Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Happiest People Alive: An Analysis Of Class And Gender In The Trinidad Carnival, Asha L. St. Bernard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many of the marketing strategies inherent to the modern version of the Trinidad Carnival include texts that represent Trinidadians as young, fit, bikini-wearing, party enthusiasts. In these advertisements, Trinidadians are often characterized as carefree and welcoming to anyone participating in the much-anticipated annual festival. However, dominant narratives highlight certain groups and cultural aspects of the island while frequently masking several inequalities. They cleverly conceal other narratives and therefore marginalize groups and individuals from the very festival that is understood by many as a national symbol. Through informal participant-observation, and an analysis of some of the main promotional material, in particular …

Impassioned Objects And Seething Absences: The Olympics In Canada, National Identity And Consumer Culture, Estee Fresco

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation critically analyzes the commercial practices and products of the 1976 Montreal, 1988 Calgary and 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The central questions I ask are: how did the Olympics in Canada become a platform for the intersection of patriotism and consumption? What were the key ideas about Canadian identity, history, and citizenship that Olympic organizers and corporate sponsors promoted? How did commodities symbolize these ideas? Finally, how do these ideas relate to political policies and practices?

This work contributes to an understanding of how branded commodities shape Canadian identity and citizenship norms by arguing that the objects sold during the …

Canada: Multiculturalism, Religion, And Accommodation, Brittainy R. Bonnis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis I use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine discursive constructions of identity (individual, religious, and national) within the framework of Canadian multiculturalism as they are constructed in two Canadian newspapers (the Toronto Star and the Gazette) between 2003 and 2013. I am particularly interested in how understandings of multiculturalism delimit the boundaries of belonging for religious practitioners in Canada. In chapter one I establish the academic context of this thesis and give a brief outline of the history of Canadian multiculturalism. In chapter two I focus on definitions and assessments of Canadian multiculturalism and the integration of …

"More Or Less" Refugee?: Bengal Partition In Literature And Cinema, Sarbani Banerjee

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, I problematize the dominance of East Bengali bhadralok immigrant’s memory in the context of literary-cultural discourses on the Partition of Bengal (1947). By studying post-Partition Bengali literature and cinema produced by upper-caste upper/middle-class East Bengali immigrant artists, such as Jyotirmoyee Devi’s novel The River Churning (Epar Ganga Opar Ganga 1967, Bengali) and Ritwik Ghatak’s film The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara 1960, Bengali), I show how canonical artworks have propounded elitist truisms to the detriment of the non-bhadra refugees’ representations. To challenge these works, I compare them with perspectives available in Other refugee writers’ …

Transnational Monsters: Navigating Identity And Intertextuality In The Films Of Guillermo Del Toro, Sean M. Volk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines representations of monstrosity in the films of Guillermo del Toro. Throughout his oeuvre, he has consistently explored the complex relationship between humans and monsters. Using the concepts of transnational cinema and intertextuality to frame the analysis, the monster will be read in relation to its engagement with references to other texts and the narrative and industrial implications of nations and borders. The eight films directed by del Toro will be analyzed to trace the evolving depiction of the monster while also considering the shifting national contexts of production. From the intimate narratives of his early films to …

The Rise Of Marvel And Dc's Transmedia Superheroes: Comic Book Adaptations, Fanboy Auteurs, And Guiding Fan Reception, Alex Brundige

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis highlights the industrial strategy of Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment in adapting their comic book properties to the screen, engaging in an analysis of how these studios appeal to a mainstream audience by harnessing the enthusiasm of comic book fans. It proposes that the studios’ branding strategies were based in establishing their products as authentic representations of the source texts, strategically employing what Suzanne Scott calls “fanboy auteurs” – filmmakers with strong connections to the comic material – in order to lend credibility to their franchises. Situating the comic book films of Joss Whedon and Christopher Nolan as …

Hand-Eye, Michael S. Pszczonak

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This integrated article thesis has two distinct chapters: The first chapter is a case study on a selection of works by German artist Sigmar Polke using Hal Fosters writing on the historical and neo-avant-gardes. The study traces the way Polke revisits the first avant-garde project and comprehends its attempted traumatic rift from dominant ideologies for the first time. The second chapter is a comprehensive artist statement which simultaneously outlines the theoretical underpinnings of my work as well as the process leading to the body of work on display at McIntosh Gallery. The research sets out to answer the following question: …

Contemporary French Queer Cinema: Explicit Sex And The Politics Of Normalization, Joanna K. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how recent French queer films may mirror, interrogate and engage with sexual politics in France. The key political changes include the 1999 Pacte Civil de Solidarité legislation and the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2013. The thesis focuses on French queer films which are sexually explicit, including simulated and unsimulated sex acts. Using Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal and Michel Foucault’s conceptions of homosexuality, the thesis suggests that the sexual politics in France ostensibly normalize and desexualize gay and lesbian modes of desire. This thesis ultimately argues that the explicit sex scenes in the films discussed …

Narrative Epic And New Media: The Totalizing Spaces Of Postmodernity In The Wire, Batman, And The Legend Of Zelda, Luke Arnott

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Narrative Epic and New Media investigates why epic narratives have a renewed significance in contemporary culture, showing that new media epics model the postmodern world in the same way that ancient epics once modelled theirs. It demonstrates how the epic genre recurs across different cultures and subcultures, even as each instantiation of the epic remains unique to its particular society.

The dissertation draws upon genre theory from critical discourse analysis and from observations made by various critics about the epic’s status as a literary “super-genre,” which encompasses as many other kinds of narrative as it can. It extends genre theory …

Viral Possibilities: Media, The Body, And The Phenomenon Of Infection, Daniel Mcfadden

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how the concept of virality is articulated in popular culture, and the connection that this articulation shares with notions of the virus in philosophical thought. The first chapter traces the emergence of a new wave of virus media following the geopolitical changes following the end of the Cold War, and the further shifts that have occurred in how the virus is culturally considered. The second chapter examines the politics of a phenomenological encounter with media depicting viruses. The third and final chapter discusses how understandings of the virus shape the notion of community as both a material …

Satirical News And Political Subversiveness: A Critical Approach To The Daily Show And The Colbert Report, Roberto Leclerc

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Television shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are often venerated for their satirical criticisms of mainstream media and for their pedagogical value as critical resources for political consciousness. The programs are said to provide interrogations of contemporary forms of power while fostering more active, collaborative and politically engaged audiences. This thesis interrogates such claims by introducing a critical reading of the shows. It engages in dialogue with scholars working within a Culturalist approach to media and politics by demonstrating the importance of a Marxist-inspired approach to the study of satire news. Attention is given to the political-economy …

"When [S]He Is Working [S]He Is Not At Home": Challenging Assumptions About Remote Work, Eric Lohman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this monograph thesis, I explore how at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the prospects for telework, rather than following a straightforward and inexorably rising trajectory, became strangely complex and conflicted. This project explores the reasons for the apparently contradictory and certainly confusing state of telework. It is about these contradictions, and more specifically about who benefits from telework arrangements, and under what conditions these arrangements are deployed.

The study adopts a mixture of qualitative methodologies, including political economic analysis, reviews of popular press articles, and in-depth interviews. The political economic analysis explores the costs …

Standing For Something Not Present: Contested Representations In Contemporary Art, Trista E. Mallory

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation looks at the limits and possibilities for the representation of political conflicts in the Middle East through the work of three contemporary artists: Emily Jacir, Eric Baudelaire, and Jafar Panahi. Situated within a moment of increasing uncertainty and global unrest evidenced by the continuing involvement of the United States in various wars in the Middle East, the rise of new terrorist formations like ISIS, and the ongoing geopolitical struggle between Israel and Palestine, to name but a few examples, three interrelated questions are taken up in this study: Given the increasing pressure placed upon truth claims and the …

Green Berets And Gay Deceivers: The New Left, The Vietnam Draft And American Masculinity, Anna L. Zuschlag

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

When masculinity is predicated on violence and military service is a man’s civic duty, then draft resistance becomes a doubly radical act. Men who refuse to take up arms for their nation threaten, at least potentially, both its political and gender order. This dissertation explores American masculinity during and after the Vietnam War, by analyzing cultural representations of, and responses to, the U.S. Selective Service System. At a time when mainstream Hollywood would not touch the Vietnam War, a generation of independent filmmakers, artists and agitators produced a number of remarkable films and documents dealing with the war, the draft …

Rob Zombie, The Brand: Crafting The Convergence-Era Horror Auteur, Ryan Stam

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis adopts an industrial approach to auteur study, engaging in a detailed analysis of the extratextual crafting of metal-musician-turned-horror-filmmaker Rob Zombie’s auteur image from the year 2000 to the present day. It proposes the existence of a new authorial archetype in the twenty-first century American horror market, the convergence-era horror auteur, whose manufacturing and mobilization is tied explicitly to the niche-oriented marketing efforts of media industries. Positioning Zombie’s career as an instructive case study, this thesis ultimately demonstrates how critical discourses of horror auteurism have been co-opted by studios, filmmakers, and other industry parties as (self-)branding strategies designed to …

Navigating The Social Landscape: An Exploration Of Social Networking Site Usage Among Emerging Adults, Kristen Colbeck

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores how emerging adults (Arnett, 2000) in their first- and second-year of undergraduate study make use of social networking sites (SNSs) for their day-to-day sociality. This study compares emerging adults’ use of Facebook, which is the most popular and widely used SNS among this particular demographic, to increasingly popular SNSs Twitter and Instagram. This project seeks to discover how the use of different SNSs supplements, changes, or replaces the use of Facebook, considering social capital exists on each platform, and if and how each sites’ uses and gratifications differ. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews to pursue the …

Politics, Ethics, And Aesthetic Play In Diasporic Iranian Visual Literature: Neshat, Satrapi, Bashi, Soltani, Mehraneh Ebrahimi-Eshratabadi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Does the study of aesthetics create response-ability or have tangible effects in the real world? Does the ambivalent form of word/images created by diaspora artists change our gaze toward the Other and the landscape of the possible? In the age of a global march against abstract terror which seems to be only reinforcing terrorism, the sign “Muslim-woman” along with the concept of democracy have become rallying cries for novel civilizing-missions. Leaving aside the failed efforts of littérature engagée, I resonate with Jacques Rancière that the study of aesthetics is intertwined with that of politics. Gayatri Spivak, too, asserts that …

Greek At Chartres, William S. A. Dale

Visual Arts Publications

This study of the so-called Headmaster of the West Portals of Chartres Cathedral attempts to demonstrate that this sculptor was probably a Greek, as suggested by Revoil.

First, it describes the present setting of the West Portals, and reviews the evidence for their change in location. Next, it distinguishes between the hand of the Head Master and those of his associates in the carving of the column figures of all three doorways, and describes his illusionistic use of low relief and a form of linear projection in the Maiestas Domini of the central tympanum.

A brief demonstration of the difference …