Locked Up And Locked Out: True Stories Of Individuals Who Experienced The Intersection Between Homelessness And The Criminal Justice System, Jean Johnson

Senior Honors Projects

JEAN JOHNSON (Criminology & Criminal Justice)

Locked Up and Locked Out: True Stories of the Interlocking Cycle of

Homelessness and the Criminal Justice System

Sponsor: Jill Doerner (Criminology & Criminal Justice, Sociology & Anthropology), Heather Johnson (Writing & Rhetoric)

Key locks work when a key made with teeth is placed into a cylinder with a series of pins and tumblers. If you don’t insert the right key one or more of the pins will remain in the way, preventing the key from turning and the lock will remain closed. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, tens of …

Villains, Morality, And Redemption: A Content Analysis Of Children’S Movies, Iqra Ishaq

Senior Honors Projects

Research on children’s movies has yielded important findings on messaging about gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability, mental illness, aging, and even death. All of this research has recognized the important role children’s movies play in children’s upbringing and informal education. Not only do children’s movies reflect the commonly-held values of the time, but they impart these values to their audience. Children, as the target audience of these movies, are extremely susceptible to absorbing these values and messages.

My research examines what messages children’s movies impart about villains. It includes a content-analysis of 80 full-length animated movies released by Disney, DreamWorks, …

Criminal Justice Systems: Impacts That Transcend Borders & Prison Bars, Erika Yeager

Senior Honors Projects

Historically, the concepts of criminal justice and punishment have been core facets of many societies and cultures. The evolution of crime and punishment is unique in different places across the world and across cultures. The incarceration of individuals across the globe has turned into an epidemic; according to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, there are almost 10.4 million individuals imprisoned around the world (“Global Prison Trends” 7). By researching this political and sociological phenomenon, more insight is gained into the tangible impacts systemic models of criminal justice have on societies and countries as a whole. These individualized systems and …

Climate Change, Colonialism, And Second-Class Citizenry: A Case Study Of The Impacts Of Hurricane María In Puerto Rico, Aislyne Calianos

Senior Honors Projects

The hurricane season of 2017 was a historic one, with mammoth storms making landfall one after another, in what seemed like an unrelenting assault on our coastal cities and communities. Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston, Irma plowed through Florida, and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, but one of these storms was unlike the others. Why is it that the American citizens of our southern states were able to recover so much more quickly than our citizens in Puerto Rico? In the era of climate change, we will be forced to reckon with the modern legacy of colonialism, as vulnerable communities must face …

Theater As A Civic Practice, Charlie Santos

Senior Honors Projects

Contemporary artists are working within a cultural moment saturated with political fervor. The ideologies of social and political movements such as Black Lives Matter, Queer Rights, and Gun Control weigh heavily on the minds of young artists. More and more, I see actors, writers, and creators struggling to reconcile their identities as artists and identities as political beings. How do artists resolve the internal dissonance between their artistic and political spheres? Is activist art an opportunity to synthesize these two spheres? Or might creating art for political ends pose ethical and/or aesthetic hazards? On the one hand, creating political art …

The Golden Girls: Addressing Issues Of Gender, Stigma, And Illness On Network Television, Miles Martin

Senior Honors Projects

Over thirty years after its 1985 premiere, The Golden Girls remains an alluring and nostalgic presence in the cultural consciousness of America. In this work, I investigate exactly what it is about this magical show that has caused it to endure across generations, and in so doing, illuminate how television in general can transcend incidental popularity and have a lasting impact on those who view it. I frame this examination within the topic of disenfranchised illness, a subject that, given events such as the rise of HIV/AIDS, the emergence of crack-cocaine addiction, and the discovery of chronic fatigue syndrome in …

The Theology And Agency Of Love As The Substance Of Kingian Non-Violent Philosophy And Activism., Matthew Quainoo

Senior Honors Projects

The theology of Love focuses on King’s understanding of God as love:

A Research Abstract (Project Summary)

Problem: Almost 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., controversy continues to swirl around the motivational forces that inspired the nonviolence approach employed by King in his fight for equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. Some scholars argue that Kings was inspired by such advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha Shakyamuni. Others believe that Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence was an expression of the Christian theology of God …

Primetime Crime And Its Influence On Public Perception, Katherine E. Stott

Senior Honors Projects

Since the television became more readily available to the American public in the 1940s and 50s, television shows have captured the attention of the nation. While television programs and televisions themselves have changed since then there are a few constants, one being the continued popularity of crime shows. From Sunday to Saturday during ‘prime time’ on just the four major networks, there are over fifteen hours of crime programming. The shows aim to entertain, leading them to show many inaccuracies about crime and the justice system in America. Studies have shown that most white Americans receive their information about crime …

The Implications Of Merleau-Ponty For The Human Sciences, Ryan Marcotte

Senior Honors Projects

The Implications of Merleau-Ponty for the Human Sciences Ryan Marcotte Cobb Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy The American Anthropology Association (AAA) made headlines in November 2010 due to a controversial change in their 'Long-Range Plan.' The revised AAA mission statement omits all mention of the word 'science' and this omission has sparked a fierce debate within the anthropology community. The debate reveals that the study of social phenomena can be approached from two competing points of view – a scientific and a non-scientific perspective. This project is concerned with the historical and intellectual developments that led to this competition between …

Marcuse On The Two Dimensions Of Advanced Industrial Society And The Significance Of His Thought Today, Michael C. Hartley Mr.

Senior Honors Projects

Herbert Marcuse was a philosopher and social theorist who wrote extensively about the dynamics of social change in the technologically advanced societies of the Western world. Motivated by the desire to see humanity develop societies that would allow for individuals to live a free and happy existence, Marcuse critiqued the existing societies of his time. Although Marcuse’s main work, One-Dimensional Man, is over forty years old, it can continue to offer us new insights today. I believe that Marcuse’s thought offers a powerful framework for analyzing our contemporary society. In this project I distill this framework, what could be …

Gender Minority Elder Care, Yisrael Malotte-Berger

Senior Honors Projects

The challenges facing older adults are great, including the challenges involved in finding quality healthcare and, potentially, assisted living or nursing residences. The challenges for older transsexual, transgender, and intersex (TGI) adults are compounded due to lack of sensitivity and confidentiality with regard to TGI patients or residents that is prevalent amongst especially lower level healthcare professionals. Part of the project was to develop an evaluation tool for changes in attitude and practical knowledge, to be administered as pre- and post-tests at employee trainings at elder care facilities. It was the goal of this project to evaluate the training programme …

“Do You Not Know What Happens To Mothers In America?”, Angela Santopietro

Senior Honors Projects

Joan Kofodimos, author of, Balancing Act: How Managers Can Integrate Successful Careers and Fulfilling Personal Lives (1993), defines work-family integration as, “Having a satisfying, healthy, and productive life that includes work, play, and love; that integrates a range of life activities with attention to self and to personal and spiritual development; and that expresses a person’s unique wishes, interests, and values.” It is particularly important to help working mothers gain work-family integration, also known as work-family balance, because of the effects on family, work, and society. The burden of work and family often falls disproportionately on the shoulders of working …

Hip Hop Is Dead: The Rhetoric Of Hip Hop, Kalyana Champlain

Senior Honors Projects

There is no doubt that Hip Hop has become a most influential international force. This animal has had many faces: two of these faces have been as a political tool as displayed by Public Enemy, and as a therapeutic release-- as I discovered while in AmeriCorps interning at AS220 for a program called Hip Hop 220, in which we took underprivileged youth and helped them to channel their energy through this art form. However, there is a dark side to this culture that includes extreme misogyny, self- sabotage, hatred, and an unhealthy obsession with status. As I reflected on these …

Organizing For Community Benefit: Anti-Gentrification Effort In Providence, Ri, Katiuska Pérez

Senior Honors Projects

Throughout my college experience I didn’t really gain any basic foundation on how to organize and work with a group of people in a collective effort. I thought the best way to learn these skills in such a short amount of time would be to work with an organization that has been campaigning for positive social change for many years. I was referred to DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) in Providence. I approached the director of the organization, Sara Mersha, and shared with her what I wanted to gain from a possible internship in her organization. She gave …

Don't Ask Don't Tell And The Uri Community, Justin Thames

Senior Honors Projects

When Bill Clinton and his staff introduced the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Bill(US Code 10) it created quite a controversy. The bill was designed to replace the then current system of asking for an individual’s sexual orientation on a military application thus making homosexuality a barrier to service in the United States Armed Forces. The bill was finally passed in 1993 and is meant to keep people in power from discriminating on the basis of homosexuality. This new law requires that no investigations be launched to identify the sexual orientation of a service member nor will hearsay be allowed to …

Explorations Of Self: A Philosophical Inquiry, Meredith Rathbun

Senior Honors Projects

Asking “Who am I?” seems to be something that everybody ponders. This concept of “I”—what is it? We all have an individual and unique “I”—something that has been with each of us since birth, something that has changed and grown, but also stayed the same in many ways. My question “What is The Self?” is imperative. What is it that experiences life, if not The Self? When a 99-year-old man watches his last sunset, reflecting on his life, what inside of him is doing that reflecting? As you read my ideas on this page, what inside of you is processing …

Genocide: A Humanities Prospective, Linda Nico

Senior Honors Projects

In 1943, Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” to describe the horrific events of the holocaust. Soon after, world leaders gathered and famously proclaimed “Never again.” Since the 1940’s the leaders of these same nations have seen similar atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Timor, and even today in Sudan, but taken little responsibility in aiding the victims of these unspeakable acts. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 has done little to encourage the neither prevention nor punishment of the crimes of genocide. Who will study and analyze the subject of genocide, the …

Donde Habite El Olvido (Reflected In The Photograph), Michaela Mccaughey

Senior Honors Projects

The concept of place, so intangible and yet embedded in all, remains a complicated and debated philosophical topic. What is place? Why are we drawn to certain places and averse to others? Why does a sense of home continue to feel so necessary to us – when there we are nurtured by it and when separated we long for it. Art works, places in themselves, provoke similar questions in us. We are drawn to certain works of art; they signify something to us in their being-in-the-world. Their place matters to us. Art is a place you can return (home) to. …