Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"Death Stars, Death Breathes:" The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao And The Trauma Of Diaspora, Hannah Quire

Senior Theses

The following thesis aims to examine the interlocutions of diasporic trauma and genre in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Centering the work of prominent theorists regarding diaspora, trauma, and literature, this project enacts a close reading of the novel in order to frame it as a text that is at once principally concerned with diasporic trauma while also defying thematic labels and genre categorization. This project begins by foregrounding the work of trauma and diaspora scholars to demonstrate the relationality between the two fields of study, while the second chapter examines those presences in Oscar …

Violence In The Hands Of Women: An Analysis Of Gendered Violence In Life Is Strange And Before The Storm, Mitchi Anne Maja

Senior Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the video games Life is Strange and Before the Storm and how they serve to reflect social expectations and norms placed upon both women and men even today. Cultural studies recently accepted video games as a form of media to study, especially with the prevalence and accessibility of video games in various platforms. Violence in video games is culturally associated with men and the male audience; my analysis focuses on violence in the hands of women. By analyzing the choices I made as a player and how these games present their narratives and characters, …

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Spanish Wines (And A Few Things You Did), John Phillips Wacker

Senior Theses

The Spanish wine scene is incredibly diverse, and an immense number of different wines are made in the country. Likewise, Spain is incredibly rich in culture, with a wide array of languages, histories, cultures, and cuisines found throughout the nation. The sheer number and variety of Spanish wines and the incredible variety of cultures found in Spain may be daunting to the uninitiated. Thus, a guide to Spanish wine and culture, which not only details the two but links them, as well, may prove very helpful to the Spanish wine newcomer or perhaps even a sommelier.

This thesis-guide was compiled …

Children's Literature As A Catalyst For Social Change, Lyndsey Reynolds

Senior Theses

This thesis is the amalgamation of a creative writing project and an exploration of the ways that children’s literature influences and draws from social justice causes. It started after reading Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and realizing that children’s books are not as simple as I remember them being. This book inspired me to consider the power of children’s literature to push young readers to be aware of and thoughtfully engaged with political, social and cultural conversations. The first phase of my thesis was exploring the relationship between social justice and children’s books by reading scholarly materials. In these …

The Introvert's Guide To The Galaxy: A Reflective Guide Of Solo Travel And Study Abroad, Hope Patterson

Senior Theses

Oringinally meant to be a much longer volume, The Introvert’s Guide to the Galaxy is a creative anthology of works that explores one person’s Study Abroad and solo travel experiences. The main goal is to open a space to talk about unique experiences that cannot be anticipated, but should be learned from later. Topics include culture shock, sexism, alcohol culture, family, freelance tutoring, and risky outdoor activites.

Travel with our trusty guide as she fills you in on the things to know while traveling abroad, including finding perfect outdoor sleeping conditions because you missed all the taxis, dealing with the …

A Spatial Text Analysis Of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Michael H. Beasley

Senior Theses

Using a technique called “distant reading”, which aggregates and analyzes large amounts of data with computational models that can be used to understand literature and find insights or patterns that may otherwise be undetectable, this paper seeks to understand the system of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional world of Middle-earth through a statistical approach. In an attempt to provide an entirely different view on his work, this paper examines semantic aspects of Tolkien’s corpus and how they complement the narrative structure, with particular emphasis on the topographic landscape and the journeys of specific characters through the space of Middle-earth itself.

The Claude Henry Neuffer Diaries: The Story Of A Signal Corps Serviceman In The China-Burma-India Theater Of Wwii, Kyle Brady Henderson

Senior Theses

This senior thesis project involved working with an unprocessed collection from the Manuscripts Collection of the South Caroliniana Library. The collection (which mainly consists of two diary volumes) documents Claude Henry Neuffer’s service in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II. The goal of this thesis was to aid in the processing and digitization of this collection through the creation of full transcripts, a map, and a narrative description of the collection. This work will help to preserve the collection, improve accessibility to future researchers, and provide additional historical context.

The Southern American Belle: History, Evolution, And Perceptions In Contemporary Culture, Hannah B. Vickery

Senior Theses

This research study seeks to examine the concept of the southern belle and to provide greater insight into how the southern belle is perceived by those today as a means of describing contemporary southern womanhood and culture. Chapter 1 traces the history of the southern belle from its pre-Civil War roots, through the turmoil of the Civil War, and up through post-war Reconstruction and beyond, thereby situating the concept of the southern belle within the context of southern history. Utilizing a socio-linguistic approach, Chapter 2 explains the research methodology of this study where two group interviews were conducted and where …

An Example Of Reinterpretation In American Historic House Museums, Victoria Vanzomeren

Senior Theses

Despite their past importance, historic house museums have lost struggle to remain interesting to the general public because of the refusal to tell stories beyond those of wealthy, white men. In their 2018 restoration project on the Hampton-Preston Mansion, the Historic Columbia Foundation demonstrate how historic house museums can update their narratives to include the stories of marginalized people through the reinterpretation of their two Edward Troye paintings. This reinterpretation allowed Historic Columbia to tell a story that is not often told and represents the shift in new expectations for historic house museums in order to provide something meaningful to …