Digital Commons Network^™

Luminous Eating, Ayesha Mohyuddin

Masters Theses

My work strives to reorient my gaze away from outward definitions of identity toward the complexities and nuances of experiencing the intersections of identity that comprise me and the space of home where I felt most extended. I do not want to essentialize the identifiers of Muslim, Bengali, and Tennessean, nor do I want to neglect the role memory and nostalgia play in shaping home as a place of expansion and ease. Food, cooking, and eating ground both nostalgia and identity in something physical. Through the sense of taste, I reorient myself to the inseparability of experience that cannot be …

Invisible Systems, Mina Kim

Masters Theses

We are immersed in an efficiency-and-profit-obsessed world where products are advancing for the sake of updates without meaningful outcomes. The products’ seemingly simple and seamless interfaces bear the marks of deception and promote the world’s obsessions as a norm. My work defines the visual language and methods that hide complex truth within invisible systems. I aim to strike through invisibility for greater transparency and visibility.

I employ techniques that dis-organize the guidelines and components of invisible systems, reframing expectations and opening up new ways of understanding our surroundings. I intend whimsical reconfigurations to act as a mirror, providing a moment …

Lgbtq+ Divergent Paths In Utah: Identity And Space-Making Practices In Queer And Religious Spaces, Taliah C. Mortensen

Masters Theses

This research explores the unique and divergent experiences of LGBTQ+ young adults as they engage in identity and space-making practices at the intersection of gender/sexuality and religion. Utilizing queer theorists’ conceptualization of identity as a form of embodied and spatial labor, I critique the approach of existing scholarship that constructs LGBTQ+ and religious identities as incompatible or at least in need of reconciliation. Based on thirteen semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ+ young adults in Utah, my research makes visible how vulnerability and risk impact the strategies that LGBTQ+ young adults employ to navigate their identities and make space. It shows that …

Gustav Mahler's Symphonies And The Search For Identity, Brian Hailes

Masters Theses

Throughout his life Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was aware of his role as an outsider and had a deeply conflicted view of his identity. The challenges he faced as a Jew in an overwhelmingly Christian and increasingly anti-Semitic Central Europe, as a German speaker in predominantly Czech speaking Bohemia and Moravia, as a Czech in the Austrian empire, and as an Austrian in a highly militarized but rapidly declining empire in the face of increasing pan-German nationalism, all contributed to this status. At the same time, his diverse early background provided a rich variety of musical experience, leading to an openness …

Can’T Stop Coyote, Tala Worrell

Masters Theses

I work hard to keep language out of my studio. Language reminds me of my mom’s voice, people telling me what to do, not having the right accent, critiques, criticism in general, mis-truths, and never being good enough. Language is the material of my thoughts, and most of my thoughts, or the ones on a constant loop anyhow, are all those voices over and over again.

Painting is where I get to be me, with myself, and in my body. Painting is my home, family, refuge, and best friend. I’m not looking at myself from the outside, no one can …

Ports Of Entry, Forough Abadian

Masters Theses

Ports of entry are places where one may lawfully enter a country by crossing land and sea borders‭. ‬This thesis frames the space conceptually where the boundaries of place, time, culture, and identity are crossed through existing ports or by building new ones. ‬

As an Iranian immigrant in the United States‭, ‬displacement of identity informs my worldview and design practice‭. ‬I find myself between two worlds, one inherited and the other adopted. ‬Both worlds are simultaneously active and exert their forces on my thought process‭. However, their interrelated dynamic is ambivalent because their path intersects and diverges unforeseeably‭. ‬My …

Capture, Control, Circulate : Can We Queer Regulatory Power In Graphic Design?, Adie Fein

Masters Theses

Capture, Control, Circulate addresses regulatory power, the transmission and enforcement of culturally-sanctioned behaviors and identity. How does regulatory power operate in graphic design and what—if anything—can the graphic designer do to subvert that operation? The methodologies for subversion explored in this book typically draw from queer and trans* experience and thought. Therefore, the work herein takes up issues of identity, normativity, marginalization, and community.

This thesis also considers design education, and its contemporary emphasis on the capture and control of content. It advocates instead for an educational model that centers circulation; that is, graphic design’s capacity to platform, to publish, …

Alien Encyclopedia, Zengqi Guo

Masters Theses

Alien Encyclopedia is a body of work that analyzes, expands, redefines, and leverages the definition of “alien” as both problematic and an avenue of possibility. By mapping the word “alien” as a fragmented play of alternatives, I translate the lessons derived from this exploration into a maker’s lexicon. I use “alien” to frame my identity, as a prompt to ground my projects, a factor to interrupt existing typography and to spark questions, a generative tool to explore the interpolation between the familiar and unfamiliar, and to incite new solutions and actions to solve the problems we are facing now. Alien …

Reclaiming Memory Through Soft Spaces, Wendy Zhuo

Masters Theses

Senses and experiences can make the memories that you are not consciously aware of become more apparent. Your body and muscles have memories that you will always remember. It just takes awakening the muscles to do it.

Our experiences become part of our identity. Memory has plasticity and is constantly changing as we tell them. Our memories are those experiences and by telling those stories, we start to understand and reclaim those memories and add those experiences into our identity. Through telling and triangulating these stories, people are connected, so how can the space become comfortable for them to share …

Mason & Dixon: History And Identity In The Borderlands, Drew Leventhal

Masters Theses

My project, Mason & Dixon, traces the footsteps of the original surveyors of the Mason-Dixon Line and their search for purpose in the borderlands between Pennsylvania and Maryland. For the past 250 years, the Line has inscribed a violent and painful scar on the land, filled with memories and (re)written histories. Holding the legacies of slavery and colonial expansion deep in its soil, the region is now a visceral example of the ongoing divisions and conflicts around the past, the present, and the future of the United States. The friction is in the air, it is in the monuments, and …

Living With Stuttering: Authenticity, Identity, And Mental Health, Sarah Musilli

Masters Theses

In an effort to manage stigma, some PWS attempt to conceal stuttering and pass as a fluent speaker (Constantino et al., 2017). These efforts to conceal may be counterintuitive, as concealment of stuttering is predictive of elevated distress (Gerlach et al., 2021) and decreased quality of life among PWS (Boyle et. al., 2018). Although this association exists, the factors explaining how and why it exists are unexplored. Identity conflict and feelings of in/authenticity are two potential factors that are explored in this study. Qualitative interviewing supplemented with quantitative survey data is utilized to explore the lived experiences of identity conflict …

The Experiences And Transition Of Black Former Student Athletes Through And Out Of College, Nyjah Lane

Masters Theses

Using a narrative approach this researcher used a qualitative study to examine the experiences and transitions of former Black student athletes at a Division I institution. The study involved four participants who were three to four years removed from completing college and athletic retirement. Schlossberg’s (1981) transition theory, Astin’s (1999) involvement theory, and Baxter Magolda’s (2008) Self authorship theory was used as the theoretical frameworks for this study. The findings provide insight in to how their experiences as college student athletes impacted their ability to graduate and transition out of college. The participants relied on the support and strategies they …

Mending What’S Invisible, Chaehee Yoon

Masters Theses

A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Mending What’s Invisible, in which the artist’s personal experiences and memories explore the cultural identities and femininity in Korea and the US. These identities are explored by using traditional Korean motifs, embroidery patterns, and the visual images of the artist's childhood photographs in the projects of “Reconnecting of Nostalgia” and “Mutating”. Also the visual clips of the artist's hometown is demonstrated in the video project “Things I hated” that discusses criticalities of Korean cultures and a sense of nostalgia for childhood in Korea. The project comes out of a personal need to …

The Beauty Of Collision, Yixuan Pan

Masters Theses

As a Chinese artist living in the United States, I’m researching the integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics, as well as the loss of identity that can occur when visual cultures begin to assimilate. My work endeavors to locate the connection between Eastern and Western arts through my own memories and experiences. From the age of five, I have studied calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting with my grandfather, who was a calligraphy professor. Today, I use the shapes of traditional Chinese hand fans as symbols of youth, drawing from memories of my mother and grandmother brandishing the fans to help …

Martyr (In Exile), Xinyi Mei

Masters Theses

Xinyi Mei (meimei) is an image maker. She looks to make assessments on the moments when consilience is woven through viewing and limited imagination. She also uses images to examine the precarious state of identity flowing between the individual and the collective. She usually practices with video installation, photography, and writing.

Glurp, Glurp, Glurp, Zihe Gong

Masters Theses

My thesis is an accumulation of many different things. It contains a body of work that consists of furniture, objects, sketches, illustrations, and spontaneous thoughts, as well as improvised writings and images of a variety of things that have largely influenced my own making. For me, design is a discipline that does not come into being through a linear direction. Similarly, I believe that a thesis does not comprise just one single narrative, culminating from one starting point. The process of designing and making is more like the way one prepares a meal - all of the ideas and research …

This Feels Familiar, E. Winslow Funaki

Masters Theses

This is a book about in-betweenness. It’s an examination of how we identify people and objects, the categories we use to do so, and those that don’t fit squarely into one or the other. It considers the grey areas of identity--race, gender, species, function, living, inanimate. It slips and slides through the ambiguous and indefinite, forever moving, always simultaneously being “both,” “all,” “neither,” and “none.”

Make Yourself At Home, Han Seok You

Masters Theses

“Make Yourself at Home” is a personal journey of self-documentation to discover a definition of “home” and family, and to reenact the missing scenes from my youth. As a child who grew up in many different places far away from home, I missed out on many family moments and a sense of belonging. As a South Korean passport holder who has lived mostly in North America, my identity is unresolved. I find myself in the balance between Korean and American. With the progression of this project, I try to reconcile my past in order to gain an understanding of my …

Hain't, Jarrett Key

Masters Theses

Jarrett Key’s thesis book examines their journey towards understanding their freedom through three lenses: Survival, Transformation and Celebration. Through pointed excavation of the oral histories and lost stories of their upbringing in rural Alabama, their work presents critiques of the historical conditions that sowed the seeds of their contemporary personhood, while simultaneously creating spaces to celebrate beauty, joy, and survival. The objects Key builds perform their freedom and are crafted from materials that reference pieces of their own personal narrative. Highlighting works from Leaving the City (oil paintings on cement), the Hot Comb (forged black steel sculptures), and Slave Ship/ESP …

Shopping For Vibrators With My Abuela… #Space #Representation And #Latinidad In @Janethevirgin, Maria Guarino

Masters Theses

Jane the Virgin debuted on the CW in 2014 at a time when anti-immigrant, particularly anti-Mexican and anti-Latinx, sentiment in the U.S. felt very prevalent. This TV show was the latest to offer representations of Latin@s at the forefront and advanced a distinct political stance on immigration by calling for #immigrationreform. The series has not only been a ratings hit amongst the Latinx community, but has garnered wide acclaim from other races, ethnicities, and gender identities across the United States. This thesis explores the representation of the character of Alba (Ivonne Coll), through an investigation of the various physical and …

Mis Jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens

Masters Theses

This thesis offers an insight into the complex relationship between identity, memory and the creative process. A Q&A follows, designed to deepen the understanding of the self in different situations, places, cultures and design objects.

Apparently, memory has a leading role in triggering creative processes and this has forced me to do further research on my own past and on the objects that my memory retains. In the end, this “research on the self” has produced an interesting view on this particular creative process of designing.

Bitter Son, Adam Chuong

Masters Theses

This thesis concerns itself with centering the experiences of Asian Americans in order to better understand the complexities of the Asian American diasporic experience. The title of this thesis, 苦儿, roughly translates into English as “bitter son,” and is phonetically pronounced in Mandarin as “queer.” It lives directly at the intersection of these identities — Asian, American, Queer. This body of work is an act of making space and taking up space in an institution and discipline that has not largely been concerned with minority identities, or when it has, it has been misguided and prone to tokenism. It is …

Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative Performances Of Ancestral Return, Porntip Israsena Twishime

Masters Theses

Asian American belongings, migration patterns, and transnational identities are largely constructed in the United States as static, unidirectional, and invisible. Asian Americans complicate these constructions through the practice of ancestral return. In this thesis, “ancestral return” is constituted through one’s participation in a university study abroad program to a specific place to where one traces her heritage. I use “return” not necessarily to account for a form of reverse migration; rather “return” here names the multiple, sometimes contradictory kinds of return, including “return” to a place that one has not yet been. This project examines how Asian American identities are …

Pretend Power, Rosemary Engstrom

Masters Theses

This is an anti-thesis about being a tender and tuff queer femme bitch with mental illness trying to exist in this shitty world by creating worlds of their own. With bright colors, video performance, dress up, collage, and a lot of feelings, I turn power structures on their upside. They become a game of pretend where queers run the show. It’s ok to be sick. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s ok to be queer. You’re not alone.

Identity And Transdisciplinarity: A Study Of L2 Writing Specialist Identity Across Contexts, Joseph Anthony Wilson

Masters Theses

This study investigates the ways that second language (L2) writing specialists construct their identities in relation to the field of L2 writing. While scholarship has employed identity as a theoretical lens to analyze L2 writing specialists’ professional development, teaching philosophies, and/or research practices, such research has been limited to single institutions or teacher education programs. Through the use of a survey as well as eleven (semi-structured) interviews, this study explicates how identities are negotiated as L2 writing specialists research and teach across disciplinary, departmental, geographical, and sociopolitical contexts.I first propose my own operationalized definition of a transdisciplinary identity, which I …

Translating Arab Cuisine Into English: 101 Recipes, Paiman Salih

Masters Theses

This thesis provides a practical translation of 101 Arabic recipes selected from three cookbooks by the distinguished Egyptian chef and author Osama El-Sayed, plus a long introduction discussing the history of Arab cuisine including cultural and linguistic factors and the translation strategies employed. The cookbooks are entitled Bil Hanna Wa Shiffa, (With Joy and Good Health) 2001; Maa Osama… Atyab, ‘With Osama, Food is more Delicious’[1], 2007; and Al-Halawiyat Al-Sharqiy, (Sweets of Arabia) 2010. I argue that food plays a defining role in shaping a culture and its identity. In general, Arabic recipes have been translated and …

From Subject To Cyborg: Reframing Identity Within Female Spaces In Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid And A Game Of You, Mary A. Ruge

Masters Theses

Whether they are secret or whether they are household names, identities are paramount in superhero comics. Yet those that create these identities do so from a place of privilege in a hierarchy which results in inauthentic characters and repetitive plots. For the superhero genre, the misrepresentation of female characters (perhaps related to a severe underrepresentation of female creators) has resulted in highly patriarchal storylines that are reductive, stereotypical, and often violent toward women. To combat this trend, one must consider the ways in which a more complex female character violates the current framework and offer a solution. For superhero comics, …

Paths Of Friction: Kvæðamannafélagið, Geography And Identity In 21st-Century Iceland, Konstantine A. Vlasis

Masters Theses

Originating in the 14th century, rímur continues to remain a significant tradition in Iceland. Rímur melodies, together with the texts of Icelandic Edda and Saga poetry, were the main form of household entertainment in Iceland for almost six centuries until modern, global technologies cultivated new interests. In the early 20th century, rímur enthusiasts gathered together to form the Iðunn Society of Intoners and Versifiers in Reykjavík, to preserve the singing traditions of their ancestors. Since then, numerous other societies have organized, many within the past decade. In this way, intoning societies have become a medium through which a national Icelandic …

Anchored In Place : Locational Identity + New Genre Public Art, Stephanie Benenson

Masters Theses

Since its inception in the 1970s when Joseph Beuys proclaimed, “Jeder Mensch is ein Kunstler” or “Everyone is an Artist”, public art that focuses on social engagement (otherwise known as new genre public art) has been tested in a variety of formats and places. Today, the breadth of work in this category is vast and the resulting aesthetics vary based on the artist’s intentions and goals. While measuring the success of these projects remains a challenge, an examination of recent history provides us with insights that can become a tool kit for artists commencing on social projects. Once examined, specific …

Untitled, Ting Tan

Masters Theses

This is a collection of things I am interested in. Through these things I attempt an understanding of myself. They are unpredictable and often difficult to capture like clouds, trees, water, winds. This book is my journey of self discovery.

I walk in my memories. I walk in the city. There, I capture and record fleeting moments of things I love. Through this process, I give myself a chance to understand the reasons for this attraction. It also gives me an opportunity to understand why I want to find myself, and why I always want an exact answer to this …