Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Fair Employment, Voting Rights, And Racial Violence (Including Introduction), Timothy N. Thurber

History Publications

Introduction and chapter one from the book, Republicans and Race: The GOP’s Frayed Relationship with African Americans, 1945–1974.

From the author's introduction "I offer a fresh look at the relationship between African Americans and the GOP. This book explores how Republicans at the federal level approached racial policy and politics between 1945 and 1974. Though the struggle for black equality existed before then and continues today, these three decades constitute a distinct era in that battle. African Americans and their allies grew more assertive in challenging the status quo. Some focused on direct action protests, while others primarily lobbied the …

Virginia: A Sermon Preached At White-Chappel. Type Facsimile Edition., William Symonds

British Virginia

British Virginia is a series of peer-reviewed, open-access editions of original documents related to the colony. British Virginia publications illustrate both the enduring ideological discourse of English settlement in and around the James River, and the unique historical artifacts that record the area's modern colonization. Editions derive from original sources and original research on them. The first two publications in the series, by Professor Joshua Eckhardt (VCU English), are each documentary (or, in other words, single-witness) editions of the Virginia Historical Society's copy of a printed sermon preached by William Symonds to the Virginia Company of London in April, 1609 …

Medical Literary Messenger (Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2013)

Medical Literary Messenger

Before the Laying On / Robert Eastwood -- When the Medical Student Teaches / M. Hoya -- Lesion / Stacy R. Nigliazzo -- The Way Back To Childhood / Christopher Woods -- The Uselessness of Our Hands / Sean Prentiss -- Never Forget You Work in Oncology / Lorraine Waltz -- Going Down / Thom Schwarz -- Past Curfew, At a Time Past (1964) / Barbara A. Carrington -- Approaching Shadows / Christopher Woods -- Virginia Nature / Hannah Kim -- Is Six Always Six / Ken Staley -- Cheers (Desvenlafaxine) / Nick D’Annunzio Jones -- Arm Dissection, MCV Gross …

Menorah Review (No. 78, Winter/Spring, 2013)

Menorah Review

After the Shoah: Blackmail, Vengeance, and the Death of the Future -- Assessing Jewish Worship in the United States -- Books in Brief: New and Notable -- Claude Lanzmann's Shoah Revisited -- Israel's Leaders An Inside View -- Mission in the Diaspora: Simon Dubnov's Jewish Autonomism -- Saul And David -- The Rambam Project: Code, Marshal, Hegemony, Sanctity Of Life And Gender in the Mishneh Torah -- Valuing Cultural Differences

Menorah Review (No. 79, Summer/Fall, 2013)

Menorah Review

Authorities Without Power: The Jewish Council of Vienna During the Holocaust -- Books in Brief: New and Notable -- Cry and Wail: Jewish Suffering in Documents From Ukraine, 1918-1921 -- Moreshet: From the Sources -- Speaking of the Law -- The Jewish "Success" Story? -- The Power of the Word -- Two Poems by Richard Sherwin -- Unearthing Buried Treasures: Reading Leah Goldberg in Translation

Make It Real - Undergraduate Research Opportunities, Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, Lisa Abrams, Maria Carlton, Preetam Ghosh, Joseph Kuttenkuler, Juanita Sharpe

L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Publications

Theme one in the Quest for Distinction is for VCU to become a leader among national research universities in providing all students with high quality learning/living experiences focused on inquiry, discovery, and innovation in a global environment. Quest is grounded in a commitment to providing students with a diversity of experiences which are available at a premiere public research university. The goal of this project is to take advantage of the wealth of research resources at the Medical College of Virginia Campus, coordinate cross campus efforts to facilitate the use of these resources and increase faculty participation in mentoring undergraduate …

Multi-Culturalism & Alzheimer’S Disease: Patient-Centered Design As A New Care Model For Multi-Cultural Patients With Alzheimer’S Disease, Sang Ryu

Theses and Dissertations

The multi-cultural demographics of those who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease should be closely examined. From a designer’s standpoint, its cultural traits can foster positive behaviors that lead to better quality of life for patients and caregivers. A patient-centered approach in design was explored in order to shape community-based care that empowers (1) individuality in care services, (2) interpersonal connection in caregiver–patient activities, and (3) a communal culture of being valued via humanitarian approaches.

Wanderings, Jetter Jorge Silva

Theses and Dissertations

While it implies aimless movement, the act of wandering is an act of discovery and can become a search for the unexpected. Wandering, as a metaphor for making, creates opportunities to work in ways where the final outcome is unknown. This can be accomplished by the creation of methods and instructions designed for wandering-the act of discovery. In the field of design, these ideas can be incorporated as methods for making that guide the design process in ultimately unknowable ways, resulting in products that bear little trace of preconception. The role of chance and indeterminacy as methods for relinquishing control …

Sins Of A Nation, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how Methodist clergy in Virginia tended to the spiritual needs of their congregations in the context of war. It also discusses the way that clergy worked to make their ideas on the war and its progression known through newspapers, sermons, addresses, and government-recognized days of fasting and prayer. As the largest religious denomination in the South during the war the Methodist Church was in a position to not only offer support , but to shape the opinions of the Confederate people.

Pedal To The Metal: Our Year Of Dh, John Glover, Kristina Keogh

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

No abstract provided.

Re:Creation, Heather Boone

Theses and Dissertations

This intent of this project is to explore the importance of handmade objects in the age of information.

Blue Book, Daniel Cole

Theses and Dissertations

Alain De Botton writes in The Architecture of Happiness, that “any object of design will give off an impression of the psychological and moral attitudes it supports.” Interpreting design then is done by understanding the attitudes of the designer, which either will or will not resonate with the viewer. I may consider the formal and conceptual merits of an object of design, but ultimately my attitudes determine whether the object will have resonance with me. These “attitudes” are, anthropologically speaking, values: what a person finds most good, proper, or desirable in life. Values are the key to the creation of …

Transforming Narratives, Lucia Weilein

Theses and Dissertations

Narrative, often considered synonymous with “story,” can be viewed from a structuralist perspective and analyzed independent of any particular content. Breaking narrative into categories of story and discourse, this autonomous structure makes possible a translation of content from one form to another. The various media and form types common in graphic design can serve as both recipient and translator of narratives, converting content into a framework that includes the concept of craftsmanship, aesthetic components and specifications, legibility and composition, and the physical form of the designed object. To examine how this framework functions in practice, I have developed a series …

What?: Visual Interpretations Of The Miscommunication Between The Hearing And Deaf, Virginia Shou

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis visualizes the communication challenges both latent and obvious of my daily life as a hard of hearing individual. By focusing on a variety of experiences and examples I demonstrate the implications of a hard of hearing individual’s life. The prints, objects and videos that I have created for my visual thesis aim to enrich the understanding of a broader public on issues regularly faced by Deaf people. At the heart of my work my goal is to generate mutual empathy between the hearing and the Deaf.

Autonomous Systems, Karolis Kosas

Theses and Dissertations

The ubiquity of digital media provides an unprecedented possibility to redefine the process and methods of design. Through experience from a series of creative projects, I investigate how certain aspects of the web allow for design to attain a degree of autonomy, thus producing results that go beyond anticipation and expertise of the author. Utilizing an unlimited capacity to store the content and retrieve immediate feedback, the designer’s role can be shifted to that of an initiator defining rules and boundaries, from which the process can evolve independently based on the input of users and data. The design output in …

Art In Translation: A Cross-County Collaboration, Lili Un, Rana Rwaished

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Lili Un, a Painting and Printmaking major at VCU’s Monroe Park Campus in Richmond, collaborated with Rana Rwaished, an Interior Design graduate from VCU in Qatar, to explore the translation of two-dimensional painting into three-dimensional interior design elements. Since they were physically separated, Un and Rwaished maintained a vigorous dialogue through Skype. Once one collaborator finished a project, she would send detailed images to the other, who would then create a new work based on those designs. The paintings were scanned into Adobe Illustrator, and the lines were extracted to form a separate file. Both the qualities of these lines …

A Documentary Narrative: The African-American Male, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

I went to New York with a couple of friends of mine. We’re all artists. It was a trip through the Kinetic Imaging department. We’re in New York and we’re these black males – we felt free to do anything we wanted. We recorded ourselves spitting poetry or dancing. The idea kind of came to me: You know, I want to do a film that has that freedom, that has that feeling of not caring about a specific plot line, but that shows the aspects of who we are out there in public performance. So when I came back to …

Sunday Does Not Come In Camp, Margaret T. Kidd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This article explores how the Methodist Church tended to the spiritual needs of the soldiers in the Confederate Army. The church supplied 448 chaplains to the Army, but there were never enough to meet the needs of the troops. The church worked to mitigate this problem by establishing the Soldiers' Tract Association in 1862 and by sometimes working with churches of other denominations to support the soldiers.

Microfilm Fragmentation, Dylan Halpern

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Fragmentations that manifest during the translation from analog media to digital are often inexplicable and distinctly intriguing. In this study, I delved into the expansive collection of microfilm in the VCU library in an attempt to discover the fractures and errors of the material and aesthetically catalog them. Using a (now arcane) microfilm reader, I documented errors on the films themselves (likely present since the film’s creation and/or as a result of decay), technological flickers resulting from an imperfect scanning technology, and artificially introduced human errors that resulted from improper machine use for effect. The original content of the microfiche …

Land Of The Ley, Grace Huddleston

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

The line separating phenomenon and science has become blurred in the investigation of ley lines. Ley lines can be described as “invisible” lines that link different places of interest and significance, either historical or geographical. This is a very loose definition, but it must remain vague, as it has to account for the various understandings of the lines. These individual interpretations are noted by Atkins Webster in his introduction to “Do Quasar Ley Lines Really Exist,” in which he states that “one supposition is that these ley lines were intended for some practical purpose, perhaps to mark a track or …

Methods In Visual Mathematics: Reductionism In Researching Mathematical Principles In Art, Lauren N. Colie

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

People traditionally rely on visual arts as an effective communication tool and medium of self-expression for when words fail to convey abstract concepts. Thera Mjaaland, anthropologist and professional photographer, writes, “Art is capable of negotiating conceptual gaps caused by a dichotomized epistemology” (393). In essence, Mjaaland asserts that art helps relate different modes of thinking by illustrating the abstract and difficult to grasp—privileging the communicative value of an image over that of text. Within this method of communication is a collection of works acknowledged by public consensus to be of an elevated status or value. The art world is deeply …

Independent Animation: Exploring The Fine Line Between Inspiration And Imitation, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

I came into VCU hoping to eventually go into independent animation. The UROP opportunity popped up and it sounded great and I thought, “Hey, this is something that I’ve been wanting to do.” I read the book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (which is a children’s book that I’m basing my animation off of) as I was coming into school freshman year and I thought it would be great to do a project on it. So, I wrote up a proposal and people liked it!

Personal Profile: Amanda Ndemo Archeological Accessibility Through 3-D Laser Scanning, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

The familiar signs that chide visitors to refrain from touching historical artifacts in museums would have no place in Dr. Bernard Means’ Virtual Curation Laboratory. Thanks to the innovative, fast-paced world of 3-D scanning, senior Amanda Ndemo had an archeological site at her fingertips, all while staying in Richmond for the VCU Honors Summer Undergraduate Research Program (HSURP).

Producing Children's Toys Through 3-D Printing: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

One of the things that first attracted me to VCU was the opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions and interactions. I saw HSURP as a way to push my boundaries and interact with peers from different disciplines. When I saw the Social Design and 3-D Printing project, it just clicked. I saw the opportunity for engineering, for arts, for research, for graphic design. All of the things I was interested in learning about all came together.

Mexican Health Paradox, Merit George

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Despite the broad array of research that exists on the Hispanic health paradox, no single explanation has been marked as the dominant reason for the disparities in life expectancy that exist between Mexican Americans and other Hispanic and non-Hispanic ethnic groups. This indicates that researchers must adopt a more open perspective that examines the influence of multidimensional factors that integrate culture, religious tradition, and lifestyle. The purpose of the current study is to 1) readily define the paradox and provide a thorough review of existing literature on the topic; 2) suggest a transition from exploring statistical explanations of the paradox …

Experience As An Experiment, James Walker

Theses and Dissertations

My work is an exploration of new media that demonstrates the influence a community has on visual communication. The community reveals content as objects go unnoticed after they become a permanent part of the landscape and assumptions are made from cultural archetypes. Through exploration, immersion, and reflection, I am able to recognize the invisible and expected, establish a familiarity with a community, and design responses that communicate directly to it.

Arabic Typography Play, Sarah Alfalah

Theses and Dissertations

I believe that spoken and written languages are verbal and visual expressions of cultures. Language is used to convey and sustain values and the belief system of people. Arabic is a language of complexity and formal beauty that is being disregarded and pushed away by its own native speakers. It is losing its value in the Arab world. In other words it is dying. Both the written and spoken language is being affected. As the world is interchanging, integrating, and becoming closer, there has been a strong impact on many societies, threatening their original culture. Arab cultures are abandoning the …