Final Papers for Courses
In my years at Xavier University, with degrees in History and English, I became very accustomed to 'The Final Paper.' I have always appreciated the opportunity to conduct research or synthesize course materials for a last written assignment. In the provided works, I believe that I demonstrate the variety of skills I've acquired at Xavier. I can take varying sources, countless subjects, and present a written work that is constructed to the best of my ability.
Experiential Data & Quantitative Analysis
This project involved conducting primary research, using scholarly works as contextualization, and presenting a poster at Xavier University's annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research. While the final assignment for an English course on "Theories & Research in Writing", I wanted to incorporate a Public History theme to learn more about my future career field and issues that may inspire personal research at the graduate level. This project allowed me to combine several academic interests and develop a different way of presenting research and quantitative data. View my quantitative analysis paper through the link below.
Creating Socio-Political Meaning through Setting
The Sound of Music and the stage version of Anastasia served as heavy visual references.
As the final assessment for an upper-level English Shakespeare course, I was asked to put a Shakespeare play we'd read in class in an alternate time and/or place, defending my 'producer' choices through a written argument and a portfolio of visualizations. As history and theater are two of my loves in life, I jumped at the chance to place The Merchant of Venice in 1938 Germany. While we were allowed to alter scenes and dialogue, I chose to keep all dialogue and only reframe certain characters to stand out more in the new setting. In a context more familiar to modern readers, the rampant antisemitism is more glaring and ominous. For Shylock, the court scene was rephrased, leading to a direct reference to Jewish extermination. With this project, I was able to fully demonstrate the 'results' of my history studies in another setting and won the English Department's Wentersdorf Shakespeare Award for Excellence in the Study of Shakespeare.
Phrenology Paper
This small research paper was for the first and only course I've taken that was exclusively about African history and its contemporary reverberations. I was allowed to choose the topic, which influenced by my museum interests, led me to write about phrenology and the pseudo-science's impact onto Africa and its peoples. I had to discuss biology-based sources in concert with the literary scholarship I was used to and synthesize those materials in a different style of report than 'usual'. Phrenology relied on imperialism, which used the science to further its domination of thought and action in the African continent. As someone who has mostly studied Western history, I heavily appreciated the opportunity to expand my literal horizons and layer additional contexts to my previous knowledge of colonialism and the partition of Africa.
Evaluation of Poetry
This paper was the final assignment for my required Poetry course. This poetry analysis centers on defining (and breaking) poetic traditions, authors' 'tricking' readers with convincing speakers, authors 'losing' rights to their ideas post-publication, and the subjectivity of poetry. This work can demonstrate a different, more subjective and creative form of literary analysis than in my other examples and shows me actively outside of my comfort zone. I entered that course despising Poetry and left with the same level of distaste, but I acquired an appreciation for the elements of poetry and the bounds continually created and destroyed by generations of international writers.
Performance Analysis
This paper was the midterm evaluation of my Shakespeare course. We attended Twelfth Night at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company as a class and had to write individual reviews and analyses. We took detailed notes on miniature pads of paper in the dark of the theater in the hopes of remembering everything we wanted for our writing. This attention to detail had me focusing on each movement and spoken 'choice' made by the entire cast and added a deeper understanding of the text. Although language can be quite the barrier in comprehension, live performance easily breaks down those walls. As someone interested in public education, I learned more about the necessity for art and history's accessibility to the public, as well as how directors can choose to make texts more meaningful in modern settings or circumstances. This type of viewing and analysis could be applicable to curate museum exhibits in the future.