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 2018
I Love Lucy, That Girl, and Changing Gender Norms On and Off Screen, Emilia Anne De Leo
The Language of Sport: Understanding Chile and Chilenidad through Marathon Races and Fútbol Games, Lilah Drafts-Johnson
Purifying the Sacred: How Hindu Nationalism Reshapes Environmentalism in Contemporary India, Owen Dunton Ellerkamp
Haunted by Solitude: Isolation and Communal Representation in Zanele Muholi's Archive, Michelle Marie Fikrig
Chopin Onscreen: Media Representations of Frederic Chopin, Monika Cecilia Franaszczuk
This Unleavened Bread: Matzot as an Insight into Iberian History, Culture, and Power Dynamics, Sadie Gelman
Horror Without End: Narratives of Fear Under Modern Capitalism, Andrés Emil González
"A Spectacle of Vice": Sex Work and Moralism in the Paris Commune of 1871, Eliza Guinn
"Overrun All This Country..." Two New Mexican Lives Through the Nineteenth Century, Isabel Hannigan
Filipino American National Democratic Activism: A Lens to Seek Historical Justice for U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines, Melissa Manlulu Harris
Madrassas: The Evolution (or Devolution?) of the Islamic Schools in South Asia (1857-Present), Samir Husain
Generative Processes for Audification, Judith Jackson
Gendering Genitals: Medical Discourse and Provider Education on Intersex Conditions, Tess Jewell
Simulating Pulsar Signal Scattering in the Interstellar Medium with Two Distinct Scattering Phenomena, Adam P. Jussila
"Forget-Me-Not": The Politics of Memory, Identity, and Community in Armenian America, Hannah Marijke Kim
Fatum ad Benedictum: Moscow-Petushki, Homo Sovieticus, Postmodernism and the Fatidic post-Soviet Irony of Venedikt Vasilevich Erofeev, Paul N. Kleiman
"Crooked" Language: Moroccan Heritage Identity and Belonging on YouTube, Radia Lyna Lahlou
Sí, me afectó: The Women of Bracero Families in Michoacán, 1942-1964, Eleanor Inez Lindberg
Patterns in Road Maintenance: An Analysis of San Diego Roads, Kendall Caitlin Alexandra Mahavier
Mapping Architecture as Archive: Stories in the Walls, Caitlin Anne McCuskey
The Terror Experts: Discourse, Discipline, and the Production of Terrorist Subjects at a University Research Center, Liam Christopher McLean
An Environmental and Cost Comparison Between Polypropylene Plastic Drinking Straws and a "Greener" Alternative: An Oberlin Case Study, Madeline Elyse Moran
Testing the Production of Scintillation Arcs with the Pulsar B1133+16, Stella Koch Ocker
De pura cepa: Seis cuentos de Puerto Rico, 1548–2017, Rita M. Pérez-Padilla
Comparing Two Thickened Cycles: A Generalization of Spectral Inequalities, Hannah E. Pieper
Gender Nonconformity and the Stereotype Content Model, Ari M. Rosenblum
Women and Children First: American Magazine Image Depictions of Japan and the Japanese, 1951-1960, Alexander Adorjan Somogyi
'At Least You're Not Neurotypical': Social Barriers to Mental Health at Oberlin College, Charis Justine Stanek
A Computational Introduction to Elliptic and Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography, Nicholas Wilcox
The Flying Tigers: Transnational Memories of a World War II Collaboration, Kaho Yasuda
Hydrogen Isotope Separation in Metal-Organic Frameworks, Naiyuan Zhang
Does What You Do Before Class Matter?, Elayne Zhou
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Deconstructing Hypermasculinity: Combatting the War on Black Men, Aliyah Abu-Hazeem
Average Shortest Path Length in a Novel Small-World Network, Andrea J. Allen
Negotiating Domestic and International Pressures: France and Germany on Refugees, Aditi Banerjee
At the Edges of Queer: Navigating Ambiguity in Identity, Community, and Politics, Madeline McCray Batzli
Atheists are Visualized as Untrustworthy, Maria C. Bertrand
Interrogating The "And": A Study of Environmentalism and Disability, Melissa Cabat
Regulatory Uncertainty and the Natural Gas Industry in the US, Jasper W. Clarkberg
Finding Music’s Words: Moses und Aron and Viennese Jewish Modernism, Maurice E. Cohn
"The Fountain Pen and the Typewriter": The Rise of the Homophile Press in the 1950s and 1960s, Elizabeth A. Coretto
Thomas Paine's (Un)Common Sense and the Politics of Radical Disagreement, Jordan P. Ecker
U.S. Democratization Efforts in Haiti and Iraq: Implications for Future Policy Makers, Emma R. Eisenberg
Multilevel Governance in Sea Level Rise Adaptation: An Analysis of U.S. Cities, Emma Eisendrath
Songs of Change: How Music Helped Spark the Arab Spring Revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, Brendan Thabo Eprile
Rethinking Redevelopment: Neoliberalism, New Urbanism and Sustainable Urban Design in Cleveland, Ohio, Julian Geltman
Pretrial Attitudes and Their Influence on Interpretation of Case Evidence and Mock Juror Decision-Making in Insanity Defense Cases, Justine M.L. Gonzales
Towards a Relative-Pitch Neural Network System for Chorale Composition and Harmonization, Samuel P. Goree
Glaciovolcanic Megapillows of Undirhliðar, Reykjanes Peninsula, Southwestern Iceland, Rachel Heineman
Digital Morphologies: Environmentally-Influenced Generative Forms, Sage Jenson
Social Movement Unionism: Through Teachers Unions' Mobilization in Opposition to Corporate Education Reform, Peter McNeel LaFreniere
From the Circle to the Square: Symmetry and Degeneracy in Quantum Mechanics, Dahyeon Lee
Official Rebrand and the Importance of Queer Adornment, MI Leggett
Dealing with the Digital: Literary Media, Mediated Narratives, and Sketchy Politics, Amanda A. Leopold
Old Fields and New Fields: Ceramics and the Expanded Field of Sculpture, Robert J. Lewis-Nash
Artin Presentations and Closed 4-Manifolds, Jun Li
"This is DC, RIAlized:" Brookland Manor as a Site of Rebranding from Above and Resistance from Below, Clara Lincoln
E-Cigarette Use among Individuals Diagnosed with an Eating Disorder, Alexa Mary L'Insalata
I Am the Luchadora: Countering Exotification through Printed Installation, Margaret Landa Middleton
A Brisk Tour of (Enriched) Category Theory, David Jaz Myers
Remaking "Public" Space: Neoliberal Spatial Management and the Criminalization of Homelessness in San Francisco's Union Square, Sophie Newman
Experimental Biomechanics of Trinucleid Fringe Pits (Trilobita), Kirk Pearson
Codeswitching in Hiaki Conversational Discourse: An Evaluation of Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame Model, Sofia Gottlieb Pierson
Does Training Enhance Entraining? Musical Ability and Neural Signatures of Beat Perception, Kira Pinard-Welyczko
“Head Start Works,” But Why? Understanding the Persistence of an American Welfare Program, Leah Rich-Awkward
Sound and Silence in the Forge: Work, Space, and Communication in Early Cistercian Monasticism, Jacob Bradley Roosa
Fearless Foreign Women: Exploring Tamar and Ruth as Characters Within a Post-Exilic Debate on Intermarriage, Rachel Sacks
Symphonies of Horror: Musical Experimentation in Howard Shore's Work with David Cronenberg, Vikram A. Shankar
Hyphenated Japan: Cross-examining the Self/Other dichotomy in Ainu-Japanese Material Culture, Jonathan Chira Shapiro
The 1973 Oil Embargo and US-Saudi Relations: An Episode in New Imperialism, Nathaniel David Sher
Infrared and Thermal-Desorption Spectroscopy of H2 and D2 in Metal Organic Frameworks, Kai Shinbrough
The Abortion Burden: Examining Abortion Access, Undue Burden and Supreme Court Rulings in the United States, Tyler E. Sloan
"This is a Closed Space for Queer Identifying Folx": Queer Spaces on Campus, Tory Adna Sparks
Metaphorically Framed Stereotypes, Victim Race, and Attitudes Toward Police: Factors Influencing Juror Cognition and Decision-Making in Police Force Cases, Aliza Jo Spruch-Feiner
Improving the Sensitivity of a Pulsar Timing Array: Correcting for Interstellar Scattering Delays, Jacob E. Turner
Crafting Wendla Bergmann in Spring Awakening, Amy R. Weintraub
Race, Ethnicity and the Legacy of Baseball in the Americas, Darren Brett Zaslau
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Life-cycle Cost Analysis of Nutrient Reduction Technologies Employed in Municipal Wastewater Treatment, Colin Barrett Brown
Contested Land, Contested Representations: Re-visiting the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 in Palestine, Gabriel Healey Brown
Metaphor and Memory: How Metaphors Instantiate Schemas in and Influence Memory of Narrative, Sarah Elizabeth Cox
Trauma and Free Speech in Higher Education: Do Trigger Warnings Threaten First Amendment Rights?, Jordan Doll
To Come Alive in Our Experience: The Sounds of Listening in Sigurd F. Olson, Allison Fulton
The Munich Visiting Program, 1960-1972, Jesse Gamoran
Power Dynamics in Conversation: The Role of Gender, Caitlyn Grubb
"Music-making in a Joyous Sense": Democratization, Modernity, and Community at Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, Daniel Hautzinger
Biophilic Architecture, Connectedness to Nature, and the Importance of Environmental Issues, Sarah Michelle Kahl
Attracting Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: The Role of Governance, National Security and Global Investment Trends, Sakina Lavingia
Age of Immigration and Adult Labor Market Outcomes: Childhood Environment in the Country of Origin Matters, Aaron Watson McCartney
Icon of Heroic “Degeneracy”: The Journey of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Self-Portrait as a Soldier, Meghan E. Mette
Inverted Quarantine: Individual Response to Collective Fear, Katherine Parker Moncure
Drawing DNA Sequence Networks, Julia Olivieri
Frequency Responsive Beam Tracing, James R.A. Quintana
Parental Advisory, Explicit Content: Music Censorship and the American Culture Wars, Gavin M. Ratcliffe
Paleoenvironmental analysis of Cretaceous mudstones at Slope Mountain, Alaska using carbon stable isotopes, Ashley Ratigan
Steiner Tree Games, Samuel Rossin
