The boo hag is a witch/vampire rooted in the Gullah Geechee culture who sheds her skin to feed on her victims. Every night, with her flesh exposed red and raw, she flies into bedrooms, rides sleeping victims through the air, steals their breath, and absorbs energy through her skinless body. Rooted in the culture of West Africa, the African American boo hag is different from Eurocentric witches stemming from patriarchal beliefs. A boo hag is a “traveling spirit” (Creel) born from a “bad death.” However, regardless of the deceased’s gender, a boo hag is most relayed as female. The link between “bad” and female can be inferred in both European and Gullah Geechee witch lore. I argue that the boo hag symbolizes an enslaved woman’s need to shed her identity, escape and seek out sources of energy. Using a modern feminist lens, I will compare multiple print variations collected between 1894-1917 to reinterpret the boo hag as a woman seeking anonymity, feeding her tired body and soul.

This research explores how, when, and why American Constitutional myths and miseducation began and became common understanding. Specifically, focusing on the development of constitutional myths surrounding ideas such as states’ rights, checks and balances, tyrannical majorities, and government overreach. My research intends to understand the way these myths became common knowledge through miseducation from political party platforms and high school civics textbooks. There are many myths surrounding the constitution due to its ambiguous nature which is created through vague language. However, these four phrases are used the most in political discourse to divide and confuse citizens while setting engagement limitations. I aim to prove that our use and understanding of - states’ rights, checks and balances, tyrannical majorities, and government overreach are unconstitutional and set in false narratives. Such false narratives are then used to give power to political minorities, hindering the ability of the political majority to create effective change a majority of Americans agree on.

The purpose of this study is to record and analyze how exposure to ethnic diversity, or lack of, in dolls could impact the establishment of an individual's racial beliefs. Although there has been previous research on how doll play impacts development, this project seeks to add to that body of work in a new way. This interview-based research examines a possible link between childhood play with dolls, and the creation of cultural competence and biases. Dolls were constructed to mimic living human beings and to model lifestyles, which is what makes them so unique to toy play. Furthermore, dolls' physical attributes such as skin color, hair texture, eye & nose structures, are all factors that can signify and perpetuate ideas of racial identities. Through this, dolls are a source that aids children in developing their worldviews, which may continue to impact them as adults. My hypothesis is that those who played with ethnically diverse dolls such as the brand ‘Bratz’, will experience more cultural competency than those who played with the brand ‘Barbie’. As for the method and procedure, the Harvard Implicit Association Test will also be applied prior to the interviews. The interview process consists of 10 questions that will allow the individual to reflect on how dolls could have influenced the way they viewed themselves and others. We are aiming to gather participants, ages 18-30 years old. Overall, this research will help explain how dolls possibly served a position in narrating views.