Undergrad Research | American Studies | Academics

Research Projects

Many American Studies majors choose to complete an Honors project on a topic of their interest. Most or all of the work associated with an Honors project is done in the senior year, though it may be started earlier, and culminates in a research or critical paper or its counterpart in the creative arts.

Similarly, Senior Seminar is run as a group independent study; each student is asked to pick a topic of their own design with advising from a professor. The students complete a large-scale, (20+ pages) research paper with many academic sources. Some of these projects are on the scale of an Honors Project.

Senior Seminar Projects

Constantin J. Berlin, Charlottesville’s Monument to Robert E. Lee: A Symbol of the Lost Cause Myth and an Expression of White Supremacy
Aidan Ely, Sit Down, and Listen to the Scrappy & Obnoxious Truth of Our Founders’ Mythos
Maximilian Mitschke, The Weary Blues and To Pimp A Butterfly: Art, Race, and Social Movements
Jamie L. Slusser, Art in the Women’s March 2017-2018: Visual Culture and Social Protest Movements
Mallory Stewart, A Desert in the Urban Rainforest: Food Accessibility in Geneva, NY
Alexandra Baird, The Kardashians and the Evolution of American Girlhood
Sean Barry, Creating a Campus: HWS and This Week in Photos
Peter Gesualdi, Pop Culture and Rap: A New Medium for Hidden Truths
Adam Goodman, The Evil Developer and the Virtuous Neighborhood: The Portrayal of Gentrification in Hollywood Films
Andrew Lukas, Deflategate in Social Context
Jennifer Sullivan, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Redux: Women of Color and Body Image
Shane Sweeney, The Cost of Words: Professional Athletes, Race, and the Media
Beau Schneider: Teaching Slavery: Textbooks and African-American History
Tyler John Wilson-Menting: President Barack Obama’s Rhetoric in State of the Union Speeches about Poverty and Social Class in Modern Day America
Alex Love: “Just One of the Boys”: The Rhetoric of Masculinity in Contemporary Lacrosse
Connor Wahlen: Hollywood’s War on Terror: Masculinity and Military Forces in Post 9/11 Hollywood Films
Emma Barnes: Sportswomen: Media Portrayals of Female Olympic Athletes
George Welles: Hot Guns, Cool Heads: The CIA in Hollywood during the Cold War Era
Will Fix: Adderall Culture (Podcast)
Maximilian Eyle: Thinking about Millennials (Podcast)
Kelsey Goggin: Whole Foods and Social Media
McGee O’Neil: Integrating Baseball: The New York Times’ Portrayal of Jackie Robinson
Matthew Massey: The Evolution of Tennis: From an Elite Sport to a Sport for the Common Man
Olivia Lowenberg: Last Laughs: Nixon, the New Left and Saturday Night Live
Connor Rehbaum: Beyond Wounded Knee: The Fight for Native American Identity
Lauren Blake-Whitney: An “Imagined Vietnam”: Memory and National Belonging in the Lives of the Vietkieu in Orange County, California