Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Impact Of Prejudice On Women's Wellbeing: A Moderated-Mediation Rejection Identification Model On Feminist Identity, Liana Shaw

Honors College

The study’s purpose was to assess sexism’s impact on women’s wellbeing based on the Rejection-Identification Model (Branscombe et al., 1999), in which perceived prejudice increases group identification, which in turn buffers the negative consequences of prejudice on wellbeing. Surveys were administered via Qualtrics. Using PROCESS analyses in SPSS, Study 1 (n = 1,083) investigated whether or not these relationships between prejudice, group identification, and wellbeing were moderated by feminist identity (Model 59; Hayes, 2018). Results showed that while women higher in feminist identity do experience greater depression in response to perceived prejudice, they also have a significantly stronger relationship between …

Decadent Gothic: The Horrors Of An Urban World, Kyle Willis

Honors College

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and understand the rapid popularity of horror literature in the 1880s and 1890s through a literary style known as decadent Gothic. To do this, I will analyze two keystone texts of the style: Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. This analysis will be done using a framework of London’s nineteenth-century urbanization to understand the represented fears in both texts. This thesis shows that urbanization created a decentralized environment full of frightening stimuli, and that decadent …

Development And Investigation Of Children's Manuscripts On Sustainable Agriculture And Place Based Interactions With The Land, Isabella Oliveira

Honors College

The goal of this project was to develop an illustrated educational manuscript for children, on the topic of environmentally sustainable practices and developing an interactive relationship with the environment around them. The decision-making of the contents of the manuscript was based in research on environmental pedagogy, the history of land use, place-based identity and environmentalism, and sustainable land practices. All of the illustrations and photography in the manuscript were taken in Maine over my time spent here in college. This manuscript is meant to engage children with the environment around them by introducing them to simplified scientific concepts using references …

A Phenomenological Approach To Classic Maya Kingship, Griffin Dever

Honors College

The aim of this Honors Thesis project is to describe the experience of the Maya kingship of the Classic period and its role in Maya culture. The thesis takes a phenomenological approach and draws primarily on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, John Russon, and Walter Benjamin. The archaeological record of the Maya world, especially the city of Palenque, is the primary resource upon which this analysis is based, including monumental art and public architecture, ritual, courtly art and stonework, and stelae. However, some focus is also given to existing background literature to provide the reader with some historical …

Playing History: How Video Games Can Change The Way We Understand The Past, Chapman Hall

Honors College

Video games are a wildly popular and growing form of art and entertainment. Yet they are often overlooked within academic fields like history. This thesis examines the unique qualities of video games that make them powerful tools to understand history in a different manner. The interpretative frameworks of simulation and agency are central to this analysis, and they are applied to the history-based video game Europa Universalis IV as a case study of how video games facilitate rich and rewarding historical sensibilities that deepen the connection between past and present, a long-standing goal of professional and popular historians. The study …

Sustaining Community And Identity Through Food At The University Of Maine, Elizabeth Dudevoir

Honors College

International students often travel thousands of miles to attend the University of Maine. Foodways become a way to sustain one’s communal and self-identity. Food is more than nourishment: certain dishes also tell stories and become building blocks for conversation. Here, I focus on how international students use food as a vehicle to build community and understand the role of food to comfort and engage individuals. I also consider access to culturally significant ingredients, as the greater Orono/Bangor area lacks markets and stores that carry certain products. Through interviews, individuals shared their foodways and experiences as international graduate students at the …

What Is Marxian Communism? Limning The Post-Revolutionary Utopia By Implication, Teodora Blejeru

Honors College

This thesis aims to discover the facts of Marxian communism by implication. By analyzing the works of Marx, this project outlines the contradictions within capitalism and explains how these problems will be solved within Marxian communism. This pro- ject explains historical materialism and how it can be used to explain Marxian com- munism as not only the end of history, but as the end of class antagonisms. It also aims to explain why twentieth century communist regimes cannot be considered truthful exam- ples of Marxian communism. After the introductory chapter, the thesis analyzes The Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology, and …

Re: Leapt Into Rain, A Story And Disquisition, Lukas Norment

Honors College

Re:Leapt Into Rain is a mystery novella written by a Civil Engineering major detailing a murder that occurs during a writer’s retreat. Alongside the murder, a story about the desire for fame and recognition in a world where the common man is forgotten is told in the mind of a young writer as he investigates the crime. The preceding disquisition goes into the conception of the murder plot, creation of characters, and the process of writing the story. In addition, the author provides a brief overview of the evolution of mystery writing, pays respect to his inspirations, and reflects on …

"What Has The Emperor To Do With The Church?": A History Of Religious Politics In Donatist Africa, John Lander

Honors College

The Donatist Schism was a split in the Early Christian Church, mostly contained to the North African provinces of the Western Roman Empire. This study looks at the religious politics of the schism, analyzing its relation to the imperial state and how that relation intersected with the theological developments at play. The study primarily examines the period between 300-420 CE, the most productive and active period in the schism’s history. It draws heavily on the work of Catholic writers and histories of the period, such as those of one of the central figures of the schism, St. Augustine of Hippo. …

Relations Of Emotional Functioning And Hormonal Contraceptive Use In Umaine Female Students, Shannen Fitzjurls

Honors College

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of hormonal contraceptive use to emotional functioning in biological women. Hormonal contraceptives contain one of two hormones, progestin and estrogen, which are key regulatory hormones in women. Estrogen and progestin help to regulate brain networks and processes related to changes in stress response, cognition, and emotion regulation. Participants included 86 female college students, ages 18-25, who responded to measures that assessed hormonal contraceptive use, depressive symptoms, relationship quality, and mood. Results revealed no significant differences in depressive symptoms or mood states between women using hormonal contraceptives (51% of the sample) …

Teaching Gender: Analyzing And Transforming The Limitations Of The Gender Binary In Pre-Medical Education, Elliott Hooper

Honors College

Pre-medical education’s traditional orientation of teaching gender as a binary results in future medical providers who are not prepared to adequately care for trans* and gender-nonconforming patients (Snelgrove et al., 2012). To address this issue, I conducted an autoethnographic study of my educational experiences in the pre-medical program here at the University of Maine. I also investigated current pedagogical approaches in the field of pre-med and medical education, as well as scientific and social understandings of sex and gender, to create a tool to reflect on the gender inclusivity of course curricula and classroom environments. The tool draws on and …

Shostakovich, Soviet Cultural Policies, And The Fifth And Thirteenth Symphonies: A Contextual Evaluation, Nathanael Batson

Honors College

Dmitri Shostakovich is often regarded as one of the greatest symphonists of the mid-20th century, and with good reason. His music not only illustrates exceptional orchestration techniques and sounds but also contains some of the most emotionally powerful pieces of music in the concert repertoire. As a victim of Soviet persecution, both socially and musically, Shostakovich often spoke through his music. But there lies much debate over the validity of Shostakovich’s position in the Soviet Union, for according to some scholars, ‘there were no dissidents in Stalin’s Russia.’ This thesis does not serve to take a stance on the composer’s …

Religious Self-Identity And Racism, Alexandria Morgan

Honors College

This project is a replication of a study by Johnson, Rowatt, and LaBouff (2010) that subliminally primed American Christian participants to think about Christianity subconsciously and found increased prejudice towards Black Americans. This study is often cited to support the claim that “thinking about religion makes people more prejudiced,” despite not having been replicated effectively. Replicability is crucial to make appropriate claims. We replicated the original study with updated explicit priming methods as well as updated racial prejudice scales with a recruited national sample of 500 white American Christians through Prolific.ac. Participants were randomly assigned to a priming condition, where …

The Maine Queer-Y: An Analysis Of A "Gender Queer" Book Challenge In Maine, Antyna Gould

Honors College

Beneath the idyllic scenery of Midcoast Maine lives a monster. This monster does not have a preference for where it lives, in fact its siblings reside all over the country. It is not a physical being, but a rising trend gaining national attention, book bans. Across the nation groups and individuals are attempting to censor information contained within books due to their allegedly inappropriate nature for a designated age range. For the last year one book in particular has received much scorn. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe is a graphic novel memoir with a focus on the author’s journey as …

Home In The Dawnland: Sense Of Place And Eco-Cultural Relations In The Penobscot River Valley, Kate Kemper

Honors College

In a world where a deep disconnect between humans and nature is commonplace, this thesis is motivated by a personal interest in reconnecting with the more-than-human world. The purpose of this project is to explore my own sense of place and lived experience on the land we’ve called Maine and the Dawnland, and to strengthen my relationship to this land through a co-creative artistic practice. It draws on the historic context of the land, as it has been stewarded by Penobscot people, to investigate existing human-land relationships in the area, and attempts to honor Indigenous perspectives. The praxis for the …

Maine Monsters: How Indigenous And Non-Indigenous People Perceive Environmental Monstrosity, Cheyenne Hebert

Honors College

Wilderness is a creation of the human mind. Wilderness reflects our desires, fears, and truest selves—therefore within it we often find monsters. The application of monstrosity to the natural world is an act of projection and an accumulation of the cultural and historical influences that shape the perceiver. It’s often a reflection of religion—e.g. European gods associated with agriculture, while their monsters and demons roam the woods—and varies across peoples. This thesis seeks to understand how people create and assign monstrosity from their own mind to the environment around them, and in turn how they perceive it. Specifically, it explores …

Carlisle Indian Boarding School's Role In The Unconstitutional Relationship Between Organized Christianity And The U.S. Federal Government, Kayleigh Hogg

Honors College

The Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania was the first large Indian boarding school to open in the United States. Carlisle was founded by Richard Henry Pratt and opened in 1879. Carlisle was the first of hundreds of Indian boarding schools that operated throughout the United States and served as the model for many of the schools that followed it. The school was military-run and federally funded until its closure in 1918. The purpose of Carlisle and the rest of the boarding schools was to culturally assimilate American Indians and do so by forcibly removing them from their families. …

Hunting In Maine, Elizabeth Tibbetts

Honors College

Hunting remains a common practice for many people in the state of Maine. While the stories and traditions held by hunters differ from person to person and family to family. There are commonalities that aid in building the sense of community between hunters in the state of Maine. This hunting community is strengthened through the sharing of stories and the common traditions shared by many. These communities remain strong even as the Maine landscape and hunting legislation changes over time. Here a number of questions regarding hunting are explored through the lens of one family spanning multiple generations through oral …

Bike Ride: An Audio/Visual Examination Of Liminal Spaces As A Ritual For Personal Growth, Myles Kelley

Honors College

On March 6th, 2023, I presented a creative thesis titled “Bike Ride” in Minsky Recital Hall. This experience was the culmination of my work beginning in the spring of 2022, and it featured a set of live small ensemble charts (informed largely by Jazz vocabulary) which I set to a collection of film photographs I took on late night walks through campus. In the production and execution of “Bike Ride”, my goal was to examine the emotional power of liminal spaces as they are defined in both Psychology and Photography. The resulting performance, which was re-exhibited in the Collins Center …

A Critical Application Of Communicative Concepts Concerning Creative (Songwriting) Processes, Alfred J. Wright Iii

Honors College

New Doors is a creative project consisting of a series of songs and poems reflecting music as an effective communicative practice that opens opportunities for creative processing and problem-solving, improving the human condition and experience. Throughout these works, the audience will observe a narrative of an individual who learns to become a better writer and communicator through songwriting techniques as he works through a transformative period in his life. As a result of these songwriting and poetic techniques, this collection of pieces explores themes of reflexivity, solitude and isolation, and self-discovery utilizing a creative process, presenting music and poetry as …

On The Fly Audio Processing For The Vocal Conditioning Unit, Tim Lester

Honors College

The Vocal Conditioning Unit was a device designed, constructed, and programmed as a senior design project in Electrical and Computer Engineering by Tim Lester and Grady White. The device’s intended goal was to perform a role similar to Auto-Tune, but as a standalone device similar to effects pedals used by guitarists and other musicians on stage. On-the-fly audio processing, however, was deprioritized in the design of the original device due to other design considerations. In this thesis project, the original design of the Vocal Conditioning Unit is analyzed, and critical functionalities of the device are identified. Then, the device is …

The Embodied Performance Of Tics And Tourette Syndrome In The Academic Environment, Benjamin Allen

Honors College

This thesis examines the lived experience of tic disorders, such as Tourette Syndrome, and discusses how that lived experience has been impacted by ableist ideological medical theorizations of the “ticcing body.” In my review of the medical discourse on TS, I point out how the failure to adequately account for the experience of “ticcing” has obfuscated some of the most important characteristics of tic disorders, including the experience of performing tics in social settings as opposed to performing tics away from others. I believe this obfuscation is not intentional, but it is the effect of a discourse that is not …

People Eater, Lilas Verrill

Honors College

Monsters have persisted in literature throughout human culture serving the role as the living embodiment of our greatest fears. Based on that definition, we should have no reason to want to offer them our sympathy, our understanding, our love, yet we see them written with depth, complexity, even humanity, time and time again. The monster is more than just what scares us. They can be difficult to understand - foreign and strange, but if we take the time to look a little deeper, we may find part of ourselves staring back. This thesis explores the role the “monster” plays as …

Imagining Gender Euphorias, Willow Wind

Honors College

Our society needs to talk about gender, but we aren’t very good at it. Avoiding these discussions has harmful impacts on body image and various health disparities (The Trevor Project, 2020). What if we have better and regular conversations about ways we can positively experience gender? This study’s model of negotiating gender can be used by families and educators seeking affirming exploratory learning opportunities. Insights into meanings of gender euphoria help validate diverse sets of experiences, informing a broader cultural discourse that increasingly questions gender binarism (Griffin, 2020).

This study explores conceptualizations and enactment of gender euphoria across demographics and …

The Illustrations Of Jay Jackson: A Visual Analysis Of The Chicago Defender In The 20th Century, Ruth Lewandowski

Honors College

In 1905, Robert S. Abbott invested twenty-five cents in starting a weekly newspaper covering stories about and for Black Americans. It would end up being called The Chicago Defender and became one of the most prolific Black newspapers of the 20th century. The staff, throughout the years, would write papers that aided and defended the community's well-being. In the earlier days, it fueled the Great Migration and helped people escape their violent homes in the South. The Defender also exposed lynchings and attempts of it throughout the decades. By exposing the hate crimes of white supremacists, the Defender was communicating …

Stackpole Bridge: Rebuilding A Connection To The Past, Abigail Morrison-Ouellette

Honors College

Many historical structures are still appreciated today for their beauty, the skill required to construct them, and how they preserve and complement the natural environment. Aqueducts, buildings, and bridges constructed by ancient civilizations are excellent examples of some of the stone structures that remain standing today that offer tangible ties to the past. Many of these structures foster local pride, create a strong sense of community, and provide economic benefits beyond their physical function.

Some of the most durable historical structures are stone arch bridges, which have been used worldwide for centuries for transportation over terrain that would otherwise be …

Beagle Music: The Liberating Power Of Poetic Constraint, Rachel Ouellette

Honors College

This creative project, an original poetry manuscript and disquisition, aims to explore and demonstrate the power of poetic constraint — self-imposed rules in poetry. I wrote the poems within the tradition of lyric poetry, and therefore they reflect my personal experiences and feelings. Many of the poems reflect an experience that is best described as limerence, the psychological term for an intense, lasting “crush.” As I distilled my feelings into poetry, I used both traditional methods of constraint, such as the sonnet and the ghazal, and innovative ones, such as selecture, my own variation on erasure. I found that constraint …

A Historical Comparison Of The St. John And St. Matthew Passions Of Johann Sebastian Bach, Emily Dunlap

Honors College

The St. John and St. Matthew Passions, based on the Gospels of the same names, are the only two existing passions by German composer Johann Sebastian Bach that have survived from the Baroque music world. However, the St. Matthew Passion is more well-known and recognized than the St. John Passion. Why is that? One of the reasons why this may be the case is because the St. Matthew Passion is a larger, more extensive work compared to the St John Passion in relation to its parts. The St Matthew Passion is equipped with an orchestra, a double choir, …

Inspiration: The Cogs Of Our World, Casey Libuda

Honors College

This creative thesis consists of a 5-minute animation created with digital drawings, in-between animation, traditional, and procedural animation to analyze and visualize the significance of inspiration. Inspiration drives people to discover and create, and strong feelings of hope can cause it. The psychology of inspiration is the foundation for this short film; the final result intends to inspire other people with its visual storytelling and sound design. Additionally, the animation utilizes Muse mythology and animal symbology to universalize and symbolize the connection between an artist and their source of inspiration.

The Ghost Of Amritsar, Joe Horne

Honors College

The Ghost of Amritsar is a historical-fiction novel set in the British Raj during the first half of the 20th century. Through the lens of a Punjabi revolutionary, this thesis explores some of the roles played by the diverse identities of the Indian subcontinent during the Indian independence movement and the violence that followed the Partition of 1947. By observing the history of India and the British Raj, The Ghost of Amritsar attempts to analyze the period’s violence with a human, empathetic, approach.