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Articles 1 - 30 of 74
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
A Plantation Family Wardrobe, 1825 - 1835, Jennifer Lappas
A Plantation Family Wardrobe, 1825 - 1835, Jennifer Lappas
Theses and Dissertations
An examination of the Shirley Plantation Collection, Hill Carter, Mary B. Carter, their children, the plantation workers and their wardrobe between 1825 and 1835.
Family, Farming, And Military Service At Darvills, Viginia, 1965-1967: An Application Of Methodology In Community Studies, Lisa Jordan
Theses and Dissertations
ABSTRACT AN EXAMINATION OF METHODOLOGY IN COMMUNITY STUDIES By Lisa Vaughan Jordan, M.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. Major Director: Dr. John Kneebone, Associate Professor – Department of History This thesis examines correspondence between a mother, Alma Irene Vaughan and her son, Ammon Cliborne Vaughan from Darvills, Virginia, in the rural Southside area of the state, written during 1965-1967 when the son was stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the Army. In addition to presenting a background of …
A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook
A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook
Theses and Dissertations
The Richmond Outreach Center “The ROC” is an independent soulwinning megachurch in Richmond, Virginia. This thesis explores how rhetoric plays a role in the rapid growth of this urban church and considers the church’s response—rhetorically and politically—to the city’s social issues. Through a rhetorical analysis of sermons and written texts by Geronimo Aguilar, the ROC’s founder and pastor, it is concluded that Aguilar has generated a rhetoric of change that says social change must come to Richmond and that everyone, both rich and poor, are responsible for change. Aguilar galvanizes an audience to seek social change because he articulates roles …
Isolationism, Internationalism And The “Other:” The Yellow Peril, Mad Brute And Red Menace In Early To Mid Twentieth Century Pulp Magazines And Comic Books, Nathan Vernon Madison
Isolationism, Internationalism And The “Other:” The Yellow Peril, Mad Brute And Red Menace In Early To Mid Twentieth Century Pulp Magazines And Comic Books, Nathan Vernon Madison
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis’ purpose is to demonstrate, via the examination of popular youth literature (primarily pulp magazines and comic books) from the 1920s through to the 1950s, that the stories found therein drew their definitions of heroism and villainy from an overarching, nativist fear of outsiders that had existed before the Great War, but intensified afterwards. These depictions were transferred to America’s “new” enemies following both the United States’ entry into the Second World War, as well as the early stages of the Cold War. This transference of nativist imagery left behind the ethnically-based origins of such depictions, showing that racism …
Printed Matter, Inc., The First Decade: 1976-1986, Claire Dixon
Printed Matter, Inc., The First Decade: 1976-1986, Claire Dixon
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis provides an account of the events of the first ten years of Printed Matter, Inc., a distribution center for artists’ books established in New York City in 1976. Included are descriptions of the individuals who formed Printed Matter’s first board, their objectives, books published by Printed Matter, and the windows installation program. This thesis also describes challenges the board members faced, including lack of organization, difficulty cultivating a broad public audience, and inadequate income. In addition, it recounts the gradual streamlining of business practices, and the realignment of goals and expectations for the genre as board members accepted …
Accessioning And Managing The Petersburg Area Art League Collection, Janelle Wilson
Accessioning And Managing The Petersburg Area Art League Collection, Janelle Wilson
Theses and Dissertations
Since the 1960s, the Petersburg Area Art League (PAAL) has obtained works of art for its permanent collection through purchases, private donations, and through the local art show, the Poplar Lawn Art Festival, later known as Artfest. Recently, however, the organization has decided to become a non-collecting institution in order to focus on its mission to promote the arts in Petersburg through gallery shows for local artists and educational programs. While PAAL’s staff members share a love of art and a dedication to the local community, they have not been trained in professional standards for handling museum collections as outlined …
Flat Files: The Absence Of Vernacular Photography In Museum Collections, Kimberly Wolfe
Flat Files: The Absence Of Vernacular Photography In Museum Collections, Kimberly Wolfe
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis will explore the causes and consequences of the absence of vernacular photography from museum collections. Through historical analysis of vernacular photography and a close interpretation of a contemporary family snapshot, I will argue that vernacular photographs are important objects of great cultural significance and poignant personal meaning. Photography has always defied categorization. It serves multiple functions and roles, is studied in a vast number of disciplines, and exists in a variety of institutions and collections. Furthermore, it is difficult to classify a single photograph. Vernacular photography thus poses a challenge to museum methods of sorting documents, artifacts, and …
The Stockbridge-Munsee Tote At The National Museum Of The American Indian, Corinne Mcveigh
The Stockbridge-Munsee Tote At The National Museum Of The American Indian, Corinne Mcveigh
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis constructs the cultural biography of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Stockbridge-Munsee tote, a twentieth-century souvenir craft, in order to examine the tote’s cultural and cross-cultural associated meanings and how these associated meanings shift from one context to another. It follows the tote’s history including its production, purchase, and transfer. This thesis briefly recounts the Stockbridge-Munsee Indians’ history and focuses on a few examples of craft objects produced prior to the 1960s, when the Stockbridge-Munsee tote was made. Wisconsin Indian Craft, a craft cooperative formed in the 1960s, produced objects such as the Stockbridge-Munsee tote. This tote, …
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938): Early Female Nudes In Landscapes, Kathryn Rogge
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938): Early Female Nudes In Landscapes, Kathryn Rogge
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines how Ernst Ludwig Kirchner reconceived the female nude within the two contexts of Expressionism and the German nudist movement. In particular, it looks to Kirchner’s early paintings, executed between 1909 and 1914, of female nudes in landscape settings to determine how Kirchner operated within and departed from the conventions of the female nude. This thesis challenges the feminist critique of Expressionist painting and Kirchner’s female nudes. It also examines how Kirchner’s female nudes in landscapes are complicated by the early twentieth-century development of German nudism. While these paintings are often categorized as bathers following nineteenth-century French precedent, …
Making Authenticity: Polk Miller And The Evolution Of American Popular Culture, Jacques Vest
Making Authenticity: Polk Miller And The Evolution Of American Popular Culture, Jacques Vest
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines the life and musical career of James "Polk" Miller of Richmond Virginia, a Confederate veteran, and successful pharmacist. Miller claimed to offer the only authentic version of antebellum slave music, and was renowned as a convincing "negro delineator." In his focus on race, performance, and authenticity, Miller straddled a number of cultural currents linking him to his nineteenth century predecessors as well as the cultural milieu of the twentieth century. About the turn of the century, he added a black quartet to his act in order to more fully capture his conception of the "authentic" slave music …
The Engraved Head Motifs On Cupisnique Style Vessels: Innovation And Appropriation In Early Andean Art, Yumi Park
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation is a formal and iconographic study of a distinctive engraved motif found on Cupisnique style vessels that were excavated in what is now northern Peru. The Cupisnique style was developed approximately between 1200 – 200 B.C.E., and was mainly centered in the Jequetepeque and the Chicama Valleys in the northern coastal region of Peru. This study includes an analysis of two ceramic vessels in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (henceforth VMFA). The purpose of this dissertation is to document and analyze the Cupisnique engraved head motifs and to argue that these motifs reflect the …
The Roads Are Bumpy Ones: A Study Of Body Image Through Abstract Performance, Alexis Goldstein
The Roads Are Bumpy Ones: A Study Of Body Image Through Abstract Performance, Alexis Goldstein
Theses and Dissertations
An overwhelming number of contemporary adolescents struggle with difficult issues. Many of these problems are socially related whereas others can be directly related to the degradation of the family unit. Among the most damaging of issues is distorted body image, which infect youth, often causing them to communicate aggressively, and even landing them in compromising situations. I have sought to challenge my students to redefine themselves through expressive movement and the creation of abstract rhythmic sounds. In teaching these techniques, I have given my former students the means to combat negative thoughts and actions, as well as an excellent tool …
The Creativity Loophole: Needlework, Social Conventions, And The Permissibility Of Creative Expression For Early American Women, Alyce Graham
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis investigates creative expression through needlework by wealthy or elite women in the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century, focusing on women in the United States South. This inquiry begins in broad terms and proceeds to the close examination of one particular needlework sampler held in the collection of the Valentine Richmond History Center. The first chapter uses prescriptive literature popular in the eighteenth century to establish the restrictive, obedient, and subservient expectations for women’s behavior. The second chapter explores the reasons that the same books that prohibited many forms of pleasure promoted needlework as an acceptable activity for women. This …
A Midsummer Night's Dream On The Radio: Technology In Voice And Speech, David Becker
A Midsummer Night's Dream On The Radio: Technology In Voice And Speech, David Becker
Theses and Dissertations
Recent advances in sound technology have had significant implications for the teaching of voice and speech that are only now becoming apparent. As more students become “plugged in” it becomes more difficult, both for the instructor and the student, to communicate, let alone find a voice. We are becoming increasingly addicted to communicating through our devices, rather than through the traditional and accepted modes of the past: using the human voice. In light of these rapid and various new developments, voice training, especially at the introductory level, needs to be examined anew. A number of traditional approaches and teaching methods …
[Aura], Stephanie Benassi
[Aura], Stephanie Benassi
Theses and Dissertations
[AURA] is a collection of photographs of landscapes and objects that have been implicated in fringe beliefs, alternative narratives and the strange events that reside beyond the scope of our everyday experiences. These photographs represent the symbols used to describe phenomena and also concentrate on the areas surrounding the events. My investigation also examines how the affect of the landscape has contributed to the interpretations by those that witnessed it. As a photographic collection, [AURA] investigates issues related to truth, as well as the role of subjectivity versus objectivity in my photographic practice. By concentrating this discussion on issues of …
Dante Gabriel Rossetti And The Italian Renaissance: Envisioning Aesthetic Beauty And The Past Through Images Of Women, Carolyn Porter
Dante Gabriel Rossetti And The Italian Renaissance: Envisioning Aesthetic Beauty And The Past Through Images Of Women, Carolyn Porter
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s knowledge and interpretation of the Italian Renaissance during the 1860s. I argue that there is a relationship between Rossetti’s Aestheticism and his understanding of the Italian Renaissance and that this relationship is visibly manifested in his images of women from the period. In Victorian England, Aestheticism and the philosophy of beauty for its own sake became increasingly popular throughout the 1860s. I challenge the idea that Aestheticism and an interest in Renaissance art are mutually exclusive aspects of the artist’s work. Rossetti’s images of women expressed both his understanding of Renaissance art and the …
Vaudeville: A How To Guide, Evan Anderson
Vaudeville: A How To Guide, Evan Anderson
Theses and Dissertations
At the turn of the twentieth century vaudeville was the most prevalent form of theatrical entertainment. With more than 1,500 houses across the country, vaudeville reached in excess of 30 million audience members each year. It directly led to the advent of film and radio. Yet barely one hundred years later vaudeville has been forgotten by the once loyal masses. This guide is meant to help counter vaudeville’s fall. By adding together a basic script consisting of comedy and dramatic sketches, original works and classic vaudeville acts with music and information on the how and whys of vaudeville, this guide …
Defying Labels: Richmond Now’S Multi-Generational Dynamism, Schuyler Vanvalkenburg
Defying Labels: Richmond Now’S Multi-Generational Dynamism, Schuyler Vanvalkenburg
Theses and Dissertations
In the late 1960s a group of women became interested in forming a chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Richmond. These women, led by Zelda Nordlinger and Holt Carlton, followed a pragmatic, big-tent approach to women’s activism. This ideological and tactical openness defies traditional historical labels as these women fluidly moved through organizations and tactics in order to gain a stronger local following. Richmond’s NOW chapter, while staying attuned to the national organization’s platform, remained relatively autonomous and parochial in its tactics and pursuits. Further, Richmond NOW showed a marked change around 1974 with an influx of …
Sub, Counter And Someothers, Tim Bearse
Sub, Counter And Someothers, Tim Bearse
Theses and Dissertations
Textual accompaniment to the exhibition Blizzard Skitch. This thesis discusses parallels between body cognition in skateboarding and object cognition in sculpture and architecture.
The Design Integration Of An Animal Shelter Into Martin Luther King Middle School, Anna Givens
The Design Integration Of An Animal Shelter Into Martin Luther King Middle School, Anna Givens
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores the design integration of an animal shelter into an existing school in an at-risk neighborhood. The connection between at-risk students and homeless animals is valuable to the design. A large central courtyard located within Martin Luther King Middle School serves as a connection between both students and animals. Because the animal shelter is located in a central location within the school, students and animals have a greater ability to form a connection necessary for the program to work. This thesis is about the interaction between both animals and students through the process of design.
Styling The Sound: Vocal Coaching The Big Knife, Melissa Carroll-Jackson
Styling The Sound: Vocal Coaching The Big Knife, Melissa Carroll-Jackson
Theses and Dissertations
Styling the Sound: Vocal Coaching The Big Knife explores the journey from research, to rehearsal and finally concludes with a post-production evaluation of the Theatre VCU production of Clifford Odets’s The Big Knife, directed by Tawnya Pettiford-Wates. In Chapter 1 I discuss the process I went through in preparing myself, the director and actors for the demands of the production. This section of the thesis focuses on the research aspect of the work I did. Chapter 2 focuses on the auditions for the show, first read-through and rehearsal process. Also, the one-on-one time spent with actors is also analyzed in …
Children's Art Museum, Shalen Bradford
Children's Art Museum, Shalen Bradford
Theses and Dissertations
This Thesis explores the question; Is a children’s museum a playground or a museum? Through research and visits to children’s museums I feel that many are playgrounds. They are also visually stimulating to children, but not to the guardians who bring them there. In most cases the exhibits are permanent and there is little change to the atmosphere of the space on a regular basis. An old warehouse located on North Boulevard was chosen to house this project idea of a children’s art museum. The scenario is that The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Children’s Museum of Richmond …
The Uses Of Applied Theatre, Matthew Mckay
The Uses Of Applied Theatre, Matthew Mckay
Theses and Dissertations
Applied theatre is an umbrella term describing the practice of borrowing concepts from the conventional theatre and applying them to different disciplines. This thesis focuses on the use of applied theatre in teaching effective communication skills. Using the work of the Ariel Group and personal experiences working with the VCU da Vinci Center as examples, this paper demonstrates ways that underlying theatre concepts are used to teach communication skills. Additionally, this paper argues that there are many advantages for using theatre professors to teach communication skills to non-theatre students in other disciplines through the use of applied theatre methods. To …
Graphic Design As Projection, Bret Hansen
Graphic Design As Projection, Bret Hansen
Theses and Dissertations
I imagined a world where designing is projecting and where the entire design field is called projection. My research into what it means to be a projector culminates in a participatory creative project that embodies concepts of projection taken from a range of disparate subjects.
Understanding Design, Joshua Reese
Understanding Design, Joshua Reese
Theses and Dissertations
Somewhere along the way, I found that graphic design in professional practice was becoming synonymous with form and style, and losing its connection with concept and audience. I’m trying to find a way back.
Duality And The Parallel Lives, Hiromi Takizawa
Duality And The Parallel Lives, Hiromi Takizawa
Theses and Dissertations
My engagement with making is a metaphor that contains the interior landscapes of my mind. I continue to explore it by comparing and contrasting exterior and interior, investigating surface and depth, covering and exposing, and taking apart and putting together. I work to translate my individual experiences and emotions into a tangible form. The visual dialogues that I engage in with my work explore a range of aspects that are inherent and specific to my Japanese cultural heritage. It often springs from my daily encounters with the subtle nuances and observable oddities of living in the “West”. These experiences have …
Memory Created, Maria Fabrizio
Memory Created, Maria Fabrizio
Theses and Dissertations
Memory is like afternoon light penetrating the windows of a fast moving car. The light coming through the trees creates images, reveals objects and faces, and introduces fluctuating sensations of warmth and coolness. Sometimes these images appear in logical sequences and at other times they are fleeting, surreal, and ambiguous. While memories are often presented linearly as fact, in actuality our stories only grasp at the truth. They are fragmented, imagined, and rearranged. By examining the intersection of reality and imagination in memories we see retelling as an act of creativity.
An Indecent Obsession, Aaron Mcintosh
An Indecent Obsession, Aaron Mcintosh
Theses and Dissertations
The title of my thesis is appropriately borrowed from a romance novel title, as my work proposes to mine the content, design and culture of romance novels and other erotic texts in order to excavate my own queer romance narrative. The body of work includes large-scale drawings of “stand-in boyfriends” stolen from romance novel covers, pieced fabric text works based on the titles of erotic texts, and a couch covered in erotic reading material. Drawing attention to the ubiquity of heterosexualized images and texts by deconstructing them, my work critically questions larger social constructions of normality and deviance, pleasure and …
Visualizing Cultural Impermanence Through Entropic Design, Clifford Meena Khalili
Visualizing Cultural Impermanence Through Entropic Design, Clifford Meena Khalili
Theses and Dissertations
Entropy is a process of gradual decline as a system loses the strength to maintain itself. It begins with disorder and results in complete transformation. As a multi-cultural American, it has been my experience that the maintenance of my Iranian heritage parallels this concept. A method of visual communication that incorporates entropy is able to express notions of impermanence, disorder and transformation. This project is focused on employing entropy in the process of design and image making by using the transformation of my cultural identity as primary content.
Geologic Typography, Eric Karnes
Geologic Typography, Eric Karnes
Theses and Dissertations
In this project, I explore how the processes and structures of non-design disciplines can influence typographic form. Using the field of geology as a test case, I apply geologic processes to typographic form in order to create dimensional structures that speak to a wide audience.