Psychology Commons^™

Winter Solstice, Jingwen Cao

Masters Theses

For a long time, I have been thinking about what contemporary photography is, what its position is, and what the relationship is between artists and audiences. At the same time, I was developing my concepts and photographic directions and trying to make my work and my perspective on photography relevant. Winter Solstice includes a series of essays that locate my thinking and my work. Its title references the longest night of the year.

The position of photography has changed significantly over the past few decades. The way people read photos is also changing. Perhaps because of reverence for art and …

America, Dreaming., Sarah Meftah

Masters Theses

There is a version

of America

that exists

only in dreams,

a kind of folklore,

shrouded in images,

technicolor interiors,

wrapped in plastic,

ghosts of recent past

to haunt and guide;

a constant reminder.

Wishful thinking

a constructed imaginary,

one I can hold in my hand.

Popular culture and spectacle, America and the domestic ideal, capitalism and the collective unconscious of a national identity. As an artist, I am interested in the myriad images that manifest for a viewer when they think of the spectacle of American pop culture, its domestic archetypes, and the material worship it revolves around. My …

Consciousness And The Reality Of Monsters In Horror Movies: Dehumanization And What Monsters In Horror Films Say About Us

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay responds to Carroll’s The Nature of Horror from the perspective of transdisciplinary phenomenological film theory, largely developed by Edgar Morin in the 1950s. It argues that Carrolls’s reduction of the phenomenological value of horror films to an unreal category minimizes and even dismisses the inherent value of horror films. Morin, Allan Combs, and others offer more integral and transdisciplinary methods for art interpretation and functionality. They help us understand how monsters in horror films can stand as mirrors and reflections of the monstrous in ourselves and society. Thus, the transformational function and value of film is revealed and …

Rgb Root Matriz Color Dance, Danielle E. Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

RGB Root Matriz Color Dance (Color Dance) is an immersive, interactive experience that combines poetic phrases and color filters to create a womb-like environment. Designed by Danielle Gauthier, this artistic piece uses a webcam to respond to users’ movements in real time, allowing them to confront and express their emotions through metaphor and dance. Color Dance creates a unique platform for self-discovery and empowerment by fostering a connection between the body and discomforting emotions.

Lived Experiences, Migration Journey, Religiosity, And Spirituality Depicted In Drawings By Latino Children And Youth Crossing The U.S. Mexican Border: A Qualitative Study., Doroty Magalhaes Sato

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Widespread violence forces thousands of Central American children to endure a hazardous journey toward the U.S. Border seeking refuge. In the Latino community, faith serves as a social movement of resistance against oppression, playing a vital role in migration. There is a paucity of research documenting this experience and children's overall journey. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the lived experience of crossing international borders, religiosity, and spirituality depicted in Latino children's drawings used as coping methods to endure the journey toward the U.S. southern border. This investigation employed Art-based approaches to give voices to children's experiences by analyzing 63 …

Ratings Creep: The Increase In Offensive Content In Movies Over Time, Alexandria N. Tatum

2024 Spring Honors Capstone Projects

Aggression, influenced by a range of factors including media exposure, remains a significant societal concern. Drawing from Bandura's social cognitive theory, it is important to examine violence in media because its exposure can have a long-term effect on the viewers. Furthermore, studies suggest a correlation between media exposure and aggressive behavior, emphasizing the need for comprehensive analysis of content portrayal. To regulate exposure to offensive content, movies are usually ranked using the MPAA’s rating system. Yet, there has been an observed ratings creep in this system (i.e., the progressive escalation of offensive content in films). The current study hypothesizes that …

Mental Illness In Modern Media, Grace Smith

Honors Projects

This paper will focus on the way mental illness is portrayed in modern media, specifically psychological thriller movies, as many of them feature main characters with some sort of mental illness. The specific mental illnesses present in the movies discussed in this paper are as follows: borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Psychological thriller movies influence the way consumers view mental illness and those who suffer from mental illnesses. The potential effects of these portrayals will be explored through Stuart Hall’s theory of reception, as it was created based on television media, making it one of …

A Responsible Parrhesia? A Review Of The Price Of Secrecy, Sara Tafakori

RadioDoc Review

The Price of Secrecy immerses the listener in stories of individual trauma, of child abuse and rape, yet also draws lessons from them of wider social significance. It includes moments of narrative catharsis, interspersed with repeated reminders that the stories are unfinished and open-ended—that the solutions lie out there, in social action, rather than in the stories themselves. The series also gestures towards structural critique, especially of ‘the legal constraints’ it identifies, yet it places greater importance on changing the wider culture through challenging the culture of secrecy and shame around victims’ stories of rape and abuse. This centrally means …

Trust Me: Film + Q&A; (February 22, 2024, 5:30 Pm, Sheldon Museum Of Art) [Poster], Sheldon Museum Of Art, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Poster for Trust Me: Film + Q&A held February 22, 2024 at 5:30 PM at the Sheldon Museum of Art (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States).

Poster blurb:

In today's information landscape, how do you know whom--and what--you can trust? Watch the award-winning, feature-length documentary Trust Me, which explores how media technology is influencing society and what we can do about it.

A Q&A with Rosemary Smith, filmmaker and managing director of the non-partisan Getting Better Foundation, follows.

More information about the screening is available at https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/trust-me-documentary-to-screen-at-sheldon/.

More information about the film is available at https://www.trustmedocumentary.com/ …

Identifying Youth Appeals In Alcohol Alternative Social Media Content Through Framing, Melina Oneal

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Proposed regulations for alcohol advertising prevent beverage companies from targeting people under the legal drinking age. However, similar regulations for alcohol alternative beverages are less explored, which could allow alcohol alternative products to create awareness for alcoholic beverages among youth. Alcohol alternatives beverages, including no-alcohol and low-alcohol products, are increasing in popularity and can function as compliments to alcoholic products to decrease the total alcohol volume consumed or as substitutes for alcoholic products. Framing theory can be operationalized through the Content Appealing to Youth Index, an index of content elements found in research literature to be appealing to youth, to …

Neurocinematics And Empathy: How Cognitive Neuroscience Enhances Our Understanding Of Emotional Responses Of Film, Kira Trinity

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Cinema is a medium that is beloved around the globe since its inception over a century ago. There have been speculations on how it is that cinema works, from editing to emotional processing of the story, but only recently have we begun to explore the inner workings of cinematic impact on the brain. In this paper we will review research on cinematic impact and define cinematic editing, discuss the birth of “neurocinematics”, highlight what we have observed with regards to neuroimaging and empathy when viewing films, and speculate on how our responses to cinema may be driven by the Mirror …

The Profits Of (The Critique Of) Patriarchy: On Toxic Masculinity, Feminism, & Corporate Capitalism In The Barbie Movie, Bryant W. Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article explicates the political, social, economic, and cultural contribution of Barbie (2023). Through a critical and normative analysis of four different prominent reviews of the film, this essay explores the quality of discourse surrounding Barbie, with particular emphasis on its feminist critique of toxic masculinity and lack of a coherent criticism of capitalism.

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

In A Condition Of No Light, Alana Perino

Masters Theses

In a Condition of No Light is an autofictional investigation into lineages of familial domesticity. The performances therein circumnavigate one family in one domestic environment, yet are in dialogue with repertoires learned and rehearsed within legacies of myth, literature, theater, film, music, and image; as well as through the otherwise untraceability of embodied memory and inherited trauma. The methodologies used are primarily photographic but also encompass practices reaching towards sculpture, installation, and performance. The line of questioning reserved for this inquiry is how a home, its objects, and inhabitants generate, spacialize, and embody the conditions of wealth, whiteness, and gender. …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

Transcendence: Exploring The Connections Between Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming Identities And Experiences Of Nature Through Art, Mc Jackson

Undergraduate Theses

“Transcendence: Exploring the connections between transgender/gender non-conforming identities and experiences of nature through art” is the written portion of a creative thesis revolving around an immersive art installation and short film. Transcendence, the installation, was created to promote connection by exploring the overlap between transgender and gender non-conforming (GNC) experiences and experiences of nature. Part of this installation is a short film of interviews conducted with transgender and GNC individuals about nature, their gender experiences, and the transcendent nature of the two. The written thesis analyzes existing literature on nature as a restorative, therapeutic, spiritual setting, offers insight into …

Making The Subconscious Conscious - Showcasing Unresolved Childhood Trauma Through Animation, Alexis Hunter

All Theses

The focus of this work is to shed light on unresolved childhood trauma that can contribute to mental hardships - whether people are aware of its presence in their lives or not. In this paper, I will discuss childhood trauma, its impact on adult life when left unresolved, self-parenting as a method to manage it, and how it is portrayed in various media. Drawing inspiration from my research on trauma and visual storytelling, I will present a proof-of-concept for a 2D animated short film, Strongholds, which visualizes the internal mental struggles through the character dynamics of the personifications of the …

Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – is generally held to prove “time’s arrow”: that time is linear and unidirectional, and that the universe is following this trajectory. This paper presents a preliminary exposition into a new, integral ontology of time in which time is hyper-dimensional, non-linear and flows in both directions. This is supported through trans-disciplinary praxis at the intersection of aesthetics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. The metaphysical implications of reverse causality are investigated, and confer a teleological universe that is coherent with the paradigm of an intelligent, self-realising cosmos in which beauty is a fundamental …

Banshees Of Late Capitalism: War, Ecology, & Alienation, Bryant W. Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This review essay explores the concepts of war, ecology/human-nonhuman relations, and alienation through a critical analysis of McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin (2022).

Just Right, William L. Blizek, Monica Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Just Right (2023), directed by Camille Wormser.

Salty: A Diffractive Inquiry Of Visceral Knowing And Embodied Aesthetics, Mei Ling Chua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation takes a diffractive, onto-epistemological approach to everyday practices with salt in order to articulate an expanded understanding of meaning making and knowledge production. This research reckons with and challenges dominant modes of knowing that engage a Cartesian perspective to situate knowing as the exclusive domain of the mind in both form and topic of inquiry. This research acts simultaneously as both a direct practice of and metacognition about knowledge production by examining 1. the embodied (including sensory and emotional aspects) and 2. the relational (including interpersonal and socio-cultural) dimensions of experience as visceral knowing. This articulation of …

Lacan And The Algorithm, Clint Burnham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Exploring the development of algorithms in Lacanian theory, specifically the "R schema" in the 1950s, I argue that psychoanalysis, read through contemporary debates about the "algorithmic cult" of Netflix and other avatars of popular culture, can be said to reveal the inhuman, machinic essence of subjectivity. The etiology of algorithms, mathemes, and other formulae and diagrams in Lacan’s oeuvre has been under-studied, in part because for some readers they are not as attractive as his more bravura flourishes of word play as exegetical excess, and in part because they derive largely from the ‘hard’ structuralist moment of his work in …

Okay! (The Asd Band Film), Michele M. Desmarais

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of OKAY! (The ASD Band Film) (2022) directed by Mark Bone.

A Still Small Voice, Dereck Daschke

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of A Still Small Voice (2023), directed by Luke Lorentzen.

Good Grief, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Good Grief (2023), directed by Rob Sharp.

Don't Worry About It, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Don't Worry About It (2023), directed by Melissa Kong.

Women’S Voices From History: Gond Rani Durgawati And Rani Lakshmibhai, Nandini Sengupta, Moupia Basu

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Two strong women are compared and contrasted in this article. Gond Rani Durgawati (1524-1564) led a resistance movement in Jabalpur against the Mughal rule of Akbar. Rani Lakshmibai (1828-1858) organized the people of Jhansi against Sir Hugh Rose, an officer defending the interests of the British East India Company. Both women continue to be remembered for their bravery and their loyalty to the people they ruled.

An Examination Of Gandhian Economic And Political Thought And Its Relevance To The Empowerment Of Women, Purnima Mehta Bhatt

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) sought to alleviate poverty and empower women. His commitment to nonviolence and the economic ideal of “small is beautiful” continue to inspire grassroots movements around the globe. This article discusses the Chipko movement of northern India, the protection of rain forests in Kerala’s Silent Valley, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Medha Patkar’s valiant though ultimately futile attempt to save the Narmada River from a massive government damming project. The ongoing legacy of these movements can be found in AWAG, the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group and Women’s Shanti Sena (Peace Force).

Identites Of Women In Indian Art And History, Nalini Rao

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The stereotypical image of Indian women portrayed in the art of stone sculpture is often interpreted as images of beauty that are sensuous, religious as well depict social life. There are historical reasons for depicting her as such. This paper inquires into the changing depiction and social forces that influenced feminine imagery. This paper examines the portrayal of beauty through idealization of female body which has evolved over the centuries in India. It also aims to understand their changing status and explores issues of feminine identity, status, and empowerment largely in ancient and medieval India. It also provides a brief …