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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
My thesis will revolve around the ideology and sociology of the sneaker brand and in particular, basketball sneakers. The mega sneaker superpower Nike and underdog Under Armour have shoes they want to sell and consumers they want to buy them. I will discuss how the advertisements are used and implanted by both Nike and Under Armour. The two points of reference from each company will be LeBron James, Nike, and Stephen Curry, Under Armour. Both basketball players have signature shoes and undoubted the NBA's most relevant players this past season. The two players just so happened to face off against each other int eh NBA finals, which enhanced the marketing potential for both companies. Thus, the advertisements for these and their shoes would have been at its peak trying to sway consumers to either side. Nike and Under Armour both ploy attempts in creating marketing material to attract their consumer base. The thesis will look at why sneakers have become a social trend and high commodity. I will look at how pop culture and psychological diseases play a role in the consumers' choice to purchase either shoe. The work as a whole will attempt to bring forth some revitalizing information on today's sneaker culture. Research was limited, however with the information to conduct this thesis, the thesis should spark interest in new research related fields. Thus, bring forth a new renaissance in today's culture: Sneaker Life.
ContributorsMitchell, Devon (Author) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Social media is an increasingly pertinent facet of popular culture. Research has found that a rape culture, a culture that tolerates and condones sexual assault, is evident in many forms of pop culture. This study looks at the way sexual assault is discussed in social media through an examination of Internet memes, trends and images that go viral online. The study found that there is evidence to belief a rape culture exists online. It offers solutions for decreasing incidences of gender-based attacks online.
ContributorsOrtiz, Analise Tomai (Author) / Durfee, Alesha (Thesis director) / McGibbney-Vlahoulis, Michelle (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Language is powerful. The words we use define our perceptions. They label what we see and paint a picture for those with whom we are communicating. Words serve as heuristic when assigning value to an object, experience, or person. My thesis, Eye of the BeholdHer, focuses on the language used in American pop-culture to describe women. I comment on the dehumanization of women through the use of animal names used to describe personality, appearance, and genitalia, as well as the way the English language implies domestication and inferiority of women through the use of the certain words. Examples include, but are not limited to: bitch , chick, pussy, beaver, cougar, catty, heifer, old bat, mousy, foxy, and vixen. Eye of the Behold(her) reflects upon my observations and calls for social change. Eye of the BeholdHer is a call for action. It is time to make conscious word choices and realize the impact words have on shaping our society. It is time for us to empowHer through words.
ContributorsGibly, Sophia (Author) / Maxwell, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Ellsworth, Angela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
It is very difficult to construct an explicit definition of Jewish humor and, thus, even harder to identify examples of the use of this type of humor. In this paper, I use a literature review to set forth a list of characteristics of Jewish humor to aid in its identification and I explain the common reasons for the use of this humor. I use the characteristics of Jewish humor to aid in my identification of Jewish humor in five popular Jewish films from Argentina. I examine what aspects I believe to be exemplifying this type of humor and what this type of humor adds to the films in question. The films that I have chosen to analyze are: El abrazo partido directed by Daniel Burman, Cara de queso—mi primer gueto directed by Ariel Winograd, Relatos salvajes directed by Damián Szifron, Sol de otoño directed by Eduardo Mignogna, and Anita directed by Marcos Carnevale. Judaism is central to the plots of these five films and three of the directors (Burman, Winograd, and Szifron) are Jewish themselves. I show how the directors’ experiences with the Argentinian-Jewish community inform their use of Jewish humor. Lastly, I demonstrate how these examples of Jewish humor help to bring Judaism into Argentinian popular culture and, by doing so, allow Jewish stories and history to be told on a large scale.
ContributorsBuls, Mackenzie Taylor (Author) / Foster, David William (Thesis director) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This project created a teaching curriculum resource guide for using the popular series, The Hunger Games, in 6th-8th grade classrooms to introduce cultural issues such as child soldiers and international development to students. Studies have shown that literature can cultivate empathy and encourage youth to act. This combined with the expanding phenomenon of participatory culture and fandom activism as outlined by Henry Jenkins demonstrate the potential for youth to learn and act when given the opportunity and resources to do so. The curriculum is composed of three units: The first is a three-week reading of the books with various activities for students to really understand the narrative and source text. The second and third units address the issues of child soldiers and international development using The Hunger Games as a framework and a keystone to build connections so that these complex issues are accessible to youth. This project is a first step in the development of a curriculum that spans the full trilogy and covers a variety of current event topics.
ContributorsSimpson, Rebecca (Author) / Sivak, Henry (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Nelson, Margaret (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This paper analyzes the television show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine within the context of the other Trek series, especially the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, with a particular focus on multiculturalism. Previous Trek series present an image of the United Federation of Planets that has evolved into a peaceful, cooperative, post-scarcity, multicultural utopia, but gloss over the difficulties the Federation governments must have faced in creating this utopia and must still face in maintaining it. I argue that DS9’s shift in focus away from exploration and towards a postcolonial, multicultural, stationary setting allows the show to interrogate the nature of the Federation’s multicultural utopia and showcase the difficulties in living in and managing a space with a plurality of cultures. The series, much more than those that precede and follow it, both directly and indirectly criticizes the Federation and its policies, suggesting that its utopian identity is based more in assimilation than multiculturalism. Nonetheless, this criticism, which is frequently abandoned and even undermined, is inconsistent. By focusing on three of the show’s contested spaces/settings—the space station itself, the wormhole, and the demilitarized zone—I analyze the ways in which DS9’s ambivalent criticism of the success of multiculturalism challenges the confidence of the Trek tradition.
ContributorsPoterack, Vivien Eulalie (Author) / Free, Melissa (Thesis director) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis examines the emerging significance of bubble tea as a part of a larger cultural identity of second generation Asian-Americans and how it has transformed between generations in the United States. From a seemingly simple drink to the global phenomenon that has shifted in connotation to a highly sophisticated crafted drink that has led to the “third-wave coffee shops” and a “third place” for many Asian-Americans today. Specifically, I analyze the ways that bubble tea has become almost synonymous with the Asian-American youth culture due to a shift in globalization, migration, and cultural power. Through a qualitative analysis as well as a social observation of the audience and targeted groups of consumers as each local shop, I will examine the influence of bubble tea. With this work, I show how bubble tea reflects a sense of “home” and an identity rooted in immigration to Asian-American pop culture today.
ContributorsVo, Crystal H (Author) / Ingram-Waters, Mary (Thesis director) / Popova, Laura (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This thesis utilizes Black queer studies and speculative fiction as an analytical framework for examining issues of racialized homophobia and the policing of sexuality, specifically in the context of Lil Nas X and his music videos. By contrasting the evolution first of Lil Nas X himself and second of the reception to his "Old Town Road" and "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" music videos, this thesis reveals the intricacies of the relationship between predominant white, cisheteronormative, patriarchal, capitalist society and representations of Black queer sexuality. Through his music videos, Lil Nas X performs elements of Black queer worldmaking, futurity, and imagination in ways that actively disrupt normative notions of gender, identity, and sexuality in mainstream popular culture. Analyzing Lil Nas X’s music videos through the framework of Black queer studies and speculative fiction reveals how these elements function to subvert limited notions of humanism and freedom while cultivating the potential for alternative ways of being.
ContributorsWinner, Kylee (Author) / Van Engen, Dagmar (Thesis director) / Ward, Mako (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Vigilantism has existed in the United States since the Revolutionary War. Ever present in popular culture and other media, vigilantes are presently revered for taking the will of the people into their own hands to exact justice as they deem necessary. However, the vigilantes who impose this justice can take many forms, going so far as to act using their own prejudices and claim that it is justice. The Ku Klux Klan did just this, as a Christian white supremacist organization with a history of targeting black individuals in the South on the basis of race alone. The media paints a distinctly different picture, with Batman as one of the most prominent vigilante figures in popular culture. Batman’s narrative is notably based on ideas of contagion in urban landscapes, criminalizing the downtrodden members of society, such as in the 2019 film "Joker." These vigilantes are founded upon the idea of America under siege by the perceived "Other," whether this be based on race, class, or other factors. This thesis serves to explore the themes at play for both the KKK and Batman to better understand the source of these narratives as well as the roles played by these figures in light of the current political landscape, in which we confront race socio-culturally and politically. In this thesis, I discuss the ideas of vigilantism, terrorism, and heroism through the case studies of the Ku Klux Klan and Batman: two entities that act violently outside the law yet are received drastically differently from one another due to their respective senses of morality.
ContributorsMiller, Eden (Author) / Cruse, Markus (Thesis director) / Joslin, Isaac (Committee member) / Maur, Glenn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor)
Created2022-05