'Feeding Dreams' | Undergraduate Honors Thesis
Spring 2014 | Thesis adviser: Chad Stevens | Honors level: With Highest Honors
'Feeding Dreams:' Influences and Implications of Documenting Food Insecurity
by Mary Stevens '14
This thesis studies various documentary portrayals of American food insecurity and hunger, discussing the effectiveness of the storytelling and the values used in conveying the sentiments and experiences that people in low-income families face in relation to food insecurity. It discusses the social implications a documentary portrayal can have on a viewer’s perception of poverty and acts as a companion piece to the original short documentary “Feeding Dreams.” The video follows a food insecure family in central North Carolina and explores the generational cycle of poverty, despite the children’s naïveté of their family’s low-income status.
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Many Honors Carolina students cap their undergraduate experience with a Senior Honors Thesis, partnering with a faculty mentor to develop original research or creative work. Students who successfully defend their thesis before a faculty review panel graduate with Honors or Highest Honors. Each year, approximately 350 students complete a Senior Honors Thesis. For many of those students, the thesis becomes a first publication or an important part of their application to graduate or professional school. Students who wish to undertake a Senior Honors Thesis project must have a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or higher. Academic departments may set higher thresholds for course work within students’ major field of study.
All Senior Honors Theses can be found in the Carolina Digital Repository (CDR).