American Studies

Past Honors Theses

Individuals with asterisks (*) next to their names are annual American Studies Thesis award recipients.

2016

  • Mollie Forman *

    Title Children of (wo)Men: Motherhood in Apocalypse Film and Television
    Thesis Advisor Beverly Haviland
  • Brian Semel

    Title "Tell me everything": Towers, Trauma and Television in a Tense-less 9/11
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan

2015

  • Olutoye Adegboro

    Title Give Me Your American, Your Multicultural, Your Hilarious Masses; Examining Immigrant and Ethnic Humor in the Stand-Up Comedy of Margret Cho, Maz Jobrani and Trevor Noah
    Thesis Advisor Robert G. Lee
  • Hannah Duron

    Title Culture, Kids, and Conversations: How Three Providence Out of School Programs Teach Tolerance and Identity
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Patricia Ekpo *

    Title Let’s be Very Public with our Suffering: Tumblr’s Online Depression and Its Queer Possibilities
    Thesis Advisor Leticia Alvarado
  • Daniel O'Donnell

    Title Everything Good That I See Comes from White Folks”: A Critique of Brown University Service-Learning
    Thesis Advisor Elizabeth Hoover

2014

  • Margaret Hanson *

    Title Remaking American Girl(hood): Fan Reuse, Reinterpretation, Alteration and Expansion of the American Girl Brand
    Thesis Advisor Steven Lubar
  • Haruko Hashimoto

    Title Magical Girl Transformed: How the Feminist Origins and Agency of the Japanese Shojo in Pop Culture Are Imported and Consumed in America Through Orientalism
    Thesis Advisor Liza Cariaga-Lo
  • Evelyn Sanchez *

    Title The Language of Motherhood: The Story of an Adoption Agency
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Nathaniel Wardwell

    Title Monopolizing Reading:An Analysis of Scholastic Book Clubs’ Place in American Education and Commerce
    Thesis Advisor Laura Snyder

2013

  • Brendan DeWolf *

    Title Owning Slavery: Cultural Memory, Community Identity, and Brown's Slavery and Justice Initiative
    Thesis Advisor Matthew Pratt Guterl
  • Leah Douglas

    Title Politics of Pop: Soda Regulation and How We Talk About Obesity
    Thesis Advisor Kathryn DeMaster
  • Lucy Kissel

    Title Care at the Close of Life: Factors that Motivate, Reward, Challenge, and Sustain Hospice Nurses
    Thesis Advisor Joan M. Teno
  • Mary Laski *

    Title Gracie for President: Women and American Comedy
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Jennifer Lawrence

    Title Looking In / Breaking Out: The Transformative Influence of Prison Art Objects
    Thesis Advisor Anne M. Valk
  • Anna Tifft

    Title The Object as Emotional Vessel: George and Jessie Gardner, their Collection, and the Gardner House at Brown University
    Thesis Advisor Robert P. Emlen

2012

  • Ria T. DiLullo *

    Title Spokesduck: Donald Duck's World War II Cartoons from 1942 through 1944: An Intersection between Propaganda and Animated Shorts
    Thesis Advisor Beverly Haviland
  • Julian A. Jimarez Howard

    Title Biggie and Bateman: Contemporary Effects of the American Dream as a Consumer Ideology
    Thesis Advisor Ralph E. Rodriguez
  • Alyssa Kichula

    Title Platforms for Art: Examining the Goals and Impacts of Public Transit Art Programs
    Thesis Advisor Anne M. Valk
  • Tanmay Misra

    Title Essays in Contemporary American Film: Youth Culture and Politics between 9/11 and Obama
    Thesis Advisor B. Anthony Bogues
  • Kelly J. Schryver

    Title Keeping Up Appearances: Examining Teen Girls' Self-Presentation and Social Comparison on Facebook
    Thesis Advisor Maureen Sigler
  • Rebecca Soules

    Title Being Shaker in the Twentieth Century: Canterbury Shaker Village, 1905-1939
    Thesis Advisor Robert P. Emlen

2010

  • Molly Mills

    Title In Their Own Words: Discourse, Decision-Making and Creativity of Young Immigrant Women in Northern California
    Thesis Advisor Matthew Garcia
  • Chelsea Miro

    Title Kingdom of God: The Political Agenda of Conservative Evangelical Christians from 1940 through 2010
    Thesis Advisor Beverly Haviland
  • Jung Wook Suh *

    Title Writing A New Deal: The Federal Writer's Project in New York City
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Alex Tudela

    Title The Other Youth: Post-Second World War Constructions of Latino Youth
    Thesis Advisor Richard Meckel

2008

  • Stephen John Babish

    Title Lions or Lambs?"; Hollywood Cinema in the Post-9/11 era
    Thesis Advisor James T. Campbell
  • Hannah Furst

    Title Loud Voices: Three Second-Generation Jewish Immigrant Women Writers and the Quest to be Heard
    Thesis Advisor Richard Meckel
  • Monica Raquel Pelayo

    Title Cultural Intersections: The Development of Olvera Street and China City
    Thesis Advisor Ralph E. Rodriguez
  • Robin Marie Perenchio

    Title Connecting and Expanding Communities: Contemporary Native Radio
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Rebecca Michelle Silverman

    Title Bubbie's Secrets' Unwrapped: Cooking up Culture in an American Jewish Sisterhood
    Thesis Advisor Marcy Brink-Danan

2007

  • John Sydney Butler

    Title You Diplomacy: New Strategies for American Public Diplomacy
  • Arminda Elizabeth Smith

    Title Round and Round They Go: The Rise and Fall of Rocky Point Park

2006

  • Ashley Elizabeth Harness

    Title Liberation Incarnate: A Study of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York 1972 - 1990
    Thesis Advisor Mari Jo Buhle
  • Amita Manghnani

    Title Rhythm Nation: South Asian America Performs Race Onstage
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Kate Maxwell

    Title Constructing a Creative Urban Space: The Development of AC220 in Providence, RI.
    Thesis Advisor Paul Buhle
  • Julia Wolfson

    Title My Experiences with Oral History and Industrial Evolutions: Voices of Pawtucket's Workers
    Thesis Advisor Paul Buhle

2005

  • Heather Velez

    Title Lurkers at the Threshold: Fans of H.P. Lovecraft
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan

2004

  • Elizabeth J. Ault

    Title Why Would A Fellow Want a Girl Like Her?": Cinderella Stories on Film and the Reinscription of the Status Quo, 1950-2003
    Thesis Advisor Lewis Seifert
  • Alina Engelman

    Title Revolutionary Signs: Sandinistas and the Deaf Nicaraguan Experience
    Thesis Advisor David Lewis
  • Ilana Friedman

    Title Tom Levin and Polly Greenberg's Reflections on the Rise and Demise of the Child Development Group of Mississippi
    Thesis Advisor Paul Buhle
  • Caroline Staudt

    Title Elbowing into a Man's World: the Effect of Athletics on the Women's Movement at Brown University and in America in the Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century
    Thesis Advisor Brian Casey

2003

  • Jennifer Hahn

    Title Feminist Magazines of the Third Wave
    Thesis Advisor Jane Gerhard
  • Moye Ishimoto

    Title Anime in America and The American Otaku
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • Anna Purinton

    Title Sí, se puede (yes, it can be done): The Movement for Living Wages and Accountable Development
    Thesis Advisor Paul Buhle
  • Daniel Weber

    Title Rock and Roll Reconnections: Mobilizing the Organic Intellectual Voice
    Thesis Advisor Jane Gerhard

2002

  • Katherine Chavez

    Title Powerful Places: The Santuario de Chimayó and Loretto Chapel of Santa Fe
    Thesis Advisor Susan Smulyan
  • César Cuauhtémoc García H.

    Title In the Shadow of the River: McAllen, Edinburg, and Mission in the Post-NAFTA Economy
    Thesis Advisor Suzanne Oboler
  • Benjamin David Healy

    Title Visitor with a Deadline in Mind: Privacy, Publicity, and the Legacy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
    Thesis Advisor James Cullen
  • Katharine Malinowski

    Title Standards-Based Reform: The Chicago Experience and its Implications for the New Federal Role in Education Reform
    Thesis Advisor Luther Spoehr
  • Jason Michael McGill

    Title Power, Race, Culture: Postwar Jazz as Fruit and Seed
    Thesis Advisor Paul Buhle
  • Elizabeth Singer More

    Title Bodies of Writing: Changing Feminist Ideas of the Body and Expertise in Our Bodies, Ourselves 1971-1976
    Thesis Advisor Richard Meckel
  • Hannah Ruth Thompson

    Title Immigrant Life in Large Town New England: The Ways in which Church, Jobs, and Leisure Shape the Brazilian Community in Framingham, Massachusetts
    Thesis Advisor Richard Meckel