Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Understanding Of Prisons, Race, And Class In The United States, Seth Ketchum

Honors Projects

After a summer of protests sparked by police brutality, the United States remains divided on this most important issue. This paper will seek to contextualize this country’s situation to explain that these protests stem from a history of inequality, in order to argue against claims that the protests are unjustified. With a multidisciplinary approach, we can begin to observe just how unequal this country is and understand what drives so many people to protest during the middle of a global pandemic.

Politics For Angels, William Kanwischer

Honors Projects

How many idealizing assumptions may we make when doing political philosophy? May we assume our citizens more rational than they are, or our governments more efficient than in reality? These questions lie at the center of the debate between ideal and non-ideal theorists. Ideal theorists believe it permissible to engage in counterfactual assumptions about citizens and states when doing political philosophy, and non-ideal theorists think the opposite. In this paper, I will argue against a particular defense of ideal theory given by David Estlund, who argues that the low probability that a standard of justice will be met does not …

Lemonade Stand: An Original Theatre For Young Audiences Play For Neurodiverse Children, Kate Tayler

Honors Projects

Lemonade Stand is an original play a Theatre For Young Audiences-style play written with accessibility in mind for neurodiverse children, especially with ADHD and autism.

“The Speechmaking Of A Girl-Orator”: Reason, Gender, And Authority In Dorothy Hunter’S Free Trade Oratory, Erinn Elizabeth Campbell

Honors Projects

Dorothy M. Hunter (1881-1977) rose to prominence during the 1906 United Kingdom general election as a markedly “girlish” yet widely respected free trade orator. While men on the Edwardian public political platform typically built a reputation for oratorical prowess through theatrical displays of “heroic” masculinity, Hunter established her authority as a speaker through two very different (and apparently contradictory) strategies. Her performance of “charming” middle-class femininity helped demonstrate her right to speak on free trade as a “women’s question,” extending women’s traditional authority over matters of domestic consumption to include questions of political economy. Trusting in the power of education …

Following The Guide: A Wilderness Theology Of Youth Ministry, Rachel M. Weisz

Honors Projects

Scripture offers readers a unique characterization of wilderness spaces and provides us with a great deal of information about what to expect. This discussion traces various scriptural narratives of encounter with God in the wilderness, offering the reader a model for what a wilderness experience of God may entail, and then turns to more current conversation about wilderness youth ministry. The project traces current research of fields that are tangentially related to wilderness youth ministry including wilderness therapy, outdoor adventure education, and camp ministry, and seeks to highlight the ways that they can enhance, alter, and confirm various practices within …

What Seoul Saw, What Gwangju Knew: Journalism And Censorship During The Gwangju Pro-Democracy Movement, Emily Ambrose

Honors Projects

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of the Kwangju Pro-Democracy Movement, a civilian protest in the city of Kwangju against the Chun Doo Hwan military dictatorship, which was brutally crushed by the military. This research focuses on the journalism that occurred during movement and attempts to analyze the relationship between the government and the media by gauging the extent of censorship. This is done by comparing censored national and local newspapers in Korea to uncensored foreign newspapers for differences in the information presented. Because of factors such as biases and differences in access to resources between newspapers and journalists, …

Social Justice: A Catholic Autistic Perspective, Rebecca Schneider

Honors Projects

This is a collection of short stories about social injustices impacting the autistic community and how Catholic Social Teaching supports a more just approach. It is written from an autistic perspective and informed by the stories of people who are actually autistic. Each story is followed by an analysis that explains the choices made, which are backed by both research and the experiences of the autistic writer and the autistic community. This collection also includes information on how justice can be attained on the individual level by allies and on the institutional level by organizations.

Investigation Of The "Cultural Appropriation" Of Yoga, Olivia Bartholomew

Honors Projects

With our world becoming increasingly globalized and cosmopolitan, practices that were once very traditional and spiritual are much different when they confront Western societies. Many yoga instructors and practitioners around the world are concerned about the issue of cultural appropriation within their practice. The researcher defines cultural appropriation to mean the process of a dominant culture manipulating aspects of a marginalized culture for its benefit. Traditionally, yoga comes from India, but it has become popularized throughout the world in our recent human history. Through interviews with nine yoga instructors, each from different yogic traditions, who teach in a variety of …

Zentangles For Mental Health Awareness, Rachel Immel

Honors Projects

The world is starting to see the rise of a stress related epidemic. Finding time to balance the struggles of everyday life, like academics, finances, careers and relationships, while also maintaining personal mental health is becoming increasingly difficult. This is what prompted me to use my project as an opportunity to help people relieve stress and create a community through the use of art, especially during a time where social interaction has been severely limited due to COVID-19.

My project is a series of live-streamed Zentangle art classes I hosted personally that were open to the public through Zoom. Zentangle …

A Quantitative Approach And A Qualitative Approach Towards Intersectionality Among Individuals With Lgbtq+ Identities, Viet (Mason) Trinh

Honors Projects

This is a two-parted project that integrates a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach toward the concept of intersectionality. Research about intersectionality has shown the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. Therefore, I decided to explore the concept using both approaches. The quantitative section of this project investigates the relationship between victimization experiences due to race/ ethnicity and/ or LGBTQ+ identities and emotional well-being. The sample for this section consisted of college students from all states in the United States who identified as LGBTQ+ and were between 18 and 24 years old. The qualitative section examines salient identities, identity gaps, …

Trust, Political Participation, And Poverty: The Effects Of Poverty On Political Behavior, Melanie Cain

Honors Projects

With the upcoming 2020 election, the right to vote and otherwise participate in politics is as important as ever. In this research, I have examine the relationship between trust in government, political efficacy, participation in politics, and poverty to study why those in low-income households have lower rates of political participation and offer solutions to raise the rate of participation.

Bridging The Generation Gap In The Lgbt+ Community Through Advocacy, Melanie Moore

Honors Projects

HEALTH is a program designed to meet the needs of LGBT+ older adults by connecting them with volunteers of LGBT+ nonprofit organizations. Through HEALTH, LGBT+ youth and older adults can form connections that can extend beyond the structure of the program. By connecting younger volunteers with older adults, HEALTH can help grow the social capital of the LGBT+ community. Fostering friendly relationships between people of all ages can influence the progress of LGBT+ rights moving forward by combining the experience of the elders with the technological and social capabilities of the youth.

The Misogyny Of Psychology: A Tribute To Women Often Overlooked, Gabrielle Miller

Honors Projects

Although the remarkable achievements of these twelve women may seem of concern to only a small group of feminist scholars, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about equal representation of diverse identities, especially within the branches of science which historically refused to give due credit to individuals other than straight, white men. For this reason, we must be able to recognize and react quickly to social issues, otherwise we run the risk of perpetuating oppression of certain minority groups for the remote future. Under those circumstances, we must work toward positive change by doing away with such inequities …

"My Self Is The Art Is": An Art Installation Exploring Self-Reflection In Art-Making, Alexis Rubertino

Honors Projects

This is an art-installation which explores the following question: How does self-reflection play a role in art-making, particularly involving tacit artist-viewer communication?

I consider the self to be the recognition of a sum of experiences which constitute a sense of being: the self is experiential baggage that actively shapes the way one experiences the world. Artists must analyze their self and assume the viewer’s self to fulfill the intention of their art.

Art, loosely defined, points at or interacts with life and living – artists gather materials (visuals, ideas, audios, objects, etc.) and combine them to provide juxtapositions which create …

Quarantining And Dining, Madeline Flagg

Honors Projects

Quarantining and Dining captures and reflects the many ways in which comfort is provided through food. The project content was collected through food culture research, interviews, and observation and then mediated through Instagram. The Instagram feed has a designed aesthetic architecture and branding system that makes it distinct and identifiable. The Instagram account name can be found @Quarantininganddining. Although the project is rooted in Midwestern food culture, the perspectives provided are from across the United States, as well as from numerous occupations in order to express a diverse range of perspectives. The Instagram account encourages interaction and an exchange of …

Exploring How Media Portrayals Of Mental Health Affect Public Perceptions Through Devised Theatre, Lauren Lash

Honors Projects

A performance piece and this corresponding paper serve as my honors project, which has two main foci: devised theatre and how the media affects perceptions of mental health. This packet is a documentation of the rehearsal process and sources that influenced the piece and a link to the piece itself. Documenting the rehearsal process included a list of songs, rehearsal plans, rehearsal schedules, and my reflections on the process. Helpful sources included a photo release form, which allowed me to include a recording in this packet, and my annotated bibliography included sources about devising, portraying mental health in theatre, and …

The Soviet And American Wars In Afghanistan: Applying Clausewitzian Concepts To Modern Military Failure, Artur Kalandarov

Honors Projects

This paper evaluates the validity of three concepts from Carl von Clausewitz’s On War as they relate to contemporary military conflict. Utilizing the Soviet and American Wars in Afghanistan as case studies, the paper also offers a model for comparative conflict analysis by expanding upon Clausewitz’s culminating point concept. It argues that – despite limitations to Clausewitz’s theory of war – his concepts of culminating points in military operations, mass and concentration, and changing war aims provide useful insights into counterinsurgency military failures. Chapter One identifies the Soviet and American culminating points. Concluding that the concept of a culminating point …

Bubbles & Bought-Ins: Reevaluating Price Movements In The Art Market, Silas Wuerth

Honors Projects

Employs two tests for bubbles in the art market. First, a right-hand forward recursive augmented Dickey-Fuller test to identify explosive price movements. Second, a test for the statistical significance of hedonic regression price index coefficients after controlling for equity market performance. Finds strong evidence for a speculative bubble in the pre-Great Recession "Post-War & Contemporary" market. Evidence for this bubble diminishes but does not dissipate after accounting for the effect of failed sales on index returns.

“How The World Could Be In Spite Of The Way That It Is”: Broadway As A Reflection Of Contemporary American Sociopolitical Life, Isabel Thomas

Honors Projects

Drawing on the plays and musicals of the 2018-2019 Broadway season, this thesis examines how theatre responds to the sociocultural, economic, and political conditions of society. Sociologists have largely overlooked theatre’s cultural influence, but Broadway productions act as social reflection by reproducing the conversations and inequalities of their context. Access to Broadway is limited, in various manners, by socioeconomic class, race, gender, ability, and age. As conversations about equity expand and audiences increasingly demand diversified representation, Broadway begins to shed the restraints of its conventions. In many regards, the recent changes fail in meaningfully transforming the Broadway institution. Those who …

Répresentations De La Banlieue Dans Le Cinéma Français Contemporain, Yaw Owusu Sekyere

Honors Projects

Inhabitants of the poor French banlieues are rejected and isolated from the larger French society, who refuse to acknowledge their marginalization. As a result, the cycle continues where no political change is made. The French film genre, cinéma de banlieue, seeks to explain the perspectives of the underrepresented and marginalized groups within France. This honors project analyzes the representations of the banlieue through the films of La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz), Wesh wesh qu’est-ce qui se passe ? (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche), Bande de filles (Céline Sciamma), Divines (Houda Benyamina), and Banlieusards (Kery James & Leïla Sy). These films focus on the …

Chambers Of Reflection: Rousseau, Tocqueville, And Self-Government In The Digital Age, John Sweeney

Honors Projects

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Alexis de Tocqueville each warn that the dominant cultures of their days may hinder the project of self-government. Against the backdrop of advancing Enlightenment philosophy, Rousseau writes that as social visibility increases relative to intimate connection, the drive for recognition corrupts self-love. Following the American and French revolutions, Tocqueville explores the democratic erosion of social hierarchies. He writes that a rise in individualism may obscure “self-interest well-understood”—the perspective gained through collaboration with others, thoughtful reflection, and reverence for truths that lie beyond the dictates of cursory instincts.

In this project, I apply these political theories to the …