Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Hawthorne’S Human Nature And Sin: Criticisms Of Puritanism And Progressivism, Oscar Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

One of America’s greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in a time of rapid scientific, material, and intellectual advancement. However, unlike many of his peers who went all-in on utopian reform movements, Hawthorne took a cautious and reserved approach to progress even though he supported the idea abstractly. Using six tales written acrossHawthorne’s career, this work will examine what each has to say about Hawthorne’s belief in human nature and why he takes such a skeptical position against movements aiming to fundamentally reshape people and society. The tales from the 1830s, “The Gentle Boy,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black …

To Be Or Not To Be: The Problem Of Indeterminate Existence, Bethany Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Sider argues that existence cannot be indeterminate, since the existential quantifier cannot be precisified in terms of domain variation. Barnes counterargues that domain variation is indeterminate in the case of indeterminate existence, which allows precisification. I argue that indeterminate domain variation among precisifications is only possible if domain variation is understood in a "strong" sense wherein some object in the domain of one precisification satisfies a given predicate, whereas no object in the domain of the other precisification satisfies this predicate. In presuming that something determinately exists, both Barnes and Sider end up imagining the precisifications as associated with weakly …

Womanist Poetics: Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, And Audre Lorde, Aya Telmissany

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the sentimentality associated with poetry is often condescendingly dubbed in a patriarchal society as “feminine poetry.” The first women poets who dared to attempt the pen were often met with attacks on their femaleness and harsh critiques of their writing which was likened to sorcery and witchcraft. Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Audre Lorde are three American women poets who countered these attacks and turned them inside out in favor of their own womanist poetics. They wrote about experiencing the world as women and most importantly about experiencing poetry as women. What happens to poetry when a woman appropriates …

Ethical Considerations Concerning The Dignity Of Patients With Terminal Disabling Illness, Hebatallah Rashed

Theses and Dissertations

Almost everyone agrees that they should be treated and treat others in a dignified manner; however, people have different views about dignity and what gives people honour and worth. There are different philosophical ideas about the meaning of this concept and its conditions. The concept of human dignity has been a fundamental yet controversial area in the field of bioethics, especially with the ongoing debate over euthanasia.

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate different philosophical views about the concept of dignity, and how the evolution of this concept throughout history affected our understanding of the moral permissibility of …

Ambiguity Of Vision: Reimagining The Hypervisible Void, Kiwha Lee Blocman

Theses and Dissertations

Asking questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the dominant narratives it can challenge, my paintings complicate the viewer’s reading of pictorial hierarchy and the projection of human relations in the world. I de-hierarchize and decentralize the compositional components that make up a painting by using patterns to create spatial depth, not European perspectival conventions. In dialogue with modernists such as Matisse who drew from the visual vocabulary of “The Orient”, my central forms derived from architecture and ornamental fragments possess a body-like presence. Further, I reinvent ancient Asian printmaking processes with oil paint. Observing the tenets …

New Animals, Alina Iakirevitch

Theses and Dissertations

To transfer the rhythms of the body into the earth, in Lippard’s language, one has to engage in a non verbal, illogical action. Art is the sphere of this action. Staying engaged with the unpredictable in us, the random, the primal, is the core of art making and encountering art.

A Parar Para Avanzar: To Stop/To Stand/To Strike To Advance, Christina N. Barrera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents the first fragments of a political framework outlining how I situate my work, which lives between “craft” and “art” models of making and between colonized and colonizing traditions. My writing proposes ways of making and being informed by practices, strategies, and organizing that work towards greater autonomy and liberation under these conditions.

Dust, Mist, Haze, Michael C. Tracy

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores painting through the ideas of dust, mist, and haze as specific atmospheric metaphors that could be used to describe ontologies of space, time, memory, and history.

​​​​From Repression To Appropriation: Soviet Religious Policy And Reform, 1917-1943, Andriy Dyachenko

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyses the dynamics of religious reform in the USSR from 1917 to 1943. It argues that the early Bolshevik policy of persecution was increasingly substituted by state co-optation. This dynamic was shaped primarily by Stalinist concerns with state security and problems of ideology.

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Against Identity: A Positionalist Approach To Resisting Identity-Based Violence, Barbara Walkowiak

Theses and Dissertations

I develop and defend a positionalist theory of identity as a basis from which to resist identity-based violence. On this account, identities are the social positions that individuals occupy due to belief that operate upon them. This contrasts with and is intended to replace the dominant intrinsicist model, which conceives of identity as something about individuals in and of themselves. Taking gender as a focal point, I develop three overarching positionalist kinds: monogyne, polygyne, and androgyne. I propose that additional sub-kinds (e.g. monogyne woman) be developed in order to more exactly track gender positionalities and the operational beliefs that produce …

A Challenge To Psychological And Biological Theories Of Personal Identity, Felix Alberto Benzant

Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, reductive accounts of personal identity within a three-dimensionalist framework face notorious problems. I focus mainly on the problem of graduality. This problem arises out of the apparent tension that exists between the nature of identity as a degreeless relation and standard accounts that seem to admit of degrees. An assessment concerning the nature of these relations is given in order to make the apparent tension explicit. It is then argued that the philosophical implications of such a problem entail a rejection of reductive theories that admit of degrees; paradigmatically, those that analyze personal identity either as psychological continuity or …

New Thinking About Models, Aaron Alexander Kruk

Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary philosophers of science have been wholly concerned with understand- ing models through their ability to represent their target systems. According to these ‘representationalists’ understanding how models represent will answer the foremost philosophical questions pertaining to scientific models. I propose a new way to think about models. I argue that two of the functions that models preform, explanation and exploration of their target systems, are codependent on one another. That is, a model is capable of explanation if, only if, and because it is capable of exploration (and vice versa). From this codependency, it follows that we need not (and …

Moral Problems For Schechtman's Narrative Self-Constitution View Of Personal Identity, Yasmin Aydemir

Theses and Dissertations

Marya Schechtman explicates her account of personal identity, the narrative self-constitution view, from the point of the view of a question about defining characteristics. Ultimately, she argues that personal identity is self-authored, narrative in form, and thus linear, articulable, and realistic. In this paper I argue that two big problems with the narrative self-constitution view demonstrate its incoherence and tension with the actual experience of personal existence: its morally suspect implications for moral desert and moral responsibility through its narrowness in conditions for self-narrative. By running into these issues, Schechtman’s view of personal identity faces difficulties of ableism, disempowerment of …

Vivacity And Hume's Impression-Idea Distinction, Prescott Christensen Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Hume famously grounds his foundational distinction between impressions and ideas on “force and vivacity.” However, he acknowledges that vivacity is sometimes imprecise for distinguishing impressions from ideas, in, for example, the phenomena madness. Therefore, interpreters question how impressions and ideas are really differentiated. Interpretations of the impression-idea distinction traditionally take one of two forms—either attempts to better-defined vivacity in other terms, or arguments that already better-defined distinctions, like the Copy Principle, suffice to distinguish impressions from ideas. However, both approaches create unpalatable problems for interpreting Hume. This paper gives a phenomenological account of vivacity and suggests that we should read …

A Mind Of One's Own: Hegel On Becoming Rational, Lucas Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

The `Self-Consciousness' chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Traditional readings, however, often do not emphasize Hegel's proclamation that the servile consciousness ``acquires a mind of its own'' and becomes ``thinking consciousness'' in the transition from `Self-Consciousness' A to B. Here, I show how to understand the end of part A and its transition to part B. In this transition, Hegel argues that the servant `comes to have a mind of their own' and becomes `thinking consciousness' or `stoic consciousness' in virtue of beginning to become rational. To this end, I argue that …

From Orthodoxy To Enlightenment: Discourse, Territory, And Settler Colonialism In Siberia, 1670-1740, Jonathan Noah Adsit

Theses and Dissertations

Though many scholars argue that settler colonialism did not firmly come into practice until the late 18th century in Russia, through an analysis of both 17th century historical chronicle narratives and 18th century explorer accounts, I argue that settler colonial discourses and knowledges are already present, laying the groundwork for later settler practices. In the 17th century, chronicle narratives portrayed Siberian territory as a darkened wasteland turned radiant paradise by the presence of Russian Christians and the expulsion of indigenous non-Christians. In the 18th century, discourse changed to produce the increasing view of Siberia as an object of knowledge, great …

History And Philosophy Of Feynman’S Electrodynamics: From The Absorber Theory Of Radiation To Feynman Diagrams, Marco Forgione

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I individuate and discuss Richard Feynman’s overall spacetime view. I argue that the absorber theory of radiation, the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, all share the overall spacetime view as a common conceptual framework. Even though this framework changed with the different theories, its most general form can be characterized as the looking at physics phenomena in their spacetime entirety. I show how the absorber theory of radiation is based on the intertwining of past and future within a closed system of absorbers and emitters. I show how the path integral formulation of …

Alexa, Should I Trust You? A Theory Of Trustworthiness For Artificial Intelligence, Elizabeth K. Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

As people turn to AI driven technologies for help with everything from meal planning to choosing a mate, it is increasingly important for individuals to gauge the trustworthiness of available technologies. However, most philosophical theories of trustworthiness focus on interpersonal trust and are inappropriate for non-agents. What, then, does it mean for non-agents such as AI driven technologies to be trustworthy? I distinguish two different forms of trustworthiness: naive trustworthiness and robust trustworthiness. An agent is naively trustworthy to the extent that it would be likely to meet the truster’s expectations with respect to a given domain. An agent is …

The Cynics' Understanding Of And Contribution To Philosophy, Yossra Hamouda

Theses and Dissertations

The Cynics are an understudied school in the history of philosophy especially, if we compare the amount of literature written on the Cynics to the amount of literature written on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other Greek schools like the Epicureans, the Neo-Platonists and even the Stoics. The lack of research interest in the Cynics, both from the side of philosophers and historians, is possibly grounded in a lack of interest in understanding the Cynical conception of philosophy. Unless we take a serious interest in understanding the Cynical conception of philosophy, we risk reducing the Cynics to the historical clowns of …

Steve Mcqueen, The Filmmaker, And Kant’S Sensus Communis, Livia Melamed Margon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on the ways in which art reinforces community and reduces political polarity by stimulating shared feelings, namely through Kant's idea of sensus communis. To illustrate its argument, this thesis analyzes the work of Steve McQueen, a politically aware, ethically engaged, and broadly recognized filmmaker and artist.

Rhetoric Of Collaboration: Using Ethics Of Social Justice And Activism Through Writing Communities, Tina M. Iemma

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines emerging writing community collectives that seek to challenge the normative hierarchy of higher education in both composition and curricula. I conduct empirical research to explore the ways activist writers, those with exposure to social justice literacies from across and outside academic communities, influence an ethics of collaboration and overall expansion of more public-facing, engaged and inclusive research pedagogy and scholarship. The act of writing in collectives is needed if a move toward advocacy and opportunity for equity is to be upheld within and beyond academia. By examining social justice literacies occurring both in and out of the …

The L1-Norm Regularized L1-Norm Best-Fit Line Problem And Applications, Xiao Ling

Theses and Dissertations

The best-fit subspace or low-rank approximation of a data matrix revolves
around the norm approximation technique. l²-norm criterion is probably the most
widely used norm for fitting subspaces. As the computational power increases, the
l¹-norm analogue has recently gained attention from the academic community. It is
widely agreed that the l¹ norm is insensitive to outliers, compared to its l² variant.
Because of the polyhedral structure interrelated with linear programming (LP),
the l⁰ norm is commonly relaxed into the l¹-norm problem to induce sparsity in
models. In this work, we examine …

Once Upon A Time/There Was A Story That Began: Novelty, Endings, And Chronotope In John Barth’S The Tidewater Tales, Zachary K. Gibson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of frame tales, genre blending, multi-voiced narration, and circular structure in John Barth’s 1987 novel, The Tidewater Tales. It tracks the isomorphy of Barth’s general aesthetic project, set forth in his essays, “The Literature of Exhaustion,” “The Literature of Replenishment,” and “Very Like an Elephant: Reality Versus Realism,” onto the theoretical aesthetics of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. Both Barth and Bakhtin praise the novel its omnivorous capability to accommodate, and juxtaposes conflicting genres against one another; they each see the novelist as an “arranger” or “orchestrator,” who reassembles pre-existing forms to make them …

Snapshots Of A Fictional Past: Photographic Nostalgia In The Early 20th Century Art Novel., Harry A. Jones Iv

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that the proliferation of a mass codependent relationship with nostalgia in the twentieth century shares a parallel history with the widespread adoption of the reproducible image being used by collective audiences as a supplement for natural memory, or what Proust names “voluntary memory.” This conflict between nostalgia-hungry consumers and artists inspired groups such as Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secessionists and artistically minded authors like Henry James, who employed increasingly complex photographic and literary practices to resist the images’ tendency to debase the aesthetic quality of their own work. Authors such as Marcel Proust and William Faulkner used …