English Honors Theses

Here you will find a list of recent English Honors Thesis projects, organized by concentration. Each of these titles is available to view here.

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African American Literature
Applied Linguistics
Creative Writing
Literature
Professional Writing
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

African American Literature

Author: Kayla Marie Copeland

Committee: Ladrica Menson-Furr & Donal Harris

Title: “The Evolution of Media Representations from the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter Movement” (Spring 2019)

Author: Kevyanna Lavette Rawls

Committee: Shelby Crosby & Will Duffy

Title: “Black Women, Social Activism, and Sexual Assault: An Exploration of Civil Rights Activism & the Black Woman’s Body” (Spring 2019)

Applied Linguistics

Author: Hannah D. Green

Committee: Tammy Jones & Ana G. Gal

Title: “The Myth of the Monolingual English Teacher: How Knowing a Second Language Influences English Language Teaching” (Spring 2020)
Honors Thesis Contest Winner

Author: Anna Maria Kirby

Committee: Sage Graham & Lyn Wright

Title: “Creating Identity Through Dialect in Fantasy Media: The Absence, Presence and Use of Stereotypes in Characters” (Spring 2020)

Author: Lauren James

Committee: Rebecca Adams & Shelby Crosby

Title: “The Sound of Memphis: The Memphis Dialect and How It is Portrayed in Different Forms of Media” (Spring 2019)

Creative Writing

Author: Bethany Rose Soto Datuin Committee: Marcus Wicker & Donal Harris	Title: “Green Mango: A Collection of Poetry” (Spring 2023)
Author: Crystal M. Nouwen Committee: Mark Mayer & Carey Mickalites	Title: “The Snake that Devoured Gullitsur Bay: A Novel in Progress” (Spring 2023)
Author: Necia Andrea Cuesta Committee: Eric Schlich & Carey Mickalites	Title: “Sonder” (Fall 2022)
Author: Zachary Norman Crawford Committee: Mark Mayer & Cristina Maria Cervone	Title: “Heirlooms: A Novel in Progress” (Fall 2022)
Author: Olivia Lucia Roman Committee: Eric Schlich & Carey Mickalites	Title: “America to AllMerica: The Slow Fall” (Spring 2022) Honors Thesis Contest Winner
Author: Randi Leigh Terry Committee: Eric Schlich, Tammy Jones, & Shelby Crosby	Title: “All the Colors of The Forest: A Creative Exploration of Romantic, Platonic, and Familial Love Through the Lens of Fantasy” (Spring 2022)
Author: Samantha Ann Williams Committee: Mark Mayer & Kathy Lou Schultz	Title: “Community as Comfort: A Creative Exploration of Intra-Group Solidarity and Safe Spaces” (Spring 2022)
Author: Emily Binkley Committee: Mark Mayer & Carey Mickalites	Title: “The Flood: The Collapse of Identity in a Culture of Foundational Myth” (Spring 2021)
Author: Heather Nicole Eudy Committee: Mark Mayer & Theron Britt	Title: "The Witches of Autumn” (Spring 2021) Honors Thesis Contest Winner
Author: Natalie Jean Meihofer Committee: Alice Bolin & Mark Mayer	Title: “Reflecting Fanfiction: A Creative Nonfiction Dedication to the Merits of Reading and Writing Fanfiction” (Spring 2021)
Author: Ethan Wallace Scott Committee: Eric Schlich, Emily Skaja, & Amit Sen	Title: “Subsistence: A Creative Interpretation on the Absurdity of Living” (Spring 2021)
Author: Augusta J. Suggs Committee: Alice Bolin & Emily Skaja	Title: “Bleeding South: A Collection of Poems” (Spring 2021)
Author: Charlie Edwards Committee: Eric Schlich & Catherine Dice	Title: “Sunrise” (Spring 2020)

Literature

Author: Leah Virginia Flettrich Committee: Donal Harris & Emily Skaja	Title: “Taylor Swift, Pop Music, and the Creation of Modern Folklore” (Spring 2023) Honors Thesis Contest Winner
Author: Montgomery Isabella Miller Committee: Lorinda Cohoon & Ana G. Gal	Title: “Team Edward, Team Jacob … Team Bella?: An Intersectional Analysis of Constructions of Gender in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga” (Spring 2022)
Author: Eric Justin Morris Committee: Lorinda Cohoon, Ladrica Menson-Furr, & Elizabeth Weston	Title: “‘We look out for each other’: Celebrating the Literary and Artistic Values of Kwame Alexander’s The Undefeated (illustrated by Kadir Nelson), Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer, and Octavia Butler’s Kindred” (Spring 2022)
Author: Jesse Thomas Simpson Committee: Donal Harris & Jeffrey Scraba	Title: “The Ideal of Community Within Horror: The Only Good Indian and The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (Spring 2022)
Author: Donal W. Young Committee: Don Rodrigues & Ana G. Gal	Title: “This Man Belongs to Me!”: Homosociality, Patriarchy, and Homosexual Panic in Dracula” (Spring 2022)
Author: Elizabeth Kay Free Committee: Joshua Phillips & Ana G. Gal	Title: “Magic, Injustice, and Reconciliations Within the Mabinogi” (Spring 2021)
Author: Chelsea Tait Lucas Committee: Ladrica Menson-Furr & Terrence Tucker	Title: “Teaching Empathy: Toni Morrison’s Prophetic Voice on the Intersection of Race and Gender in Song of Solomon” (Spring 2021)
Author: Cy Tremmel Committee: Shelby Crosby & Kathy Lou Schultz	Title: “The Tyranny of Memory, and the Need for Empathy” (Spring 2021)
Author: Rachel E. Layton Committee: Don Rodrigues & Cookie Woolner	Title: “‘Being Human and Living’: How HIV/AIDS Established a Vocal and Visible Queer Identity Within Queer Poetry Leading into the 21st Century” (Spring 2020)
Author: Reid Matthew Russom Committee: Donal Harris & Terrence Tucker	Title: “One More River to Cross: Locating the Voices of the Memphis Sanitation Workers During the 1968 Strike” (Spring 2019)
Author: Julian Rome Committee: Donal Harris, Tim Roche, Daniel Larkin, & Will Duffy	Title: “Plato, Emerson, and Thoreau—Inspiration, Interpretation, and the Idea of the Poet” (Spring 2019) Honors Thesis Contest Winner

Professional Writing

Author: Rachel Nichole Guffin

Committee: Will Duffy & Lorinda Cohoon

Title: “Representation of Non-English Languages in Professional Editing” (Spring 2019)

Teaching English as a Second Language

Author: Kathleen Sue Snyder

Committee: Rebecca Adams & Emily Thrush

Title: “Teachers’ Perspectives on Effective Methods of Teaching Adult ELL Learners” (Spring 2023)

Author: Anna Mei Siu

Committee: Emily Thrush & Tammy Jones

Title: “Foreign Language Education in the Mid-South: CLIL and Language Immersion” (Spring 2022)