Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Elephant In The Baithak: Tabla And Audio Technological Discourse, Tyler Thom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses how power, status, and performance practices play out between performers of tabla (North Indian hand drums) and audio engineers. To do so, I analyze engineer, performer, and music critic discourse surrounding tabla performances and technology to place it within a broader scholarly debate regarding recording technology, cultural/technological capital, technological determinism, and agency. I extend Christopher Scales’s (2012) concept of “recording culture” to “live sound culture,” or the behaviors, power struggles, and labor surrounding tabla mic’ing and amplification. I argue that audio technology separates the artist’s sound into several domains of control (stage, hall, recording, playback), each controlled …

Resisting The Historical And Geographical “Other”: The Role Of Expertise In Video Game Music, Tommy Dainko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video games create rich, virtual worlds for players to explore. Game developers have often utilized exoticism, allowing players to experience the “Other” from the comfort of home. Music is a powerful tool to evoke Otherness and can reinforce stereotypes about the past and different cultures. This thesis looks at recent games where developers have collaborated with expert musicians either from the culture depicted or with expertise in historical performance practices. I document two purposes these collaborations can serve. First, the use of expert musicians creates a veneer of authenticity allowing developers to market the games as “authentic” experiences. Second, these …

Picturesque Portraiture: The Composition Of Reality In Hawthorne, Melville, And James, Angela Michael Gattuso Densmore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, American artists were tangled in debates regarding the representation of reality. The Hudson River School of picturesque landscape painters tackled this dilemma with a compromise formula which used the real objects of nature to create ideal scenes. This dissertation applies the same picturesque formula to select examples of literary portraiture, studied under the concept of “picturesque portraiture.” Whereas the Hudson River compromise resulted in an ideal perception of reality, however, the picturesque portraits composed by nineteenth-century authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James attempt to invoke a non-idealized “actual” reality of the portrait subject’s person …

Navigating University Of Denver As A Latinx Male-Identifying Undergraduate Student, Quisi Rodriguez-Oregel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students of color continuously persist at a lower rate than their white counterparts in higher education. Particularly for Latinx males, the number is lower than Latinx women. Universities have incorporated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies to focus on their diverse student population and address issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Despite these efforts, low retention rates for Latinx males persist. This study explores how Latinx male undergraduate students navigate a predominantly white institution as well as explore some of the challenges of DEI efforts at that institution. I conducted participant observations at the University of Denver (DU) and …

Miss Americana: Taylor Swift As A Battleground For Feminist Discourse, Juliet Eklund

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

The United States finds itself at a historical moment in which feminism is perhaps more polarizing than ever before. On the one hand, it is no longer taboo to identify as feminist; in fact, men and women alike are embracing feminist perspectives. A recent Pew Research survey found that 61% of American women identified as feminists, with this proportion even higher among Democrats and those who had received higher education (Barroso, 2020). At the same time, women are faced with more opportunities and fewer barriers to achieving success than ever before. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the 2020 election …

Saint Brigit And Her Habits: Exploring Queerness In Early Medieval Ireland, Jacqueline K. Stephenson

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Saint Brigit's behavior and reception by society highlight an avenue by which women in the early medieval period could escape societal strictures, exercising agency over their bodies and their romantic choices, and carve out a distinct and unexpected place for themselves in a Christian patriarchal society. In Saint Brigit’s case, this is especially demonstrated by the breadth of her portrayed power as not just a nun but a saint, her extreme resistance to marriage, and her frequent comparisons to men. Indeed, her hagiography, written by Cogitosus in the seventh century, positioned her as one of the three principal and earliest …

Flower Study, Haven Hinds

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This project is a study into extinct flowers, their histories, environments, biology, colors, and assigned personalities then manifested in 3D models and a digital book. The goal was to select six flowers with interesting histories and or cultural connections. Since the flowers can, for the most part, not be seen or kept they were created in Blender as accurately as possible. To give people a means of connection with the flowers, each was assigned a personality based on different factors. These factors could be the colors they possess, where geographically they thrived, parts of their history, and biological factors. To …

Sources Of Sexual And Romantic Education: Associations With Sexual Minority Men’S Sexual Experiences And Romantic Relationship Quality, Charlie Huntington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with sexual minority identities experience a variety of poorer mental and physical health outcomes, including those related to sexual and romantic quality, relative to heterosexual individuals (Beaulieu et al., 2017; CDC, 2021). These poorer romantic, sexual, and psychological outcomes may be attributable in part to lacking access to affirmative and relevant modeling of sexual minority experiences, such as through sex education (Gillespie et al., 2022; Keiser et al., 2019). This study aimed to understand how sexual minority men learn – in ways potentially both helpful and unhelpful – about romantic relationships and sexual activity, and how these experiences are …

The Hero’S Journey, Brianna Tolkacz

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

The Hero’s Journey reflects on the continued fascination with fairytales, myths, and legends through time. This project follows the exploration of these stories, themes, and the lessons they can teach one about themselves and the wider world. Such fictional narratives allow one to process and share their lived experiences: the victories and tragedies, losses and growth. This project follows a winged figure as she fights for her freedom and gains her wings. the journey is messy and raw but still beautiful. The project blends classical oil painting and contemporary sculptural elements to compose an evolving narrative culminating in a dynamic, …

Cross-Institutional Collaboration And Exhibit Making: “On The Gold Mountain: Chinese Mining History And Heritage Of Idaho” At The Idaho Museum Of Mining And Geology, Jordan Kathleen Bennett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Gold Rush, which brought many new immigrant communities to the American West, made a permanent impact on American culture by prompting the development of many Western towns. However, the Chinese immigrant mining population in the Boise, Idaho area has had little museum representation despite the more than 300,000 Chinese people who emigrated to the US between the 1840s and 1880. To rectify this, the Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology (IMMG), in collaboration with members of the Payette National Forest, the Asian American Comparative Collection, Boise State University/US Army Corps of Engineers, and the University of Denver, developed an …

Harmonic Data: Ai Music, Edm Transcription, & Minimalist Jazz, Trevor Freed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents research in the domains of music theory and music technology. The topics of the three chapters are as follows: (1) the technical and artistic limitations of artificial intelligence when generating music, (2) the transcription of electronic dance music (EDM) using a hybrid notation system, and (3) the effective convergence of jazz and minimalism in the music of Joe Hisaishi from Studio Ghibli. Each topic investigates a different aspect of harmony and the modern ways in which humans communicate in terms of harmony. The first chapter surveys the latest research projects in AI-generated music and proposes ideas for …

A View From Within: Timbre As An Analytical Tool In Contemporary Viola Music, Ash Mach

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Timbre is an elusive musical parameter that musicians, physicists, and cognitive scientists have been grappling with for centuries. While timbre can roughly be defined as an auditory attribute that distinguishes one tone color from another, this definition does not capture the complexities of sound and our perceptions thereof. Research on timbre has flourished since the 20th century, however, timbre studies has largely gone unnoticed within the viola community. This study, “A View from Within,” helps close the gap between timbre studies and viola repertoire scholarship by presenting analyses of three pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries through a timbre …

Likeness In Utopia: Situation And Metaphor From Thomas More To Edward Bellamy, Sage Rachmiel Bard Gilbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a literary genre, utopia is notably didactic. It seeks to teach desire and to educate hope. As such, utopia provides a unique site to examine the way metaphor and imagination enable one to be convinced, and the way those same elements facilitate misunderstanding. Following the theorization of Ernst Bloch, the goal of critiquing these literary utopias is not to reject hope but, rather, to educate our own daydreams, to learn and move forward. These chapters examine didacticism and the development of colonial metonymy in Thomas More’s Utopia, the way metaphor operates through time in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: …

Bolting The Landscape: An Ethnography Of Yosemite As A Significant Climbing Destination, Vanessa Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Yosemite Valley is a transformative landscape that helps to shape climbers’ identities and fosters a unique sense of community, which continually reinforces its status as a renowned and evolving climbing destination. The historical influence of Yosemite Valley on rock climbing began in the 1950s and has since defined itself as a prominent destination for climbers worldwide. This ethnographic research analyzes how climbers forge a meaningful connection with the Valley by forming a deep sense of place that intertwines with their personal identities as climbers and investigates the intricate relationship between climbers’ identities and the Yosemite landscape. This research also explores …

Representing The Mixed Plate: Involving Descendant Communities And Kānaka Maoli In Hawai’I Plantation Museums, Amanda Ku’Ualohalanileimakamae Lane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways that the involvement of diverse stakeholders at Hawai’i plantation museums affects representations of Hawai’i’s plantation history. Plantations in Hawai’i had a direct colonizing effect on Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), displacing them from their lands, replacing them with immigrant laborers, and putting into motion the chain of events that led to Hawai’i’s annexation in 1898. The current-day population in Hawai’i continues to reflect these significant changes in the society and culture of the islands. Hawai’i’s plantation museums traverse topics of labor, immigration, indentured servitude, and colonization. Simultaneously, these museums advance stories of perseverance, celebration, and multiculturalism. …

The Words. Or Holes. Or Both: Writing As An Integrative Methodology For Trauma, Daniel A. Castle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to identify methods authors have used to integrate their traumatic experiences. My work will analyze the genre of War Literature and specific authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Kurt Vonnegut to explore the way writers describe the trauma of combat. Using insights from neuroscience and psychology, I will expand the field of Cognitive Literary Studies from a focus on the reader to a focus on the writer by linking neurological functions with narrative tools.

Historical Narrative In The Music Of Sid Meier’S Civilization Vi, Alec Larner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is a 2016 strategy video game in which the player leads a historical civilization from 4000 BC to the present. The Civilization series is the subject of much scholarly writing, especially its representation of history and non- Western cultures. My work builds on Karen Cook’s research (2014) on the technological progress and American hegemonic identity signaled by Civilization IV’s soundtrack. I argue that the music in Civilization VI contributes to a Eurocentric teleological progress narrative of history inherent in the structure of the game: the idea that history is a story of inevitable and positive …

Older Women’S Stories Of Covid-19 Loss: Communicated Narrative Sense-Making Through Photography, Anne Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The diverse array of challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic make it difficult to assess the full impact of this global health crisis. More than 300,000 older Americans died, leaving a nation of grieving survivors in their absence. This profound loss of life will undoubtedly inform the field’s understanding of grief and grieving for many years to come. Pre-pandemic, older women in the United States understood grief to be part of their life stage; COVID-19 amplified the grief experience through both cumulative losses and the isolation particular to the novel coronavirus response. However, few qualitative studies explore older women’s grief, …

The Politics & Poetics Of Audience Creation In Contemporary Epistolary Memoir, Sarah M. Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy as works of life writing that leverage the epistolary form to engage their direct maternal addressees and audiences beyond them in revision and reconstruction of identity. Secondary audiences are considered in light of Michael Warner’s “Publics and Counterpublics,” and the social affordances of the epistolary form and self-constructive affordances of life writing are analyzed in tandem as a hybrid epistolary memoir form. Specifically, this project explores how the epistolary memoir form affords Vuong and Laymon opportunities for the process of personal, relational, and communal identity construction, …

The Queer Ecology Of Clouds In Nineteenth-Century British Poetics, Lucien Darjeun Meadows

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, British writers were interested in the emergent science of meteorology, and their lyrical writing (their “poetics”), from poetry to creative and scientific prose, often turns to clouds as both meteorological formations and as material metaphors for human-environment interactions. These writers frequently invoke clouds to disrupt or “queer” depictions of human-environment relationships built on human domination of environmental beings. Clouds, in poetic writing, help writers (and readers) instead experience subject-subject relationships of reciprocity—a collaborative, non-hierarchical way of existing with and learning from our ecological relatives.

Dwelling in the confluence of literary studies, queer studies, and ecology, The …

Vegetal Being: Dreamwork, Ritual, And Performance In Han Kang’S The Vegetarian, Briana Hanratty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I am writing towards an ecofeminist informed reading of the English version of The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith. My aim is to display how, like an ecosystem of complex interdependency, it is impossible to separate body from theory from text from ecological context. To engage with this form of ecofeminism, I center an autotheoretical methodology with voices from ritual theory and performance theory in order to examine how Yeong-hye, the titular vegetarian of Han Kang’s novel, operates as a narrative-level metaphor for the desire for erotic ecology as a mode of ecological and …

Historical Realism And Stoic Heroes In The Work Of John Williams, Cameron Sepede

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how John Williams’s three major works of fiction — Butcher’s Crossing, Stoner, and Augustus — are narratively structured around three main characters who embody the tenets of stoic and Emersonian transcendental philosophy, respectively. Williams uses these characters to promote and critique preconceived notions of heroic masculinity as structured within these philosophies. Through an analysis of form, this thesis will explore how Williams scaffolds his three main characters around the language and ideas present within each philosophical school. Williams’s portrayal of heroic masculinity, as seen through a feminist perspective, questions the ideal masculine hero, which will be …

Das Gewicht Der Kultur: Eine Untersuchung Der Beziehung Zwischen Stereotyp Und Außenpolitik, Anhand Einer Fallstudie Zu Heidelberg, Kipling Newman

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Die Stereotypen und Mythen, die Narrative von “Kulturen” als einheitliche und monolithische Gruppen von Individuen konstruieren, formulieren und beschränken gleichzeitig die individuellen Verhaltensweisen sowie politischen Maßnahmen, die in einer bestimmten Kultur möglich und akzeptabel sind. Diese Studie versucht, den Einfluss von kulturellen Stereotypen auf außenpolitische Entscheidungen anhand einer qualitativen Fallstudienanalyse zu beleuchten. Genauer gesagt, untersucht diese Arbeit die dominanten kulturellen Vorstellungen von Russen und Deutschen zwischen der Vereinigung Deutschland 1871 und der russischen Oktoberrevolution 1917, mit einem Fokus auf die deutsche Stadt Heidelberg, weil sie damals ein Nexus von russisch-deutschen interkulturellen Interaktionen war. Mittels eines konstruktivistischen Interpretationsansatzes werden die vor …

The Perseverance Of Play: An Archaeological Analysis Of Residential Blocks With Preschools At The Amache National Historic Site, Megan Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to expand on the understanding of experiences of Japanese American children, specifically preschool-aged children, within the Amache National Historic Site, a WWII Japanese American internment facility located in Granada, Colorado. Through archaeological methods, GIS analysis, oral histories, and archival research, I analyzed the landscape and material culture of the five residential blocks within Amache that had designated preschools. I then compared these blocks with preschools to residential blocks without preschools to determine if there are any patterns and discernable differences between the two study areas. The findings of this research provide insight into how …

Destruction And Resiliency: Decolonizing Settler Knowledge In Native American Literature Through The Peoplehood Matrix, Renissa R. Gannie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the complex dynamics of settler colonialism and the construction of peoplehood within the Laguna Pueblo, Lakota, Jemez Pueblo, Anishinaabe, and Blackfeet culture through a comparative analysis of literary works focusing on Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Frances Washburn’ Elsie’s Business, N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus, and Stephen Graham Jones’s Ledfeather; these authors employ narrative strategies to depict the destructive impacts of settler colonialism on indigenous identities and communities. Drawing upon postcolonial and indigenous literary theories, this research uses a comparative framework to analyze the diverse …

Queer Is Here, Hopefully To Stay: The Incorporation And Reception Of Lgbtq+ History At The History Colorado Center, Madeline Ohaus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historically, the documentation of LGBTQ+ histories, struggles, and accomplishments has been absent from museum collections and exhibitions. Scholars argue that given the authoritative nature of museums and their influence on the public, exclusions of LGBTQ+ history can mount to institutional erasure of queer identities. However, in the past decade, there has been an increase in attempts to document and curate exhibitions highlighting and encouraging the public to engage with LGBTQ+ history. While this history is imperative to preserve and display, it can be met with controversy, leading some LGBTQ+ history exhibitions to be relocated or even removed. During the summer …

Ethics In Kakadu (1988): Finding Djilile’S “True Tracks”, Natasia T. Boyko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tasmanian-born Peter Sculthorpe (1929 – 2014) was one of Australia’s most iconic modernist classical composers of the twentieth century. Kakadu (1988) seems to have sparked the most controversy of Sculthorpe’s works and has become one of his most well-known pieces. In the program notes provided in the score’s foreword, Sculthorpe asserts that “the melodic material in Kakadu, as in much of my recent music, was suggested by the contours and rhythms of Aboriginal chant.” Sculthorpe attributed this melodic material to the Arnem Land chant, Djilile. Consequently, Sculthorpe has been criticized for extracting Djilile from its authentic context as …

Reviving Heritage In A Historic Gem City: Examining The Management Of History At The Colonial Quarter In St. Augustine, Florida, Madeline Bonner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Colonial Quarter is a living history venue of Spanish and British colonial heritage in St. Augustine, Florida. Since 1966, the site has housed interpretive structures and programming related to St. Augustine’s colonial history. Over time, management of the site has fallen under the purview of the state of Florida, the city of St. Augustine, and the University of Florida Historic St. Augustine (UFHSA) Direct Support Organization, which functions as a managing agency for the state. In 2013, the UFHSA Board entered into a public-private partnership with the Colonial Quarter, LLC. This marks the first instance of private sector involvement …

'They Were Known Accordingly’: The Journey Of The Land Otter Pole And Memorial Pole At The Denver Art Museum, Penske Stranger Mccormack

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2019, two Kaigani Haida (Alaskan Haida) totem poles (Xaadas Gyáa’ang) were re-raised in the renovated Northwest Coast gallery of the Denver Art Museum. Lee Wallace and his family, descendants of Haida carver Dwight Wallace and Dwight’s son John Wallace, led a ceremony that publicly acknowledged the Wallace family’s connection to the two poles, reintroduced Haida cultural protocols into their care and viewing, and set the stage for future collaborations between the museum and family. This study explores the history of the poles and the intersecting forces that shaped their journey from Sukkwan, Alaska, to Denver, including shifting ideals of …

Becoming Camilla Urso: A Female Celebrity Violinist And The Transformation Of American Musical Culture, Maeve Nagel-Frazel

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was the first nationally famous female violinist in the United States. Between 1852-1902, Urso gave over a thousand concerts in the United States, becoming a musical celebrity on par with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. Through her public visibility, Urso transformed nineteenth-century American violin playing from a male-dominated field into an acceptable and even fashionable field for women. Despite her nineteenth-century fame, today Urso is mostly forgotten. Over the course of six chronological chapters, this thesis presents a contextual biography of Urso’s American concert career. Utilizing archival sources, digitized newspapers, and digital mapping methodologies, I argue Urso’s …