This collection represents undergraduate student work from the Cultural Studies major, an interdisciplinary liberal arts program with concentrations in Urban Studies, Media and Popular Culture Studies or Literary Studies, offered through the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Columbia College Chicago.

The Cultural Studies major at Columbia College Chicago cultivates critical and creative thinking, writing, reading, and speaking skills by analyzing the values, ideas, and belief systems that inform cultural projects and everyday practice. The capstone project is the final course for the Cultural Studies major where students produce a substantive research-based thesis of academic or professional writing on a topic area of their choosing.

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Theses/Dissertations from 2019

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Everything I Know About Gender I Learned from a Little Golden Book!, Chandler Clifford

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Unraveling Ethos: the Commodification of Ethical Clothing, Oliva Hanson

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Looking at People Watching People- A Comparative Approach of American and British Advertising, Kyle Heger

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Through the Looking Glass: The Perpetuation of Homelessness Through Awareness Media, Ashley Lauren Knight

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Queering Dominant Modes of Writing and Identity Formation in Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Charlie Martin

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“This is the True Story:” The Representation of the LGTBQ Community in MTV’s The Real World, Morgan Rae Ohman

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The "Fat Acceptance and Fat Pride Movements" and Consumer Culture: A Critical Intervention on Popular Obesity Discourses, Gabriella Josephine Papas

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Collective Political Action and Activism on Twitter: The Merits and Limitations of the Framing Tactics and Strategies of the 2018 National Prison Strike, Philip Wasserburg

Theses/Dissertations from 2018

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Hip-Hop's Influence on Stripper Culture: The Era of Cardi B's, Taylor Bell

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A Man Went Looking for America and Couldn't Find it Anywhere: The Wanderer in On the Road and Easy Rider, Taylor Camara

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Theories of Anzaldua and Fanon: The Battle of Algiers to Black Lives Matter, Maren Carey

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A Scripted Approach to Violent Crime Coverage: How News Media Strikes Fear and Racializes Political Discourse, Mackenzie Crosson

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At Risk Youths: Schools, Juvenile Delinquency, and the Prison Industrial Complex, Ashantia M. Day

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Misrepresenting Climate Change: Deconstructing New Media Discourse Through the Case Study of Hurricane Irma, Amy Dickens

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Hip-hop and Poetry: Listen to the Words, Jordan Dingle

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Nonbinary Identities and the Self: A Contemporary Analysis of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Gender Identity, and Existentialism, Emily "Soren" Hodshire

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Speaking Within Subalternity: A Critical Analysis of Performance Artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena and the Use of Strategic Essentialism, Paola Martell

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Boys, Balls, and the Blues: The Erasure of Genderqueer Bodies, Austin McGrath

Theses/Dissertations from 2017

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Bringing the State Home: Neoliberalism in Global Models of Public Housing, Nicholas Alfino

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Cameras as Weapons of Resistance: Refugees Disrupting the Colonial Narrative Through Photography, Shannon Elder

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My Black Is Radical And Sensual: White Privilege and The Policing of Black Women’s Body On Instagram, Alexis M. Franklin

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Bodies as Living, Twirling Sacrifices: Performing Black Girlhood, Liturgical Dance, and the Black Church Tradition, Brianna Heath

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Yellow Tokens: From Racist Depictions to Token Minorities, Debra Kates

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Who Benefits from Blackness? The White Compulsion for Capital, Akira Milligan

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The Question of Journalism in a Post-Fact Trump World: Objectivity is a Lie and the Teen Girl Can Lead a Revolution, LeeAnn Penz

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Paradoxes of Violence: A Post-Colonial 'Gaze' on Chicago's Segregation, Zackary Rupp

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SEGREGAYTION: The Exclusion of Black Bodies in gay (cyber) spaces, Kelvin James Stallings

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Where the Ladies At? Examining the Visibility of Black Women in Hip Hop an How It Reflects a Larger Understanding of Black Womanhood, Danielle Wallace

Theses/Dissertations from 2016

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Apocalypse & Affect: Political Passivity in Film and Television Representations of Nuclear Holocaust, W W. Rooks

Theses/Dissertations from 2015

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Patriarchy, Empire, and Ping Pong Shows: The Political Economy of Sex Tourism in Thailand, Kristen Kelley

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Ruin Porn and Urban Representation in Photography: The Aesthetic and Politics of Appropriation in "The Ruins of Detroit", Elyse Remenapp

Theses/Dissertations from 2014

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Reused Refuse: Freeganism and the Shifting Hegemonies of Consumption and Waste, Jamie Corliss

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"Women in the House Y'all:" She Should Run, Post-Feminism, and Women's Representation in Politics, Amy Gooch

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The Queer Blogger: Interrogating the Commodification of Identities, Anne Lacy

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When Ana Becomes the Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, the Pursuit of Thinness and Social Resistance on the Internet, Nadezh Mulholland

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A Divine Inequality: Contextualizing Gender and Authority in Contemporary Mormon Feminism, Taylee Robinson Pardi

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Take Off Your Masc: The Hegemonic Gay Male's Gender Performance on Grindr, Duncan Shuckerow

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Whovians and Directioners: Challenging the Fangirl Identity, Brianna VanCant

Theses/Dissertations from 2013

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As the World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations of Sexuality in American Soap Operas from 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King

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God Made It Happen: A Rhetorical Analysis of Jerry Falwell's Response to 9/11, Terry Littleton

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Paradox on the Playa: Uncovering the Contradictions Embedded in Burning Man, Shelby Anne Rothman

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Contesting the Marginalization of Female Leadership in Sports: The Struggle for Equal Opportunities in Men's Collegiate and Professional Basketball, Caitlain Tinker

Theses/Dissertations from 2011

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Watch What You Eat: From self-surveillance to affective eating, Constance Calice

Theses/Dissertations from 2006

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Mining the Meaning of Collective Memory and Imagination: The Construction of Identity in the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Courtney Hooper