Barrett

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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Modern Threats to American Democracy: A Study of 21st-Century Declines in Civic Engagement

Description

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying and defining voter education and participation as necessary contributors to…

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying and defining voter education and participation as necessary contributors to civic engagement. It provides a socio-legal framework for evaluating four phenomena that have shifted in their impact on politics over the past 20 years: the roles of money and media in politics, as well as disenfranchisement by gerrymandering and by felon voting restrictions. It demonstrates how each has a new and worsening impact on voter education and/or participation, thus threatening the continued existence of modern American democracy.
ContributorsMason, Maria (Co-author) / Morote, Nicole (Co-author) / Burnquist, Andrew (Co-author) / Affolter, Jacob (Thesis director) / Hoekstra, Valerie (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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Mizungo

Description
Mizungo is a work of lyrical creative nonfiction with an interactive braided essay format that plays with place and time melding culture, experience, and memory. It weaves the threads of sexuality, loss, depression, privilege, and family between photographs. This develops the themes of otherness and identity while exploring the settings…

Mizungo is a work of lyrical creative nonfiction with an interactive braided essay format that plays with place and time melding culture, experience, and memory. It weaves the threads of sexuality, loss, depression, privilege, and family between photographs. This develops the themes of otherness and identity while exploring the settings of Uganda, Tempe, and small-town Utah. The piece explores the identity of "mizungo," the name given by the locals to any white person who travels to Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, a region known for both hospitality and homophobia, this identity overtakes the author's name and sense of self propeling the mizungo to near celebrity status simply because of skin color and the privilege it promises. For McGovern, this attention creates otherness and the isolation that forces self-reflection, which propels self-healing. "Mizungo" provides her a mask in the homophobic region, that not only protects, but promotes self-acceptance. It also forces her to face her grief over familial tragedies and contemplate the settings of depression, loss, and the makings of family around the world. The timeline of Mizungo flows nonlinearly, and does not stick to one setting. Along with her mental state, the narrative explores the world and the beginning and ending of the "mizungo" identity. The narrative drops the reader onto the streets of Kampala where McGovern is first branded as "mizungo" and ends with the exploration of a different meaning of this identity. In between these scenes, the narrative pulls from memories of childhood and summers spent in Utah up through nine years later in Tempe, a few months before the story was published, and a year after traveling to Uganda.
ContributorsMcgovern, Sophia Odonnell (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Hoyt, Heather (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
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Uncovering Covert Aspects of the Presidential Debate

Description
Political debates are essential. They are critical components of the democratic process. Debates in the United States of America encourage constructive discussion about the role of government, the actions of individuals in positions of authority, and the future of the nation. During the presidential debate, voters are given the opportunity…

Political debates are essential. They are critical components of the democratic process. Debates in the United States of America encourage constructive discussion about the role of government, the actions of individuals in positions of authority, and the future of the nation. During the presidential debate, voters are given the opportunity to understand in detail candidates' platforms and where politicians stand on the hot-button issues of the time. Of course, what politicians say during debates is important. How important, then, is what the politicians do not say? Uncovering Covert Aspects of the Presidential Debate focuses on presidential candidates’ nonverbal communication tendencies, not actual words spoken, through an examination of a sample of presidential debates. Research contains the implementation of a focused analytical method with the objective of formulating a better understanding of how the general population forms perceptions about presidential candidates. Findings include interesting information about psychology, communication, and politics as well as a number of answers to the question of how nonverbal communication affects presidential debates. Politicians involved in the research are Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney. This research describes how these candidates behave and draws conclusions about trends in the body language of American politicians. No longer will the covert aspects of the presidential debate, which is viewed not only by millions of Americans but also by many individuals in other countries, remain a mystery. The truth behind what matters and what does not matter in the political debate has been established.
ContributorsGupta, Vishal (Author) / Herrera, Richard (Thesis director) / Hoekstra, Valerie (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05