Activist burnout theory has produced minimal but meaningful literature and research that explores the dynamics of burnout culture, movement in-fighting, marginalized identities, and dimensions of burnout symptoms. Black feminist visionaries and writers such as Audre Lorde and bell hooks have developed theories of love, self-care and community as central to resistance that have informed my research approach. Thus, my study aims to investigate activist burnout from a perspective that marries popular activist burnout theory with these frameworks of self-care and community. I conducted a survey of Arizona State University student organizers and activists (N=34) to address the following research questions: What are the causes and symptoms of burnout for Arizona State University activists and organizers? How have self-care and community played a role in their work and countered burnout? Can working conceptions of self-care and community serve as resistance in ways that feel meaningful to activists? The survey was broken into three dimensions: “Demographics and Experience,” “Burnout,” and “Self-Care and Community.” The results reinforced prior findings on established toxic cultures and burnout symptoms but introduced complications to working theories, such as the connections between cycles of burnout and the cyclical nature of electoral politics along with the roles of chronic and mental illness. Respondents largely demonstrated conceptions of self-care and community as resistance but also demonstrated personal and professional barriers to putting these conceptions into practice.

Manchester United and Leeds United are two of the English Premier League’s most popular and historically successful clubs, and together constitute one of English football’s most interesting and inexplicable rivalries. English popular opinion claims that this rivalry is based on the Wars of the Roses and the royal houses of Lancaster and York, so this thesis engages with this idea and analyzes the rivalry's connections to this medieval historical event. Furthermore, the top flight English football league's evolution into the English Premier League brought social and economic changes to the sport, both at a broad and ground level, and this thesis finds out how much these changes affected this rivalry. All in all, this thesis analyzes medieval, social, cultural, and economic historical connections to one of English football's most unique club rivalries.