Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Fluids In Music: The Mathematics Of Pan’S Flutes, Bogdan Nita, Sajan Ramanathan

Department of Mathematics Facuty Scholarship and Creative Works

We discuss the mathematics behind the Pan’s flute. We analyze how the sound is created, the relationship between the notes that the pipes produce, their frequencies and the length of the pipes. We find an equation which models the curve that appears at the bottom of any Pan’s flute due to the different pipe lengths.

Modern Bands Impact On Student Enrollment In Traditional Music Ensembles, Bryan Powell

John J. Cali School of Music Scholarship and Creative Works

Popular music ensembles are becoming more popular in public school music education classrooms throughout the United States (Powell & Burstein, 2017). In response to the concerns about the introduction of popular music ensembles “cannibalizing” other school music programs, this study examines the enrollment in middle and high school modern band programs affiliated with the non-profit organization Little Kids Rock. The goal was to gain a better understanding of the impact that introducing a modern band ensemble had on existing ensembles and on participation in school music as a whole. The results of the study indicate that the introduction of modern …

The Perversion Of Dignity In Tsitsi Dangarembga’S Nervous Conditions, Lilian Nyanchama Mayaka

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The goal of this thesis is to study Tsitsi Dangarembga’s allegory of aid which exploits the recipient’s precarity in her first novel Nervous Conditions. More specifically, I would like to explore how such aid dehumanizes the recipients it purports to help by imposing the giver’s goals and agenda on the recipient. I argue that because aid is after all underwritten by an ethics of power, the recipient’s helplessness in the acceptance of this gift, i.e., the precarious socioeconomic conditions which necessitate the acceptance of such aid, subject the recipient to the giver’s will, up to and even in the pursuit …

Abolitionist Feminism As Prisons Close: Fighting The Racist And Misogynist Surveillance “Child Welfare” System, Venezia Michalsen

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The global prison industrial complex was built on Black and brown women’s bodies. This economy will not voluntarily loosen its hold on the bodies that feed it. White carceral feminists traditionally encourage State punishment, while anti-carceral, intersectional feminism recognizes that it empowers an ineffective and racist system. In fact, it is built on the criminalization of women’s survival strategies, creating a “victimization to prison pipeline.” But prisons are not the root of the problem; rather, they are a manifestation of the over-policing of Black women’s bodies, poverty, and motherhood. Such State surveillance will continue unless we disrupt these powerful systems …

2018-2019 Season Brochure, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

No abstract provided.

“It’S Hard Out Here If You’Re A Black Felon”: A Critical Examination Of Black Male Reentry, Jason M. Williams, Sean K. Wilson, Carrie Bergeson

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Formerly incarcerated Black males face many barriers once they return to society after incarceration. Research has long established incarceration as a determinant of poor health and well-being. While research has shown that legally created barriers (e.g., employment, housing, and social services) are often a challenge post-incarceration, far less is known of Black male’s daily experiences of reentry. Utilizing critical ethnography and semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated Black males in a Northeastern community, this study examines the challenges Black males experience post-incarceration.

Race As A Carceral Terrain: Black Lives Matter Meets Reentry, Jason Williams

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In the United States, racialized people are disproportionately selected for punishment. Examining punishment discourses intersectionally unearths profound, unequal distinctions when controlling for the variety of victims’ identities within the punishment regime. For example, trans women of color are likely to face the harshest of realities when confronted with the prospect of punishment. However, missing from much of the academic carceral literature is a critical perspective situated in racialized epistemic frameworks. If racialized individuals are more likely to be affected by punishment systems, then, certainly, they are the foremost experts on what those realities are like. The Black Lives Matter hashtag …

Democracy In America, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

Romeo Castellucci is one of Europe’s best-known directors, a firebrand known for productions that are as thought-provoking as they are visually stunning. He returns to Peak Performances with the American premiere of “Democracy in America,” freely inspired by the work of Alexis de Tocqueville. Castellucci conjures majorettes who stir the crowd’s enthusiasm for democracy in America, colonial settlers who confound the native Americans, and a puritan couple who struggle to farm a barren land. He asks us to consider the empty promises of a political system steeped in Biblical egalitarianism rather than the concept of tragedy so essential to ancient …

"'Who’S There?' 'Nay, Answer Me. Stand And Unfold Yourself' : Attending To Students In Diversified Settings", Naomi C. Liebler

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Teaching Shakespeare at secondary or undergraduate university levels is remarkably variegated. Students bring their lives and experiences to their understanding, making it an unpredictably rich experience, regardless of the “level” of the class. I aim to tap into what they already know to enable them to find a path for them to forge their own connections. I want them to own what they read, to make it their own.

“This Unique Empire” : Sylvia Plath And Anne Sexton’S Embodied Poetry As L’Ecriture Feminine, Theresa Kircher

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis seeks to place the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton within a larger discussion of contemporary feminist thought regarding corporeality and Hélène Cixous’ idea of l’ecriture feminine from her 1976 essay “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Beginning with the basic premise of the mind/body dichotomy that was the basis for western philosophy, this thesis argues that contemporary feminist discourse shies away from viewing women’s bodies as a source of empowerment, hoping to avoid exposure to bioessentialist critiques, and instead focusing on women’s access to areas of intellectual power. This thesis posits that rather than uphold the power …

"Pure Language" : Authenticity, Punk Ideology, And Belonging In A Visit From The Goon Squad, Kimberly Plaksin

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines Jennifer Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad through its themes of identity, communication, and the search for authenticity, focusing especially on its treatment of punk aesthetics and technological communication. In dealing with these themes, this paper encourages consideration of the novel's portrayal of punk aesthetics as they influence the way the characters perceive their own identities, their sense of belonging within a community, and their views on personal and artistic integrity. Of note are the characters Bennie Salazar and Scotty Hausmann, whose experiences in the punk scene of 1970s San Francisco inform how they recognize …

The Eternal Detective : Poe’S Creative And Resolvent Duality In The Hardboiled Era, Michael Cresci

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper traces the continuity of Edgar Allan Poe’s archetypal “creative and resolvent” detective from the nineteenth century’s classical detective fiction into the twentieth century’s hardboiled detective fiction. Specifically, this paper asserts that the duality first suggested by Poe in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) did not only define classical era detectives, but it also persisted into the radically different hardboiled era of American detective fiction. First, this paper examines the cultural contexts of each era and establishes the shared links between the resolvent—or analytical—traits and creative—or abstract and Romantic—traits of classical era detectives C. Auguste Dupin and …

MōNstrum Ex Machina : Reading The Artificial Life As Monster In Three Contemporary Western Narratives, Constance Lynnette Humphrey

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Using Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Theory (Seven Theses)” as a template for the monstrous and D. Felton’s article “Rejecting and Embracing the Monstrous in Ancient Greece and Rome,” this project seeks to investigate the presentation of artificial life as monsters using three science fiction narratives from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The narratives include Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968), five episodes of the Ronald D. Moore developed reimagining of Battlestar Galactica television series (2004-2006), Moore’s Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries (2003), and Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina (2015). Analysis of these narratives will …

“A Present Tense People, Modern, Relevant, Alive” : Writing Against Erasure In Tommy Orange’S There There, Greg Riggio

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This essay argues that Tommy Orange’s 2018 novel There There works to craft new spaces for a revised historicity capable of defining living and present tense Indigenous peoples, while also deconstructing the past-tense archetype embedded in the framework of “America.” In arguing this point, I examine There There’s place in the postmodern Native American canon as it relates to the emergence of what is considered a new wave Native Renaissance. In each of the three subsections that follow, I examine There There in relation to three contexts: (1.1) other Native American works from the contemporary field in what is being …

Teaching English As A Second Language In An Urban Public University In Sri Lanka : A Reflective Paper, Kasun Gajasinghe Maramba Liyanage

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this Master of Arts (MA) thesis is threefold:

First, this reflective paper provides a critical literature review on English Language Teaching (ELT) in Sri Lanka.

Second, this reflective paper presents seven guiding principles which will steer my English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching in an urban public university in Sri Lanka.

Third, drawing from the seven guiding principles, this reflective paper presents a complete syllabus and three assignments as concrete examples (attached as appendixes) which will be implemented in a College of Humanities and Social Sciences in an urban public university in Sri Lanka.

The importance …

Mainstream Teachers Learning To Teach English Language Learners : Uncovering The Systems Of Teacher Professional Learning, Alma Morel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this qualitative study, I followed three teachers as they participated in a sheltered English instruction professional learning initiative planned and implemented by their school district for purposes of preparing middle school science and social studies teachers to teach English language learners (ELLs). I explored the professional learning process of these teachers and how the ideas to which they were exposed in the professional learning initiative moved into their classroom practices, if at all. The study was guided by a complexity perspective, from which teacher professional learning was conceptualized as emerging from nested systems. In general, the study sought to …

Thank You For Coming : Space, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

The final work in Faye Driscoll’s three-part Thank You For Coming series, Space is an intimate shared performance, and a liberatory ritual that confronts life’s most notable transition. Alone with the audience, Driscoll constructs a temporary world upheld by pulleys, ropes and the weightiness of others, to invoke the sensations of absence. At the center of the work is the human body—built for action, self contained, and driven by its longing for the felt world. Space calls forth new presences and offers an enlivened contemplation of our shared conclusion. Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming series, extends the sphere of influence …

Shanghai Quartet With Haochen Zhang, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

Since his gold medal win at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, 27-year-old Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang has captivated audiences with his deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination, and spectacular virtuosity. In 2017, he received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, and in 2018, he made his Carnegie Hall solo recital debut. Zhang joins the Shanghai Quartet for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bright Sheng’s Dance Capriccio and the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. Don’t miss this “fiery piano virtuoso” (San Francisco Chronicle) recognized as “a star in the making.” (Seattle Times)

Sikh Youth Coming Of Age: Reflections On The Decision To Tie A Turban, Muninder Ahluwalia, Tyce Nadrich, Ikbal Singh Ahluwalia

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

In Sikhism, the turban is a sign of adherence to faith and fighting for justice; for Sikh men, it can also be considered essential to manhood (Chanda & Ford,). The authors provide an introduction to Sikhism and discuss the turban's importance to Sikhs. Next, they present a self-reflective case of one individual's experience of the decision to tie a turban and discussion of that case. Finally, the authors discuss implications for counselors.

Elizabeth, The Dance, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

Imagine a world in which classical ballet, modern dance icon Martha Graham, and questions of cultural appropriation collide with clowns, basketball players, and hula dance, and you may begin to grasp the creative force, intelligence, and wit of choreographer Ann Carlson. In “Elizabeth, the dance,” she pays homage to “the visionaries and teachers” of modern dance history. With movement both formal and physically awkward, deliciously surprising and joyfully restrained, Carlson has created an astonishing tribute to modern dance and to the joy of being human.

When Angels Fall, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2018-2019 Borders and Boundaries

Raphaëlle Boitel began her career as a young girl when she and her family ran away to join the circus. A mesmerizing contortionist and aerialist, Ben Brantley of The New York Times called her “truly ravishing.” Peak Performances introduced American audiences to Boitel’s boundless talents in 2016 with her luminous directorial debut “The Forgotten.” In her new work, “When Angels Fall,” her agile, athletic performers create a rugged, ethereal dreamscape at the crossroads of circus, dance, theater, and cinema. Everything once organic has been replaced by machines, and humans’ very existence depends on making themselves passive, conformist cogs in a …

The Coming Out Of Memory: The Holocaust, Homosexuality, And Dealing With The Past, Arnaud Kurze

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This research discusses the challenges of establishing a collective memory for gay victims of the Nazi terror in World War II and examines the introduction of gay victimhood into the public sphere through memorialization efforts. While scholarly accounts on gays and the Holocaust emerged in the 1970s, little is known about the emergence and consolidation of a public narrative on gay persecutions under the Nazis. It raises important questions, including why a public voice for crimes against sexual minorities in World War II emerged only hesitantly? Drawing on historical gay memorialization processes in Germany, the author maps the obstacles for …

College Of The Arts 19/20 Season, Department Of Theatre And Dance, John J. Cali School Of Music

2019-2020

No abstract provided.

Hacking, Unlearning, Unleashing, Livia Alexander, Richard Jochum

Department of Art and Design Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

2019-2020 Peak Journal, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University, Claudia La Rocco

PEAK Journals

No abstract provided.

Ecocriticism And The Trans-Corporeal : Agency, Language, And Vibrant Matter Of The Environmental “Other” In J.R.R Tolkien’S Middle Earth, Garrett Van Curen

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper explores J.R.R Tolkien’s Middle Earth in light of the material ecocritical notions of trans-corporeality, vibrant matter, and intrinsic language. Namely, this paper asserts that Tolkien’s treatment of plants, specifically trees, deconstructs an otherwise unflattering and over-simplified binary that separates the natural world from the human, while highlighting important nuances sometimes overlooked in Tolkien’s natural world. The two sides of this affixed binary, as this paper asserts, are intermeshed in Tolkien’s conception of Middle Earth in what Stacy Alaimo terms a “trans-corporeal” process. The humanoid and nonhumanoid beings of Tolkien’s world are constantly engaged in a process of mixing …