Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Guarding Whiteness: Disability, Eugenics, And Rhetorical Agency In Southern Renaissance Fiction, Philip Carl Bonanno

Honors Projects

This project explores fiction from white authors in the Southern Renaissance, specifically William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers. By examining their work alongside some of the performers that appeared historically in freak shows of the South, chapter one investigates how physically enfreaked individuals (usually phenotypically white) have access to power and the powers of whiteness. Chapter 2 interrogates how the South pathologizes promiscuity as mental illness with words such as moronic or feeble-mindedness, and the ramifications it has for the stratification on class divides among Southern elites and “White Trash.” The chapter seeks to answer the question of why, …

Religious Negotiation And Identity Formation: Reading Material Religion In Oaxaca’S “Guelaguetza Oficial”, Rene Sebastian Cisneros

Honors Projects

The Oaxacan Guelaguetza Oficial is a folk-dance festival in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico which takes place on the last two Mondays of July each year. This state-sponsored celebration of Oaxacan identity is intertwined within histories of Indigenous religious belief and Catholic everyday practice. The Guelaguetza Oficial can be traced back to late 19^thcentury celebrations venerating the Virgen del Carmen Alto. Oaxaqueños today predominantly practice an Indigenous-Catholic tradition whose rituals, festive scripts, pantheon of popular saints, and immanent understandings of heavenly power over earthly events can be traced back to negotiations between Indigenous forms of popular belief …

Searle’S Mind: Brains, Subjects, And Systems, Saul Cuevas-Landeros

Honors Projects

Throughout this project, I ‘step into the Chinese Room’ presented by philosopher John R. Searle and develop the areas where the Chinese Room Argument succeeds. I have aimed to pick out where Searle has succeeded with the Chinese Room Argument and introduce how it fits in with his school of biological naturalism, as it seems that he already had some conception of it when presenting the Argument. From here, I introduce some of the primary arguments against the Chinese Room Argument because they do not fit with Searle’s overarching theme of biological naturalism. Particularly, Searle’s conception of systems and system …

Student Activism And Malaysian Politics, 1955-74: Revising The History Of The Malay Language Society (Pbmum), Song Eraou

Honors Projects

In the literature on student activism in Malaysia, the years from 1967 to 1974 are emphasized as vibrant years—students organized large-scale demonstrations, regularly asserted their opinions in the political arena, and even participated in electoral politics. This period was followed, however, with the imposition of strict laws in 1975 limiting freedom of speech and expression. Such laws were part of the broader containment policy pursued by the state after the May 13, 1969, racial riots, which allowed the state to stifle any form of political dissidence to ensure peace between different ethnic groups. One particularly active organization in this period …

"I Remember!": Irish Postcolonial Memory In The Early Short Stories Of Seán O'Faoláin, Rebecca Norden-Bright

Honors Projects

Seán O’Faoláin (1900-1991) was an Irish writer, cultural critic, and editor of the literary magazine The Bell. He wrote prolifically throughout the twentieth century, and while his short stories are often anthologized, much of his work is now out of print. This project will examine O’Faoláin’s first two short story collections, Midsummer Night Madness (1932) and A Purse of Coppers (1937), within the context of the post-independence period in Ireland. The 1930s is a period often glossed over in both political and literary histories of Ireland, overshadowed by the Literary Revival and primarily characterized by deepening conservatism and political strife. …

The Crossroads We Make: Intergenerational Trauma And Reparative Reading In Recent Asian American Memoirs (2018-2022), Josh-Pablo Manish Patel

Honors Projects

This project extends reparative reading practices to recent Asian American memoirs, specifically trauma memoirs from the past five years (2018-2022) that detail personal trauma and communal, intergenerational trauma. Reparative reading is explored within five memoirs: Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know (2022), Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias (2019), Phuc Tran’s Sigh, Gone (2020), Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings (2020), and Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know (2018). In considering the reparative turn in Asian American memoirs, this thesis draws on and extends Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s reparative frameworks and bell hooks’ theories on pedagogy and love. A critical analysis …

A Problem Best Put Off Until Tomorrow, Evan Albers

Honors Projects

Effective Altruism has led a recent renaissance for utilitarian theory. However, it seems that despite its surge in popularity, Effective Altruism is still vulnerable to many of the critiques that plague utilitarianism. The most significant amongst these is the utility monster. I use Longtermsim, a mode of thinking that has evolved from Effective Altruism and prioritizes the far-future over the present in decision-making processes, as an example of how the unborn millions of the future might constitute a utility monster as a corporate mass. I investigate three main avenues of resolving the utility monster objection to Effective Altruism: reconsidering the …

#Ivfgotyou: Instagram Ivf Influencers As Social (Media) Support Systems, Susu Gharib

Honors Projects

This paper details the ways in which IVF and infertility influencers on Instagram use their platforms to resist the silence surrounding reproductive difficulties. The analysis draws upon a thematic analysis of posts tagged with IVF-related hashtags and a semi-structured ethnographic interview with one influencer. Through these methods, I found that influencers build intimate publics through their platforms by sharing their journeys, interacting with followers, and reciprocal support. Within the context of the intimate publics, influencers are able to connect with others who understand their experiences, allowing them to break through the silence they may feel in their offline social groups.

Bodies, Memories, Ghosts, And Objects Or Telling A Memory, Natsumi Lynne Meyer

Honors Projects

I think it started in December 2017, when my Mama sent me to Japan to take care of my grandparents, Baba and Jiji, alone. I had been to Japan almost every year since I was eleven years old, and several times before that too, but this was my first time without Mama. When Mama was there, Japan was filtered through her. I could poke bits of myself through her editing and approval. I could read street signs because of the way she read them, and I could understand my grandparents’ sighs from the timbre of her translation. That December, though, …

Vienna Secession, Bobby Murray

Honors Projects

‘Vienna Secession’ is a poetry manuscript broken into four distinct sections: “The Vienna Secession,” “Waltzes,” “Short Talks,” and “Other.” Most of the manuscript is in dialogue with Secessionist artists, or the ethos of the Vienna Secession. However, others, like the haikus, are exercises of form and responses to other contemporary poets, such as Robert Hass or Richard Wright. The manuscript explores different genres, including ekphrasis, prose, and experimental poems, like the ‘Waltzes,’ which employ 3/4 meter to emulate the Viennese waltz.

The heart of the project is its sonic awareness—pulling from W.H. Auden, August Kleinzahler, and other musically-oriented poets. Outside …

Invisible Ailments: A Collection, Jane L. Godiner

Honors Projects

"Invisible Ailments" is a collection of short stories that trace the depth, breath, and sweeping range of lived experiences of people struggling with mental illness. While it is a work of fiction, the people in these stories might feel eerily familiar — to your friends, your family members, your loved ones, or, if you're brave enough to admit it, yourself.

Church Space As Queer Place? Lgbtq+ Placemaking, Assimilation, And Subversion Within Progressive Faith-Based Spaces In Maine, Salina Chin

Honors Projects

In popular discourse, understandings of queerness and religiosity as antithetical proliferate. However, the political involvement of Portland, Maine’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement points to a more complex relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and progressive religious institutions. Through participant observation, archival research, and semi-structured interviews with nine LGBTQ+ community members and informants, I reveal the crucial role of Portland’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement from the late 1980s into the present day. On the one hand, progressive faith-based spaces across Maine provide safe spaces for queer political organizing. On the other hand, …

Una Comprensione Computazionale Della Psiche Emotiva E Ordine Nelle Ballate Del Decameron: Stilometria E Elaborazione Del Linguaggio Naturale, Nothando Khumalo

Honors Projects

The present thesis, written in Italian, explores the emotional psyche and narrative order embedded within the ballads of the Decameron, a renowned literary masterpiece by Giovanni Boccaccio. Leveraging the advancements in stylometry and natural language processing techniques, this research aims to convince medieval Italian literature scholars to produce more on scholarship of the ballads and uncover the intricate patterns of human emotions and narrative organization in the ballads. The study begins by establishing a comprehensive corpus of ballads from the Decameron, utilizing digital libraries and text repositories. Subsequently, using stylometric analysis, the research examines the linguistic and stylistic features that …

From “This Revolution Is Neither Communist Nor Capitalist!” To “Long Live The Socialist Revolution:” The Deterioration Of U.S.-Cuban Relations From 1958-1961, Julia Lyne

Honors Projects

This thesis studies the deterioration of U.S.-Cuban relations from 1958-1961. Mainly drawing from primary sources from the National Archives, it seeks to answer and understand how and why relations deteriorated so rapidly. It pushes against the common belief that U.S.-Cuban relations were doomed from the start, instead highlighting in Chapter One Fidel Castro’s rise to power (and Fulgencio Batista’s fall from power) and revealing that the U.S. government was not entirely against Castro’s seizure of power. Chapter Two explores Castro’s first year in power and the (futile) attempts made by both governments to keep relations alive. Finally, it closes with …

"Know-Nothingism, Abolitionism, And Fanaticism:" An Analysis Of The Collapse Of The Second Party System In Maine, Justis Dixon

Honors Projects

The 1850s were a tumultuous period in American politics, with a complete partisan realignment fundamentally shifting the balance of power away from the status quo and toward possibilities for change. This paper focuses on the collapse of the Second Party System in Maine, and understanding how we can explain this stunning and rapid shift. The varying factors can be placed into two broad categories First, ethnocultural issues were primarily responsible for much of the growing turmoil within and between the major parties throughout the 1840s, and accelerating greatly in the early 1850s with rising levels of immigration and the increasing …

Ethnicity And Territory: Cultural And Political Autonomy For African Descended Colombians Through Law 70, Ayana Opong-Nyantekyi

Honors Projects

Colombia has the second largest African descendant population in all South America due to the transatlantic slave trade that stripped millions from their homeland and brought them to present day Colombia. While African descendants have been a part of the region’s history for over five centuries, it was not until 1993 with the establishment of Law 70 that the Colombian government acknowledged the culture and rights of African descendants. This thesis analyzes the historical, social, and political underpinnings of Law 70, its implementation, and aftereffects. I argue that Law 70 acknowledges a lived identity of rural African descended Colombians as …

Love Is Real & I Just Had Some For Dessert: Legacies Of Communal Care & Compassion In Asian Diasporic Women's Food Writing, Miki Rierson

Honors Projects

In this project I work to recover influential yet often erased Asian American female immigrant chefs and food authors from the mid-twentieth century to the present, situating their contributions in a deep-rooted tradition of diasporic women who used cooking as a means of communal agency and care. Immigrant Asian cookbook authors and chefs have long faced internal criticisms from their own diasporic communities of either inauthenticity or engaging in “food pornography,” to use writer Frank Chin’s term—a line of criticism that Lisa Lau has elaborated on as “re-Orientalism.”Though these criticisms should not eclipse the works themselves, I discuss and counter …

Is Faith The Ultimate Divider?: The Intersections Between Religion And Political Behavior In The United States, Ryan Supple

Honors Projects

This thesis examines the complex relationship between religiosity and voting behavior in the United States. In a country where religion has diminished in importance over time, it seems rather fascinating that it still plays such a large role in the inner-workings of American politics. Chapter One analyzes the varying ways in which scholars have approached emergent political trends between religious groups, particularly with regards to political parties, voting behavior, and government representation. Chapter Two extends this analysis to the American National Election Studies (ANES), a national survey distributed to random samples of Americans during election seasons. The information from the …

Playing The Fool: Analyzing The Phenomena Of Iurodstvo In Contemporary Russian Cinema And Civil Society., Colby Silva Santana

Honors Projects

Of Russia's cultural and religious icons, the holy fool (iurodivy) is quite possibly the most significant one of contemporary times. The holy fool – a historical and cultural character that feigns insanity to produce moral and spiritual reflections and hide the purity of their souls – has left its traces over a significant portion of Russia's literary history, postmodern tradition, and socio-political thought. In its uniquely positioned role as a powerful form of institutional critique, today taking shape in modern-day political protest performance culture, the holy fool has often been utilized to interrogate the intertwined relationship of the Russian state …

Building Home In Diaspora: New York’S Jewish Left And The History Of The Bronx Housing Cooperatives, Micah Benjamin Wilson

Honors Projects

This thesis investigates three predominantly Jewish housing cooperatives that emerged in the Bronx in the late 1920s. The Amalgamated Housing Cooperative, the United Workers Cooperative Colony (the “Coops”), and the Sholem Aleichem Houses offered garment workers utopian retreats from the drudgery of Lower East Side tenements where Jewish immigrants arrived in droves between 1890-1920. With each cooperative housing a distinct faction of the Jewish Left––from socialists to communists to Yiddish nationalists––the Bronx housing cooperatives, more than experiments in communal living, were the site of a highly contested battle over competing Jewish cultural and political worldviews across the 1930s and 1940s. …

Enlightenment As Global History: The Reception Of Confucianism In Eighteenth-Century France, Rachel Yang

Honors Projects

While the Enlightenment was once seen as a unique product of Western intellectual heritage, recent scholars have started to challenge this Eurocentric notion with the concept of a “global Enlightenment” by considering how it was shaped by cross-cultural encounters. To contribute to this body of scholarship, I trace the reception history of Confucianism in eighteenth-century France and examine how Chinese philosophy played a part in shaping and stimulating Enlightenment discourse. My research starts with the Jesuit missionaries who served as the intellectual intermediaries between China and Europe. Through a close reading of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, a Latin translation of …

A Conscious Image Of Liberation: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Eta) In The Late Franco Regime, Through The Lens Of The Press, Sebastian De Lasa

Honors Projects

The rise of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in the early 1970s coincided with the rise of national liberation movements across Europe, which largely were inspired by notable examples of resistance throughout the Global South in the decades prior. ETA’s growth over this period, and in the years prior, was heavily dependent on the image created of the organziation in the local, domestic, and international press, including through documents distributed by the group itself. By comparing ETA’s external presence to the group’s internal strife, it becomes clear that ETA made efforts to align itself with the popular revolutionary language of the …

Divinity School: A Novel, Ella Marie Schmidt

Honors Projects

I wrote Divinity School, an Honors Project for the Department of English, under the auspices of my project advisor, Professor Anthony Walton, and my readers, Professors Marilyn Reizbaum, Ann Kibbie, and Aaron Kitch. Divinity School is a novel whose conflicts are religious, generational, and familial. Set mostly in Hoboken, New Jersey with vignettes in Manhattan, Vienna, the west coast of Ireland, and an anonymous New England college town, it is the story of one family and the open secrets that keep them apart. Hal Macpherson is a Divinity School professor uged into premature retirement by allegations of misconduct; his …

Narration, Nation Et Nationalisme Dans Les Récits D’Enfance De Mouloud Feraoun Et Mohammed Dib, Reed Foehl

Honors Projects

During the mid-20^th century, a new form of Algerian literature emerged, thematically detached yet linguistically tied to France. Novelists aligned with this littérature algérienne de langue française used their narrative power to expose the atrocities of the colonial period, while emphasizing the rising nationalist spirit throughout the country. A peculiar aspect of this national literature is the presence of a child protagonist. Many of Algeria’s most prominent authors centered their first novels on a young boy. This leads to my central question: does the récit d’enfance (childhood narrative) possess certain qualities that lend it useful for representing ubiquitous suffering, …

Nuevas Posibilidades Para La Subjetividad Feminista En La Literatura Del Cono Sur, Kate Elizabeth Tapscott

Honors Projects

¿Cómo es que se puede escapar verdaderamente de la opresión patriarcal? Esta investigación aborda a través de un análisis de la literatura de escritoras del Cono Sur el asunto complicado de la liberación bajo un sistema en constante mutación. En el primer capítulo, a partir de aportes teóricos de Freud, Josefina Ludmer y Homi Bhabha entre otros, analizo cuentos de Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo, y Clarice Lispector cuyas protagonistas intentan resistir su condición de víctima con diversos grados de éxito. En el capítulo que sigue, exploro una tendencia reciente en la literatura de escritoras del Cono Sur que incorpora …

Clones, Corporations, And Community: Cyborg Bodies Onstage, Grace Kellar-Long

Honors Projects

For my honors project, I selected, wrote, directed, and produced an adaptation of a science fiction novella for the stage. I chose Nino Cipri's Defekt as the source material for my adaptation because I wanted to adapt a text where the novum, or science fiction novelty, is located in the bodies of the actors. During the written adaptation process, I worked from my memory of the novella, highlighting and expanding on the themes of queer found family, empathy, and anti-capitalism that were already present in the text. I repeatedly attempted to contact the author, their agent, and the publisher to …

Re-Envisioning The Tropics: Nick Joaquin's Philippine Gothic, Ella Marie Jaman

Honors Projects

This paper examines selected stories from Filipino author, Nick Joaquin, through a gothic lens. Drawing from recent development in Gothic studies, I work within a tropical gothic and postcolonial gothic framework to suggest a localized "Philippine gothic" represented within Nick Joaquin's work. Stories examined include the novel "The Woman Who Had Two Navels," as well as the short stories "Summer Solstice, Mass of St. Sylvestre," and "The Order of Melkizedek."

"In Loving Virtue": Staging The Virgin Body In Early Modern Drama, Miranda Viederman

Honors Projects

The aim of this Honors project is to investigate representations of female virginity in Renaissance English dramatic works. I view the period as one in which the womb became the site of a unique renewal of cultural anxieties surrounding the stability of the patriarchy and the inaccessibility of female sexual desire. I am most interested in virginity as a “bodily narrative” dependent on the construction and maintenance of performance. I analyze representations of virginity in female characters from four works of drama originating in the Jacobean period of the English Renaissance, during and after the end of the reign of …

Crazy American, Emma Quan Dewey

Honors Projects

Crazy American is an evening-length dance solo choreographed and performed by Bowdoin's first Dance honors student, Emma Quan Dewey. This dance is an embodied exploration of her mother's family migration history from South China to the Philippines to the US, and how it places her and her family within structures of US imperialism, racial hierarchies, and Chineseness itself. Based on ethnographic, historical, theoretical, and embodied research, Crazy American examines the intimate ways these structures play out at the level of the body, and seeks to imagine new possibilities for moving through systems and stories of power.

Unraveling Paradise: Colonialism And Disguise In German Language Literature, Brigita Kant

Honors Projects

For centuries, the Pacific Islands have been disguised by Europeans through the trope of “island paradise." Despite Europe’s role in bringing colonization and racial oppression to Oceania, the dominant narrative has been that Pacific Islanders lead simple lives, untouched from the complicated aspects of the “modern world.” This narrative has enabled White outsiders to fantasize about the Pacific Islands as a place for personal denial of Western social conventions, simultaneously allowing White European men to fetishize and possess Pacific Island culture and identity. My honors project will closely examine three fictional German language texts- Haimotochare (1819), Der Papalagi (1920) …