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 2013
Palynology and Megafaunal Extinction in Southern Westchester County, NY, Alexander L. Yorke
Theses/Dissertations from 2012
Giving Meaning to Martyrdom: What Presidential Assassinations Can Teach Us About American Political Culture, Aliza Alperin-Sheriff
Two-Photon Direct Frequency Comb Spectroscopy of Rubidium, Sophia Lee Chen
Agricultural Terracing and Landscape History at Monte Pallano, Abruzzo, Italy, James R. Countryman
"And the Light Flood Over the Land": Reading Region in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, Joshua Davidson
Yellow, in Peril: How Public Health Discourse on Tuberculosis (TB) Reveals, Refines, and Reinforces the Racial Stigmatization of Asian Americans, Laura Dellplain
Japanese Nuclear Power Policy: Forty Years of Construction, Confusion, and Conflict, Sarah Fries
Model of the One-Dimensional Molecular Hydrogen Cation, Joseph Galamba
Archaeometric Characterization of Roman Tile Fabrics from the Sangro Valley, Italy, Aaron Eli Goldberg
Scribbling Women: Female Historians in the Early American Republic, 1790-1814, Jennifer H. Graham
Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Political Action, Charlie Hartford
"Twitter Diplomacy": Engagement through Social Media in 21st Century Statecraft, Owen Henry
Jazz Meets East: Cultural Dimensions of Asynchronous Jazz Music Development in Modern China, Terence Hsieh
The Sino-Tibetan Dialogue: Talk Shop or Path to Resolution?, Rene Kamm
Reinventing Britain: British National Identity and the European Economic Community, 1967-1975, James Meade Klingensmith Jr.
An Analysis of Ohio's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, Joshua A. Laufer
Evangelical Protestants and Political Trust, Fei-ran Lee
Shades of Cato and Brutus: Classical References in the Révolutions de Paris and the Rise of Republicanism, June-October 1791, Suzanne Michelle Levin
Rustbelt Theater: Children's Environmental Justice Narratives from South Elyria, OH, Lissette Lorenz
The Effects of Formal Group and Extracurricular Involvement on College Students’ Self-Esteem, Ramona Catherine Negroponte
Virtuous Empire: The Jeffersonian Vision for America, Gavin Palmer
A Poetics of Space: Opening Up a World Through Vessel Metaphors in Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Lili Pariser
One Nation, Many Borders: Language and Identity in Mayan Guatemala and Mexico, Anna Caroline Peckham
Education, Citizenship, Political Participation: Defining Variables for Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sonia Roubini
Re-Writing the Frontier Myth: Gender, Race, and Changing Conceptions of American Identity in Little House on the Prairie, Kristin M. Sargeant
The Spatial Properties of Music Perception: Differences in Visuo-spatial Performance According to Musicianship and Interference of Musical Structure, Christa Theresa Vassillière
We Are Not These Bodies: Identity and Transcendence Among American Devotees of Krishna, Rachel Lynn Williams
Theses/Dissertations from 2011
Community Perceptions of the Barriers and Benefits to Local Food Access in Northeast Ohio, Gabriela Rosalie Baker
Optimal Summer Camp Layout, Anthony Bonifonte
Getting Ahead or Left Behind? The Politics and Policy of Education Reform in the United States, Anna Elisabeth Brown
Divergent Discourses: Medical and Cultural Understandings of Latina Reproductive Health in the Era of Gardasil, Cindy Camacho
Strategic Competition Over School Inputs and Outputs, Gary Richard Cohen
Educate, Inspire, Change: A Musical Ethnography of World Camp, Inc, Ian R. Copeland
Fin de rêve: Reactions in the British, French, and American Press to the 1900 Exposition Universelle, Patrick Donovan Doherty
Battling for History: Divisive and Unifying Figures of the Salvadoran Civil War, Raquel Farah-Robison
The Hothouse and Dynamic Equilibrium in the Works of Harold Pinter, Ben Ferber
The Accessibility of Adulthood, Hilary Finedore
Female Genital Cutting, The Veil, and Democracy: Navigating Cultural Politics in Human Rights Discourse, Andrew Flachs
"Spending the day in front of the mirror", Lauren Friedlander
Negotiating Comedy and Rape Culture in Gina Gionfriddo’s After Ashley, Jenny Gaeng
Mieko Gavia: The Dog Project, Mieko Gavia
Community Engagement in Sustainable Design: A Case Study of the Oberlin Project, Amanda L. Goldstein
Highway Religion: Truckstop Chapels, Evangelism, and Lived Religion on the Road, David Brett Greenberg
In Place of Liberation: Failure of Labour Politics in Britain, 1964-79, Shannon Ikebe
The Authority of Difference: Culturally Effected Realism in Whitman and Henry James, Lindsey Jaynes
Simple Games on Networks, Jason Kimmel
Stopping the Gray Market: Federalism and California's Medical Marijuana Laws, Ethan Ranis
The Ethical Significance of the Aesthetic Experience of Non-Representational Art, Taylor Rogers
The Sentence, The Novel, and Autobiography: The Histories of Reading and Self in Bunyan and Rousseau, Samuel Rowe
Infrared Spectroscopy of Trapped Gases in Metal-Organic Frameworks, Jennifer M. Schloss
“Because We Were Japanese Soldiers": The Failure of Japanese Tactics at Changkufeng and Nomonhan and Lessons Left Unlearned, Ryan Schultz
Heterogeneous Gain Forecasting Using Historic Asset Information, Nicolas Sippl-Swezey
Normal and Δ-Normal Configurations in Toric Algebra, Liam Solus
Magnetic Properties of the Bishop Ash in the San Andreas Fault Borderlands, Becky Strauss
A Solution to “The Woman Question”: Envisioning the Japanese Woman in the Bijin-ga of Japan's Modern Print Designers, Amanda Tobin
Pavlovian Conditioning Between Cocaine Stimulant Effects and a Discrete Sensory Cue: Implementation of an Alternating Conditioning Procedure, Jonathan Miller Wachtel
Shakin' Exploitation: Black Female Bodies in Contemporary Hip-Hop and Pornography, Amber Walker
The Beijing University Student Movement in the Hundred Flowers Campaign in 1957, Yidi Wu
An Evaluation of Surface Water Sources Using Spatial and Temporal Variations in Stream Chemistry in a Headwater Catchment, Margaret Ann Zimmer
Theses/Dissertations from 2010
Transient Bodies and the Whiteness of Memory: The “Nature” of Permanence in Big Sur, CA, 1862 - 1937, Rusty Bartels
Political Environment and Transnational Agency: A Comparative Analysis of the Solidarity Movement For Palestine, Sam Cassanos
An Anxiety of Authenticity? Fusion Musics and Tunisian Identity, Rachel R. Colwell
Putting On Her Man Pants: Social Reaction to Female Cross-Dressing and Gender Transgression in America 1850-1880, Kathryn L. Eichenlaub
Contesting Recognition: A Critique of Hegelian Theories of Recognitive Freedom, Devin Russell Goure
The Impact of a Tuition Fee Policy in Scotland; Evidence from a Natural Experiment, Margot Hanley
What Makes a Belief Warranted? A Pragmatist’s Answer, Luke Herrine
Changed Memorial, Changed Meanings: The History of Oberlin's Soldiers Monument, Daniel Holm
When it Pays More to Earn Less, Robyn Leslie
Letting the Outside In: Connectedness to Nature’s Buffering Effects Against Social Rejection, Case E. Lovell
The Luminous Halo: The Place of Language in The Waves and The Years, Rachel Luban
Narrowing the Gap: New Evidence on Earnings Differentials Based on Sexual Orientation, Mikayla Lytton
The Transnational Gaze: Viewing Mexican Identity in Contemporary Corridos and Narcocorridos, Charlene LaDawn Montano
Large Cardinals, Oliver Pechenik
Power to Choose?: An Analysis of the Implications of Gardasil for Immigrant Women, Olimpia Lee Pizzardi
“Only Connect”: Music’s Role in Forster's A Room with a View, Tammela A. Platt
Evaluating the Effects of Colonialism on Deforestation in Madagascar: A Social and Environmental History, Claudia Moon Randrup
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's Oblique Responses to the Epidemic of Chernyshevskian Philosophy, Zachary D. Rewinski
The Infected Republic: Damaged Masculinity in French Political Journalism, 1934-1938, Emily C. Ringler
Assimilation and Discrimination: The Contradictions of Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1895-1945, Luna Stevenson
Can In-Prison Interventions Affect Post-Release Outcomes? Evidence From Correctional Education Programs Based on an Econometric Analysis of Recidivism, Jack Lucas Tilley
Microenterprises Performance under Consulting Services and Clustering: A Study of Egypt and Turkey, Ahmad Zia Wahdat
From Graceful Adaptations to Jarring Collisions: Oberlin Students’ Experiences Integrating Divergent Conceptions of Gender, Rebecca Elizabeth Witheridge
Overlapping Human Rights Jurisdictions in Europe: An Application of Constructivism to Regional Studies, William Thompson Yon
Theses/Dissertations from 2009
The Language of Nation: Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Language Policy in the United States and Canada, Laura Blum-Smith
After the Fact: El Mercurio and the Re-Writing of the Pinochet Dictatorship, Julia Brown-Bernstein
The Never-Ending Quest: Possession as a Postmodern Literary Romance, Allison L. Carlisle
An Examination of Conductors’ Leadership Skills, Tiffany Hsu Han Chang
Exile: The Implications of Separation From Language During Genocide, Kehan DeSousa
Infrared Spectroscopy of H2 Trapped in Metal Organic Frameworks, Jesse Bennett Hopkins
Increasing the Efficiency and Efficacy of the War on Drugs: Utilizing the STRIDE Database to Analyze Cocaine Seizures, Benjamin Armand Greenberg Klebanoff
Trade Unions and Green Jobs in the post-Fordist Economy: Just Rhetoric or a Fundamental Shift?, Erik Kojola
Why Floods be served to us in Bowls: Emily Dickinson's Souvenirs, Hannah Lee
Topology and Infinite Graphs, Nicholas Blackburn Lowery
A Baseline Greenhouse Gas Inventory for Oberlin: Stepping Up to the Challenge of Climate Neutrality, Nathaniel Flaschner Meyer
Pirahã, Language Universals and Linguistic Relativity, Nina Moffitt
Radiative Transfer Models of the Galactic Center, Everett A. Schlawin
Double-Edged Sword: Russia’s Use of Energy as Leverage in the Near Abroad, Alexander M. Visotzky