Arts and Humanities Commons^™

'My Hope Is That John Lewis’ Life Will Be As A Beacon To Our Young", Preston Love Jr.

Black Studies Faculty Publications

Congressman John Lewis was a friend of mine for 40 years. I mourn the passing of my dear friend, who was 80.

Understand North Omaha's Past To Chart The Best Course For The Future, Preston Love Jr.

Black Studies Faculty Publications

As a native of Omaha with years of accumulated wisdom as to the plight of my beloved race, I have a responsibility to speak up during these tumultuous times. I do not have the right, however, to speak for my community. I am observing a tremendous surge of activism and conversation among black Omahans, from our elected officials and organizational leaders to our lay leaders and, most importantly, our young leaders.

The Pandemic Of Racism Has Endured And Grown. It's Time To Listen., Preston Love Jr.

Black Studies Faculty Publications

Noted African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois more than a century ago wrote of the “peculiar indifference” to the magnitude of human suffering brought about by racial disparities in health outcomes.

The Healing Properties Of Interactive Art: Creating A Proposal For Art Within A Hospital Environment, Alexandra Chase

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The consumption of art and interaction with it can be beneficial to individuals in many different ways. Play and exploration engage the mind and can have positive effects, no matter how small. Within a medical setting, this type of interactive art can promote healing within patients by engaging their bodies and minds. With these ideas in mind, the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center (CHMC) put out a call for an interactive sculpture piece to be created for their upcoming building expansion. My piece, Garden Lanterns, was then conceptualized in order to fulfill their requirements and embrace the idea of providing …

Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez: The Casta Paintings, Jonathan Orozco

Student Work

Colombian-born Lincoln-based artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez has grounded her recent art production within a wide art historical and Pan-American discourse. This interdisciplinary and interethnic practice is particularly exemplified in Chapter 6: Casta Paintings, a series of work within her “visual novel”, started after a significant move from New York City to Lincoln. This paper intends to describe and analyze her casta painting works in detail, from their intellectual inception to the minutiae of the work’s creation, providing a context in which a reader can understand the historical and artistic significance of her works within two methodological approaches; critical-race theory and postcolonialism. …

The Impact Of Healing Arts On Students At The University Of Nebraska At Omaha, Wala Albahrani

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

A recently emerging way to decrease stress of individuals is by practicing therapeutic art. The aim of this form of therapy is to provide a sense of expression and relief to individuals who suffer from constant anxiety and stress. Therapeutic art can be performed by a therapy session where an individual express themselves using art to communicate their thoughts and emotions. Since this form of therapy does not require artistic sense or skills, many individuals can benefit from it. Moreover, another form of this therapy is surrounding stressed individuals with calming art, such as photography, music, sculpture, and painting, etc. …

A Library Without Books: The Importance Of Language Representation In Public Libraries, Caelyn Armshaw

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The focus of this project is to assess the degree of access to Spanish-language books in the Omaha Public Library system. After constructing a map of all Omaha Public Libraries using Global Information System (GIS) and analyzing the population around those areas, I cross-referenced individual library catalogs to compare raw numbers of English-language books to non-English and specifically Spanish-language books. The ultimate finding of this project is that even though approximately 10% of Omaha citizens included in the census speak Spanish as their primary language, Spanish-language books make up only 2% of the total books across all Omaha Public Libraries. …

Peter And The Starcatcher: Creating The Character Of Peter Pan Via Rehearsal, Script Analysis, And Personal Journals, Delaney Jackson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Theatre, as an art, does an incredible job at making stage life look as organic as the lives we lead on a daily basis. That’s thanks in part to a methodical rehearsal process that the public rarely has a chance to see.

My goal with this creative project was to give the general public an opportunity to join myself and the rest of the cast of UNO’s Peter and the Starcatcher on a journey through our rehearsal process via journal keeping and character analysis before presenting the show on April 15, 2020.

Unfortunately, we had to give a painful goodbye …

Elucidation And The Solipsism Of The Tractatus, Jacob Phillips

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

In Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) of 1921, Ludwig Wittgenstein presents his metaphysical account of the logical structure of the world and language. He aims to establish the possibility of the connection between “pictures” of the world—including linguistic constructions as sentences—and the constituent elements of the world. The account Wittgenstein promotes yields, by his own admission, a form of solipsism. Underlying the difficulties in interpreting the details of Wittgenstein’s solipsism (which he does little to explicate), there is a fundamental tension between solipsism of any sort and a metaphysical account that relies on language, something which seems essentially shared and …

No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander

Journal of Religion & Film

This article explores ways in which film expresses “internal history” in the context of Muslim cultures. As such, it enquires how film can work as both Islamic art and historical contemplation. The films discussed here, Nacer Khemir’s Wanderers in the Desert and Muhammad Rasoulof’s Iron Island, inhabit and explore the borderline between imagination and reality. The films in question offer an imaginal interspace between “modern” and “traditional” worlds. As such they open up critical perspectives on the meaning of history. What follows is a discussion of how each film offers a window onto differing perceptions of time, and what …

Apocalypse And Eschatology In John Ford's The Grapes Of Wrath (1940), Nancy Wright

Journal of Religion & Film

John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) visualizes conventions of the apocalypse genre to represent not simply a particular historical setting, the Great Depression, but also a vision of history to be interpreted in terms of eschatology. Expressionistic photography transforms the characters’ experiences into enigmatic visions that invite and guide interpretation. A comparison of montage sequences in Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and Pare Lorentz’s The Plow That Broke The Plains (1936), a Farm Security Administration documentary, clarifies how Ford’s narrative film aligns spectators within and outside the mise-en-scène.

Hail, Caesar! A Jesus Film In Search Of A Christ Figure, Jon Coutts

Journal of Religion & Film

For over a century the moving picture has been a medium ripe for propagation or exploration of the story of Christ. Since the first wave hit screens in the late 1890s and early 1900s, the list of so-called “Jesus films” has come to number in the dozens. Given that Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2016 Hail, Caesar!­ sets itself up as a reprisal of such films, the question is how to interpret it. To explore this, interpretation of the film is framed by consideration of the Coen brothers' attention to religious themes, is set against the backdrop of the second wave …

The Moving Image And The Time Of Prophecy: Trauma And Precognition In L. Von Trier’S Melancholia (2011) And D. Villeneuve’S Arrival (2016), Luca Zanchi

Journal of Religion & Film

Both the deferred recurrence of post-traumatic symptoms and the foresight granted by prophetic vision bring about a disruption of temporality and generate a chronological discontinuity which is often formally rendered as narrative discontinuity. This similarity produces an interpretive ambiguity that is central to the films, Melancholia (2011) by Von Trier and Arrival (2016) by Denis Villeneuve. Both movies begin by hinting at the post-traumatic origin of visions and then gradually shift towards a prophetic explanation. In addressing these two case studies, this article approaches prophecy and its temporality from a narratological perspective, integrating the critical parameters of trauma-theory with the …

The Gaze And A Sufi Ethics Of Vision In Majidi’S The Willow Tree: Form, Meaning, And The Real, Cyrus A. Zargar

Journal of Religion & Film

In his 2005 film The Willow Tree (Bīd-i Majnūn), Majid Majidi offers a complex moral commentary on the faculty of sight. To do so, the filmmaker draws from Sufi theories of gazing, in which desire must be for ultimate meaning (maʿnā), as conveyed through the vehicle of perceivable form (ṣūra), a distinction with both metaphysical and ethical implications. Majidi presents sight, when devoid of contemplation, as a sort of voyeurism, especially in contrast to the privacy and immediacy of speech and especially within the context of the modern city. Moreover, his use of a …

Skyfall: The "Aliens Sequence" In Monty Python's Life Of Brian, Robert Cousland

Journal of Religion & Film

Despite its brevity and science fiction genre, Terry Gilliam's "aliens sequence" in Monty Python's Life of Brian functions in at least three ways: It is a brilliant parody of Star Wars and other space epics. It addresses concerns that were of profound significance for the religion of Jesus' day and, finally, and it significantly challenges the Christian premise of a divinely ordained purpose underlying Jesus' life.

In Memoriam Terry Jones (1942-2020)

The Neighborhood Of Gods: The Sacred And Visible In The Margins Of Mumbai, Darshana Sreedhar Mini

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of The Neighborhood of Gods: The Sacred and Visible in the Margins of Mumbai (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

Transcendental Style In Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (2nd Edition), Michael Gibson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, 2nd edition (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018).

The Muslim World In Post-9/11 American Cinema: A Critical Study, 2001-2011, Ali A. Olomi

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Kerem Bayraktaroglu's The Muslim World In Post-9/11 American Cinema: A Critical Study, 2001-2011 (North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2018).

God On The Big Screen: A History Of Hollywood Prayer From The Silent Era To Today, Dan Wells

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Terry Lindvall's God on the Big Screen: A History of Hollywood Prayer from the Silent Era to Today (New York: NYU Press, 2019).

J.E.S.U.S.A., John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of J.E.S.U.S.A., directed by Kevin Miller. It is now available on Vimeo Prime (bit.ly/jesusa).

Urban American Indian Community Health Beliefs Associated With Addressing Cancer In The Northern Plains Region, Regina Idoate, Mark A. Gilbert, Keyonna King, Lisa Spellman, Bobbie Mcwilliams, Brittany Strong, Liliana Bronner, Mohammed Siahpush, Athena Ramos, Martina Clarke, Tzeyu Michaud, Maurice Godfrey, Joyce Solheim

Art and Art History Faculty Publications

American Indians residing in the Northern Plains region of the Indian Health Service experience some of the most severe cancer-related health disparities. We investigated ways in which the community climate among an American Indian population in an urban community in the Northern Plains region influences community readiness to address cancer. A Community Readiness Assessment, following the Community Readiness Model, conducted semi-structured interviews with eight educators, eight students, and eight community leaders from the American Indian community in Omaha’s urban American Indian population and established the Northern Plains region community at a low level of readiness to address cancer. This study …

Creating An Omaha Fringe Festival, Tamar Neumann

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Tamar Neumann

UNO Theatre Graduate Program

Omaha Fringe Festival

Creating an Omaha Fringe Festival

For my research project, I started a small theatre Fringe festival that consisted of ten different performances (plays) over the course of three days. Each performance group got three performances. The artists self-produced their works and the festival provided the venue, technical staff, and marketing. I recruited volunteers to help staff the box office and usher and I hired staff to run the technical side of the theatre. The festival also gave the artists 75% of the total box office. My research focused on answering the …

Burden, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Burden (2020) directed by Andrew Heckler.

Now Is The Time, Jodi Mcdavid

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Now is the Time (2019) directed by Christopher Auchter.

Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Abortion Helpline, This is Lisa (2019) directed by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, and Mike Attie.

Song Of Clouds, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Song of Clouds (2019) directed by Ankit Poudel.

A Thousand Sails, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of A Thousand Sails (2019) directed by Eric Tsang.

Church And The Fourth Estate, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Church and the Fourth Estate (2020) directed by Brian Knappenburger.

Tahara, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Tahara (2019) directed by Olivia Peace.

1986, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of 1986 (2019) directed by Lothar Herzog.