Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Fronteras Hispánicas: Identidades Fronterizas Y Diálogo Intercultural En La Literatura Y El Cine Contemporáneos, Claudia Battistel

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Border-crossings —both geographical and metaphorical— are a fertile territory for critical and fictional discourses that explore the forging of gendered personal, social, and cultural identities. The notion of the border becomes a political, material, discursive or symbolic limit, a space of conflict, resistance and negotiation, where power relations are articulated. In this dissertation I analyze the following border-crossing narratives and films: The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros; Jo també soc catalana and El último patriarca, by Najat El Hatchmi; Retorno a Hansala, by Chus Gutiérrez, and Sin dejar huella, by María Novaro. My study …

The Power Of Presumed Trauma And The Perpetuated Yet Unintentional Silence In Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw, Andria E. Rivero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898) has long been a work capable of numerous interpretations and readings centering around the lead character, the governess, and her intentions and interactions in the novella. However, this thesis explores the extent of the governess’s actions and power and their results towards the children for which she is responsible. In this thesis, I focus on the presence of trauma as presumed by the adult characters, perpetuating unintentional limitations on the children who are assumed to be traumatized. The thesis uses trauma studies to understand power dynamics within the novella. The power dynamics …

Children's Creative Processes In Music Composition Through The Orff-Schulwerk Approach, Ashley Viera Espinal

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore the creative processes of elementary school students in music composition through the Orff-Schulwerk approach. Twenty-two 5th grade students and a music teacher with all three levels of the Orff-Schulwerk certification participated in the study. There were three main focal points that were investigated within a span of five-weeks: 1) children’s creativity in an Orff-based composition task, 2) children’s perceptions of their creative processes employed during the composition task, and 3) the teacher’s perceptions of teaching/learning music composition through the Orff-Schulwerk approach. Data were generated through observations, field notes, interviews with …

Representations Of A Good Citizen: A Genealogy Of Power And Critical Investigation Of Pictographs, 1937-1942, Joselyn Naranjo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study traced selected knowledge that influenced pictographs in social studies textbooks in the United States from 1937 through 1942. The qualitative study analyzed the messages in pictographs produced by Rudolf Modley’s business - Pictorial Statistics, Incorporated. The study interpreted the underlying ideological management within pictographs to present a method of analysis for future research on other visual educational material. Foucault’s (1980; 2003; Shiner, 1982) genealogy of power method addressed the different shifts in power and meaning making involved in communicating sociopolitical messages to the reader through pictographs while ideological management and governmentality informed Hsieh & Shannon’s (2005) directed content …

Nightworld, Susan Renee Falco

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nightworld is a collection of short and flash fiction pieces exploring cycles of violence and redemption. Variations in the length and style are meant to create a formally experimental continuation of the Southern Gothic tradition. Mythic heroes from Robert Johnson to Shirley Temple populate this fictional landscape of musicians, acrobats, reverends, stray children, and wild animals. Predatory wildlife reflects on the inherent violence in biology. The title story follows a pair of musicians on a night when a near fatal overdose fails to provide a catalyst for change. In Nightworld, the characters choose the myth of the Self Destructive …

Origin Story, Rose Marion Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

ORIGIN STORY

by

Rose Marion Lopez

Florida International University, 2020

Miami, Florida

Professor Julie Marie Wade, Major Professor

ORIGIN STORY is a collection of lyric essays that examines coming into adulthood and forging a life with a long-time significant other. These essays explore the speaker’s identity as a daughter, sister, partner, and eventual wife and mother across multiple states and countries of residence. They incorporate both traditional scene-based storytelling and hybrid innovations of text, image, and fragmentation to present the speaker’s journey from as many perspectives as possible.

The literary influences of ORIGIN STORY include Rivka …

Modernización Y Espacio Urbano: El Protagonismo De La Ciudad En La Literatura Latinoamericana De Fin De Siglo (1880-1920), Gabriela Carolina Escobar Rodríguez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urban space has played a prominent role in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Latin American literature and culture due to the historical and political importance that cities have had and to the relevant role they played in the passage of Latin-American to modernity at the end of the nineteenth century. In spite of this, the fin de siècle´s city novels have not received the attention they deserve. They have often been misclassified (the Latin American urban novel has been studied almost exclusively as a phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century) and/or ignored even though they …

The Jewish Museum Of Florida-Fiu: Archives On The Edge, Todd Bothel, Jacqueline Goldstein, Luna Goldberg

Archives Day

As the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened much of our access to communal spaces of learning and research such as universities, libraries, and museum collections, many new technologies have emerged to make these resources accessible to the public from the comfort of their homes.

The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (JMOF) collection consists of ~60,000 objects, documents, images and ephemera. The collections are wide-ranging in content, cover numerous subject headings and geographically represent all sixty-seven counties of Florida and Cuba.

Join the JMOF staff for a series of lightning talks with Registrar Todd Bothel, Curator Jacqueline Goldstein, and Education Manager Luna Goldberg. …

Monroe County Libraries - Key West - Florida History Archives, Breana Sowers

Archives Day

No abstract provided.

Religion, Place, And Identity At The Intersection Of Cultural Bricolage: The Miami Santo Daime Church Revisited, Alfonso Matas

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an exploration of the Santo Daime Church in Miami, focusing on the challenges of balancing institutional stability with continual growth and innovation. Santo Daime—whose central ritual entails the consumption of the mind-altering ayahuasca brew—is a new religious movement that amalgamates indigenous Amazonian, Afro-Brazilian, and popular Catholic traditions. Between June 2016 and December 2018, I employed participant observation, semi-structured interviews, exegesis of sacred songs, and document analysis to investigate the meanings and lived experiences of church leaders and adherents as they relate to their religious identity and agency. Specifically, this study asks three research questions: What global processes …

Dracula And Amnesia: Character Identities And Constant Subjectivism Under Ideological State Apparatuses, Anais Rosales

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how the identities of protagonists and antagonists are constructed in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Frictional Games’ Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Through analyzing the Gothic genre, racial constructs, and Ideological State Apparatuses, a system that uses social and cultural institutions to control populations of people, this thesis concludes that the protagonists’ identities are more pronounced than that of the antagonists’. The Gothic genre requires protagonists to overcome a supernatural force, so they are already given the limelight in the narrative, the most exposure to a reader. Additionally, both media use racial constructs to pit the protagonists against the …

Intermedialidad En El Documental Cubano Contemporáneo, Esteban Alfonso Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cuban documentaries, which have experienced dramatic changes in the last two decades, are now more in tune with the most recent global trends in cinema. However, the scarce implementation within the documentary genre of other perspectives and modes of analysis, outside those that are purely cinematographic, has stalled investigations in the field, thus creating a disengagement with the structural and thematic renovation that has been taking place within the discourse of contemporary Cuban documentaries.

My dissertation “Intermedialidad en el documental cubano contemporáneo” examines a select sample of representative texts and Cuban documentaries, with a view to adapting and/or developing an …

Much Ado About Contemporary Women: Gender Adapted In Contemporary Settings, Jessica C. Valdes

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing has been reproduced multiple times in a contemporary context. This thesis focuses on two key productions, BBC’s ShakespeaRe-Told televised adaptation and Joss Whedon’s 2013 film and examines how these productions translate the gender themes in the play to a contemporary setting. To study translations of gender, this thesis is focused on the adaptations of Beatrice and Hero, two major female characters of the play. The comparison of these adaptations is accomplished through analyzing the pieces and reviewing existing work. While there are some important differences between the adaptations, the major problems Beatrice and Hero are …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Balance, Symmetry, And Center Of Mass In The Gait Cycle Of Transfemoral Amputees, Kayla T. Etienne

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to create a framework that assists in the transfemoral prosthesis fitting process by calculating balance and symmetry to quantify patient comfort with an understanding of bipedal locomotion and human anatomy. Three different software applications were used to compare (1) the body position during gait cycle, (2) the natural and amputee anatomies, (3) the natural and prosthetic legs, and (4) the equilibrium and torque movements of the hip, knee, and ankle joints. Models were created in Maya for analysis in Solidworks and MEL code evaluation with MatLab. The MatLab code tested combinations of joint degrees …

The Cuban Revolution's Emotive Regime: A Decade To Remember, 1968-1978, Maite Morales

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While emotions were central for the victory of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, a decade later, feelings became an obstacle for the consolidation of the revolutionary government. During the second decade, growing disillusionment and dissatisfaction challenged the state's emotive regime. Within the first five years, Cubans engaged in one of the largest mass mobilization projects in the nation’s history and failed to achieve a ten-million-ton sugar harvest. The revolutionary government reacted to the failure in various ways, but all dealt with emotions: from a major carnival revival in 1970 to the establishment of new tactics to satisfy consumer demand.

To …

Spiritual Activism And Political Solidarity In So Far From God And Mother Tongue: Two Views By Two Authors, Jean Paul Russo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM AND POLITICAL SOLIDARITY IN SO FAR FROM GOD AND MOTHER TONGUE: TWO VIEWS BY TWO AUTHORS

by

Jean Paul Russo

Florida International University, 2020

Miami, Florida

Professor Anne Castro, Major Professor

This thesis focuses on the intersection between spirituality and political action in the works of two Latinx authors, Demetria Martinez and Ana Castillo. Building on Gloria Anzaldua’s theories of trauma, narrative, and what she terms ‘conocimiento,’ I contend that the novels So Far From God, and Mother Tongue, present an alternative approach to political action that is derived from a common experience of suffering and trauma as …

Three Essays On Music And Consumer Behavior: The Impact Of Music Type On Product Evaluation And Purchase Intent, Gregory G. Maloney

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Music is omnipresent in consumer environments and is classifiable by multi-dimensional measures of affect. This research explores the relationship between affect perceived within music, and how the resulting affective state created by music influences product evaluations.

Three essays explore the relationship between affect valence and purchase intent, the moderating influence of music arousal, and the effect of positive affect cues perceived in products. Four studies provide supporting evidence that music influences product evaluations in the same direction as the music affect valence. Experienced affect in the listener mediates the relationship between music affect and product evaluations, and arousal moderates the …

Jamie Elman Comedian, Actor, Producer, Director, Co-Creator Of “Yidlifecrisis”, Elman, Skye, Hernandez

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Paul Lehr & Groundup Music, Elman, Skye, Lafontant

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Astronaut Winston Scott A Musician In Outer Space, Elman, Meso

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

A Conversation With U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Elman, Skye, Oviedo, J. Chang, Jones

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Philip Caputo Author, Journalist, Vietnam Veteran, Elman, Skye, Ayala

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Ombretta Agró Andruff Curator And Environmental Activist, Elman, Skye, Hester, Prieto

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Art Curator María Elena Ortiz, Elman, Urias, Fumero, Jones

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Mark Leibovich Chief National Correspondent New York Times Magazine, Author, Elman, Skye, Verdier, Duver

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

John Waters Filmmaker, Screenwriter, Actor, Stand-Up Comedian, Author, Elman, Skye, Hester, Osorio

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Artist Mira Lehr Continues To Peak, Elman, Skye, Roson

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Micky Wolfson Preservationist, Elman, Jones

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Contributors

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.

Editor's Letter, Raymond Elman

ArtSpeak

No abstract provided.