In 1517, one man managed to write 95 theses, and changed the course of history. This year, Princeton seniors will write just one, but they face, we hear, equal resistance to their proposals. Imagine the wars they could start if they could make all their ideas come to life.
We present to you now a collection of those fragments of brilliance: ever falling short of our page requirements, we couldn’t quite make it to 95, but here in all their glory are our 59 (close enough, right?) rejected theses.
1. Shawty Get Down: Dealing with Post-Recession Inflation Rates in 20th Century America
2. The Fries that Bind: A Critical Theory of Late Meal
3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding: Marriage and the Roles of Women in Ancient Greece, 500 B.C.-300 A.D.
4. Venus in Latex: The History of Batman Gay Erotica in 1982-2004 5. “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”: Post-Reformation Religious Conflict and the 1618 Defenestration of Prague
6. Not Ok, Boomer: Challenging the Gratuitous Use of Nuclear Weapons in 20th-Century US Foreign Policy
7. What about Stacy’s Dad?: Challenging the Systematic Neglect of Paternal Contributions to Childrearing
8. What If We Kissed at Grandpa’s Coronation?: On Cousin Marriage in the French Aristocracy, 1710-1750
9. Put Me (Back) In, Coach!: Exclusion of Outlier Data from Sports Statistics in Postwar America
10. Bus Down: On the Rise and Fall of the UMatter Bus as a Social Space, 2017-2019
11. Der Die Damn: The Social Implications of Gendered Pronouns in 21st-Century Germany
12. Princeton’s Coded Kama Sutra: Oral Fixation, Alliteration, and Oedipal desire in Rights Rules and Responsibilities
13. Wingardium Leviosa: A Deep Dive into Harry Potter Fan Fiction
14. Braking Bad: Why I Failed my Driver’s Test 13 Times in a Row or, Why the DMV is a Corrupt and Illegitimate Institution
15. Drugs, Sex, and Rock and Roll: Behind the Scenes of the Teletubbies Franchise
16. A Hire Calling: A Comparative Analysis of all the reasons that David Remnick should respond to my voicemails, and if for some reason his calls aren’t going through he can email me at newyorkerboi@yahoo.com and also I apologize for the whole breaking and entering thing, I totally misread the restraining order, but also I read your last Daily Comment and just wanted to say that I love you SO MUCH
17. Little Folx: Analyzing Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women through a PostGender Lens
18. A Bad Wrap: Condom Alternatives You Probably Have in Your Pantry
19. Ok, Boomer: A Linguistic Analysis of Ageism and Zoomer-Supremacy
20. What’s the Deal with Jerry Seinfeld?: A History of Inappropriate Behavior by Comedians
21. The Lolita Express: Nabokov and the Influence of Russian Literature on Epstein’s Murder
22. The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Analyzing Nietzsche’s Conception of the Übermensch through the Lens of Christopher Eisgruber
23. Who Run the World? Squirrels: Exposing the Rodent Deep State on Princeton’s Campus
24. The Ballad of the Dinky: A Novel in Verse
25. But Where’s the Beef?: The Impacts of Environmental Vegetarianism on 20th Century Capitalist Nostalgia
26. Hate Getting Hosed?: A Multi-Scalar Study of Student Interactions with Lawncare Apparatuses on Princeton’s Campus
27. I Suspect Fowl Play: Assessing the Impact of Thanksgiving Dad Jokes on Marriage Rates in the Interwar Period
28. Cunning Linguists: The Effect of Independent Concentration on the Ability to Please Women Sexually
29. I Didn’t Wake Up in a New Bugatti: A History of Wage Theft in the Automotive Industry
30. Where in the World is San Diego? A Comprehensive Sociological Analysis of Geographic Illiteracy in the United States
31. As Easy as C —> B —> A: A Study of Rampant Grade Inflation at a Certain College in Cambridge
32. Story of My Life: An Analytical Approach to Subjectivity in One Direction Fan Fiction
33. Kancelled: My Personal List of Kardashians Who Should Be Cancelled and Why They Should Be Cancelled
34. Cheers, Brent: Toxic Masculinity and Email Sendoffs in the #MeToo Era
35. “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick”: Disillusioned “Nice Guys” and the Rise of Incel Violence in 21st Century America
36. High Society: The Rise of Cocaine in Ivy Club
37. Blood On My Hands: On that one time I tried to donate blood but I actually had forgotten to eat that day and it was already like 4 p.m. so I passed out and fell into the arms of a hot nurse, which was like really great for a second but then I was too heavy so we both fell onto the floor and I rolled under a table and got stuck there for like 3 hours, and while I was literally passed out and waiting to be rescued my dumb ass rips out the goddamn IV and it was a whole fucking mess… sorry what was the question?
38. The Sacred Art of Layering Clothes: The Thermodynamics of Why This Phenomenon Doesn’t Work with Hole-y Garb
39. That Gay S*** Won’t Fly Here: On the Continuing Censorship of Queer Sex Scenes from In-Flight Entertainment
40. RahRahAhAhAhRomaRomaMaGaGaOohLaLa: A Review of Stefani G e r m a n o t t a ’ s Contributions to Infant Language Acquisition
41. Legally Blonde: Race Law in the Third Reich
42. Why Kant We Be Friends: German Idealism and Its Historical Detractors
43. No Laws When You’re Drinking Claws: A Correlation between Bid Night and the Supply and Demand Curves of White Claw in the Princeton Area 44. Thesis: A Proposal
45. I Almost Dropped My Croissant: On the Use of Vine Among French Revolutionaries, 1790-1795
46. Putting the “Dom” in “Freedom”: A BDSM Reading of the Princeton Tory
47. Wake Me Up Inside: Evaluating the Ethics of Physician-Assisted Suicide in Comatose Patients Through a Lens of Moral Determinism
48. Math Building or Fragile Masculinity Made Manifest?: An Exploration of Princeton’s Finest Phallus
49. Pale Fire: An Examination of White Political Activism in the Terrace F. Club
50. Speak, Memory: How Did I End Up in PMC?
51. Free and for Sale: Couch, Pretty Good Condition, Some Stains. DM for Details.
52. 4 Score and 20 Years Ago: The Prevalence of Marijuana Cultivation throughout the Civil War
53. Trial by Fyre: A Comparative Character Analysis of Instagram Influencers and Robinson Crusoe
54. My R1
55. You Say Potato I Say Potaeighto: The Prevalence of Aggressively White Names in Modern American Society
56. Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls: Analyzing the Loss of Natural Topography under the Trump Administration
57. Come On, Get Higher: The Effects of My Smoking Before Class on My Grades in Said Class
58. Gap Year: What I Did on my Gap Year; By the Way, I Did a Gap Year
59. Being and Time: How Much Longer Until I Graduate?