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: School of Film, Dance and Theatre
Description
Horror as a genre is often dismissed on the basis of its reliance on jump scares and adrenaline highs, but history would suggest that society is just as well reflected in horror films as in any other genre. We only truly know our own experiences in real life, but film grants us the opportunity to see the world through another’s eyes, and what a more powerful way than through the experience of fear. In order to contextualize materials for the creation of a short horror film, the first part of this paper explores horror as a genre and the roles women tend to play in horror, both in the past and the present. It also considers how society perceives threats to women and how women perceive threats to themselves. It is important to define the foundation of women in horror and understand their current role in the genre to achieve the overarching goal of making a short horror film depicting a real issue that women face. A script, a storyboard, a timeline, and other materials for such a production are included as well.
ContributorsPeterschmidt, Bailey Willow (Author) / Mack, Robert L. (Thesis director) / Cheyne, Rebekah (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This project uses Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism and the pentad to analyze popular narrative films about human sex trafficking. It seeks to understand the relationship between a film’s dominant philosophy (as highlighted by utilizing Burke’s pentad), its inherently suggested solutions to trafficking, and the effect that the film has on viewers’ perception of trafficking. 20 narrative feature films about sex trafficking such as the 2008 film Taken were analyzed for this study. Three out of five of Burke’s philosophies were uncovered after analysis: idealism, mysticism, and materialism. Films that aligned with idealism were found to implicitly blame women for their own trafficking. Films that aligned with mysticism were found to rally audiences around violence and racism as opposed to women’s freedom. Films that aligned with materialism were found to be the most empathetic towards trafficked women. The conclusion of this paper is that films about sex trafficking have a high potential to be harmful to women who have exited trafficking. This paper asserts that the most valuable films about trafficking are those that are not simply based on a true story but are created by trafficking survivors themselves, such as the 2016 film Apartment 407.
ContributorsHamby, Hannah Mary (Co-author) / Raum, Brionna (Co-author) / Edson, Belle (Thesis director) / Zanin, Alaina (Committee member) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This project uses Kenneth Burke’s theory of dramatism and the pentad to analyze popular narrative films about human sex trafficking. It seeks to understand the relationship between a film’s dominant philosophy (as highlighted by utilizing Burke’s pentad), its inherently suggested solutions to trafficking, and the effect that the film has on viewers’ perception of trafficking. 20 narrative feature films about sex trafficking such as the 2008 film Taken were analyzed for this study. Three out of five of Burke’s philosophies were uncovered after analysis: idealism, mysticism, and materialism. Films that aligned with idealism were found to implicitly blame women for their own trafficking. Films that aligned with mysticism were found to rally audiences around violence and racism as opposed to women’s freedom. Films that aligned with materialism were found to be the most empathetic towards trafficked women. The conclusion of this paper is that films about sex trafficking have a high potential to be harmful to women who have exited trafficking. This paper asserts that the most valuable films about trafficking are those that are not simply based on a true story but are created by trafficking survivors themselves, such as the 2016 film Apartment 407.
ContributorsRaum, Brionna L (Co-author) / Hamby, Hannah (Co-author) / Edson, Belle (Thesis director) / Zanin, Alaina (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
I created a sketch comedy show called Funny For A Girl, which featured the talents of women in both the film and theatre communities. The show began as a very vague idea, and throughout the year of 2019, the show began to come to life. I immediately brought on a producer, who helped form the crew while I was working on building the cast. The writing process took about four months. There was lots of writing and rewriting, basically up until the end of August, when rehearsals started. Filming began in September, and by the last week of September, we had an entire show ready, consisting of nine sketches and four stand-up acts. The show featured a variety of sketches, including Lesbain Bachelorette and So You Want A Good Yelp Review? (SYWAGYR). The production team and I proposed the show to Binary Theatre Company, which picked it up as the first show of its season. The show ran in the Prism Theatre from October 4th through the 6th.
Funny For A Girl gained quite the following on social media in just a week, and the show was completely sold out before it even opened. I was interviewed by both The State Press and ASU Now, and I’m being considered for a second feature in ASU Now as part of the graduate spotlights. The show was a huge success, and it really helped me narrow down to what it is I want to do with my life.
Funny For A Girl gained quite the following on social media in just a week, and the show was completely sold out before it even opened. I was interviewed by both The State Press and ASU Now, and I’m being considered for a second feature in ASU Now as part of the graduate spotlights. The show was a huge success, and it really helped me narrow down to what it is I want to do with my life.
ContributorsTindall, Isabella (Author) / Espinosa, Micha (Thesis director) / Partlan, William (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
For my Barrett Thesis Project, I completed a total rewrite of the feature-length screenplay I wrote for my Herberger Senior Project. This process constituted completing a full analysis of my original work with my Thesis Director and Second Reader, discussing character motivation, thematic throughlines, story logic, and realism in dialogue. This initial analysis caused me to almost entirely rewrite the original script, adjusting dialogue, sequences of events, pacing and character work.
The majority of this rewrite was spent on fine-tuning character and motivation, strengthening them in some cases and changing them entirely in others. I really strove to emphasize the relationships they had with each other and how the situations and connections affected the state of mind, therefore leading to the chain of events that happened in the script in a much more natural way. I also worked to emphasize certain story elements that benefited the characters and thematic content, specifically my protagonist’s struggle with schizophrenia. In this draft, I turned that character trait into a visual element, which I believe further heightened the visual and emotional stakes of the story and gave the characters an increased sense of motivation and struggle. In this draft I also worked to break down the stereotype connected with my secondary protagonist, a sex worker. Instead of emphasizing her strength and beauty, as many action films with a strong/sexualized woman in a supporting role do, I adjusted her story arc to break her stereotype (and her character) down throughout the story. I wanted to depict her as a person with flaws that extend beyond her choice of profession, though the latter certainly did not help. I believe that the final product succeeds in both main goals.
While working on this rewrite, I also completed a script edit journal that detailed the significant changes in action, pacing or dialogue I made and what my reasoning was behind them.
The majority of this rewrite was spent on fine-tuning character and motivation, strengthening them in some cases and changing them entirely in others. I really strove to emphasize the relationships they had with each other and how the situations and connections affected the state of mind, therefore leading to the chain of events that happened in the script in a much more natural way. I also worked to emphasize certain story elements that benefited the characters and thematic content, specifically my protagonist’s struggle with schizophrenia. In this draft, I turned that character trait into a visual element, which I believe further heightened the visual and emotional stakes of the story and gave the characters an increased sense of motivation and struggle. In this draft I also worked to break down the stereotype connected with my secondary protagonist, a sex worker. Instead of emphasizing her strength and beauty, as many action films with a strong/sexualized woman in a supporting role do, I adjusted her story arc to break her stereotype (and her character) down throughout the story. I wanted to depict her as a person with flaws that extend beyond her choice of profession, though the latter certainly did not help. I believe that the final product succeeds in both main goals.
While working on this rewrite, I also completed a script edit journal that detailed the significant changes in action, pacing or dialogue I made and what my reasoning was behind them.
ContributorsFlake, Peyton Lee (Author) / Giner, Oscar (Thesis director) / Yatso, Toby (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
The label of “honors student,” and the status it carries, implies exceptional academic ability, maturity, and accomplishment. The notion that “honors” students are more capable than non-honors students dismisses the particular needs of intersecting identities including gender, race, and/or ability. Said differently, the “honors” designation erases identity and difference. For instance, “honors” students who live with mental illness(es) navigate social spaces and physical structures that assert notions of “success” that are informed by conditions that inhibit bodily function, communication, and educational accomplishment as set by capitalist and ableist standards. Moreover, ableist notions of “success” are always inherently racialized and gendered such that “honors” students women of color living with mental illness are forced to navigate racist and gendered overtones informing academic “success.” Focusing on how students think about and embody the labels of “honors” and “mentally ill” provides unique insight on how the systems of higher education are based in ableist ideology. In this Artist Statement, I discuss my performance Crazy/Smart, a performance that features and stages students’ narratives detailing the means by which students navigate ableism as “honors” students. Using embodied knowledge through performance allows students to decenter dominant, institutionalized narratives about ableism and higher education, speaking up to administrators as people of power and redefining personal success. In this Artist Statement, I detail the theory and method framing my performance Crazy/Smart, a performance using “honors” student stories and narratives to highlight and resist ableist ideology informing higher education more generally and “honors” education more specifically. This Statement includes four sections. First, I provide the theoretical framework that outlines ableism as an embodied ideology. Second, I extend my argument and turn to critical pedagogy to suggest a performance means to resist ableist ideology. Third, I describe the specificities informing my performance including the choices I made to stage ableism as an ideological structure organizing higher education. The fourth and final section is the attached Crazy/Smart script.
ContributorsBishop, Molly Elizabeth (Author) / Rohd, Michael (Thesis director) / Linde, Jennifer (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Composed by Adele Etheridge Woodson in 2018, Thrive is an original composition for live euphonium and prepared electronic backing track; it was commissioned by David Gonzalez and premiered at the International Women’s Brass Conference at Arizona State University. The musical piece incorporates multiple audio bytes from personal interviews and videos found online, including words said by pop figure icons, Congressmen, and President Donald J. Trump. The goal of Thrive is to creatively highlight the fight for gender equality among a male-dominant, misogynist society. It also serves as a fresh piece of repertoire for the euphonium, which often lacks original compositions by living composers. This paper will discuss Etheridge Woodson’s creative writing process, creation of the backing track, its world premiere, audience reaction, and a personal reflection.
ContributorsEtheridge Woodson, Adele (Author) / Swoboda, Deanna (Thesis director) / Roumain, Daniel Bernard (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
This director’s book is the culmination of my Barrett thesis project, which was originally intended to be a fully filmed and edited short film called The Mime. While ultimately my film has gone unfinished due to circumstances I will detail later, I have done my best in this document to create an accurate picture of what it would have looked like had everything gone according to plan. Along with the complete shooting script of The Mime, this director’s book contains breakdowns of the scenes and the shots that comprise them, notes on the characters and locations used in the short, a detailed shoot schedule, and lists of all the shots and equipment required. I have also included a reflection paper at the end to explain my process, the problems I faced along the way, and what I have learned from the experience.
ContributorsCampbell, Connor (Author) / Maday, Gregory (Thesis director) / Mack, Robert (Committee member) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Empathy Link is a creative project that looks at the universal problems that many college students experience. The show is an interview style podcast, in which the students come on and talk about their life experiences, specifically the dilemmas and emotional challenges they face. Furthermore, Empathy Link delves into student’s identities, and how many of the more “universal problems” that the students face, are also affected by the identity and background, such as ethnicity, gender, immigration status, class, etc. By analyzing the cross-section between the more relatable problems that almost every student experiences and the more unique identity problems, listeners are able to find common ground with students from different backgrounds from them as well as begin to understand struggles that they may not or will never experience. Empathy Link consists of a six-episode first season. Each episode is somewhere between 20 – 30 minutes long. The topics discussed in episodes were wide-ranging: disagreeing with the worldviews of one’s parents, wanting to pursue a passion but scared because of financial instability, the anxiety of over-working, the feeling of listlessness post-college life, and the passing of a loved one. Before each episode, I would perform a pre-interview for each guest to ensure they would be a good fit for the show, write questions for that guest, and schedule a time and place to record. Afterwards, I would edit each episode for clarity, sound quality, and flow to ensure the content was up to par. Empathy Link is a podcast dedicated to bridging the gap between the perceptions of college students, specifically those from marginalized groups, and the actual experiences and struggles that they face.
ContributorsMarsh, Zackiel S (Author) / Scott, Jason (Thesis director) / Sopha, Matthew (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Forensic science is the application of science to matters of law, especially criminal investigation and procedure. ForenSICK Science, on the other hand, is an educational YouTube channel. It was created in early 2019 after listening to two people on a podcast confidently preach surprisingly inaccurate information about forensic science. My goal in the creation of the channel was to give people the proper information regarding the practice. This goal grew to encompass several different fields including continued education practices, informal and nonformal learning, and combating “science speak.” Using YouTube as a tool in this journey was the first step in combating forensic inaccuracies.
ContributorsByrne, Mckenna Noel (Author) / Kobojek, Kimberly (Thesis director) / Wentzel, Bonnie (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05