Prior Honors Students
Below is a listing of our prior honors students and the awards they won to support their research for their thesis.
DR. TIMOTHY GRAHAM | CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2024 | GRADUATED 2024 WITH HONORS
Alex I. Hunt "The Evolution of the Codex"
My thesis discusses the technological developments that affected the ways in which the recording of the written word evolved from around 3200 BCE until the origins of printing with movable type in the fifteenth century CE. The thesis breaks down into three chapters, with each chapter examining three to four topics. I begin by looking at ancient writing supports, including clay tablets, wooden wax tablets, and Chinese bamboo and silk codices, as well as the stylus and quill pen as writing instruments. I then move on to consider the successful use of papyrus, parchment, and paper as supports. Finally, my third chapter looks at techniques of codex construction in the manuscript era, at block printing in both the East and the West, and at the development of the printing press in fifteenth-century Europe. I conclude by reverse-engineering the codex, deconstructing the different elements that fed into its production.
DR. TIMOTHY GRAHAM | CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2022 | GRADUATED 2022 WITH HONORS
Jackie Truitt "An Exploration of Nordic Food Culture of the Viking Age"
My thesis draws on textual, archaeological, and media evidence to explore the typical diet of the Viking Age, how eating and drinking were utilized as social activities in medieval Scandinavia, and what has become of “Viking” and Nordic cuisine in modern culture. Food is a great and delicious unifier, connecting diners with cultures both familiar and novel, whether in the past or present. I investigate how food culture encompasses many varied attributes, including a people’s relationship with food through their connection with nature, regional subsistence patterns, the preparation and consumption of a wide variety of ingredients and meals, the connections that food establishes within small and large community circles, and the potential tie to ritualistic components and mythological or religious beliefs. Food culture of the Nordic region during the Viking Age has often been represented from stereotypical viewpoints, without sufficient portrayals of the rich and diverse customs that surrounded it. My thesis seeks to rectify that.
DR. MICHAEL A. RYAN | CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2021 | GRADUATED 2020 WITH HONORS
Hero Morrison "Gender Fluidity in Viking Magic:Seiðr in Icelandic Tradition."
DR. LUIS HERRAN-AVILA | CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2021 | GRADUATED 2020 WITH HONORS
Alice Herla "Incaism and the Andean Utopia: Examining the Role of Mythological Past in Social and Political Mobilization,"
| CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2021 | GRADUATED 2020 WITH HONORS
Benjamin Yocco “Political Repression and COINTELPRO.”
| CONLON-DEMAS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FUND IN HISTORY 2018 | GRADUATED 2019
Sean Summer
Dr. Caleb Richardson| CONLON-DEMAS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FUND IN HISTORY 2017 | GRADUATED 2017 WITH HONORS
Louis Bernal "Religious Ties among Late Medieval English Laity."
Dr. Caleb Richardson | CONLON-DEMAS UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FUND IN HISTORY 2017 | GRADUATED 2017 WITH HONORS
Daniel Bidal "The Wars of the Roses"
Dr. Campos| CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2016 | GRADUATED 2016 WITH HONORS
Casey Dowling "Secrecy and Espionage in WWII and the Cold War"
Dr. Tiffany Florvil| CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2016 | GRADUATED 2016 WITH HONORS
Emily Briggs "Prostitution in 19th Century London and Paris"
Dr. Timothy Graham| |2016
Bryna Milligan "Culinary Attitudes in Early Medieval Northern Europe: Traditions, Customs, and Influences”
My thesis examines food customs in northern Europe and the British Isles during the early medieval period, and contains three chapters organized thematically. The first chapter focuses on the basics of agricultural practices in Anglo-Saxon England, and relies heavily on Debby Banham and Rosamond Faith’s Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming, which was newly published at the time. The second chapter examines attitudes towards food and drink and the influences of Germanic custom, Church doctrine, and classical theory. The third chapter focuses on changes to all aspects of food and eating during the twelfth century, through the lens of disruptions caused by the Crusades. This survey ties together things I learned in my lectures with new discoveries from my independent study. It provided invaluable training for my subsequent Master’s dissertation.
Dr. Timothy Graham|CHARLES E. COAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2016| Graduated 2014
Bronwyn Schell “Women and Power in the Viking World”
Dr. Timothy Graham|| Graduated 2014
Robert Esquibel “Anglo-Saxon Influences on the United States: How Anglo-Saxon Laws, Society, and Language Impacted, Informed, and Shaped the United States of America.”
My Honors thesis explores how early English culture influenced a key figure of the American Revolution. The founding fathers of the United States, particularly Thomas Jefferson, looked to the example of Anglo-Saxon England to help them create and shape their new country. Jefferson studied the laws of Anglo-Saxon England intensively, with the goal of establishing the United States upon the basis of Anglo-Saxon law and social structure. He also advocated for the teaching of the Old English language in schools, especially in the University of Virginia, believing that principles of freedom and self-governance could be absorbed through study of texts written in Old English.
