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Virginia Commonwealth University

2013

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Articles 31 - 60 of 117

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Branch Public Baths, Whitney Cardozo May 2013

Branch Public Baths, Whitney Cardozo

Theses and Dissertations

Is it possible for a small hotel to strengthen connections between local and transient groups? Can a small hotel serve as a host to visitors to Richmond, Virginia but also serve as a ‘third place’ for people who live and work in the city? The Branch Public Baths Building in Richmond, Virginia will be renovated to strengthen community by serving as a restaurant and providing accommodations and interaction to a wide variety of travelers through an urban hotel setting. The Branch Public Baths cafe and restaurant can be an ‘anchor’ third space. This unique design solution can strategically integrate the …


Hissār, Sohail Abdullah May 2013

Hissār, Sohail Abdullah

Theses and Dissertations

Hissaar is a noun and a verb, it is the periphery and the extremities, and the walls and the fortress. And it is to encircle, to wrap and to contain. This paper is an inexhaustive account of thoughts, experiences and lessons learned, of varying forms that influence my aesthetic sensibilities, my art-value system, and my art- ethical concerns. They provide for my art the impetus for its perpetual (and perhaps circular) journey. It is about finding connections between the fraying ends of free floating ideas. The following fragments explores how words make ideas, ideas make images, images make memory; memory …


Naturalis Historia, Reconstructed, Sarah Briland May 2013

Naturalis Historia, Reconstructed, Sarah Briland

Theses and Dissertations

When Pliny the Elder wrote Naturalis Historia around 70 A.D., the idea of natural history contained and connected biology, geology, and mineralogy with the history of painting and sculpture. Art was an extension of the natural world as its materials were extracted from plants, animals, and, particularly, mined and quarried pigments, stone, and metals. In my developing body of work, Incidents of Naturalis Historia, Reconstructed, I combine wasps’ nests, architectural fragments, and other found objects excavated from my surrounding environment with elements of glass that resemble lichen, crystallization, and geologic specimens. These works simulate artifacts of an alternative history; one …


Underlying Conditions, Mariam Eqbal May 2013

Underlying Conditions, Mariam Eqbal

Theses and Dissertations

The following is a collection of lines, curves, and dots on a plane, representing words fashioned to communicate my ideas about relationships between the thing and the nothing. This thesis is like a map, a contour drawing, an assortment of lines, speaking my thoughts about things in relation to space and time. As something moving, developing into another thing, as a thing sentient, I am viewing, performing, and processing incremental acts. I am looking at water and I can see my reflection break into a thousand pieces. It is like watching time.


Chapter Three, Ruby Troup May 2013

Chapter Three, Ruby Troup

Theses and Dissertations

Where does the story begin and what are the different chapters? What forest is she traveling through and where does she store her baggage? Where are the doors that she needs to open and why must this path, follow her like a shadow? What does she shelter and what does she let sit out in the rain? What does she allow to fracture and will a wall be broken? Is she searching for something that can be found and did she leave enough breadcrumbs to find her way back?


Subduer, Lauren B. Miller May 2013

Subduer, Lauren B. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

By reclaiming and translating the use of material in my work, I speak of oneness on a basic physical level. As the body in the images slips in and out of focus in abstraction of material, the objects patiently wait to be interjected into the composition of the space as a whole.


Narrowing The Gap Between Imaginary And Real Artifacts: A Process For Making And Filming Diegetic Prototypes, Al Hussein Wanas May 2013

Narrowing The Gap Between Imaginary And Real Artifacts: A Process For Making And Filming Diegetic Prototypes, Al Hussein Wanas

Theses and Dissertations

Critical Design uses designed artifacts as a critique of consumer culture. However, the complex nature of these artifacts prompted designers to focus on the artifact and present it in an informative, but relatively isolated fashion.The theoretical framework for this thesis is drawn from a similar, yet more recent, design criterion called Design Fiction. The artifacts of Design Fiction are called Diegetic Prototypes: fictional prototypes that function in the social sphere of a film’s structure. This research develops a method for analyzing and creating artifacts, in reference to psychoanalysis theories on the human psyche and perception of objects. It then explores …


Finding History In The Future, Al-Sowaidi Aisha May 2013

Finding History In The Future, Al-Sowaidi Aisha

Theses and Dissertations

Change and development over an extremely fast period of time in Qatar have shifted the atmospheric sense of the country. The distance created by the skyscrapers and their scale to people has a great impact on the behavior and interaction between the people and the city. In my research, I aim to incorporate the old experiences and behaviors with contemporary design in objects used within the house to maintain the feeling of being home through reliving the fading behaviors and traditions as well as bringing closer the modern city into the home through the use of materials. Through experimentation with …


Beyond The Stated Function: Showcasing, Through Everyday Objects, Social Obstacles Imposed On Qatari Female Youth, Kazem Esra May 2013

Beyond The Stated Function: Showcasing, Through Everyday Objects, Social Obstacles Imposed On Qatari Female Youth, Kazem Esra

Theses and Dissertations

This critical design project showcases obstacles that the Qatari culture and society impose on their female youth, hindering them from becoming independent individuals. It critiques the society and its social pressures. The project stimulates people to think by challenging their assumptions and perceptions, specifically social perception and judgment, family authority, and gender favoritism. This is achieved through hybridized accessories that are embedded with a meta-meaning that arouses curiosity, invites questions, and stimulates thoughts. Through the design of these appealing, high quality, and functionally viable everyday accessories, the project aims to communicate the social and cultural forces which impede Qatari female …


Serve The Ones Below: The Dramaturgy Of Sweeney Todd, Michael Hegarty May 2013

Serve The Ones Below: The Dramaturgy Of Sweeney Todd, Michael Hegarty

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a personal journey. My work on VCU’s production of SWEENEY TODD began in the Spring of 2012 when I came on board the production as dramaturg. Part of what is contained within is both an explanation of my dramaturgical research method as well as samples of the research I have compiled. However, my role was drastically changed in the Fall of 2012 when I was cast as the primary antagonist in the production. The thesis chronicles the rehearsal process as my role as dramaturg increasingly gave way to my role as actor. It attempts to answer the …


In Perceiving Monsters: A Costume Design For Caryl Churchill's The Skriker, Joshua Quinn May 2013

In Perceiving Monsters: A Costume Design For Caryl Churchill's The Skriker, Joshua Quinn

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to document my process for a costume design of The Skriker by Caryl Churchill. Included is the design account confronted in telling the story, analyzing the script, developing concepts and looks, and final rendering of the characters. The paper finishes with a reflection on how the design served the script and my conclusions on its success.


Shockheaded Peter: A Junk Opera. Costume Design., J. Theresa Bush May 2013

Shockheaded Peter: A Junk Opera. Costume Design., J. Theresa Bush

Theses and Dissertations

My concept is rooted in the fairy tail land of the dark woods like so many other terrifying fairy tails from my youth. Shockheaded Peter, our boogie man, is of the trees. The blood of the rotten children feeds the trees in this concept for the marbles that fall from our children literally representing blood will flow down the rake, across tin gutters, and into a huge tin washbasin out of which grows our gnarly set tree, a gnarly knobby willow. Peter comes from this tree that is fed by the blood of children. I set my costumes in the …


Not Another Space Suit: Fusing Technology And Indigenous Solutions To Facilitate Thermal Comfort, Alia Khairat May 2013

Not Another Space Suit: Fusing Technology And Indigenous Solutions To Facilitate Thermal Comfort, Alia Khairat

Theses and Dissertations

Unseen, unheard and unconsidered, Qatar’s migrant worker population is building one of the richest countries in the world. They labor in Qatar’s high heat index1 climate, which is coincidentally comparable to an Oriental sauna, wearing the most rudimentary of clothes. Working up to 60 hours a week, migrant workers fall victim to heat stress and dozens are hospitalized daily, starting as early as March and increasing in numbers during the peak months of June to August. Since clothes are essentially a “second skin,” affecting the rate and efficiency with which heat is exchanged between the body and its surroundings, a …


Soldiers For Democracy: Karl Loewenstein, John H. Herz, Militant Democracy And The Defense Of The Democratic State, Ben Plache May 2013

Soldiers For Democracy: Karl Loewenstein, John H. Herz, Militant Democracy And The Defense Of The Democratic State, Ben Plache

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the work of two German Jewish émigré scholars, Karl Loewenstein and John H. Herz, and how they confronted the conflict between fascism and democracy throughout the 1930s and during World War II. Loewenstein, in academic publications and later through a campaign of public advocacy, urged the adoption of his theory of militant democracy for the protection of democratic institutions. Originally conceived as temporary legislation to deprive fascists of the fundamental rights they abused in order to seize power, this theory evolved into the understanding by Loewenstein that fascist and democratic states could not coexist, and that fundamental …


Teaching And Performing Theatre For Youth Using Physical Storytelling, Brooke Turner Alison May 2013

Teaching And Performing Theatre For Youth Using Physical Storytelling, Brooke Turner Alison

Theses and Dissertations

For children to enjoy theatre they must see a story played out physically. The same is true when children act. Young performers must be taught to act using a simplified version of the Stanislavski System that puts emphasis on playable action. This thesis evaluates current acting texts for youth based on whether or not the author is able to outline a method that is accessible for children, and highlights the importance of playable action in scene work. It also provides a guide to teaching theatre for youth based on a class of the author’s design where students developed curriculum, managed …


Lashes To Ashes, Exploring The Hidden Dimensions Of Human Hair, Rania Chamsine May 2013

Lashes To Ashes, Exploring The Hidden Dimensions Of Human Hair, Rania Chamsine

Theses and Dissertations

Hair is power, beauty and seduction: a reflection of ethnicity and religion, and even a canvas for self-expression. A key feature in defining identity and social status, it holds the essence of our individuality. However, once removed from its original and natural setting—the epidermis—hair is seen as waste, and often evokes disgust. The objective of this thesis is to explore human hair, which particularly in the Arabic-Islamic region, carries great significance and raises many religious, cultural, and gender issues. Through design, and informed by critical design theory, I explore how this corporeal material can be reused and re-presented as a …


Laughing Together: Comedic Theatre As A Mechanism Of Survival During The Holocaust, Robin Knepp May 2013

Laughing Together: Comedic Theatre As A Mechanism Of Survival During The Holocaust, Robin Knepp

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to analyze the ways many Jewish victims of the Holocaust used comedic theatre to help them overcome their dire circumstances by exploring the high demand for comedic performance in both the ghettoes and concentration camps and analyzing the numerous comedic works that were penned amidst the terror and catastrophic loss surrounding the Jews at this time. The second portion delves into the therapeutic values of comedy and explores the ways laughing may have benefitted those who partook in comedic theatre events. The final chapter investigate whether or not laughter should still be used to help cope with …


The Napoleonic Empire And The Making Of A Modern Public: Policing, Politics, And Parades In Nineteenth-Century Hamburg, 1806-1830, Brendan Haidinger May 2013

The Napoleonic Empire And The Making Of A Modern Public: Policing, Politics, And Parades In Nineteenth-Century Hamburg, 1806-1830, Brendan Haidinger

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the attention historians have given to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Central Europe, few works have sought to understand these events' reverberations throughout the nineteenth century in a local or regional context. Taking the northern German city of Hamburg as its focal point, this study investigates the change in the urban political culture affected by eight years of Napoleonic occupation. In the process of replacing Hamburg's sprawling and archaic government with one characterized by Gallic centralization and rigor, the French introduced a new style of politics that relied on consistent, public, and martial presentations of its authority. This …


Race, Power, And White Womanhood: The Obsessions Of Tom Watson And Thomas Dixon Jr., Tara Nicole Kowasic May 2013

Race, Power, And White Womanhood: The Obsessions Of Tom Watson And Thomas Dixon Jr., Tara Nicole Kowasic

Theses and Dissertations

Thomas Dixon Jr. (1864 -1946) and Thomas E. Watson (1856-1922), two controversial and radical figures, are often credited with the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan. Dixon, writer of novels and plays such as The Leopard’s Spots (1902) and The Clansman (1905), and Watson, politician, prolific writer, and publisher of Watson’s Magazine and The Jeffersonian, reached the masses and saturated popular culture with their racial agenda. As each of these men had especially long careers, this thesis focuses on particular times and specific issues. With Dixon, the writing of The Clansman (1905) and production of The Birth of a …


Opportunities For The Sustainable Use Of The Camel In Qatar, Corby Jayne Elford May 2013

Opportunities For The Sustainable Use Of The Camel In Qatar, Corby Jayne Elford

Theses and Dissertations

In the course of the modernization of Qatar, the need for camels has greatly diminished; herds have reduced in numbers and are now confined to enclosures. Overall, neglect of this valuable resource means that the camel is threatened with extinction. Currently, there is a need to address problems about sustainable development in Qatar by taking actions such as investing in the existing natural heritage to develop the use of indigenous animals like the camel. Through a review of past and present use of the native dromedary, a new type of sustainable agritourism will be developed that will provide a type …


"As Mind To The Body": Prudence And Artificial Memory In The Illustrations And Commentary Of George Sandys' Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished (1632), James Hellman May 2013

"As Mind To The Body": Prudence And Artificial Memory In The Illustrations And Commentary Of George Sandys' Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished (1632), James Hellman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of an English verse translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in 1632 by the Englishman George Sandys. This book included a full English commentary and was illustrated by several full-plate engravings. This study examines the edition's elaborate utilization of the rhetorical practices of artificial memory and related concepts of rhetorical invention. It demonstrates that these rhetorical practices were chosen and implemented for their inherent structural appropriateness for the cultivation of prudence, or practical wisdom. It reveals that the lessons in practical wisdom encoded in the work through the techniques of artificial memory were particularly aimed at …


Considering Strasberg’S Method In The Twenty-First Century: A New Pedagogy, Terry Hardcastle May 2013

Considering Strasberg’S Method In The Twenty-First Century: A New Pedagogy, Terry Hardcastle

Theses and Dissertations

Student of Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, co-founder of the Group Theatre, Artistic Director of the Actors Studio, founder of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and developer of The Method, Lee Strasberg is one of the most famous acting teachers of the twentieth century. In the same way a concert pianist must practice her scales daily to maintain expertise, Strasberg believed an actor must regularly practice the use of sense memory to be emotionally authentic. Using Strasberg’s Method, this is achieved through a combination of relaxation and concentration, which leads to a sense of truth in performance. The …


The Struggle Toward Equality In Higher Education:The Impact Of The Morrill Acts On Race Relations In Virginia, 1872-1958, Nicholas Betts Apr 2013

The Struggle Toward Equality In Higher Education:The Impact Of The Morrill Acts On Race Relations In Virginia, 1872-1958, Nicholas Betts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the impact of the 1862 and 1890 Morrill Acts on Virginia’s public higher education system. While the Morrill Acts, issued by the federal government, expanded access to higher education for all Americans, they also resulted in the entrenchment of segregation in seventeen different state public higher education systems. The segregated public higher education systems in Virginia and elsewhere led to inequality in the higher education available to African Americans students, compared with the higher education available to white students within these states. This thesis will address the disparity, brought about by unequal funding of institutions based upon …


Developing A Masters Of Fine Arts In Classical Performance For Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: The Transformation Of An Education Department Into An Education, Matthew Johnson Apr 2013

Developing A Masters Of Fine Arts In Classical Performance For Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: The Transformation Of An Education Department Into An Education, Matthew Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis focuses on the development of a fully accredited Masters of Fine Arts in Classical Performance degree program for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC). Chapter 1 is a narrative of the author’s experience with CSC’s Young Company, the touring and teaching artist arm of the educational department. This chapter establishes culture of the company and the context of the program, the argument for the thesis. Chapter 2 is an exploration of existing and defunct MFA programs in Classical Performance or related fields of study, the steps toward NAST accreditation and curriculum development. Chapter 3 is a description of the MFA …


Decoding Acting Vocabulary, Daniel Granke Apr 2013

Decoding Acting Vocabulary, Daniel Granke

Theses and Dissertations

This paper compares seemingly similar words from a variety of acting teachers, and shows how it is impossible to draw clear comparisons between words that are often used as synonyms. The paper is a reflection of the journey from believing in translation to recognizing its impossibility. In Chapter 1 we focus on one of the most common elements in actor training, Attention/focus/concentration, and analyze the shades of meaning in those words and the difficulty of talking about them in isolation. In Chapter 2 we look at the way in which semiotic analysis can explain the words resistance to equivalence. In …


Live Art: A Positive Change In This World, Phillip Vollmer Apr 2013

Live Art: A Positive Change In This World, Phillip Vollmer

Theses and Dissertations

LIVE ART is a program for students with special needs and students who are typically developed. They work collaboratively, with integrated forms of performance and visual art, culminating in a live performance. LIVE ART sought to use innovative methods of pedagogy, peer support and artistic influence to create a new curriculum where all students, regardless of ability, could grow. Along with this account, this thesis illustrates the experience of one teaching artist and his growth and journey through the program. His personal struggles with previous educational systems are mirrored in the struggles of the students, with their successes leading to …


The Economy Of Indifference, Nicholas Irzyk Apr 2013

The Economy Of Indifference, Nicholas Irzyk

Theses and Dissertations

The following monologue examines the personal, cultural and ethical viability of abstraction in a contemporary painting practice, conducted on the eve of my thesis exhibition.


Catherine Opie's Domestic Series, Sara Harney Apr 2013

Catherine Opie's Domestic Series, Sara Harney

Theses and Dissertations

American photographer Catherine Opie combines portraiture and documentary photography in her photographic series titled Domestic. At the center of this series lies the idea of community and the question of how community is constructed, a theme which unites Opie’s seemingly disparate bodies of work. Domestic depicts lesbians from across the United States in scenes of domesticity, living as couples, families, and housemates. Using formal portrait conventions to aestheticize the images, Opie photographed her subjects in and around their actual homes to create images that are documentary in essence. The series works to represent the lesbian community, which Opie felt had …


2314 West Main Street: A Place For Engagement, Annie Thompson Apr 2013

2314 West Main Street: A Place For Engagement, Annie Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

The design intent of this thesis is to deconstruct the elements of the beer brewing process to allow the public to engage, enjoy, and appreciate the process while dining. It is to create a site for a craft brewery that is local to the neighborhood of The Fan. Allowing the public to engage, cultivate and create enthusiasm for the brewing process. To deconstruct the industrial process of brewing beer to allow accessibility for the public to enjoy the process while eating, drinking, and learning.


Variations On A Porch, Jillian Chapin Apr 2013

Variations On A Porch, Jillian Chapin

Theses and Dissertations

Davida Rochlin said, “Nobody thought much about the front porch when most Americans had them and used them. The great American front porch was just there, open and sociable, an unassigned part of the house that belonged to everyone and no one, a place for family and friends to pass the time.” The landscape in which those porches existed has changed. Our traditional views of housing and neighborhoods (single family homes with a cul-de-sac at the end) really aren’t the norm anymore. In the last 10 years more Americans have moved to, and are living in cities than in the …