Senior Honors Theses
Senior Honors Theses in American Studies
The honors thesis is a substantial study of a carefully defined topic in American Studies. It argues an original thesis supported by both primary and critical sources. It should be interdisciplinary in method and sources.
Any American Studies major with a 3.5 average in the major at the end of the junior year is eligible to apply for permission to write an honors thesis. Successful completion of the honors thesis requires students to:
- work independently
- conduct sustained research, including breadth across multiple disciplines and depth in at least one
- write intensively and extensively, meeting several deadlines along to the way to completing the final product
To learn more, please review the American Studies honors thesis guidelines and cover sheet.
Previous Honors Theses
| Blythe C. Romano, “The Museum as a Mirror: Reinterpreting and Delinking American Landscape Art from Colonial Narratives” (2021) |
| Louisa Goldman, “Give ME a Choice: Perceptions of Freedom and the Anti-Vax Movement in Maine” (2020) |
| Andrew DeStaebler, “Something Punny to Precede the Colon: Marking Whiteness and Exploring Blackness in Standup Comedy” (2019) |
| Isabel Friedman, “State of Leisure: Constructing Maine Tourism, 1840 to the Present” (2018) |
| Aliza K. Van Leesten, “From Coffee Shops to Dog Walks : Cultural Consequences of Neoliberal Gentrification, Diversity, and ‘Inclusive’ Planning in Boston’s South End” (2017) |
| James J. Kim, “Hearth in the Cosmos: The Role of the Korean American Church in Anchoring a New American Identity and Forging a New American Landscape” (2014) |
| Anna A. Mintz, “Generational Dream: First Generation American Citizens and Their Relationship to the American Dream” (2014) |
| Emily E. Karr, “Black Masculinity in Television’s Friday Night Lights” (2013) |
| Sandra Johnson, “Edible Activism: Food and the Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s” (2012) |
| Margaret Kruithoff, “‘Called Her Women Together’: Home Birth in Maine” (2012) |
| Gordon Lessersohn, “The Unlikely Decision to Renovate Fenway Park: A Triumph of Historic Preservation” (2012) |
| Kathleen Ricciardi, “Royal Crisis: Masculinity in Disney Princess Films” (2012) |
| Henry Powell, “One Generation Consuming the Next: The Racial Critique of Consumerism in George Romero’s Zombie Films” (2009) |