Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Inspirations For Awake: Expressions Of Trauma Through Fiction And Autoethnographic Literature, Sophia Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Awake is a novella based on true events in my own life. This capstone project addresses my own experiences with intimate partner violence. While it is inspired by my life, I chose to write a fictional narrative rather than a strictly biographical piece of nonfiction. Instead, this novella illustrates a few of the traumas that I went through from within the lens of a fictional narrative. This enabled me to tell about my experiences by crafting my memories into a story, without the pressure of submitting an accounting of them. Writing Awake has been helpful to me in that it …

Critically And Creatively Engaging With Trauma-Informed Mental Health Research And Treatment Of Lgbtqia+ Communities As Expressive Arts Therapists: A Literature Review, Kelli Lavallee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Expressive Arts Therapists are uniquely situated as both artists and mental health counselors working in psychological pedagogy rooted in systems of oppression. Given the arts-based approaches to the therapeutic relationship, it can be unethical to offer these approaches without acknowledgement of the ways in which the arts intersect with social justice, and justice is only viable if practitioners critically review the clinical mental health education they are consuming from the institutions they learn in, specifically trauma-informed mental health research assimilation and treatment approaches for Expressive Arts Therapists in training, practice, and education. A review of the literature in this paper …

The Subaltern Magazine, Rebecca Fox, Riese Nichols

Social Sciences

The Subaltern intends to reach Cal Poly students who do not feel as if their voices are heard and allow them the platform to share their stories. Our focus is on unheard stories from our campus - whether this involves race, class, gender identity, mental health, ethnicity, culture, or any unique part of one’s identity or experience. We hope that these stories will begin to shed light on what we usually consider “taboo” topics and allow students to feel as if they aren’t alone.

Being a very homogeneous campus, it is important for us to realize that privileged voices are …

Depressed & Dis-Eased: Storytelling, Melancholia And The Rhetorical Affordances Of Affect, Carlee Franklin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Because racial oppression is often internalized, this thesis examines literature written by POC about protagonists of color struggling with depression. The pieces are Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Haruki Murakami’s “Tony Takitani,” and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Using literary concepts informed by Black feminist theory, decolonial theory, and affect studies, as well as rhetorical frameworks of silence and listening, this thesis attempts to better understand how the relationship between depression and racial oppression work to color the life expectancy and perspectives of depressed people of color

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

Presence Through Expressive Arts And Buddhism, Akshita Desore

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

There is increasing research suggesting presence as the foundation of therapeutic work with clients and is becoming just as important a concept as theoretical orientation of therapists. This literature review focuses on understanding the skill of presence by looking at existing literature on the concept and suggests expressive arts and meditative practices as a tool to cultivate therapeutic presence. Using the Geller-Greenberg model of Therapeutic Presence as the foundation, I answer two questions in this thesis, what presence means conceptually and how therapists can achieve presence when working with clients. By its very nature, Expressive arts therapy with its focus …

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.

The Red Swimsuit: Essays, Jacqueline Knirnschild

Honors Theses

This thesis is a collection of creative non-fiction essays that offers a collage of ethnography, reportage and memoir. The Red Swimsuit blurs the lines between what is considered social science, journalism and art. These essays will become part of a book- length work of creative non-fiction that will explore what it’s like to grow up as a woman in a globalized world wrought with social media, hookup culture and cross-cultural interactions. The Red Swimsuit provides first-hand experience, reflexive narration, and reflection on life as a member of Generation Z, also known as iGen.

The Complexities Of Intimacy, Brie Henderson

Graduate School of Art Theses

Through my research I have discovered there are many complexities that exist within the topic of intimacy. Of these complexities, I chose to explore the topics attachment and codependency in my final series. Attachment and codependency are deeply rooted in psychology, poetry, and many artist’s practices. The relationship between poetry and my work has become deeply intertwined. I combine poetry with my work as a way to document my feelings and to inspire the titles for my paintings. Through a series of intimate watercolor paintings, I reference bodies, intimate interactions and the ambiguity within the two. This ambiguity asks viewers …

Equitable Design Through The Urban Museum: Catalyzing Community Revitalization And Environmental Justice In The Sweet Auburn Historic District(The New Apex Museum), Day'zhanera King

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Have you ever heard of the Black Lives Matter Movement, or B.L.M.? B.L.M. was created as a response to the resurgence of racism and xenophobic hate-crimes against Black people and their communities, often at the hands of police. It was the hate crimes plus the scape-goating of Blacks add in poverty rates, the exponentially high Black unemployment rates, and the over policing of Black neighborhoods. B.L.M. is the modern activist response to the continuance of Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs, Bill Clinton’s crime bill and the massive, and the disproportionate incarceration of Black men. B.L.M. is the representation for what …

A Rhapsody Wild, Corey Davis

Honors Theses

This thesis is a fictional novel which explores themes of morality and tragedy within the society of a crime-and-murder-ridden city called Spekender. The mayor, Ev Edison, has become a disgraced recluse as a result of the tragic deaths of his wife and unborn child a year and a half prior to when the story takes place. His remaining children (three boys and a girl named Nimble) are left to navigate their disaster-torn worlds in isolation from their father and from each other. All of this changes one day when Nimble encounters a dangerous supernatural character that seems to know everything …

Baton Rouge Slam!: An Obituary For Summer 2016: A Critical Performance Ethnography Of Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam, Joshua Hamzehee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This critical performance ethnography presents the theory, methodology, and practice surrounding the fieldwork, scripting, and performance of Baton Rouge SLAM!: An Obituary for Summer 2016. As participant-observer, director, and co-performer, I unpack social drama, performance ethnography, and slam culture by employing a lens rooted in critical race theory. Local poets permitted me to de- and re-contextualize their interviews into ensemble scenes and theatricalize their slam poems about the recent summer’s charged events. One year later, this involved and embodied process of ethnographic bricolage became the ensemble cast performance of Baton Rouge SLAM!: An Obituary for Summer 2016. Community members and …

"#Does This Count As Poetry?": A Genre Analysis Of Tumblr Poetry, Selena Cotte

College of Communication Master of Arts Theses

This thesis canonizes “Tumblr poetry” as a distinct and separate genre of poetry, closely related to other digital poetry movements but ultimately its own phenomenon. Through historical analysis, the criticism against Tumblr poetry and digital poetry as a whole become familiar in a cycle of negative reactions to changing poets and changing audiences. Through textual analysis of poems found on Tumblr, common attributes and style changes are identified and contrasted with more traditional contemporary poetry, signifying a distinct formal shift. Finally, through a platform analysis, poetry communities on Reddit and Instagram are similarly analyzed and contrasted with Tumblr poetry to …

Conceptualizing The Unspeakable: A Conceptual Metaphor Theory Analysis Of Sexual Assault Trauma In Creative Nonfiction, Ariana Ciamaricone

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This paper explores the use of conceptual metaphors (CMs) in two works of creative nonfiction, namely Laurie Halse Anderson’s (2019) Shout and Elissa Washuta’s (2014) My Body is a Book of Rules. Anderson’s (2019) poetic memoir centers on her experiences with sexual assault throughout her childhood and the process of writing her young adult novel Speak (1999). Washuta (2014) writes on her experiences with rape and mental illness via prose. Both memoirs detail their authors’ reckoning with the experience of sexual assault, and this paper investigates how trauma narratives attempt to “resolve what cannot be resolved, to generate meaning, …

A Troop, A Raft, A Bed, Hanna Jane Guendel

Senior Projects Spring 2020

A Troop, a Raft, a Bed tells the interwoven fictional stories of three major animals (the mountain gorilla, the Adélie penguin, and the American eel) and four transitional animals (the white stork, the humpback whale, the common octopus, and the great white shark). The stories are told from the animals' perspectives, and are written with language that considers each animal's unique intelligence, mind, and behavior. These stories seek to communicate how animals around the world may be experiencing the various effects of climate change and global warming.

Journal, Untitled, Angelo Chammah

Senior Projects Spring 2020

This journal has no owner.
It is simply out there.
It belongs to me, it belongs to you.
It is about personal moments but universal experiences.
What do you see when you drive with the window open?
What can you find in your own house?
What light is on at midnight?

Angelo Chammah

The Veilmakers, Emily Nicole Giangiulio

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Joint Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature and The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Populism: An Exploration Into The American Case Through The Academic Literature, Data Analysis, And Fiction, Maxwell Knowles

CMC Senior Theses

The twenty-first century has seen a rise in populist leadership and rhetoric throughout the globe, with the United States standing as one powerful case. This thesis hopes to develop the “story” of populism from multiple perspectives, attempting to not only inform but change the way we approach the populist movement in America, and perhaps, the world. In Part I, I summarize and blend much of the core literature written on populism and economic change, developing the story that populism in America today has its roots in the significant techno-economic and cultural paradigmatic shifts of the 1970s. Social media and an …

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …

"Pcb Pandemic": How Polychlorinated Biphenyls Plagued The Hudson And Why Commercial Fishermen Were Left Behind, Morgan Averill Gray

Senior Projects Fall 2020

Senior Project Submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College

Imaginative Empathies: Exploring The Role Of Creative Writing In Developing Social Skills Of College Students With Autism, Rebekkah N. Richner

MSU Graduate Theses

Only one-third of students with autism who are enrolled in American universities go on to graduate (Cox & Williams, 2018; Newman et al., 2011; Wei et al., 2014). These students may be currently underserved by the writing curriculum of postsecondary institutions when it comes to facilitating social and personal development in college and beyond. This thesis begins with the hypothesis that creative writing classes already utilize pedagogical tools that could aid students with autism in strengthening their social skills, particularly through the more structured social environment of the creative writing workshop. This study examined a 200-level short story creative writing …

The Program, Aaron Douglas Estrada

Theses and Dissertations

In my work, I explore the engineering of identity and socioeconomics that are programed into Black and Brown communities. I refer to this as “The Program”. The Program validates, breaks, codes, and critiques the system that divided us. The Program is identifying with the struggle of growing up in a system that is programmed to see you fail. So if you get caught up in that system it’s a natural death within the program. But you can break and make your own program. If you stick to the program.

The paper's use of language is coded. Text has been written …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.