Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Thirsteth For The Blood Of America”: Propaganda And Violence During The American Revolution, Taylor Fischer

Undergraduate Research Awards

Excerpt from paper: "On December 14, 1763, a group of discontented farmers from the Pennsylvania frontier, called the Paxton Boys, arrived at Conestoga Manor in Lancaster County. The Paxton Boys were Scots-Irish Presbyterians who aimed to take over a Quaker colony. The group of farmers murdered six peaceful Conestoga Indians who were under the long-standing protection of the colonial Pennsylvania government. After the initial attack, Pennsylvania’s government placed the remaining Conestoga in a Lancaster jailhouse for their supposed protection. The Paxton Boys then traveled to Lancaster and slaughtered fourteen more Conestoga peoples. These murderous and militant frontiersmen claimed that the …

“On Earth, As It Is In Heaven”: The Holy Family And Beguines In The Southern Low Countries (Ca. 1230-Ca. 1500), Harrison Klingman

Undergraduate Research Awards

Excerpt from paper: "Differing from their monastic contemporaries, beguines were uncloistered religious women who took temporary vows of chastity while splitting their lives between the religious and secular spheres. In the late twelfth century, beguine communities began on a small and informal scale until papal approval in 1233 sanctioned their lifestyle; thereafter, large communities known as beguinages started to materialize.1 During this religious movement, beguines were faced with various questions over how to structure their family lives. Navigating through these uncertain waters, beguines ultimately found a solution in the Holy Family’s example by modeling their lives after the Virgin and …

The Mark I And The Canvas Of War: Gender Roles And Military Vehicles, Coran Goss

Undergraduate Research Awards

Excerpt from paper: "When my professor introduced us to our COLL-100 final project about telling stories with certain objects, I knew that I wanted to research something related to the military. Weapons, vehicles, uniforms, and other military equipment can give insight into how industrially advanced a country is, not only militarily, but also economically and culturally. In the following project, I describe the process that I went through when conducting my research on a tank I found in a British museum, as well as exploring the narrative pushed by the museum exhibit the tank is located in. I will demonstrate …

Manufacturing The Freak: Animality And The Western Sideshow, Sebastian Cannito

Undergraduate Research Awards

Excerpt from paper: "Come one, come all to the fascinating world of the carnival: a wonderland at first glance, something from a dream or a nightmare. Spirited jingles from a cheap speaker are playing overhead and everything is painted to look like a circus clown. Step right up! The carnival talker beckons you inside. “Freaks! Live! Dead! Other! SEE THEM NOW!”

Little captured the spirit of this place better than the sideshow banner. For a long time, these painted tarps were valued only for their ability to lure in an audience; once obsolete, they were reused as scraps. Since then, …

“Lepers For Show:” The Performance Of Medical Authority And The Illusion Of The Chinese Medical Threat In Nineteenth-Century America, Claire Wyszynski

Undergraduate Research Awards

Excerpt from the paper: "The energy of the crowd was infectious. On a fateful day in August 1884, over 200 men flocked to the City Hall of Washington, DC. They gathered to hear the remarks of Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell, the candidate for coroner of San Francisco, who had traveled across the country from California to deliver a speech to their city. It was unusual for a local politician of the West to journey so far for a speaking engagement, but this peculiarity only seemed to warm the crowd to him more. Under the shadow of the Capitol, the anticipation …

Theology In African American Spirituals And White Protestant Hymnody: A Comparative Study, Justin Oei

Undergraduate Research Awards

"The spiritual is one of the most significant windows into the religious experiences of Black Americans. This paper will analyze the theological content of the spiritual, and 19th/20thcentury Black religious practice more broadly, alongside that of contemporary white Protestant hymnody. Fundamentally, the African American Christian experience is based around the promise of liberation from oppression by the Messiah; it seeks justice for the downtrodden and a Kingdom of God based on equity.

I posit that, through a comparative analysis of selected Black spirituals and contemporaneous white hymnody, the spiritual’s theological content will be more focused on liberation as expressed through …

They Are United As Me Now: Chloe Whittle In Norfolk During The Secession Crisis, Brooke Hemingway

Undergraduate Research Awards

"On the late evening of Monday, April 15th, 1861, seventeen year-old Chloe Whittle sat down to transcribe a thrilling tale of the weekend in Norfolk into her diary. She wrote the wrong date at the top of her page, perhaps intending to mark the importance of April 12th, 1861 for posterity. She took care to write that she was in “Norfolk, VA United States”, as a prediction that soon she would not reside in the United States, but in the Confederate States of America. As a secessionist, Chloe said “this is the last day I will even be able to …

Comparison Of Female Role In Ritual Cults To Ancient Greek Society, Georgia Thoms

Undergraduate Research Awards

"Ancient Greece from 2000 to 146 BCE maintained a gendered hierarchy, more specifically a patriarchy in which women were closer to the status of a slave than a citizen. In order to dive deeper into the philosophy behind the formation and importance of the patriarchy in the lives of women, three sites will be examined: the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron, the Sanctuary of Demeter at Corinth, and the complicated site of Andania. Each sanctuary houses an important cult that emphasizes the female role, whether that be through leadership or the complete exclusion of men. Each sanctuary provides architectural evidence …

The Proto-Portraiture Of North Etruscan Cinerary Urns And The Philosophy Of Elite Self-Worth, Sydney Kennedy

Undergraduate Research Awards

The Etruscans did not leave behind a written philosophy on the self, but their funerary culture communicates a value placed on identity in their society. In the Orientalizing period of North Etruria, elites conveyed their status with idealized representation of themselves on cinerary urns. Due to limited outside influences, their emphasis on personhood must originate from an indigenous relationship between status and physicality that began in the Villanovan period. While the reasoning behind why they elevated their individualism with proto-portraiture is uncertain, the attention to individualization coincides with a simultaneous need for the visibility of the elite self. In the …

Hiv In The Rural American South, Helen Heaton

Undergraduate Research Awards

Currently [2020], the federal government is launching an initiative to end America’s HIV epidemic. However, in the rural American South, HIV is a deeply entrenched problem. Several factors contribute to its prevalence, including limited access to healthcare. Many Southern states, especially those who have not expanded Medicaid, have weak health insurance systems that fail to sufficiently provide the public with medication to prevent and treat HIV. Healthcare facilities are also difficult for many rural Americans to reach, as transportation may not be affordable. Furthermore, the conservative culture of the South contributes to the epidemic. Men who have sex with men …

The “Cherry Tree Rebellion”: Jefferson’S Controversial Addition To The Washington Memorial Landscape, 1936 - 1939, Meredith Barber

Undergraduate Research Awards

This research paper is the second chapter of my honors thesis, “Jefferson’s ‘Marble Mausoleum’: Incongruence in the Historical Memory of Thomas Jefferson, 1936-1945.” The first chapter covers the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission’s formation and situates the commission’s memory of Jefferson into the political and economic landscape of the time. The third chapter explores the incorporation of Jefferson as an “abolitionist” into the memorial and determines how memory of early American slavery influenced the memorialization of Jefferson. It also focuses on African American perceptions of the memorial.