Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Silence Created Distance, Jason Lange

Writing Theses

No abstract provided.

Another Animal, Gabriel John Goering

Senior Projects Spring 2024

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

The Body Negotiating Unprecedented Movement, Mei Bock

Honors Projects

A collection of poems exploring threads including the Lower East Side, immigration, stray animals, art, and Chinese-American identity.

Tender Creatures, Chloe Joy Raizner

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Tender Creatures is a manifestation of my childhood. I was never quite like my peers. I lived in an abusive household, and had undiagnosed ADHD, OCD, and overall crushing anxiety. I struggled to understand people. Animals, on the other hand, captivated me. I felt like I must have been an animal myself. Some sort of creature that knew only fight, flight, or stare intently. The creatures depicted in my artwork can be interpreted in some cases as a representation of me, and in other cases a representation of my abusers, and sometimes even both. After all, we can be our …

American Horse Power During The Great War, Hanna K. Lipsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation charts the significant, if understudied, history of American horses during the era of World War I, from roughly 1914 to 1919. Its chapters trace how the US Army acquired, used, cared for, and ultimately demobilized horses over the course of that conflict. Beginning with their acquisition, via either an Army Horse Breeding Program or a complicated buying process, horses faced a complex introduction into military service. Life for these animals did not get any easier once they reached the European front. Although the US military was beginning to replace horses with motor trucks and tractors, horses remained central …

Fictitious Ecology, Paulina Zuckerman

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

My thesis project, The Mountain Fog, is a children’s picture book pitch that tells a light-hearted story of two dogs who must face an environmental disaster. In this accompanying critical essay, I break down the process of crafting a fictional relationship between author-illustrator, animal characters, and the environment. It begins through the context of J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories,” which identifies seeing the world through two lenses - the Primary world and the Secondary world. From these terms, I navigate the idea of a fictitious ecology, an encapsulated anthropomorphic world governed by the creator’s personal experience with nature. This …

Six-Bullets Faith, Justin R. Lazor

ETD Archive

At a religious school of unspecified denomination—but definitely NOT Catholic—two women fall in love. One of them has a chainsaw, the other a gun. There’s also a horny parrot, a horny pastor and a senile mother, not to mention Lucifer, who is a bit of a teenage girl and a HUGE Billie Eilish fan. And the end of the Universe is coming, FYI, via the Big Rip, so there’s that too. And this play is also about addiction and withdrawal and recovery and the capacity or incapacity for love to overcome forces that can overwhelm the self.

Human Nature, Mary Robb

Master's Theses

Human Nature explores my personal observations and life experiences through the use of my narrative ceramic sculptures. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics or behaviors to non-human entities, such as animals. Some animals are more desirable than others, but all have value and purpose. They exist for a reason. They all bleed. They just want to be. People are like that. I became untrusting of humans after a childhood trauma and began relating more to animals than humans. I observed many similarities in wild animals with my experience. They are continually on alert searching for food and watching for …

Other Orchards, Sam B. Robison

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Other Orchards is comprised of poems each suspect in their own way of those boundaries that might separate humans from nature, rural from urban, worker from scholar, or human from beast. Using the figure of the orchard, a kind of “false forest,” this collection studies the ways we map ourselves onto our work and the way work might inform an understanding of the self. Ultimately, these are poems that emerge from the seams of things—the shoulder of highway strewn with dead antelope, the feral apple tree lost to the woods, the farmer lost in their work, slowing becoming less and …

Lizard Brained, Miles Fowlkes Thomas

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Going Back Through, Cassandra Rae Lee

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

These are poems from between 2018 and 221 during which time the author continuously sought out romance, rearranged the furniture , and adopted animals. Amidst this unresolve, primary preoccupations were closeness, what we accrue+conceal, and the forces that guide poems into arrangement. Secondary preoccupations were dust, amnesia, distraction, conduits, and the seething junction of forces where contradiction can be held.

Power Struggles: Sovereignty And The Nonhuman In South Africa, Taelin Wilford

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis uses the theoretical backbone of Jacques Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign to look at the theme of the nonhuman in connection with sovereignty in three novels representing three major time periods in South Africa. Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness uses the nonhuman in the form of the supernatural to reveal the limits of sovereignty in Colonial South Africa. J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace makes use of the nonhuman in the form of animals to talk about the transient nature of sovereignty in post-Apartheid South Africa. Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City is set in an alternate future South Africa and …

Judith Leyster: A Study Of Extraordinary Expression, Nicole J. Cardinale

Theses and Dissertations

Judith Leyster’s innovative application of expression in her Self Portrait serves as the focus, whereby she is shown to blend conventional painting categories, preserve a sense of innocence, and confidently flaunt her skills. In turn, Leyster challenged the male-centric art market and stood apart from her artistic predecessors and contemporaries.

It's Nothing Personal, Allegra A. Cooper

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Fruit Chapel, Olivia Claire Zorn

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This is my chapel where I have gathered a massive amount of fruit and other precious objects for the living things that are sacred to me. These are my non-violent, sacrificial offerings brimming with art symbolism, sympathy, and whimsy.

I think it’s endearingly illogical to leave food offerings for beings who can’t eat them because they’re transcendent, not present, or mouthless. I can’t stop marveling at the tiny sugar sculptures made by nature. I can’t stop taking pictures of fruit.

Becoming Biophilic Beasts, Nat Tereshchenko

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This project seeks, by way of experimentation with a poetic and lyrical register, to embody in its form and content the expression of the interrelated and co-constitutive relationship between human beings and other animals. It addresses through its form the limitations of philosophy and of traditional notions of rational argumentation in order to expose ways in which such methods of writing about ethics in regards to animals have fallen short of addressing that which brings us close to animals, allows us to touch and be touched by them, and ignites us to act according to a kind of felt and …

The Puppets Look Like Flowers At Last, Evie Metz

Theses and Dissertations

The urge to uncover aspects of human condition permeates my work, from the fundamental curiosity of a child tearing apart their doll to uncover what lies within to continuing a quest in uncovering basic human urges through my puppet animated dramas and tragedies. There is a controversial line between the childlike and the adult-like that can be ambiguous, and at some times more discernible while other times less. I create handcrafted stop-frame puppet animations that explore self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, shame, and envy within unpredictable life scenarios. These are animations about inner life, attempting to resolve conflicting elements of …

The Gods Have Taken Thought For Them: Syncretic Animal Symbolism In Medieval European Magic, Solange Nicole Kiehlbauch

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates syncretic animal symbolism within medieval European occult systems. The major question that this work seeks to answer is: what does the ubiquity and importance of magical animals and animal magic reveal about overarching medieval perceptions of the world? In response, I utilize the emerging subfield of Animal History as a theoretical framework to draw attention to an understudied yet highly relevant aspect of occult theory and practice. This work argues that medieval Europeans lived in a fundamentally “enchanted” world compared to our modern age, where the permeable boundaries between physical and spiritual planes imbued nature and its …

Bramble And Knife, Sara Ryan

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems that center on the themes of extinction, family, the female body, and the presence of the animal. During my time in the Upper Peninsula, I found a connection with the natural world around me, and this led to my fascination with animals and extinction, both of which manifested in my poetry. As I struggled with the residual effects of toxic relationships, as well as the bleak romantic landscape of the UP, I saw my own body reflected in the bodies of animals. I specifically noticed this reflection while studying the art of taxidermy; …

Uncertain Animals, Laura Irei

Theses and Dissertations

This collection includes thirteen short stories that together form a fiction collection.

Dogs, Cats, And A Lambkin: Speechlessness And The Animal In Ulysses, Pierce R. Watson

Theses and Dissertations

This essay explores the status of the animal and the consequences of animal speechlessness in Ulysses, mainly focusing on encounters with dogs and cats. Through these animal encounters, Joyce provides a foundation for understanding the complications faced by the Bloom family in grieving their deceased infant son.

A Discussion Regarding Various Animals' Abilities To Make Music And Move Rhythmically To Songs, Emilie R. Bufford

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This project involves exploring the presence of music and rhythmic abilities in specific animal species. The main subjects are whales, sea lions, gorillas, elephants, birds, and mice. The goal of this project was to compare their abilities to those of humans, and overall, determine whether such abilities are considered musical. Cases where animals demonstrate the ability, both learned and innate, to move to a beat are analyzed, along with animals who demonstrate musical vocal abilities naturally in the wild. The previously unknown frequencies of whales, mice, and elephants, are brought to light. These findings bring up the possibility of even …

One Thousand Guinea Pigs, Martie Ilena Stothoff

Senior Projects Spring 2017

One Thousand Guinea Pigs

When I was at home earlier in the year, I explained to my parents that my photography project was about the relationship between humans and animals. My father then told me about how he had heard our friend, Gabi, a professor in agriculture at Smith College, on NPR talking about her newest sustainability project. My father said, “You know how people use goats to mow the lawn? Well, she uses guinea pigs. But she needs to use a lot of them – like a thousand.” So, there I am, picturing one thousand guinea pigs munchin’ away, …

After;Life, Morgan Lynn Anderson

LSU Master's Theses

After;life is an exploration of the time and space between life and death. The installation, created from dozens of woodcut prints, creates this imaginary place, and encompasses viewers through sight, smell, sound, and touch. All elements of this installation are heavily influenced by Southern Louisiana culture and wildlife, and are meant to be familiar enough to provoke personal memory and experience. A set of rituals in the form of three poems, corresponding to three different spirit guides: The Black Dog, The Alligator, and The Opossum, lead the reader through the space from life, through liminal, into death.

How Should We Conceptualize Moral Disagreements About Animals?, Kristian Cantens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I intend this paper as a sort of philosophical reflection on my experiences as an animal activist. In my three years of doing outreach on college campuses, I came to an increasing appreciation for what Murdoch referred to as “the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons” (Murdoch 1998d, 293). This appreciation came in turn at the cost of an increasing disappointment with many of the philosophers I admired at the time – namely, Peter Singer and Tom Regan. What I came to understand is that many of these contemporary moral theories were in fact …

Deeper Than Roots, Braelyn D. Spencer

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of essays explores the author’s relationship with home. The author works through family, death, relationships, illness, and growth. The essays consist of an analysis of rooms within a house, the act of burying loved ones, and discovering what it is to move away. These essays aim to mix retellings of everyday events and relationships with deep personal turmoil and the growth that result from it.

Kindred, Katelyn Osborne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kindred, an MFA exhibition held at the Tipton Gallery located in downtown Johnson City from Feburary 22^nd to March 4^th. Kindred presents two bodies of work, which are a collection of drawings, etchings, monoprints, and lithographs, that center around a personal mythology and symbolism of self-identity and discovery. These works explore the physical and spiritual connection behind being a fraternal twin through the metaphorical use of animal imagery.

The ideas discussed in this paper center around the process of creating a personal mythology and symbolism through my observations of animals and how I relate that experience to …

The Fire In The Firefly: The Unspoken (Speaks), Ania S. Payne

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of nonfiction essays explores life and the way that we, as animals—humans, mammals, insects—engage the world that we all share together, both from a personal perspective and from a distant, 3^rd person perspective. Some of these essays dabble in memoir, wherein I closely examine the intricacies of the relationships between my family members, neighbors, and friends. Other essays are driven by research and my relentless curiosity about the world around me—what goes on in the mind of the earthworm or chigger, the science of fear and the inevitability of death that surrounds us all. This collective narrative …

Strange And Unstable Bodies: Shifting Materialities In Early American Natural History Correspondence Networks, Julie Marie Mccown

English Dissertations

This dissertation fills a gap in the study of early American natural history literature by investigating the representation of animal bodies within early American natural history writing and attending to the role animal bodies play in shaping natural history knowledge and how natural history in turn shapes animal bodies. It also examines the effect the shifting materiality of animal bodies has on constructions of race and ethnicity in early America, as well as the ways non-white, non-male, and non-human persons exercise agency via natural history correspondence networks. Employing animal studies, posthumanism, and new materialism, I contend that, within natural history’s …

Gotta Catch 'Em All, Jennifer Lynn Lombardi

LSU Master's Theses

The ability to imagine is essential to shaping who we are, and is an important part of our humanity. Children have the ability to use aspects of their environment as their playthings, becoming the characters in their world through their sense of imagination. We lose this ability as we grow, leaving us with only memories and sentimentality. I have come to realize that my art is an expression of the longing and search to regain that ability to become fused with my imagination and my environment. I allow myself to become lost in a world of fantasy once more, and …