Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Doikayt And The Ethics Of Belonging: Lessons In Place-Making From The Jewish Labor Bund, Zoë L. Jacobs

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis traces the evolution of doikayt—the Bundist principle of hereness—from its origins in the Jewish Labor Bund to contemporary applications in North America. Rooted in a refusal of both assimilation and nationalist escape, doikayt emphasizes cultivating safety, solidarity, and belonging through collective responsibility rather than territorial claims.

Building on this foundation, the exploration situates hereness within a settler-colonial context, where ethical dwelling is complicated by Indigenous dispossession. Drawing on Alexis Shotwell alongside Indigenous thinkers Vanessa Watts and Kyle Whyte, I examine how inhabiting place requires confronting historical injustices and ongoing relational responsibilities. Chapter 3 analyzes Linke Fligl (2016–2022) as …

Legal Stories Without Villains, Alison Peck

Law Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers have always been storytellers, and cognitive science is increasingly demonstrating that human beings are wired to learn through story. But legal stories may have a dark side if, as theorists have recently suggested, stories motivate pro-social action by reinforcing in-group identification and out-group hatred. In an increasingly divided polity, are we doomed to stories that drive us toward social disintegration? A solution to the legal storyteller’s dilemma may be found in an ancient source: Aristotle’s Poetics. By crafting legal stories that track the elements of the Tragedy as described by Aristotle and adapted by modern storytellers from Broadway …

When In Doubt, Dream: A Media Ecology Approach To How Presidential Campaign Ads Structure The American Dream, Amit Sewnauth

Honors Program Theses

This thesis examines how presidential campaign advertisements construct and reshape the American Dream. Drawing on Jim Cullen’s understanding of the Dream as a flexible and evolving concept and media ecology scholarship, particularly Neil Postman’s writing on television and public discourse, the project analyzes selected campaign ads from 1964 to 2024 provided by The Living Room Candidate. Through close readings of these advertisements, this project finds that the American Dream is actively reconstructed by presidential campaigns as an ideal that must be protected, extended, or restored. The analysis pays attention to how television and visual media structure these messages through pacing, …

A Patient-Centered Approach To Physician-Assisted Death For Patients With Treatment-Resistant Major Depressive Disorder, Moc Lan Nguyen

Honors Program Theses

In medical ethics, the arguments for allowing physician-assisted death (PAD) access for physically and terminally ill patients are well-accepted. These arguments mainly stem from the rise of support for patient autonomy and recent criticisms of paternalism. While this notion in support of PAD is generally held in various medical disciplines, psychiatry remains staunchly couched in their conviction of paternalism. Compounded with the principle of suicide prevention, psychiatry is reluctant to accept PAD for its mentally ill patients as it goes against their profession’s role responsibilities. Furthermore, there is plenty of skepticism regarding mentally ill patients’ competency, which calls into question …

More Than Meets The Eye: Operation Blue Star & Us-India’S Deadly Exchange, Jannat Verma

Scripps Senior Theses

Operation Blue Star is often memorialized as an independent action carried out by India's Congress Party. While such an understanding is not entirely historically inaccurate, it fails to account for the role played by US influence in the operation. An examination of CIA files and America's involvement in the subcontinent during the Cold War calls for a re-interpretation of Operation Blue Star, not as a solo campaign, but rather as a product of counterinsurgent and deadly exchange between the US and India.

Appalachia In Presidential Campaign Rhetoric Since 1964, Meredith Morello

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines how presidential candidates have invoked Appalachia in campaign rhetoric from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 election through 2024, arguing the region functions not as a geographic reference but as a strategically deployable political symbol. Through mixed-methods analysis of 83 campaign-period sources archived in the American Presidency Project, a structured thematic coding schema traces how candidates frame the region across six decades using two analytically distinct modes: objective-economic and moralized-culture framing.

Five major structural patterns emerge: Johnson's institutionalization of the region as bounded domestic poverty; strategic silence during national instability; reframings enabling rhetorical reentry; symbolic portability across ideological projects; …

“No Soy Una Santa Pero Estoy Blessed”: El Álbum Lux, La Lingüística, Y Rosalía Como Una Santa Moderna, Abigail H. Gustafson

Scripps Senior Theses

Esta tesis analiza el álbum LUX (2025) de Rosalía como un proyecto artístico que fusiona la espiritualidad, la lingüística y la identidad femenina en un contexto contemporáneo y globalizado. A través de referencias a figuras religiosas femeninas como Anandamayi Ma, Santa Rosa de Lima y Rabia Basri, Rosalía reinterpreta el concepto tradicional de la santidad y propone una visión moderna de la feminidad. Este análisis se apoya en la teoría de la performatividad de género de Judith Butler, argumentando que la identidad femenina en LUX se construye de manera fluida, múltiple y no limitada por categorías culturales o religiosas rígidas. …

From South Korea To South Central: The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising And The "Rooftop Korean", Mina Althea Lamson Jung

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the historical formation of the "rooftop Korean," the racial figure of the armed Korean American shopkeeper that emerged during the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising and has since been mobilized repeatedly in service of anti-Black counterinsurgency. Drawing on the framework of racial capitalism, this thesis argues that the rooftop Korean was not a spontaneous product of the Korean-Black conflict in South Central Los Angeles but the culmination of decades of U.S.-Korea relations, South Korean militarization, and the racial geography of capitalist development on both sides of the Pacific.

Tracing a transnational arc from the Korean War through the …

The Demand For Attention: Notification Technology And The Restructuring Of Communication, Sabrina Feld

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis argues that notifications are not merely features of digital devices but infrastructural forces that quietly reorganize the conditions under which communication is perceived, enacted, and understood. Drawing on Science, Technology, and Society (STS) frameworks, specifically Actor-Network Theory and Langdon Winner's concept of Forms of Life, the first chapter traces how notifications produce a Form of Life organized around continuous responsiveness, in which incoming information appears as a pending demand, silence carries new moral weight, and the capacity for self-determined availability is structurally foreclosed. Understood this way, notifications become a case study for a broader pattern in which technological …

I Am Hookman: A Reflection, Fiona E. Larsen-Teskey

Scripps Senior Theses

I am Hookman is a reflection paper on my process, experience, and growth performing in the play, Hookman, as my senior thesis.

Recipes And Resources: Food As A Decolonial Tool For The 1.5 Generation, Reyna Guadalupe Silva Carrillo

Scripps Senior Theses

Food is more than just nourishment for the 1.5-generation, people who come to the United States as children and now navigate between cultures; it is a language of memory, resistance, and survival across borders. This project raises an important question: how do 1.5-generation students navigate identity, belonging, and survival through food, and how can a zine serve as a medium for sharing community knowledge? My project argues that food is an important way 1.5-generation students use language to remember, resist, and survive across borders. Using pláticas, an informal conversation-based approach, this project focuses on the experience of 1.5-generation students at …

Just War Theory In The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’S Critique Of Violence, Power, And Rebellion, Laila Hannum

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis applies just war theory to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy, arguing that while the districts' rebellion satisfies the principles of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war), it systematically violates jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war) and jus post bellum (justice after war), and ultimately replicates the oppressive structures of the Capitol it sought to overthrow.

Drawing primarily on Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars and on Brian Orend's ideas on post-war justice, this thesis traces the rebellion's moral arc across all three novels. Chapter One shows that the rebellion meets the criteria …

The Myth Of Capitalism, Marcus Mosquera

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Capitalism is a contentious topic in contemporary political discourse. Understandings of capitalism vary dramatically, particularly in a polarized political climate. This thesis aims to shed light on the history of capitalism, detailing how it arose, what its fundamental features are, and on what grounds it is defended and criticized in the United States following World War II. Far from being objective, many understandings of capitalism are infused with emotional and dramatic framing devices that elevate these worldviews to the level of myth. This analysis will assess the ways that views on capitalism deploy the concept of myth and storytelling to …

Und Doch: Das Idealbuch Revisited | A Preview Exhibition Of German Private Press Books To 1935, Beppy Owen

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This master’s thesis project, the central topic of which is German private press books of the early 20th century, lays a foundation for an exhibition scheduled to be held at The Grolier Club of the City of New York in the spring of 2029. That exhibition, proposed to be titled Und Doch, Das Idealbuch Revisited: German Private Presses to 1935, will mark the centenary of another important exhibition of German private press books, one curated by the German private press printer Willy Wiegand and held at the Grolier Club in April,1929. The 2029 exhibition will include a researched catalog, the …

The Reggio Emilia Approach: Exploring Implementation And Challenges In An American Classroom Setting, Karoline S. Kniel

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Over the past decades, the Reggio Emilia Approach has gained popularity as an early childhood pedagogy due to both its child-led approach and its inherent inclusive nature. An innovative alternative to traditional early childhood education practices, the Reggio Emilia Approach focuses on fostering a deep relationship between the child and teacher wherein the child takes the lead on choosing classroom projects, themes, and topics for exploration. Emphasis is placed on the child’s self-expression, ideas, and emotions, culminating in a child-driven classroom agenda with a strong focus on the arts. According to the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) data, there …

The Spaces Of Queer Childhood, Haley Beardsley

Master’s Theses

This thesis examines how Victorian and early twentieth-century British literature imagines queer childhood as a spatial condition that generates alternative temporalities, rather than as a stable identity. Focusing on The Well of Loneliness (1928), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), and Peter Pan (1904) and Peter and Wendy (1911), this project argues that queer childhood emerges within literary environments that actively produce misalignment with normative developmental logics of innocence, growth, and reproductive futurity. Drawing on the work of Lee Edelman, Kathryn Bond Stockton, Jack Halberstam, Sara Ahmed, Elizabeth Freeman, and Guy Debord, this study contends that …

Rebuilt From The Same Stone: Religion And Colonization In Sixteenth-Century Mexico, Aziren South

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

When the Spanish landed in what is now Mexico in the early sixteenth-century, religious figures on mission trips took it upon themselves to convert indigenous peoples to Christianity and to the European way of life. The role of these missionaries was complex. They wanted to abolish the way of life of the societies they encountered, but they were also some of the most prominent defenders of the people they were trying to convert. They lived with them, learned their languages, advocated for their protection, and some supported indigenous efforts to preserve their history in writing. Ultimately, this paper aims to …

Madman's Drum, Lynd Ward

Zea E-Books Collection

Lynd Ward (1905–1985) was born in Chicago and studied at Columbia Teachers College in New York City and at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking in Leipzig, Germany. He began working as a book illustrator in 1927, and in 1929 published this first “wordless novel,” Gods’ Man. He eventually published five more such works, as well as illustrations for more than 100 other books, plus drawings, lithographs, watercolors, and children’s stories.

Madman’s Drum is his second wordless novel. It tells a dark story about a slaver who murders an African and steals his drum, which seems to …

Presidential Slaves: The Story Of Black People In The Lives Of Antebellum U.S. Presidents, Nika Davis

History Dissertations

The historical narrative about American slavery included many topics such as the African slave trade, the Middle Passage, slave culture, rebellions, religion, and abolition.  This study revealed more information to be examined in the record of American slavery relating to the presidents of the United States and their enslaved laborers.  This oversight proved prevalent during the years leading to the American Civil War from 1820-1860.  Therefore, this dissertation focused upon the enslaved and free Black people who intersected with the presidents and their friends, political acquaintances, and family.  By studying their lives, this dissertation revealed that the slaves associated with …

The Essence Of The Heart: Layered Human Experience In Eva Jessye’S My Spirituals, Jessica Brunet

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Much of the spiritual repertory has been transcribed as documentation of purely melodic and lyrical content, and many songs have been arranged by some of the greatest figures in twentieth- and twenty-first century music history, including Harry T. Burleigh, Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, and Jacqueline B. Hairston. On this roster of luminaries is Dr. Eva Jessye (1895-1992).

If Eva Jessye is remembered at all, it is typically in the context of her role as choral director for the original production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935). Among a litany of other accomplishments, however, Dr. Jessye also published a collection of …

Finding, Founding, And Forging: Queer Formulations Of Family In Nineteenth-Century British Novels, Brian Hicks

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how nineteenth-century British novels imagine and negotiate queer formulations of family at moments when biological kinship, marriage, and inheritance were increasingly formalized as social and legal imperatives. Reading canonical texts by Austen, Shelley, Wilde, Brontë, and Hardy, alongside the proto-modern and modernist work of Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf, I argue that these novels resist consanguinity as the sole basis of family and instead theorize queer kinship as something found, founded, or forged through affinity, care, and shared orientation rather than blood or reproduction. Drawing on queer theory, feminist criticism, phenomenology, and Foucauldian accounts of power and …

Ft Lt George William Nickerson Mm - Cwgc Certificate, Jenifer A. Harding

Documents: George William Nickerson

Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Certificate for RAF Flight Lieutenant George William Nickerson MM, Administration Officer at 5BFTS, who died in Lawson Hospital, Atlanta on July 31, 1943. He is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Plot at Oakwood Cemetery Annex, Mongomery, Alabama.

Ft Lt George William Nickerson Mm - Biography, Jenifer A. Harding

Documents: George William Nickerson

Biography of RAF Flight Lieutenant George William Nickerson MM, Administration Officer at 5BFTS, who died in Lawson Hospital, Atlanta on July 31, 1943. He is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Plot at Oakwood Cemetery Annex, Mongomery, Alabama.

Twenty-Second Sunday In Ordinary Time - 30 August 2026, Rose Mcallister

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Practicing Contemporary Documentation: An Analysis Of Historic Influences And Personal Inspirations, Zoee D. Rasso

Theses and Dissertations

For my Honors Thesis, I proposed and created a solo exhibition of my artwork, researching the inspiration behind this work to determine its place within in the context of contemporary art history. My work as an artist centers on stylized, psychologically charged portraits of birds. Looking at art history, birds as artistic subjects are historically rooted in documentation, from scientific illustrations and game paintings to ukiyo-e. Analyzing my own creative influences such as James Audubon, Walton Ford, and Safet Zec, this Thesis explores my artistic background and influences, examining how I have developed as an artist over my tenure at …

Album Production: A Pedagogical Tool In Collegiate Brass Performance, Alex Doolittle

Theses and Dissertations

This graduate research project investigates the value of musical album production within collegiate brass performance training and pedagogy. Within the collegiate sphere, brass pedagogy has long centered on live performance, such as juries, recitals, and ensemble participation as a primary performance tool; however, the 21st-century musical landscape is deeply rooted in technological and digital artistic dissemination. This study is used to push the boundaries of how technology can be interpreted in brass pedagogy by asking: How does album production function as a pedagogical tool in collegiate brass performance training?

In this project, I used an auto-ethnographic case study design, serving …

Picture Frame, Bryan Wang

Voice/Craft

Age 13, Grade 8

Storm, Claire Davis

Voice/Craft

Age 13, Grade 7

My Lunch With Robert Morris, A Signer Of The Declaration Of Independence, Sarah Irani

Voice/Craft

Age 13, Grade 8

Stories Are Weird, Hadley Kirschner

Voice/Craft

Grade 8