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 - 10 of 60
Description
Abstract "Empty Horizons": A Creative Writing Piece Max Harmon "Empty Horizons" is a creative writing piece composed of two different short stories sharing a common narrator. The first story "Can you dig it?" details a trip the narrator takes to South Dakota to go hunting shortly before starting college. On the trip the narrator contemplates certain aspects of his life and the events of the story serve as a vehicle to explore the narrator's mindset as an eighteen year old about to start a new phase in his life. The second story "Toads, Sharks and Beautiful Encounters with Uncertainty" takes place during the summer before the narrator begins his last semester in college as he attends the funeral of his recently deceased grandmother in Hawaii. During the trip to Hawaii, the narrator meets a girl his age and they are able to bond with each other over feelings of loss and uncertainty. In this story the narrator explores his feelings about life with college graduation on the horizon and comes to terms with some of the anxieties that have been plaguing him since the start of college. By detailing these two distinct and important time periods in the narrator's life the reader is able to gain a sense of understanding in regards to the narrator's own process of beginning life as an adult.
ContributorsHarmon, Max Doyle (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Popova, Laura (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Based on paradigms in feminist theory and criticism, I conduct an analysis of two iconic works of twentieth century American feminist literature. Examining Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) by Rita Mae Brown, I assess their place within the canon of feminist literature--a canon traditionally thought of as Western. I cyclically explore how this canon parallels movements and institutions in actual feminism, and where the pitfalls in both can be traced. Due to the large span of time betwixt the two novels, I engage the historical progression American women experienced in the twentieth century and pair it with the progress feminist literature was likewise experiencing. Exploring the consequences of depicting women as people rather than male counterparts or others, I analyze the roles of the male gaze, male-less spaces, utopias, construction of female identity, motherhood, and how these culminate in feminine and sexual liberation. Utilizing philosophy from Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, I trace the origins of the male gaze and male-less spaces in literature and film and how women are essentially othered. I further employ the criticism of Adrienne Rich’s essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” to explore the roles of motherhood and heterosexual norms specifically. My findings deride the authors for their inability to construct legitimately liberated female protagonists. However, I simultaneously offer deference to the authors for engaging the tools and concepts they had available to them at the time in the interest of crafting powerful feminist narratives. I center on the claim that male-less spaces are difficult to fully as well accurately portray in literature, but the authors attempt to do so to move towards a liberation of women and should be lauded for the contributions they made.
ContributorsMazzarella, Annie Lisa (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Glover, Richard (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Intrauterine devices (IUDs) have become one of the most common types of contraception in the United States. In the last decade, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the World Health Organization, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated IUD recommendations to include placement in younger populations and nulliparous women. Research has shown that younger, nulliparous women may have smaller uterine dimensions and it is possible that larger IUDs are not suitable for those populations. This study retrospectively evaluated follow-up pelvic ultrasounds showing uterine dimensions and IUD positions of 57 women who had IUDs placed in a clinic. The largest IUD, the Paragard, showed a significantly higher rate of malpositioning than the Kyleena, Liletta, and Mirena IUDs. There is concern that the Paragard IUD, which is most commonly malpositioned, is also the IUD most dependent on position for adequate contraception. There was no correlation between uterine dimensions and IUD position at the time of analysis, however. Further data collection will continue in hopes that a larger sample size will reveal a parameter which affects IUD placement. Should further data analysis show that uterine width plays an important role in IUD position, the design for a device which can measure the width of patient's uterus (without the need for pelvic ultrasound) has been included. The concept generation for this measurement device includes laser measurements of uterine cavity width at different known lengths from the fundal wall, which output to an LED screen for recording.
ContributorsGrayson, Claire Elise (Co-author) / Kilgore, Brody (Co-author) / Reifsnider, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Committee member) / Grayson, Robert (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Paraprosdokian is a collection of stories about all different types of lives in Phoenix, AZ. There are several stories that work together, involving lonely teenagers at punk house shows, while the rest standalone: the eclectic interactions of a waiter at a 24-hour diner, a blind fair ride operator with a propensity for accidental murder, a hapless son of a clumsy dental assistant, a literary scholar stuck in an addiction to both Kafka and pornography, a kid who learns that writing is not a formula, and a high school death that nobody cares about. Some pieces unfold parts of 21st century culture that have been knotted in ambivalence, like how men raised on pornography reconcile with intimacy, while others are as simple as trying to encapsulate the experience of growing up in what is often perceived as an artless suburbia. The project aims at mixing prose with photography to create, as Ben Lerner describes it, “a constellation of language and image”—a complete artistic product. Using the work of a local Arizona photographer, the collection complicates a reader’s elementary notion of a “picture book” by forcing the reader to view photographs beyond exposition or symbolism. The title of the collection comes from a term used in comedic rhetoric that refers to a figure of speech in which the latter part of a statement or phrase reorients one’s understanding of the whole. Under this definition, the collection seeks to amend its author and reader’s orientation to Phoenix in a quest for empathy, giving pathetic characters a chance to speak without ever sacrificing a touch of humorous joy.
ContributorsFritz, Chandler Harrison (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Farmer, Steve (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In Memory of an Emily is a piece of creative nonfiction and a short film that together detail the author’s experience with mental illness in the collegiate environment. In its 45 pages, Jackman begins to detail the realities of living with depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa. The piece includes five sections of writing, including a preface and four portions describing freshman to senior year. Each section endeavors to explore simplistic and purposefully cliché events common in young adult/collegiate life and juxtapose the banal nature of these events with the experience of the mentally ill. Her story endeavors to explore the emotional truths of pain and suffering, revealing that beneath her tender façade lies a very different existence, one tangled in eating disorders, panic attacks, and overwhelming sadness. While maintaining a story-like quality traditional to creative non-fiction, Jackman ventures to warn with a cautionary tale of pathologizing abnormality and exploring the long lasting effects of childhood trauma. Weaving careful storytelling into an exploration of the mentally ill mind, Jackman keeps the reader both terrifyingly close and far away, whispering painful secrets and then desperately running away with the truth. She speaks frankly of all aspects of life, ranging from far more mundane events, such as break ups and college rejection letters, to complicated issues, such as the suicide of her grandfather and her admission into an eating disorder facility. The author attempts to establish a balanced rapport with the reader, recognizing the need to maintain distance and elicit emotion simultaneously. Jackman writes In Memory of an Emily as a heartbreaking but authentic tale, playing with stream of consciousness and paralyzing emotional description. She opens the door and invites the reader into her mind so as to share in the physical and emotional discomfort of the storyteller, but then promptly slams the door once inside.
ContributorsJackman, Emily Deprey (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Barca, Lisa (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In my experience as a reader, depictions of depression or suicidal ideation in fiction are most often conveyed through social realism or otherwise realistically grounded writing. This makes sense given the subject matter, as one would intuitively think to depict mental or emotional trauma in a very sobering way, but I felt that one could merge the topic with a more absurdist, magical realist-inspired style while staying reverent to the emotional experience. I also find that stories that approach their subtext too seriously can stray very easily into plain didacticism, as opposed to a work that tries to entertain first. I concluded that conveying the experience of isolation and depression through metaphor would be the most emotionally rewarding or enlightening experience for the reader. The central premise of the story is, to me, a metaphor; a young man isolated from society, and haunted by past experiences, who comes to be literally haunted by ghosts with similar experiences. From that starting point I wanted to explore the perspectives of several of the ghosts in a multiple-protagonist format, structuring the present-day storyline around the flashbacks of three of the ghosts. I wanted each of the ghosts' backstories to present a kind of variation on the larger cultural "depression narrative", with some of them perhaps being more recognizable cultural symbols (such as Kryz in the role of the traumatized former soldier), but all being shown in specific, idiosyncratic ways. The content of each ghost's storyline came, again, from thinking of ways to metaphorically represent their particular emotional issues; Sarah, for example, literally has no shadow in a world of people with shadows, while Kryz's job on a film set full of artifice may mirror the artificiality that he sees in everyday interaction. These flashbacks making up the bulk of the narrative puts the ostensible lead character, Officer, in a backseat-narrator position a la Nick in The Great Gatsby, with the ghosts' experiences also working to inform his emotional status. I feel that the form of a work of fiction should reflect the nature of its content in some way, and given that my subject matter is mental illness, it made sense to me to arrange the various stories in a fragmented fashion, taking inspiration from authors like Thomas Pynchon and Irvine Welsh, as well as the non-fiction book A Brief Introduction to Madness. Finally, I wanted to convey a sense of absurdity in the events of the story, again taking influence from these authors. In my experience and observation, depression and mania are often responses to a world that makes little sense, from people unable to cope with the reality around them. I feel this goes hand-in-hand with an absurdist view of the world, and hopefully the unrealistic details of these stories, and the way character treat them as normal, should convey a sense of bafflement for the reader.
ContributorsWaller, Evan James (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Suk, Mina (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
The period of time between birth and 24 months of age is a sensitive period for infant growth, and adequate nutrition is vitally important. In this study, 150 Mexican-American mother-and-child pairs (N = 300) were periodically surveyed over the course of 36 months for demographics, financial status, and feeding practices to understand the feeding methods of Mexican-American families and any relations they may have to the weight and growth of developing infants. Results found that formula feeding had higher rates of usage and duration than breastfeeding, while solid foods were largely introduced at the recommended ages. At one year of age, the infants were predisposed towards overweight and obesity with a high maternal BMI, suggesting that breastfeeding practices were not fully utilized. However, the data did not differentiate between formula and breast milk when both were used at any specific age, making it difficult to determine how long infants were exclusively breastfed and how that would impact their growth.
ContributorsCorsi, Marisa Kalani Nicole (Author) / Reifsnider, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Thatcher, Craig (Committee member) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This longitudinal research study addresses the correlations between infant feeding status in relation to infant temperament, maternal postpartum depression, and weight changes over time in a lower income, diverse population sample. The majority of participants were enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in Mesa, Arizona. Each participant was recruited in their third trimester and followed for the infants' first six months of life. A series of four home visits were made in which demographic surveys, temperament questionnaires, postpartum depression scales, weight changes over time, fecal, vaginal, saliva, and breast milk samples were taken. Due to the extensive process of extracting and sequencing of the microbiome samples, data has yet to be collected from the fecal, vaginal, saliva, and breast milk samples and were not included in this study. Correlational and descriptive statistics were run on the qualitative data including various demographic questions, total temperament, depression, and healthy eating index scores. It was found that lower socioeconomic factors contributed to more difficult infant temperaments, mothers who breastfed had higher post-delivery postpartum depression scores, and mothers with healthier eating indexes formula or mixed fed their infants. The findings from this data will be compared to the incoming microbiome data to examine the role of the microbiome of mothers and infants and its effects on infant temperament, postpartum depression, and weight changes over time.
ContributorsWong, Lindsay Alissa (Author) / Reifsnider, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Zheng, Lu (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This research will focus on identifying healthcare disparities among different groups of people in Maricopa County, with a focus on the Phoenix area. It takes form in a combination of a review of previously existing data, surveying pregnant women about their health insurance situations before their pregnancies, and surveying college students in Maricopa County about their past and current health insurance situations. The pregnant women who were interview were part of a study called Metabolism Tracking During Pregnancy through the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion at Arizona State University. College students who were interviewed were recruited online and all participants were choosing to respond. This research paper will focus on policies currently in place to try to address healthcare disparities and establishing the presence of healthcare disparities that are preexisting, and using individual responses from a small sample size of minorities and women to represent the larger Phoenix population. Differences in healthcare spending for different groups of people will also be analyzed in order to establish disparities present. This research is significant because if healthcare equality is the goal, then spending distribution to each should be proportional to the size of each subpopulation.
ContributorsGeiser, Rachel (Author) / Reifsnider, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / Cortese, Denis (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The first thought that comes to mind for most people when they hear of improvisation is most likely the memory of a funny performance seen on television shows such as Who’s Line is it Anyway? or perhaps the opportunity to be an audience member for a live improv troupe performance. In either of these settings, improvisation can be hilarious, dramatic and entertaining and it makes you wonder how people could possibly be making these scenes up on the spot. Unfortunately, not everyone has first-hand experience with the creative, team-building “magic” of improvisation games and exercises. Watching professional improvisation perform can be intimidating to an observer who hopes to one day be an improvisor themselves. Because of this, the immense benefits that improvisation can have within a professional workplace are often overlooked or ignored. I, myself, never had any experience with improvisation or being on stage until the second semester of my sophomore year when I made the choice to try out for ASU comedy.
ContributorsRussell, Anna (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Gneiting, Gary (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05