Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Bluey And Adult Fandom: The Importance Of Play In Culture, Olivia C. Gerzabek

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis explores the animated children’s show Bluey(2018 -), its ever-growing appeal to millennials, and the online fandom that these millennials have formed. The thesis outlines a brief history of media aimed at children and families, starting with the children’s matinees of the 1930s to children’s educational media of the 1960s through the 2000s with shows like Spongebob Squarepants (1999 -) and Shrek (2001) appealing to a broad audience of all ages. Compounding on the history of animation and family-centered media, the advent of social media allows users to revisit media they have nostalgia for, share with others, and create …

Animating Gender: Conflicting Narrative And Character Design In Gravity Falls, Laine Marshall

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis analyzes the character designs from the Disney XD animated series Gravity Falls (Alex Hirsch, 2012-2016) through a third-wave feminist lens, arguing that these designs reflect an essentialized perception of gender that is in conflict with the themes of acceptance present in the series’ narrative. The series’ narrative pushes forth the idea that female characters are the moral center of the series and serve as an example to their peers, that they are self-assured and in control, and that men can push past any ignorance to care for the people around them, but this effort is undermined by the …

"Female Faithfulness Encouraged": Gendered Piety In Early American Print, Kadienne Sizemore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Following the American Revolution, membership in Baptist churches grew exponentially and the influence of the Baptist persuasion was significant. As one of the fastest-growing Protestant denominations in early America, Baptists and their interests were often indicative of larger trends in religiosity. Conceptions of piety, including beliefs surrounding submission, faithfulness, and duty, were central to the structure of Baptist congregations and their proximate communities. This paper explores the role of gender in the discussion, presentation, and justification of Baptist notions of piety in their publications during the Early American Republic. To build on the work of historians exploring female autonomy in …

Determinism & Free Will: An Exploration On Gender Identity As Evidence For Compatibilism, Daniel Mangandi-Escobar

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Determinism is a philosophical concept asserting that every event and action in the universe has been determined by previous causes, which has caused considerable debate within philosophy. Two critical issues within this discussion are the implications of determinism for human agency and moral responsibility. In this work, I argue that free ill is possible, rejecting hard determinism. Specifically, I will be arguing in favor of compatibilism, which is the view that free will can exist even within a deterministic world. From this perspective, free will is not opposed to determinism. Instead, our choices and actions can still be considered free …

The Divine Comedy: A Work Of Medieval Mythology, Jamie Alexander

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Prior to The Divine Comedy (1308-1321), ideas about Purgatory were in the early stages of development. Purgatory had loose rituals surrounding its existence and it lacked depiction in written works. Yet in the following centuries, the fear of Purgatory and the practices of penance and indulgences reached a fever pitch, ultimately leading to the Protestant Reformation. Purgatory as a celestial location, and not just the “purgatorial fires” of the Bible, only began to develop in the twelfth century, but its fearful description and imagery in The Divine Comedy not only solidified previously nebulous understandings of Purgatory, but also increased anxiety …

Rebels And Dubliners: Motherhood In Three 20th-Century Irish Texts, Sara S. Barenfeld

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores representations of motherhood across several genres in Irish literature. In my essay, I look at two short stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914): “The Boarding House” and “A Mother.” I argue the way spatiality functions in “The Boarding House” and “A Mother” reveals Mrs. Mooney’s and Mrs. Kearney’s overall ability to exercise maternal agency; it shows the extent to which their agency is circumscribed. The spaces themselves act as defining factors contributing to the mothers’ abilities to engage with power structures and ultimately fail or succeed in their endeavors. I also examine two autobiographies: The Autobiography of …

"Into The Womb Of Solipsism": The Spectrum Of Loneliness In Wallace's Infinite Jest, Michael Gieger

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Academic critics and casual readers of David Foster Wallace’s 1,079-page novel, Infinite Jest, have long ruminated over the book’s daunting physical size and wide narrative scope. This paper offers an argumentative interpretation of the novel’s immensity through an exploration of Wallace’s thematic preoccupation with solipsism and human loneliness. Building primarily from the critical works of Frank Cioffi and Casey Michael Henry, this essay makes the contention that the length of Infinite Jest behaves mimetically, simulating for its attentive readership a sense of perpetual emotional isolation—an isolation reflective of the epic’s untold lonesome characters. The argument further suggests that length of …

Bathsheba And Sue: Hardy's Independent Heroines, Alexandra Acosta

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In Thomas Hardy's literary landscape, the female protagonists Bathsheba Everdene and Sue Bridehead emerge as complex figures who challenge and navigate the rigid social norms of Victorian society. Through their journeys in Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure, respectively, Hardy explores the themes of independence, conformity, and the impact of societal pressures on individual agency.

Bathsheba Everdene, in Far from the Madding Crowd, initially stands as a symbol of independence, defying the conventional gender roles expected of Victorian women. However, her trajectory reveals the nuanced ways in which societal expectations shape her choices, ultimately leading her to …

Consequences Of A Dream: Interactivity And Agency Of The Reader/Player In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Undertale, Nicholas DáVila

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this thesis, I analyze Toby Fox’s 2015 roleplaying game Undertale alongside Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. My reason for doing so is to investigate the narrative structures of the two stories, how they use metanarrative, and their use of game as a narrative tool in order to showcase the narrative lineage video games like Undertale share with Wonderland. Through this investigation I wish to show that the use of games and play as a vessel for or a part of narrative structure do not exclude works like video games from posing interesting questions and challenges …

Lawrence As An Orientalist Figure Of Empire In David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia, Leen Khashashina

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this thesis, I examine the character of Lawrence in David Lean’s 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia. I seek to break apart the legend, examining his individual characteristics and interest in Arabia as well as his imperialist motivations, whether unconscious or not. Lawrence struggles to find his identity and this film is an exploration of that multitude. Many of the characters in the film have conflicting ideas about who Lawrence was because he did not even understand himself. The combination of Lawrence’s defiance of British orders and society as well as his obsession with becoming an Arab marks him as …

Reparative Justice As Literary Methodology: Confronting Criminality In Contemporary American Fiction, Diane Paulson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis presents an approach to literary analysis centered on dismantling one’s conscious or unconscious biases by engaging in reparative justice practices with fictional characters. It stems from the belief that America’s criminal justice system is a white patriarchal system that serves to support and uplift systems of white power. I argue that we must advocate for its abolition with a wide lens. Doing so requires a recognition of one’s biases and a radical shift in empathy to those who have directly and indirectly survived and continue to survive oppression by the criminal justice system. I argue conducting reparative readings …

Symptoms And Displacements: Satan's Detachments In Paradise Lost, Rosemary Rodriguez

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

For my thesis I aim to examine the detachment that Satan has to his surroundings in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost. Predominantly using psychoanalysis and Marxist theory as my main lenses for analysis, I intend to show the full extent of Satan's punishment and condemnation in the text. A standard close reading of this work shows how flawed and inconsistent Satan is in his disposition and beliefs. From boasting about being able to make a heaven of hell to considering asking God for forgiveness, the text shows him constantly changing. In other words, Satan's mental instability manifests itself in …

Camus In A Post-Covid World: A Bibliotherapeutic Approach To Coping With Crisis, Jessica Titterington

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines the usage of absurdist literature, particularly a selection of works by Albert Camus, and their relevance to bibliotherapy. The three selected works are his novels The Plague and The Stranger, as well as his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. By analyzing these works through a psychoanalytic lens and with the consideration of generational theory, utilizing absurdist literature as an alternative “medicine” in times of crisis, especially in instances where immediate medical aid is not available, is shown to be beneficial. This thesis also uses the recent COVID-19 pandemic as a model for global crises and explores the …

Cultivating Land And Love For God: Agrarian Life In Benedictine Women’S Communities In The United States, Mother Maria Evangelista Fernandez Osb

Yale Divinity School Theses

Using qualitative research within the discipline of Practical theology, this study explores the agrarian practices of five Benedictine women’s communities in the United States: the Abbey of Regina Laudis, Our Lady of the Rock Priory, the Abbey of St. Walburga, Immaculate Heart of Mary Abbey, and the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus. I focus on the interconnected nature of communal land cultivation and prayer while creating a conspectus of agrarian life for American Benedictine nuns in 2024. The paper unfolds in three parts: the first situates the research context and interpretive framework drawing on hermeneutic phenomenology within Practical theology. …

Topographies Of Desire: On Becoming The Other In Urban Crime Fiction, Nina Dies

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis incorporates psychoanalysis in an exploration of the dynamics of body, identity, motion, and desire throughout urban crime fiction. Starting at the very origins of the genre with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd” (1840), working its way to Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (1950) and Megan Abbott’s contemporary Dare Me (2012), to finally culminating with the film Saltburn (2023). The examination of subjectless subjects within these texts reveal the ways in which homoeroticism coalesces against the sexualized modern landscape.

Wretched Refuse: Garbage And The Making Of New York City, Tina Peabody

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Wretched Refuse: The Making of New York City. is a social and economic history of waste management in New York City from the late nineteenth century through the 1990s. This dissertation uses waste management as a lens to examine the city’s social and economic life over the long twentieth century, and especially its class and racial hierarchies. Wretched Refuse argues that waste management was a critical part of New York City’s physical and economic growth over the course of the twentieth century. Sanitation was a public health problem that needed to be solved in order for New York to grow …

The (Dis)Obedience Politics Of Victorian Literature, Audrey Peterson-Mccann

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The (Dis)Obedience Politics of Victorian Literature argues that Victorian children learned thesocial valuation of themselves and others through the figure of the animal, and while this learning was often hegemonic, some Victorian authors subverted this form of didacticism, creating alternative pedagogies that extended subjecthood to those who were often excluded. While it is well-known that animals have historically been enlisted as teaching symbols, I contend that literary animals in Victorian fiction were used to critique, expose, and otherwise provide commentary and context for the potentially widespread disciplinary practice of childrearing as these practices defined and qualified subjectivity and objectivity. To …

Prop-Oriented Make-Believe In Metaphor And Morality, Jordan Ray Alexander Corner

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“Bill is such a bulldozer.” How does this metaphor mean what it does? How are we to understand how metaphors work with respect to meaning. In this work, there is an exploration of both of the answers that have already been given to these questions, as well as some reasons to think that those answers are insufficient. Importantly, Kendal Walton has put forward a prop-oriented make-believe account of meaning in metaphor. This account succeeds where others fail, though it is not without its own detractors. Elisabeth Camp and Catherine Wearing both object to Walton’s accounts and their objections require responses. …

I Know Not Seems: Contemporary American Fiction And The New Sincerity, Eric C. Koch

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Since the publication of David Foster Wallace’s essay, “E Unibus Plurum,” in 1993, critics have attended ever more closely to the problematic effects of postmodernism. Postmodernism, with its origins located in poststructuralism’s antifoundational philosophy, fashions a world without anchors or boundaries, where relativism holds sway and irony is the culture’s habitus. The twin concepts of relativism and irony are, of course, primary in postmodern literature, and therefore indicate why postmodernism’s trajectory terminates in overt metafiction, experimental excess, and nihilism. By reading postmodernism as a reflection of these principles, we begin to register how the literature of the period following postmodernism …

Supporting At-Risk Kindergartners’ Subtraction Knowledge And Language Use Through Shared Book Reading., Jaime Lynn Bellini

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The purpose of this study was to explore how shared book reading may promote meaningful, multimodal language interactions to support subtraction learning and language use and understanding for kindergarten students who have been previously identified as at-risk for mathematical difficulties. This study is underpinned by theoretical notions that language is developed in social contexts and is a multimodal phenomenon. In addition, this study is also shaped by sociocultural views of mathematics learning that position discourse at the core of mathematics learning. This study took a micro-ethnographic approach to qualitative research and utilized multimodal discourse analysis to analyze the data. The …

A Reimagined Periphery: Environment And The Construction Of The French Colonial Empire In North Africa, Tyson A. Luneau

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the relationship between environmental knowledge and empire building in French North Africa during nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since its 1830 invasion of Algiers, France engaged in a century-long conquest of the Maghreb, extending sphere of influence to the neighboring regions of Tunisia, Morocco, and the Soudan. Under the guise of the mission civilisatrice, colonialists stressed their conquest’s goal of spreading enlightened French civilization for the benefit of both the indigenous populations and the world at large. France’s conquest of North Africa was not, however, solely focused on the peoples and cultures of the region. Simultaneously, France engaged …

Algerian Poetry Without Borders: Jean Sénac, Assia Djebar & Mohammed Dib In Translation, Yolande Gallouët Schutter

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Algerian Poetry without Borders: Jean Sénac, Assia Djebar & Mohammed Dib in Translation is a hybrid project that combines literary translation with (post)colonial and translation theories to illuminate the importance of the poetry of three major 20th century Algerian writers: pied-noir poet Jean Sénac (1926-1973), Amazigh poet Assia Djebar (1936-2015), and Arabic poet Mohammed Dib (1920-2003). Algerian Poetry without Borders includes selections from three previously untranslated poetry collections—one from each poet discussed—presenting them alongside critical essays that trace each writer’s individual contributions to (post)colonial Maghrebian poetry and (post)colonial thinking. This dissertation examines the ways in which embodied language and embodied …

De Colombia, México Y Puerto Rico Al Norte Global: El Rol De La Mujer Dentro De La Subcultura Narco En Novelas, Adaptaciones Y Películas En Los Últimos 20 Años, Nerisha De Nil Padilla Cruz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Esta disertación explora los diversos roles de las mujeres dentro de las redes de narcotráfico en México, Colombia y Puerto Rico, tanto en la ficción literaria como en producciones audiovisuales. Se analizan obras literarias como Rosario Tijeras (1999) de Jorge Franco, La reina del sur (2001) de Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Osario de vivos (2013) de Gean Carlo Villegas, Loba (2019) de Orfa Alarcón y Cualquier miércoles soy tuya (2002) de Mayra Santos Febres. En cuanto a las producciones audiovisuales, estas se dividen en dos grupos. Primeramente, las adaptaciones libres Rosario Tijeras (2016-2019) en su versión mexicana y Queen of the South …

Confessions In The Salem Witch Trials, Caylie Mcaree

ALL - Honors Theses

As defined as one of the darkest moments in American history, the Salem Witch Trials serves as a haunting reminder of the human capacity of fear and manipulation over a community of people that led to mass hysteria and injustice. Through the mist of mass hysteria and chaos, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was established to maintain social control of the community and prosecute the accused through coerced confessions. Over a hundred and fifty people were accused of witchery and over one-third of the accused confessed to the crime. This paper dives into a deep analysis of primary and …

School Discipline, The Little Rock Crisis, And Aaron V. Cooper, Lauren Misco

ALL - Honors Theses

The Little Rock Crisis was a monumental event within the larger story of school desegregation and the civil rights movement. Governor Orval Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock Central High September 1957 in the efforts of preventing integration. After much back and forth between the governor and president, Eisenhower then sent federal troops from the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. In the background of the constitutional crisis, and amongst the troops in the building, the school administration dealt with backlash from angered segregationists both inside and outside the school. During …

“Know Your Facts Before Taking A Stand:” The Schenectady County League Of Women Voter’S Impact On Local Policy Through Civic Education, 1919-1945, Alice Russo

ALL - Honors Theses

This thesis explores the pivotal role of the Schenectady County League of Women Voters in shaping local policy and politics through civic education during the interwar years. Empowered by the principle “know your facts before taking a stand and going public,” the Schenectady County League educated both its members and the public on policy issues in a nonpartisan and all partisan way. The Schenectady County League’s strategic emphasis on nonpartisan civic education empowered its members to become well-informed advocates for policy change. By prioritizing issue-based stances over partisan politics, the Schenectady County League expanded its influence beyond traditional boundaries and …

Dear Mama: An Exploration Of Trauma And Black Feminist Healing Practices Through Letter Writing, Bria Nickerson

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies M.A. Final Projects

This autoethnographic project delves into the multitude of strategies I've employed over the past decade since my mother's passing to confront and heal from my trauma. Through a series of original letters spanning from girlhood to early adulthood, I narrate my journey, delving into the depths of my emotions, thoughts, and coping mechanisms as I navigate through various traumatic experiences. Guided by Black Feminist Autoethnography as its methodology and anchored in Black Feminist Thought as its theoretical framework, this project also explores the profound impact of transgenerational trauma on the psychological well-being of Black women. From enduring slavery and racialized …

Love Vs Duty?: Resisting The Idealized Woman And Subverting The Perennial Choice For Women In Opera, Lindsay Uhrich '24

Honor Scholar Theses

This thesis serves to be an analysis of the stereotypes that women in opera tend to have as well as of common traits or outcomes that these characters experience. While there is discussion on how these traits have been harmful, the idea of opera being a method for these characters to be envoiced in a way that other genres couldn’t be able to do is explored, and is specifically focused on three case studies of women defying the destinies set upon them while still emerging triumphant. The first case mentioned is in the Baroque opera L’incoronazione di Poppea, where the …

Posthumanism In Literature: Redefining Selfhood, Temporality, And Reality/Ies Through Fiction, Eileen Kelley Pierce

English (MA) Theses

While fictional novels are often seen as a way to escape reality, their relation to reality and the ways in which they distort or reinforce our understandings of reality can provide significant insights into our cultural values and beliefs. Using posthumanist theory, I examine how understandings of selfhood and its relations to time and reality are complicated within three works of fiction and how those complications represent and articulate a societal shift in meaning and knowledge that is supported by posthumanist ideologies. The three works, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, Wolf in White Van by John …

“No One To Show Us The Way:” Assessing The Contemporary Relevance Of The Gay Male Bildungsroman, Matthew Lemas

English (MA) Theses

The gay male bildungsroman can trace its origins to E.M. Forster’s posthumously published Maurice (1971) and Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story (1982), among other examples. While nested under the umbrella category of the queer bildungsroman (and, more broadly, the bildungsroman), the gay male iteration particularly explores integrational challenges related to the extant tensions between hegemonic masculinity and the male protagonist’s sexuality and gender identity. The subgenre—often conflated with the “coming out novel”—has faced a range of criticism in its roughly half-century existence. Scholars have accused it of banality, often relying on a limited range of well-trodden tropes; lacking diversity, …