Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Case For Instrumental Music Education: The Academic, Physical, And Social Benefits For Students, Kayla M. Peard

Honors College

Music is an integral part of our lives. There are countless examples of how learning music affects intelligence in students, but that is not music’s only benefit. Music is an academic discipline available in schools in which students’ simultaneously develop cognitive abilities, physical abilities, and social skills. This is particularly evident in the instrumental music classroom.

Through the studying of instrumental music and playing in ensembles, students learn countless lifelong skills that help them develop into intelligent, creative leaders. The cognitive abilities of the students grow and expand the longer they study music. Furthermore, it has been proven that their …

Transformation Of Realism: Narrator’S Function And The Blending Of Dialogue And Stream Of Consciousness In To The Lighthouse And Between The Acts, Alyssa M. Mccluskey

Honors College

This Honors thesis analyzes two narrative works by Virginia Woolf: her seventh novel, To the Lighthouse, and her final novel, Between the Acts. My analysis consists of two major components: I look at Woolf’s post-impressionist poetics and I examine, by way of a critical approach based on narrative theory, the construction of these poetics. Throughout, my interest is that of showing the transformation of classic realist representation of reality in these two novels. This transformation, I argue, is very subtly constructed through the narrator’s function, and the blending of dialogue and stream of consciousness.

The Space Explorer, Rachel A. Carter

Honors College

An anthology of short stories, poems, prose, and imitations. These writings explore the idea of space, but not in the “final frontier” connotation. The concept of space presented is that of personal and mental; writings that emerge from revealing internal thoughts and feelings. In addition, The Space Explorer builds upon individual aspects to contemplate more general topics.

Such writings will include: imitations of Italo Calvino’s Invisibile Cities; a short story about a man so desperate to keep his farm from bankruptcy he decides to traffic drugs; short glimpses of thoughts in the form of haiku; and many more.

A Cultural Exploration Via The Mediums Of Music And Poetry, Colin S. Kolmar

Honors College

In order to prove the effectiveness of educational explorations conducted in extra-institutional settings, this thesis focuses on information collected in unconventional learning environments. The information gathered during these experiences was subsequently synthesized and conveyed via non-traditional scholastic mediums. This particular extra-institutional learning experience involved the investigation into jazz and hip hop music styles through cultural immersion. In order to achieve the desired result, I traveled to New York City to witness jazz and hip hop performances in venues situated in the city of origin for both styles. My New York research experience also included visiting museums and libraries dedicated to …

Nameless, Inscrutable, Unearthly: An Examination Of Obsession In Moby Dick, Sarah K. Lingo

Honors College

In this project, I examine the operation of the sublime and the unconscious in Moby Dick. In the sublime, I locate the source of Ahab’s obsession with, and Ishmael’s interest in, Moby Dick. Through sublime experiences, these characters confront the limits of human understanding. Ishmael accepts this limitation, but Ahab rejects it, choosing to pursue Moby Dick in an effort to reassert order in an entropic universe. He blames his loss of control on the whale, which becomes his objet petit a: that object, according to Lacan, that distracts the obsessive from the true source of his anxiety. …

Occupy Horror: An Analysis Of Gothic Motifs And Malefic Technological Prostheses In Contemporary American Horror Films, Alexis L. Priestley

Honors College

My project explores the genre of Western contemporary horror films, with a focus on the way technological communication devices—the telephone, internet-connected computer, and the television—are given a life of their own and rendered maleficent. By staging the anxieties and ambivalences we as a society feel towards our technological prostheses alongside classic Victorian Gothic motifs, the films I analyze force us to confront ancient tensions through a 21st Century lens.

A Creative Writing Honors Thesis: Guardians Of Alyataus, Kelsey K. Flynn

Honors College

This is a creative writing thesis. It is a novel of roughly 55,000 words that is intended for the reading audience of ages 12-16. It is in the genre of medieval/fantasy/adventure. This literary work takes its inspiration from many young adult authors and is intended to inspire youths in a way of moral development. The protagonist begins the story as someone of questionable morality, and finishes the piece a considerable more moral person. It has been made to help others learn about things such as discrimination, racism, and sexism. This novel also includes issues such as bullying and questioning of …

Prolific Playwrights: Clifford Odets And Lillian Hellman Expose The Thirties, Samantha L. Paradis

Honors College

Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman were two of the most influential playwrights of the 1930s, which was a decade of economic instability and political unrest in the United States. Odets began his career in 1935 with his workers’ theatre smash hit Waiting for Lefty. Hellman’s career took off with the premiere of her drama The Children’s Hour. Both playwrights generated controversy with their plays through the emphasis of Popular Front values. They were influenced by the political, social, and economic conditions in the 1930s. An in-depth analysis of their plays reveals how the interrelationship between playwright and society …

Why Are Comedy Films So Critically Underrated?, Michael Arell

Honors College

This study explores the lack of critical and scholarly attention given to the film genre of comedy. Included as part of the study are both existing and original theories of the elements of film comedy. An extensive look into the development of film comedy traces the role of comedy in a socio-cultural and historical manner and identifies the major comic themes and conventions that continue to influence film comedy. Ten comedy film case studies are then presented, analyzing the recurring themes and conventions in practice and extracting the existing critical language used in the analysis of comedy film. The final …