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: Loebenberg, Abby
- Creators: Winter, Elliot
Description
A bicycle tour is an unusual thing, one that often defies the expectations of the first-time touring cyclist. In this report, the experience of touring cycling is examined in two parts: a narrative documenting the author's tour down the Pacific Coast, and a reflective work that examines the journey and the major themes which persist throughout. In examining the trip, two major dichotomies arose as themes. The first major dichotomy is found in the expectation of a solitary experience for one who is touring solo. In reality, tours are often built on the goodwill of others in the cycling community. On this particular tour, a website called Warmshowers was central to this point. By offering lodging to tired touring cyclists who would otherwise camp alone, this website serves to bring the cycling community together, and allows for connections that would otherwise never exist to be formed. However, it is true that much of a solo tour is, in fact, spent in solitude. This allows a cyclist long periods for self-reflection and meditation, an opportunity to strengthen one's connection with oneself and the natural world around them. The second is a contrast between the planning that goes into embarking on a long trip and the entropy and randomness that inevitably causes the experience to wildly differ from said plan. When the unexpected occurs, there are two options: to reject the unknown and cling to the framework one sets out for themselves, or to embrace the unexpected and see where it takes you. Often, diverting from the plan can allow for new and exciting experiences. However, there is also value to the framework and stability afforded by adhering to a plan. Through these experiences and more, a bicycle tour changes the way one looks at the world.
ContributorsReid, Evan Calderwood (Author) / Fette, Donald (Thesis director) / Loebenberg, Abby (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
"Filling a Body That's Yours" is a collection of poetry that celebrates queer survival and the fluidity and mutability of identity. The poems arise from personal experience and expand to the universal in order to question and critique constructs of mental illness, queerness, transness, and identity. Via intuitive imagistic shifts, unexpected language, and urgent vulnerability, the poems share a personal account of mental illness and treatment, and set out to critique the mental health industrial complex and shortcomings in language, psychiatry, and psychology. For this project, the collection of poems is coupled with a written analytical component that discusses the personal and theoretical backgrounds for the work, as well as poetics and influences. The essay specifically addresses three main themes that appear in the poems: queerness/gender, mental illness and treatment, and identity, using theorists such as Judith Butler and David Hume. Further, the essay provides personal background for the work and discusses poetic influences such as Sylvia Plath, Li-Young Lee, Claudia Rankine, and Norman Dubie. Both the poems and the essay, while addressing these themes, attempt to ask and examine questions such as: "Is my gender entirely mine? Was it thrust wholly or in part upon me? Do I choose to claim queerness, or is it innate?" In asking these questions, the poems challenge readers to consider how they came to understand their bodies as gendered, and what political ends their identities may serve. Ultimately, the poems and their theoretical counterparts complicate constructs we commonly accept as essential givens, and meditate upon timeless existential questions in new, visceral ways.
ContributorsWinter, Elliot (Author) / Fette, Donald (Thesis director) / Murdock, Natasha (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05