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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- Creators: Ison, Tara
- Creators: School of Politics and Global Studies
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 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
Description
The Vermillion Comedic Anthology comprises of three works of fiction, each around fifteen pages in length. The stories were written throughout the course of Hunter Vermillion’s residency in the English: Creative Writing (Fiction) program at Arizona State University. The first story Study-a-Broad, was written in his capstone fiction class, while the second story Herald’s Horticulture was the first piece Hunter wrote in his first fiction class.
The content of these stories is edgy, humorous, satirical (unlike this abstract), and generally absurd—all this while retaining elements of realism. “Realism” in the sense that any of these stories could occur; there are no supernatural elements contained. However, the actions and characters are so exaggerated that their purposes are to call attention to the character/societal flaws to which they reflect. The more edgy elements of these stories are not included for shock value; in fact, just the opposite. Their sparse use is purposeful to call extra attention to a certain scene or action. Often a story’s use of crude language is intended characterize these despicable actions as negative—to show that a boss should not be treating those around him like servants, for instance (as is the case in the story Fore!).
Disclaimer aside, the true intention of these stories is simple: to entertain. These are humorous pieces, aimed at poking fun at some typical college, workplace, and neighborhood drama. That’s not to say the pieces are devoid of any deeper meaning, because as described above, they seek to satirize overlooked bits of culture. However, the overarching goal of the Vermillion Comedic Anthology is to entertain readers and provide them much need escape from the stresses of the world.
The content of these stories is edgy, humorous, satirical (unlike this abstract), and generally absurd—all this while retaining elements of realism. “Realism” in the sense that any of these stories could occur; there are no supernatural elements contained. However, the actions and characters are so exaggerated that their purposes are to call attention to the character/societal flaws to which they reflect. The more edgy elements of these stories are not included for shock value; in fact, just the opposite. Their sparse use is purposeful to call extra attention to a certain scene or action. Often a story’s use of crude language is intended characterize these despicable actions as negative—to show that a boss should not be treating those around him like servants, for instance (as is the case in the story Fore!).
Disclaimer aside, the true intention of these stories is simple: to entertain. These are humorous pieces, aimed at poking fun at some typical college, workplace, and neighborhood drama. That’s not to say the pieces are devoid of any deeper meaning, because as described above, they seek to satirize overlooked bits of culture. However, the overarching goal of the Vermillion Comedic Anthology is to entertain readers and provide them much need escape from the stresses of the world.
ContributorsVermillion, Hunter Dane (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Hoyt, Heather (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05