Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Wonder Woman: Classical Hero, Modern Superheroine, And Feminist Figure, Victoria A. Karnes

Celebration of Learning

Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess and superheroine who has been inspiring women since her comic debut in 1941. From her origins to the villains she faces, Wonder Woman’s stories and character are wrapped up in allusions to famous myths and figures of Greek and Roman literature. In my Senior Inquiry, I investigate Wonder Woman’s Classical connections and compare the ancient portrayal of Amazonian women to their portrayal in the comics and the recent films Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League (2017). Also, in my Senior Inquiry, I analyze Dr. William Marston’s complicated and problematic feminist views which inspired his creation …

The Role Of Nollywood Film In Combating Sexual Violence Among Female Adolescents In Selected Secondary Schools In Lagos State, Nigeria, Onyinyechi Nwaolikpe

Andrews Research Conference

Sexual violence which has a profound impact on the physical and mental health of women and girls, is one of the most wide spread abuses on women’s rights. It affects the social well being of victims and its effects may be long lasting. This descriptive cross-sectional study therefore, sought to determine the role of Nollywood film in combating sexual violence among secondary school female adolescents in Lagos State, Nigeria. Three hundred and fifty female adolescents between the ages of 12-17 years were selected in four secondary schools in Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria using multi-stage sampling. Data were collected using self-administered …

New Perspectives: Reno Street Art In Virtual Reality, Amy J. Hunsaker, Laura Rocke

Digital Initiatives Symposium

UNR Libraries’ Digital Initiatives Unit and Digital Media Technology Department partnered with an art historian, local art organizations, and Reno street artists to create an online archive, exhibit, and virtual reality experience highlighting the explosion of urban street art in Reno. The Libraries assembled a team that photographed the art using traditional 2D digital cameras, and captured 360 VR footage of the art and of several artists creating interior and exterior murals. The team conducted on-camera interviews of prominent street artists in Reno; collected permission forms; generated metadata; preserved the images and created an archive using CatDV, the Libraries’ media …

Critiques Of Five Films: It Happened One Night, Gone With The Wind, The Graduate, The Godfather, And Saving Private Ryan, Lakshmi Telidevara, Kelcei Young, Erin Matlack, Jacob Scroggins, Alexander Faulconer

Collin College Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Student Research Conference

Panel Chair: Deborah Ruiz-Esparza, Collin College

“Mad As Hell”: The Corruption Of Personal Humanity In Network Through Satire, Sophie J. Watson

Undergraduate Research Conference

A film has the power to connect to its viewers through dark or absurd humor, revealing truths we may not want to face. My paper explores how Network shows the corruption of different types of people through satire.

Film Music And The Cinematic Experience, Brian Campbell

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

Ever since the invention of cinema, film producers have always played music with movies. The addition of quality music to a well-crafted film can change the feel of the entire film. Over its one hundred and thirty years of existence, cinema has evolved into an extremely diverse art form that addresses a wide array of subjects. Given all these factors, this paper explores how film music is extremely diverse and can be used in a wide variety of ways to enhance, affect, and contribute to the way we experience a film. It explores storytelling methods as a narrative device, mood …

Peace Has No Borders, Denis H. Mueller Ph.D., Deb Ellis

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Film Screening and Q/A with co-directors:

During the Iraq War, veterans from the United States crossed the border to Canada seeking refuge from serving in what they viewed as an unjust and immoral war. Peace Has No Borders follows three resisters and their supporters through a ten-year effort to remain in Canada.

Peace Has No Borders takes place within the backdrop of a previous migration to Canada. Between 1965-1973, over 50,000 Americans crossed the border seeking refuge from what is now widely recognized as a misguided war. Forty years later, Canada faces the same political dilemma – whether to give …

The Reflection Of Sub Continental Primitive Archetype Mother In The Films Of Ritwik Ghatak, Zuairijah Mou

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Ritwik Ghatak is one of the significant Indian filmmakers in the Indian subcontinent. The touch of the culture of Bengal is clearly evident in the films of Ritwik Ghatak. Before analyzing the role of the primitive mother archetype in the scenes or in the development of the characters in his films, it is necessary to understand the origin of the primitive mother archetype.

The primitive mother archetype or maternal form is the statements, figure, myth, pattern, form, use etc. which has been existing in any culture for a long time. For example, the form of 'Mother' in Bengal is worshiped …

Realness Over Reality: Analyzing Gender Binary Deconstruction In Rupaul’S Drag Race, Jonah Wilson

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

From its conception in 2009, RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) has grown incredibly in popularity, quality, and potential to serve as a mainstream way of change and acceptance for varying gender performances and identities. Particularly working within frames of commercialism, homonormativity, and queer commodification, RPDR loses a lot of its potential to serve as a radical, decentering challenge to the rest of mainstream television. In regards to rigid western ‘borders’ of gender and the gender binary, RPDR has done a considerable amount to deconstruct sociocultural boundaries that restrict individuals from presenting their gender identities and allowed a stage for transgender and …

A Magnificent Plot, Ryan Monk

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Ever since Akira Kurosawa directed Shinchinin No Samurai in 1954, American filmmakers have repeatedly reused its plot, most recently in Antoine Fuqua's Magnificent Seven (2016). This paper uses Karl Marx and bell hooks to analyze the original film, John Sturges' Magnificent Seven (1960), and the remake to see how each filmmaker used the same structure to discuss class, race, and nationality in their respective locations and times. This paper also discusses the cinematography used to support those themes. Kurosawa made his epic in postwar Japan when the nation became pacifist, and the film examines the death of a warrior class …

From Swing King To Swing Kids: The Jazz Era Of ‘Big Band Orchestras’ In World War Ii, Katie Victoria Burnopp

Student Scholar Showcase

Known as the ‘King of Swing’, clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) threatened the Nazi cause during WWII. With intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate swing music during World War II. The particular problems of this study were to: (1) identify how the swing music of Benny Goodman (1909-1986) influenced adolescents in the United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany; (2) explore the Nazi party view on ‘swing’ music of the era; (3) examine how the music of Charlie and his Orchestra became used as a tool for Nazi propaganda; and …

From Swing King To Swing Kids: The Jazz Era Of ‘Big Band Orchestras’ In World War Ii, Katie Victoria Burnopp

Student Scholar Showcase

Known as the ‘King of Swing’, clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman (1909-1986) threatened the Nazi cause during WWII. With intent of improving music pedagogy, the purpose of this research was to investigate swing music during World War II. The particular problems of this study were to: (1) identify how the swing music of Benny Goodman (1909-1986) influenced adolescents in the United States of America, United Kingdom, and Germany; (2) explore the Nazi party view on ‘swing’ music of the era; (3) examine how the music of Charlie and his Orchestra became used as a tool for Nazi propaganda; and …

Empathizing With “The Other”: Visualization And Perspective Taking, Lisa Spitz, Liv Cummins

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

As today’s youth blossom into adulthood, they will simultaneously be challenged to develop their sense of self/identity and to cultivate their ability to embrace differences, all while being bombarded by visual media and messaging. Research literature on perspective taking provides a framework by which students can develop an understanding of their own perspective, imagine the world from an “other” perspective, and make connections that link to productive actions (Selman, 1971). Perspective taking as a concept has been linked to greater empathy, compassion, and prosocial behavior (Hardwood and Farrar, 2006). Yet the mechanism for enabling productive perspective taking is unclear. In …

Visual Influence And Youth Empowerment, Rebecca A. Cote

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

During adolescence, youth start to look outside of their spheres of family to explore the greater world and they are often left with visual media as the go-to source of information. Media images are contrived to provoke meaning through the use of signs and how they are presented and they manipulate images to impart messages. Youth need to be literate in visual language in order to discern the implied influence.

Alien Lands, Carissa Mosley

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Alien Lands has been an academic year-long study and cross-media art endeavor, researching the history of palm trees in Los Angeles and documenting their current presence. I photographed and made videos of the palm trees in Los Angeles and ended the project with a ceremonial installation/performance, grieving the colonial history and unsustainability of palm trees by ironically commemorating them. This body of work is meant to provoke discussion of palm trees' iconicization, their ubiquitous invisibility in our environment, their colonial history, and their likely nonexistent future.