Since 1927, Bates College has offered an Honors Program to promote, develop, and recognize academic work of higher quality than ordinarily required for the baccalaureate degree. The honors thesis is the written component of the yearlong program completed during the senior year under the guidance of a faculty advisor.
Historically, the final copy of the honors thesis has been submitted in paper format and made available for research at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. To promote greater access to senior theses by the Bates community and the world beyond Bates, the College introduces SCARAB, the College's institutional repository.
Paper copies of honors theses from 1927 through 2011 can be viewed in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. To see the library catalog record for paper copies of theses deposited in the Archives, click HERE.
Theses from 2021
Bedrock Geology, Geochronology, and Tectonic History of the Bronson Hill Anticlinorium in Northern New Hampshire, Liza Anne Folsom
Stories from the Flood: Narratives of Celilo Falls, 1805-2021, Maximilian LeGrand Friedenwald-Fishman
Geometry of Brittle and Ductile Bedrock Structures Influencing Groundwater Hydrology Adjacent to the Chlor-alkali Superfund Site, Berlin, NH, Peter B. Galloway
“Resolute Support:” Contextualizing Afro-Asian Imagery of the Cultural Revolution through the Lens of Maoist Theory, Owen Greenwood
Choosing the Fall to Rise Up: Gender Consumption and Eve’s Culinary World, Sarah Catherine Herde
Convection in Rotating Spherical Fluid Shell, Xiaole Jiang
"Without Lawful Authority": Reassessing Nullification and its Contributions to Political and Constitutional Development in Antebellum America, Benjamin Keener
Moral Duties Amid Legal Bias, Benjamin Klafter
Fluid Stirring on a Sphere -- a Topological Approach, Kirstin E. Koepnick
Minimal Requirements for Topologically Protected Edge Modes, Kirstin E. Koepnick
Widespread Social Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Child and Parent Perspectives, Nicki S. Lane
Medium-bound Horror in the Manga of Itō Junji, Michael A. Lombardi
Beguiling time, making air, and taking milk for gall: queerness in Macbeth, Erin Lyons
Laying the Groundwork: Desert Spaces and the Sacralization of U.S. Settler Colonialism, Anna-Elena Maheu
Exploring “Cultural Sensitivity” Among Frontline Workers Addressing Violence Against Women in Lewiston, Maine, Hannah Marian McKenzie
"I Became Unstoppable:" A Community-Based Quantitative and Qualitative Examination of a Mentoring Program's Effect on Youth in the Foster Care System, Emma Morehouse-Hulbert
The Design Experience: Accessing Design in a Liberal Arts Education, Julia Ann Nash
“The Real Target”: Medical Racism and AIDS Genocide Conspiracy Theory, Madeline Grace Polkinghorn
Reconstructing the Female Experience in Classical Attica Through A Close Analysis of The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Nicholas P. Quill
Why We Need Translingualism: An Antiracist Approach in the Writing Center, Sarah Townsend Raphael
On Brass and Snow: An Athlete's History of the Sport of Biathlon, Brad William Ravenelle
New School(s), Same Problem: An Analysis of Black Students’ Experiences in Urban Charter Schools, Joshua Redd
Sounds of Scotland, Ian W. Robertson
Sounds of Scotland, Ian W. Robertson
Authorship Identification of Li Qingzhao’s Anthology: A Computational Approach, Richard Tyler Simmons
"La Migración Cambió Mi Visión (Migration Changed My Vision)": How and Why Oaxacan Return Migrants Run for Mayor of Their Hometowns, Daniel Lawrence Tepler
Theses from 2020
Endangering Danger: An Anthropological Exploration of the Relationship between Snakes and People in Sāmoa., Ariel Abonizio
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Auburn Public School District, Samantha Alexander
Exploring Structure in Origami Constructions, Deveena R. Banerjee
Applying the Generalized Quasilinear Approximation to Taylor-Couette Flow, Morgan Baxter
Conceptualizing the Variables That Shape the International Student Experience in Higher Education, Francesca Biondi Morra
Representations of Black Queer Masculinity in Contemporary Popular Music: A Close Analysis of Tyler, The Creator and Frank Ocean, Josephine Blanchon
A Taste of Life, Christian A. Bradna Diaz
The Role Of ABC Transporters ABCC4 and ABCE1 in Establishing Ephydatia muelleri/Chlorella Symbioses, Lillian Chang
2D and 3D Magneto-Optical Trapping of ⁸⁷Rb in an Atom Chip Bose-Einstein Condensation Apparatus, Michał Ćwik
Armed Struggle, Global Stage: Irish-American Politics & The Troubles in the 1980s, James Claiborne Fagan
"The Divergent Paths of Jihad: Comparing Violence Against Civilians Perpetrated by IS and JN in the Syrian Civil War", Abigail Katherine Frost
“Your Favorite Rapper’s a Christian Rapper”: Chance the Rapper’s Creation of a New Community of Christian Hip Hop Through His Use of Religious Discourse on the 2016 Mixtape Coloring Book, Samuel Patrick Glenn
The Attitudes We Live By: The Impact of Symbols of Authority and the Questionable Nature of their Rejection, William Moses Green
The Origins and Dynamics of Phosphorus in Maine’s Lake Auburn Watershed, Lars Gundersen
The Development of Meaning and Purpose in Life Among Adolescents in Germany and Maine, Janika Ho
Late Glacial to Holocene Sea Level History of Kapp Linné, Svalbard, Norwegian High Arctic, Hannah Brierly Johnson
"One" and "I": Dimensions of Ritual Unity and Individuality in the Liturgical Practice of the Catholic Nicene Creed, Jack M. McLarnon
Synthesis and Structural Analysis of Mn and Ni-Based Materials for Cathode Applications, Robyn Moss
Decolonization, Resurgence, and Climate Adaptation: Confronting Settler Colonialism in the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe’s Climate-Induced Resettlement, Margaret O'Shea
Understanding the Alerting-Congruency Interaction in the Attention Network Test (ANT), Lily Ashare Patterson
Shrouded Voices: The Social Networks of Afro-Mexican Women in Seventeenth Century Mexico City and Veracruz, Ursula Yoshiko Rall
Tet2 and H2A.Z Negatively Regulate Memory Formation in the Hippocampus, Anas Reda
Assessing Task-dependent Flexibility and the Temporal Dynamics of Object Categorization, Alyssa Magill Rohan
“At the heart of legend”: Feminist Revisionist Mythology in Twentieth-Century Poetry, Madison Rozells
This Land is My Land: racism and antiracism in farmland succession in Auburn, Maine, Jesse Bull Saffeir
The Construction of Exceptionalist Nationalism: A Critique of Danish Imperialist Shame and Ongoing Colonialism in Kalaallit Nunaat, Sofie Lee Sogaard
Cosmopolitan Americanisms: Post-9/11 Transnational Immigrant Narratives, Bence Xavier Szechenyi
Hydroclimate Reconstruction in the Changing High Arctic Maritime Environment, Linnédalen, Svalbard, Emma Lea Wheeler
Silencing, Discrediting, Dismissing: Testimonial Injustice as a Violation of Universal Moral Obligations, Ernestine B. Whitaker
Synthetic Studies of Linderofruticoside A, Mitchell A. Willsey
Theses from 2019
Living on the Edge: India in the Greek Mind before Alexander the Great, Zofia Ahmad
The Road to Riches: Quantifying the Persistent Effects of the Silk Roads Network, Zofia Ahmad
The Ethos of Agency: Exploring Questions of Communication and Categorization in Greece’s Refugee Crisis, Caroline R. Barnes
Spirit Possession, Mediation, and Ambiguity in the Ancient Greek Worship of Dionysos, Isabella Barrengos
The Matrilineal Specter in Kingston's Woman Warrior and Keller's Comfort Woman, Theodore V. Burns
Assessing the Relevant Barriers to Climate Justice in Bolivia: An Analysis of Bolivian Climate Politics, Josh Caldwell
La búsqueda de una nueva identidad española en las películas de Pedro Almodóvar de los 80, Andrew Chen
Heat and Light in the City of the Future: A Feasibility Study of Renewable Energy in Lewiston, Maine, Haley Crim
Sentimental Arcs From Grief to Mourning in An Unnecessary Woman and Koolaids: The Art of War by Rabih Alameddine, Carl D. Deakins Mx
Irish Identity, American Identity, and the Irish American Anti-Partition Movement, Margaret Mary Dever
Development of novel tissue-type plasminogen activator-binding RNA aptamer, Nathan Paul Frederick
Stealing Borders: The Yiddish Book Center and Expansions of Postvernacular Yiddishland, Sarah Elsa Freyd
Truth-Telling and Transitional Justice in Chile: Healing for Women Survivors of Trauma Through Testimonial Art Collectives, Olivia Snow Fried
Welcoming New Mainers: Local Economic Development and its Effects on the Politics of Immigration, Trevor H. Fry
Characterization of Trap Frequencies for Cold Atom Laboratory Bose-Einstein Condensates, Maxwell Jeremy Gold
Temporal Negative Priming: Visual and Auditory, Alexa C. M. Harrison
A Struggle for Dignity on the Land: Living Histories of Southern Agricultural Exploitation and Farmworker Resistance in North Carolina, Erin Rosalind Hazlett-Norman
Dynamics of Quantum Dot Lasers Subject to Optical Feedback and Current Modulation, Tianyao Huang
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Performance, Identity, and the 1887 London Residency of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West in Context, Cameron Connor Huftalen
Passively Black, Actively Unprofessional: Beyond a Fault-Based Conception of Black Women’s Identity and Hairstyling in Title VII Jurisprudence, Kayla K. Jackson
Depth of Processing of Visual Scenes Not Consciously Perceived, Wanyi Lu
Explaining the Global Interest Rate Decline, Nicholas Lynch
Sense of Place in Kennedy Park: the Role of Urban Green Space in the Tree Streets Neighborhood, Dylan Peter Metsch-Ampel
Caught Between: Achille, the Instar and Intention/Reception in Walcott’s Omeros, Peter Nadel
Economic Subjugation and Crime in a Capitalist Context: Using The Wire to Understand the Contemporary American City, Ellis Obrien
Modernist Temporalities: Figures of Time in the Novels of Virginia Woolf, Tyler Parke
Dickens and Trauma: The Art of Autobiographical Fiction, Sarah M. Rothmann
Early Byzantine Stobi in Context: A Study of the Episcopal Basilica and the Jewish Synagogue, Lindsay M. Ryder
Some Strive to Remember, Others Wish They Could Forget: The Intersection of Culture and Trauma in Vietnam War Literatures, William Sanders
Reimagining Citizenship in the Age of Climate Change, Anna Setzer
Purification, Characterization, and Activity of Ribonucleases on mRNA Degradation in Borrelia Burgdorferi, Gabriella Francis Shpilsky
“Spare No Pains in Trying to Learn to Read”: The Community-Building Power of Black-Written Works and the Construction of Fellowship, Francesca Marie Steiner
Discovery of Ten-Eleven Translocation Enzymes Inhibitors for Enhancement of Long-Term Memory, Haoyu Sun
Measuring the Hypoxic and Hypercapnic Ventilatory Responses of Anolis carolinensis, Mary Buford Turnage
Effects of Videotaped Eyewitness Identifications of Eyewitnesses and Jurors, Dayna E. Vasconcelos
The Super-resolution Imaging of RNA Localization in Borrelia burgdorferi Cells, Xiaomeng Wang
“Before its Smell Became Me:” Motel Residency and the Politics of Belonging, Abigail T. Westberry Ms.
“If There Be One Only, She Shall Inherit Half”: Explaining the Preservation of Islamic Inheritance Law in Tunisia’s 1956 Personal Status Code, Gwendolyn R. Whidden
Dueling Lyres: Competing Consolatory Practices in the Roman Empire, Katherine Josephine Ziegler
Theses from 2018
Revolutionizing Girl: Oppressive Social Structures as Stymieing Adolescent Change In Revolutionary Girl Utena, Garrett T. Anderson