(Click here for a printable version of our presenters and abstracts of their theses)<\/a><\/p>\n Music as a Tool for Socio-Political Expression: A Comparison between Lebanon\u2019s Mashrou\u2019 Leila and Morocco\u2019s ElGrandeToto Dante in France: Etienne Gilson and Paul Claudel\u2019s Humanist Readings of The Divine Comedy From the Margins to the Center: The Reception of Fran\u00e7oise d\u2019Eaubonne\u2019s Ecofeminism in France The Forgotten Liberators: The Strategic Marginalization of La\u00a0Nueve\u00a0and its\u00a0Delayed\u00a0Memorialization A Struggling Class: Cultural Representations of French Middle Class by Anthony Cordier and Margurite Duras A People Forgotten, The Cagots L\u2019identit\u00e9 francophone libanaise: le ph\u00e9nicianisme dans les \u00e9crits de Charles Corm Painting Resistance: Memory, Culture, and Identity in Postcolonial Algeria through the Works of Issiakhem and Khadda \u201cGevatter Faucheuse\u201d: Alsatian Identity in the Interwar Era through Die Leibwache <\/em>and Les Oberl\u00e9s Guilt, Material Continuity, and the Myth of Stunde Null The Culinary Divergence: How Shifts in Migration, Economic Mobility, and Cultural Capital Shape Chinese Gastronomy in Germany Between News and Silence: Testimony and Repression in Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s Relato de un n\u00e1ufrago<\/em> and La aventura de Miguel Litt\u00edn clandestino en Chile Abandonment and Solitude: The Destruction of Political and Social Institutions in El coronel no tiene quien le escriba<\/em> and \u201cLa incre\u00edble y triste historia de la c\u00e1ndida Er\u00e9ndira y de su abuela desalmada\u201d Power Over the Vulnerable: Social and Religious Hierarchy in the Work of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez Deterritorializing the Mother Tongue: The Work of Massimiliano Chiamenti Through Deleuze & Guattari Manufacturing The Italian Identity:\u00a0 The Impacts of Colonization and Fascism on Contemporary Migration Discourse How Shinkai Makoto\u2019s Natural Disaster Anime Film Trilogy Suzume (2023), Weathering With You (2019), and Your Name (2016) Subvert the Sekai-kei Genre Miyazaki Hayao\u2019s Perception of Imagination: From My Neighbor Totoro<\/em> to The Boy and the Heron<\/em>\u00a0in the Age of Participatory Isekai <\/em>Culture \u00a0<\/strong>Self- History: Narrative Perspective in Xue Fucheng\u2019s European Diary \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Hannah Neo Khambule<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Kifah Hanna The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, home to approximately 590 million people, is often perceived as ideologically and socio-politically monolithic, despite the internal diversity of its cultures and histories. As a region with one of the highest youth populations on the globe, the means by which youth navigate and, at times, subvert hegemonic power structures is an apt litmus test for the values that are shaping the region\u2019s future: particularly in the wake of the Arab Spring (2010-2012). Despite a recent history of overt protest, the Arts in the MENA region represent a sustained, latent engagement with political realities. This Arabic Language thesis examines music as a tool for socio-political expression by comparing Lebanon\u2019s Mashrou\u2019 Leila<\/em>\u00a0with Morocco\u2019s ElGrandeToto<\/em>. The paper is underpinned by fieldwork conducted during a semester at the Amideast<\/em>\u00a0Language and Culture centre in Rabat, Morocco, contrasting Morocco\u2019s more stringent control on free speech with Lebanon\u2019s comparatively more permissive political landscape. To do this, I select Mashrou\u2019 Leila<\/em>, a Lebanese band that openly championed LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East, as a point of comparison for ElGrandeToto<\/em>, a Moroccan <\/a>rapper embedding implicit political lyricism of cultural liberalisation in his music. Though rooted in their home countries, Mashrou\u2019 Leila<\/em>\u00a0and ElGrandeToto<\/em>\u00a0are transnational emblems of the upheaval of contemporary socio-political order in the MENA region, providing a glimpse into the youth undercurrents that give rise to open action protest.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Kwaku Agyapong<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour Considered as one of the most influential writers of all time, Dante Alighieri\u2019s legacy was cemented by his final work, The Divine Comedy<\/em>. Composed and circulated over the final years of his life during his exile from Florence, the work concluded shortly before his death in 1321. Though unconventional, Dante\u2019s choice to use the vernacular, Italian, instead of the standard Latin ended up being beneficial in the spread of his work. Soon after its release, the work quickly gained traction in the aristocracy of neighboring France as writers such as Christine de Pisan and Marguerite de Navarre adopted Dante\u2019s theological and philosophical views. Over time these ideas made their way into the more recent works of Etienne Gilson as shown in his Dante et la Philosophie (1939) <\/em>and Paul Claudel\u2019s collection of poems Cinq Grandes Odes (1910)<\/em>. In this paper, I argue that these writers revived the Divine Comedy<\/em>\u2019s philosophical and theological concerns to grapple with modern and <\/a>contemporary French issues. Through close reading and literary analysis, I will highlight the core humanist principles they drew from Dante\u2019s work: the belief that mankind possesses the capacity for moral redemption within earthly life, independent of divine judgement. By emphasizing this capacity, Claudel and Gilson restore the moral agency in individuals calling for a more active responsibility and determination in the pursuit of self-betterment. Their insistence that human beings can, and must, make themselves worthy of essentially themselves remains a compelling and relevant philosophical concern today.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lucy Bailey<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour French feminism is often categorized into three \u201cwaves,\u201d with Second Wave taking place roughly from the 1960s to 1980s, led by well-known figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Christine Delphy, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous, and Monique Wittig. While the First Wave focused on women\u2019s suffrage, the Second Wave looked to incorporate women into the concept of French universalism, demanding reforms such as equal pay or increasing the number of women elected to office. During this same period, lesser-known feminist thinker Fran\u00e7oise d\u2019Eaubonne (1920-2005), coined the term ecofeminism, a concept which examines the interconnected systems of domination that uphold both gendered oppression and environmental exploitation. Two of her works, Le f\u00e9minisme ou la mort<\/em> (1974) and \u00c9cologie\/F\u00e9minisme : R\u00e9volution ou mutation ?<\/em> (1978), serve as the theoretical foundation and are key touchstones to examine both the formulation of ecofeminist thought and its early reception.<\/p>\n Although the term was coined in France by a French author, ecofeminism failed to take root within French feminist theory and activism. However, the movement expanded elsewhere in the world, such as in India and the US. Today, d\u2019Eaubonne\u2019s <\/a>works see a renewed interest in France, with scholars reexamining her texts and placing them in the context of contemporary climate catastrophe. Through a close reading of d\u2019Eaubonne\u2019s work, archival analysis, and engagement with contemporary ecofeminist theory, I argue that d\u2019Eaubonne\u2019s initial rejection was due to an incompatibility with French philosophical and cultural theory and a misunderstanding of ecofeminism as essentialism. Further, I view her recent resurgence in France as a consequence of the transnational expansion of ecofeminism, as well as a climate crisis calling for an interdisciplinary approach to systems of oppression.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nicole Balbuena Gutierrez<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour \u00a0<\/strong>On the evening of August 24, 1944, the first military vehicles to reach the H\u00f4tel de Ville during the Liberation of Paris were\u00a0greeted\u00a0not in French, but with cries of \u201c\u00a1Hola!\u201d and \u201c\u00a1Viva la Libertad!\u201d.\u00a0This visual\u00a0archive\u00a0reveals that among the vanguard of liberation was La\u00a0Nueve, the 9th Company of the 2nd Armored Division, composed\u00a0almost entirely\u00a0of Spanish Republicans and anarchists. Despite their military indispensability, these soldiers were systematically erased from the official French narrative for over fifty years. This thesis explores the mechanisms of erasure through a close reading of Captain Raymond\u00a0Dronne\u2019s\u00a0war diaries\u00a0Carnets de route d’un\u00a0crois\u00e9\u00a0de la France Libre\u00a0<\/em>(1984)\u00a0and\u00a0Alberto Marquardt\u2019s documentary La\u00a0Nueve: les\u00a0oubli\u00e9s\u00a0de la\u00a0victoire<\/em>\u00a0(2010),\u00a0as\u00a0well as\u00a0financial analysis of post-war diplomatic archives, including the Blum-Byrnes Agreements (1946) and Marshall Plan negotiations (1948).<\/p>\n I argue that the marginalization of La\u00a0Nueve\u00a0was not merely a byproduct of French national pride, but a calculated economic transaction.\u00a0In the wake of World War II, France was a bankrupt nation standing\u00a0on\u00a0the precipice of the Cold War. To secure vital financial credit from the United States, the provisional government of Charles de Gaulle had to market a front of \u201cNational Unity\u201d and political stability. By analyzing the Gaullist Myth through a financial and ideological lens, this research examines an identity transaction where the pressures of the American Red Scare and the racialized \u201cwhitening\u201d of the Allied forces compelled France to silence its most radical transnational elements to appease\u00a0its allies.<\/p>\n <\/a>The\u00a0historical silencing eventually gives way to a 21st-century revaluation of memory. Drawing on Pierre Nora\u2019s theory of Lieux\u00a0de\u00a0m\u00e9moire\u00a0(1984), I will analyze the 2015 inauguration of the Jardin\u00a0des\u00a0Combattants\u00a0de\u00a0la\u00a0Nueve\u00a0in Paris by Mayor Anne Hidalgo and investigate why the political capital of\u00a0La\u00a0Nueve\u00a0has increased in recent years.\u00a0Ultimately,\u00a0this\u00a0research\u00a0demonstrates\u00a0that the history of\u00a0La\u00a0Nueve\u00a0was liquidated as a political liability in 1944, only to be recapitalized today as France finally seeks to balance its historical ledger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meckenzie Boylan<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour Since the early days of the French Revolution, the French middle class has been explored in history books and novels, as well as portrayed in film and television. Over time, members of this class have continued to influence French culture and <\/a>society. Today, the middle class makes up approximately fifty to sixty percent of the population. Despite its significant presence, however, it is often overlooked in policy and legislation, as attention tends to focus on supporting the lower class and glorifying the upper class. In French cultural productions, the middle class is frequently depicted as conventional and banal. Through a close reading of Anthony Cordier\u2019s\u00a0 film Classe Moyenne<\/em> (2025) and Marguerite Duras\u2019s novel La Ville Tranquille<\/em> (1944), this essay will demonstrate that, despite their seemingly monotonous lives, members of the middle class face numerous struggles and insecurities beneath the surface.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Liam Goodman<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour This thesis contributes to the scholarly recovery of the Cagots, a historically marginalized people whose presence across the Pyrenean regions of southwestern France and northern Spain remains one of the least documented episodes of sustained social exclusion in the francophone world. Through a structured two-part examination, it argues that the Cagots were constituted as a lower caste through three mutually reinforcing and largely unsubstantiated discourses, medical stigmatization, religious imputation, and genealogical myth, and that the French Revolution, far from producing a recoverable archive of emancipation, served as the pivotal moment at which Cagot communities, as observed by Michel, exploited the upheaval of 1789 to destroy the registers and legal documents that had long identified and subjugated them, rendering their erasure from the historical record as deliberate as it was comprehensive. Both chapters draw substantially on Francisque Michel\u2019s <\/a>Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l\u2019Espagne<\/em> (1847), engaged here as both a secondary historical synthesis and a primary document in its own right, utilizing his first-hand field observations and translations of traditional Gascon oral poetry to reconstruct the mechanisms of caste formation and the conditions that rendered the erasure of Cagot history not merely possible but, for those concerned, necessary.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Alex Paxhia<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour This thesis dives into the emergence of Phoenicianism in Lebanon during the early twentieth century, a powerful narrative articulated by a network of intellectuals concerned with the survival of the nation. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire there was trauma left in Lebanon due to the Great Famine during World War I.<\/p>\n The Lebanese inteligentsia turned towards the prestigious history of maritime trade and expressed multireligious worldviews informed by a French influence. Phoenicianism was a way to claim their ancient ancestry. Due to those traits and the francophone influence, these thinkers were instrumental in the creation of the independent nation of Greater Lebanon.<\/a><\/p>\n Through a literary analysis of the poems of Charles Corm (1894-1963) this thesis illustrates how Phoenicianism laid the roots for a hybrid, humanistic, and culturally sound Lebanese identity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zarina Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour The Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) and its aftermath marked an era of profound trauma, political division, and instability as the country sought to rebuild its identity after 136 years of French colonization. In the time leading up to and following liberation, Algerian artists explored the legacy of colonial violence through the redefining of national identity. Among the most significant of these artists were M\u2019hamed Issiakhem (1928-1985) and Mohammed Khadda (1930-1991), whose works helped shape modern Algerian painting. Through close analysis of Issiakhem\u2019s later works, such as Femme et mur <\/em>and Femme sur po\u00e8me<\/em>, created in collaboration with poet Kateb Yacine, this paper will first study how Issiakhem\u2019s portrayal of female figures challenges post-independence narratives that minimize women\u2019s contributions to resistance. His somber, muted paintings reframe resistance as the endurance of memory, contrasting traditional heroic representations and illustrating that women\u2019s bodies serve as carriers of colonial trauma, vessels of historical memory.<\/p>\n Mohammed Khadda adopts a more abstract artistic style that draws on his interest in Arabic and Amazigh calligraphy. This paper will examine Les Casbahs ne s\u2019assi\u00e8gent pas<\/em> and Pi\u00e8ges<\/em>, which incorporate layered textures, signs, and symbols rooted in Algerian cultural identity, directly contrasting traditional, colonial art. Khadda\u2019s writings on art and decolonization will guide our interpretation of his works. I argue that although their styles differ, both Issiakhem and Khadda apply Kammerzell<\/strong><\/a>calligraphy or cultural texts to transform painting into a space of postcolonial resistance that explores themes of grief, memory, and trauma, reframing history and Algerian identity to resist colonial frameworks.<\/p>\n Jacob Kammerzell<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Walid Bouchakour Alsace-Lorraine is a region of current-day France along the northeast border next to Germany. The region has a long and complicated history with both nations, having been part of both on multiple occasions. Its position as an \u201cin-between\u201d space of France and Germany has given the territory a unique blend of both cultures and even its own language: Alsatian. However, in the current day and age, the culture has become heavily dominated by French influence, as the population of Alsatian speakers is quickly dwindling while the German presence is declining.<\/p>\n In this paper, I argue that the series of wars which took place in the Interwar Era heavily damaged the Alsatian identity, creating a loss of autonomy through a rapid switching of nationalities, which has ultimately led to the cultural loss we\u2019re experiencing now in 2026. This argument is made first through a translation and close reading of Alsatian literature from the early 20th century, examining Ren\u00e9 Bazin\u2019s French novel Les Oberl\u00e9s and Ren\u00e9 Schickele\u2019s German poems 1815 and Likus<\/strong>Likus<\/strong><\/a>Chronik from the collection Die Leibwache. A multilingual comparative reading of these works illuminates the impact of the wars of that period on Alsatian culture and identity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Helena Likus <\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Julia Assaiante This thesis interrogates the concept of Stunde Null<\/em> (Zero Hour) in post-war Germany, commonly understood as a moment of radical rupture from the Nazi past. Challenging this narrative, it argues that Stunde Null<\/em> functioned less as a genuine break than as a mythic construction that masked cultural amd philosophical continuities. Instead of examining the historical outcomes of this supposed rupture, this project focuses on the concept itself, tracing how elements of German cultural and intellectual thought persist within it. Drawing on Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno, the thesis situates National Socialism as emerging from culture not outside of it. It then engages Friedrich Nietzsche to show how narratives of rebirth naturalize history, and Sigmund Freud to argue that the declaration of a new beginning represses rather than resolves guilt. Through theoretical analysis and readings of post-war German literature, the thesis demonstrates that Stunde Null<\/em> did not <\/a>constitute a genuine break, but rather enabled the continuation of cultural myths under the guise of rupture. Using Nietzsche\u2019s language, Stunde Null<\/em> masked monumental history as critical history.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jensen Tsao<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Jason Doerre The profound division within the Chinese gastronomic landscape in Germany suggests that it can no longer be analyzed as a singular cultural practice. The sector has fractured into two distinct categories: the adapted, namely Westernized, and the authentic. Rather than treating these differences as mere culinary preferences, this study frames them as the material results of distinct migration waves interacting with shifting market constraints and traces how the demographic shifts of immigration produced fundamentally incompatible culinary realities within the same host society over the past six decades. To establish an empirical foundation, the study analyzes the culinary techniques and dish characteristics, evaluates the influence of the dining ambiance, and identifies the primary target clients. It demonstrates that precedent-adapted Chinese restaurants rely on standardization, predictability, and self-orientalization to create a mild exotic experience tailored to the mid-twentieth-century German palate. In contrast, modern authentic restaurants prioritize regional specificity, technical integrity, and simplification. To provide ground for such phenomena, a historical approach is taken to reflect a direct demographic shift within the migrant population. Early restaurateurs, arriving between the 1960s and 1980s, faced serious economic limitations, which made culinary adaptation a necessary strategy for financial survival and social assimilation. The newer wave, consisting of post-2000s migrants, international students, and professionals, is supported by globalized supply chains and a growing diaspora. This movement utilizes its cultural authenticity as a competitive advantage and deliberately eschews cultural translation in favor of a specialized commercial strategy. To provide a broader context, the findings are compared to the cuisines brought by the Gastarbeiter (guest workers) from Italy and Turkey. While Italian gastronomy successfully ascended from modified immigrant fare to prestigious regional authenticity alongside the diaspora\u2019s upward mobility, Turkish cuisine, despite the monumental commercial success of the D\u00f6ner Kebab, has remained largely confined to the fast-food sector, suggesting persistent structural boundaries. This thesis concludes that the culinary divergence of Chinese food in Germany proves that the adaptation of migrant cuisine is not a permanent market necessity, but a historically situated action. The ability to serve authentic food is a privilege inseparably linked to cultural and financial capital, making gastronomic output a reliable representation for measuring migrant economic mobility and power dynamics <\/a>within the host society.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gabriela Geraldine Flores<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Priscilla Mel\u00e9ndez \u00a0<\/strong>This thesis examines two works of nonfiction by Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2014Relato de un n\u00e1ufrago (1970) and La aventura de Miguel Litt\u00edn clandestino en Chile (1986)\u2014that have been frequently identified as of nonfiction because of its journalistic roots. However, I argue that such a classification is limited, as both works transform testimonial accounts into literary narratives that expose censorship, political repression, and institutional power in Latin America. More importantly, it asks why real events are reshaped through literary form if the goal is denunciation. This project contends that it is precisely through this transformation that the texts acquire their critical force. Situating these works within the tradition of Latin American testimonial literature (which underscored their liminality), this project explores how Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez employs narrative strategies of the cr\u00f3nica and testimonio to reconstruct real historical events while simultaneously questioning the notion of objective truth. Rather than treating these texts as purely journalistic, this study emphasizes their hybrid nature, showing how they operate in a space where narration inevitably involves mediation, selection, and construction. In Relato de un n\u00e1ufrago, the first-person account of the Colombian sailor Luis Alejandro Velasco\u2014originally published in El Espectador\u2014reveals how an individual survival story becomes an implicit denunciation of military corruption and state-controlled information. Although the narrative appears to present a direct, unmediated voice, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez deliberately grants Velasco narrative authority, creating the illusion that the journalist disappears. This strategy, characteristic of testimonial discourse, highlights how the testimony is shaped and structured rather than simply recorded. Similarly, La aventura de Miguel Litt\u00edn clandestino en Chile reconstructs the clandestine return of filmmaker Miguel Litt\u00edn during Chilean military dictatorship, using interviews and narrative framing to document experiences that could not circulate publicly under authoritarian rule. Here, the mediation is even more visible, as the narrative is built from reorganized interviews, reinforcing that testimony is a constructed representation shaped by memory and narrative design. In both cases, testimony becomes a vehicle through which silenced histories are narrated and preserved. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of testimonio, particularly the work of John Beverley, as well as studies on narrative journalism, this thesis analyzes how voice, authority, and narrative structure (such as perspective, time, subjectivity, language, symbolism, among others) shape the <\/a>representation of truth. The project pays particular attention to how Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez constructs narrative credibility while blurring the boundaries between factual reporting and literary storytelling. This tension reveals the extent to which \u201ctruth\u201d in these texts is not merely recorded but actively produced through narrative form. By placing these works in their historical contexts, this study demonstrates how testimonial narrative functions as symbolic resistance. Ultimately, it argues that literature is not subordinate to factual truth; rather, it actively structures and shapes how reality is understood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Beckett Hennessey\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Priscilla Mel\u00e9ndez In the illustrious career of the Colombian journalist, writer, and Nobel Prize winner in literature Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s (1927-2014), the theme of governmental abandonment is especially prevalent throughout his works. What follows as a result of this abandonment for the characters living within this societal and political structure is isolation and the dismantling of family units. The short novel El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961), and the short story \u201cLa incre\u00edble y triste historia de la c\u00e1ndida Er\u00e9ndira y de su abuela desalmada\u201d (1972) emphasize these themes and the severe consequences of governmental abandonment in the lives of individuals and communities. Containing both realistic and magical approaches <\/a>to critiquing the realities of Colombian society in the 20th century, these two texts represent a common fate and pattern that occurs under an oppressive system, such as the tragic realities of of the Civil Wars during the early part of the twentieth century, and later in the tumultuous period of \u201cLa Violencia\u201d, the decade long conflict (of 1948 to 1958) in which at least 200,000 people are known to have been killed due to political violence. It is clear through these texts that Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez argues that the failure of large, oppressive institutions results in the failure of local and personal ones.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Annie Kathryn Scovill<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Priscilla Mel\u00e9ndez Vulnerability in the works of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez is not a direct result of individual weakness, but rather external forces that include religion, social norms, and the power that institutions hold. Through the texts Cien a\u00f1os de soledad (1967), Cr\u00f3nica de una muerte anunciada (1981), and \u201cEl rastro de tu sangre en la nieve\u201d which is part of the anthology of short stories, Doce cuentos peregrinos (1992) Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez displays vulnerability through different strategies. In Cien a\u00f1os de soledad, vulnerability is portrayed through the role of spiritual forces, especially those that appear through the enigmatic character Melqu\u00edades. As the emblem of writing, Melqu\u00edades and his story move from the global to the specific, and vice versa, creating an image of repetition and circularity that anticipates the destruction of Macondo. Similarly, the theme of incest and cyclical time recur throughout the novel ultimately causing destruction and ironically instilling both fear and audacity within the characters. In Cr\u00f3nica de una muerte anunciada, there are religious expectations associated with women and their purity, and when these expectations are not fulfilled, there is a murder within the community. The community and religious figures are complicit in this murder as there is no action taken to protect Santiago, the character accused of taking \u00c1ngela’s virginity. In \u201cEl rastro de tu sangre en la nieve\u201d, the characters are vulnerable due to being displaced in Paris, on their honeymoon without speaking the language. When Nena gets injured, her husband has difficulty navigating the confusing and powerful hospital resulting in her death. In these texts Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez emphasizes how spiritual forces, religion, community norms, and powerful institutions limit the individual\u2019s control over causing destruction in the stories. This essay proposes that GM\u2019s stories create the impression that most of its characters have limited control over their own existence, underscoring that determination and free will are subject to forces that are beyond their control. Nevertheless, the persistent use of elements associated with magical realism allows the characters to portray vulnerability, not as a flaw or <\/a>weakness, but as one of its strengths in the midst of destruction.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Pen Baxter<\/strong><\/p>\n Advisor: Joshua King The poetry of Massimiliano Chiamenti deterritorializes standard Italian through grammatical instability, syntactic fragmentation, and lexical experimentation, in line with Gilles Deleuze and F\u00e9lix Guattari\u2019s concept of minor literature. For Deleuze and Guattari, minor literature arises not from a minor language but from a minor use of a major one, as it is marked by the politicization of language, the disruption of dominant linguistic structures from within, and collective perspective of its subject matter.<\/p>\n Chiamenti\u2019s work exemplifies the idea of reshaping the Italian language by exposing the ideological assumptions embedded in its normative forms. His poetry unsettles the coherence typically associated with standard Italian. Through fractured syntax, shifting registers, and disrupted grammar, Chiamenti resists the idea of language as a transparent vehicle of meaning. These strategies loosen the link between language and the social norms it encodes, revealing how linguistic conventions reproduce heteronormative assumptions about gender, sexuality, and identity. In this way, Chiamenti queers Italian from within. By bending and breaking its rules, he transforms the \u201cmajor\u201d language into a flexible, unstable system capable of expressing non-normative identities by enacting what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the capacity of minor literature to make language \u201cstutter,\u201d or in other words, opening it to new forms of meaning and expression. This linguistic experimentation is inherently political. As Deleuze and Guattari argue, everything in minor literature is political, and so accordingly, Chiamenti\u2019s poetry turns personal expression into a form of structural critique.<\/p>\nArabic Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\nHannah Neo Khambule\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nFrancophone Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\nKwaku Agyapong<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nLucy Bailey<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nNicole Balbuena Gutierrez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nMeckenzie Boylan\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nLiam Goodman<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nAlex Paxhia<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nZarina Stone<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nFrancophone Studies & German Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Jacob Kammerzell<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nGerman Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Helena Likus<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nJensen Tsao<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nHispanic Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Gabriela Geraldine Flores<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nBeckett Hennessey<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAnnie Kathryn Scovill<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nItalian Studies\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\nPen Baxter<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nGrace Bomberger<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nJapanese Studies<\/span><\/h3>\n
\nAshton L. Rivera<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nSudhish Bikram Thapa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Language & Culture Studies Comparative Literature<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Marina K. Wheeler<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n
\nArabic Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
Music as a Tool for Socio-Political Expression:<\/span>
\nA Comparison between Lebanon\u2019s Mashrou\u2019 Leila <\/em>and Morocco\u2019s ElGrandeToto<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Arabic<\/p>\n
\nFrancophone Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
Dante in France: Etienne Gilson and Paul Claudel\u2019s Humanist Readings of The Divine Comedy<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nFrom the Margins to the Center: The Reception of Fran\u00e7oise d\u2019Eaubonne\u2019s Ecofeminism in France<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n
The Forgotten Liberators: The Strategic Marginalization of La\u00a0Nueve\u00a0and its\u00a0Delayed\u00a0Memorialization<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\nA Struggling Class: Cultural Representations of French Middle Class by Anthony Cordier and Margurite Duras<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\nA People Forgotten, The Cagots<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\nL\u2019identit\u00e9 francophone libanaise: le ph\u00e9nicianisme dans les \u00e9crits de Charles Corm<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\nPainting Resistance: Memory, Culture, and Identity in Postcolonial Algeria through the Works of Issiakhem and Khadda<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0Francophone Studies & German Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
\u201cGevatter Faucheuse\u201d:
\n<\/span>Alsatian Identity in the Interwar Era through Die Leibwache <\/em>and Les Oberl\u00e9s<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Francophone Studies & German Studies<\/p>\n
\nGerman Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
Guilt, Material Continuity, and the Myth of Stunde Null<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: German Studies<\/p>\nThe Culinary Divergence: How Shifts in Migration, Economic Mobility, and Cultural Capital Shape Chinese Gastronomy in Germany<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: German Studies<\/p>\n
\nHispanic Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
Between News and Silence: Testimony and Repression in Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s Relato de un n\u00e1ufrago<\/em> and La aventura de Miguel Litt\u00edn clandestino en Chile<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Hispanic Studies<\/p>\nAbandonment and Solitude:<\/span>
\nThe Destruction of Political and Social Institutions in El coronel no tiene quien le escriba<\/em> and \u201cLa incre\u00edble y triste historia de la c\u00e1ndida Er\u00e9ndira y de su abuela desalmada\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Hispanic Studies<\/p>\nPower Over the Vulnerable: Social and Religious Hierarchy in the Work of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Hispanic Studies<\/p>\n
\nItalian Studies<\/span><\/h2>\n
Deterritorializing the Mother Tongue:
\nThe Work of Massimiliano Chiamenti Through Deleuze & Guattari<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nMajor: Italian Studies<\/p>\n