Many academic departments at Oberlin have honors programs which provide selected students an opportunity to pursue in-depth research under faculty supervision. Each department establishes its own requirements for the format and deposit of completed projects. In addition to undergraduate honors theses, this collection includes some graduate theses from the periods when Oberlin offered masters degrees, as far back as 1924. Some theses are only available by request.
Theses/Dissertations from 2024
“The more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I thrive”: Trans Experiences in Collegiate Athletics at Oberlin College, Maggie Balderstone
Positive Bystander Intervention Training for Allies to Gender Minorities, Nissa Berle
Jewish Question, Imperial Question: Antisemitism and Colonial Anxiety in French Algeria, 1870-1900, Ella Bernstein
Mathematical Justifications for Musical Scales, Jake Berran
Waring's Problem for Squares of the Hurwitz Quaternions, Miriam Cory
Understanding the Acculturation of Jewish Communities in the Early American Southeast, Zach Gershon
Reaching the Limit Case: Disassembling Form and Language to Reprepresent Deep Memories of Holocaust Traumas In Works by Gerhard Richter and Zbigniew Libera, Sasha Beatriz Goldman
"From Rebellion to Responsibility": Zen's Journey through Postwar American Culture, Alexander Gray
Simulating the Fermi bubbles in Milky Way-like active galaxies, Julian Kennedy
Vatican II and Vietnam: The Intersection of Religion and Politics in Corita Kent's Prints, 1962-1969, Lauren C. Marohn
Isometric Embeddings of Black Holes: Numerical Horizons in Euclidean Space, Iago Mendes
The Impact of Interpersonal Power on Accurate Emotion Perception in the Face of Conflicting Emotional Cues: A Partial Replication of Civile and Obhi (2016), Adrienne G. Sato
The Managerial Apparatus: Administration, Social Sciences, and Scientific Organization in Kosygin's Soviet State, Theo Schenck
Detecting Gravitational Waves with Pulsars: Optimally Correcting for Interstellar Delays, Felix E. Weber
Theses/Dissertations from 2023
Identity and Incentives: Black Representation by Black and White Members of Congress, Grace Anderson
Towards “Safe Spaces to Do Dangerous Things”: Safety and Accountability in Educational Theatre, Julian Anderson
Eurydice Never Liked Music: Reading Artistry in Aucoin and Ruhl's Eurydice, Kenji Anderson
Why Do Ideas Fail? Harry Haywood and the Black Belt Nation Thesis, Sam Beesley
Distinguishing the Doxa: Exploring Preschool Curricular Constraints, Audrey Burkey
Birdcage: A Story of Generational Trauma and Trying to Be Better, Gabriela Castillo
State of Decay: A Theory of Fungal Organizing, Brandon Denton
Let’s Have a Stitch ‘n Bitch: The Resurgence of Western Women’s Involvement in Textile Work, Annabel Dobbyn
Sound Design: Spatialization in Theater, Lucas Draper
Multi-abled Community in a Precarious World: Living, Funding, and Caring in Camphill Village, Miriam Entin-Bell
Minimal Generating Set of an Integer Cone, Augustine Fisher
Stand-up and Cancel Culture: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Samson Hahn-Madole
Vicarious Dissonance: Impacts on Group Identification and Ingroup Member Likability, Emma Hart
“Still a Better Love Story than Twilight”: Camp, The Twilight Renaissance, and Contemporary Queer Youth Culture, Catherine Horowitz
Matisse, Modigliani, and Maidenform - Body as Sculpture - An Examination of the AMAM’s Bissett Collection’s Reclining Nudes, Ursula Ilona Hudak
Changelings– Turn and Face the Strange: Folklore, Identity, and Imperialism in 19th Century Ireland, Natalie Ivy
We Don't Need No Education: The Impact of Electing a College-Educated Mayor on Educational Outcomes, Hannah Kris
Vivir en resistencia del olvido: Las personas mayores víctimas del conflicto armado colombiano, Caroline Morehouse
Process: Calypso from Page to Performance, Jordan Muschler
Buddha in a Box: Exploring Museum and Ritual Meanings of Animate Himalayan Sculpture, Parker Niles
Emotion Word Use by English Speakers: An Analysis of Speaker Status, Extraversion, and Vocabulary Size, Jessica Norris
The Morality of Suicide: A Utilitarian Perspective on Death, Cecilia Owen
Canceled but not Forgotten: An Examination of the E↵ects of Online Shaming on Music Streaming, Özüm Sabiha Pamukçu
"Here Comes Trouble!" An Exploration of Digital Technology in History, Gunja Sarkar
Biochar has positive but distinct impacts on root, shoot, and fruit production in beans, tomatoes, and willows, Sunniva Sheffield, Taylor Hoefer, and John E. Petersen
A two-screen model of the variable scintillation of pulsar B1737+13, Sammy Siegel
The effects of behavioral synchrony on Theory-of-Mind among collaborative music-makers, Harriet C. Skowronek
Psalters and Penitence: Forgiveness and Religious Violence in the First Crusade, Lucia Soman
Francesco Bertos’ Demons: Inscrutability, Self-Reference, and the Sculptor’s Dark Arts, Lucy Soth
The Unintended Consequences of Ohio's Environmental Remediation Law of the Oil and Gas Industry, Samuel Topper
Gas-puff Z-Pinch Simulations Using the FLASH Code, Niels Vanderloo
Beyond the Red Demise: An Examination of Modes of Mythic Discourse in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Oziah Wales
“This Here is a Lesbian Museum”: Exploring Queerness Narratives in U.S. Historic House Museums, 1932-Present, Meredith Warden
Structure Theorems for Distributions and Tempered Distributions, Jingxuan Zhu
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
Migratory Stories: Building Ethical Immigration Policy, Lucca D. Abele
“I am a Hindu; I am an Indian and I am a Man” A Rhetorical Analysis of Contemporary Hindu Nationalist Political Ideology, Julia Binder
The Imperial Gothic: Contact Tracing Narratives of Disease, Disorder, and Race in Global American Literature, Emma Brownstein
The Personal Must Always Be Political: A History of Survivors' Narratives in Anti-Sexual Violence Zines, Jeannine Colby Fortin
La mirada masculina en Nadie me vera llorar de Cristina Rivera Garza: Reflejos e imagenes fragmentadas del cuerpo y de la mente femenina, Riley T. Davis
Contractible 4-Manifolds, Alexandra Du
Japaneseness For Western Audiences in Video Games: How the West Came to Desire Japanese Cultural Marks in their Video Games, Benjamin Echikson
(In)valid Vaginas: Overcoming the Shame of Vaginismus and Rejecting the Idea of Sexual Failure, Emily Anne Fiorentino
"Kill the State in Yourself": Totalitarianism and the Illiberal Dissidence of Egor Letov, Katherine Frevert
Demons of Analogy: The Encounter Between Music and Language After Mallarme, Joshua Tasman Girardeau Reinier
The Practice and Purpose of Adaptation of Classical Texts, Cassandra J.S. Gutterman-Johns
Building a Morally Respectable Nation: Examining Japanese Foreign Policy through Ebara Soroku; 1913-1922, Shogo Ishikawa
Universal Preschool and Maternal Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Florida and Vermont, Hannah Keidan
Characterizing AGN Influence on the Calculated Metallicities of Adjacent Star-Forming Spaxels, Aidan Khelil
Artistic Agency, Feminine Labor, and the Female Body in Buddhist Hair Embroideries of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chloe Y. Lai
Racial Domination Through the Grey Areas: The Categorization of Mixed-Race in the United States and Brazil, Arman Luczkow
From Moral Panic to Permanent War: Rhetoric and the Road to Invading Iraq, Kai Philippe
Error Handling Approaches in Programming Languages, Joey Aldrin Rees-Hill
Moving the Chains on Men's Sports: An Analysis of Successful Female Coaches, Kira Widran
Jacobi's Four Squares Theorem, Arman Yagci
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Open Multiagent System, Tianxing Zhu
Theses/Dissertations from 2021
Love in the Time of Corona: Changes to Oberlin Hookup Culture During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Sophie M. Aaron
Autoridad subversiva: la construcción de poder y conocimiento intergeneracional y transatlántico en círculos femeninos durante la Inquisición española, Eliza Honor Braverman
Proper 3-colorings of cycles and hypercubes, Emily Cairncross
Community, Connection, and Conflict; The Liminal Spaces of the Regents Canal and the Industrial Transition of London (1812-1900), Maya Pearl Colman
Where Do You Go When You Go Home? Narrative Studies of Gender Euphoria, Silas Crewe-Kluge
In the Shadow of the Carceral State: The Evolution of Feminist and Institutional Activism Against Sexual Violence, Bethany MunYeen Gen
Plasticity and the Art of Recovery: Wangechi Mutu’s Praxis of Afrofeminist Reassemblage, Madi Goetzke
Collaborative Game Mosaics, Xiaoyun Gong
Assessing Barriers and Benefits to a Food Waste Composting Pilot Program in Oberlin, Ohio, Julia Halm
Petrology of an oxidized blueschist cobble from the San Onofre Breccia, California, USA, Alaina A. Helm
The Mathematics of Mutual Aid: Robust Welfare Guarantees for Decentralized Financial Organizations, Christian Ikeokwu
Quality of SQL Code Security on StackOverflow and Methods of Prevention, Robert Klock
The Compromises Progressive Prosecutors Must Make: Three Case Studies, Alexander John Kott
Retributive Justice: A Review of the Ethical Considerations Surrounding Capital Punishment and Solitary Confinement as used in United States Correctional Facilities, Adelaide Marie Laros
From Transnormativity to Self-Authenticity: Shifting Away From a Dysphoria-Centered Approach to Transgender Identity, Matty LaValley
Energy and Greenhouse Gas Savings for LEED-Certified U.S. Office Buildings Using Weighted Regression, Tian Liang
The History of Afro-Asian Solidarity and the New Era of Political Activism, Jasmine N. Mitchell
The Relationship between School Shootings and Gun Acquisition Rates, Sun-il (Sun) Moon
The Worst First Citizen, Sarah Nicole Passannante
Increasing the Value of Information During Planning in Uncertain Environments, Gaurab Pokharel
Belief in the Unbelievable: Yakov Druskin and Chinari Metaphysics, Patrick D. Powers
Representation, Narrative, and “Truth”: Literary and Historical Epistemology in 19th-Century France, Samuel A. Schuman
Dancing on the Dead: Death, Entertainment, and Respectability in Victorian London, Noa H. Segal
Avoidance Behavior Due to More Stringent Environmental Standards: Evidence From The LEED Certifcation, Spencer Tu
Interpersonal Forgiveness: An Approach to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Gianna S. Volonte
