), resulting in significantly racialized reproductive health disparities regardless of social or economic influences. This thesis explores why reproductive violence against African-American women persists, regardless of women’s own class and educational background. I have focused on the potential impact of two structural components that I hypothesized contributed to the perpetuation of reproductive violence against Black women and persistent health disparities. The two factors explored in …

Knowing China, Losing China: Discourse And Power In U.S.-China Relations, Shankara Narayanan

Honors Scholar Theses

The U.S. government’s 2017 National Security Strategy claimed, “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”[1] Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the U.S. foreign policy community’s discursive shift towards Realist competition with China, with officials from the past three presidential administrations coming to view China as a threat to democratic governance and America’s security posture in Asia. The discourse underpinning the U.S.-China relationship, however, remains understudied. During key moments in the relationship, U.S. policymakers’ Realist intellectual frameworks failed to account for Chinese nationalism, suggesting a problem embedded within …

Asians And The Study Habits Of Non-Asians In The United States, Sabrina Tang

Honors Scholar Theses

In the United States, Asian American students spend an hour more per day studying than non-Asians (Hofferth et al. 2020). Chen and Stevenson (1995) attribute this to parents and peers who hold higher standards for Asian students. Compared to other races, Asian Americans tend to place a high value on education as a marker of achievement. This thesis explores whether Asian culture impacts non-Asian work ethic by examining whether non-Asians study more in geographic areas with larger Asian populations. I find statistically significant, but small increases in the study time of non-Asians where there is a greater population of Asians.

Sundered: A Novel-In-Progress, Erik Renner

Honors Scholar Theses

Sundered: A Novel-in-Progress is a creative thesis that discusses the creative process involved in preparing for and writing a fiction novel. It is a thesis of four parts: a critical preface documenting the history of the project and breaking down the creative process involved; the prologue to the eponymous novel-in-progress; an annotated example of an in-progress first chapter; and an annotated transcript of a character sketch made of the book's protagonist. The novel itself is a post-apocalyptic western, with some additional steam-punk and historical influences. The core theme of the project revolves around finding a peaceful way to fix a …

Identificando Determinantes Sociales De La Salud En La Comunidad De Granada, España (Identifying Social Determinants Of Health In The Community Of Granada, Spain), Mukund Desibhatla

Honors Scholar Theses

This interview-based Spanish Thesis podcast serves to identify and analyze vulnerable populations in the medical world and compare social determinants of health between the Granada and U.S. healthcare systems. My mission is to identify barriers to healthcare and also the resources to support disadvantaged people in overcoming them. For this qualitative research study, I opted for a unique interview-based style to converse directly with former mentors and colleagues of mine from Spain and open a candid dialogue on health equity and reform. I grew quite fond of Granada during my study abroad last year, which abruptly ended due to the …

Darkness Falls Upon America’S Backyard: An Evaluation Of Central Appalachia’S Past Economic Woes And A Blueprint For The Region’S Future Economic Development, Jack Bergantino

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States prides itself as a nation that offers equity and opportunity to its citizens. However, in recent decades, regions of relative wealth and poverty have come to define the American landscape. Coastal communities have fared well with consistently declining rates of unemployment and increasing rates of college graduation. In contrast, Central Appalachia, which comprises parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, continues to falter with diverging employment and income levels relative to other areas of the country.

This report discusses the economic history of the Appalachian region and considers three case studies, concentrated in McDowell, Harrison, and …

Preferred Narratives And Their Impact On Historical Memory: An Examination Through Comparison Of Twentieth Century Pandemics, Renee Semple

Honors Scholar Theses

Societal response to a crisis and the narratives that emerge from the event(s) often vary and oppose one another. A narrative can be considered a point of view or a lens that is often cultivated through experiences and carries its own tone while telling events. This thesis compares the narratives that emerged from both the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics. Examining the 1918 influenza pandemic reveals both a public and a private narrative, in which the public narrative is the preferred out of the two. Filled with optimism, the preferred public narrative focused on moving forward and furthering scientific research—a …

Une Exploration Du Style Et Du Message Dans Une Sélection D’Œuvres D’Annie Ernaux : L’Écriture « Qui Ne Ment Pas », Maya Benson

Honors Scholar Theses

Author Annie Ernaux comes from a humble background, but throughout her career she has proven to be on par with any member of the French literary elite. She has dominated the literary field in France for decades, publishing more than twenty books with Gallimard since 1974.

Annie Ernaux centers her writing around her own experiences. Some of her works are presented in the form of personal diaries. Journal du dehors(1993), for example, serves as a private diary bringing together moments from Ernaux’s life in the urban city of Cergy-Pontoise between 1985 and 1992, and Regarde les lumières mon amour …

Real Possibility: Modality And Responsibility, Julia Gaul

Honors Scholar Theses

Imagine: someone is backing out of a parking space and does not look in their rear view mirror. They subsequently hit a car that was passing by. One could argue that they simply could have avoided the accident had they looked in their mirror. This non-actual possibility, that they could have looked in the mirror, seems legally and morally relevant. One could also argue that they could have avoided the accident had they stuck their feet out of their window and sung La Marseillaise.

My leading questions is: how do we distinguish possibilities that are legally and morally relevant from …

Musical Ability And Accent Imitation, Maria Murljacic

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigates the intersection of musical ability and accent imitation, more specifically defining what factors cause a relationship between the two. The study was run on 50 participants, who each completed an accent imitation ability assessment, a musical ability assessment, and an articulation ability assessment. The scores for the accent imitation portion were rated by anonymous online raters. Each participant filled out a questionnaire on prior musical experience and were either classified as a musician or non-musician. The analysis found that those in the musician group performed better on the musical ability, articulation, and accent ability assessment than non-musicians. …

Iron Manicures: Sex, Power, And Sedition In Margaret Atwood's Writing, Anna Zarra Aldrich

Honors Scholar Theses

Margaret Atwood has often been criticized as a bad feminist writer for featuring villainous, cruel women. Atwood has combatted this criticism by pointing out that evil women exist in life, so they should in literature as well. Every story requires a villain and a victim, for Atwood these roles are both usually played by women. This thesis will explore the idea of the woman as spectacle in both behavior and body. Women are controlled by the idea that they must care. When they stop caring, they become a threat. At the heart of Atwood’s writing are the relationships between women …

Driven Towards Whiteness: The 1968 Election And White Supremacy, Arianna Tsikitas

Honors Scholar Theses

Existing literature highlights the political interaction between the Republican party and civil rights, how civil rights impacted the white ethnic revival, and the appeals made by the Republican party to keep their new voters happy. Many are familiar with the history of discrimination against Eastern European immigrants, yet the process through which they adopted white identity politics is another matter. The role of right-wing activists and leaders during the Wallace Presidential campaign was instrumental in connecting these dots for the Republican leadership, however this too goes largely unnoticed. My thesis will complement existing literature by tracing the involvement of these …

Incentivized Learning And Libraries: A Comparative Study Of Summer Reading Programs In Connecticut, Andrew Morrison

Honors Scholar Theses

With digital forms of entertainment and media more inescapable than ever, it has become increasingly difficult to encourage children and teens to read. Simultaneously, despite an overwhelming amount of literature demonstrating the educational benefits of reading, especially as a necessity in the summer between academic years, library budgets are shrinking as federal funding nears its end. How do libraries promote summer reading amidst declining interest and decreased funding? Using data from public libraries across Connecticut, this paper investigates how libraries are adapting their children's summer reading programs to a changing landscape, how programs are designed to incentivize reading without eliminating …

Bach-To Ysaÿe: History And Performance Considerations Of Sonata No. 2, Mai Vestergaard

Honors Scholar Theses

Eugene Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata No. 2 has been influenced by the baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach and the musical techniques brought forth by the Franco-Belgian Violin School. Each sonata movement has musical elements incorporating virtuosic techniques such as ponticello, chromaticism, and emphasis of the tri-tone. The performer draws attention to the audience by using advanced performance practices to change the piece's color and story. Ysaÿe engages with these ideas to share a musical and personal journey through each sonata movement, dedicating it to Jacques Thibaud. This violin sonata is a pinnacle to the violin repertoire, emphasizing the importance of …

Consumer Response To Green Brands Vs. Traditional Brands On Digital Platforms: An Analysis Through A Series Of Case Studies, Madison Busick

Honors Scholar Theses

In the age of environmental crisis, consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their decisions. Accordingly, many companies seek to provide more eco-friendly and sustainable products while building their brand around these values. Consumers also are increasingly using and engaging on social media and other digital platforms. But just how well do these "green" brands do in the digital space? This study aims to compare differences between brands that embody environmentalist values and traditional brands with a variety of case studies across several consumer goods segments including clothing, cosmetics, and technology. The data is collected from a variety …

Mirrors Of Our Own: Multiracial Representation In Children’S Picture Books, Kiana Foster-Mauro

Honors Scholar Theses

The United States multiracial population is a fast-growing portion of our population. As the multiracial population grows, so does the need for multiracial representation within books. This study analyzed the representation of multiracial individuals in children’s picture books for ages newborn-8. I identified 75 board and picture books published in the United States between the years 2009 and 2019 that feature mixed race characters. The identified texts were analyzed in a critical content analysis using a framework based upon Critical Race Theory. Through this framework, I examined how multiracial characters in the texts are portrayed, the power dynamics, and what …

User Research And Real User Problems: Improving The User Experience Of Online Shopping, Lauren Ciulla

Honors Scholar Theses

“User Research and Real User Problems: Improving the User Experience of Online Shopping” is a creative thesis project that incorporates user research, user experience design, and coding skills. The first phase of the project consisted of market research and generative user research to develop a plan for a shopping companion app. The findings of this research shaped the scope of the project according to user needs and established the basis of a plan to create a progressive web application and Google Chrome browser extension that will respond to specific user problems. These tools would solve three key user problems: users …

Narratives Of Incarcerated Women, Kaceylee Klein

Honors Scholar Theses

Our criminal-justice system mandates the silencing and disappearing of 2.3 million people, a consequence of its historical context as an inherently violent institution, carrying on traditions of slavery, oppression, and extortion. While any voice that makes it out of a prison cell is resisting the effort to silence, smother, and make compliant the voices of those labeled criminal, the form of publication of that voice allows more or less agency to the author depending on its conventions and structures. There is a spectrum from more controlled or mediated forms of publications to more author-directed ones and they vary over the …