Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Topographies And Counter-Topographies Of Social Reproduction At People’S Park, Sarah Weaver

Scripps Senior Theses

Created at a key moment in New Left political rebellion and organizing in 1969, the mythic People’s Park still stands today between Dwight and Haste St. in Berkeley as open multi-use green space made of and for community development on lawful University of California Regent property. Despite repeated attempts by UC to take back the land, the insurgent space continues to pull defense from various parts of the local community, students and not, have accessed forms of self-determined social reproduction and created material critiques of UC as a vehicle for capital. For 54 years, the park was maintained significance as …

Remote Learning In The Era Of Covid-19: Accounting For Students' Personal Verve, Marissa Langley

Scripps Senior Theses

This study focuses on accommodating remote academic lessons for students’ personal verve levels. Personal verve is defined as the ability to adapt to and concentrate in environments with high levels of stimulation. The sociocultural psychologists Boykin discerned higher verve levels in Black communities compared to White communities. Boykin found that many Black students tend to learn best in high verve conditions, which incorporate aspects of African American culture like group work, varied activities, movement and noise, as opposed to traditional low verve conditions which consist of sitting quietly at a desk during lectures. White students tend to have low personal …

(Re)Producing The Neoliberal Subject: Child-Rearing Advice Literature Following "The Great Risk Shift", Sophie Boczek

Scripps Senior Theses

Following neoliberal restructuring in the 1980s, parenting advice literature experienced a significant growth in popularity. As the state largely transferred responsibility to individual citizens for economic survival, child-rearing discourse encouraged the cultivation of a subject who was best-suited for the contours of neoliberal life. This thesis explores the implications of this parenting rhetoric, as well as of the rise in popularity of parenting advice literature in neoliberal circumstances.

Sleight Of Hand: Gender, Performance, And (In)Sincerity In E. D. E. N. Southworth’S The Hidden Hand, Samantha Martin

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the many cultural anxieties that existed during the nineteenth century in antebellum America centered on the dubious status of authenticity of one’s emotions, gender expression, or socioeconomic class. The fluctuating socioeconomic landscape of antebellum America destabilized the logic of categorization, rendering it an ineffectual means by which to evaluate others’ identities. In her novel The Hidden Hand, or, Capitola the Madcap, E. D. E. N. Southworth explores instead of censures the transformative properties of the self, specifically in terms of gender and class. Her interest in this lack of authenticity, or transparency regarding one’s self and intentions, …

The Icon Formation Of Ruby Bridges Within Hegemonic Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine Cashion

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1960, when Ruby Bridges was six-years-old, she desegregated the formerly all white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. This thesis traces her formation as a Civil Rights icon and how her icon narratives are influenced by, perpetuate, or challenge hegemonic memory of the Civil Rights Movement. The hegemonic narrative situates the Civil Rights Movement as a triumphant moment of the past, and is based upon the belief that it abolished institutionalized racism, leaving us in a world where lingering prejudice is the result of the failings of individuals. Analysis of narratives about Ruby Bridges by Norman Rockwell, …

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …

Fake News: Latinos, Representacion, Ciudadanizo Y Trump, Grace Thieme

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis uses in-depth analysis of historical Los Angeles Times articles to trace the changing representations of the Latino community in the media. Focusing on themes of patriotism and citizenship, this thesis draws out the subtleties of syntax and semantics that silently influence public opinion. The Zoot Suit Riots and the Chicano Moratorium serve as the main historical backdrop, leading to a concluding exploration of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric surrounding immigration and the Latino community.

Shakespeare And Black Masculinity In Antebellum America: Slave Revolts And Construction Of Revolutionary Blackness, Elisabeth Mayer

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Shakespeare was used by Antebellum American writers to frame slave revolts as either criminal or revolutionary. By specifically addressing The Confessions of Nat Turner by Thomas R. Gray and "The Heroic Slave" by Frederick Douglass, this paper looks at the way invocations of Shakespeare framed depictions of black violence. At a moment when what it means to be American was questioned, American writers like Gray and Douglass turned to Shakespeare and the British roots of the English language in order to structure their respective arguments. In doing so, these texts illuminate how transatlantic identity still permeated …

How To Be A Good Neighbor: Christianity's Role In Enacting Non-Interventionist Policies In Latin America During The 1930s And 1940s, Joelle Leib

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to demonstrate how Reverend and Professor Hubert Herring’s dedication to Congregationalism motivated him to advocate for the autonomy of Latin American nations through the pursuit of non-interventionist policies, an approach the U.S. government ultimately adopted when it best suited its interests during World War II.

Adapting Skazki: How American Authors Reinvent Russian Fairy Tales, Sarah Krasner

Scripps Senior Theses

Adaptations of works have the potential to bring their subject matter to a new audience. This thesis explores the adaptation of Russian fairy tales into novels by authors Orson Scott Card and Joy Preble by looking at how they present Russian fairy tales, folkloric figures, and fairy tale structure to an American audience.

A Model For Empowerment: Lugenia Burns Hope’S Community Vision Through The Neighborhood Union, Madeleine Pierson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the work of reformer Lugenia Burns Hope and her community organization, the Neighborhood Union, as a case study to unpack scholarly characterizations of black elite uplift strategies during the early 20^th century. The Neighborhood Union was established in 1908 in Atlanta by Hope and women from the community to build stronger neighborhoods and to combat the deleterious effects of the 1906 Race Riots and Jim Crow laws. Neighborhood Union settlement houses provided basic and extracurricular services, including kindergartens for working mothers, vocational classes, and lecture series. The organization’s exceptional, multi-class leadership structure enabled members of the …

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 …

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 …

#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.

Annie Proulx's Wyoming: Subversive Storytelling From The Bunchgrass Edge Of The World, Elizabeth P. Tyson

Scripps Senior Theses

Annie Proulx’s three Wyoming short story collections, Close Range, Bad Dirt, and Fine Just the Way It Is, tell regional stories that push against the myths surrounding the American West. Elements of Naturalism in her work reverse the paradigm of man’s dominance over the frontier. The cyclical nature of time in her stories shows the unfulfilling nature of nostalgia. She uses folk storytelling techniques to take an insider’s perspective and to utilize the subversive nature of dark humor.

Magical Me: Self-Insertion Fanfiction As Literary Critique, Melody Strmel

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the traditions of textual interaction that impact the forms of reading engaged in with fanfiction. This thesis continues by exploring how self-insertion fanfiction functions as a medium through which authors express their reading of the text primary through the emotional impact of the text through wish fulfillment, and the interaction of their cultural moment and the text. Furthermore, it argues that self-insertion fanfiction is a mode of literary critique in which the author acknowledges the effect of a mediated world on their perception of self and reality. Through this recognition of a constructed self, the author rejects …

“It Made The Ladies Into Ghosts”: The Male Hero's Journey And The Destruction Of The Feminine In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! And Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Catherine Ruth Schetina

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis is a consideration of the intertextual relationship between William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. It considers the objectification and destruction of women and female-coded men in the service of the male protagonist's journey to selfhood, with particular focus on the construction of race, gender, and class performances.

"I'M A Little Pony And I Just Did Something Bad:" Feminist Pedagogy And The Organizing Ethics In The Rock 'N' Roll Camp For Girls, Caitlin Sweeney

Scripps Senior Theses

Misty McElroy had no idea when she crafted her senior undergraduate capstone project at Portland State University in 2001 that she was starting a worldwide phenomenon—the Rock ‘n’ Roll Campfor Girls. What started as a week-long summer camp for girls ages 8 to 17 to teach them how to play rock music has since blossomed into an organization with over 40 branches worldwide, serving 3000 girls every year and affecting the lives of thousands more women and girls in the surrounding communities. The Girls Rock Camp Alliance operates as the organizing body for the dozens of Rock Camps across the …

"A Single Finger Can't Eat Okra": The Importance Of Remembering The Haitian Revolution In United States History, Ashleigh P. Shoecraft

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis discusses the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the United States as a lens through which to view the transnational nature of American exceptionalism. It concludes with an articulation of the necessity of incorporating this relational nature of United States identity development into high school coursework, and advocates for teaching about the Haitian Revolution as an effective means through which to do this.

Televising Memory: The Tenth Anniversary Of 9/11, Jennifer Plumlee

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the formation of national memory by exploring tenth anniversary television coverage of 9/11. By analyzing themes of nationalism that structure the television specials and create a positive national memory, this thesis argues that the national memory of 9/11 serves current national goals and develops myths of American exceptionalism while it ignores the negative consequences and realities of 9/11.

Collective Memory, Commemoration And Ways Of Remembering Little Rock: 50 Years After The Integration Crisis At Central High School, Caroline Daly

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis uses the 50th Anniversary of the 1957 Integration Crisis at Central High School as a case study to explore issues of memory and remembrance. After looking at various forms of commemoration, Little Rock proves to provide key insights into the dangers of memory, as well as more effective ways of remembering.