Communications, literature majors to give thesis presentations

Twenty-nine seniors majoring in English communications and English literature will give their thesis presentations in the DiStefano Lecture Hall April 26-27. Students will examine and analyze a variety of cultural topics drawn from popular contemporary novels, classic literature, fairy tales, television shows, movies, video games, newspapers and social media, among others.

Seniors have been working under the supervision of Dr. Donna Harrington-Lueker, professor, and Dr. Jen McClanaghan, associate professor.

3-6 p.m. Friday, April 26

• Scarlette Schultz – “Alternative Facts: Manipulation of Language and Narrative in George Orwell’s ‘1984’”
• Rebecca Sock – “From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem: How the Jerusalem Post Frames the U.S. Embassy Move”
• Jen Killian – “Blondes Prefer Control: A Feminist Deconstruction of Power in ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’”
• Molly Kittler – “‘What Do You, Our Readers Need?’: Changing the GlamourBrand to Stay Relevant in a Disrupted Industry”
• Anthony Gozzo – “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride…: Affect Theory in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’”
• Caroline Connick – “Globalization and Racial Representation: Lessons from Jon Chu’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’”
• Salvatore Gualtieri – “Cardinal Sins: The Framing and Media Perspective of the University of Louisville Basketball Scandals”
• Elizabeth King – “Brontë’s Worlds of Figurative Language Inside ‘Wuthering Heights’”

7-9:30 p.m. Friday, April 26

• Mallorie Geiger – “In the Secret Court of Men’s Hearts: Calling Atticus Finch to The Character Court”
• Jessica Murphy – “‘These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends’: ‘Westworld’and the Legacy of Rape Culture Entertainment on HBO”
• Madeline Cordeiro – “Making Over Masculinity: How ‘Queer Eye’ Continues to Challenge Representations of Gender in Media”
• Sean Fischer – “Mutants, Monsters, and Men Who Hate Women: The Grotesque in Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’”
• Olivia Anello – “Preteen Pioneer or a Parent’s Nightmare? A Textual Analysis of Social Awareness on the Disney Channel’s ‘Andi Mack’”
• Brett Wilkes – “Marketing and Baseball: Incorporating Social Media into a Marketing Plan”
• Lydia Foster – “‘How Lucky Are We? We Create Ourselves’: Analyzing the Representation of Transgender Identity in FX’s ‘Pose’”

9 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 27

• Madeline Key – “From Advocacy to Spectacle: How the Washington Post Framed the Kavanaugh-Ford Allegations and Hearing”
• Katherine Wicander – “The Master Manipulator: Shakespeare’s Experimentation with Spectatorial Distance in ‘The Tempest’”
• Clare Watkins – “Holden On: Tracing Trauma Through Time”
• Abigail Truesdell – “She’s the Mother of Thousands: Rewriting Trauma in ‘The Secret Life of Bees’”
• Mattia Lombard – “That Long Magic Moment Before We Wake: The Uncanny in ‘Game of Thrones’”
• Nicolas Massaro – “‘Macbeth’: A Reader’s Response to a Murderous Traitor”
• Madeline Davis – “Doubles and Doppelgängers in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’”

1:30-4 p.m. Saturday, April 27

• Morgan Conneely – “The Process, Not the Product: A Look at the Reader, Author, Narrator Relationship in ‘A Modest Proposal’”
• Lauren O’Neil – “Betelgeuse, Beast, and Batman: The Auteur Theory Through the Eyes of Tim Burton”
• Michaela McMahon – “For There She Was: Gendered Space in Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs. Dalloway’”
• Cecilia Lacouture – “Behind the Glass Houses: How the Quality TV Aesthetic Trivializes Themes of Domestic Violence and Conspicuous Consumption in ‘Big Little Lies’”
• Maggie Parker – “The Golden String in William Blake’s Poetry”
• Megan Gordon – “‘The Takeover of Amy Astley’: How Architectural Digest Has – and Hasn’t – Changed Under Its New Editor-in-Chief”
• Bryan Richardson – “A Portrait of Freedom: A Bakhtinian Interpretation of Henry James’ ‘The Portrait of a Lady’”