Arts and Humanities Commons^™

(Re)Constructing A Landmark: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Brown V Board Of Education At Fifty, Christine A. Geyet

Writing Program – Dissertations

This dissertation examines the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary with emphasis on its civic and social rhetorical functions. The analysis focuses on the two week period leading up to the fiftieth anniversary and the dedication of the Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka. Data was gathered from various web sites related to the National Historic Site and the events in Topeka on the weekend it was dedicated, and from database records of national and international news sources. These materials were analyzed in three categories beginning with the …

The Forgotten Chancellor, Lorne Fultonberg

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Every past chancellor of Syracuse University has had something named for him. Every chancellor except for one.

The Forgotten Chancellor examines the administration of John Corbally, the only past chancellor without a campus namesake. Does SU’s eighth headman actually create a lasting legacy in his 18 months on campus? And most importantly, does he deserve anonymity?

The project took on the form of a documentary, using pictures and sounds to truly transport the viewer back to Syracuse in 1968-1971.

The story relied on the people who were there to retell it and bring it to life. The search for eyewitnesses …

Bernard: An Illustrated Children’S Book, Hansol Kim

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My Capstone Project is an illustrated children’s book titled, Bernard, that I authored and illustrated. It is a 32-page full color illustrated book following the adventures of a bear named Bernard, as he explores what it is like to spend a day in a human town. The idea behind the story was imagined during a serendipitous moment and expanded into a full narrative.

During the creation of the Bernard, I learned the importance of elements such as the rhythm and structure of the children’s book. Wielding a pencil and paper, I explored how little or how much was …

The Front Yard Economy, Jillian Iles D'Onfro

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

I decided to write a longform, magazine style article about yard sale culture in America, especially as affected by the Great Recession. I wanted to humanize the devastation wrought by the economic downturn through my in-depth examination of the emotion and meaning involved in—and inherently a part of—yard sales. My story explores an important social issue through the personal lens of the (sometimes agonizing) choices we make as we decide what to keep and what to let go when a life transition spurs us to host a yard sale. It also reflects on the catharsis that can come from seeing …

Suitcase Magazine, Victoria Wolk

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For my Honors Capstone Project, I chose to create an original magazine. Our campus has many publications, but there is no travel magazine for students to contribute to. I decided to create a campus travel magazine, one that would focus on trips in the general area of Syracuse. I want to be a magazine writer and editor in the future, so this project was a great way for me to gain experience in the field.

I asked friends to help with writing some of the articles, taking photographs, creating original artwork, and helping me to design and layout the magazine …

Being Somali Bantu In The City: A Look At The Life Of A Somali Bantu Student In The Syracuse City School District, Bailey Nay White

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“Saturdays with Egal” is a documentary for the Capstone thesis “Being Somali Bantu in the City: A look at the life of a Somali Bantu student in the Syracuse City School District. The film focuses on Egal Adan, a Somali Bantu, fourteen-year-old refugee. It is a story about my relationship with Egal as a tutor and mentor. “Saturdays with Egal” also delves into the adversity he has had to overcome and his accomplishments in school, sports, extracurricular activities, and at home despite his hardships.

I chose to create a documentary because of the organic relationship it creates between viewers and …

Transmission - A Radio Series, Marc Sollinger

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

‘Transmission’ is a serialized radio drama released via podcast. It consists of ten episodes, ranging from 8-30 minutes in length. It is fully voiced, with music and sound effects. The plot concerns a lone astronaut who finds himself stranded on an alien world. At first, he is completely alone, but soon discovers that the planet is both inhabited and post-apocalyptic, with tribes of nomadic, human-like creatures moving through the ruins of a once great civilization. The astronaut must uncover the mystery of what happened to this alien world, while also surviving the many dangers that lurk in the ruins. The …

Red Rope Magazine: A Sustainable And Creative Model For A Magazine For Chinese Students In The U.S., Kexin Zheng

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Last year, China surpassed India for the first time and became the leading country of origin of all international students studying in the United States. With the increasing number of students from China, American students are getting used to the amount of Chinese faces on campus, and the growing Chinese community has created a comfort zone for the newcomers to live a familiar life within their native language. However, the fundamental issue lies in the need for a stronger sense of empowerment.

Red Rope magazine, with red symbolizing happiness and rope symbolizing binding, will be the first general-interest magazine in …

Jewelry Inspired By Stem Cells, Nina Matsumoto

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The representation of living organisms has a long history in jewelry. Since jewelry is intended to be worn on the body, it has the faculty to materialize what typically remains unseen below our skin. Creating this body of work aims to entice public curiosity and educate them in current stem cell research, as it is a promising avenue of medicine that could cure many diseases, rather than treat their symptoms.

The jewelry I made is a glimpse into the body revealing microscopic stem cells, which are essential to our existence. Current research has shown the potential for immense advancement in …

The Jump Magazine, Victoria Troxler

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Jump is an online life stage magazine for women, focused on the transition from college life to the real world. The magazine’s target audience is women ages 19 and 25 who have recently graduated from college or will soon graduate. These women are interested in a luxury lifestyle and current trends, but also value budgeting and their careers. They are also newcomers to real world. The Jump answers the questions about home décor, cooking, fashion, beauty, and budgeting in a simple way that is tailored to their stage in life.

Each department of The Jump – musings, home, eat, …

An Investigation Of Lesser-Known Environmental Issues In The United States, Amy Lipman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This Honors Capstone Project focuses on lesser-known environmental issues in the United States, mainly on the East Coast. The topics at hand are nuclear waste storage at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, racism in the workplace at the Savannah River Site, mountaintop mining in West Virginia’s Appalachian mountains, and the ramifications of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania and how they apply to the future of the practice in New York.

This project consists of four mini-documentaries totaling 45 minutes in length. To put the first three pieces together, I reviewed interviews and conducted research on the subjects, wrote and …

The Uncertainty Of National And Cultural Identity In Salman Rushdie’S East, West And Midnight’S Children, Tress Klassen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This project involves the examination of two works by Salman Rushdie: a short story collection, East, West and a novel, Midnight’s Children. Looking at these texts through a postcolonial lens, I analyze Rushdie’s writing in terms of its relationship to the academic debates of the period and the historical context that grounds the works. Throughout the paper, I analyze Rushdie’s portrayal of the relationship between culture, nationhood, and identity, while also focusing on different aspects of the works in the project’s two chapters. In the first, I examine the relationship between postcolonialism and magical realism in East, West, …

Molière’S Le Misanthrope, Ian B. Carlino

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My Capstone project is a French-to-English translation of about 1,100 lines of Molière’s Le Misanthrope. I chose that play because I was interested in exploring translation theory and the act of translating — not because I wanted to contribute some revolutionary new work to the numerous translations of it that already exist. I had never tried to translate, so I wanted the project to be an exercise in the work.

I began by selecting the parts of the play I thought to be most significant and helpful in giving a feel for what the play means. The plot was …

In-Group Bias—Coloring Public Opinion And Spurring Public Backlash: A Comparative Analysis Of Affirmative Action And Title Ix, Samuel Joseph Knehans

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Movements were two parallel rights revolutions in American history. Each spurred noteworthy social change for a disadvantaged group, through affirmative action for African Americans and through Title IX programs for women. However, when one looks at the college enrollment data, it becomes clear that these programs achieved success at different rates—at least in higher education. This thesis is an attempt to explain why these seemingly analogous programs produced such disparate results. It attempts to answer the question: Did in-group bias influence public opinion and public backlash in the form of Supreme Court litigation, impacting …

Girls’ Education, Child Marriage, & Gender Justice: A Study Of Balika Shivir Educational Camp, Rajasthan, India, Nira Pandya

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Girls’ education has long been considered a significant indicator of a girl’s age at marriage in India. Based on this idea, policymakers in India have designed or supported various expensive programs to eliminate child marriage in the country. Using a feminist lens, this paper explores one such intervention, Balika Shivir, an adolescent girls’ residential camp, located in the village of Lunkaransar, Rajasthan, in Western India. I focus specifically on my interviews with girls in this camp, highlighting their reflections on a number of issues dealing with education, culture, and agency in connection with their experiences at Balika Shivir. The …

Human Trafficking And Human Rights: The Movement Of Women From Nigeria To Europe, Chinenye Monde-Anumihe

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The phenomenon of human trafficking, especially the trafficking of young women and girls into exploitative and commercial sex labor, has recently attracted considerable local, national and international attention. This sex trafficking phenomenon exists against the backdrop of poverty, unemployment, and social instability, signaling a correlation between these elements. This research paper will define the concept of human trafficking in comparison to human smuggling and migration and will discuss the complexity in applying the definition. The magnitude and scope of the problem of human trafficking will be examined as well as its causes.

Human trafficking will be analyzed by international standards …

The Effects Of Totalitarian Regimes And The Individual On Russian And Soviet Music, Tyler Christian Mills

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper addresses the development of Russian and Soviet music from the 1860’s through Stalin’s terror in the late 1930’s. It focuses on the constraints placed on the composers by the totalitarian regime and how these individual composers were able to not only survive, but leave a greater impact on the development and style of music than the state that was constraining them. The paper focuses on how individual composers were able to use their innovation and talent to create unique material that captivated audiences both at home and abroad.

Kemalism: A Revolutionary Ideology And Its Islamist Opposition, Juliann Merryman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“Kemalism: A Revolutionary Ideology and its Islamist Opposition” seeks to define the Kemalist reform period as a revolutionary movement. During the 1920s and 1930s, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his authoritarian government undertook a series of sweeping social and political reforms. This paper seeks to establish these reforms and the underlying Kemalist ideology as a revolutionary ideology. Using a functionalist perspective, the essay illustrates the various crises that faced the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A number of reform efforts failed to effectively address the entirety of Ottoman societal ills.

The rise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the …

Does Menstruation Hinder Women's Empowerment? Working Toward Social Change In South India, Sarah Walton

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

With so many challenges facing education today, it is difficult to think about any more potential problems kids around the world have to deal with. However, as I came to realize during a semester abroad in South India – one problem might be messier than all the rest. And, it only affects girls. Menstruation often limits a girl’s ability to go to school for a variety of reasons. This paper documents some of those challenges girls face in regard to cultural taboos and social stigmatization, a lack of knowledge or historical misunderstanding, as well as the fact that for many …

The Cartoon Lady, Laura Jungreis

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“The Cartoon Lady” is the biography of Bunny Hoest, a longtime cartoonist. The biography aims to tell the story of Bunny’s life and how she entered the cartooning world, as well as the history of cartooning and its future. Bunny’s story is used as an example and a vehicle to explore issues in cartooning, such as ownership and advancing technology.

This project preserves a history. Bunny is the subject of the biography because she is a pioneer in the industry as a strong, female figure. The text demonstrates her significant role in cartooning history as well as the resilience of …

The Newhouse Network Ii, Perry Russom

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications has launched some of the best minds in media into the workforce since the school’s founding gift in 1964. From Bob Costas to Larry Kramer, the list of Newhouse success stories in the business is vast.

What separates Newhouse from other communications schools in the country is its strong alumni. Whether it’s visiting a class, helping a student get an internship, or serving on the advisory board, Newhouse grads want to assist other Newhouse people in succeeding.

This project adds to the foundation created by Clay LePard ’12. It continues and adds value …

A Mother's Love: A Screenplay, Marie Hankinson

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

A Mother’s Love is a sixty-eight page feature-length dramatic screenplay. The story attempts to answer the following question: How far should a mother go to ensure her child’s overall happiness and acceptance in the world? In the screenplay, Emily is the mother of Aden, a child with autism. Aden’s autistic condition is about in the middle of the autistic spectrum. When a new doctor recommends putting Aden on an experimental treatment that promises to eliminate Aden’s autistic symptoms, Emily agrees to follow the program. Although the revolutionary treatment begins to radically ease Aden’s autistic symptoms, the drug comes with severe …

Delayed Action Or Locomotion? Con/Versions Of Reality In Dramatism And Inception, Jacob Greene

All Theses

This essay seeks to draw out the connections between perceptual conversions of reality within the work of Kenneth Burke and the film Inception (Christopher Nolan 2010). By establishing the degree to which Inception portrays an impossible pursuit of objective reality, one can better understand how dramatism implicitly instigates a similar pursuit of a mythic reality separate from any kind of orientational contingency. As way of reacting to this misconception of dramatism made apparent through the metaphor provided by the film, I want to foreground the concept of 'delayed action' as the fundamental basis of Burke's formulation of dramatism in A …

'Go Ahead Touch This Dinosaur Fossil': The Rhetoric Of Interactivity In Museum Culture, Steffanie Golliher

All Theses

In this essay, I will problematize the narrative housed within the Creation Museum in order to question the function of interactive exhibits and sensation in the museum space. The Creation Museum, like many science centers, utilizes displays with sensory triggers under the guise of visitor empowerment, yet their exhibits are sensational rather than interactive. Playing on conventions of science centers and the supposed visitor agency permitted by interactive exhibits, the Creation Museum asserts a narrative informed by the Bible and fueled by sensory stimulation. My analysis of the Creation Museum reveals the degree to which sensation for AiG is not …

'Pulse For Pulse, Breath For Breath:' Reconsidering Embodiment Through The Phenomenology Of Respiration, Erica Britenburg

All Theses

A phenomenological examination of the respiratory process reveals that possessing the ability to breathe carries with it more significance than an action that solely supports life: capable of leaving the immediate confines of the body, the breath is an enigmatic extension of the self. This particular traversing capability of the active body challenges notions of what it means to be fully embodied by indicating the possibility of subjective expansion outside that which is tangible and fleshly. Due to the intertwining and exchanging characteristics implicit within respirational activity, the sensational boundaries of subject and object become conflated with one another; the …

Contested Grounds, Carly Drew

All Theses

My drawings reference the American landscape tradition and Regionalism to comment on contemporary rural experience and highlight our interactions with nature. I do this through utilizing personal and family history to develop imagery that documents the economic changes taking place. I discuss why the American landscape tradition is important for a cultural understanding of my work, how industrial language impacts our understanding of these spaces and finally how my work visually encapsulates the contrast between objective forms of mapping and the subjectivity of personal experience. These contexts help discuss some of the larger issues of land ownership and use by …

Trip Report: A Few Lessons In Love, Jason Adams

All Theses

Can a work of art care for someone? Can it address a need for comfort or love? My research focuses on simple gestures and actions that seek to fulfill these questions. This research spans a wide array of sculptural and performative strategies in order to give breadth to these goals and to access a multitude of audiences in different contexts. The work importantly bridges both traditional art venues as well as more public venues in order to participate in multiple conversations pertaining to the role of socially engaged art practices. By utilizing both ends of the locational spectrum for the …

Eugene Genovese And Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: Partners In Life And History, Emily Chandler

All Theses

This study examines both the personal and professional relationships of historians Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Considered by many to be a `power couple' in the historical academy, they were pioneers in the field of southern history and offered a number of contributions to a Marxist interpretation of the antebellum South. They also wielded a considerable amount of influence within their discipline. Previous studies have largely focused on the Genoveses' professional collaboration and scholarship, but have neglected to explore their marriage. This study takes a closer look at their personal lives and marriage and seeks to determine the influence …

Propositions For Reform, Brett Vigil

All Theses

In the decades immediately following the Civil War, the impetus for
industrialization and technological development which had helped propel the Union
to victory began to dramatically pick up speed, engendering staggering changes in
almost every facet of American economic and social. Indeed, by the end of the
century, such changes had helped precipitate the closing of the frontier, the United
States' emergence onto the international scene as a major imperialist power, and the
rise of the populist movement, which climaxed in the great realigning Presidential
election of 1896. The last of these was particularly significant in that it was arguably …

The Historic Collapse Of Patriarchal Power: Investigating The Aristocracy's Crisis Of Masculinity At Mid-Century, Laura Mogel

All Theses

Although most scholars locate the crisis of masculinity in the 1880s and 90s, with the emergence of the New Woman and the fin de sicle, through the presentation of narratives, journals, letters, newspaper articles, satirical cartoons, and novels that focus on the aristocracy's role in the Crimean War, interaction with divorce proceedings, and the fallen aristocratic man in sensation fiction, I suggest that the aristocracy's crisis of masculinity happened long before the end of the nineteenth century. Since scholars do not often make a designation between the aristocracy and the middle-class crisis of masculinity, this work seeks to interrogate these …