Digital Humanities Commons^™

Letting The Body Lead, Amanda Boggs

Masters Theses

Letting the Body Lead is an exhibition and workshop series that focuses on embodiment in social context and invites attendees to engage with the work, both as viewers and active participants. Embodiment in social context refers to the understanding of lived experiences in the body. Within my creative practice, I explore the body's creativity, knowledge, and agency while bridging and brining together the fields of fine arts, movement-based and socially just art making. I believe in the transformative potential of how movement and contemplative practices can support a more liberated way of being both within an individual and, by extension, …

Emily Dickinson: 19th Century Poet In A 21st Century World, Stephanie Merrigan

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone will discuss what channels mediate public access to literary content in the case of Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. The discussion continues with how this was a problem for Dickinson while she was alive due to her reclusiveness and unorthodox punctuation. The capstone then looks at the other aspects of this in the roles that editors, the merchandise now made with lines from Dickinson’s work, and digital technologies play in that circulation, but also how they have played a role in making Dickinson a pop culture icon in the 21^st century.

“It’S A Hoax!” A Practical Guide For Understanding And Surviving Weird Internet Phenomena, Camille S. Price

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project dives into some of the darkest of online spaces, as I seek to uncover the legends, narratives, and beliefs that encourage and popularize culture surrounding self-harm. Building on the extensive research that has been conducted on folk antagonists born on the internet such as the Slenderman, I will discuss another character named Momo who, according to legend, lead their primarily young followers through a series of self-inflicted, harmful acts, each increasing in severity, with the final act ultimately being the taking of one’s life. Research will examine social media threads, YouTube videos, film/television, and fan fiction to unpack …

Spontaneity And The Supernatural: Simulating Improv On Twine, Angelica Zadak

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

This thesis is an improv-based digital role-playing game (RPG) created on Twine titled Spontaneity and the Supernatural. The game synthesizes Dustin Edward’s scholarship on remix and digital rhetoric, Kathleen Blake Yancy and Stephen J. McElroy’s application of assemblage theory in composition, and Viola Spolin’s improv theory and practices to take improv from the stage to a digital space. This game uses Twine as a development tool to deliver improv concepts, such as Spolin’s ensemble, environment, and intuition, procedurally. To incorporate these elements into the game, the thesis engages potential players with a narrative that suggests all players can practice improv …

Digital Occult Library, Alexis Brandkamp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is a website, titled Digital Occult Library, hosted by the CUNY Commons and built with WordPress. The site address is:

digitaloccultlibrary.commons.gc.cuny.edu

It features (in this iteration) twenty-five unique pages with information on and discussion of occult and esoteric topics. It also hosts a forum that can be accessed and utilized by anyone, not just those registered on the Commons. The purpose of the site is to inform three types of interested parties on the highlighted topics: a general audience with no current knowledge of the occult, practitioners of esoteric traditions, and academics. Not only is the …

360º Video And Language Documentation: Towards A Corpus Of Kanien'kéha (Mohawk), Joseph Pentangelo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Robust documentation is a major goal of documentary linguistics. Recognizing spoken language as a multimodal phenomenon, researchers working in this field broadly agree that video is an improvement over audio-only recording. At the same time, video is limited by the format’s frame, which permits only a relatively small portion of the visual field to be recorded at any given time. This results in much data being lost, as the documenter must decide where to aim their camera, necessarily leaving out more than they record.

In this dissertation, I apply 360º video to language documentation for the first time. 360º video, …

Visualizing Tedx Events: Ten Years Of “Ideas Worth Spreading”, Antonios Liamis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I have always been fascinated by how ideas are spread. Often, ideas are chosen to serve an immediate purpose, and there is an expectation that the choice will matter only insofar as it serves to achieve the desired goal. However, once an idea takes off, it becomes sufficient in itself to disseminate its message. When I first heard about the rubric “Ideas Worth Spreading” in connection with Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) conferences, I had an emotional response because I was always trying to get involved in those three categories. My fascination with the question of what makes some ideas …

Digital Marketing Proposal For Small Businesses: A Review Of Digital Marketing Strategies Regarded As Best Practices For Brand Expansion, Elaysia Parks

Master of Arts in Media and Communication Plan II Graduate Projects

Digital marketing has become a key driver in communication and advertising. The content produced by a business has the potential to dramatical influence brand perception and reputation. Ensuring that a brand has established an online presence for its business as well as a level of engagement with its audience is an effective way to stay top of mind to your consumer. There are several tactics that can be used to establish a digital marketing plan that promotes the growth of any business. To validate the benefits of having a digital marketing plan existing literature is analyzed that explores advertising within …

The Banality Of The Social: A Philosophy Of Communication Of Social Media Influencer Marketing, Kati Sudnick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project engages in a philosophy of communication approach in order to understand the role of social media influencer marketing within a historical moment defined via Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the social. Social media influencer marketing emerges as a new form of celebrity endorsement in which those finding fame on the Internet engage in word-of-mouth marketing for brands and organizations on their own personal social media pages, blurring the line between organic and sponsored content. According to Arnett (2010), philosophy of communication acts as a background road map for understanding foreground public action. Utilizing a myriad of metaphorical coordinates as …

Stephen Dedalus And The Mind As Hypertext In Ulysses, Ariel Banayan

English (MA) Theses

While there has been a considerable effort to contextualize James Joyce’s Ulysses in a hypertext format for the internet and its users, this paper explores how the novel itself presents a prototypical form of hypertext for its readers.

Instead of using hypertext to elaborate the novel’s many references and difficult sections towards a coherent understanding of its plot, this paper argues that Ulysses suggests an early form of hypertext through the written presentation of the interior mind and described interactions with the physical world. Specifically, within Stephen Dedalus’ chapters, a physical or visual interaction with an object pushes him away …

The Networked Fictional Narrative: Seriality And Adaptations In Popular Television And New Media., Nandita Dutta

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

From creating elaborate fan-worlds to driving large amounts of revenue into the economy, popular culture has proved to be the motivation behind, as well a reflection of, large scale acquisitions of conglomerates that have governed popular interests since the mid-20th Century. If its movements across geographic space, time, and media can be traced, popular culture production is an apt subject of research into how a cultural entity is conceptualised, transported and appropriated within another. In this study, adaptations of fictional products in the 20th and 21st Centuries are considered as manifestations of neobaroque forms of culture production and consumption. Some …

Sonic Rhetoric And Meaning Making In Video Game Sound Design, Adam Deross

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

This thesis examines the rhetorical impact of sound in video games from an interdisciplinary perspective. By synthesizing game studies research with rhetorical theory, the thesis puts the works of notable game scholars, such as Karen Collins, Ian Bogost, Iain Hart, and Paul Cairns in conversation with research on sonic rhetoric by scholars such as Tanya K. Rodrigue et. al and Steph Ceraso. The thesis uses a ludomusicological lens to analyze several video games in which sound and music are heavily emphasized elements within the gameplay experience, such as Banjo-Kazooie (Rare, 1998) and Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall, 2015). Through …

Viral – Analyzing Those That Create And Consume Content On Youtube And Social Media, Devin King

Theses

Analyzing content that has become viral through intent or by accident shows the cultural norms of society, personal interests of individuals to better themselves, and how platform algorithms in the form of search engine optimization are being used. Viral content commonly uses popular modern trends or can start them but creating outline content can yield the best results. Through creating viral content, this may lead to a platform where information can spread, revenue can be generated from, and ideas can influence new audiences, which can be useful for any corporation or individual.

Pathways To The Native Storyteller: A Method To Enable Computational Story Understanding, Aramide O. Kehinde

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a method that uses machine learning algorithms to enable computational story understanding. This research is conducted with the aim of establishing a system called the Native Storyteller that plans and creates storytelling experiences for human users. The paper first establishes the desired capabilities of the system and then deep dives into how to enable story understanding, which is the core ability the system needs to function. As such, the research places emphasis on natural language processing and its application to solving key problems in this context. Namely, machine representation of story …

Tracking Keywords In American Studies, Thomas Cleary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tracking Keywords in American Studies is a computational text analysis project that provides interactive data visualizations which allow for deeper analysis of issues and discourses in the American Studies journal American Quarterly. Taking inspiration from Keywords for American Cultural Studies, which provides a list of keywords to serve as an entry point into understanding American Studies, my project takes these keywords and plots their occurrence throughout American Quarterly. Complimentary to the word counts, I chart algorithmically generated topics produced using topic modeling to look at discourses in the journal. This offers a different perspective on American Studies than …

The Problem Of Literary Development In Russian Formalism And Digital Humanities, Basil Lvoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The interest of this dissertation is how our understanding of literary development—as gradual or revolutionary; self-governed or socio-politically determined; like or unlike biological evolution—informs the status, meaning, and value of literature and literary studies. The dissertation shows how this problem—most pressing in our post-logocentric age—was addressed at the dawn of contemporary literary theory by the Russian Formalists. The latter are compared with Distant Readers, i.e., the Digital Humanists from, or conducting research in dialogue with, the Stanford Literary Lab: Franco Moretti, Matthew Jockers, Ted Underwood, William Benzon, and others.

This dissertation argues that both Russian Formalism and Distant Reading were …

Rethinking Gaming & Representation Within Digital Pedagogy: An Instructor’S Guide, Anthony Wheeler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work fully analyzes the creation process and implementation of a deeply-structured social commentary in the form of a digital interactive-fiction, created in the open software known as Twine. My co-developer, Raven Gomez, and I created a game that explores the challenges of navigating spaces within higher education as someone who identifies as something considered to be “other” by the standards of the common Western curriculum. Once the infrastructure of the product itself is outlined, this work follows students in an English Composition I course throughout their experiences creating digital interactive-fiction games based on pivotal moments in their lives that …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Fair World 64: A Text-Based Game Of The 1964–1965 World's Fair, Christofer R. Gass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The project is a text-based game of a typical day during the first season of the 1964 World’s Fair in what is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The 1964-1965 World’s Fair, that Robert Moses presided over as president, was one of the largest and most expensive fairs ever created, but only days after the last fairgoer left through the turnstile most of the many pavilions that brought education, entertainment, and joy to so many people were destroyed to leave a vast open space that is relatively empty to this day. Although most of the pavilions were either relocated or demolished, there …

Dh In Prison, Sabina Pringle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

DH in Prison is a capstone and thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Digital Humanities, The City University of New York. My thesis discusses the need for including digital humanities courses in college-in-prison programs, and outlines how minimal computing methods can be used to offer incarcerated students an introductory digital humanities course and teach them the necessary technical skills. My capstone, Intro to DH, is a proof of concept for the course itself.

Presence / Absence, Porscha D. Banker

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Presence / Absence is a visual and conceptual l exploration of language and issues surrounding experiences of interpersonal relationships. In it I look at various approaches in which artists and writers have approached the subject of intimacy and coexistence as both a context and foundation for my own work addressing relationships. This body of work is specifically looks at experiences of the personally revolutionary presence of an other and the impact of their absence.

The Invisible Professional: Visual Culture Of Successful Black Women, Sophonie Gaspard

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Black women in the United States have been arguably the most underrepresented, stereotyped, and hypersexualized groups in society; their contributions in the workplace often reduced in significance. Similarly, the perceived values of the white majority have historically dictated the images of minorities in the media. In their research on visual culture, Keifer-Boyd, Amburgy & Knight (2007) suggest that those with social, political, and economic power define how groups without power are represented and stereotyped, illuminating the privileges of having visible positive portrayals. As contemporary American society shifts towards greater inclusion and participation from black women, the media is encouraged to …

Apparatgeist And Mobile Communication: Considering Interpersonal Communication Practices, Lisa Enright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mobile communication is embedded into our daily life increasing our connection to social networks. The development of mobile communication occurred during the second half of the twentieth century and has become domesticated into everyday life. One consequence of the widespread adoption of mobile communication device use is an increase in connectivity. This increase in connection has led to a shift in interpersonal relationships. People now must be aware of when to connect and disconnect to develop meaningful relationships in private, public, and social realms. This project seeks an understanding of how the consequence of increased connectivity and the development of …

Malaria Risk On Ancient Roman Roads: A Study And Application To Assessing Travel Decisions In Asia Minor By The Apostle Paul, Daniel C. Browning Jr

Master's Theses

This study models malaria risks for travelers on ancient Roman roads with the goal of providing a tool for historical assessment of travel accounts from antiquity. The project includes: identification of malaria risk factors and associated spatial datasets, malaria risk model construction, verification and validation against available pre-eradication data, overlay of ancient Roman road data, and an initial case-study application to the journeys of the Apostle Paul, as narrated in the New Testament book, Acts of the Apostles (Acts). The project is intentionally cross-disciplinary in bringing the technical capabilities of GIS to the task of evaluating nuanced textual sources for …

An Assessment Of The Use Of Photogrammetry In Cranial Metric And Non-Metric Studies, Amy Hair

Master's Theses

Methods in biological anthropology have made tremendous leaps in recent years and with the increasing rise in technology there is no reason to suspect that this trend will be decreasing. Particularly methods in 3D digitization have not only increased but have also become more accessible in bioarchaeology. One method, photogrammetry, offers bioarcheologists a unique opportunity to easily collect and process cranial metric and non-metric data that can be used to quantify biological relatedness. While these advances are expected to continue, it is ignorant to assume that they represent a fail proof solution. A critical examination is necessary to quantify the …

The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project, Sam Risak

English (MA) Theses

In 2019, the “The Momo Challenge” frightened parents in the United States into believing “Momo” would appear online where she’d lure their children into harming themselves. While this challenge is one of many recent viral hoaxes, “Momo” is not simply a product of our digital age. Known as the ubume (“birthing-woman”), the figure who provides the face for “Momo” has lived for centuries in Japanese folklore where yokai (supernatural creatures) often caution listeners against entering unchartered parts of the land. And once Japan industrialized, so too did their “unchartered lands,” the ubume reborn to fit the cities and technologies that …

Blend It Like Beckett: Samuel Beckett And Experimental Contemporary Creative Writing, Sam Nicole Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Samuel Beckett penned novels, short stories, poetry, stage plays, radio plays, and scripts—and he did each in a way that blended genre, challenged the norms of creative writing, and surprised audiences around the globe. His experimental approach to creative writing included the use of absurdism, genre-hybridization, and ergodicism, which led to Beckett fundamentally changing the approach to creative writing. His aesthetics have trickled down through the years and can be seen in contemporary works, including Aimee Bender’s short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves[1]. By examining these works …

Contemporary Francophone West African Social Movements In The Rise Of Neo Pan-Africanism: A Case Study Of Y En A Marre In Senegal., Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Ndiaye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of the Y en a marre movement in 2011 has reshaped the face of social activism in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. In less than a decade of its existence, Y’en a marre has become iconic in Senegalese civil society and beyond. Their effective opposition to the Wade regime between 2011 and 2012 reverberated beyond the Senegalese border through their slogan “touche pas à ma constitution” (Do not touch my constitution), a rallying cry that young people in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo later appropriated, thus giving the movement a Pan-African platform. The birth of Y’en …

Hair: How Naturals Are Using Social Media To Reshape The Narrative And Visual Rhetoric Of Black Hair, Shari E. Drumond

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Black women’s natural hair has been subject to both praise and scrutiny, though the latter is more common despite the steps taken towards inclusion and diversity. In the age of social media, members of the natural hair community have been able to voice and communicate ideas and issues that are specific to their discourse community. This study explores how the natural hair community uses social media, more specifically Instagram, to discuss the complex issues that surround natural hair including historicization, workplace bias, colorism, and social justice. Additionally, this study argues that natural hair is a form of visual rhetoric as …

Using Engaged Rhetorical Methods To Understand And Inform Collaborative Decision Making About Dams And Restoration In The Penobscot River Watershed, Tyler Quiring

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How do we understand what to do with rivers and dams? How might rhetoric, the ancient study of persuasion, inform and shape this understanding as it relates to river restoration practices? Ecological approaches to rhetoric provide ways for engaging in decision making about dams and river restoration. In this dissertation I present three projects that bring media discourse analysis, reciprocal case study, and cross-cultural digital rhetoric to sites of collaborative decision making about dams and rivers in the Penobscot River watershed (Maine, USA). In this place, the prominent Penobscot River Restoration reconfigured several hydroelectric dams to improve fish passage and …