American Studies

In its Honors Program the American Studies program awards Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors to student research projects. The projects listed below have been defended successfully, and a copy of the thesis deposited in Swem Library.

Key:

Student, "Thesis" (Honors level)
Committee Chair + Other Committee Members

2022-2023

Kyle Joseph Mahoney, "Searching for Satan in the Pre-War Devil Blues" (High Honors)
Charles McGovern + Francesca Sawaya, Jamie Bartlett

2021-2022

Jonathan Newby, "The Bodies Politic: Sex, History, and the Promise of a Black Queer America" (Honors)
Leisa Meyer + Jerry Watkins, III, Monika Gosin
Miranda Huffer, "Revolutionizing Gender in One Minute or Less: Informally Theorizing Nonbinary Identity on TikTok" (Highest Honors)
Francesca Sawaya + Charles McGovern, Jerry Watkins, III

2020-2021

Rachel Kidd, "Liberals Under My Bed and other Fairy Tales: Conservative Religious and Political Propaganda in Evangelical Children’s Literature" (Highest Honors)

Charles McGovern + Francesca Sawaya, Maureen Fitzgerald

2019-2020

Maxwell Cloe, "Wildcrafting Our Queerness: LGBTQ+ Art, Archiving, and Activism in Contemporary Appalachia" (Highest Honors)

Leisa Meyers + Charles McGovern, Jerry Watkins III

2018-19

Zachary Meredith, "Urban Renewal in the Colonial Capital: Contextualizing the Williamsburg Redevelopment & Housing Authority"
Arthur Knight + Jamel Donor, Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Jody Allen

2017-18

No Honors students this year

2016-17

Ashley Richardson, "Fandom, Racism, and the Myth of Diversity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe" (Honors)
Charles McGovern + Sarah Glosson, Arthur Knight
Megan Sonner, "Self-Made Freak: The Exceptionalism of General Tom Thumb, The Celebrity Body, and the American Dream" (High Honors)
Kara Thompson + Charles McGovern, Julie Hugonny

2015-16

Megan Haney-Claus, "One Direction and the Marketing Machine" (High Honors)
Charles McGovern + Lisa Szykman and Sarah Glosson

2014-15

Melanie Wiggins, "Counter to Intelligence: The Glamorization of Espionage in the International Spy Museum" (Highest Honors)
Alan Braddock + Charles McGovern and Frederick Corney

2013-14

Kathryn McLane, "Remembrance, Reflection, Reconciliation: The Performance of Collective Memory in Civil War Commemoration" (High Honors)
Michelle Lilièvre + Leah Glenn and Arthur Knight
Kayla Meyers, "'Obscene Odes on the Windows of the Skull': Deconstructing the Memory of the Howl Trial of 1957" (High Honors)
Charles McGovern + Arthur Knight and Marc Raphael

2012-13

Meagen Monahan, "The Green Book: A Representation of the Black Middle Class and Its Resistance to Jim Crow through Entrepreneurship and Respectability" (High Honors)
Jennifer Putzi + Arthur Knight, Jeremy Pope and Elizabeth Schlabach

2011-12

Charles Fliss, "Communal Identity through Cultural Essentialism: The Evolution of the American Anime and Manga Fan Community and the Orientalism of its Conception of Japan" (Highest Honors)
Charles McGovern + Rachel DiNitto and Hiroshi Kitamura
Stephanie Monohan, "And They Never Did Find Him: Dialogues of History, Geography, and Fear in Adolescent Legend-Tripping" (High Honors)
Grey Gundaker + Timothy Barnard and Kara Thompson
Andrew Ojeda, "'Yeah, My Mom is Milk and My Dad is Granola:' The Depiction of Interracial Relationships and Racial Hybridity in U.S. Visual Culture" (Honors)
Elizabeth Schlabach + Jody Allen and Elizabeth Neidenbach
Jacqueline Stykes, "Dancing Through Trauma in Post 9/11 New York" (High Honors)
Leisa Meyer + Leah Glenn and Arthur Knight

2010-11

Amanda Cottingham, "Racial Contest for Space and Power in Richmond, Virginia's Urban Landscape, 1890-1920" (High Honors)
Kimberley Phillips + Melvin Ely and Heather Huyck

2009-10

Emilie Raymer, "Real Control of the Fantastical: Escapism, Economics, and Consumerism in Love Book Magazine" (High Honors)
Charles McGovern + Tim Barnard and Sasha Prokhorov

2008-09

Ryan Lintelman, "Mining the Movie Museum: The Mutoscope Collection at the National Museum of American History" (Highest Honors)
Charles McGovern + Tim Barnard and Susan Kern
Rachel Morris, "Preserving, Displaying, and Insisting on the Dress: Icons, Female Agencies, Institutions, and the Twentieth Century First Lady" (High Honors)
Tim Barnard + Charles McGovern, Susan Kern and Chandos Brown
Justin Reid
Jody Allen (December 2009)

2006-07

Anne Gessler, "'I Don't Know Much About History': WCWM's Educational Radio Format and its Battle for Self Definition" (Highest Honors)
Charles McGovern + Arthur Knight and Eun Jung

2005-06

Jonathan Adams, "Federal Policy and Societal Change in the Suburbanization of Fairfax County, Virginia: 1930-2000" (Honors)
Charles McGovern + Chandos Brown and John McGlennon

2004-05

Heather Debby
Jennifer Putzi + Kim Phillips, John Moore, Scott Nelson and Carol Sheriff
Sarah Reeder
Alan Wallach + Sibel Zandi-Sayek and Charles McGovern