Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Large Language Models And Identity: A Reflexive Approach, Nicholas Austin Nielsen

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project explicates theories of identity, technology, and capitalism and uses an auto ethnographic approach in order to apply that explication at a personal level. The project responds to AI rhetoric in business and pedagogy and the instability surrounding perspectives on job security, the role of technology in Higher Education, and existential representations of the human. By deconstructing identity, ideology, cultural contexts, and technologic rhetorics, the goal is to further the scholarship surrounding Large Language Model applications in pedagogy and offer a personal, therapeutic approach to feelings of economic and existential discontent and fear experienced by students and educators regarding …

Acceptance And Commitment Therapy (Act) For Appalachains: Cultural Additions To Act, Jessica E. King

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

This project examined the potential application of cultural additions to various aspects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This project is specifically focused on cultural adaptations of ACT for the Appalachian population. The ACT adaptations were devised based on a review of research on Appalachian culture, including the region’s geography, history of exploitation, cultural values, and clinical considerations for working with Appalachian populations. An overview of ACT and treatment effectiveness of ACT is included. It is important to note that this project is intended to be a supplement to ACT, and should be used in tandem with an ACT workbook …

I Miss My Teeth; I Feel Your Teeth, Emma A. Brauser

Scripps Senior Theses

I miss my teeth and I feel your teeth are two projects that build on one another in an exploration of the mouth as a vessel for embodied experience and interpersonal translation. These pieces represent the mouth as an ever-changing landscape, one that requires multisensorial modes of understanding. I feel your teeth counters overreliance on the visual, introducing gum-chewing as a way to comprehend the translation from the visual to the tactile and back to the visual.

The Chesapeake Pearl: A Proposal For An Environmental Public Art Installation, Samuel I. Reichard

Pitzer Senior Theses

In this thesis, I lay the foundation for an environmental art project along Chesapeake Bay. It includes an analysis of relevant literature and case studies, as well as a proposal for the project. The Chesapeake Pearl (working title) would be a 20-foot spherical aquarium that will visually display the water filtration capacity of eastern oysters and native seagrass, aiming to inspire curiosity around these organisms and the greater Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The project exists at the intersection of environmental art and environmental education and seeks to promote learning and public engagement through visually demonstrating a scientific process, the water filtration …

Visions Of The Garden: Transforming The Former Claremont Golf Course Into The Coastal Sage Mosaic, Ella C. Kim

Pitzer Senior Theses

A thirty-three-acre parcel of land sits at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at a vulnerable wildland-urban interface (WUI), raising key ecological concerns. This parcel, a former golf course, is the focused site for this conceptual landscape and restoration plan. The now-neglected site has no proposed plans for restoration or development yet holds significant potential for transformation. Stakeholders’ conflicting visions range from land preservation, ecological restoration, Indigenous land rights, commodification for revenue and development, and prioritizing the needs of the natural environment in coexistence with modern human enjoyment. The conceptual plan addresses these critical considerations in verbal and visual …

Would You Recommend This Picture To Your Friends? A History Of Hollywood Test Screenings, Myles Mikulic

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines Americans’ relationship with information gathering in the 20th century through the lens of the Hollywood market research technique of movie test screenings. During the post-production phase of a narrative commercial film, a studio will typically hold a test (or preview) screening to gauge audience reaction. An unfinished version of the film is screened before an audience of nonprofessional “regular moviegoers,” after which viewers fill out questionnaires. These can range from the generalized, such as favorite characters or whether you would recommend the film to friends, to the granular, such as the depiction of violence in a war …

Queen: The Remaking Of Character In The Modernist Novel, Ann L. Wilson Green

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Virginia Woolf famously declared that, “on or about 1910 human character changed,” prompting her to call for a change in the way novelists depicted character. I study one such character, Queen Victoria, to trace how Woolf and James Joyce reimagined how to depict a historical figure in a novel. What is Queen Victoria in the Modernist novel and why does she begin to appear? She is a symptom and symbol of a problem the Modern writers were trying to work out. Despite having an ambivalent or even hostile relationship with the Queen, she is one of the most represented historical …

Traces Of Transcendence: Exploring The Role And Structure Of Ethical Transcendence In Levinas, Beatrice Hruska

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines Levinas' formulation of ethical transcendence and the possibilities for subjecthood under different formulations of transcendence. This thesis looks at the inherent violence of the same-making project that transcendence typically carries and investigates how ethical transcendence deals with this. In order to do so, this thesis puts Levinas in conversation with the Lurianic creation myth.

“Off To Greek Camp”: A History And Examination Of Greek America And Its Adaptation Of American Summer Camp Culture, Julia J. Walsh

Honors Theses

Camps are one of the most distinct institutions of American childhood, offering children a place to socialize and explore their identities. Since the late 19th century, camps have been used to inspire religious, social, and ethnic identity. Extensive research has been done into some kinds of summer camps, this thesis attempts to add to this literature through analysis of Greek Orthodox Summer Camp programs run under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (The Metropolis of Boston Camp and Ionian Village). This dissertation examines the role of the modern religious summer camp in building and maintaining Greek American and Greek Orthodox …

Tracing The Lines In Comics And Life: Genealogies And My Place Within Them, Audrey M. Loo

Honors Theses

My thesis is a hybrid English Lit/Creative Writing project on comics. The English Lit half is an Artist’s Statement comprised of scholarly research and both analytical and personal writing, and this work will necessarily inform and be informed by the Creative Writing half, in which I create my own comics.

Mortal Rivers: A Case Study Analysis Of Indigenous Water Sovereignty Within The Penobscot And Lakota Nations, 19th Century To Present, Moya S. Stringer

Honors Theses

Indigenous water sovereignty has long been a contested problem within the continent of Turtle Island. In 2016, the Lakota Nation globalized the message Water is Life through their movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil infrastructure that would put one of the continent’s largest watersheds at risk. The revolutionary fervor of the Water is Life movement travelled all the way to the Penobscot Nation in the Dawnland, a place we now call Maine. In an adjacent vein to the Lakota, the Penobscot people have spent the 21st century addressing damming projects and rampant pollution from the 1900s in a …

From Living With The Land To Vacation Timeshares: The Impact Of Outdoor Recreation On The United States’S Recognition Of Shoshone, Timpanogos, And Havasupai Ancestral Homelands, Harry T. Robison

Honors Theses

The romantic view of the Western United States from the perspective of a US resident is fueled by the thought of adventure and expansion. The phenomena of the "Wild West," frontier ideology, and manifest destiny have kindled a love of being outside and pursuing new and "unexplored" territory. Long before those ideologies came into play, people already inhabited these landscapes. As colonists moved West, many of those inhabitants were forcefully moved onto reservations. Those people include the Shoshone people of Wyoming, the Timpanogos people of Utah, and the Havasupai people of Arizona. Alongside this history of displacement, the United States …

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

The Imperial Origins Of Genocide: Colonial Discourses And The Genocides In Timor-Leste And Rwanda, Zoe S. Appio

Honors Theses

This project aims to compare the ideological and structural colonial legacies that created the tensions for genocide to occur in Timor-Leste and Rwanda. It also aims to understand how these colonial legacies inhibited the international community's response and exacerbated the genocides. The genocide in Timor-Leste occurred from 1975 to 2002 and was perpetrated by the Indonesian government against the native Timorese population. The genocide in Rwanda occurred from April to July of 1994 and was perpetrated by the Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority. Throughout this thesis, I argue that colonial legacies like nationalism, racial hierarchies, and the maintenance of …

A Long Way Home: Postcolonial Migration Between Cameroon And France, Elizabeth Greenberg

Honors Theses

This project grew from an observation that despite exhibiting strong national pride, most young Cameroonians express a fervent desire to emigrate. Through a combination of interviews and a review of past literature, I discovered a unique narrative among upper middle class Cameroonian migrants whose stories are generally underrepresented in migration literature. This study investigates how history and sociocultural dynamics help explain the Cameroonian decision to choose France (specifically the Île de France region) as a migration destination. France is particularly relevant because it previously held control of many parts of Cameroon and is one of the most popular migration destinations …

Prophets Instead Of Priests: Diagonal Orientations & Coming-Of-Age Queerness In Jane Eyre And Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Emily G. Flanders

Honors Theses

This project asserts that the moment in which a girl leaves the trajectory of the expected in favor of the unknown in order to pursue her discovery of self is when her coming-of-age narrative becomes queer. This is demonstrated through Jane in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Jeanette in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. Jane and Jeannette’s respective coming-of-age narratives–that is, them creating their fully embodied selves, the girl they believe and know themselves to be–happen off the expected life path in the liminal, in-between, undefined space of the queer oblique. There are moments …

In Between The House Light And The Sun Rise, Xinyi Zhang

Honors Theses

In Between the House Light and the Sun Rise is a research project that includes a 20-minute performance and a written thesis. The research uses the framework of relationality to explore the relationship between humans and houseplants. Although houseplants live in a human-constructed environment, they have their own influences on people and the space around them. Learning from the ways plants move through time and space and the connections plants make with each other and with other living and non-living things, this project aims to use movement to reimagine the way we think about time, space, and community. This project …

“Women Who Don’T Know How To Stay Married”: The Poetic Afterlives Of The 1927 Bristol Sessions, Aubrey R. Adkins

Honors Theses

This project begins from the understanding that song lyrics can have lasting impacts on the poetic work that proceeds from them, and can and should, therefore, be read as literature. In the cultural context of Southern Appalachia, a historically underserved and academically underrepresented region, this understanding is intertwined with Audre Lorde’s idea that “For women...[poetry] is a vital necessity of our existence.” The women of Southern Appalachia, denied access to particular modes of expression as a result of external circumstances such as poverty and sexism, need poetry, according to Lorde, to take “tangible action” in their lives. What came before …

The Analysis Of The Shonen Protagonist And Aragoto Warrior: The Eternal Strength Of Boyhood, Ethan J. Mcentyre

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is a breakdown of various visual and narrative elements of Kabuki and Anime, using the example of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura, and One Piece. There is a broad overview of both Kabuki and Anime discussing their various tropes and styles. Following this introduction is a three-part breakdown of One Piece and its similarities to Kabuki theatre, with Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura as the reference point for specific examples.

The three-part comparison is structured by first discussing surface level similarities and potential coincidences unique to these two stories in conversation with each other, by looking at a few specific …

Crisis, Controversy, And Credibility: Rhetorical Appeals In Governor Desantis’ State Of The State Addresses, Victoria E. Laird

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper examines how Governor DeSantis has used rhetoric to advance his political identity and policy during the Florida legislative sessions from 2019 to 2025. Using rhetorical analysis, the study identifies linguistic techniques and persuasive devices that help shape DeSantis’s policy agenda and drive legislation. This study is important as it explores the ability of political figures to ground themselves in language and push political ideologies. The findings reveal a consistent emphasis on ethos while simultaneously appealing to unity, strengthen, and moral clarity. Over time, DeSantis’s rhetoric evolves from defensive to assertive leadership framed by appeals to national policy and …

Diversity Representation In Ilmea All-State Programming 1990-2025, Lucinda Boucher

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the diversity of ILMEA All-State programming from 1990–2025. This study compiled information regarding the composers and arrangers of the pieces selected, as well as the conductors for each ensemble. In the band category, 3.22% (n = 11) of all composers and arrangers (N = 342) were female and 4.39% (n= 15) were people of color. In orchestra, 1.67% (n = 3) were female and 6.67% (n = 12) were composers of color of all composers and arrangers (N = 180). The percentage of female composers …

The Satyr's Last Lament, Joseph A. Sandy

Theses and Dissertations

The Satyr’s Last Lament is a multi-movement work drawing from the traditions of early jazz and musical theater and consists of eight songs and five interludes. The plot is an original fantasy tale about an abandoned village of satyrs that is discovered by a wandering bard who uses magic to bring the spirits of the dead back to sing their story to him. They spin a sad tale about how The Stranger came to their town and convinced them to abandon their good habits and community to instead indulge in hedonism and isolation, leading to their downfall. Each song is …

Small Town Voices And Stories: Rural Older Populations And Health Narratives, Wyatt K. Zumbahlen

Masters Theses

Stories play a vital role in our humanity; they help us understand the world around us. As we age, our experiences, along with those of the people around us, shape our perceptions of health and influence our healthcare choices. For older adults, narratives become an essential resource in making healthcare decisions. In rural communities like Coles County, Illinois, these stories are especially important for older adults who are navigating the limited care and services available in the area. This reliance on narratives impacts their willingness to seek care, highlighting the need to recognize the power of stories in empowering older …

Women Spinning On The Edge: Finding And Redefining The “Spinster” In The Witches Of Discworld, Kathryn Ann Fitzmaurice

Masters Theses

The word “spinster” has undergone a series of evolutions over the past seven hundred years, first coined to describe the occupation of women engaged in the spinning of plant and animal fibers into thread and yarn in the Middle Ages and later a legal marital status designation used until the 21^st century. The connotation associated in social contexts became pejorative. This project’s tracing of the word spinster is used to set up the broader scope looking at how the spinster can be viewed as an archetype, what we can learn through the lenses of gender and feminist theory, and …

Show Them, Teach Them, Let Them: Empowering Undergraduate Voices Through Student-Centered Theatre, Abigail G. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the urgent need for theatrical works that resonate with undergraduate students, arguing that student-centered playwriting and production can foster deeper engagement with theatre, reflect contemporary issues, and empower the next generation of theatre-makers. Grounded in a hybrid methodology of creative practice and qualitative research, the study proposes a comprehensive, student-driven model for university theatre programs. Drawing from the author's experiences at both the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and Virginia Commonwealth University, the thesis examines institutional season selection processes, inclusive pedagogical strategies in playwriting, and the development of new works through student festivals. Central to the …

In Praise Of Dust, Hasler Gomez-Perez

Theses and Dissertations

A desire path is a physical manifestation of where a system has failed, but also where it has been refused, where a new path has been made. The wake exists in the post, it is not a singular, untethered event, but a subtle double entendre that lives in the post-death, but also in the pre-life—not a liminal limbo, but a superposition of dying and waking.

This collection was assembled and composed over the course of two years as I navigated my practice, myself, and others. Present here are my thoughts, my experiences, and in many ways my beliefs. IN PRAISE …

How To Remain A Stranger / Encountering, In A Basement, Hannah Rotwein

Theses and Dissertations

How to Remain a Stranger / Encountering, in a Basement consists of two parallel essays. On the lefthand side of the page, How to Remain a Stranger explores the ways that the legend of the Wandering Jew, the Tradescantia genus of plants, peddlers, and exile relate to my practice of collecting, sorting, and combining found objects. On the righthand side, Encountering, in a Basement describes my thesis exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Focusing on the idea of the encounter, I detail the materials, considerations, and processes behind four of the ten sculptures in the …

Mutual Realm, Tyna Ontko

Theses and Dissertations

mutual realm is a container for my many meandering thoughts on speculative futures, present-day-truth-telling, and the everyday construction of histories. Informed by systems of belief and power that humans have created to grapple with the unknown, the writing illustrates how storytelling builds worlds, assigning value to things by inscribing them with desire. In parts fact and fantasy, sculpture is considered as a form of sorting, making known the ways in which my experience of living between publics whose methods for demarcating boundaries, communally agreed upon superstitions, and algorithms for assigning meaning have marked my unconscious and affect my daily trajectories. …

Strange World, Brooklin Grantz

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis work explores the intersections of masculine and feminine labors as they relate to the structure of domestic space. I utilize materials and processes akin to craft, construction and architecture, and domicile upkeep, noting what is shared between gendered and polarized fields while exploring uses of the grid in various instances as a structure to adhere to and antagonize: a binary. Highlighting the queerness and fluidity of materials and the similarities between seemingly disparate processes, I relate to the objects I make and alter through my own gender fluidity. I do not see masculinity or femininity as autonomous: the …

The Paradox Of Value, David Enrique Guarnizo

Theses and Dissertations

The present thesis project examines how, in the United States, and especially in the state of Virginia, archetypes of "wealth," "value," and "identity" have been constructed in relation to land and territory. This analysis explores the tension between the inherent value of life on the land and the economic value that can be derived from it. This tension is exemplified by a theory known as the "paradox of value", also referred to as the "paradox of water and diamonds", which was developed by the renowned Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. This theoretical framework serves as a fundamental axis for …