Senior Independent Study Theses from 2019
“She Turned Me Into A Newt!”, an Examination of the Fictionalized Identities of Cunning Folk and Witches During the Witchcraft Trials, Katarina E. Padavick
Department: History; English
On The Ground, James Rankin
Department: English
Letters from Heaven, Dylan M. Reynolds
Department: English; Philosophy
The Knights of Avalon: Origins of the Gateway, Kenzie Rogers
Department: English
Floating Away on a Slice of Pizza Sounds Like a Good Way to Go, Sam Royer
Department: English
Gluing the Feathers off My Fascinator, Anum K. Sattar
Department: English
A Study on the Efficacy of Bacteriophage Therapy and Other Stories, Allison Secard
Department: Biology; English
Beknighted Romance: An Investigation of 14th-Century Chivalrous Romance as Popular Genre, Ryan Secard
Department: English
Introductions to Ecology: How Children's Literature Inspires Environmentalism, Claire J. Smrekar
Department: English
Curious and Courageous Children: Girl Heroism and Spirituality, Sarah Specht
Department: English
Lost in Translation, Found in Culture: An Academic Inquiry on the Efficacy of Translating Culture in Latin American Magic Realist Genres, William Richard Strohmeyer
Department: English; Spanish
“Dumb Brutes” or “Fellow-Critters”: Toward a More Virtuous Characterization of Nonhuman Animals, Daniel Sweat
Department: Philosophy; English
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2018
“Everybody Worships”: Religious and Para-Religious Presences and Interactions in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Nan Denette
Department: Religious Studies; English
Being Sixty: Aging, Agency, and Personal Narrative in Simone de Beauvoir's La Vieillesse and Doris Lessing's The Diary of a Good Neighbour, Ashley R. Ferguson
Department: English; French and Francophone Studies
The Role of Travel Memoir in the Production of Orientalist on Japan, Christopher Fried
Department: English
Folktales From Origin Valley, Elen-Kalliopi Halimou
Department: English; Philosophy
Children of the Empire, Jack Healy
Department: English
Writing the Carceral Divide: Representations of Imprisonment in American Culture, Timothy Herring
Department: English
The Lord of Summer, Bird Jackson
Department: English
Unfair Journalism: An Investigation into Stereotypes That Emerged from Recent College Sports Scandals and Surrounding Media Accounts, Sam Kuhn
Department: English
“Discourse Begins in a Book Club”: An Analysis of Online Book Club Literary Discussion of Race and Gender in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Underground Railroad, Catherine Lockwood
Department: English; Sociology and Anthropology
Walden, Wilderness, and Wrenches: The Radical Environmentalism of Henry David Thoreau and Edward Abbey, Alex Moore
Department: English; Philosophy
Surface Tension: A Collection of Poetry, Kat Neis
Department: English
"The Kids Are All Right”: Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of the Gothic in Children’s Literature., Sara Noakes
Department: English
2-D Boys, 3-D Desires: A Critical Fan’s Primer to Romance, Sexuality & Gender in Shoujo Manga, Anime & Otome Video Games, Katherine M. Randazzo
Department: Interdepartmental; Comparative Literature; English
The Banned Books Project 2.0: A Study of The Motivations Behind Challenges and Bannings of Children’s and Young Adult Literature in Public Schools, Alice Rietz
Department: English
The Richmondian Invasion of the Late Ordovician of Cincinnati with a Focus on Trepostome Bryozoans, or the Ekphrastic Geologist and Other Essays, Matthew Shearer
Department: English; Geology
An Abridged History of Hip-Hop and Me: A Suburban Account of Urban Art, Jonah Singer
Department: English
The Road Death Traveled: The Representation of Romani Deaths in Nineteenth-Century British and French Literature, Haley Skeens
Department: English; French and Francophone Studies
"The Snake King" and Other Stories, Autumn Smith
Department: English
The Future is Female: Reproduction in Female-Centric Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Texts, Dana Smith
Department: English
Toward a Metagraphic Theory: Examining the Reflexive Graphic Novels of Daniel Clowes, Harry Todd
Department: English
Revelations: A Collection of Short Stories, Channler Twyman
Department: English
A Bear that Close: Stories Involving Guiding Others into the Wilderness, Carl Vaughan
Department: English
Field Notes, Joseph Vickers
Department: English
Cosmopolitan Love: Contextualizing and Reimagining Race in America, Vy Vu
Department: Art and Art History; English
Loving Him was Red Riding Hood: Using Freudian Analysis to Discuss Sexuality and Gender Expectations in Modern Adaptations of "Little Red Riding Hood", Elise Waltzer
Department: English
Aliminal: An Album presented by Kevante Weakley, Kevante D. Weakley
Department: English
"I'd Rather Be a Tomboy Than a Sissy": Gender Variance in Children's Literature Civil Rights Era - Present, Jennifer Whitehall
Department: English
Drowning on Dry Land: Landscapes of Depression and Suicide in the Literature of William Styron, Lindsey Beth Zelvin
Department: English
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2017
"God Only Knows What I'd Be Without You" : Music, Memory and Family Narrative, Kathryn A. Cameron
Department: English
Giving HerStory A Platform: Why Female Slave and Neo-Slave Narratives Should be Integral Components of Inner City Middle School Curricula, Christina L. Elliott
Department: English
"Do Not Underestimate Objects": Objectification and Commodification in Infinite Jest, Janel England
Department: English
“Common Core”: Revising the Common Core Text Selection Process to Change the Literary Canon, Carly A. Eppler
Department: Education; English
Eden, Katharine M. Everett
Department: English
Tell Me How You Really Feel: An Analysis of How Black Literature and Pop Culture Reveals the War Between Black Men and Women, Imani A. Ferguson
Department: English
Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and Crybullies: A Rhetorical Analysis of Current Racial Protest, Anne Fried
Department: English
Gays in Space, Emily Gammons
Department: English
Don't Believe Everything You Hear, Lucy B. Heller
Department: English
Recipes My Dad Didn't Write: Essays of Food, Memoir, and Elogy, Melody B. Howard
Department: English
Understanding Shakespeare’s Role In 21st Century High School Education and Curriculum Design, Nate B. Huwar
Department: Education; English
The Actualization of a Path: On Women’s Journeys through Fantastic Literature, Lily Iserson
Department: English
Collective Memory of the American Civil War in Kentucky Historical Romances, 1890-1915, Jacob D. Kowall
Department: English; History
Elysium: A Novel, Bridgette L. McBride
Department: English
Stumbling Through Arcadia: A Collection of Personal Essays, Abigail R. Moller
Department: English
Contemporary Autobiographical Fiction and its Approach to the Problem of Authenticity in Literature, John G. Murphree
Department: English
Philosophies of Faith and the Megachurch Phenomenon: A Personal and Academic Encounter with Kierkegaard, Royce, and a Changing Faith, Peter M. Olson
Department: English; Philosophy
Spatial Stories: Navigating Caverns, Cities, and Highways, Ransom Patterson
Department: English
Destroying the World to Save It: Nostalgia, Home, and the Apocalypse, Leah J. Prescott
Department: English
Narrating Reality, Shoshana A. Rice
Department: English
What the Hell is Happening?: A Critical and Creative Examination of Hell in Pop Culture, Mallory J. Rozakis
Department: English
The Prince of Labrador, Aaron C. Salzman
Department: English
The Cycle of Information: Discussing the Language and Culture of Japan Through Narrative, Haley L. Tolle
Department: East Asian Studies; English
Absurdism and Comics: A Philosophical Exploration of the 'Animal' in Franz Kafka and Grant Morrison, Brendan P. Walsh
Department: English
"Learning to Live": A Critique of Misrepresentations of Black Women in Toni Morrison's Paradise and Through an Original Screenplay Entitled the Tenth, Jessica Waters
Department: English
“Reading” Glacier Bay: a landscape of cultural and physical glaciation from the Little Ice Age to the 21st century, Andrew D. Wayrynen
Department: English; Geology
Instagram and "Natural Femininity": A Version of Femininity Coded as "Natural" Through the Emphasis of The Female Body, Natural Settings and Authentic Moments., Lydia Webster
Department: English
Finding Salvation Through Pilgrimage: Dante’s Influences on Hell scenes and Chaucer and the Relationship to Salvation, Alexandra Wendt
Department: Art and Art History; English
How Do You Want to Die? Analyzing the Importance of Humanities, Ethics and Conversation in Healthcare, Jackie White
Department: English
Seer of Myrn: A Novella of Second Sight, Alisha D. Wies
Department: English
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2016
Anonymity, Environmental Destruction, and Bearing Witness to a Trauma: A Study of Themes within Emily Dickinson's Poetry in the Context of the American Civil War, Lauren A. Breck
Department: English
Project SuperNatural, Brittany Brewer
Department: English
Authorship, Utterance, and Meaning, Warner S. Brownfield
Department: English; Philosophy
Heading Home: A Screenplay Adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, Travis H. Burgess
Department: English
Voices in the Wilderness: Methods and Messages across 200 Years of Environmental Writers, Gregory Butler
Department: English
Home Is Where…? : A Visual And Textual Exploration Of Home, Nostalgia, And Persona, Dallas K M Dickey
Department: Art and Art History; English
SO MANY AROUND THE TABLE: THE MULTIPLICITY OF NARRATIVES WITHIN THE MYTH OF “THE POOR”, Danielle D. Gagnon
Department: English
Muzzled and Mutilated: The Commodification of Black Women in Alice Walker’s In Love and Trouble and Ann Petry’s The Street and their Artful Escape from the Patriarchal System, Seonna Gittens
Department: English
I Don't Trust Me and Neither Should You: A Collection of Comedic Essays, Michael Hatchett
Department: English
From Archives to Code: Gladys Fornell’s Montel, Tess A. Henthorne
Department: English
Treatment in the Waiting Room: A Poetry Collection Exploring Perceptions and Experiences of Chronic Illness, Victoria M. Horvath
Department: English
Joyce's Musical Doublespeak, James May
Department: English
Homonyms: A Collection of Short Stories, Kieran Mundy
Department: English
It’s Not About The X’s and O’s But The Billy’s and Joe’s: An Examination of the Intangible Characteristics Valued Most in Successful Football Teams, Ethan R. Nichol
Department: English
The Town Near the Moon, Mickey Osthimer
Department: English
"Don't Read This!": Lemony Snicket and the Control of Youth Reading Autonomy in Late-Nineteenth-Century Britain, Brittany A. Previte
Department: English; History
Sexuality and Repression in Dracula: a Psychoanalytic Look at Shifting Notions of Gender and Sexuality Within Dracula and Subsequent Adaptations, Lillian Rose Shepherd
Department: English
Climbing Uphill, Ananya Shrestha
Department: English
The Somewhere We Wish Were Nowhere: Dystopian Realities and (un)Democratic Imaginaries, Benjamin B. Taylor
Department: English; Political Science
The Vision of Thomas Malory: The Failure of an Ideal, Mark F. Trankina Jr
Department: English
“I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also”: Forms of resistance in Antebellum Literature, Jacob D. Vellucci
Department: English
Fifty-One Shades of Grey: New Readings of the Black Female Body in Literature, Pop Culture and Film, Ashanti Wallace
Department: English
Pine River Camp: Welcome Home, Griffin A. White
Department: English
Euskaldunak or Amerikanuak: An Introduction to the Folklore of the Boise Basques and its Contribution to the Basque-American Identity, Leah Zavaleta
Department: English; Sociology and Anthropology
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2015
The Right Combination: How the Coen Brothers Challenge the Boundaries of Genre and Postmodernism in Film, Olivia Baum
Department: English
Total Film Nerd: An Exploration of Film Criticism and Film Adaptations, Margot Bruce
Department: English; Film Studies
Imprisoned Beyond Walls: the Prison Wife Perspective and the Manifestation of Internal Confinement, Cora W. Bucher
Department: English
The Adulteress and the Patriarchy: The Search for Female Independence and Autonomy in Anna Karenina and The Awakening, Sarah Carracher
Department: English; Russian Studies
State of Grace: How Grace Kelly Rose to Prominence and Fell to Irrelevance Through Her Sense of Style and Self Preservation, Rachel J. Clark
Department: English
Your Worst Nightmare: The Uncanny Female Double in 3 Women, Mulholland Drive, and Persona, Clara Cuccaro
Department: English