Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Construction Of A Man Nationalism, Identity, Vercingetorix And The Gauls, Martin B. Mckew

Honors Theses

This paper intends to explore the past representations of Vercingetorix and the Gauls as defined by Julius Caesar and connect them to significant French events throughout the long nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to establish a link between the Gauls, French nationalism, and French identity.

The Blue State: Unrwa's Transition From Relief To Development In Providing Education To Palestinian Refugees In Jordan, Alana Mitias

Honors Theses

Often referred to as the “Blue State”–due in part to its association with the United Nations’ trademark blue branding–the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has evolved since its creation in 1949 to become both a symbol of the Palestinian cause and an inimitable public service provider across its five areas of operation, especially in regards to education. In the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan alone, the UNRWA education program educates more than 120,000 students in 169 schools with results comparable with, if not often superior to, Jordanian public schools.

The UNRWA regime …

The Impact Of Intercultural Healthcare On Indigenous Maternal Health And Access To Care In Ecuador, Lea Dudte

Honors Theses

Article 32 of the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution states that all citizens have the right to intercultural healthcare, which combines traditional and western medical practices. This thesis investigates the implementation of this policy and analyzes its impacts on Indigenous maternal health. I focus on Indigenous maternal health because there is a disproportionately high maternal mortality rate among this ethnic group. Moreover, medical racism and distrust of biomedical practices in public hospitals often deters Indigenous women from attending these facilities. This policy is highly tailored towards the needs of Indigenous mothers. In order to analyze the impacts of this policy on Indigenous …

Why Myth Matters: The Value Of The Female Voice In Greek Mythology, Kylie Rogers

Honors Theses

In this thesis I will primarily examine how the retellings of Greek myths from the female perspective provide insight into the importance of myth and why these stories are still relevant today. Specifically, I will examine three major figures: Circe in Madeline Miller’s Circe, Penelope in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, and Medusa in Marjorie Garber’s The Medusa Reader, along with a few other minor characters featured in Nina MacLaughlin’s Wake, Siren. By studying the fresh perspectives provided by the narration and journeys of these characters and connecting them to plights and experiences that are currently affecting women as evidenced by …

Art And Aids: Viral Strategies For Visibility, Stephen Baylor Pillow

Honors Theses

“Art & AIDS: Viral Strategies for Visibility” examines the complex relationships between social stigma, healthcare, homophobia, and mortality, and how these impacted the lives of Western artists and manifested in their works. Most of the art discussed in this thesis was produced during the height of the AIDS crisis (late-1980s to mid-1990s). During this period, gay artists and their allies employed new strategies in their work to inspire activism, and convey intense emotions –– predominantly frustration, grief, and anxiety –– associated with HIV/AIDS. In the U.S., the inaction of the Reagan administration was largely due to widespread homophobia kindled by …

Covid-19 And Challenges To The Traditional Understanding Of Individual Medical Autonomy, Callon A. Green

Honors Theses

Throughout history, vaccines have provided the human population with the ability to combat dangerous illnesses and avoid preventable suffering. Despite the benefits vaccines provide to the public health of the United States, anti-vaccination sentiment and resistance to vaccine uptake are still prevalent in the modern day. As the COVID-19 pandemic has developed into a major public health crisis that can be controlled through vaccination, the issues underlying vaccine resistance are becoming more critical to return to normal life. Using COVID-19 as a case study, it is evident that the individual choice to deny vaccination can have consequences on the health …

More Than Sectarianism: How Have State And Non-State Institutions Used Violence To Form The Current Iraqi State And What Is The Effect?, Caitlyn Perkins

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of violence in Iraq in establishing the current Iraqi state. My chapters provide historical and theoretical context to the subject before getting into the analysis. The goal of this thesis is to show that violence in Iraq is not only caused by sectarian differences, but has been used and influenced by leaders, outside governments, and non-state institutions for personal gain and political goals at the cost of the Iraqi people.

Comparing Lithic Artifacts And Native American Activity At Stark Farm, An Early Contact Period Site In Northeast Mississippi, Gillian Steeno

Honors Theses

Supposed ancestors of the modern-day Chickasaw, the occupants of Stark Farm inhabited the area known today as Starkville, Mississippi. These Native American peoples left behind archaeological evidence of their occupation, especially in the form of large midden-filled basins. In order to investigate these refuse pits, a lithic analysis was completed using stone typology in order to infer supposed activities. Each of the five contexts are compared to each other to determine which assemblages have similar elements and which ones prove to be unusual in comparison. Through this stone tool analysis, domestic and non-domestic activities and areas in the site can …

Virtue, Agency, And The Silence Of Reasons, Abhi Kalpeshkumar Ruparelia

Honors Theses

In this essay, I argue that John McDowell’s highly influential conception of Aristotelian virtue, which I refer to as the “silencing” thesis, presents us with a philosophically unattractive picture of virtuous agency. I begin by summarizing McDowell’s view in the context of the philosophical problem that he attempts to solve, namely the virtue/continence distinction. Next, I raise an initial objection against McDowell’s view. I argue that the silencing thesis commits us to a psychologically implausible understanding of virtuous agency. I then go on to provide a potential response to my criticism on McDowell’s behalf and argue against it. Finally, I …

In His Image And Into His Likeness: Human Nature's Theosis In C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, Jacob Ross Taylor

Honors Theses

C.S. Lewis’s standalone title Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold transforms the Greek mythos “Cupid and Psyche” into a novel about human nature being deified. In TWHF, Lewis presents an arc from pagan dualism through rationalism and finally to our relational God who makes us holy like Him. Lewis studies have suffered from the lack scholarship applying St. Thomas Aquinas’s christened Aristotelianism which would illuminate the metaphysical foundations that Lewis founds his words and builds his worlds upon. In Aristotle metaphysical biology he proposed that the human soul is neither an altogether separable spirit divorced from the bodily …

A Playwright’S Process: How Ideas Change From Germination To Execution, Austin Roberts

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Graduating Presentation, Erin Bates

Honors Theses

tethered is a seven minute dance for film that explores the baggage that every individual carries with them on a daily basis. When walking through a crowd, it is hard to imagine the people, thoughts, and experiences others might be connected to, as if by a tether. This graduating presentation thesis is a culminating project which combines the knowledge and experience I have gained as an artist in dance, choreography, costuming, conceptualization, and most recently - film. The full portfolio includes my artist biography, dance and headshots, resume, personal artistic statement, as well as the project elements. These project elements …

“Graduating Presentation: Sunday”, Lauren Smith

Honors Theses

This portfolio fulfills the requirements for both my Department of Dance senior capstone, DANC 4800: Graduating Presentation, titled sunday, and my honors thesis for the Lee Honors College. DANC 4800 requires the senior BFA dance students to collaborate and produce a dance concert, usually held in-person, but was hosted virtually this year due to COVID-19. This capstone is designed for the students to create a portfolio worthy of sharing with the public and to aid in their career post-graduation. Responsibilities during this process include the choreographing an original work, managing production elements, promoting the concert, and coordinating with any personnel …

Zero Waste Design Exploration, Rosemarie Soma

Honors Theses

This creative project encompasses the creation of four zero-waste garments. Zero waste design is a technique which involves designing in a way that produces little to no byproduct. The intent of this project was to create garments that are functional, marketable, and contribute to the sustainable fashion movement.

There is currently a serious push in the fashion industry for brands to contribute to a circular economy. This can be done in a multitude of ways: upcycling, recycling, using natural textiles, or utilizing zero waste design. Textile waste is one of the most important issues regarding the fashion industry. There are …

Graduating Presentation: Stones Beneath A River, Lauren Desmedt

Honors Theses

Stones Beneath a River is an eight-minute collaborative staged work through the eyes of a soloist who is exploring the concept that you are the product of the five people you surround yourself with. The soloist realizes the ebbs and flows of relationships and how to let go of relationships that no longer serve the individual. The graduating presentation is a culminating project of everything I have learned in the past four years. This includes collaboration, performance, choreography, production, conceptualization, costuming, and much more. My final portfolio consists of my dance and headshot, artistic statement, biography, resume, proposal application, essay, …

Empire On Trial: The Rise And Fall Of Republican Resistance In Early Augustan Rome, Spencer Yacos

Honors Theses

The ancient historian Cassius Dio recounts that in the year 23 BC, an unprecedented trial occurred within the ancient Roman State. On the defendant’s stand was Marcus Primus, facing the charge of treason against Rome. Primus, during a previous tenure as governor of Macedonia, waged a war on Odryssian Thrace without the order of the Senate. Primus’s defense counsel, Licinius Varro Murena, gives a shocking argument: Augustus Caesar, the leading political figure of Rome, had ordered the war, despite lacking the constitutional authority to do so. Proceedings transpired in such a way that Augustus himself would personally attend the trial. …

Musical Theatre Showcase: A Performance Journey And Reflection, Alyssa Zamora

Honors Theses

For her senior musical theatre showcase, Alyssa Zamora attended and in person showcase with agents and theatre professionals in Detroit. Later, she recorded videos of her performing “Thrills” by Donna Missal and “I Want Them...” by Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler. In addition to videos of her performance, she reflects on her growth in her time as a student at Western Michigan University and looks at how she has grown as an artist and how her showcase experience set her up for success in the professional theatre industry.

Media, Marketing, And More – How Social Technology Is Changing The Face Of Small Business, Lily Reynolds

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to identify the ways in which social media and marketing technology advances are affecting small retail businesses. A total of three interviews were conducted with working professionals in different areas along the fashion supply chain, and were contacted based on common acquaintances. Each interview was conducted over the phone, and lasted between ten minutes and half an hour, with guided and supplemental questions focusing on their experiences with technology in their fields. The results showed that each area was affected in numerous ways, from superficial business changes to advancements at the cores of their …

B'Ars And Catamounts: A Study Of Davy Crockett Through Genre And Medium, Jack Fieweger

Honors Theses

This project seeks to investigate and discuss the changes and variations that have occurred to the mythology of David Crockett over the course of time. Initially appearing as a literary character in 1833, the likeness of Crockett has appeared in a myriad of different texts including: biographies, almanacs, plays, dime novels, comics, television shows, and films. The project attempts to discern how these different iterations of medium and genre altered the mythology of David Crockett. In order to methodologically understand these changes, this project makes use of W.T. Lhamon’s concept known as the Lore Cycle. Lhamon identified that lore diffuses …

On The Nature Of Collaboration, John Walker

Honors Theses

The senior recital is in and of itself a Capstone project in the Department of Music—a culmination of one’s undergraduate years. Preparation of such a program, especially a collaborative recital with a peer, demands much of a voice student’s attention. However, the nature of this preparation is a relative unknown among the non-musical spaces of academia. Presented with an opportunity to develop my senior recital with Brittany Parry, a student of the new Master of Music in Collaborative Piano, I chose to reflect upon our novelty recital experience in this Capstone paper. The energy we devoted to our rehearsals and …

Xenophobia In The Covid-19 Era, Joanne Jeya

Honors Theses

COVID-19 has altered people's daily lives across the globe and heightened tensions in response to changing economic, social, and political conditions. In the United States, xenophobia has seemingly escalated in the COVID-19 era, particularly towards Asians and people of Asian descent. The assumed reasoning for this rise in anti-Asian sentiment is tied to the presumed origins of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome‐Coronavirus‐2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, first detected in Wuhan, China, prompting some to initially call the disease the Wuhan or Chinese virus, among other racialized terms like the "Kung-flu." It remains to be seen if xenophobic acts have increased throughout the …

"Woodburn, Texas: A Study In Southern Gothic", Katherine Stone

Honors Theses

My thesis, titled “Woodburn, Texas: A Study in Southern Gothic”, is a short story separated into four main sections as well as an introductory piece and conclusion that are separate from the other sections. The four main sections are separated by four prose poems ¾one for each season.

Separating the sections are four prose poems that follow the seasons. They allow for further access into the history and mindset of the people of this seemingly quiet and slow town as well as the Southern mindset in general.

Both the poems and the regular prose are told in the first person …

Hybridized Spirituality In Singaporean Christians, John Lim

Honors Theses

Background: The doctrine of the incarnation and the “scandal of particularity” are central to Christian theology – that the transcendent God became immanent within time and space. Likewise, the church, being the contemporary expression of God, incarnates within and reflects the culture around it. How this incarnation happens is not always clear or acknowledged.

Purpose: I conceptualize the process of incarnation as the hybridization of various streams of influence. I examined the lived experiences of hybridized spirituality among Singaporean Christians.

Method: I conducted semi-structured interviews with six Singaporean Christians from the same congregation in Singapore. I used thematic analysis, informed …

Crisis And Catalonia: An Analysis On The Impact Of Crisis On The Public Opinion Of The Secessionist Movement In Catalonia, Rachel Ducker

Honors Theses

Catalonia, the autonomous region of Spain has seen an increase in secessionist sentiments in recent years. While the past inclination toward independence has been centered on economic autonomy and cultural identity, there has been a recent emphasis on political independence, particularly in the times of crisis. In this thesis. I analyze the relationship between the economic changes during the period of a crisis and the public opinion about the potential Catalan secession. Specifically, it investigates the relationships between the economic change and public sentiment during the financial crisis of 2008, the political crisis of 2017, and the pandemic crisis of …

Mindstate: A Capstone Project, Kyle Petronio

Honors Theses

Objectives For four years, I have been trying to release music under the moniker of Rookie Plenty. Aside from a few songs on Bandcamp, my releases have been few and far between. In addition to releasing music on streaming platforms, MindState: A Capstone Project is an experiment in exploring genre fluidity. Many mainstream musical projects released in the twenty-first century are often genre constrained and demonstrate minimal sonic deviation between songs. This extended-play album is an attempt to exemplify a mastery of genre conventions while branching outward into new musical territory.

Methods To demonstrate an understanding of genres, I focused …

Moving The Monument: The University Of Mississippi’S Decades-Long Journey To Relocate Its Confederate Monument, Hadley Hitson

Honors Theses

This thesis tells the story of how thousands of students, faculty, staff, alumni and other members of the university community banded together to relocate The University of Mississippi’s Confederate monument. The movement for relocation officially began in the spring of 2019 with the unanimous vote by the Associated Student Body Senate to move the monument to UM’s Confederate cemetery, but long before that, change happened at the university that paved the way.

This creative telling of recent history explains how national and local events — including pro-Confederate marches in Oxford and the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis — …

20 Things, Reann Parker

Honors Theses

20 Things is a short young adult novel that explores a variety of topics and themes, from mental health, recovery, and self discovery to race, love, and friendship. Beginning with a high school girl named Halle waking up in a hospital after a suicide attempt, the novel is a coming of age story about the help Halle receives and what she goes through in trying to find reasons to keep living. The novel is divided into ten chapters: “Waking Up,” “Going Home,” “Arriving,” “Being Honest,” “Keeping the Faith,” “Soul Searching,” “Willingness,” “Maintaining,” “Checking In,” and “Living.” Each chapter represents the …

Boundaries And Pleasure In Ovid's Metamorphoses: A Critique Of Augustan Marriage Legislation, Nicholas Pryor

Honors Theses

Love, sex, and pleasure are all themes that surface frequently throughout Ovid’s corpus. But these are not exclusively Ovidian themes: they warranted great attention from the emperor Augustus as well, albeit for different reasons. While Ovid entertains these themes in ways that reflect prevailing attitudes of pleasure for pleasure’s sake, Augustus attempted to recover traditional, practical conceptions of love and sex in an effort to further strengthen his control over the burgeoning Empire. In many ways, each man’s treatment of love and sex is a reaction to the other’s conflicting attitudes. The enactment of Augustus’ marriage legislation (leges Iuliae) rendered …

The Portrayal Of Race And Gender In Revolutionary Cuban Cinema, Sarah Bartley

Honors Theses

Cinema has been one of the most useful tools to portray the political and social beliefs prevalent during a given point in history. Following the Cuban Revolution, once-marginalized communities were given far more opportunity to participate in education, in the workforce, and in society. Institutionalized racism and sexism were combatted as Fidel Castro’s major areas of focus after the Cuban Revolution’s 1959 victory. Class issues were improved as the wealth inequality that had defined pre-Revolutionary Cuba was minimized following the nationalizing of private property. Despite these improvements, however, there remained sentiments of dissatisfaction regarding social issues in Revolutionary Cuba, including …

An Evaluation Of The Historical Interactions And Epistemologies Of Science And Christianity, Tyler Partridge

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.