Digital Commons Network^™

Soft Procedures, Alec Figuracion

Masters Theses

Looking through the soft lens — from the vantage point of a place one calls home, and steered by an interiority that feels a little too much sometimes — I am interested in the hazy, undefined subjects and instances that occur around the peripheries of our lenses: fuzzy imprints of memories, shifting notions of home, and shapeless narratives. Working primarily with the moving image, I investigate the multiple threads that might exist between them, and persistently shift and adjust the focus ring on the camera lens so as to embrace and celebrate multiplicities, and our collective definitions of softness.

Tea Leaves And Other Stories: Expressing Themes Of Change And Loss Through The Magical Realist Style, Olivia Geist

University Honors Theses

“Tea Leaves and Other Stories” is a collection of “tiny” (1 - 2 page) film scripts and one longer, seven page script that study how themes of change and loss can be expressed through the magical realist style. Inspired by Isabel Allende’s essay, “The Short Story”, these scripts are both a study of magical realism in film as well as a reflection on the author’s process as a writer and the themes present within her work.

Hollywood And The Emergence Of Independent Cinema: A John Cusack Case Study, Emma Wellins

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Intolerable Masculinity: Screening Men's Shame And Embracing Curious Futures, Cole Clark

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis argues that to critique hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy in good faith, film and television must focus on the futures created through men’s ethical action in the present, rather than inert displays of men’s horrific behaviors that rely on audience shame as a tool for reclaiming men’s pride. Men’s freedom to change their situation is introduced through Manon Garcia’s (2022) notion of masculinity as an “impasse,” preventing men from authentic connection with others. This concept is furthered using David Buchbinder (2013), with the television examples Mad Men (Weiner 2007-2015) and Black Mirror (Brooker 2011-2023) each presenting a different masculine …

From Script To Screen, Samira Shirkhani

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

For my capstone project, I made a short animated film. In this film, we follow the journey of a young writer facing the pressures of a project deadline. As she sits in her home office, the character struggles to concentrate on her work amid some distractions. From the outside noises filtering through the window to the persistent drip of water in the bathroom and a bug buzzing around her face, a series of obstacles disrupt her focus. The writer wants to eliminate each obstacle, actively working to create an ideal environment conducive to productivity. As she successfully tackles each issue, …

Humanity Amid Innovation: Exploring Our Relationship To Technology, Sarah Durkee

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis examines the impacts of technology on fundamental aspects of human nature and experience. Drawing on the works from Kant, Turing, Arendt, Benjamin, and Freud, it explores how rapid technological change is redefining human reason, intelligence, and creativity in the digital age. The first chapter analyzes whether modern online communication platforms realize or undermine Kant's vision of an enlightened public sphere fostering free discourse and critique. It argues that prioritizing engagement over substantive debate, these digital realms corrode the depth of interaction essential for cultivating human reason. The second chapter explores the pursuit of artificial intelligence as a reproduction …

How Design Depicted In Film Contributes To The Evolution Of Cultural Narratives, Catherine Vanhoose

Interior Design Undergraduate Honors Theses

Interior Design and its trends have had significant influence on pop culture and the general public through the course of human history. Acting as a universal language, design is a tool often used to help communicate ideas. The different interpretations of these ideas are what help to create cultural narratives. This capstone explores the relationships between film and design as creative arts, how they are affected by the current times and trends throughout the history of women, and as a result how women throughout history are influenced by these relationships. Findings provide insight on how interior design is used to …

That Way: An Examination Of Male Relationships In Film During The Hays Code, Jane Knudsen

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Hays Code (1934-1968) influenced the construct of United States masculinity and the discourse surrounding masculine presentation between the 1920s to the 1960s. The Hays Code and World War II affected the culture surrounding male/male relationships in the United States. Previous research done by David Lugowski (1999) and Jeffrey Suzik (1999) shows that both World Wars led to crises of masculinity in which the hegemonic ideal of masculinity was restructured to establish men as providers and warriors, and Code-era films reflected the discourse. To understand the gender roles in the 20^th century, I analyzed the Hays code, male bonds, …

The Lack Of Representation Of Mexican Women In Films, Lizbeth Garcia Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Representation in film lacks the meaningful exposure of Mexican women, the lack of roles available tend to rely on the stereotypes of Mexicans therefore excluding room for Mexican women to be represented authentically. In this paper I discuss the lack of representation that Mexican women have in films, identifying that in roles of superheroes, especially women of color do not compare to the many white superhero films. To discuss representation of Mexicans in film, I used The Perfect Game (2009) and McFarland, USA (2015), films that share meaningful representation of Mexicans. While also using examples of representation in superhero films …

Appropriating The Past: Looking At Visual Evidence In The Twenty-First Century Archival Documentary, Zachariah Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

Film and documentary scholars have long debated links between images, history, and truth. The field recently began addressing epistemological questions emergent when visual sources are circulated as evidence in an age of rapid image appropriation, manipulation, and circulation. To contribute to debates about images’ digital-era evidentiary roles, I study twenty-first century archival documentaries. By archival documentary, I mean a film that primarily comprises extant images (from government archives, home movies, surveillance footage, Hollywood films, etc.), rather than footage shot for the documentary. Films scholars and critics have applied many labels to these kinds of films: compilation, found footage, remix, etc. …

Double Exposed Perspectives, Michael J. Leeson

Student Projects

Humans have always stumbled through time, whether each person lived or not is another question. Connecting, experiencing, and feeling dissolve existence into living. Inspired by artists Richard Mosse and Cara Romero who use alternative methods to present perspectives, Michael Leeson uses 35mm film in collaboration with friends from around the United States to do the same.

Leeson ships a variety of black and white film types and a film camera if they do not have one to his collaborators (some who have never shot film before) giving them a wide direction of “shoot your everyday life and vulnerability”. Leeson refuses …

Written In Blood: The Cultural Work Of Family, Sexuality, And Race In Adaptations Of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, Ariana Alvarado

Undergraduate Theses

Anne Rice’s gothic novel “Interview with the Vampire” (1976) has not only stood the test of time as a cult classic, but has continued to be told and retold through a film adaptation (1994) and recent AMC television production (2022). Looking through the lens of adaptation theory and the ideas of Nina Auerbach in Our Vampires, Ourselves, this presentation highlights how both the original novel and subsequent adaptations use the figure of the vampire to represent the social changes of the era of its creation, particularly in regards to queerness and sexuality.

Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness: An Experimental Short Film, Fernando Vieira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As an artist and Film Studies student, I saw the capstone option as an opportunity to consolidate academia with the art of filmmaking into one project. This became Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness, an experimental short film written, directed, and edited by me. It is a film influenced by early avant-garde cinema, German expressionism, and film noir. Composed of pieces of unrelated footage and featuring an ambiguous, non-linear, and mostly silent narrative, the editing of the film prompted me to ask myself questions about its genre. Its hybridity made it possible to position the film within different categories, but there …

Determining The Viability Of A Novel Osl Film Dosimeter For In Vivo Dosimetry, Nicholas D. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:

In this work we test the Optically Stimulated Luminescent (OSL) film dosimeter’s different characteristics such as Monitor Unit (MU) linearity, dose rate dependence, and determined its viability for In Vivo Dosimetry (IVD).

Methods:

A prototype BaFBr OSL film was cut into 6 even pieces and the pieces were irradiated on a Trilogy 21EX Varian linac and tested for different characteristics. The standard setup was 6 MV photon beam, with gantry and collimator at 0,10 cm depth and 1.5 cm back scatter. The reader warmup time and fading were calculated, and a standard time was determined and used for the …

Spaces Of Citizenship: Negotiating Belonging Through Cold War Literature And Culture, Daria Goncharova

Theses and Dissertations--English

At the height of Cold War containment culture, when fears of Communism and nuclear warfare overlapped with anxieties about homosexuality, gender inversion, miscegenation, and juvenile delinquency, formal citizenship—narrowly defined as one’s legal status—did not provide all American citizens with a sense of belonging, equal access to civil liberties, and a reasonable degree of safety. Instead, spatialized identity, rather than civic responsibilities and legal rights, came to define the boundaries of proper citizenship. In this context, highly exclusionary suburbs, which sprang up outside major metropolitan areas in the late 1940s-1950s, emerged as a cornerstone of the cultural narratives defining American citizenship. …

Cultivating Desire: Media Technologies In Fashion Branding, Jad Gorman

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the symbiotic relationship between media technologies and fashion branding, examining how the latter is increasingly mediated. In an age where digital platforms dominate, designers have adapted by utilizing a range of media technologies to cultivate desire and construct their perception and identities. The main argument is that media technologies are not just tools for communication but active agents in shaping their brand narratives and consumer perceptions. Whether that be a cult fanbase, reaching a wide consumer audience, or creating anticipation for a certain item, the use of media is often more important than the consumer object itself. …

How Hollywood Engages In The Renarration Of Political History, Eric Workman

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the role of Hollywood films that reframe political history in affecting attitude change. Although pre-existing research establishes the ability for entertainment movies to influence political beliefs, this case study approach extracts some of the strategies directors use to convince audiences of their revisionist narratives. JFK (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Birth of a Nation (1915), Birth of a Nation (2016), and Snowden (2016) reframe a historical figure or organization with varying levels of success. The first five chapters explore the box office performance, film form, and political impact of the aforementioned films. Film form is divided into four …

Always Judge A Book By Its Cover, Abby Miller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal for this honors project is to build my illustration portfolio and to explore the world of children's book illustration. This project will facilitate my improvement in design layout, theming, and illustration. I would love to pursue a job involving children's book illustrations at some point in the future and completing this project would help me to understand the challenges that come with designing such covers, it would improve my ability to illustrate in a purposeful manner, and it would strengthen my portfolio overall.

Spider-Man: The Character With Many Faces, Ciara Corbett-Browne

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

As the way we intake media has increased to span multiple genres and media types, the call for an increase in representation has skyrocketed. Looking at one of the biggest media money makers, superhero films come from a predominantly white, male, heterosexual origin that feels inadequate as the times and general audience have changed. Though there has been some improvement over the past few years, I argue that the Spider-Man universe continues to raise the bar for representation in the superhero genre, as well as media overall, as it has become a highly marketed enterprise that is continuously consumed by …

Feminine Tragedy And The Ethics Of Abjection, Melissa Faye Chadwick

UVM College of Arts and Sciences College Honors Theses

This thesis investigates how several filmmakers have depicted the downfall of female protagonists whose existence poses a threat to what we consider feminine, proper, and moral. Through the lens of Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject and psychoanalytic film theory, I discuss how certain cinematic approaches reflect the disruption of identity and/or the social order through their female character. Kristeva’s theory of the abject has previously been taken up by film scholars, notably Barbera Creed in her analysis of feminine monsters in horror. Situating abjection in tragedy emphasizes the ethical dimension of the abject, which I interpret through both Lacanian …

The Pseudo-Liberation Of Women And Feminism In American Cinema Of The 1970s, Claudia Smallwood

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This thesis provides an analysis of how women, feminism, and female liberation is depicted in American film of the 1970s, in context to genre revisionism and the second wave of feminism. The portrayal of women in film is reimagined due to the Hollywood Renaissance taking place in the mid-sixties and throughout the nineteen-seventies. As genre revisionists began re-working and undoing the tools of classical Hollywood cinema, the role of women began to shift as well, creating a form of counter-cinema. Films of this era, rather intentionally or unintentionally, start to address relevant issues of marital status, liberation, sexuality, and the …

The Impact Of Emma: Destroying Stereotypes Through Nuanced Characters In Text And Film, Julia Mccool

English MA Theses

This paper explores Jane Austen’s Emma as a response to stereotypes in 18th century novels and moral tales, and Autumn De Wildes’s Emma. from a feminist lens. Examining both of these works reveals that Emma was originally, and still is over 200 years later, transforming stereotypes in literature and film adaptations. The novel seems to be responding to a common stereotypical female villain found in many 18th century novels. In viewing Emma as a subversion of this stereotype, it is clear that Austen was responding to the sexist notions behind the character type, and writing a heroine more in line …

From Creator To Curator To Author As Content: Nicolas Winding Refn, Transdiscursive Authorship, And Self-Branding In Twenty-First Century Media, Christopher J. Olson

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation traces Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s development from creator and curator to author as content within an evolving media ecology driven by capitalist ideology. A close critical study of Refn’s career from 1996 to 2019 offers insight into contemporary techniques of creating, collecting, and curating media texts, as well as the phenomenon of presenting oneself as content via discursive branding. Given that Refn’s career coincided with the emergence of the World Wide Web and the rise of digital platforms, he thus emblematizes what it means to be a creator working within an increasingly interconnected media ecology. Refn initially …

Applications Of The Guided-Mode Resonance Sensor In Multiparametric, Transmissive, And Picomolar Regimes, Joseph Anthony Buchanan-Vega

Electrical Engineering Dissertations

Guided-mode resonance (GMR) sensors are developed and implemented for multiparametric label-free sensing, transmission sensing, enhanced reflection sensing, and low analyte concentration sensing; these are the topics presented in this work. The complete biosensor – capable of label-free multiparametric data collection – is designed, fabricated, and implemented. Multiparametric data collection has previously been relegated to one variable on the sensor surface and one bulk media variable. We use a lookup table and the novel application of an inversion algorithm to simultaneously determine two variables on the sensor surface and one bulk media variable. Multiparametric data sets are required to monitor multiple …

Captain America: The Delicate Masculinity Of An American Icon, Lauren Rezac

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

What makes a good man? For this research, I examine the ways that Captain America, also known as Steve Rogers, portrays masculinity in the highest grossing movie franchise of all time — The Marvel Cinematic Universe. I propose that the ways in which an American icon who represents the ideal man behaves reflects larger cultural expectations of masculinity, specifically the expectations for white men. In addition to holding up a mirror to society’s expectations for a ‘good man’, the social messaging about masculinity in these films should be examined to understand what American men of every generation are idolizing. I …

Disney Princess Films: Feminist Movements And The Changing Of Gender Roles, Mckinley M. Frees

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Big Screen Heroes With Paper Voices: A Superhero Adaptation Research Essay, Zachary Green

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Superheroes may have taken over your phone, tablet, and television screens through the endless adaptations that pelt us from upon high mouse-shaped ears, but their rich history goes back much further than that; they have gripped the public imagination since their creation in comic strips published in newspapers almost one-hundred years ago. But, why exactly has their effect on popular culture, and their subsequent adaptations in various forms of media been so pervasive in the last twenty-five years? What makes these stories and comic book characters, and particularly Marvel comic book characters, so interesting to modern audiences? This essay demonstrates …

“Go, Go, Godzilla!” Defining And Creating Meaning In The Godzilla Franchise, Jc Dyer

Honors Theses

Godzilla is one of the longest running film franchises in history. Its core anti-nuclear message has stood the test of time, giving it continued relevance in the modern world, especially in its home country of Japan. However, after 69 years and 36 movies, it is safe to say that Godzilla, both as a movie franchise and as a character, has changed drastically since 1954. These changes, coupled with the globalization of the franchise and the creation of a new, US based Godzilla series, have created a complex and at times contradictory web of differing themes and adaptations. This project examines …

Nothing To See Hear, Adam Kuykendall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nothing to See/Hear is a research experiment into minimalist visual narrative via the short film Not the Boss of Me, in which the criteria for production mandated only the bare essential elements required to construct and convey a plot and its characters be used while filming within a nondescript space - in this case, a mostly empty soundstage. How does one tell a story and define its characters without direct expository dialogue? What is needed to establish and define locations and/or environments when limited to only one or two items? Can an audience engage their imagination to fill in the …

Segmenting The Thin Blue Line: An Ethnographic Content Analysis Of Myth And Ritual In Contemporary U.S. Police Film, Alexandra Szmutko

Doctoral Dissertations

The continued ills of mass incarceration, combined with the more recent rash of police-caused killings of people of color, make it clear that the U.S. criminal justice system is experiencing a period of profound crisis related to policing. This dissertation aims to interrogate the cultural ideologies supporting the existing policing enterprise in the U.S. To do this, the study first examines the foundational myths that shape prevailing cultural perceptions of the police and their social role. Ethnographic content analysis methodology is then utilized to identify both the presence and the subversion of these myths and their attendant rituals in a …