Past Thesis Topics

Selected Past Thesis Topics

 

LATEST:

Moving Forward, Looking Back: Comparative Folklore and Mythology in a Computational Age

Anatomy of a Sseunami (Tsunami): The Relationship Between Identity, Government, and the Korean Wave in the Republic of Korea

'Gone looking for female Viking warriors': Reimagining Viking Gender and Sexuality Through Michael Hirst's Vikings

 The Science of Spells: Plants, Potions, and Season Variation in Anglo-Saxon Leechbooks

'The Right to Tell All Stories': Copyright Law, National Development, and the Management of Folklore in Ghana

Theseus and the Amazons: Images of the Ideal and the Other in the Context of the Greco-Roman Wars

Dreamscape: A California Sense of Place

'I'm just a warrior fighting a lonely war': The Punisher and his Fan Bases

The Room of Small Memories: A Performance Installation

 

PAST:

Consuming Transformation: Eating, Drinking, and the Otherworld in Celtic and Scandinavian Folklore and Mythology (2004)

Entre Rêve et Réalité: Narrative, Craft, and Identity In the Vineyards of the Touraine (2004)

The Emperor and Xuanwu: Interactions between a Myth and the Establishment as Found in the Beiyou Ji and other Pre-Qing Sources (2004)

Santa Made Me Do It: the Creation of Social and Family Unity Through Christmas Rituals and Values (2004)

Sin Acento: Dynamics of Cultural Identity in a Modern Tejano Family (2004)

Compassionate Promiscuity: Women, Sex, and Enlightenment in Chinese Buddhist Literature (2003)

For Such a Tomb: the Craftsman in Indo-European Myth and Society (2003)

Game-Ending Heroics: The role of the athlete in Homeric Greece and Modern Rome (2003)

"He Said to You, There Was an Old Man...": Storytelling in the High Atlas Mountains (2003)

(Re)presenting a Nation: Sport, Art, Culture, and Chinese Figure Skating (2003)

Creating Imitation: An Investigation of the Wiccan Approach to Ritual as a Means of Negotiating Individual and Group Spirituality (2002)

Feeling 'Tribal': Western Interpretation of Non-Western Body Art (2002)

Folklore and its Relationship to Modern Media: an Examination of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002)

The Popular Theater of Dario Fo, Modern Day Giullare (2002)

The Sword Makes the Man: Weapons and the Construction of Social Identity in Viking Age Scandinavia (2002)

Love, Politics, and National Identity: Images of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in a Gaelic and Scots Jacobite Song from the Eighteenth Century (2000)

Quest of Kinship: The Family in Filipino Folklore and Immigration (2000)

The Blues Queen Mystique: Putting the Classic Blues Onstage (1999)

Folklore in the Poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (1999)

"That’s a basic Chinese immigrant story, you know": Narratives of Immigration and the Construction of Ethnic Identity in the Chinese-Bahamian Community (1999)

‘The Interplay of Trance’ Storytelling and Social Change in the Life Histories of Two Fijian Healers

A Discussion of the Fasting and Food Piety of Three Late Medieval Women Mystics: Saint Catherine of Siena, Margery Kempe, and St. Catherine of Genoa

A Structural Analysis of Conflict Mediation in Three Types of Tlingit Ceremonial Interactions.

A Structural and Historical Analysis of the Legend of the Jewish Pope

A Study of King Horn and Havelock the Dane.

A Study of Modern Witchcraft and the Influence of the Kabbalah Upon It.

Adder’s Tongue, Daffy’s Elixir and Ophioglossum Vulgatum: The Fragmentation of Herbal Folk Medicine in America 1750-1850

An Analysis of Anglo-Saxon Charms

An Analysis of Structural Aspects in the Romanian Oral Epic Song.

Angels in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum: Learned and Oral Inteplay in the Exempla Collection of a Thirteenth-Century Cistercian Monk.

Apinaye Mythology and the Origin of the White Man

Água de Beber: An Interdisciplinary Study of Capoeira–The Art of the Free

Bees in Celtic Tradition

Children’s Folklore in Performative Context

Christ and His Brothers as Reflections of the Developing Child in Zinacantan

Comic Characters in the Icelandic Family Sagas

Dancing the Real Reel: A Diachronic Study of Entextualization and the Embodied Dancer in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, Boston Branch

Diana in the Canon Episcopi: Imagination or Folk Belief?

Discovering the Wonder in Wonder Tales

Divine Grace in Archaic Greek Tradition

Dying for a Wake, an Analysis of Traditional Waking Practices Through the Folklore Concepts of Ritual, Rite of Passage, and Festival

Dynamics and Syncretism Among the Nevada Paiutes

Elvis as Hero of Global Village Culture

Entierros de Cuba: An Examination of Eight Cuban Legends of Buried Treasure

Folktale and Social Structure: An Analysis of Traditional Chinese Folktales.

Form and Function in the Religious Structure of Medieval Scandinavia.

Formula for Ecstasy: Ritual Efficacy in the Practice of Witchcraft.

From Dance Hall to Pub: Irish Traditional Music Events in Boston 1950-1997

Gymanist Approaching Folkloric Event

Hard to Swallow: The Form and Meaning of Women’s Oral Sex Talk

Hearing Appalachian Voices: Southern West Virginia Women’s Perceptions of the Dominant Woman

Hervarar saga ok Heithreks: Boundaries of Heroism and Wisdom.

“Hey, I Didn’t Write This, Folks. . . But I’m Singing It”: An Examination of the Repertoire and Composition Processes of a Northern Anglo-American Blues Singer.

Immrama as a Chronicle of Irish History and the Evolution of Irish Religious Belief and Practice.

In the Face of a Thousand Sorrows: Seacht Suáilce Na Maighdine The Seven Joys of the Virgin

Irish Fairy Gifts: AT503, The Gifts of the Little People, in Ireland

“Jävla utlanningar!”: Ethnocentric Legend Tradition in Sweden

La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Symbolic Roots of Cultural Change

Lady’s Day: Ritual as Community Self-Definition in a Greek Tourist Town

Living Under the Cattle: The Pastoral Ethic and Massai Sacrifice.

Maize as Mediator: A Structural Analysis of the Popol Vuh

Melodic Stability and Variability in Northern Chinese Drum Singing.

Merit, Status and Society: An Introductory Essay on Culture and Change in Cambodia.

Music in the Jamaican Pentecostal Churches.

Myth, Dream and Amythic Consciousness in Tibetan Buddhism.

Navigating Dangerous Seas: The Female Pirate Gráinne Ní Mháille and Irish Narratives

Odin and Ecstacy: The Shamanistic Qualities of Scaldic Poetry

On the Study of Slavic Paganism

Oskudólgur and Faroese Society

Pele and Hiiaka: Structuralism and Hawaiian Myth

Psychodynamic Tensions in Maya Culture

Re-evaluating Ragnarök: An Examination of the Gosforth Cross as a Celtic Christian Monument

Remarks on the Means and Patterns of Folktale Transmission in Ireland

Ritual and the Emergence of Mexican-American Identity in Fiesta San Antonio

Sentiments and Symbols in the Grimm’s Kinder-und-Hausmärchen.

Sexual Humorous Tales in Norwegian Folklore

Shield of Heracles: Identity Through Crisis.

“Ska vi ta kaffe nu?”: Objects of Cultural Recognition and the Death of a Swedish-American Community

Social Life in South Africa: The Songs of Miriam Makeba

Songs and Creative Play in French and American Children’s Circle Games: A Comparative Study

“Starvin’ Like Marvin”: Factors in Text and Context that Affect Emergent Children’s Folklore

Structural Types in Zuni Mythology

Take These Chains: Jimmie Rodgers, Hank William, and the Emergence of the Personal Voice in American Country Music.

Telling Time: Temporal Aspects of Orality, Literacy, and Folklore Genre
The 1890 Ghost Dance: A Study of Reality Reconstruction Among the Nevada Paiutes.

The Bell Witch of Mississippi and Tennessee: a Historical Analysis of a Southern Legend

The Character of Balaam as Villain in Midrash Numbers Rabbah.

The Concept of Public and Private Music in Three North American Indian Tribes

The Development of an Indian Identity: A Study of the Gay Head Indians

The Diction of Violence in Beowulf and the Mwindo Epic.

The Discourse Between Interpretive Systems: Modern Medicine and Traditional Healing in Africa

The Effects of Fairy Tale Violence on Kindergarten-Age Children: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

The Evolution of the Hwarang Image: A Theory of National Symbology

The Finest Kind? A Study of Marginalization, in Folklore and Narrative, among Fishermen and Scallopers in New Bedford, Massachusetts

The Gun, the Hero, and the Myth of Survival in Urban America

The Heroic Function of Arjuna in the Mahabharata.

The Holistic Power of Hallucinogens: Neuropharmacology and Shamanic Use in Healing and Religion.

The Ideal Rapport for Field Work in Japan
The Impact of Modernization on Folk Culture: A Case Study Using American Mining Folklore.

The Liminal Quality of the Hunt as Portrayed in the Finn Cycle

The Manufactured Minority: Purity, Practicality, or Positional Superioty–the Symbolic, Economic, and Structural Roles of Japan’s Burakumin

The Metaphor of the Road in Pindaric Poetry.

The Metaphorical Functions of the Cuentos de Juan Bob

The Negotiation of Ethnic Identity: Multifaceted Images of Lama Meat in La Paz, Bolivia

The Origins of Death among the Bantu Baganda

The Poetic and the Musical Device of Tsakisma in the Folk Song of Crete, Kasos and Karpathos.

The Representation of Women in Traditional Tibetan Narrative

The Ritual of the Passion in the Spanish-American Community of Truchas, New Mexico

The Sicilian Puppet Theater: A Dying Art Form

The Structure of the Voodoo Belief System

The Study of American Coal Mining Music

The Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: Audience and Objectives

The Totem Pole in Kwakiutl Society

They Have Washed Their Robes: Ghost Shirts of the American Plains

‘Thus there are devils, there are spirits’: Genre, Personal Experience, and Belief in Folkloristics and the Words of a Welsh Storyteller

Trenchtown Rock: a Study of Jamaica’s Reggae Music

Ture, Ajapa and Wakalulu: Three Diverse African Tricksters

Widows for the Burning: Rethinking the Historiography of Sati

Women in Navaho Culture and Society: Rethinking B. Ortner’s “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?”