By: Natalie Martinaitis ’25 English major and Creative Writing, Journalism Publishing and Editing minors Brief Description: The food industry has evolved over time through the process of design thinking and with the convenience of customers in mind. But at what cost? New service models, some containing artificial intelligence, now risk the future of small businesses…
Category: W1
The Eradication of Misogynoir Culture in Black Communities: How Stereotypes Perpetuate a Rape Culture
By Meagan Kennedy ’24, an English major and Creative Writing, and Art & Art History minor. The following work was created for FYS 101: Feminism and the #MeToo Movement Brief description: “The Eradication of Misogynoir Culture in Black Communities: How Stereotypes Perpetuate a Rape Culture” is an exploration of the defining stereotypes of Black women…
A Modern Girl Living in a Regency World: A look into the character of Lydia Bennet
By: Emma Russell ’23 The following was created for FYS 101: Jane Austen and Fan Culture. One often hears about stories that last the test of time. The reason they tend to do so is that people still find them relevant in their current era. Jane Austen’s novels, which were strictly placed during the Regency…
Dehumanization’s Presence in America and Humanitarianism
By: Julianna Sterling ’23, an International Studies and Economics major, French minor. The following work was created for FYS 101: Ethics of Humanitarianism. Brief description: This literature is a call to action for increased recognition of dehumanization’s role in societal trends in order to prevent its negative, long-term effects which manifest in the forms of…
Misogyny and the Bias of the Male Christian in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
By: Joshua Torrence ’24, an English and Psychology major, and Creative Writing and Medieval/Early Modern Studies minor. The following work was created for FYS 101: King Arthur: From Myth to Modernity. Brief description: Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is a classic. However, it was also written throughout the Victorian era in Britain, where notions of…
Becoming a Citizen Leader
By: Ian Adams ’23 The following work was created for FYS 101: Becoming a Citizen Leader. Within the semester of the FYS “Becoming a Citizen Leader” taught by Professor Harvey, I have gained an extreme amount of knowledge on leadership, what it takes to lead, and how to become the greatest leader you can possibly…
Regulatory Effects on Maryland Blue Crab Sustainability
By: Emma Cease ’22, an Environmental Science major. The following work was created for FYS 101: Science of Reality TV. Brief description: This is a thesis paper evaluating the successful measures taken by Maryland to revitalize the blue crab population. Reports from the late 1990s and early 2000s demonstrated extreme overexploitation of the species, but…
Coming Out of the Vulcan Closet: The Queer Appeal of Star Trek
By: Will Cohn ’22, a Communication and Media Studies major. The following work was created for FYS 101: Queer Pop Culture. Brief description: This essay explores the uniquely conducive tropes of science fiction that create indirect representations of queer experiences and characters. It demonstrates this through a closed reading of the episode “Amok Time” from…
Combating Male Superiority Within Collegiate Hookup Culture
By: Katharine DeSantis ’22, a Political Science and Philosophy double major. The following work was created for FYS 101: Feminism and the #MeToo Movement Brief description: “Combating Male Superiority Within Collegiate Hookup Culture” is an analysis on the nature of romantic relationships as seen today on college campuses. This paper strives to define “hookup culture,”…
Modern Gender Politics versus Civil War Camaraderie: Analyzing the Story of Albert D.J. Cashier
By: Caroline Draper ’22, a History major. The following work was created for FYS 101: Queer Popular Culture. Brief description: “Written as a part of the First Year Seminar ‘Queer Pop Culture,’ this essay looks at a century’s worth of media portrayals of the story of Albert D.J. Cashier, a veteran of the American Civil…
The Invisible Victim: Female Ableism in “The Evening and the Morning and the Night”
By: Erica Quinones ’22, an English major. The following work was created for FYS 101: Dystopia on the Page, Stage, and Screen. Brief description: “This piece was written for the First-Year Seminar, ‘Dystopia on the Page, Stage and Screen.’ It explores the complexities of metaphor in Octavia Butler’s short story, ‘The Evening and the Morning…
Finding Bigfoot in Modern-Day American Society: How Sasquatch Has Become a Marker for American Consumerism
By: Adahne Hemp. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “Here Be Monsters” Stories of the “Wildman” have been interwoven in native North American culture for centuries. Over time, these legends have mutated from authentic folklore to fabricated first-hand accounts of hairy beast-like men known as Bigfoot, or Sasquatch. Seemingly legitimate reports and sightings of…
The Effects of Capitalism on American Health
By: Maggie Witham. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “The Raw, the Cooked, the Processed” The average American has been coerced into an extremely unhealthy diet by the dominating companies in the food industry. Bombarded with advertisements for fried, sugary, and processed foods, people tend to gravitate to these unnatural products and ignore the…
“Dark Humor” and the Facilitation of Hatred
By: Elizabeth Collins. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “The Power of Language Ideologies” 1. Introduction Although social media outlets such as Reddit promote participatory media practices which provide grounds for productive, democratic discourse, these sites also have the potential to foster discourses of hatred against marginalized groups, especially given the anonymity these sites…
Thought Control in Brazil and Parable of the Sower
By: Rian Van Tassell. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “Dystopia on the Page, Stage, and Screen” “Until one of them becomes a leader most will follow, or a tyrant most fear.” (Butler 103). In reading dystopian novels, one may begin to wonder why a character makes certain choices or realize that sometimes characters…
The Hypocrisy of the So-Called Individualist Teen: An Exploration of the Changing Theme of Individuality within The Faculty
By: Katherine Porter. Throughout modern media, teens have been depicted as constantly raging against the machine, sticking it to the man, and dodging from society’s harsh grip, all in an attempt to try and become their “true self”. One of the most popular themes represented in modern high school films is this idea of the…
Making and Breaking a Family in “Wiseguy”
By: Sarah Bowden. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “The Business of Organized Crime” Wiseguy is a detailed portrayal of the mafia as seen through the eyes of Henry Hill, who was part of a mafia for over twenty years. Between the everyday crimes and the routine killings, the mafia members had each other’s…
Defending Children and Infants in Medical Care Decisions Made by Their Parents
By: Elizabeth Lilly. Written as part of the First-Year Seminar “The Ethics of Care” I. Introduction Most people would agree that parents always want the best for their children and would do anything to keep them alive, well, happy, and healthy; but what happens when that isn’t the case? What happens if a parent wishes…
The Difficulty of Being Good
By: Saoirse “No man-made law ever, no matter whether derived from the past or projected onto a distant, unforeseeable future, can or should ever be empowered to claim that it is greater than the Natural Law from which it stems and to which it must inevitably return in the eternal rhythm of creation and…
Reflecting Upon the Use of Genetic Manipulation and Drugs for Physical and Cognitive Enhancement Purposes
By: Lisa Hamilton Featured artwork: “Portrait of Two” by Alicia Legard INTRODUCTION When addressing the topic of physical or cognitive enhancement as a result of drug use, neuroethics is a field that can provide insight into each side of the potential arguments to be made. Neuroscience and ethics are both involved in the determination of…
Superheroes and Mortal Beings
By: Erin Asman Featured artwork: “Ruins” by Casey Williams Heroism has become increasingly romanticized. While heroes were once the strongest and bravest of warriors, the person with the most kills on the battlefield, this is no longer true. The word hero now invokes the image of a person being helpful, being brave, of someone sacrificing…
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