Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, And Derision”: Carroll's Use Of Mathematics And Literature To Critique Victorian Britain., Diana Schneider

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis examines Lewis Carroll's writing through the lens of mathematics, arguing that Victorian mathematical theory and pedagogy are crucial contexts for understanding his literary works. Carroll is generally regarded as an author who specialized in works of literary nonsense such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Little attention is paid to his career as a mathematician at Oxford, yet mathematics occupied a considerable amount of his time and consumed his thoughts, as evidenced by his diaries and letters. This thesis therefore addresses a gap in Carroll scholarship and bridges two academic disciplines rarely brought together. Chapter One argues that Alice's …

Theatre For A New Theater: A Play On Architecture, Alex Coulombe

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The project entails transforming a former military fort into a theater. The scopic parameters native to both fort and theater can provide a field of operation for an architecture that simultaneously mobilizes and exposes the machinery of spectacle. In tandem, amplifying and distorting existing conditions of the fort and repurposing them for a theatrical program can provide catalytic parameters for design that are typically absent when designing from a clean slate.

Naked Truth Soap For Men: Brand Identity, Jenna Passmore

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The essential idea of this project is to develop an entire brand identity for a fictional soap company for men that I created called Naked Truth. A brand identity encompasses visual components like logo, color and design aesthetic that help a brand stick in a consumer’s mind. In the real world of advertising, the concept of a brand identity at the forefront of any advertising a company releases. Consumers are inundated with hundreds of ads everyday, so it is important for a company to know who they are and whom they want to sell their products to in order to …

Meet Pig Guy: An Animated Character Study In 3-D, Michael Lebson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The 3D animation, “Meet Pig Guy,” is an introduction to the character Pig Guy, who I have designed over the past year and a half. Pig Guy is a world renowned super-hero that is enormously successful in his professional endeavors, but has flaws, shortcomings, and imperfections that make him very human. In this one minute and 20 second long animated short, we get a glimpse into his behaviors through a candid situation of himself in his basement. “Meet Pig Guy” presents us with a problem of his, the abuse of his superpower to eat anything he wants.

My work over …

Fashion Campaign: Katy Ann Lyons New York, Katy Ann Lyons

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Over the past four years, my skill, technique, and style as a fashion design major at Syracuse University has grown and developed enormously. I came to college with no prior experience in sewing or garment construction but after much practice and patience, I have learned the basic skills necessary to design and to make wearable clothing. Consequently, when it came time to choose a topic for my Capstone project, I sought a creative project that would serve to showcase the expertise I have developed during my time in school.

The concept of my project is an advertising campaign featuring the …

Gary’S Sneakers A 3d Animated Short, Meg Grube

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Gary’s Sneakers, a collaboration between Kelsey Adams and myself, is a 3D animated short about a young boy and his sneakers. The short features Gary, an unmotivated individual who has no other apparent interests aside from playing video games. Unfortunately, his unused pair of running sneakers are very bored and, upon being inspired by a magazine advertisement, conspire to get Gary up and in action.

To create this, Kelsey and I covered the entire animation production pipeline. We began with a story, and proceeded to create an animatic that further developed and clarified out storyline. We chose to created …

Editing The Outcrowd, Alex Kish

Honors Capstone Projects - All

My capstone project is the completion of two issues of The Outcrowd, a student run lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and ally magazine at Syracuse University. I served as editor-in-chief of the publication from fall 2009 to spring 2010. As a magazine journalism major, my leadership position on t this campus magazine helped improve my editorial skills, and taught me to become a more effective leader. Both issues were published toward the end of both semesters and were distributed across Syracuse University’s campus.

My reflective essay discusses the editorial vision behind the publication. Since its creation, The Outcrowd has …

Lost And Found: Stories From London (A Graphic Novel), Brianna Collins

Honors Capstone Projects - All

My Honors Capstone project falls under the Creative project category. It is a sixty-four page graphic novel entitled Lost and Found: Stories from London. It is a collection of stories and moments from my semester abroad in London in the spring of 2009, when I was a second semester junior. I kept a series of journals during my time abroad, and the content from those journals eventually became the stories that I transformed into the pages of my book.

In essence, the research for my project was my everyday life. From going on weekend trips to other countries like Ireland, …

A Field Guide To The Irish Fantastic; A Study In Concept Art, Elizabeth Ames Gross

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract Not Included

Gary’S Sneakers: A 3d Animated Short, Kelsey Adams

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Gary’s Sneakers is a 3D animated short that I made with my collaborator, Meghan Grube, for the Honors Capstone Creative Project. It is a narrative featuring three main characters: a teenage boy named Gary and his two sneakers. In this animation the large clash with the small as the lazy Gary finds himself at odds with his sneakers. It is a battle of inactivity versus dynamic movement, as the sneakers fight the sedentary lifestyle choices of their owner.

Based in the world of 3D animated shorts, Gary’s Sneakers was inspired by many other works in the genre, particularly those from …

Failure Is Not An Option: A Look At The Dropout Crisis In America, Aida Mogos

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not Included

Exploring The Space Of Resistance: Art As A Site Of Re-Orientation, Lauren Emily Stansbury

Honors Capstone Projects - All

How are we oriented toward things outside our bodies? More specifically, how are our bodies tethered by the hooks of ideology, lurched forward in the inertia of consumer capitalism, or led tacitly by state and social apparatuses? This orienting of our bodies toward prescribed action relies on the conscious recognition these (abstract) objects exterior to our selves—we must face them, to complete the orienting process. But what happens when we turn away? And what kind of objects could so capture our attention, as to divert the normative gaze from the ushers of hegemonic power? Art that exists outside of commodity …

The Connection Between Humans And Things In Tim O’Brien’S The Things They Carried, Allison Polster

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Most will remember Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War narrative, The Things They Carried, for its exploration of the war experience of American soldiers and for its original style and form. While less conspicuous, O’Brien also provides a complex account of the role of things in relation to his characters throughout the collection of short stories. In my paper, I argue that the soldier characters depend on things to help them survive the war (physically and mentally) and that this strong dependence on things ends up having a damaging effect on the men. The soldiers’ fixation on things plays a key …

An Argument For Moral Nihilism, Tommy Fung

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This project outlines what free will and moral responsibility would require in the truest sense, and will argue that we, as agents, do not truly exercise free will, and are thus not morally responsible for our choices. The project dismisses the Principle of Alternate Possibilities as the judge of moral responsibility, while establishing that being the source of one’s action is required for true moral responsibility. It discusses what causal determinism is, why its existence would threaten moral responsibility. The project then attacks the stance that holds that moral responsibility and determinism are compatible, even though they have a different …

A Postcard From The Library: A Study Of Perceptions Of Italy And Foreigners Abroad Through Time, Kathlyn Valianti Collins

Honors Capstone Projects - All

A representative selection of European and American literature reveals a culturally constructed function ofItalyas the place of revelation for foreign visitors. This literary construction, founded in a long history of travel from pilgrimage to mass tourism, contextualizes the experience of American students such as myself when we live and study in Italy whether we realize it or not.

Theatre For A New Theater: A Play On Architecture, Alexander Coulombe

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Not Included

Backwards Romanticism Or A Glimpse Of The Future? The Visual Language Of Reactionary Modernism In National Socialist Landscape Painting, Jennifer A. Gramer

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In 1935, two years prior to the opening of the House of German Art in Munich, Adolf Hitler declared the following during a speech to the German people in Nuremberg:

“Art, precisely because it is the most direct and faithful emanation of the Volksgeist, constitutes the force that unconsciously models the mass of the people in the most active fashion, on condition that this art is a sincere reflection of the soul and temperament of a race and is not a deformation of it.”

Numerous scholars have noted the importance and necessity of art in the creation and molding …

The Intercultural Ancients: A Mock Exhibit Exploring The Cross-Cultural Influences In The Representation Of Women In Ancient South Asian And Ancient Mediterranean Art, Roshni Bhambhwani

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This project is a mock-exhibit which explores the existence the crosscultural diffusion between the early people of the Mediterranean (from the Balkan Peninsula to the Syrian coast) and South Asia (from Afghanistan to Bhutan). The components of the project are an exhibition catalog and 3D exhibition design. Although there is substantial evidence of ancient contacts between the Aegean (Balkan Peninsula, Crete, Cyclades) and the Near East (Syria, South Turkey, Eastern Iraq, Western Iran) and South Asia and the Near East, there is little scholarship in the evidence-scarce topic of communication between the Aegean and South Asia. This exhibit broaches this …

True You Magazine, Amanda Romaniello

Honors Capstone Projects - All

True You Magazine was created because of the turmoil and conflict that today’s media creates for young girls between the ages of 10 years old and 14 years old. Girls of this age are highly susceptible to influences of any media form, including magazines, television shows, and movies. In the magazine industry, there are many women’s and teen fashion and health magazines. Unfortunately, the majority of these publications lack healthy representation of female bodies. Some of these magazines also discuss and advise on topics, like sex or dieting, that girls in this young age range should not be reading.

Knowing …

The Great Teakon: A 3d Video Game, Chad Cable

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Great Teakon is an experimental 3D video game that uses gameplay as a narrative device. Players take charge of Charles Teakon, a rising film star, during the silent film era in the early 1900ʼs. But when Charles breaks his leg on set, heʼs forced into retirement and obscurity. After a 30 year hiatus, he decides to return to the film world and complete his unfinished movie. ! As the protagonist ages, so will the players - not only is this reflected in the physicality of the characters, landscape, and architecture, but the actual mechanics for interacting with the virtual …

Gender In Italian Films During The Transition From The Fascist Regime To The Republic: 1943-1946, Ashley Lena Poulin

Honors Capstone Projects - All

How was film initially used by Mussolini and the Fascist regime? With the fall of Fascism in 1943, how did filmmakers, who worked under and were sympathetic to the regime, transition? How did Italian filmmakers grapple with the memory of the legacy of Fascism and WWII, while also looking to the future, during the transition from German occupation, which was followed by liberation via American occupation? And of the greatest concern in this essay, how was gender used as the tool for projecting this brand new idea ofItaly? In other words, in what ways do gender roles in Italian Cinema …

Collaborating For Social Change: Photographic Empowerment And Activist Blogging, Jennifer Dana Weill

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Much of my coursework in my major, Women’s and Gender Studies, focuses on the way that certain identities have been privileged, oppressed, stereotyped and marginalized both socially and systematically on local and global scales. In particular, I study how societal institutions disadvantage and discriminate against non-hegemonic groups of people and the resistance and collaboration that these people have engaged in to challenge the dominant institutions.

These themes inspired me to design and create a collaborative photography collection on oppression and stereotyping among students at Syracuse University. The photographs are based on histories and stories that my participants shared with me …

Gender Identity And Social Networking: A Queer-Feminist Critique Of Facebook, Gregory David Sides

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The purpose of my project is to foster critical discussions of the on-line social networking site Facebook by analyzing gender politics as mechanisms used on Facebook to include or restrict acceptance of users. I implement a gender-queer methodology in my work. This methodology complicates traditional understandings of sex and gender, and views them as a fluid continuum where one might exist anywhere between male and female, and beyond. In lieu of a traditional academic paper, I have made the conscious choice to execute my methods, methodology, and critique into an art piece. This serves an important purpose of making my …

Emigre Anti-Imperialists And America's Philippines, 1898-1899, Alex Schmidt

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis considers similarities between key members of the American Anti-Imperialist League who, born in the Old World, emigrated to the United States and became luminaries in their adopted country.

The American Anti-Imperialist League formed in 1898 to oppose America’s annexation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Anti-war activists had not prevented the conflict itself, but members of the new League hoped to effect a real protest against the United States taking far-flung Pacific colonies.

The League drew support from a vast array of Americans. With diverse branches in several major American cities, its members included writers, businessmen, philosophers, …

Homecoming, Sandra Appiah

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The media is a business, but unfortunately has the greatest impact on society. Today, most people get their information from the Media and tend to believe everything it presents without much of a critical analysis or reflection. Africa is a continent filled with many natural resources, a unique culture, a rich history, and more. However when one turns on the Television in the western society, all that is presented is the negative side of Africa. We see the starvation and aids epidemic, we see the tribal wars, corruption, and more. There is always the presentation of the need for charity …

Beneath The Waves, Allison Nast

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Beneath the Waves is an original, feature-length screenplay. It is a fairy tale set in Ireland, where a woman dives to the bottom of the ocean to reclaim her husband, who had been taken by mermaids. She succeeds in rescuing her husband, and in doing so discovers that mermaids are not the beautiful women of legend, but rather man-eating deep-sea creatures. I wrote the short story Brigid and the Mermaids in my junior year in order to get the basic storyline down in an understandable form. In writing the screenplay I used the free screenwriting program Celtx, which formats easily …

Amanda Green, Alex Piliouras

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I have submitted for my Capstone Project three interactive scripts for the series Amanda Green. The series features a fourteen-year-old girl, Amanda Green, who solves mysteries with her friend Jerome relating to school and social life. In the pilot episode, submitted here, Amanda hopes to ask the school heartthrob to the dance, but is robbed of the opportunity when the principal announces that the dance is canceled due to an act of vandalism. After her grandmother regales her with an inspirational story, Amanda decides to head an investigation of the crime scene in the hopes of solving the mystery …

Still Water, Louis Foglia

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Still Water is full-length feature screenplay with the driving premise that vengeance creates suffering. While the script might be characterized as a procedural in that relies heavily on the plot to create suspense and to sustain a dramatic momentum that keeps the audience engaged, I was also interested in adding a layer of provocative depth to the story. Consequently, Still Water explores the themes of guilt, redemption, vengeance, corruption, and Italian-American identity.

Still Water is the story of the Sippilini family. During his campaign for Manhattan District Attorney, the family’s patriarch, Richard, gets involved in a corruption scandal that ultimately …

Red Rock: An Original Dramatic Tv Series, Jared Shalek

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The concept of my Capstone Project is a screenplay for an original, dramatic television series. The idea was conceived during the summer going into my senior year, as I examined the script I had just written for TRF 400: Dramatic Writing for Television, a class I took in spring 2009 with Tom Seeley. I had labored over the script for the second half of that semester, and Professor Seeley really liked the idea from the start, but ultimately I did not fare as well I wanted to in terms of the final grade. Thus, I decided that I would redraft …

Visualsthesia: Complex Music Visualization For Live Performance, Tracy Lee Dendy

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Visualsthesia is intended as an interactive visual experience made for the musicians who have influenced my studies while I've been attending Syracuse University. I offer these musicians a gift that I have imagined and created in honor of them, using the medium I desired to grow in. Visualsthesia is a visualization of a live musical performance generated in real-time. The concept is based on Synesthesia, a neurological condition that mixes up the senses. One common type of synesthesia is seeing a color when one hears a note or instrument. Visualsthesia turns that psychological connection between color and music into an …