Frantz Fanon & Negritude
Racism & Antiracism - Spring 2022
Research paper on how anti-racist platforms employ strategic essentialism, with particular focus on the Négritude movement and the criticism this ideology faced from the political philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon.
Monarchical Political Mythology
William Shakespeare - Winter 2022
Textual analysis of biblical allusions in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy, and how the relationship between religion and political ideology is questioned throughout these four plays and through the medium of theater.
The Allegory of Sin
Traditional British Canon - Spring 2022
Extended meditation on the allegory of Sin in Milton’s Paradise Lost; through close reading of two passages, Sin’s origin story reveals what her character signifies about the existence of sin in a divine universe.
Feminist Ethics of Care
Climate Change Fiction - Spring 2022
Analysis of the ethical terrain in dystopian novels and how feminist critiques are made in worlds devoid of gender equality using Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Claire Vaye Watkins’s Gold Fame Citrus.
History & Narrativity
Traditional U.S. Canon - Winter 2022
Comprehensive project on the relationship between history and fiction — features an essay on temporality in The Scarlet Letter, an essay on historiography in Benito Cereno, and supplementary analysis on historical narration.
Buddhism in Premodern Japan
Ancient Japan - Fall 2021
Research based analysis of the role of Buddhism in the Japanese imperial state and the varying degrees of political power and influence this religion held throughout the premodern period.
Feminine Wisdom in Exile
Novels of Toni Morrison - Fall 2021
Examination of Toni Morrison’s authorship, particularly in the novel Paradise, and her emphasis on exiled women and the countercultural knowledge they possess due to being outcasted from their communities.
Feminism & Intersectionality
Rhetoric & Inquiry - Winter 2020
Analysis based discussion of the term intersectionality as it applies to contemporary feminist ideology and how the implications of this term must be tangibly implemented if the movement is to progress.
Feigned Immunity
Speculative Fiction - Spring 2020
Concentrated study of the 1995 film Safe as it pertains to the AIDs epidemic and to more overarching ideas surrounding what literary “monsters” signify about the circumstances in which they were created.
Love in Death
Lit & Photography - Spring 2020
Reflection on the personal and societal significance of photography as a means of remembering the deceased through the stylistic and analytical lens of Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida.
Black Feminism in Jazz
Jazz & US Cultural History - Fall 2020
Consideration of early 20th century African American blues-women in
the development black feminist theory and the limitations of the entertainment industry as a platform for societal uplift.
Origins of the Abrahamic Religions
Ancient to Early Modern Jewish History - Fall 2020
Analysis of the historical origins of the three major Abrahamic religions, their subsequent divisions, and how the complex histories of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are inextricably interwoven.