All Global Liberal Studies (GLS) seniors complete a thesis that incorporates a global issue of contemporary importance with their experiences studying at one or more of NYU’s international academic centers. At the end of the year, GLS seniors present their work at the Senior Thesis Showcase, taking questions on their theses in small roundtable discussion groups that include fellow students, LS faculty, and LS advisors and staff. This Showcase is a capstone event to the academic year.
GLS Senior Showcase & Awards
The GLS Senior Thesis Awards recognize outstanding achievement in GLS student scholarship and creative work. Each GLS concentration selects a Best Scholarly Thesis winner and, in concentrations where creative theses are permitted, a Best Creative Thesis winner within the concentration. Concentrations may select up to two Honorable Mentions in each category. The Best Overall Scholarly Thesis Award and the Best Overall Creative Thesis Award in each concentration come with a monetary prize.
Below are examples of recent award-winning student theses composed by GLS seniors in each concentration.
Class of 2023 • Class of 2022 • Class of 2021 • Class of 2020 • Class of 2019 • Class of 2018
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Art, Text and Media
ATM Best Thesis:
A'yla James: Saint to Slut: The Representation of Sex Workers in Art
(Thesis Director: Lindsay Davies)
ATM Honorable Mention:
Hailey Fawk: There Are No Rules: Exploring the Shifting Landscape of Pop Music
(Thesis Director: Lindsay Davies)
Critical Creative Production
CCP Best Thesis:
Justin Racine: SkyDive: A Black Cosmpolitan’s Story in Sound
(Thesis Director: Suzanne Menghraj)
CCP Honorable Mention:
Victoria Maung: Behind the Outlet Mall: On Consumption, Global Capitalism, and Parking Lots
(Thesis Director: Jessamyn Hatcher)
Honorable Mention:
Angelicia Ochoa-Rivera: Nightwalking: An Experimental Documentary
(Thesis Director: Jessamyn Hatcher)
Cultural and Social Identities
CSI Best Thesis:
Tse-Huey Melinda Yeh: Space and Solidarity among Women Loving Women: Practicing Mixité Choisie in Paris
(Thesis Director:Mitra Rastegar )
Law, Ethics, History and Religion
LEHR Best Thesis:
Mackenna Vickery: “Blackstone, Coke, Hale and the Like”: The Problem of Precedent in the Dobbs v. Jackson History of Abortion
(Thesis Director: Peter Valenti)
Honorable Mentions:
Drea Giacomini: “Our” Violence, “Their” Violence: A Comparison of Mainstream US Journalistic Coverage of the 2021 “Israel-Gaza War” and Russia-Ukraine War
(Thesis Director: Peter Valenti)
Cristina Teresa Kovalik: Paradigm Lost? Exploring Earth Jurisprudence in Bolivia
(Thesis Director: Regina Gramer)
Politics, Rights and Development
PRD Best Thesis:
Hannah Louise Gallacher: The Orangutan vs Palm Oil: An Analysis on the Complexities of a Global Product Threatening Biodiversity
(Thesis Director: Roxana Juliá)
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
Katherine Emma Gross: Cultural Clichés and the Cleo-Craze: How did Great Britain use propaganda between 1882 and 1922 to influence British public opinion to support their annexation of Egypt
(Thesis Director: Brendan Hogan)
Karolina Walczyk: European Union in Jeopardy? The Effect of Polish Membership on the European Union
(Thesis Director: Peter Diamond)
Sustainability, Health, and the Environment
Best SHE Thesis:
Briana N. Lee Bazile: ‘Dispossession, Development, Diversion, and Deliverance: Food Regime Analysis Through the Lens of Black American Black Belt Alabamians’
(Thesis Director: Genia Naro-Maciel)
Honorable Mention:
Abigail Brachio: ‘Pandemic Prevention Paradigm: Utilizing Community Health Workers for Communicable Disease Response Efforts in Low-Resource, High-Density Areas’
(Thesis Director: Genia Naro-Maciel)
Class of 2022
Overall Best Thesis
Scholarly Thesis Awards
Winner, Overall Best Scholarly Thesis
Maura Grace Durkin
"Made in Italy by China: Human Impacts of Globalization on Modern Garment Production in Prato"
Concentration: Sustainability, Health, and the Environment
Overall Best Scholarly Thesis Honorable Mention
Anaís Cezanné Caro-Rosario
"'Get Your Own Stuff’: The Colonial Canon and the Subversive Art of Appropriation"
Concentration: Art, Text and Media
Overall Best Scholarly Thesis Honorable Mention
Luna Vassão
"A Raindrop in a Raging Fire?: Soft Power as a Tool for Japan-South Korea Reconciliation"
Concentration: Politics, Rights and Development
Creative Thesis Awards
Winner, Overall Best Creative Thesis
Kayko Donald
"My Mother, Mary: A Documentary Film Capturing a Story and Spirit of Liberty, Revolution, and Migration"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Overall Best Creative Thesis Honorable Mention
Chisom Enelamah
"She Was Not Buried But Planted"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Overall Best Creative Thesis Honorable Mention
Lucas Alexander Harris
"HYPERSPACE, ‘Graduation,' SF/FW 22"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Art, Text and Media
ATM Best Thesis
Anaís Cezanné Caro-Rosario
"'Get Your Own Stuff’: The Colonial Canon and the Subversive Art of Appropriation"
ATM Honorable Mention
Madison Choi-Xing Cheng-Trpisovsky
"Spheres of Influence: Style, Celebrity Culture, and the Development of the Fashion Influencer"
ATM Honorable Mention
Suraya Ali
"The Consciousness of Color: Race in American, Mexican, and Brazilian Cinema"
Critical Creative Production
Creative Thesis Awards
CCP Best Thesis
Kayko Donald
"My Mother, Mary: A Documentary Film Capturing a Story and Spirit of Liberty, Revolution, and Migration"
CCP Honorable Mention
Chisom Enelamah
"She Was Not Buried But Planted"
CCP Honorable Mention
Lucas Alexander Harris
"HYPERSPACE, ‘Graduation,' SF/FW 22"
Scholarly Thesis Awards
CCP Best Thesis
Tomina Tang
"Translating Eileen Chang’s 'The Jasmine Tea': Interpreting Culture Through Translation"
CCP Honorable Mention
Hadley Crow
"A Sublime Portrait: An Explorative Translation of Sublime Theory Through Art and Design"
CCP Honorable Mention
Soraya Garcia
"Ritmos sin Fronteras: Música Cubana en Madrid"
Cultural and Social Identities
CSI Best Thesis
Perrin O. Brunet
"Queer Constellations in the Big Easy: Making Space in New Orleans"
CSI Honorable Mention
Rachel Moorman-Minton
"Social Hygiene, the Ecophobic Unconscious, and Memory in the Reserva Ecológia Costanera Sur and Freshkills Park"
Law, Ethics, History and Religion
LEHR Best Thesis
Natacha Kozmann
Our Morals are Worth More Than Donated Dollars: Is Singer’s Solution to the Problem of Absolute Poverty the Best Solution?
LEHR Honorable Mention
Diyaree Nath
"Subject and Reality: Religious Metaphysics and a Critique of Lacanian Theory"
Politics, Rights and Development
PRD Best Thesis
Luna Vassão
"A Raindrop in a Raging Fire?: Soft Power as a Tool for Japan-South Korea Reconciliation"
PRD Honorable Mention
Reese Jessup
"Politics & the Patriarchy: The Slow Road to Protecting Women"
PRD Honorable Mention
Anna Hackel
"Due Process Denied: The U.S. Immigration System and Unaccompanied Minors"
Sustainability, Health, and the Environment
SHE Best Thesis
Maura Grace Durkin
"Made in Italy by China: Human Impacts of Globalization on Modern Garment Production in Prato"
SHE Honorable Mention
Samantha Dady
"The Blueprints to Our Climate Future are in Their Hands: A Metamodernist Analysis of Lebanese Youth Activism on Instagram"
SHE Honorable Mention
Devin Speak
"Modeling Sustainable Disaster Mitigation and Recovery: A Case-Study of Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria"
Class of 2021
Winner, Overall Best Scholarly Thesis: Felicia Nara
"Naming Chinese America: Personal Names as Signifiers of Identity Construction among Chinese Americans"
Concentration: Cultural and Social Identities
Overall Best Scholarly Thesis Honorable Mention: Lola Michel-Infante
"Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Operations: How Restorative Justice Can Strengthen the UN’s Response"
Concentration: Politics, Rights and Development
Winner, Overall Best Creative Thesis: Clara Hillis
"Translating Diaspora: Postcolonial Stories from Contemporary Italy"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Overall Best Creative Thesis Honorable Mention: Hasan Halai
"Zahida Parveen: A Portrait of a Home-Based Worker"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Miriam (Mimi) Urízar-Ávila
"Reframing Queer and Inclusive Language in Spanish: Challenging Ideologies and Affirming Queerness in Language as a Decolonial Tool"
Concentration: Art, Text and Media
Madelena Caron
"Fade to Grey: Post-Punk and Lost Modernist Futures"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Kate Porterfield
"Playing God: Analyzing the Bioethics of Triage in the Face of the Climate Crisis through the Lens of Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake"
Concentration: Law, Ethics, History and Religion
Class of 2020
Winner, Best Overall Thesis: Abigail Luo
“Queering University Spaces: A Visual-Linguistic Comparison of French and English in Producing Socio-Cultural Inclusivity”
Concentration: Cultural and Social Identities
Honorable Mention, Best Overall Thesis: Lola Granger-Jourdan
"Matadero: Salamone's Slaughterhouse Architecture"
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Ruby Jean Dudasik
“Monstrosity and Motherhood: Visions of the Terrible Mother”
Concentration: Art, Text and Media
Lily Li
“Action of the Flower: Understanding Victim-Impact Statements in the Context of Legal Interpretivism and Restorative Justice”
Concentration: Law, Ethics, History and Religion
Isabelle Caraluzzi
"Cultiver Son Jardin: Evaluating the Alternative Agrifood Movement in Post-Colonial Martinique"
Concentration: Politics, Rights and Development
Winner, GLS Portfolio Prize: Joan Kivuze Mukogosi
Honorable Mention, GLS Portfolio Prize: Brock Hislop
Class of 2019
Winner, Best Overall Thesis: Jesús Ian Kumamoto
Homosexuality with Chinese Characteristics: Constructing Gay Identity and Queer Space in Urban China
Global Academic Center: NYU Shanghai
Concentration: Cultural and Social Identities
Honorable Mention, Best Overall Thesis: Michael Leonetti
Turning Away Our Neighbors: Critiquing U.S. Policy Towards Latin American and Caribbean LGBTQ+ Asylum Seekers
Global Academic Center: NYU Washington, DC and Madrid
Concentration: Politics, Rights, and Development
Kashif Azam
The Cryptostate: A Response to the Failure of Governance in our Contemporary Era
Global Academic Center: NYU New York
Concentration: Law, Ethics, and Religion
Siya Bahal
Unsafe Spaces
Global Academic Center: NYU New York
Concentration: Critical Creative Production
Mari Ōtsu
Restoring Integrity: How Artistic Processes Initiate Therapeutic Transformations
Global Academic Center: NYU Paris
Concentration: Art, Text, and Media
Class of 2018
Winner, Best Overall Thesis: Yu-Chen Eathan Lai
Tongue-Tied Taiwan: Linguistic Diversity and Imagined Identities at the Crossroads of Colonial East Asia
Global Academic Center: NYU Paris
Concentration: Cultural and Social Identities
Honorable Mention, Best Overall Thesis: Mathilde Pierre
Weak Judicial Systems and Systematic Sexual Violence against Women and Girls: The Socially Constructed Vulnerability of Female Bodies in Haiti
Global Academic Center: NYU Paris
Concentration: Politics, Rights, and Development
Melinda Chen
Rape in the United States and Taiwan: Cultural Constructions in the (Re)Making of a Self
Global Academic Center: NYU Shanghai
Concentration: Law, Ethics, and Religion
Jane Joo Hyeon Lee
Art and Activism: Exploring the Shifting Roles of Visual Art through Representations of the “Comfort Women”
Global Academic Center: NYU Paris
Concentration: Art, Text, and Media
Annie LeFevre
Fieldwork in Zineography
Global Academic Center: NYU Paris
Concentration: Critical Creative Production