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In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

Nymphettamine is a nonlinear creative narrative that combines poetry and prose to explore psychosis, grief, trauma, addiction, psychiatric asylum, and the healing properties of art and nature. This series of vignettes exists between the realms of fiction and nonfiction to translate the disorientation of navigating the dual realities that are characteristic of a manic episode to the reader. Nymphettamine is equal parts memoir, fictive depiction, and thought experiment, which, as a whole, becomes an echo of the processes that occur when one experiences psychosis. Told in scattered images to emulate intrusive thoughts, obtrusive hallucinations, shifting night terrors, and Rorschachian inkblots, Nymphettamine is carried by seemingly dissonant voices; spirits linked by ephemeral connecting threads mirroring the nature of the "looseness of associations" that informs the perceptions of psychotic individuals. This project was driven by a desire to explore queer identities, their relationships with psychiatric institutions, and the fictive visibility, or lack thereof, of individuals diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders. Nymphettamine attempts to confront and subvert archetypical characteristics of mentally ill women by delving into the infinite complexities of each character. The women in this collection are not defined by their psychiatric diagnoses, instead, they are characterized by the way that they interact with moments of dysfunction or function. They embark upon a lifelong pursuit of fulfillment, balance, and artistic creation while they rebel against the archaic psychiatric authorities that attempt to subdue or silence them. Instead of falling prey to the literary tropes of suicide or debilitating incompetence caused by "hysteria" that have been used for centuries to cut the fables of "madwomen" short, reducing their existence to cautionary tales or dramaticized plot twists, each woman outlives their psychotic breaks, sexual assaults, unpredictable erraticisms, and debilitating substance dependencies. Their lives are left ambiguous, given to the reader only in selective, vibrant, slivered glimpses that allow each woman to continue on even after the collection's closing. Thus, they become ethereal victors to pay homage to the strength--presented in opposition to the weakness of the dismantled mind outlined by both fictive and psychiatric texts--required to overcome the severity and the longevity of each psychotic disorder.

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In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

In the male-dominated literary canon, women characters repeatedly die to preserve patriarchal ideologies. While previous scholarship focuses on the meaning of male authors' use of dead female characters, my thesis analyzes dead women as imagined by recent female writers. Unlike their male counterparts, these women writers envision characters who explore the limits of feminine autonomy in prejudiced spaces. As Angela Carter writes, women "ha[ve] been groomed for the slaughterhouse," and each of the fictional women in this collective seeks to escape the patriarchal storylines that set them up for different, though inevitably violent, futures. Using close reading and trauma theory, I examine stories about a woman whose husband collects his dead wives' bodies, a woman whose body is held together by a ribbon around her neck, a woman who starves herself, and a woman who frames her husband for her murder. These stories inform the individual and collective traumas that women characters face in literature and readers unknowingly experience by default. By analyzing these women's respective successes and failures in breaking free from the longstanding confines of patriarchy, my thesis reveals the way that fictionalized violence against women's bodies not only enables misogynistic narratives, but allows for a real woman's death to be declared a suicide. Ultimately, the fictional women in this thesis are both victims of and challenges to a patriarchal status quo. Their position as foundational components of transhistorical literary texts speaks to their ubiquity. This thesis theorizes the ways in which their roles in their respective texts outline that the path to resistance is not so simple and, more importantly, challenges the foundations of their identity.

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In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

This thesis investigates the physical and mental factors extremist religious organizations, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, Church of Scientology and Fundamentalist Mormonism use to decrease the chance of members' departure from their institutions. These factors include familial relationships, physical and mental limitations, and restricted exposure to society outside of the religious organization. The following memoirs illustrate and expose these difficulties and how the female authors overcome these limitations:Educatedby Tara Westover,Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escapeby Jenna Miscavige Hill andUnfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Churchby Megan Phelps-Roper. All three books detail their authors' various journeys as they persevere through self-liberation in order to find peace. All three female memoirists have to fight for the opportunity to pursue higher education and integrate into the outside world that they had been sheltered from for a majority of their lives. Westover narrates her childhood in the mountains of Idaho and her ultimate decision to leave her tyrannical household run by her radical-thinking father, Gene Westover. Hill reveals the history behind being born and raised in the Sea Organization of Scientology; and the tight-knit community of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is detailed by Megan Phelps-Roper's memoir. Each author faces different battles concerning life outside of their respective communities, but their pursuit of the knowledge that their religion shelters them from motivates all of their desires for more. There are often connotations imparted on memoirs, with the expectation of a revelation for the author or even the reader, as they compare their life story to that of the author. These memoirs in particular are not predictable and do not shy away from the harsh realities the women were faced with in their communities as well as when they left. Even after traumatic events and dialogue are described, somehow the authors are all able to rise above the backlash they have faced and have the confidence that remains in their decision to leave. The Westboro Baptist Church continues to protest, Scientologists still practice invasive auditing sessions, and the Westover family is still adamant in their radical Mormon beliefs; life continues as before. Though Westover, Hill and Phelps-Roper may not be able to alter the beliefs of their institutions as whole, each of their departures caused a stir that cannot be undone, no matter what the authorities attempt. They are strong, independent and confident women who fought for what they wanted from the world and went on to educate that world through their narrative voices.

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VideoObject

Rights Statement

Controlled Access Terms

In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

This thesis seeks to define/theorize and map the queer ephemeral, a cycle of emergence and reemergence of the queer subject within queer time. Straight time consists of the linear timeline where when one matures, attends college, attains a stable job, falls in love, marries, bears children, and lives happily ever after. Whether through movies, television, books, or our own guardians, time is presented to us as something stable, consistent, and reproductive; diverging off the conventional timeline brings societal pressures that isolate subjects who fall out of its fabric. As straight time facilitates the construction of some sort of ideal adult, it also allows the emergence of queerness as queer time naturally stands in opposition to reproductive lineage. As straight time grants one emergence of the adult, queer time enables multiple possibilities of self emergence. Throughout this thesis, I define that this cycle of self emergence, known as the queer ephemeral, is fleeting in nature, which subsequently causes the queer subject to constantly feel as if time is always slipping through their fingers. I seek to map critical examples of the queer ephemeral by categorizing and defining its fragmented and ever-changing structure through the affectual terms of emergence, ecstasy, grief, and utopia. Through "Emergence," I pay close attention to Venezuelan performance artist Arca as a manifestation of the queer ephemeral. Through "Ecstasy," I analyze Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography in relation to the paradoxes that exist within queer engagements of queer nostalgia, a critical player in the pattern of ephemeral emergence. In "Grief," I discuss grief in relation to Susan Stryker's definition of transgender rage and the 2017 Chilean film, Una mujer fant?°stica (A Fantastic Woman). Grief emerges as a crucial generative aspect within the queer ephemeral. Finally, in "Utopia", I pay close attention to the late electronic music artist SOPHIE and her album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides, which emphasizes the immateriality of queerness and the utopias that are constantly constructed and deconstructed. As each of the subjects in this thesis engage with the queer ephemeral in different and unique settings, they all come to consistently manifest a state of becoming. While the term mapping implies that the exact coordinates of the queer ephemeral can be identified, this thesis manages to approximate the queer subject's fleeting existence.

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VideoObject

Rights Statement

Controlled Access Terms

In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

In Solmaz Sharif's debut poetry collection Look, she incorporates United States Department of Defense terminology in order to simultaneously revolt against forced erasure and reclaim words that were once used for violent and oppressive purposes. This thesis argues that poetry is an inherently politicized, revolutionary tool that possesses the ability to radicalize and incite rebellion against silencing, dismissive power structures. Sharif's identity, as an Iranian-American immigrant woman, is omnipresent in her own interpretation of familial trauma at the hands of American imperialist forces. In addition, the events of the late twentieth-century Iranian revolution that resulted in the deaths of many family members is instrumental to Sharif's theories of collective trauma and subsequent written rebellion. I argue that Sharif's position as an Iranian female poet is crucial in understanding the impact of her writing in which she stresses how the acts of composing and consuming poetry are intrinsically political and can lead to a greater understanding of the oppressors' tactics. Sharif's purposeful construction of a poetic collection that acknowledges personal and communal suffering at the hands of international, institutional forces is a tool, poised in its revolutionary potential. This thesis is divided into three sections that engage the roles of Look as an entity and Solmaz Sharif as an author. In "A Political Existence," I prove that poetry is not only inherently political, but can help form communal bonds and mobilize communities threatened with forcible erasure. Through critical analyses of Audre Lorde's and Angela Davis's works on art as a revolutionary tool in conversation with Sharif's essay on the politics of poetic erasure, it is evident that poetry is a multidimensional phenomenon capable of inciting tangible change. "Looking Inward" is centered around two poems within Look that exposes internal side effects of American international imperialism. While much of Sharif's criticism of the United States is targeted at the consequences of militarism abroad, this section engages with the institutionalization of racism and misogyny throughout American history. The final section, "Reaching Guantanamo," exposes the quiet violence of redaction and erasure in a series of letters to an imagined prisoner within Guant?°namo Bay. Overall, this thesis joins Solmaz Sharif in a call for rebellion, searching for truth and finding strength in revolutionary poetry.

Type of Resource

VideoObject

Rights Statement

In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

The psychological theory of narrative identity posits that we create our identities based on a narrative life-story, and that adolescence is a pivotal moment in this process. Literature is one of the most familiar examples of narrative, so what, then, does the literature adolescents read teach them about identity as they construct their own narrative identities? What kinds of characters are portrayed and what can we learn about the adolescents influenced by those characters? This thesis is interested in these questions specifically as they relate to contemporary adolescent girls, who often grow up reading young adult (YA) high fantasy novels written by women, about women, and for women. Using Sara Ahmed's theory of the willful subject, this thesis theorizes the protagonists depicted in YA high fantasy novels as willful heroines who are constructed in resistance to oppressive, patriarchal societies which seek to control them. Through developing methods of willfulness specific to their individual, intersectional identities, these heroines are able to take their fates into their own hands and begin to imagine alternatives to the hierarchical systems in which they are trapped. The willful techniques they cultivate to defy their respective worlds are influenced by their gender, race, sexuality, class, and experience with imperialism. However, in order to be successful in imagining and eventually building a better world, a willful heroine‚ especially one who faces layered forms of oppression, as sexism interacts with racism and colonization, for example‚ must be supported by a community of fellow willful subjects. By analyzing five recent YA high fantasy novels‚Äì‚ÄìSarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass (2012), Holly Black's The Cruel Prince (2018), Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes (2015), Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone (2018), and Marie Rutkoski's The Midnight Lie (2020)‚ this thesis reveals how intersubjective and intersectional willfulness is fundamental to any female identity that wants to not only survive but overcome a patriarchal society. As it concludes, this thesis envisions a new generation of women raised on YA high fantasy novels who build willful communities in order to transform the world around them.

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VideoObject

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In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

Vibrant Darkness is a collection of poetry and photography that explores conversations between different artistic mediums. The images provide inspiration for all of the poems written, unveiling how writing reacts to photography, while photography is based on a series of interactions. The photographs centralize around urban settings consisting of Prague, New York, Newport, and Boston, as well as some portraits developed within these cities and at Union College. Through the process of capturing, writing, and reflecting, this thesis exposes the dualities within the reactions to different spaces, environments, and people. For instance, while some interactions to varying environments may differ intensely, other variances may at times cause similar emotional responses to unfold. In summary, simply because nature or urbanism differ in their composition, the reader and writer may not experience differing emotive affects from analyzing these spaces. The poems throughout Vibrant Darkness rest in an uncertain state, with hints of both optimism and melancholy. This is portrayed with the passage of time throughout the collection, wherein several poems and photographs were composed weeks, months, or years ago. Just as the poems navigate growth, so do the interactions. For instance, some emotive reactions may have once been based in a more dismal state, but through writing, become more optimistic in their reflection. Similarly, moments that were once thought of fondly, could transcend into more of a neutral stance, recognizing the persistence of grief through growth. In addition, the core of many of these interactions is the exploration of objects. While many of the images consist of people or spaces, the poems frequently centralize on the objects, background details, or memories attached to these environments--not necessarily what rests in the central image. In this sense, objects and time play a central role in fabricating each emotive reaction or poetic tone. People and spaces may fade, but objects hold power over time, just as the art capturing these moments do. These interactions between poetry and photography implement the broader notion of affect theory into most of the collection's relationships with artistic mediums and the resulting emotive responses upon viewing them. The collection ultimately seeks to explore the eternal nature of reactions. The poems and photographs in Vibrant Darkness often rely on varied possibilities within each creation or interpretation, enabling readers to reflect on their own reactions.

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VideoObject

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Controlled Access Terms

In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

Provenance is a term used in art history to refer to the record of an artwork's life after its creation: the paper trail it has left through time showing who has purchased it, sold it, moved it, restored it, displayed it. Provenance's intertwined stories use the things we leave behind, both physical and digital, to explore absence, mother-daughter relationships, formative friendships, and personal identities. Jane is a middle-aged woman whose mother-in-law, an artist named Francie, has just passed away unexpectedly, leaving her home to be cleared out. As she sorts through a lifetime of belongings and paintings, she continues to learn more about the woman who was like a mother to her, the woman she previously felt she knew completely. The process of mourning Francie introduces new complexities to her relationship with her husband, Andrew, and daughter, Rosie. Ellen is finishing her freshman year of high school while attempting to deal with the absence of her best friend Aleaya, who is spending the summer at a mental health rehabilitation facility. Ellen soon discovers that she has access to a secret Instagram account Aleaya had once logged into on her phone and realizes that there are things she doesn't know about her best friend. While investigating Aleaya's curated digital presence, Ellen comes face to face with her own expectations about intimacy, friendship, and support. When Ellen, a previous student of Francie's, is volunteered by her mother to help Jane clean out Francie's studio, the two form a significant connection. Despite the difference in their circumstances, Jane and Ellen both discover ways to navigate life after loss, and the sometimes unexpected ways we continue to exist in the things and people we leave behind.

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VideoObject

Rights Statement

Controlled Access Terms

In Steinmetz Symposium

Abstract

The Witch of Thessaly is a young adult fantasy novel. Erin Mercer and her best friend, Perry Robbins, take a road trip to New Orleans the summer before their senior year of high school in order to help Perry's Aunt Sharon declutter and fix up her home. It's smooth sailing except for their apparent stalker, the mystery of Erin's missing SAT tutor haunting the back of her mind, and her weirdly specific and intense flashes of d?©j?† vu. When Erin stumbles across one of New Orleans's many voodoo shops and befriends the owner's daughter, Alana, she discovers that what she always thought was d?©j?† vu was actually a type of psychic power called psychometry that lets her catch glimpses into people's minds and pasts. Luckily, Alana's empathic mother takes her on as one of her students alongside a boy who can move objects with his mind. While Erin thinks her summer is as crazy as it could be, a mysterious cousin from Greece crashes her vacation with the news that her biological mother belonged to one of the oldest covens of psychics in the world, and that they've been looking for Erin for a long, long time. The novel is an exploration of friendship and trust and how the family we choose is just as important as the family we're born with.

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In Honors Theses

Abstract

Former research shows that student bodies of higher education institutions have become more diverse over the past several decades, both at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Sociological research explains how diversifying colleges and universities may seem like a good thing, but actually causes problems for minority students through microaggressions and unequal academic playing fields. Although research exists which analyzes the admission of students of color, there is a gap in the research which looks at retention. This research aims to better understand what conditions make students more or less likely to stop out of college with particular focus on race and financial need. The econometric results show that being Black and attending a school with an increasingly white student body is not statistically significant in leading to a student stopping out, but attending a school with a higher percentage of white students reduces the likelihood of a student stopping out. Further, factors of financial need, including students who borrow more money to pay for their education or have a higher level of unmet need, are more likely to stop out. A series of sociological case studies reveal that PWIs have much work to do in making campuses more diverse and inclusive. Microaggressions and acts of racism can lead to a disconnect between a Black student's identity and the environment of their college campus. Yet, the institutional support structures of PWIs may be enough to maintain the retention of Black students.

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Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

This study investigates whether or not traditional bullying and cyberbullying behaviors are a contributing factor to suicide ideation. Suicide is the second leading cause of death on college campuses, and cyberbullying is an increasing phenomenon across the nation. However, there is limited research that investigates the cause of suicide amongst college students, and no research to date that explores whether or not college students bullying behaviors increase the risk of suicide. Through a questionnaire this study explored whether or not cyberbullying and traditional bullying occur at the college level, and what types of bullying males and females have engaged in, or have been a victim of while in college. The questionnaire also reported respondents’ beliefs and experiences of suicide ideation throughout their college career. The questionnaire reveled that indirect bullying was the most frequent bullying behavior to be experienced by college students’, while cyberbullying was reported as the least frequent behavior to have been victimized from while at college. Males and females typically engage in different bullying behaviors, but these findings were atypical to previous research, finding that males and females of this sample size experienced similar bullying behaviors. 61.3% of respondents reported that they believe that it is possible that people choose to take their lives as a result of being bullied. Reponses of this research and previous research of bullying and suicide gives strong indication that additional research be completed in these fields in order to fully understand bullying and its affect on suicidal ideation.

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

This thesis seeks to define/theorize and map the queer ephemeral, a cycle of emergence and reemergence of the queer subject within queer time. Straight time consists of the linear timeline where when one matures, attends college, attains a stable job, falls in love, marries, bears children, and lives happily ever after. Whether through movies, television, books, or our own guardians, time is presented to us as something stable, consistent, and reproductive; diverging off the conventional timeline brings societal pressures that isolate subjects who fall out of its fabric. As straight time facilitates the construction of some sort of ideal adult, it also allows the emergence of queerness as queer time naturally stands in opposition to reproductive lineage. As straight time grants one emergence of the adult, queer time enables multiple possibilities of self emergence. Throughout this thesis, I define that this cycle of self emergence, known as the queer ephemeral, is fleeting in nature, which subsequently causes the queer subject to constantly feel as if time is always slipping through their fingers. I seek to map critical examples of the queer ephemeral by categorizing and defining its fragmented and ever-changing structure through the affectual terms of emergence, ecstasy, grief, and utopia. Through "Emergence," I pay close attention to Venezuelan performance artist Arca as a manifestation of the queer ephemeral. Through "Ecstasy," I analyze Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography in relation to the paradoxes that exist within queer engagements of queer nostalgia, a critical player in the pattern of ephemeral emergence. In "Grief," I discuss grief in relation to Susan Stryker's definition of transgender rage and the 2017 Chilean film, Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman). Grief emerges as a crucial generative aspect within the queer ephemeral. Finally, in "Utopia", I pay close attention to the late electronic music artist SOPHIE and her album, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides, which emphasizes the immateriality of queerness and the utopias that are constantly constructed and deconstructed. As each of the subjects in this thesis engage with the queer ephemeral in different and unique settings, they all come to consistently manifest a state of becoming. While the term mapping implies that the exact coordinates of the queer ephemeral can be identified, this thesis manages to approximate the queer subject's fleeting existence.

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

In Solmaz Sharif's debut poetry collection Look, she incorporates United States Department of Defense terminology in order to simultaneously revolt against forced erasure and reclaim words that were once used for violent and oppressive purposes. This thesis argues that poetry is an inherently politicized, revolutionary tool that possesses the ability to radicalize and incite rebellion against silencing, dismissive power structures. Sharif's identity, as an Iranian-American immigrant woman, is omnipresent in her own interpretation of familial trauma at the hands of American imperialist forces. In addition, the events of the late twentieth-century Iranian revolution that resulted in the deaths of many family members is instrumental to Sharif's theories of collective trauma and subsequent written rebellion. I argue that Sharif's position as an Iranian female poet is crucial in understanding the impact of her writing in which she stresses how the acts of composing and consuming poetry are intrinsically political and can lead to a greater understanding of the oppressors' tactics. Sharif's purposeful construction of a poetic collection that acknowledges personal and communal suffering at the hands of international, institutional forces is a tool, poised in its revolutionary potential. This thesis is divided into three sections that engage the roles of Look as an entity and Solmaz Sharif as an author. In "A Political Existence," I prove that poetry is not only inherently political, but can help form communal bonds and mobilize communities threatened with forcible erasure. Through critical analyses of Audre Lorde's and Angela Davis's works on art as a revolutionary tool in conversation with Sharif's essay on the politics of poetic erasure, it is evident that poetry is a multidimensional phenomenon capable of inciting tangible change. "Looking Inward" is centered around two poems within Look that exposes internal side effects of American international imperialism. While much of Sharif's criticism of the United States is targeted at the consequences of militarism abroad, this section engages with the institutionalization of racism and misogyny throughout American history. The final section, "Reaching Guantánamo," exposes the quiet violence of redaction and erasure in a series of letters to an imagined prisoner within Guantánamo Bay. Overall, this thesis joins Solmaz Sharif in a call for rebellion, searching for truth and finding strength in revolutionary poetry.

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

Food insecurity is rampant in the United States in both rural and urban settings. The limited access to affordable nutritious food and education about healthy eating, increase risks for diet related illness and impact community health. Through participant observation and analysis of various community-based initiatives, this thesis explores interconnections between community solutions and public policy. Six cases studies in New Mexico and New York are examined to better understand how communities and government programs must collaborate to create effective change. Further, each case study reveals similar factors of food injustice, yet modes of activism to counter attack food injustice are in place to encourage greater recognition of a problem permeating communities. Finally, this presentation and the longer thesis sheds light on the intersections of race, class, and place which contribute to food insecurity and activisms created to address the problem not fully recognized by larger structural institutions.

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Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

Judith Butler's <em>Gender Trouble </em>proposed the groundbreaking theory of gender as a constant performance: a series of cues observed, internalized, and repeated over time. Her argument benefits society's desire to deconstruct gender, and her ideas apply to a vast array of texts and periods. In fact, whereas Butler's text was published in 1990, over a hundred years earlier Wilkie Collins already toyed with gender performance in his formative novel, <em>The Woman in White </em>(1860). In this thesis, I examine <em>The Woman in White </em>through a Butlerian lens, illuminating how Collins began critiquing the concept of performative gender, especially with regard to women's fashion. I compare Collins's experimentation with gender to that of Sarah Waters, a modern Welsh novelist writing Victorian-era historical fictions<em>. </em>In comparing the two authors, I demonstrate how Waters, in the post-Butler era, more overtly and controversially illustrates gender performance, critiquing the hierarchy it presents with a heavier hand in her novels <em>Fingersmith </em>(2002) and <em>Tipping the Velvet </em>(1998). To finish my examination of different instances of gender performance, I analyze two Tana French mysteries, <em>In the Woods </em>(2007)<em> </em>and <em>The Likeness </em>(2008)<em>. </em>French sets her novels in the present, and as a result, the Buterlian manifestations prove more subtle, yet just as prevalent. In <em>The Likeness, </em>French presents characters who are aware of their performances, yet these instances of consciousness within performance still prove detrimental, as characters end up falling apart when attempting to separate themselves from their performances. Ultimately, this thesis moves across chronological periods: Collins defines gender norms in somewhat reactionary terms, ascribing to Marian her own awareness of social limitations specific to gender and sex. Waters, by proxy, emphasizes the way in which performances of gender reveal its fluidity. Finally, French demonstrates the lack of gender identity or "true self" at all without performative attributes. All of the authors and texts reveal the inherent and dangerous power of gender regulations within performance.

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

Provenance is a term used in art history to refer to the record of an artwork's life after its creation: the paper trail it has left through time showing who has purchased it, sold it, moved it, restored it, displayed it. <em>Provenance</em>'s intertwined stories use the things we leave behind, both physical and digital, to explore absence, mother-daughter relationships, formative friendships, and personal identities. Jane is a middle-aged woman whose mother-in-law, an artist named Francie, has just passed away unexpectedly, leaving her home to be cleared out. As she sorts through a lifetime of belongings and paintings, she continues to learn more about the woman who was like a mother to her, the woman she previously felt she knew completely. The process of mourning Francie introduces new complexities to her relationship with her husband, Andrew, and daughter, Rosie. Ellen is finishing her freshman year of high school while attempting to deal with the absence of her best friend Aleaya, who is spending the summer at a mental health rehabilitation facility. Ellen soon discovers that she has access to a secret Instagram account Aleaya had once logged into on her phone and realizes that there are things she doesn't know about her best friend. While investigating Aleaya's curated digital presence, Ellen comes face to face with her own expectations about intimacy, friendship, and support. When Ellen, a previous student of Francie's, is volunteered by her mother to help Jane clean out Francie's studio, the two form a significant connection. Despite the difference in their circumstances, Jane and Ellen both discover ways to navigate<strong> </strong>life after loss, and the sometimes-unexpected ways we continue to exist in the things and people we leave behind.<em></em>

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

This thesis investigates the physical and mental factors extremist religious organizations, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, Church of Scientology and Fundamentalist Mormonism use to decrease the chance of members' departure from their institutions. These factors include familial relationships, physical and mental limitations, and restricted exposure to society outside of the religious organization. The following memoirs illustrate and expose these difficulties and how the female authors overcome these limitations: <em>Educated</em> by Tara Westover,<em> Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape</em> by Jenna Miscavige Hill and <em>Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church</em> by Megan Phelps-Roper. All three books detail their authors' various journeys as they persevere through self-liberation in order to find peace. All three female memoirists have to fight for the opportunity to pursue higher education and integrate into the outside world that they had been sheltered from for a majority of their lives. Westover narrates her childhood in the mountains of Idaho and her ultimate decision to leave her tyrannical household run by her radical-thinking father, Gene Westover. Hill reveals the history behind being born and raised in the Sea Organization of Scientology; and the tight-knit community of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is detailed by Megan Phelps-Roper's memoir. Each author faces different battles concerning life outside of their respective communities, but their pursuit of the knowledge that their religion shelters them from motivates all of their desires for more. There are often connotations imparted on memoirs, with the expectation of a revelation for the author or even the reader, as they compare their life story to that of the author. These memoirs in particular are not predictable and do not shy away from the harsh realities the women were faced with in their communities as well as when they left. Even after traumatic events and dialogue are described, somehow the authors are all able to rise above the backlash they have faced and have the confidence that remains in their decision to leave. The Westboro Baptist Church continues to protest, Scientologists still practice invasive auditing sessions, and the Westover family is still adamant in their radical Mormon beliefs; life continues as before. Though Westover, Hill and Phelps-Roper may not be able to alter the beliefs of their institutions as whole, each of their departures caused a stir that cannot be undone, no matter what the authorities attempt. They are strong, independent and confident women who fought for what they wanted from the world and went on to educate that world through their narrative voices.

Type of Resource

Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

Refugee populations are exposed to an unusually high number of traumatic events in their lifetimes that have the potential to cause long-lasting psychological harm. Millions of people are forcibly displaced by international conflicts, ethnic genocide, targeting of political dissidents, climate disasters, and countless other traumatic events. For the small fraction of refugees who are resettled in wealthy nations such as the United States, they are fortunate to leave behind the harmful and often violent places which they are fleeing from, but they are also leaving behind their families, friends, homes, and traditions. During and following resettlement, refugees continue to face potentially traumatic experiences and are offered minimal resources to assist with coping or access clinical interventions. The goals of the U.S. resettlement system are to provide protection for these vulnerable populations and to enable integration into America's society and economy. These goals are—by some accounts—achieved, but services to refugees reflect an understanding that social services, including medical and mental health assistance, are a low priority. While the Unites States seeks to re-evaluate the social obligations of the government and we grapple with the toxicity of immigration and humanitarian responsibility, now is the moment to address the shortcomings in services to refugees and how addressing trauma can benefit refugees and America.

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Thesis

Rights Statement

In Honors Theses

Abstract

The U.S. healthcare system consistently underperforms on crucial international comparisons, thereby highlighting the need for reform. Simultaneously, there exists bipartisan and strong cultural support for patient choice; i.e. the ability of patients to assess the quality of healthcare facilities and choose amongst competing options. However, prior literature suggests that patients struggle to choose amongst competing facilities due to perceived competency barriers and insufficient information. In this two-phased thesis project, I abstracted a model for mobilizing patient choice as a tool for healthcare reform by designing a website which presents government data on healthcare facility performance. First, three types of focus groups were conducted to: (1) establish a patient-centric definition of quality, (2) determine the appropriate level of data granularity for a facility rating website, and (3) design a user interface for online healthcare content that takes into account patient preferences. In total, 23 subjects were recruited and split amongst the three focus groups. From the first group, a set of guidelines were extracted for a patient-centric definition of quality. Patients preferred Outcomes domains over Process or Input measures, valued Effectiveness and Safety most heavily, and had preferences that varied primarily along the lines of illness severity and length of care period. Focus Group Two illustrated the need to maintain data transparency; i.e. patients valued data on a facility's overall performance, performance in key areas (domains), and performance on individual indicators. Lastly, Group Three set guidelines on coloration and methods to efficiently disseminate data on performance. In phase two, the focus group findings were used to guide the development of a ranking of U.S. hospitals using data included in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) database. A website design was then wire-framed using the prototyping program Axure. A post-hoc analysis revealed trends in hospital performance according to geographic location and ownership type. This line of work exerts pressure on healthcare facilities to meet a certain standard of care. Data transparency continues to serve as a viable avenue for patient empowerment and a useful lever for healthcare reform.

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The psychological theory of narrative identity posits that we create our identities based on a narrative life-story, and that adolescence is a pivotal moment in this process. Literature is one of the most familiar examples of narrative, so what, then, does the literature adolescents read teach them about identity as they construct their own narrative identities? What kinds of characters are portrayed and what can we learn about the adolescents influenced by those characters? This thesis is interested in these questions specifically as they relate to contemporary adolescent girls, who often grow up reading young adult (YA) high fantasy novels written by women, about women, and for women. Using Sara Ahmed's theory of the willful subject, this thesis theorizes the protagonists depicted in YA high fantasy novels as willful heroines who are constructed in resistance to oppressive, patriarchal societies which seek to control them. Through developing methods of willfulness specific to their individual, intersectional identities, these heroines are able to take their fates into their own hands and begin to imagine alternatives to the hierarchical systems in which they are trapped. The willful techniques they cultivate to defy their respective worlds are influenced by their gender, race, sexuality, class, and experience with imperialism. However, in order to be successful in imagining and eventually building a better world, a willful heroine must be supported by a community of fellow willful subjects. By analyzing five recent YA high fantasy novels--Sarah J. Maas's <em>Throne of Glass</em> (2012), Holly Black's <em>The Cruel Prince</em> (2018), Sabaa Tahir's <em>An Ember in the Ashes</em> (2015), Tomi Adeyemi's <em>Children of Blood and Bone</em> (2018), and Marie Rutkoski's <em>The Midnight Lie</em> (2020)--this thesis reveals how intersubjective and intersectional willfulness is fundamental to any female identity that wants to not only survive but overcome a patriarchal society. As it concludes, this thesis envisions a new generation of women raised on YA high fantasy novels who build willful communities in order to transform the world around them.

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I began thinking about my thesis by wondering why we read, why we read the books we read, why we read a book the way we do, and how we read leads to different interpretations and opinions of a book. In my thesis, I have focused on figuring out how we can determine who we are based on the interpretations we make about a text. I have determined that one's interpretation is based on their baggage which includes their memories, expectations, and imagination. A reader, either consciously or unconsciously, brings baggage to every text they read in order to come to their own interpretation. In my encouragement of exploring one's own interpretation of a text, my thesis involves its own reader by referring to them as 'you' throughout to reinforce the idea that reader involvement is crucial to understanding a text. I urge my reader to, "before you get into this thesis, do some things for yourself. Get comfortable. Get uncomfortable. Choose or switch your chair depending on this preference. You know yourself. Get rid of possible distractions." I implore my reader to think about their own interpretation of a text by using Henry James's novella, <em>The Turn of the Screw. </em>The novella works perfectly for this study as it invites different interpretations because of its ambiguity. I have created and explored three possible readers to the novella: the Surface Reader, the Freudian Reader, and the Savior Reader. The Freudian Reader is a reader who looks for the deeper meaning which almost always refers to sexual desire. The Savior Reader is a hopeful reader who desires a happy ending and above all for the hero to succeed. The Surface Reader is a reader who would rather not become too invested by trying not to tie themselves to the text with their baggage. In my explanation of the readers, I not only explore their relationship with the novella, but I also give examples of who they might be as people. This includes where they would be reading the novella, what they would be listening to, who they would be with, and what they would be doing before, during, and after their reading experience. This grounds not only my thesis but also allows the reader to imagine themself as a reader of <em>The Turn of the Screw. </em>I explore how each reacts to different sections of the novella. Discussing the readers and how they interpret different sections of the novella shows the power of interpretation as well as why the novella has been debated over by many literary theorists and critics.

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The purpose of this research is to identify and discuss the pressures of adolescents who come from affluent families in American society. This is an important group to study, because recent studies suggest there are misconceptions regarding how "privileged," or isolated from psychosocial maladjustment, these adolescents may actually be. 21 qualitative, in-depth interviews with college students were conducted at a private institution in order to analyze possible areas of distress and mental health concerns. Findings suggest that upper class youth have a unique set of stressors that can potentially lead to mental health problems. High achievement pressures, excessive parental criticism, and perfectionism were salient themes found among affluent youth in this study. In addition, substance abuse was identified as a prevalent coping mechanism. Comparisons between findings of this study and other research of affluent adolescents and their pressures are made and discussed.

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