Honors Thesis Abstracts for 2011
Boston, Alexander M. “The Raven and the Crown: Ethnic Diversity and Political Legitimacy in
the Reign of Matthias Corvinus.” Thesis director, Dr. Michael Hughes.
 Hungarian history, along with that of many other Balkan and Central European countries,
has been rife with ethnic strife. The image of Matthias Corvinus, Hungary’s only nativeborn king in a four hundred year span became a rallying point for later Hungarian
nationalists. This is surprising because during his lifetime (1443-1490) Matthias never
portrayed himself as Hungarian. Instead, it seems that in order to unite his multicultural
state politically, Matthias created a cosmopolitan image of himself, expressed in his army,
administration, and courtly academic culture.
Carlton, Jessica. “Confederate White Women on the Forefront of General Sherman’s
Destructive March through Georgia.” Thesis director, Dr. Paul Escott.
 After three years of civil war between the Union and the Confederacy, the Deep South
had yet to be conquered. However, by fall 1864, Union troops had sacked Atlanta and
were ready to make their way to the Georgia coast. Sherman’s “March to the Sea” began
on November 15, 1864. In less than a month, Union troops had marched from Atlanta to
Savannah, wreaking havoc along the way. Even though historians disagree on certain
details regarding Sherman’s March, they all agree that it was Confederate white women
that remained on the home front and experienced first-hand the cruelties of war via
Sherman’s March. Another aspect of Sherman’s March on which historians agree is
Sherman’s motive for the March itself. In a letter to General Grant, Sherman “unveiled
his concept of waging war upon everything in his path” and that “the utter destruction of
its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources.” Sherman summed up
his plan, a quote consistently used by Civil War historians, when he said, “I can make the
march, and make Georgia howl.” Sherman had devised a new kind of warfare philosophy,
one in which the army would not target an opposing army but instead would target
civilians on the home front. Sherman wanted people of the Confederacy to feel the hard
hand of war and to wreck an economy and destroy a faith. General Sherman believed that
the quickest way to achieve peace was to strike the most vulnerable part of the
Confederacy, its home front, which was comprised mainly of women and children. He
wanted to wreck the Georgia economy, show that the Confederacy could not protect its
own people, and most importantly he wanted to destroy a faith; a faith in the Confederacy
which had achieved nothing but prolong the war. This paper addresses the two aspects of
Sherman’s March to the Sea which historians most agree upon, the fact that it was
Confederate women who bore the brunt of the March and the motives behind Sherman’s
March itself. Furthermore, this paper takes those arguments a step further and explores,
through the first hand effects of the March on the white women in Georgia, whether or
not Sherman accomplished his goals. Upon nobody did the wrath of General Sherman’s
troops, during the March to the Sea, fall more dreadfully and more harshly than upon the
white women of Confederate Georgia.. The women who did not flee their homes sat idly
by as they watched Union troops burn their houses, steal their most prized possessions,
take all their food, kill their animals, free their slaves, disrupt their lives, disrespect and
humiliate them, and dishearten them. General Sherman, in his March to the Sea, had set
out to make Georgia howl. General Sherman, though inspiring hostility, did indeed
accomplish his goals; he wrecked the economy of Georgia and demonstrated that the
Confederacy could not protect its own people, thus crushing a faith in the Confederacy.
Gieger, Will. “Cherokee of the Sixty-Ninth North Carolina Regiment: Loyal to the Last.”
Thesis director, Dr. Paul Escott.
 Confederate nationalism within the United States Civil War was questionable and
remains disputed among contemporary historians today. Nationalism among the Eastern
Band of Cherokee, who fought for the Confederate States of America, is an even more
perplexing situation as the Cherokee were not white combatants. The Civil War was a
conflict primarily concerned with the concept of “race,” which makes the Eastern
Cherokee allegiance a rather curious circumstance. The scholar Gordon McKinney has
disputed Confederate nationalism among the Eastern Band of Cherokee, referring to the
Cherokee Confederate soldiers as “reluctant Confederates,”1 and Union President
Abraham Lincoln referred to western North Carolina, including its Cherokee inhabitants,
as a “loyal region.”2 In many ways, the seeds of Cherokee involvement in the Civil War
were sown before the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861.
Klein, Nathaniel. “The Use of Cinema as Propaganda in the Soviet Union during the Time of
Stalin.” Thesis director, Dr. Susan Z. Rupp.
 The Soviet state which took over from the Russian Provisional Government inherited a
very troubled country. The Bolsheviks were left with a war weary state still in a period
of uncertainty and aimlessness after the removal of the old tsarist government only
eighteen months before, in 1916. This new Soviet government professed the
revolutionary ideals of Marx and Engels and very quickly realized that in order to
maintain power they had to first and foremost satisfy the great masses of workers and
farmers that their party supposedly represented. One great leap towards this aim was the
end of Russian involvement in World War I. Beyond this point the Party had to use
propaganda to create unanimity, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for the extensive ideological
shift which the party was to implement in pursuit of Socialism. The party was already
very apt at using propaganda; they mastered the political art through their operations
leading up to the 1917 October Revolution. Vladimir Lenin, the party’s most influential
leader, led the way, firmly establishing and championing the use of agitation and
propaganda for political means. The main form of propaganda early in the young party’s
existence was newspapers and pamphlets such as, Pravda, a daily issued by the party.
From these humble beginnings, the party’s agitprop, a term which, in Lenin’s words,
encompasses the use of agitation towards mass persuasion and propaganda towards
opinion making, took off and was omnipresent in all mediums including entertainment,
education, and art. This tradition continued and even expanded after the death of Lenin
as even more state and party control was exerted over the production and regulation of
propaganda.
Lawlor, Emma. “A Step from the Test Tube or the Domain of the Wooden Plow? The State,
the Peasantry, and the Industrialization of Mexican Agriculture.” Thesis director, Dr. Simone M.
Caron.
 The Mexican Revolution was a period of exceptional political and social reform driven
primarily by peasant demands for land. As a result, the rural peasant became a celebrated
national symbol and the central target of revolutionary reform programs. Most notably,
President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) redistributed agricultural land to almost half of
rural Mexicans. Yet scholars debate what happened next. In 1940, President Manuel
Ávila Camacho (1940-1946) succeeded Cárdenas and restructured the national economy
toward reliance on industrial agriculture. Camacho overlooked the productive capacity of
Mexico’s peasant majority in order to foster development through increased production,
modern technology, and international trade. This paper challenges some scholars’
assertions that Camacho’s economic reorientation represented a counterrevolution in
which revolutionary ideals became inconsequential in the face of international
modernizing forces. The paper asserts that the peasantry factored into Camacho’s
agricultural policies as perceived beneficiaries and symbols of revolutionary legitimacy.
The paper traces continuity in such symbolism from the 1920s to the 1940s by examining
murals, periodicals, and presidential speeches. It charts a trend of presidents using the
image of a primitive peasant as a backdrop for highlighting the revolutionary progress
promised by their particular agricultural policies. Yet the paper also contends that such
symbolic constructions obscured the peasantry’s true social and economic importance. As
the industrialization of agriculture led to the uprooting of peasant societies, Mexico lost
access to a variety of valuable services in terms of stability and social welfare that an
agricultural sector sustained by peasants, not science and capitalism, had provided.
McAbbe, Katie. “Uncovering Abraham Lincoln’s Actual Views on Race and Slavery.” Thesis
director, Dr. Paul Escott.
 W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1922, “We love to think of the Great as flawless. We yearn in
our imperfection toward Perfection—sinful, we envisage Righteousness. As a result of
this, no sooner does a great man die than we begin to whitewash him. We seek to forget
all that was small and mean and unpleasant and remember the fine and brave and good.
We slur over and explain away his inconsistencies and at last there begins to appear, not
the real man, but the tradition of the man—remote, immense, perfect, cold, and dead!”
Since the Civil War, the legacy of Abraham Lincoln has become that of a deified
American hero. Although many dogmatically deem Lincoln to be not merely savior of
the Union but also egalitarian Great Emancipator of the slaves, many of his speeches and
writings dispel this iconic myth. Even though Lincoln was the emancipator of the slaves,
the fabled egalitarian quality of the Great Emancipator is not a factual attribute of the
famous President. In contrast to this admired egalitarian persona, some historical texts
offer a much more provocative, yet realistic, image of Lincoln. These texts, which
clearly reveal Lincoln’s racist views against blacks and confirm his strong support for
colonization, are often quite disappointing to the modern reader. In addition, many of
Lincoln’s political positions regarding slavery and blacks, and much of the reasoning
behind Lincoln’s decisions, were not as idealistic as some suppose, further unhinging the
egalitarian myth.
Moody, John. Thesis director, Dr. Jeff Lerner.
 Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) rose to power under mysterious circumstances in
336 BCE. While his reign included the conquest of an empire and a legacy as one of the
greatest rulers of all time, his ascension to the throne has often been debated by scholars
both past and present. Conjecture runs rampant, and suspicions abound of foul play, but
proof is in short supply. One cannot accept the words of our few “primary sources”,
Justin, Plutarch, Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and Diodorus Siculus, as purely true for
they were written hundreds of years after Alexander lived and have been colored by
prejudice, legacy and knowledge. Alexander became king when his father, Philip II (382336 BCE) was struck down by an assassin at the wedding of his daughter, Cleopatra.
Though the assassin himself is easily identified, there is much mystery as to whether he
acted alone or with help. It seems reasonable to wonder whether the one who benefited
most from Philip’s death had some hand in it. Further complicating the situation is the
fact that Philip had recently remarried a younger woman (also named Cleopatra), thus
alienating his wife and the mother of Alexander, Olympias. There were a number of
issues at hand between Alexander and Philip. Alexander was afraid of losing his position
as heir to the throne when Philip remarried and a passionate argument between the two at
a banquet resulted in Philip drunkenly attacking his son and Alexander leaving the
country for a period of time. In addition, tt is possible that Alexander was already
conscious of his legacy and as his father’s successes grew, his dwindling chances to
become a legend himself. This desperate jealousy, combined with Olympias’s goading,
may have been enough to push Alexander to move against his father. Although there is
not enough proof to convict Alexander posthumously, the evidence suggests that there
was a conspiracy to murder Philip II led by Olympias and that Alexander had knowledge
of it.
Nicodemus, Anna. “Prudential Unionism: Southern Sentiment, Unionist Reasoning, and
Maryland’s Allegiance in Early 1861. Thesis director, Dr. Paul Escott.
 In April of 1861, crowds of Marylanders rioted in the streets of Baltimore and citizens
across the state endorsed secession. Maryland did not secede, however, and secession
fervor died down within days of the Pratt Street riot. Some historians claim that
Maryland’s adherence to the Union was forced by federal intervention, while others
discount the state’s secession faction and argue that Maryland was always solidly proUnion. This paper asserts that Maryland chose to remain in the Union not for ideological
but for pragmatic reasons: though they often disagreed with federal policies, Marylanders
ultimately rejected secession as economically, militarily, and politically unfeasible.
Peruccio, Kara. “Big Screen, Little Boxes: Hollywood Representations of the Suburban
Housewife, 1960-1975.” Thesis director, Dr. Simone M. Caron.
 This paper explores the depictions of white, middle class suburban housewives in
Hollywood films produced between 1960 and 1975. Following the post World War II
flight from the city to the suburbs, Hollywood frequently produced films representing life
in the suburbs during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The female roles restricted actresses
to playing sweet, feminine housewives, often lacking interests outside the home. The
publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963 provided at least one
forum for a discussion of the middle-class housewife’s inner secrets: boredom,
disappointment and loneliness. Studios, however, ignored new gender developments in
society until 1967 when some movies started to portray housewives rebelling against
their suburban surroundings: women having affairs, seeking therapy (whether with a
psychiatrist or a bottle of vodka) and sometimes mentally breaking down. Films
attempted to articulate women’s frustrations but often failed to provide prescriptions for
the housewives’ turmoil. By the mid-1970s, some movies openly discussed feminist
goals and issues, presenting women’s concerns to a wide audience. These changes
culminated in 1975 when The Stepford Wives infuriated feminists and signaled the
decline of housewife-focused films. These suburban stories faded into the background of
Hollywood despite enjoying financial and critical successes. From 1960 to 1975,
Hollywood belatedly tried to address the issues and concerns of the suburban housewife
by breaking away from stereotypes perpetuated in earlier domestic humor roles but
ultimately forced these women into suburban boxes. The films viewed are: Please Don’t
Eat the Daisies (1960), The Thrill of It All (1963), Send Me No Flowers (1964), The
Graduate (1967), Divorce American Style (1967), Yours, Mine & Ours (1968), The
Happy Ending (1969), A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and The Stepford Wives
(1975).
Smith, RI. “Rethinking Proskynesis: The Understated Role of Anaxarchus.” Thesis director, Dr.
Jeff Lerner.
 This thesis discusses the role of Anazarchus, a Greek sophist, during Alexander the
Great’s introduction of Proskynesis and the combining of the Persian and Macedonian
courts. Following the completion of the conquest of the Persian Empire in 329 BCE,
Alexander sought to solidify his Empire’s chain of command and bureaucracy. Faced
with the task of integrating the bureaucracy of the old Persian Empire with his army and
Asian empire, Alexander attempted to use Proskynesis, a Persian custom that involved
either full prostration or a partial bow, to create a uniform procedure that could legitimize
a Persian presence in his previously fully Macedonian court. However, Proskynesis was
also known among the Greeks and Macedonians, who believed the practice to be fit only
for a god. As Alexender lacked the rhetorical skill and the philosophical background to
convince the Macedonians to adopt the act, he turned to his sophists -- philosophers and
rhetoricians -- in order to ensure a calm and successful introduction. Chief among these
sophists was Anaxarchus, who Alexander had recently come to trust due to his advice
during a time of crisis. Anaxarchus used this opportunity not to give Alexander advice
that would soothe the Macedonians, but to advance his own agenda. Anaxarchus targeted
Callisthenes, his main rival for influence in the sophists, as he represented the primary
obstacle to teaching his own philosophy and to gaining more influence over Alexander.
Anaxarchus and his followers, the Flatterers, targeted Calleisthenes’ uncouth reactions
and propensity to anger when matters he found objectional were aired. During symposia,
where Proskynesis was to be introduced, Anaxarchus used his introduction of the act to
provoke Callisthenes into an angry tirade, which greatly angered Alexander. Anaxarchus
and the Flatters continued to provoke Callisthenes over the period of several months, with
several notable events that led to Alexander’s anger slowly increasing until it became
actionable. In the spring of 328 BCE, a conspiracy among the Pages, young men being
groomed to be the heirs to Alexander’s empire, was discovered. Callisthenes, the tutor of
these Pages, was indicted for a claimed involvement and executed soon after.
Traditionally historians such as Eugen Borza and TS Brown have denigrated the role of
Anaxarchus and claimed that he, in fact, played an insignificant role in the death of
Callisthenes. This paper explores evidence in the primary sources for Anaxarchus’
involvement and motivations as well as discusses evidence and alternative theories
presented by secondary sources.
Velarde, Melissa. “Poverty and Politics: Polemics and Programs in Mexico and the United
States.” Thesis director, Dr. Emily Wakild.
 In the mid-twentieth century, American anthropologist Oscar Lewis developed the
groundbreaking “culture of poverty” theory while working in Mexico. He argued that
families living in poverty often develop a subculture, which entraps future generations in
poverty. Lewis further postulated that the culture of poverty is universal and thus found
not only in Mexico, but also in the United States. Lewis’s theory recognizes the
complexity and universality of poverty and encourages anti-poverty programs to delve
into poverty’s root causes. Under his theory, any anti-poverty program that simply
provides monetary assistance, but does not strive for a change in culture, can only
achieve limited and temporary success. This paper addresses Oscar Lewis’s influence on
poverty polemics and programs. The paper examines how Mexico and the United States
received Lewis’s work and the impact of his theory in both countries. The paper argues
that although criticized in Mexico, Lewis’s theory eventually sparked an intellectual
debate that opened up a public forum on the issue of poverty. Yet, the paper contends
that Oscar Lewis’s culture of poverty theory influenced the United States much more
directly than it did Mexico. Oscar Lewis’s work served as part of the theoretical
backbone of the War on Poverty in the United States during the 1960s and early 1970s.
The paper asserts, however, that Daniel P. Moynihan, an advisor to President Lyndon B.
Johnson and chief strategist of the War on Poverty programs, manipulated Lewis’s theory.
Moynihan misapplied the culture of poverty theory by narrowing the theory to focus on
race and family structure. The paper shows how Moynihan’s theories at times influenced
President Johnson’s rhetoric and speeches on poverty. Although begun with great
intentions, the War on Poverty, similar to so many other wars against a strong opponent,
fell short of expectations and goals. The paper considers whether, despite this failure,
there remains any validity to Lewis’s theory that could be useful in designing antipoverty programs today.
Wood, Margaret. “‘We Called Ourselves ‘Revolutionaries’’: Remembering Integration at
Wake Forest University.” Thesis director, Dr. Michele Gillespie.
 In the summer of 1962, Edward Reynolds, a young native of Ghana, stepped onto the
campus of Wake Forest College. Reynolds had been brought to Wake Forest College in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina by the African Student Project, an initiative of the
Baptist Student Union which was determined to find the appropriate first black candidate
for admission to the college. Before Reynolds’s admission, Wake Forest College, like
most private colleges in the South, had had a tradition of racial discrimination against
applicants. The student-led effort to bring the first black student to campus had been
sparked by the February 1, 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina sit-in, which drew national
attention to the African-American struggle for civil rights. The Greensboro sit-in
prompted ten Wake Forest students to join Winston-Salem Teachers College (WSTC)
students in a sit-in at Winston-Salem’s own Woolworth counter. Wake Forest students
who participated in this civil rights activism subsequently realized the hypocrisy of
attending a college reserved for whites only. Even more so, they realized the
contradiction in attending a Christian school that did not promote brotherhood in Christ.
Charles Osolin, student writer for Wake Forest’s Old Gold and Black newspaper,
commented when the college finally integrated: “No longer will we be compelled to live
under the shadow of segregation. No longer will Wake Forest students participating in
sit-ins be met with cries of 'clean up your own back yard first.' No longer must we admit
to being a Christian college which does not accept fully the principles upon which it was
founded.” This would have been a handsome ending, but the story did not end here, nor
was it always scrupulous. While Wake Forest was the first major Southern, private
college to integrate, it was by no means the first or most-remembered integration. Many
people recall the integration of large public universities like the University of Mississippi
or the University of Alabama where violent white protests caused President John F.
Kennedy to send in the U.S. Military to enforce desegregation. Yet these are extreme
cases inconsistent with most Southern school integrations. Tulane University, Duke
University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Rice University, and Mercer
University provide more characteristic examples of integration at private Southern
colleges. In this paper, I will scrutinize the impetuses behind the federally-mandated
desegregation at the University of Georgia, the integrations at Tulane, Duke, Emory,
Vanderbilt, and Rice as prominent, private Southern colleges, and the parallel
motivations of Wake Forest’s sister Baptist institution, Mercer. The connections between
Wake Forest University, the University of Georgia, Tulane University, Duke University,
Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Rice University, and Mercer University are
evidence of a network of influence among all Southern schools as pressure to integrate
climaxed in the 1960’s. Examinations of these schools’ integrations will offer helpful
context for understanding Wake Forest’s integration in the larger matter of integration in
higher education.