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.
Mind uploading is the process of uploading one’s consciousness into another entity, spanning across the internet or another body. This project analyzes the use of Freud’s theories of personality and his theories of the unconscious while understanding the appeal of mind uploading in two fantasy and dream-like films, Transcendence and Avatar. Mind uploading is a popularized concept with Transcendence and Avatar inspiring aspiring filmmakers and scientists with its imaginative and limitless qualities. Both films uniquely explore mind uploading with their own creative processes. The use of mind uploading in Transcendence highlights the blur between the realms of unconsciousness and consciousness, showing the destructive nature of mind uploading. In Avatar, mind uploading is shown as an evolutionary process in which the newfound unconscious has the potential to save and create new lives, giving characters within the film a second chance. These films reveal the interconnectedness of Freud’s theories of personality and how collaborative the mind can be to achieve a common goal.
This project analyzes the undying appeal for one of Avatar’s most notable characters: Prince Zuko. It discusses the already clear and established appeal for his character among fans. To complement this conscious appeal, it proposes there is an unconscious appeal for Zuko that the audience is unaware of. Using Kleinian theory discussing childhood development, there is a new angle of relatability that can be explored between viewers and Prince Zuko’s character. Specifically, Zuko experiences a shift and oscillation in Kleinian positions: the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. Zuko also demonstrates what Klein defines as seeking reparation. With this explanation, an unconscious perspective of appeal is revealed. This appeal is due to viewers relating to the struggles he endures because they lived through them as well.
This essay analyzes the immense popularity of the online video game The Sims through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s theories about desire. Specifically, it utilizes the concepts of wish fulfillment, the pleasure and reality principles, and the life and death drive to draw conclusions about why the game is so appealing. The two main aspects of the game that this essay analyzes are the game’s extreme customization of the mundane and its endless design. It asserts that these aspects provide a unique opportunity for players to choose to engage in wish fulfillment, in either the pleasure or the reality principle, or in either the life or the death drive. These choices are unique to the game because, in the real world, these principles are inextricably linked, so the separation of these principles from each other allows players to fulfill their desires in unique ways. The essay challenges Freud’s theories by exhibiting how these principles appear differently in a virtual space, compared to reality. It explores how these challenges improve the player experience by providing a space for them to explore their desires and drives in a safe and controlled setting in their customizable, virtual world.
The Greek myths are foundational to Western culture. To this day, school curriculums dedicate portions of their time to teaching the names of the Greek gods and studying Homer’s The Odyssey and Iliad. Outside of an academic setting, countless retellings of the Greek myths have been created for pure enjoyment purposes. Such stories have been marketed to a large range of audiences and have successfully gained world-wide recognition. This project aims to evaluate the mass appeal of the Greek myths as they are retold through Sigmund Freud’s theory of the death and life instincts. These theories manifest in a few different ways, each of which is evident in the genre of Greek myths retold. Utilizing six examples of Greek myth retellings, this project will demonstrate how the theories of the life and death instincts are active in the process of retellings an age-old story as well as how the retellings of the ancient Greek myths, specifically, demonstrate the manifestations of those instincts.
Samantha and Rachel both have a history in gifted education and wanted to create a safe space for the two of them and their peers to discuss the effects gifted/ accelerated education has had on them, specifically pertaining to burnout. To best dive into this matter, Gifted Kid Syndrome podcast was born! During which, our hosts interviewed students and professionals, allowing everyone to share their pasts, their hopes for the future, and what they’ve learned along the way regarding mental health, identity, education, and personal success.
