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.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8
Filtering by
Description
Mariachi music is a significant piece of Mexican culture that has been around since the nineteenth century. Although it was created in Mexico, mariachi is deeply rooted in the history of the United States. With a large population of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in the Southwest, mariachi music has been both refined in the United States and ever-present as a staple of the Mexican/Mexican-American culture. Traditionally, the composition of a mariachi group is all male. Even today, mariachi is still a male dominated genre. In the early years of mariachi, women had no place in the genre, as musicians, composers, or directors. During the time when mariachi was forming and becoming a more defined genre, Mexican women were not considered able or skilled enough to do many things that men could do, just based solely on their gender. This included being a mariachi musician. A woman's place was not anywhere else but as a carer of the house and the family. This ideology has changed with time, with the incorporation of women in majority-male groups, mixed gender groups, and the invention of the all-female mariachi group. However, culture, language, and geographical barriers still play a significant role in the dynamics of mariachi music today. This creative project, which incorporates interviews of multiple women who currently perform in mariachi, culminating in an informational website, will explore and analyze these different barriers within the genre of mariachi, and will explore the culture of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans living in the United States.
ContributorsFigueroa, Desiree Daunice (Author) / De La Torre, Monica (Thesis director) / Smith, Michael (Committee member) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
South Sudan is the world’s newest nation, having gained its independence in 2011. Despite significant promise, South Sudan faces many serious internal issues. Among the most pressing is the treatment and status of women and, in particular, their lack of involvement in the economy and in academia.
Women’s Education (WE) is our proposed nonprofit designed to address these problems by providing business education, financial assistance, and academic services to women business owners operating in South Sudan. We believe our targeted intervention in these areas will result in improved social and economic standing for women, the natural byproduct of which is an improved country with increased stability.
In the first half of this paper, we explore the social and historical context of South Sudan to illustrate both the need for (and viability of) of our organization. We outline what we will do to achieve our goal of equality within the business and academic sectors for women, and the effects such equality will have upon society.
In the second half of the paper, we address the logistics behind our operations, including our mission and vision, client needs, budget, management strategies, and other internal and external factors that need to be considered.
KEY WORDS: South Sudan, Gender, Business Education, Academic Intervention, Economy, Societal Infrastructure
Women’s Education (WE) is our proposed nonprofit designed to address these problems by providing business education, financial assistance, and academic services to women business owners operating in South Sudan. We believe our targeted intervention in these areas will result in improved social and economic standing for women, the natural byproduct of which is an improved country with increased stability.
In the first half of this paper, we explore the social and historical context of South Sudan to illustrate both the need for (and viability of) of our organization. We outline what we will do to achieve our goal of equality within the business and academic sectors for women, and the effects such equality will have upon society.
In the second half of the paper, we address the logistics behind our operations, including our mission and vision, client needs, budget, management strategies, and other internal and external factors that need to be considered.
KEY WORDS: South Sudan, Gender, Business Education, Academic Intervention, Economy, Societal Infrastructure
ContributorsPeter, Achirin (Co-author) / Castillo, Gemma (Co-author) / Goldman, Alan (Thesis director) / Samuelson, Melissa (Committee member) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Thunderbird School of Global Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Traditionally, forensic palynology, a branch of forensic botany, has been utilized during the investigation of crimes to link a suspect or victim to a particular place. This is done by identifying pollen and spores collected from objects, clothing, and/or bodies and comparing the identification to the plants documented at the scene of a crime. Pollen and spores both, as a form of trace evidence, can be identifiable through analysis of their morphology and have been documented to be resistant to destruction. It is also documented that criminals are willing to tamper with evidence to hinder criminal investigations, in the hopes of preventing or delaying their identification. Determining whether pollen evidence can be recovered from clothing evidence that has been tampered with would be a boon to forensic palynology, and the field of forensic botany as a whole. Two relatively common methods of tampering with clothing evidence include washing the clothing and destroying it by burning. With this in mind, this study was designed to determine whether pollen evidence can persist through the washing and/or the burning of clothing evidence by criminals attempting to obstruct justice and remain on the streets. Based upon previous documentation and experimentation, it was expected that any pollen or spores collected on clothing would persist through burning and continue to be identifiable. It was also expected that washing would remove a majority of pollen or spores present, if not all of them, and prevent linking the owner of the clothes to a particular crime scene. While this research would benefit from continued experimentation over a longer period of time, it shows that pollen evidence could be recovered from evidence that has been tampered with and identified as is usually done in a forensic palynological analysis. The form of tampering resulting in the highest chances of recovering palynological evidence utilized in this study was demonstrated to be burning, as washing resulted in no observation of pollen.
ContributorsRolls, Michaela Jeanet (Author) / Sartorio, Adriana (Thesis director) / Sweat, Ken (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Poetry is a way of living for me both as a writer and as a survivor of child sexual (CSA) and physical abuse. I have been turning to poetry for as long as I can remember as a companion on my journey through my trauma, trying to figure out who exactly it is. In Devil and the Deep Blue: Exploring Identity through Poetry, I take my trauma from my past and dissect it. I have taken old poems and edited them along with the guidance of Dr. Dombrowski and Dr. McNeil as my director and second reader respectively and edited them down into a collection of micro-poems. My goal in making these poems is to both put my own trauma to rest in a way, but to also make something for other trauma survivors who may not know they are not alone. My poems are one perspective on trauma, as I can only write what I have felt, but they are meant to show that there is someone who has felt that pain, as well as trying to make myself a better person through my own writing. Along with the micro poems, there are covers that I designed using childhood photos of my father and I, of which there are only a few remaining photographs, as well as designs I drew alongside those photos. The 3rd cover is an amalgam of childhood photos of my parents as well as photos of our family today, intending to show the change in message in the poems as they progress through the collection; they begin in introspection, move into the exploration of the more piercing pieces of trauma that I had yet to even uncover until now, and then the third group of poems is focused on the calmer pieces of aftermath that I still experience and how I am trying to withstand all of that.
ContributorsThompson, Tara Athlyn (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / McNeil, Elizabeth (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
On October 28, 1922, Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party marched on Rome. A reactionary political movement with a nebulous ideology, the Fascists gained power the following day when King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister. Over the following decade, generic fascist movements would rise all over Europe, most prominently in Germany with the Nazi Party, and in Austria, Romania, Hungary, and Spain. Minor movements would appear in a great number of other European countries, including France, Great Britain, Portugal, and Greece. Most studies of fascism and totalitarianism look at those ideologies as a primarily European phenomenon, thereby overlooking the numerous fascist movements that appeared simultaneously in the United States. American historians similarly tend to downplay the role of fascism in United States history, relegating such groups and their “paranoid style” to the lunatic fringe of the political spectrum.
American fascist groups, while varied in motives, methods, and vision of a future society, recruited hundreds of thousands of members in the interwar years from either specific ethnic and immigrant groups or from among “native” Americans. Though most of these groups evaporated following the American entry into the Second World War and thus never came close to achieving any of their wide-ranging political goals, much of their literature and ideology exists and continues to be diffused among present-day members of the far right.
This study seeks to place American fascist movements within the context of their own time, as having emerged alongside European fascism from the same cultural antecedents. In doing so, this study analyzes three of the largest “native” American fascist groups – the Black Legion, the Silver Shirts, and the Christian Front – and applies a theoretical model of fascism for comparison to generic European fascist movements. The thesis argues that in viewing fascism as the end result of a “cultural phenomenon,” as historian Zeev Sternhell has argued regarding European fascism, American fascism can similarly be seen as the culmination of several cultural, social, and intellectual antecedents rather than an obscure political aberration. By measuring the significance of American fascist movements only by their (lack of) political effectiveness, historians have overlooked many of the broader implications of such groups not only having existed but also having gained such a large following of adherents.
American fascist groups, while varied in motives, methods, and vision of a future society, recruited hundreds of thousands of members in the interwar years from either specific ethnic and immigrant groups or from among “native” Americans. Though most of these groups evaporated following the American entry into the Second World War and thus never came close to achieving any of their wide-ranging political goals, much of their literature and ideology exists and continues to be diffused among present-day members of the far right.
This study seeks to place American fascist movements within the context of their own time, as having emerged alongside European fascism from the same cultural antecedents. In doing so, this study analyzes three of the largest “native” American fascist groups – the Black Legion, the Silver Shirts, and the Christian Front – and applies a theoretical model of fascism for comparison to generic European fascist movements. The thesis argues that in viewing fascism as the end result of a “cultural phenomenon,” as historian Zeev Sternhell has argued regarding European fascism, American fascism can similarly be seen as the culmination of several cultural, social, and intellectual antecedents rather than an obscure political aberration. By measuring the significance of American fascist movements only by their (lack of) political effectiveness, historians have overlooked many of the broader implications of such groups not only having existed but also having gained such a large following of adherents.
ContributorsClements, Austin Jacob (Author) / Toth, Stephen (Thesis director) / Gilkeson, John (Committee member) / Flower, John (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The following thesis project explores the foundation of and current operation of the humanities classroom with a focus on who and what is considered scholarly and therefore who and what gets to be in the classroom. In the first chapter I explore the idea of how space- both physical and proverbial- is made through narrative and gives rise to one’s social place. From there I explore notions of human and person. I explore how human is different from person and how current notions of human and person have philosophical foundations that exclude African and Afro-descended persons. In chapter three I explore how notions of human that exclude black-plus persons have gone on to shape the humanities classroom as a white space where notions of scholar and scholarly often exclude black-plus persons. I then go on to reflect on my personal experiences in the Barrett and Women and Gender Studies classrooms. In the final chapter I explore the importance of popular media, specifically modes of mass media (theater, film, TV, social media) as spaces where black-plus narratives tell stories and give depictions of black-plus persons as beings, as humans, as persons. I also touch on how popular media currently is a space where black-plus narratives provide place for black-plus persons and space for people to learn new ways of seeing black-plus people.
ContributorsShambe, Ayanna (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis director) / Ramsey, Ramsey Eric (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
DescriptionI wrote and edited a Young Adult Fiction Novel, preparing it for publication.
ContributorsSparks, Makenzie Taylor (Author) / Amparano Garcia, Julie (Thesis director) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
In this paper, we offer three legal bases for the continued legality of abortion in the U.S. in alternative to the current rationale set by Roe v. Wade. After a brief history of abortion law and rhetoric that shows the abortion debates to center on unanswered assumptions about the value and nature of human life, we first propose, through philosophical analysis, that an embryo does not merit the same legal protections as a born human because the status of being unborn marks it as fundamentally different from one. Secondly, we examine the legal principle of bodily integrity and demonstrate its clear application to the pregnant women, whose right over her own body, we argue, is unjustifiably curtailed by anti-abortion laws. Finally, we proffer that abortion is justified even if we grant the embryo personhood by applying the legal concept of medical power of attorney to the rights that parents have over their children.
ContributorsSalazar, Jakob Andrew (Author) / Huntington, Patricia (Thesis director) / Kim, Linda (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05