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- Creators: Xue, Guoliang
- Creators: Department of English
Description
"The Half-Open Pomegranate" is a collection of four short stories based on Armenian characters balancing their cultural identity with their national identity in the Diaspora. The image of the half-open pomegranate is a symbol of what Armenia has become. The pomegranate, which is the motherland, was ripped open during the Genocide of 1915. Her seeds have scattered all over the globe, sprouting new communities which are still thriving to this day. As William Saroyan once said, "For when two [Armenians] meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia." The titles of my stories are the names of the protagonists, or "seeds" of the pomegranate. My first story, "Dr. Balian," is written about a thirty-something-year-old physician who struggles with doing what is best for herself, even if it means being the subject of hearsay. "Razmik" is a story about a teenage boy who copes with grief-related anxiety, and learns the importance of his place in the Diaspora. "Sarkis" is written from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran whose drunken perspective about regret and forgiveness touches lightly on the idea of reconciliation between the Armenians and the Turks. My last story "Noor" is written from the perspective of a young girl who struggles upholding the demands of her culture while pursuing her dream of becoming a pilot, an unconventional path for an Armenian female. Each of these stories embodies the strength of the Armenian people, who are more than just victims of Genocide. They are fruitful, resilient, and indestructible.
ContributorsSafarian, Rafaella Pearl (Author) / Bell, Matthew (Thesis director) / Fore, Chad (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This creative project centers on creating evaluative writing about film, in the form of a film review blog. Preliminary writing was done, in which the distinction was made between critical film writing and movie reviewing, as well as an analysis of how film critics have honed in their criticism and what makes their content effective for their audience. The rest of the writing for this project consists of a total of 15 reviews for 15 different movies released in 2017 and 2018. In these reviews, there is a brief introduction of the plot and context in which the film is made, followed by an evaluative analysis of what made the film effective or ineffective in achieving its artistic goals. The reviews involve an amalgamation of the content and topics taught in the Film and Media Studies program at Arizona State University, from screenwriting to cinematography. This process of writing reviews and being edited by the Director and Second Reader allows for the opportunity to find a unique writing voice and create content that is accessible for the wide audience that would be reading the work. All of the writing completed for this project (except for the "My Favorite Film Critics" piece) is compiled together in a WordPress blog, in an easily readable and accessible format. The blog itself serves as a way to reach the desired audience, as well as entice them to engage with the writing and the films being written about. This includes providing images and trailers for each respective film, to add a visual component to the writing. The final product is a unique way to engage with the content taught in the Film and Media Studies program, while simultaneously building a portfolio of writing that will be expanded upon and continued in the future.
ContributorsPolich, Brennan Taylor (Author) / Green, Michael (Thesis director) / Bernstein, Gregory (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Zoraida Ladrón de Guevarra was born in 1936 in Coyula, Mexico, a small village in the state of Oaxaca. Her father’s passing required Zoraida to find a job at age fourteen to support her family. Her story, a 200-page memoir entitled “After Papa Died,” follows Zoraida’s time as a servant and eventual nanny in Veracruz. Flashing back to memories of her hometown and the people living in it, the story ends before she enters America first as a visitor in 1954, and later on a working Visa in 1957—the first woman in her village to leave to the United States. Hers is a story relevant today, evident with the paradoxes explored between poverty and riches, patriarchy and matriarchy, freedom and captivity. Assimilation impacts the reading of this memoir, as Zoraida began writing the memoir in her 80s (around fifty years after gaining American citizenship). This detailed family history is about the nature of memory, community, and in particular, the experience of being an immigrant. This thesis project centers on this text and includes three components: an edited memoir, informational interviews, and an introduction. Beginning as a diary steeped in the tradition of oral history, the memoir required a “translation” into a written form; chapters and chronological continuity helped with organization. Topics of interest from the story, such as identity, domestic violence, and religion, are further explored in a series of interviews with Zoraida. The inclusion of an introduction to the text contextualizes the stories documented in the memoir with supplemental information. The contents of the project are housed on a website: alongwaybabyproject.net.
ContributorsVan Slyke, Shea Elizabeth (Author) / Meloy, Elizabeth (Thesis director) / O'Flaherty, Katherine (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Civic education in America should be focused on empowering future generations to take full advantage of their rights as citizens and realize their potential to incite change. Even at a young age, it is important that we educate children on what it means to be a United States citizen so that they can begin cultivating their personal political experience. As soon as the child is at the age where they can begin to understand basic political and governmental concepts, they should be encouraged to start thinking about their roles as citizens in a Democratic government. More often than not, young adults express that they wish they had been exposed to the political climate earlier on in life. When a lot of these adolescents reach voting age, they are woefully under-educated and apathetic towards their participation in the civic sphere. This activity booklet was designed to not only educate but also empower and inspire kids, and to really get them excited for their futures in the civic sphere.
ContributorsNelson, Madelyn (Author) / Lennon, Tara (Thesis director) / Black, Anna (Committee member) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Here at ASU, I am double majoring in Psychology and Film/Media Studies. As such, I wanted to combine my two majors for my thesis project. Therefore, I decide to analyze representations of mental illness as they are portrayed in the mass media, especially through film and television. Through this research, I determined a number of ways that the mass media often portray mental illness incorrectly, insensitively, or through sheer stereotypes that often contribute to stigma and prejudice against the mentally ill. Taking what I learned about these common representations, as well as my knowledge of screenwriting and psychological disorders, I crafted a series of three short screenplays that accurately and positively represent mentally ill characters. This "Day in the Life of" series provides a snapshot of a characters' day to day life as they coexist with their mental illness.
ContributorsBrunelli, Hannah James (Author) / Bernstein, Gregory (Thesis director) / Mae, Lynda (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The two stories and five vignettes contained within These Days reflect the disparate experiences of people struggling to find fulfillment in modern life, searching for connection and intimacy in a digital age. The stories reflect a broad range of experiences, a 20-something experiencing the futility of love, to a retired professor who can do nothing to stop his mind deteriorating from dementia. The five vignettes are impressionistic sketches that in the same way capture the malaise and frustration of modernity. These stories capture such topics as infidelity, toxic marriages and abusive relationships, and apathy. These stories explore an unfulfillment and disillusionment with modern life, the disconnect between observation and experience, and the inability to connect or communicate meaningfully with anyone. The stories are objective in tone and narrow in scope, reflecting diverse but fleeting experiences, as people try and often fail to find meaning or contentment.
ContributorsAbernethy, Christopher C. (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Alvarez, Maria (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (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 objective of this creative project was to gain experience in digital modeling, animation, coding, shader development and implementation, model integration techniques, and application of gaming principles and design through developing a professional educational game. The team collaborated with Glendale Community College (GCC) to produce an interactive product intended to supplement educational instructions regarding nutrition. The educational game developed, "Nutribots" features the player acting as a nutrition based nanobot sent to the small intestine to help the body. Throughout the game the player will be asked nutrition based questions to test their knowledge of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. If the player is unable to answer the question, they must use game mechanics to progress and receive the information as a reward. The level is completed as soon as the question is answered correctly. If the player answers the questions incorrectly twenty times within the entirety of the game, the team loses faith in the player, and the player must reset from title screen. This is to limit guessing and to make sure the player retains the information through repetition once it is demonstrated that they do not know the answers. The team was split into two different groups for the development of this game. The first part of the team developed models, animations, and textures using Autodesk Maya 2016 and Marvelous Designer. The second part of the team developed code and shaders, and implemented products from the first team using Unity and Visual Studio. Once a prototype of the game was developed, it was show-cased amongst peers to gain feedback. Upon receiving feedback, the team implemented the desired changes accordingly. Development for this project began on November 2015 and ended on April 2017. Special thanks to Laura Avila Department Chair and Jennifer Nolz from Glendale Community College Technology and Consumer Sciences, Food and Nutrition Department.
ContributorsNolz, Daisy (Co-author) / Martin, Austin (Co-author) / Quinio, Santiago (Co-author) / Armstrong, Jessica (Co-author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Valderrama, Jamie (Committee member) / School of Arts, Media and Engineering (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
21st Century Breakdown: The Influence of Social Media on New Bands in the 21st Century is a creative project that explores the development of social media in its relation to music and how, over time, it has impacted the music industry. More specifically, the documentary explains the significance of social media to new bands at this moment in time (2017), which is seen through the development of local Phoenix band The Breaking Pattern. The documentary follows The Breaking Pattern for a year from the release of their debut album to the early stages of their second album. The documentary reveals that social media is essential to new bands, allows smaller bands to stay competitive in the industry and allows artists to present a certain identity, genuine or cultivated, to the public. Keywords: social media, identity, music, internet, documentary
ContributorsBosselman, Haley Erin (Author) / Jacoby, Jim (Thesis director) / Russell, Dennis (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
ContributorsSaul, Tonissa Christine (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Lichty, Kevin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05