Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

In the United States, the majority of the population suffers from some form of trauma. There are many ways that an individual can cope and accept their trauma, but two practices stand out as an inexpensive, flexible option for many. Bibliotherapy is the use of reading literature as a way to learn more about and understand one’s trauma through the perspective of others. Expressive writing is the practice of writing and reflecting about one’s own traumatic experiences, as well as the emotions that are tethered to it. In this paper, I explore the fields of bibliotherapy and expressive writing as forms of therapy by reviewing the history, use, goals, and effects of each in the context of mental and emotional well-being. Intertwined with the scholarship is my own self-guided bibliotherapy of reading memoirs and poetry collections related to my trauma and self-guided expressive writing in which I wrote a short collection of personal essays and poetry, finding that both fields, separately and used together, are effective avenues for trauma healing.

This creative project is a compilation of the research of three Latin countries, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico and the influence on popular cuisines. The project focuses on how colonization and indigenous cultures from the respective countries blended and created fusion foods. The project findings will ultimately be compiled into an interactive recipe book. By examining Latin immigrant recipes and their different variations, as well as the history of certain ingredients and their usages, I understood that the history of these recipes is not black and white. Researching certain ingredients helped me understand what pattern in history I was looking for when it came to indigenous recipes to the country and what was influenced. I sought out the roots of these famous recipes expecting to find how European and national roots influenced them. Further research indicated that fusion foods were not experimental recipes but a modernized fusion of the roots.

This project focuses on the changes in levels of violence from original fairy tales to their Disney counterparts, specifically Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and The Brothers Grimm’s “Cinderella”. It uses Sigmund Freud’s theories on the pleasure and reality principles and the life and death drives to analyze why the levels of violence in the original fairy tales became less acceptable over time. The analysis concludes that the original stories embodied Freud’s life drive and reality principle, whereas Disney’s counterparts emphasize his death drive and pleasure principle, and ultimately, modern consumers place more value on the latter. Research is provided to support the assertion that the numerous traumatic events that occurred in the first half of the 20th century caused consumers to make this switch in value. Further speculations are made on the impact this project has on the interpretation of Freudian theory, and how this paper interconnects with current research on disability representation in Andersen’s and Grimm’s stories. The project concludes that the shift in valuing the pleasure principle and death drive over the reality principle and life drive indicates that modern consumers would rather be pacified with pleasurable thoughts that taught important but stark morals about life, society, and themselves.