Digital Commons Network^™

The Auteur As A Critic: Amy Taubin Reviews Steven Soderbergh, Maria B. Bernedo

Senior Projects Fall 2023

In this project, we seek to understand the role of the film critic in the modern world through my favorite film critic: Amy Taubin. As a throughline, we use Steven Soderbergh’s most notable works: Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and The Knick (2014-15)

We additionally study the role of the auteur, and what its impact is on the development of film criticism. We focus on Taubins career over the last 30 years and its impact on the concepts we have around filmmaking, criticism, and auteurism. Mostly, this is a piece about what passion for cinema will lead different creators to. …

The Dazzled Rope Of Lightning Against The Cloud Is Not The Downward Bolt But The Compelled Upstroke Through The Heated Ether: Stories, Jack S. Muth

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Set Wide The Window, Olivia Tristan Ramo

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Tracing The Dispossession Of The Enslaves Black Woman And A Potential For Resistance., Lila R. O'Conell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Death By Delusion: Representations Of Mental Illness In Gogol, Dostoevsky, And Nabokov, Bryan Reed

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This paper is dedicated to an analysis of representation of mental illness in 19th-20th century works of Russian writers: Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Double), Nikolai Gogol (“Nevsky Prospect”, “The Overcoat”, and “The Diary of a Madman”), and Vladimir Nabokov (Despair). My analysis is primarily focused on the approaches these authors employ to represent mental illness. When I began my research, I also set out to trace the evolution of portrayals of mental illness in Russian literature, from one of its founders, Alexander Pushkin, to Nabokov as an émigré writer living in Germany during the 1930s and representing the literary tradition in …

This Is A True Love Story, Yiwen (Catherine) Lyu

Senior Projects Spring 2023

THIS IS A TRUE LOVE STORY is my attempt to understand love as someone who has never fallen in love. Witnessing romantic love around me makes me want to understand it, but all I can do is speculate about it based on love that is platonic and familial, love that I’ve been taught, consumed, and desired. In this body of work, I explored bodies’ movement and interactions with themselves and each other while wearing something that is limiting our senses. The different media I used – video, photograph, drawing, print, and embroidery – are different pathways for me to record …

The Modern Golem: The Jewish Imaginary, Emma Galley

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Maya Lavender's Senior Project In Theater And Performance (Part 3): Reflections From Playtime, Maya E. Lavender

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project is an exploration of metatheatre in an attempt to understand and portray the feelings surrounding coming of age. Part one was A Play, performed in LUMA theater in fall of 2022. Part two was More Play, performed in the Old Gym in spring of 2023. This is part three, a reflection on my time playing.

Philosophy Of Agency In Studies Of Alcoholism: A Generalizable Paradigm For Overcoming Spiraling Habits, Paul Patrick De Tournemire

Senior Projects Fall 2023

This study considers several of the most successful attempts to understand alcoholism and some of the more successful rehabilitation strategies from the perspective of the philosophy of agency. Puzzling behaviors of the alcoholic are clarified by considering how an individual’s associations between behavior and reward are impacted by the delay of the particular reward, and how this relation is situated by the sober life that serves as a motivation for the alcoholic to drink. Far from being niche interventions, George Ainslie and Hanna Pickard present notable rehabilitation strategies that could have broad applications, particularly in relation to behaviors that involve …

Infinity On Trial: Michael Heizer And The Post-War American Avant-Garde, George Fleming Sutton

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Renaissance Self-Destruction: The Virtue And Danger Of Chess In European Literature, Kaleth Marcus Torrens-Martin

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This thesis will argue that in the western European tradition, chess in literature represents both a pedagogical tool which instructs one in the art of living well, through allegory and Platonic dialogue, but also a Narcissan mirror uncannily similar to reality. As a tool and intellectual pastime, chess is virtuous, but latent with depths dangerously enthralling as an end in itself. Thus, chess carries inside its squares a lesson for living virtuously in the world but the danger arises when the chess mirror becomes a world unto itself. It is a game of self-fashioning and self-destruction. Instead of remaining confined …

She To The Sea And In Sun And Rain, Danielle Vada Cohen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

She to the Sea and In Sun and Rain, the titles of my two recitals, encapsulate the essence of the music performed in each installation. The first recital, She to the Sea, was a presentation of classical vocal repertoire including art songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Claude Debussy, German lieder by Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann, and Italian arias by Francesco Cilea and Pietro Mascagni. These selections demonstrated my vocal abilities through a classical lens. Giving myself permission in this recital to be expressive and evocative through classical music allowed me the freedom to go forth boldly in performance. …

From Mouth To Mind: A Close Examination Of Two Carved Boxwood Peapods Through Print, Paint, And Sculpture & References To Fertility, Amanda Jane Mason

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The following three chapters consider the boxwood peapods against the context gathered from different sources. In chapter one, I look at the inspiration for the shape of the carvings: the peapod. Today, peapods like snap peas and snow peas, are common throughout the world, and while the medieval world had more seasonal access to the plant, peapods and similar legumes were often still a staple food throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, so much so that they were mentioned in the Old Testament. Chapter two turns to representations of peapods …

The Friendly Hammer, Imogen Xaviere Plochere Dalzell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Chrysalis, Cerebral Safari, And More About Me, Harley Mitchell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Andy & Edie, Warhol & Sedgwick, Sabine Paris

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Spring & A Storm, Colin Jackson Zachariasen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Existential Analyses: Freud And Camus On Suffering, Blake Anthony Masi

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Curious Findings Of Claudia Finch, Melissa Meilin Sidley

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Little Men And Big Banks: The Republican Party's Financial Policy From The Civil War To The Panic Of 1873, Miles Sebastian Hansen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Romanian Goodbye, Andrei Dumitriu

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Bharatanatyam & Tassa And The Tales We've Lived, Shivani Balkaran

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Chromaticity, Whitney Anne Hagen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Chromaticity is an objective specification of the quality of a color regardless of its luminance consisting of two independent parameters. These are often specified as hue and colorfulness, where the latter is alternatively called saturation, chroma, intensity, or excitation purity. These parameters follow how the human eye perceives color, giving us visual cues when navigating the world. In abstract art, where form is not bound by the constraints of representation, color becomes the primary tool for communication. Creating harmony, tension, emotion, and balance, the color relationships in this collection of work communicates to the viewer in a visual language that …

The Familiarity Of Hapticity Overrides The Rationality Of Sight: 'Hair Aesthetics' And Photographic Seeing, Diana Ferrell Mccready

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Yema, Samantha N. Schwartz

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Middle Story, Beritt Whitson Perdue

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Mapping Maple Memory, Grace Derksen

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

From Fashion, To Violence, To A Forgotten Era: The Zoot Suit And Mexican-American Youth Culture In 1940’S America, Adelaide Iris Ord Treadwell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Women’S Sexuality And The State: A Beginning Look At Virginity’S Relationship To The Law, Ariana Strieb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This is a beginning look at the relationship the state has with women's sexuality in the United States, specifically looking at how virginity animate the way rape trials are prosecuted.

Women’S Sexuality And The State: A Beginning Look At Virginity’S Relationship To The Law, Ariana Strieb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This is a beginning look at how concepts about virginity animate the United States’ handling of rape cases.