WGSS 2021
Honors & Capstones
Welcome
Congratulations 2021 graduates!
Below you can find more information on honors and capstone projects for this year.
Students have chosen to share various parts of their work--abstracts, video, slideshows, the entire paper.
You can either view them where it is embedded in this page or in a separate browser tab. For privacy reasons, you may need to request access to view particular documents.
Visit the main Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies website for more information on the department at Macalester.
Adar Kamholtz-Roberts
Hi! I’m Adar (he/him) and I study WGSS and Theater and Dance here at Mac. In my free time, you can find me laying in the sun, climbing, or trying to learn how to play the lyre.
Honors Project
Abstract:
“The Bathroom is a Body: Trans Site-Specific Dance and the Creation of Utopia”
This paper and filmed dance performance construct site-specific trans utopia in everyday space. Informed by Muñoz’s theory of queer utopia as individual performances within the present, I examine trans citizenship outside of nation-building models. I put this trans citizenship into practice through site-specific dance, creating a dance in a men’s bathroom on Macalester campus. This work contributes to traditions of performance studies and queer theory that question and multiply the meanings of public space. Subverting the disciplinary power of the bathroom, I choreograph trans utopia and hint at the possibility of queer future even in locations of social control.
Thesis
Austin Ahlman
I’m a senior who majored in Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Political Science. I’m a first-generation college graduate with a passion for political activism, organizing, and teaching. I coached speech and debate while at Macalester, and I hope to pursue work in political journalism post-graduation
Capstone Presentation
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Rhubarb Kieran Cuddy
Capstone Project
Be Gay Do Crime!
Leverage Knowledge
Sacrilege of Privilege
Besiege the College
Tranifesto No. 666 is a conglomeration of art, activism, and academia put into conversation with each other to analyze how they have been co-constitutive but also contradictory in my career at Macalester. This will be done through the exposition of 30 songs written over the time I have been at Macalester, paired with artistic representations of ours lyrics from comrades. This collaborative project aims at creating not only an object to aid in fundraising efforts, but also stand as a response to the issues I have encountered while organizing students to fight against the Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline.