Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Media Gender Bias In The 1984 And 2008 Vice Presidential Elections, Katherine Shaunesi Reeves

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Media coverage in political campaigns helps shape public opinion and can be a factor in people determining how to vote. Thus, bias evident in the coverage of political candidates should be a concern for a society which values fair elections. In the 2008 general election, for the first time in 24 years, a woman was on a major party ticket. The treatment of female candidates historically has been sexist. To understand the media coverage of Sarah Palin I chose to look at editorials in The New York Times. I compared her editorial references to Joe Biden’s in The Times. Then, …

What’S Going On In The Macomb, Wayne, And Oakland Counties; Is There A Link Between Arab American Acculturation And Perceived Prejudice?, Justin Du Mouchel

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Arab Americans are a growing segment of the U.S. population. Issues like anti-Arab prejudice are becoming more visible, but few studies have considered how the problem might be viewed by an Arab American community member. This study asks the question: does acculturation within the Arab American community have an effect on the amount of perceived prejudice the group senses? Secondary data from the Detroit Arab American Study was used to test for a relationship between perceived prejudice as measured by “American Media Bias”, and acculturation within the Arab American community as measured by “Arab Acts” and “Arab News”. Findings show …

The Weeping Land: Postcolonialism In La Llorona, Kirianna Marie Florez

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Legends of weeping or vengeful women occur in diverse cultures throughout the world, such as Die Weisse Frau in Germany (Kirtley 157), the shrieking banshees in Ireland (Chiu), Kuchisake-onna in Japan (Wells), and La Llorona (“the weeping woman”) in the American continents. La Llorona legends can be found throughout parts of Latin America and the Southwest United States, but are most common in Mexico and parts of the Southwest where there is a high population of Chicanos/Chicanas and Mexican-Americans. The La Llorona legends vary remarkably throughout the places of their dispersion, and the different variations often highlight local fears, concerns, …

Dido: Power And Indulgence In Le Roman D’Eneas, Muriel Mcgregor

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

During the twelfth century, medieval Western Europe experienced a revival of interest in classical literature. Key Greek and Latin texts had been preserved in Rome’s public and private libraries during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. In the sixth and seventh centuries, monastic Christian scholars such as Cassiodorus (born ca. 485 AD) and Benedict of Nursia (480 – 547 AD) established scriptoria, places for copying manuscripts, in their monasteries. There they transcribed and stored classical collections (2). In the late eighth and ninth centuries, the Frankish King and Emperor of the Romans, Charlemagne (742-814 AD) renewed the …

Blonde? Pretty? Give Birth To The Fuhrer!: An Analysis Of National Socialist Propaganda 1930-1939, Shelley Anne Johnson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Third Reich is one of the most notorious government regimes the world has ever encountered and created problems that humanity had never anticipated in the modern world. Yet many aspects of the government policy before WWII are left unexplored, including the role of women in the Nazi take-over of Germany. Why were women important? What role did they play in the National Socialist policy and German life? In fact women were one of the most important intended audiences of Hitler’s plans. It was women that would give him the vote into the government of the Weimar Republic, support his …

Land In Fairyland: Edmund Spenser And Emerging Perceptions Of Ecology And Gender In The Faerie Queen, Megan Angela Sieverts

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen is an eloquent text brimming with images of nature, flowers, and gardening. Nature is not simply what is in the outdoors of the text or a passive backdrop for action to upstage; she is a character who has an active role in influencing the plot and characters of the story. Plants come alive through Spenser in many ways as he makes the natural world of his text into an enchanted fairyland. The imagery of nature is not only personified, but also actually personifies characters. Flowers found in The Faerie Queen are both plants and actual …

The Catholic Experience In Utah, Thomas G. Evans

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University has in its collection an infamous book that is talked about by both Mormons and non-Mormons alike: the first edition of Bruce R. McCon.1de'sMormonDoctrine.l Shocking and controversial when it first appeared in print for its characterization of the Catholic Church, among other controversial assessments, I had heard about it myself growing up as a member of the L.D.S. Church in various tales of Mormon folklore. McConkie's penchant for brusque, un-apologetic apologetics and bold declarations of the truth of the Mormon faith was legendary. One day, as I perused the book in the Library, …

Grounding To Place And Past: Motherhood In The Novels Of Native American Writers Louise Erdrich And Linda Hogan, Elise Doney

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The interconnectedness in both form and content ofNative American literature originates from the complex relationship between cultural and personal identity as inextricably intertwined with spiritual and natural realms. In Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Linda Hogan's Solar Storms and Power motherhoodliesatthecenter ofthisinterconnectedweb ofrelationships among identity, community, tradition, and landscape. Each novel centers on a protagonist who is, in some form, distanced from her primary mother/daughter relationship, consequently literally and figuratively displaced. The disrupted maternal relationship results in the child's displacement, functioning as a metaphor for the community's severance from tradition and the land. However, surrogate mother/daughter relationships develop in each novel …

Implementing Research Through A Holistic Design Process, Megan Pearce

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Most interior design students come from a creative background, with limited experience in writing and research. When faced with a challenge in the design process, valuable resources are not utilized. Students do not think to access them. This mind-set carries over as professionals. The research exists, but a lack ofunderstanding prevents designers from using it. Designers must learn to use hard sources and develop their own research to legitimize the profession.

In the design profession, benefits ofresearch are especially seen when using a holistic design process. As integrated approach, the holistic design process involves all parties related to a project. …

Loss Translated: Saudade In The Poetry Of Elizabeth Bishop, Corey D. Clawson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In 1954, former U.S. poet laureate Elizabeth Bishop wrote in a letter from Brazil to Robert Lowell, a dear friend and fellow poet: "With much love and saudades as they say here, a very nice word that seems to include all the sentiments of missing friends in one.” This insightful observation illuminates a concept central to Brazilian culture which has been designated one of the most difficult words to translate. Later, Bishop defined the idea as “the characteristic Brazilian longing or nostalgia,” which she “strongly associates with homesickness.” Bishop’s fascination with the concept, I argue, is more than that of …

“Changes” In The Country Of The Mind: Seamus Heaney’S Revision Of William Wordsworth’S “Tintern Abbey”, Trenton B. Olsen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

For almost thirty years, critics have been interested in William Wordsworth’s influence on Irish poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

Generational Differences Between North African Francophone Literatures: The New Stories Of Immigrants In France, Christen M. Allen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This study seeks to establish the generational difference between Beur and Francophone literatures using Kiffe Kiffe Demain by Faïza Guène contrasted with Le Siècle des Sauterelles by Malika Mokeddem. The struggle underlying both narratives is the protagonists’ attempts to negotiate their own identities while being torn between two very differing cultures. Le Siècle des Sauterelles explores the role that the French colonization had on Algerians as individuals. The characters are Algerian nomads who cling to western ideals of literacy and personal choice and in so doing, reject Algerian social hierarchy. The characters in Kiffe Kiffe Demain are from two cultures: …

Zamyatin's We: Persuading The Individual To Sacrifice Self, Jeffrey Steven Carr

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The artistic aspects of the novel are excellent. Zamyatin has attained full maturity here—so much the worse, for all this has gone into the service of a malicious cause.

Reinterpreting The Comedy Of Errors: Exploring "Madness" And The Need To Belong, William K. Smith

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since The Comedy of Errors' rescue from the literary bargain bin where it was tossed by nineteenth and early twentieth-century critics, many modern scholars have provided insightful cultural, linguistic, and theatrical commentaries on a play that is clearly more complex than it first seems. One area these recent discussions frequently address is the play's portrayal of madness in early modern society. However, what many of these discussions fail to remember is that ultimately Errors is a comedy "performed for the Delight of the Beholders" and that no one in the play is actually mad. Therefore, this essay argues that The …