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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This thesis looks at how feminist biography is used as a part of mainstream feminism in the United States. In particular, I look at how Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter share their experiences in the workplace in an effort to illuminate the struggles they have faced as women and to justify the changes they see necessary for the success of women. They base their argument for these changes on their own social assumptions about women in the private sphere and women at work. Their feminist biography may serve to help a small set of individuals, but overall the solutions they provide are applicable to only a limited demographic of women. The ultimate goal for both Sandberg and Slaughter is to achieve equality, although they base their call for change on a normative understanding of the world. In the end, I look at how a broader view of feminism that takes into account the intersection of race, class, gender, and politics can enrich popular forms of feminism in the U.S.
ContributorsSteffens, Jane Melissa (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
A recent trend in literary research has focused on how authors' use of space reveals underlying motivations and conveys thematic information. In this thesis, the role that space plays in Dostoevsky's portrayal of freedom in the novel Crime and Punishment is analyzed with a focus on the physical spaces of St. Petersburg, the mental spaces formed by characters in the story, and how the barriers to the realization of freedom manifest in both. Although Dostoevsky is one of the most notable authors of the Petersburg genre and there has been a lot of discussion about his treatment of individual freedom, there hasn't been a close analysis done in the field that addresses freedom through the analysis of spatial motifs. While all of the characters exist in a common space, they each show a unique approach to their environment due to their personal ideologies, suggesting that they each also realize a varying degree of freedom. I closely analyze the characters Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Katerina, Luzhin, Marmeladov, Sonya, and Porfiry as examples of the hierarchy of realized freedom that they attain in the book as seen through their ideologies in interaction with space. Looking at how Dostoevsky presents the environments of the text as either reflections or sources of conflict for characters' mental ideologies, one can see that freedom requires both interaction with the real world as well as a stable lens through which one may perceive it, ultimately necessitating that individuals embrace the potential of suffering as well.
ContributorsVanderveen, Lexie Michael (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Stoff, Laurie (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Through interviews with student participants in Barrett Summer Scholars during 2012, I uncovered how education in Arizona is failing and succeeding in meeting the needs of its high-achieving, oftentimes academically disillusioned students. Many high-achieving students feel underserved by their education and do not receive adequate challenges or one-on-one attention. Socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial limitations further contribute to the disenchantment of students and educational inequalities in the US and Arizona in particular. The Barrett Summer Scholars program itself intends to help engage these students, but it may be failing in its stated goals. Limited resources make it difficult for schools to pay as much attention to the high-achieving students as to the low-achieving, but Barrett might be able to help bridge this gap and provide students with one-on-one attention by way of student mentorship.
ContributorsManrique, Liliana (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Eder, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
In this paper I examine the dynamics of oil exploitation in the Republic of Kazakhstan to better understand the impact of authoritarian governmental control of this resource on the lives of everyday Kazakh laborers in the extractive industry. In order to do this, I focus on what the state government has done in order to appear more transparent about financial matters in Oil & Gas and how they have addressed or failed to address worker concerns, especially in terms of compensation. More specifically, I look at the Kazakh government's efforts to become EITI-Compliant and at the same time minimize the impact of labor unrest. However, I argue that in its attempt to control society through the regulation of this industry, a "governing of things" in Foucault's terms, the Kazakh government is unintentionally creating ungovernable spaces in the regions of oil exploitation that can be utilized by laborers to negotiate reforms. Furthermore, thanks to an inherent clan culture, this form of modern governmentality actively benefits only the upper echelons of Kazakhstan's political elite, to the exclusion of everyone else, exacerbating problems of regulation, revolt, and subsequent retaliation. I conclude my paper by suggesting topics for further research, such as the exploration of oil's "fetishistic qualities," investigation into other extractive industry transparency or reform initiatives, the study of civil society efforts to promote communication between laborers and their government.
ContributorsTurkina, Alisa (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Zoubtsova, Natalia (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05