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.
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Description
This project consists of five short stories in varying genres, all leaning towards the fantastic. "Wood Devils" (Honorable Mention in the 2018 Swarthout Awards in Writing) attempts to explore the absurdity and pain in long-running family conflicts, as well as the sense of isolation that comes from living in hard-to-reach places. "The Green Man's Daughter" investigates the boundary between the fantastical and the everyday by using the Other as a viewpoint, and underscores the importance of speaking out in a confusing and sometimes frightening world. "Maleficis ex Machina" attempts to look at community violence, mishandled technology, and intergenerational conflict by taking the collision between the fantastic and suburban to an even greater degree than the previous piece. "Probation" sits at a crossroads between bureaucracy and corporatization, and looks at the benefits of finding a middle ground between Heaven and Hell. "For a Crown" dramatizes the only partially-successful attempt in history at stealing the crown jewels from the Tower of London, and Charles II's inexplicable pardoning of the thief. Although the stories do not intersect (shared names and an abundance of cats notwithstanding), they all focus on the barrier between the mundane and the extraordinary. Just how porous that boundary may be is, as always, uncertain.
ContributorsTasker, Luke Thomas (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Pickhart, Kalani (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis is an experiment in confessional academic writing, an attempt to read two surrealist texts closely and critically while simultaneously employing creative, lyrical prose and narration. The thesis, in both style and content, has bridged the realms of academic and creative writing in order to fully embody the concepts explored within: abstractions of the self, how abstracted selves interact with space, and how such abstractions lead to an ever-evolving and contactable conceptualization of personhood. Further, the thesis explores and reaches for a submergence of selves into space and other abstracted selves while grappling with and resisting against the occasional failure of language and spatial experience, which leads to a detrimental distance between the self and its experience in the world. Surrealism's advocacy for blind submission, for indulging the dream and embracing dream-like modes of appearance, and for locating an unconscious and automatic medium for expression (as seen in André Breton's first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 and his 1928 novel Nadja) licenses an understanding of being that allows for multidimensional embodiment through one's presence and absence and through indistinctions between the self and space. The thesis recognizes and works through potentially problematic power dynamics within such notions of possession and dispossession while articulating a full faithfulness in the imagination's ability to uncover expansive personhood and the ways this kind of personhood is more wholly enabled to authentically and productively connect the disparity between persons, space, language, and reality. While analytical and textually supported, and accompanied by a photo essay that explores the aforementioned concepts visually, this thesis indulges in poetic impulses and offers a critical and personal investigation on being which allows us to consider ourselves as things that are endlessly becoming.
ContributorsDenson, Tabitha (Author) / McGregor, Francine (Thesis director) / Hanlon, Christopher (Committee member) / Mann, Annika (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Engineering is a heavily male-dominated field and females are significantly less likely to choose an engineering-related major or career path. At the age of six years old, females start believing that their male peers are smarter than them, leading them to pursue less ambitious careers. The children's book Lyla B. An Engineering Legacy was created to encourage more young girls to discover their own potential and pursue engineering as a career. To explore the efficacy of the book on its target consumers, a pilot study was performed with first and second grade children. The participants' engineering knowledge; fixed and failure mindset beliefs; STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) interest, competency, and career aspirations; and stereotype beliefs were evaluated before and after being read the book to determine if the story has a positive impact on children. Additionally, the satisfaction of the participants towards both the book and main character were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Overall, the results of the study suggest that the book has a positive impact on the interest and competency of STEM fields and the stereotype beliefs that the children had towards engineers. The study also suggests that the book decreases fixed and failure mindsets and that the participants were satisfied with the overall concept of the book and main character, Lyla.
ContributorsPiatak, Catherine (Co-author) / Seelhammer, Marissa Leigh (Co-author) / Torrence, Kelly (Co-author) / Miller, Cindy (Thesis director) / Jordan, Shawn (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Drawing on existing scholarship as well as primary analytical materials, the research within this report demonstrates Wile E. Coyote's character is reliant on human connectivity and is evocative of the human condition, reflecting his disciplined and stylized design he possesses. Comprised of literary, film/media, and rhetorical elements, this report illustrates how Wile E. is an individual whose character holds various influences that provide dimensionality to his existence. The research within this report is both primary and secondary through observational recordings about the cartoons Wile E. appears in and through thorough analysis of texts elaborating on the elements comprising Wile E.'s character. Primary research from the initial observational recordings provides direction for the secondary research after viewing multiple cartoons and films containing Wile E. Coyote in his Warner Brothers Studios appearances and noting unique moments in his cinematic career. The notes from this viewing of Wile E. in his natural "habitat" drive the secondary research to focus on specific aspects of Wile E.'s character through the analysis of supporting texts which ultimately leads to the findings within this report. Research in the fields of literature, film/media studies, and rhetoric shape the analysis of Wile E.'s character as this report studies the various components compiled within the cartoon coyote. As a multifaceted individual, Wile E. illustrates a complexity within a stylized character that allows viewers to connect to his plights and to identify with his struggles. Through his emulative form, Wile E. embodies vital elements of character creation that allow him to become a memorable and prominent character that resonates in viewers and artists. From Wile E. Coyote's example, future generations of story tellers, regardless of their medium, can learn how to create similarly iconic and timeless characters within their works. Such stories can then contribute significant additions to popular narrative and characterization.
ContributorsGarza, Christopher Aaron (Author) / Baldini, Cajsa (Thesis director) / Mack, Robert (Committee member) / Sandler, Kevin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s novel La Vagabonde about struggling 33-year-old divorcée Renée Néré has only had a handful of translations into English since its original publication in 1910. It was picked up for its first translation in the late 1950s as a result of its sensitive nature concerning female sexuality and patriarchal oppression of the physical and mental female sphere. Due to the bowdlerized and outdated language of previous English interpretations of the novel, I set forth to create a new translation that would convey the complex simplicity of Colette’s words and the ever-relevant themes of the novel that may have been overlooked in the past. Although Colette’s diction is simple, her poetic use of grammar, focused rhetoric, and poignant insights into the female experience are deceptively intricate.
In this introduction, I discuss the methodology used while translating the novel and a few of the linguistic, semantic, and cultural problems I encountered while working on this new annotated translation. I also explain the cultural and literary context of popular novels during the fin-de-siècle that helped create motifs and themes that Colette later inverses in the novel. Colette reverses the narrative of the male spectator sitting in the dark theatre, eyes fixed on the desirable form of the female performer. Instead, Renée observes those in her life reversing the male gaze in onto itself.
Despite the meticulousness of the translator, each translation remains only an interpretation of the original text. From hunting motifs to the socio-economic role of diction in class structure during La Belle Époque, I discuss the specific diction Colette uses to show Renée’s dissociation of self and internalized misogyny in her stream-of-consciousness narration.
Following the introduction is seventy-nine pages of the new translation with annotations on certain cultural and linguistic peculiarities unique to French culture and language.
In this introduction, I discuss the methodology used while translating the novel and a few of the linguistic, semantic, and cultural problems I encountered while working on this new annotated translation. I also explain the cultural and literary context of popular novels during the fin-de-siècle that helped create motifs and themes that Colette later inverses in the novel. Colette reverses the narrative of the male spectator sitting in the dark theatre, eyes fixed on the desirable form of the female performer. Instead, Renée observes those in her life reversing the male gaze in onto itself.
Despite the meticulousness of the translator, each translation remains only an interpretation of the original text. From hunting motifs to the socio-economic role of diction in class structure during La Belle Époque, I discuss the specific diction Colette uses to show Renée’s dissociation of self and internalized misogyny in her stream-of-consciousness narration.
Following the introduction is seventy-nine pages of the new translation with annotations on certain cultural and linguistic peculiarities unique to French culture and language.
ContributorsDitto, Shannon Jule Campbell (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Thesis director) / Minardi, Enrico (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
An investigation into the cultural phenomenon surrounding books and movies that are considered critical failures, but are nonetheless championed in popular culture. Stories are an essential part of American culture, and many people not only tolerate but truly enjoy those stories that are shocking, confusing, and, in some cases, those that were created by storytellers with almost no talent at all. The continued production of these lackluster stories was considered, with an eye to the corporate influences on film studios and publishers. This paper also looked at two storytellers, the filmmaker Ed Wood and the author Stephen King, whose value as artists has been debated by passionate fans and their strongest critics. The sociological concepts of taste and cultural capital, as defined by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the art movements of postmodernism and metamodernism, particularly the style of camp as defined by Susan Sontag and the value of bad taste in art as defined by John Waters, were investigated in regards to their connection to the popularity of bad films and novels. A brief investigation into the psychological effects of consuming bad stories, especially in children, was also included. From this foundation of the bad story as an important part of our culture's ideas about art and its consumption, the paper then addresses some of the popular methods of consumption of the bad story. For novels, the paper examines the trend of pulp fiction novels and of romance novels, going into depth on the role of E.L James' Fifty Shades of Grey in popular culture. For film, the paper examines the impact of the midnight movie trend on the popularity of subversive, counter-culture films, the role of camp genre films like Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show in our culture, particularly with an eye towards audience participation screenings, and the way in which other projects, like Joel Hodgson's Mystery Science Theater 3000, transform bad films into new, enjoyable entertainment. Overall, this paper investigates all of the positive aspects around a failed story that allow these missteps in writing and directing to still find success in our culture.
ContributorsPehoushek, Scott James (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Free, Melissa (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis influenced literary criticism and cultural studies in profound ways; significant modern and postmodern theories of literature frequently engage with Freud's theories of the human unconscious. Psychoanalytic criticism and the arrival of "Deconstruction" in America destabilized the boundaries between linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and literature. When theorists applied psychoanalysis to literary study in the twentieth century, texts suddenly brimmed with secret meaning, distortion, the Symbolic order, and Ecriture feminine; writers and poets became patients susceptible to regressions, unconscious repression, projections and interjections appearing in their work. Reading a text was a form of dream interpretation for the literary critic and using a psychoanalytic approach provided the necessary framework to decode symbolism and untangle loose fantasies. Decades before Freud developed any of his theories, Edgar Allan Poe illustrated the unconscious and other uncharted psychological territory with his Gothic tales. Poe's fascination with psychological behavior has been the perfect subject for psychoanalytic criticism for decades. This project will analyze representations of psychoanalytic denial and projection in Poe's short fiction: "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Imp of the Perverse", "William Wilson", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Masque of the Red Death".
ContributorsSmith, Noah (Author) / Hattenhauer, Darryl (Thesis director) / Cisler, Sherry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05