Some seniors writing theses would give their left arms to be able to flip through issue after issue of Vogue magazine in search of fashions by Christian Dior, but James H. Lubowitz would probably have already beaten them to the magazine stacks--and he was doing research for his thesis. Most undergraduate don't circle the globe for credit, but Janet W. Rich and Michael P. Adams wound up doing their thesis research in Australia and Peru respectively. The variety of senior theses is always astounding--here is a lively sampling of some of this year's crop that were researched far away from Harvard or dealt with unusual topics:

When Michael P. Adams '84 arrived in Peru to research his thesis on the democratization of Peru, he spoke "passable Spanish," he says. After six months in the country as part of a year off from Harvard, he spoke Spanish, had been through a few mudslides, was trapped in a village and had gone through an earthquake--all for research on the Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP), the largest political party in Peru and the most likely victor in the upcoming elections.

"The first month I was there I was kind of uncomfortable about my Spanish. I was really more of a tourist, but by the second month I got actively involved," Adams says. He was in Peru during one of the worst rainy seasons the country had ever experienced, but despite the weather he managed to travel throughout most of the country.

One journey came to a halt when a mudslide trapped the bus he was traveling in and killed eight people in the bus traveling just a few miles ahead of them. The groups spent 36 hours excavating the bus and then carried the bodies back. But after arriving in his room, Adams was prevented from sleeping by an earthquake. "I had never been in an earthquake before," he says. In yet another adventure with nature. Adams was trapped in a small village for two weeks by a mudslide that cut him off from the only road in and out of town.

The resulting thesis for the Government Department analyzed the 60-year history of the Partido, a radical social democratic party, as a case study of the problems of democratizing Latin America. Utilizing field research and documents collected in Peru. Adams analyzed and update work on the party. The PAP is the largest party in Peru though it has never come into power. The faction is likely to gain power in the elections in 1985, but Adams is not optimistic about the chances for democracy in Peru. "Any part of its program that would be objectionable has been taken out," he says.

The PAP operated for a short period under the Sanchez Cerro government as a legal opposition party, although neither the party nor Haya ever publicly accepted the legitimacy of the regime. Aprista representatives elected to the Constituent Assembly were allowed to serve briefly. However, before they were able to undertake any significant legislative activity, a state of emergency was declared by Sanchez Cerro. Under his law the Aprista parliamentarians were deported, Haya was arrested and opposition newspapers were closed.

In response to this wave of political repression, Aprista bases and militants embarked on a spree of violence which included several organized armed revolts. These revolts were unsuccessful, due to both the vacillation and conflicting advice of the Aprista leadership and the limited size of the PAP's bases. The Trujillo "revolution" of July 1932 is the most famous of these Aprista revolts. During the uprising, a large number of military officers were killed. When the revolt was finally quashed by the military, Aprista rebels were massacred en masse. In 1933 Sanchez Cerro was assassinated by an Aprista fanatic and replaced by General Benavides. --Michael P. Adams, Government

Gregory M. Valtierra's thesis was something of a monument to his grandfather and the experience of immigrants to the U.S. His two huge murals designed for the VES Department were exhibited in the Leverett House dining hall for several weeks. Valtierra had never painted before, having concentrated in architecture until this year. "I had never painted anything bigger than a house," he says.

The two large works depict scenes from the life of his grandfather, an immigrant from Mexico at the turn of the century. "I tried to pick themes that were common to the experience an immigrant would have in the U.S. and the reasons they would come here."

The largest of the two murals is a scene of two men fighting against a background of bright red, and represents conflict. Valtierra's grandfather came to the U.S. because he got into a fight with the son of a judge in his Mexican village and, after the man drew a knife on him, shot him. Upon arriving in the U.S. he worked for the Union Pacific railroad; was shanghaied to Alaska and was a stunt man for D.W. Griffith.

The second mural is drawn from his experiences with the railroad. While he was building a dam in Arizona, a horse and carriage he was driving panicked atop the dam and started falling down the slope. "As he was falling he prayed to God to see his parents again and then he hit a boulder which stopped his fall. He felt that it was God that saved him," Valtierra relates. The vivid blue and grey and white mural depicts his grandfather's fall.

"The mural has pretty much fallen out of favor in the art world," Valtierra says, adding that he hopes to have an opportunity to paint more examples of the form for use in public spaces.

Alison H. Brown had more than just an academic interest in bluegrass music, having played the banjo seriously for a decade. The winner of a number of national banjo contests, including the Canadian National Five-String Banjo competition in 1978, she has made several records and played in the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. But she turned her hobby into an academic essay as well when she wrote her History and Literature thesis "Bluegrass Music as a Reflection of Changes in the Southern Appalachian Family: 1939-1949."

Her experience as a banjo player helped her when it came to researching bluegrass music. Little work had been done on the topic before, and Brown conducted a large series of field interviews with founders of the music form. "Some of them already knew who I was," she says. "They were pretty willing to open up. A lot of them feel like they haven't gotten the fame they deserve."

Brown's thesis featured many bluegrass pioneers, from Bill Monroe, the acknowledged founder of bluegrass music, to Earl Scruggs of Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Her thesis includes a discography of bluegrass records and is full of excerpted lyrics to help show in influence of family changes on the music.