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Item Open Access Sonic Lattices: Sampling as Historiography in Hip-Hop, 1973-1998(Memphis, Tenn. : Rhodes College, 2026)This honors thesis argues that sampling in hip-hop functions as a form of historiography, serving as a sonic practice that preserves, reinterprets, and transmits Black historical experience. Emerging in the South Bronx during the 1970s amid urban decline and systemic racism, sampling reworks fragments of earlier Black musical traditions into new compositions that connect past and present. Drawing on the concept of rupture, the study examines how artists from the 1970s through the 1990s—including Public Enemy, N.W.A., Dr. Dre, and Lauryn Hill—use sampling to respond to historical and ongoing disruptions such as slavery’s afterlives, policing, and mass incarceration. Through practices of placemaking, oral archiving, lineage-building, and narrative construction, sampling becomes a counter-archival method that reassembles cultural memory and asserts historical agency, producing layered musical texts that function simultaneously as historical record, political critique, and forms of resistance.Item Open Access The Impact of Peer Context on Structural and Social-Cognitive Features in Children's Narratives(Memphis, Tenn. : Rhodes College, 2026)This honors thesis examines how social context influences the structural and social-cognitive features of young children’s narratives, with a focus on peer-based storytelling environments. Using a mixed-methods design, the study compares narratives produced by Black/African American preschoolers in individual adult-led assessments and peer-mediated story-sharing circles. Children responded to emotion-based prompts, and their narratives were analyzed for structural elements (e.g., openings, settings, resolutions) and social-cognitive features (e.g., mental state language, evaluative comments, dialogue). Quantitative findings indicate that peer-based contexts elicited longer, more structurally complete stories and significantly greater use of social-cognitive language, particularly by the second round of storytelling circles. Qualitative analyses further reveal that dialogue in peer settings was more varied, complex, and functionally rich, often used to express perspective, negotiate meaning, and regulate emotions. The findings support sociocultural theories of development, suggesting that storytelling is a socially situated practice and that peer interaction provides culturally sustaining conditions that better reveal and support children’s narrative and social-cognitive competencies than traditional one-on-one assessments.Item Open Access Exploring Student Adaptability to Various Conceptions of Difference in Calculus(Memphis, Tenn. : Rhodes College, 2026)This honors thesis investigates how undergraduate students understand and adapt to multiple conceptions of subtraction within calculus contexts. Drawing on prior research identifying four models of subtraction—magnitude, takeaway-values, takeaway-segments, and translation—the study examines how precalculus and elementary education students represent differences across number line and function-based tasks. Using surveys and exploratory teaching interviews, the research analyzes how students interpret subtraction in increasingly complex mathematical settings, including difference quotients, function transformations, and area comparisons. Findings reveal that students most often rely on a takeaway-values conception rooted in early mathematical instruction, even when other models are more appropriate, and frequently adjust rather than fully switch representations. The study highlights a tension between procedural memorization and conceptual understanding, showing that students struggle to connect symbolic expressions with graphical meaning in calculus. Ultimately, the thesis argues for more flexible, multi-representational teaching approaches to subtraction in order to support deeper understanding of foundational calculus concepts.Item Open Access “Motherlove was a killer:” Examining Patterns of Violence between Mothers and Children in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sula, and A Mercy(Memphis, Tenn. : Rhodes College, 2026)This honors thesis analyzes patterns of violence in mother–child relationships in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Sula, and A Mercy, arguing that Morrison presents maternal violence as intertwined with expressions of love, protection, and survival. Through close readings, the study traces how physical and emotional violence is shaped by systems of racial oppression, enslavement, and gender inequality, and how these acts reverberate across generations. Morrison challenges conventional moral frameworks by encouraging readers to suspend judgment and instead understand maternal actions within their oppressive contexts. Ultimately, the thesis demonstrates that Morrison redefines motherhood as a site of moral ambiguity, where violence may function both destructively and as an assertion of care and agency, complicating traditional interpretations of ethics and maternal responsibility in African American literature.Item Open Access Exploring the Criteria for Artificial Consciousness: Implementing and Evaluating Agentic Software Systems in Virtual Environments(Memphis, Tenn. : Rhodes College, 2026)This honors thesis investigates the possibility of artificial consciousness in software agents by evaluating and implementing systems based on a set of proposed “indicator properties” derived from neuroscientific theories of consciousness. The study analyzes contemporary reinforcement learning algorithms to determine which properties they satisfy, compares their behavioral performance, and explores both bottom-up and top-down approaches to designing conscious-like systems, including modifications to existing models and the use of the LIDA cognitive architecture. Findings reveal a significant gap between theoretical criteria for consciousness and their practical realization in computational systems, as agents that satisfy more indicator properties do not necessarily perform better in task-oriented environments. The project concludes that while the indicator property framework offers a promising structure for evaluating artificial consciousness, it remains difficult to operationalize and requires further refinement to be practically useful in AI development.
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