English

Adalyn Becker, "An America In Miniature: Sociopolitical Interpretations of 20th Century Suburban Literature"

Bobby Kartychak, "Miss Americana: Political Lyrics in Taylor Swift's Music and How They Inform Her Public Role as a Celebrity Politician:

Ragan Tankard, "The Black Women's Diaries Project"

Session II

Marlow Gilkey, "Florence Barber's Norfolk: A Spatial and Historical Examination of Early 20th Century Norfolk, VA"

Video Presentations

Eden Leavey, "Subversive Performance: Social Problem Plays and Critical Reception"

Chloe Sarvis, "Fathers, Vermin, and the Fragile Son: A Literature Review on Family Dynamics in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis"

Lucia Reyes, "The Allure of Literary Disorder"

Session I

Adalyn Becker, "An America In Miniature: Sociopolitical Interpretations of 20th Century Suburban Literature"

Surrounding the first and second World Wars, the 20th century marked a period of major development from American small-town life to a newly emerging and continually shifting suburban identity (Muller 25). Literature of the era posits suburbia as a microcosm of the larger United States, thus asking the question: how are literary portrayals of suburban life and development representative of active cultural and political movements in 20th century America? In response, this project will examine a variety of literary works as perspectives on suburban and societal development across America. Combined with literary, political, and sociological research, this project may contribute to a unique understanding of the influences between art, localized lifestyle developments, and national politics. This understanding may also invite further questions of what influence suburbia had on larger trends in 20th century American literature and whether suburban landscapes can be considered art in and of themselves.

Student Major(s)/Minor: Mathematics and French & Francophone Studies Major

Advisor: Dr. Melanie Dawson

Bobby Kartychak, "Miss Americana: Political Lyrics in Taylor Swift's Music and How They Inform Her Public Role as a Celebrity Politician:

Taylor Swift is perhaps the biggest pop star on the planet, and as such, previous analyses have discussed the emotional and cultural commentary in her music, as well as political activism she did previously. However, these two areas have not been put together thus far. This begs the question: how does Taylor Swift describe and discuss politics in her music? Furthermore: how does the content of her work influence the way fans engage with her activism? This study utilized a data scraper to find social media posts surrounding Swift’s political activism and analyzed them to find their sentiments towards her. Findings suggest that fans respond more positively when she advocates for topics that she has also sung about, but that they wish she would speak out more about other topics. Therefore, this research will help create a better understanding of public political opinions.

Student Major(s)/Minor: Government Major, German Studies Minor

Advisor: Dr. Emilie Mears

Ragan Tankard, "The Black Women's Diaries Project"

The Black Women's Diaries Project is a digital humanities project focused on transcribing, editing, encoding, and publishing of African American women from the mid eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen hundreds. Throughout the summer I worked on diaries from a woman named Sallie Sanders Venning spanning from 1890 to 1892. Born in Philadelphia, she and her siblings grew up part of the black middle class. My main task was researching those mentioned in her diaries in hopes of being able to publish the information so those reading them will have context to who the people in her life were and a glimpse into their relationships.

Student Major(s)/Minor: English and Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies Major

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Putzi

Session II

Marlow Gilkey, "Florence Barber's Norfolk: A Spatial and Historical Examination of Early 20th Century Norfolk, VA"

The project is a walking tour that is still under development. It will be published by the Black Women’s Diaries Project (BWDP) alongside the Florence Barber 1902 diary transcription and annotation. BWDP is a collaborative digital humanities project that digitizes Black women’s diaries from between 1854 and 1905. Florence Barber (~1858-1941) was a Black teacher, community organizer, and mother who lived in Norfolk, VA. Her diary, used in 1902 and now housed in Swem Library’s special collections, intersects with many facets of Norfolk's Black history and community. The walking tour is self-guided and was developed using ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Storymaps by Esri. The walking tour highlights the relevance of spatial analysis in the digital humanities and the importance of narrative medium.

Student Major(s)/Minor: English and Environmental Science Major

Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Putzi

Video Presentations

Eden Leavey, "Subversive Performance: Social Problem Plays and Critical Reception"

This project explores how late nineteenth-century European drama challenged dominant social norms surrounding gender roles, patriarchal authority, and social order during a period of significant social upheaval amid the rise of mass society. Playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw produced works that disturbed conventional ideas about marriage, sex, and autonomy, often provoking public outrage and heated discussion. This research asks how these counter-normative dramatic texts depicted the role of gender on stage and how audiences responded to controversial, censored, or banned works. The project combines close readings of selected plays with analysis of the works’ reception, mainly through historical reviews, censorship records, and performance history. By examining how subversive content influences its audience, this research aims to better understand theatrical performance’s ability to prompt social change.

Student Major(s)/Minor: English Major

Advisor: Dr. Brett Wilson

Chloe Sarvis, "Fathers, Vermin, and the Fragile Son: A Literature Review on Family Dynamics in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis"

This project investigates how scholars have interpreted the portrayal of family dynamics in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and what remains unexplored in our understanding of the Samsa family as an interconnected system. The research is structured as a literature review as a way of synthesizing existing scholarship. By examining how scholars have interpreted the Samsa family and the meaning of their interactions, the project hopes to identify both areas of consensus and overlooked perspectives. While the study does not conduct new primary analysis at this stage, its results anticipate showing that scholarship has often privileged economic or symbolic readings while leaving relational and systemic understandings of family less developed. These findings will provide a critical foundation for future research into the ways Kafka’s novella critiques broader familial structures and how these critiques can be seen as a reflection of the society of the time.

Student Major(s)/Minor: English Major

Advisor: Dr. Keith Johnson

Lucia Reyes, "The Allure of Literary Disorder"

This project explores the space between order and chaos in fiction. Writers have long introduced narrative and stylistic chaos to their writing in order to convey emotion, character, setting, and meaning, or challenge conventional storytelling. However, disorderly writing walks a fine line between drawing readers in and alienating them with confusion. Disorder in literature also contains a contradiction: readers expect books that lead them to a unified meaning and are composed of straightforward language, but incoherence threatens to dissolve cohesive messages and organized prose. This project draws from extensive reading of books with central elements of disorder and examination of the reception they received. These books illuminated what approaches to disorder have been successful, and this knowledge was used to create an original novella that addresses what readers find appealing about chaos and how incoherence and coherence can coexist in a work.

Student Major(s)/Minor: Psychology Major

Advisor: Dr. Nicole Tsuno

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