Each year, starting in the fall and continuing well into the spring, the seniors of Thomas Aquinas College labor to create what will be the culmination of their four years of academic efforts — the senior thesis. Based on a subject of each student’s own choosing, and drawing from the College’s classical curriculum, the thesis represents its author’s effort to apply his or her education to a matter of scholarly and personal importance.
The slideshow below features photographs of the members of the Class of 2012 and the titles of their Senior Theses:
Matter Desires Man:
An Argument That All Corporeal Creation Is Ordered Toward Man by the Material Principle
Joshua Altic
Eureka, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Healing the Fractured Story
Joseph Anthony Dominic Andres
Santa Paula, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Soul Equivocation:
Whether the Soul Is an Equivocal Cause of Cellular Life Outside the Body
Peter Anthony Asper
Front Royal, Virginia
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Higher Men: How Ayn Rand’s Ideal Man Falls Short of Happiness
Conor Michael Bopp
Omaha, Nebraska
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Vive la Différence: The Genius of Gender and the Natural Order
Liberty Ann Brittain
Tempe, Arizona
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
An Inquiry into St. Thomas’s Question on Obedience
Alice Mary Bulger
Toomevara, Tipperary, Ireland
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Perfect Love of Neighbor Through Self-Love in the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena
Kelly Margaret Bulger
Toomevara, Tipperary, Ireland
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“He for God Only, She for God in Him”: An Investigation of Eve’s Temptation in Milton’s Paradise Lost
Noel Kyran Bulger
Toomevara, Tipperary, Ireland
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Love That Purifies: The Importance of Aristotelian Catharsis to Dante’s Journey in the Purgatorio
Kathryn Rose Claahsen
Plano, Illinois
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Veiled God of Till We Have Faces
Theresa Lee Madison Cox
Nashville, Tennessee
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“But I Have Called You Friends, Because All Things Whatsoever I Have Heard of My Father I Have Made Known to You”:
How the Incarnation Has Allowed for a Deeper Friendship with the God of Aristotle
Lisa Marie Soriano Cruz
Las Vegas, Nevada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
On God’s Causality and Man’s Freewill
Julianne Ragnhild Dailey
Orange, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“No Mere Empty Commemoration of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, but a True and Proper Act of Sacrifice”:
A Comparison of the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms of the Roman Rite According to the Encyclical Mediator Dei
Marie Suzanne Donovan
Mequon, Wisconsin
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Tragedy and Catharsis: The Christian Experience
Gabriel Nikolaus Duda
Manassas, Virginia
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Descartes’ Algebraic Approach to Geometrical Lines: Does a New Method Entail a New Understanding?
Anna Marie Dunlap
San Jose, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Purpose of Stories
Nathan Thomas Dunlap
San Jose, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The End of Medicine
Jacob Emerson Elfrink
Marshall, Missouri
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“O, That Way Madness Lies”: A Treatment Concerning the Effect of the Study of Nature on Technology
Christopher Thomas Ellefson
Fort Wingate, New Mexico
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Men and Women: Intellectually Complementary for the Sake of Wisdom
Anne Elisabeth Fisher
Houston, Texas
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“We Shall See Him As He Is”: A Consideration of the Beatific Vision Contrasting the Positions of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure Bagnoregio
Madeline Marie Flanders
Muscatine, Iowa
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Contraception and the Quest for Self-Discovery: An Exposition on the Opposition of Birth Control and the Natural Law
Mark Daniel Forrester
Fallbrook, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Molding of a Noble Character in Jane Austen’s Emma
Thérèse Marie Emma Fox
London, Ontario, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Those Whom He Called Came Freely: An Argument That the Doctrine of Predestination Does Not Contradict Man’s Free Will
David Xavier Freer
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Through Things Seen: How the Beauty of Nature Leads Man to Love of God
Augusta Maria Deirdre Grimm
Ojai, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“To Justify the Ways of God to Men”: A Defense of John Milton’s Character Portrayals in Paradise Lost
Thomas Joseph Guynan
Schuyler, Nebraska
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Friend Is Another Self: An Exposition on the Highest Friendship
James Royal Heffernan
Springfield, Illinois
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Tyrant, Show Thy Face!” Identity in Macbeth
Amanda Kathleen Hudson
Richardson, Texas
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“A Poem Begins in Delight and Ends in Wisdom”: How the Poetic Arts Benefit Man Through Their Cathartic Effect
Ian Curtis Joliat
Waterbury, Connecticut
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Man Who Would Be King: A Defense of Shakespeare’s Macbeth as an Aristotelian Tragedy
Maria Grace Kelly
Santa Paula, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Until Natural Death”: A Philosophical Argument Against Euthanasia Based on the Relationship of the Common Good to the Private Good
Kayla Kermode
Maple City, Michigan
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Waking Love and Life: How Captivating Natasha Became a Real Woman and Fulfilled Her End in Tolstoy’s War and Peace
Christina Sion Kinney
Aliso Viejo, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Imaginatio Est Dominus Falsitatis”: An Account of How the Imagination Causes Error in the Speculative Sciences
Philip Dominic Knuffke
Fresno, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Are We All Created to Be Miserable? An Investigation into How Relationships Form Emotional Habits
Rebecca Anne Kretschmer
New Paltz, New York
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Are You Jacob Marley?” The Apprehension of Substance Considered
Edward Langley
Houston, Texas
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Natural Course of Things: Whether Production and Free Exchange Dispose Men to Strive Towards Virtue and Present an Understanding of the Common Good
Zachary Thomas Lebold
Kansas City, Missouri
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
On the Performer’s Role in the Production of Music, or A Defense of the Proper Dignity of the Performer against Boethius
Joshua Yanhan Lo
Houston, Texas
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
A Heart for the Head: On the Obedience a Wife Owes to Her Husband
Bridget Anne Lynch
Poway, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“He Was Simply an Early Lover of Mankind”: An Analysis of Alyosha Fyodorovich in The Brothers Karamazov
Thomas Jude Malone
Phoenix, Arizona
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
When No Man Was His Own: On Theatre’s Ability to Move Men Toward Virtue As Represented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Marie Helen Francis Marotti
Kalamazoo, MI
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
How Aristotle’s Discussion of Contemplation in the Ethics Leads to the City
Rachel Teresa Lillian Mathie
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Love and Creativity in Goethe’s Faust
Louise Milton
Mesa, Arizona
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Speech: The Significance of True Speech for Society
Anna Elizabeth O’Brien
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Whether There Is Any Equivocation by Reason That Is Not Properly Called Analogy
Colin Edward O’Keefe
Spring Green, Wisconsin
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Plato’s Symposium and the Philosophy of Eros
Sean Michael Stewart O’Neal
Monroe, Michigan
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Deciphering Dante’s Love
Andrew James O’Reilly
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Music That Falls Strangely on the Ear; Music That Is Different”:
A Consideration of Contemporary Music and Why It Is Good for Man
Michaella Elizabeth Pape
Boise, Idaho
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Tocqueville and Aristotle on Friendship and Self-Interest
Mason Hayes Thomas Peddemors
Lapeer, Michigan
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Omnia in Mensura, et Numero et Pondere Disposuisti”:
A Critique of Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion
Robert Anthony Pfeiffer
Waterford, Wisconsin
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Loss of an Essential Nature:
An Examination into Whether Modern Philosophy Degrades Human Dignity
Fiona Marie Pudewa
Locust Grove, Oklahoma
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Love God and Despise Man: A Defense of a Christian Message in Gulliver’s Travels
Kathryn Ann Rainey
Kansas City, Missouri
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“For Reason Made Gulliver a Miserable Man but Not a Man of Faithlessness and Falsehood”:
An Examination of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Louisa Jolanda Scamperle
Tempe, Arizona
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
A Consideration of the Supreme Court and How It Judges the Law
Matthew Schmidgall
Portland, Oregon
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
A Good Man Is Hard to Find:
An Investigation into the Tragedy of Macbeth
Kellie Don Schramm
Olds, Alberta Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“It Is Their Right, It Is Their Duty”:
A Defense of the American Notion of Rights
Luke Andrew Thomas Seeley
Santa Paula, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Why the Mind Still Matters: How to Understand the Mind in Light of Modern Science
Stephanie Rose Simia
Hobart, Wisconsin
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Do What Feels Right: Duty versus Character in the Moral Systems of Kant and Aristotle
Clare Ann Smillie
Helena, Montana
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
On the Christian Need for Leisure:
“Lord, Who Shall Dwell in Thy Tabernacle? Or Who Shall Rest in Thy Holy Hill?”
Nicolette Lee Sutherland
Strongsville, Ohio
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
De Nomine: Dry Grammarians in Thirst of Truth
Bernadette Marie Teichert
Oak View, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown”:
An Investigation of Shakespeare’s Character Hal Under the Criteria of The Prince and On Kingship
Jack Martin Thomas
San Juan Capistrano, California
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Substance of Space:
An Examination of Extension in Physics
Ryan Jon Thomas
Corcoran, Minnesota
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“The House Did Not Fall, Because It Had Been Founded on the Rock”:
A Refutation of Spinoza’s Account of Faith
James Walter Thompson
Amherst, New Hampshire
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free”:
An Investigation of Whether Rousseau’s Notion of Liberty Is a Common Good
Avery Motiejunas Upchurch
Prescott, Arizona
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
“Will You Stay with Me; Will You Be My Love?” An Investigation of Personal Presence in an Age of Social Media
Shannon Marie Williams
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Supposing Wisdom Is a Woman, What Then? Finding Christ in the Old Testament Wisdom Literature
Mary Rose Wise
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Tradition of Veiling Women in the Church
Lauren Theresa Witzaney
Denzil, Saskatchewan, Canada
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
The Redemption of Achilles:
Et Verbum Caro Factum Est
Rebecca Marie Wycklendt
New Berlin, Wisconsin
Slideshow: The Class of 2012 and Senior Thesis Titles
Posted: July 3, 2012
