Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
This story is a gothic-themed narrative which represents the amalgamation of two academic fields: creative writing and psychology. Told from the perspective of the main character, Euanthe, the focus of the story is to provide the reader with a recounting of a moment in her life as she contemplates her existence as a vampire. Set in a decaying gothic city, this is an excerpt of a more extensive narrative and is intended to serve as a self-contained piece within a larger story. Sources such as folk tales, historical accounts of vampirism, popular literature, religious beliefs, and architectural symbolism were all influences that contributed to the conceptualization of the story and its themes.
When you see someone who looks like you or sounds like you in a major magazine, film, or book, how does it really make you feel? Do you feel liberated? Do you feel seen and validated? Or perhaps you read a negative article or comment about your people that are solely based on stereotypes, would you feel ashamed or saddened by your thought processes following the comments made about you, from individuals who don’t even know you? Does this affect the way you look at yourself or present yourself to the world as a result? And if so, how? This creative project is a self-journey of analyzing the various ways my self-esteem has fluctuated in response to different types of representations or topics related to Indigenous peoples over the course of ten weeks. It consists of multiple vulnerable reflection essays and curation of 85+ Tik Tok videos in an attempt to answer why representation matters, how it matters, and what is our personal role in it from an Indigenous perspective.
Reasons to Stay Alive is a short story that follows the protagonist, Corinne Larson, and her experiences with depression and anxiety as well as self-harm and suicidal ideations. It is meant to act as an antithesis to media that romanticizes suicide, such as the television show 13 Reasons Why (2017), and instead glorify growth and healing. Specifically, it focuses on the importance of social support in the healing process. The story is separated into three different formats: narrative, letter, and free-verse poetry. It is prefaced by a poem titled ‘death by suicide’ that discusses the stigma around suicide and the reason why the phrase ‘commit suicide’ was changed to ‘death by suicide’. The story then starts with a letter written by Corinne to her future self during a time she was really struggling with depression and self-harm and suicidal ideations. It is a plea with her future self to tell her everything will be alright. The rest of the story is broken into four parts, each about a specific and important person in Corinne’s life. Each part starts off as a first person narrative from Corinne’s point of view and is a memorable experience she had with each person and ends with a short letter addressed directly to each person. The letters are a chance for Corinne to tell each person how important they are to her, how they made an impact in her life, and how they gave her a reason to stay alive. Between each part is a poem that deals with different themes relating to depression or anxiety. The story ends with a letter written by Corinne to her future self that goes back and addresses the first letter. It gives past Corinne some words of advice and tells her that her reasons to stay alive are the important people in life as well as herself and the person she will become.
Uncle Dan is dead. He’s dead and Aunt Clara and Mike move across the country, leaving Jack and Jamie in their small Ohio town. Jamie spirals out of two relationships she thought would last forever, and Jack adventures across the country to bring back his cousin and return the family to a sense of normalcy. But the pair will soon realize that normal is relative and the truth is how you spin it, especially in the face of grief.
The world of Tloren stands not alone. Tales from history and the lore of fictional settings alike have shaped a fantasy world as immersive as it is fantastical. This thesis catalogues the totality of inspirations behind seven of the major locations depicted in Tloren, the setting of the author’s own fantasy novel. Itself inspired by sensationalist archeological accounts from before the twentieth century, the following is a dissection of each place in exacting detail, weaving together narrative and academic discussion. Ultimately, the totality of inspirations behind Tloren will never be fully explored, yet it is the hope of the author that this thesis both stands alone as an account and guide for other aspiring worldbuilders as well as an appendix within the novel to further contextualize the locations therein.
