Close reading has long been favored as an interpretative framework within those classrooms commonly united under the umbrella of English studies. This thesis explores the role of a particular brand of close reading—one often assessed through text-dependent questions—and critiques its centrality within assessment and curriculum materials for the AP Program...
The suffering of animals and the environment due to the advancement of anthropocentric endeavors is undeniable. There is no unitary cause that can account for the “why” of people’s belief in humanities exceptional status compared to animals: Some believe capitalism is the root of disparagement, others believe our scientific prowess...
In 1947, scientists from the University of California departed for a fifteen-month expedition to Africa. Jessie Camp, wife of the head paleontologist Dr. Charles L. Camp, had no official position on the expedition. Yet in performing her traditional domestic duties, she greatly contributed to the overall success of the expedition....
This thesis is an IRB-exempt oral history focused on the non-profit Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center (CMLC) in Corvallis, Oregon. The CMLC, formerly on 9th Street, was known to many community members as the Yellow House. The Yellow House was a dedicated community-based space where people of all cultures could come...
This thesis analyzes Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy Antigone as it relates to biopolitics, biopower, democratic language and non-normative principles of politics. I argue that the figure of Antigone enables a better understanding of exclusive biopolitical philosophy. Antigone is a figure not recognized as human because her gender is tortured and...
Steps and Stikes is an Environmental Arts and Humanities capstone thesis project taking the shape of an art film. The video layers contemporary dance with natural and industrial imagery on a foundation of personal narrative. It engages with contemporary environmental discourse as a choreographed essay, questioning why the environmental movement...
This work examines the decolonial potential of queer and Two-Spirit Indigenous storytelling by telling stories using graphic novel chapters, literary analysis, and graphic analysis. I explore the importance of stories in defining us as individuals, as peoples, and as humans. As a mixed-race Indigenous (unregistered Cherokee) transwoman, I engage with...
France’s decision to test their nuclear weapons program in the Sahara in 1960 wholly reshaped how the Cold War infiltrated into West Africa. During a time of nation building, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah urged Ghana and Africa, more broadly, to break ties with colonial powers and rebuke further attempts of...
This thesis focuses on performances of masculinity by British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) airmen in the charged landscape of the First World War prisoner of war (POW) camp. I examine how captive airmen coped with imprisonment by reasserting the familiar homosocial communities of pre-capture squadron life, particularly through practices associated...
Composition scholars who have written about trauma have typically focused on creating classrooms that are conducive to healing and learning. In doing this work, however, they have considered neither how PTSD nor other people’s responses to it can impact one’s perceived rhetoricity in the college classroom. In other words, they...