Celebrating the Class of 2021’s Capstones
By Alice Asch ‘22
The Words would like to take a moment to celebrate the graduating class of 2021’s magnificent capstones. As the culminating experience of an English major, these projects are impressive accomplishments in any year. For this group of students, however, finishing their capstones proved an especially daunting task: not only did they work amidst the backdrop of a pandemic, but they completed their projects in seven-week modules, rather than full semesters.
If you’d like to see samples of student work, feel free to visit our Capstone Showcase. Listed below, you can find the titles of students’ final projects, grouped by course. We applaud our English majors!
Literature Capstones
ENGL 400-01, Seminar: Special Topics in Literary Studies
With Professor Amy Elkins, Fall 2020, Module 2
“Pa’lante: The Poetics of Hope in the Puerto Rican Literary Diaspora”
“Wild Women: Intersectional Trauma and the Environment”
“Isolation and the Natural World”
“Prison Poetry”
“Evolution and Progress in Adaptation: Disability in Dororo”
ENGL 401-01, Projects in Literary Research
With Professor Penelope Geng, Spring 2021, Module 3
“Prophetic Players: How Language Likens Two Kingships in Shakespeare’s Richard II”
“A Reparative, Queer Reading + Adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
“The Sea as a Repository in Olaudah Equiano’s narrative and M. NourbeSe Phillip’s Zong!”
“A Genuine New Departure: Elaborating Postcolonial Cultural Production in Frantz Fanon’s Peau noir, masques blancs”
“Redeeming Goneril and Regan: Gender Labor in King Lear”
“Reforming 16th Century Protestantism: Religion, Rebellion, and Social Hierarchy in King Lear”
“A Note on Vaseline: Theorizing Raw Sex, HIV, and Black Gay Sexual Subjectivity in Don’t Call Us Dead“
“At the Center of the Spider’s Web: Throne of Blood and Indigenization”
“Romeo and Juliet Ballet Adaptations”
“A Clear and Present Danger: Queer Kink Crip Positionalities and Temporalities in Shakespeare’s Macbeth”
“Fine Eyes and Forbidden Lovers: Exploring Sexuality and Intimacy in Contemporary Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice”
“Mothers, Murder, and Meeds: Unearthing Indigeneity in The Kalevala and Beowulf“
Creative Writing Capstones
ENGL 494-01, A New Decameron: Fictions and Nonfictions
With Professor Marlon James, Fall 2020, Module 1
“three days in inpatient”
content warning: suicide attempt, rape mention, substance references, self-harm mention
“The Desolation of Laketown”
“Shamuna”
“Dishes”
Title: Pending
ENGL 406-01, Projects in Creative Writing
With Professor Michael Prior, Spring 2021, Module 4
“They’re Just Like Us! essays, more or less”
“Nohelia”
“What Will Not Sink Will Push Against the Sea”
“Georgiana of the Earth”
“Testimonies of a Triplet”
“Where and When I’ve Been So Far”
Title: Pending
We would also like to celebrate Albert Lee 21’s capstone, completed last school year, in 2020:
“線TENSE (pronounced “sentence”): A Poetic Peregrination of Japanese Imperial Postmemory and Korean Diasporic Intimacy in a Nuclearized Sinosphere”