History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

About Witch Hunt: Feminist And Political Agency In Contemporary Art, Rana Sumerler

MA Theses

The Witch Hunt exhibition conjures a powerful dialogue between history, identity, and empowerment, bringing together sixteen international artists to channel the spirit of the witch. This show traces a vast genealogy of women—from the 15th century witch hunts to Californian artistic legacies of the 1970s, to the exhibitions opening in 2021, and into present day. The participating artists emerge as symbols of resistance through their creations which transform domesticity, sexuality, and labor into sites of inquiry all while grappling with the intersectional concerns of womanhood.  In a moment marked by political upheaval, the exhibition is particularly resonant in its exploration …

An Investigation Into The Scottsdale Art Week: Cultural Focus, Location, And Sustainability In An Already Saturated Environment, Sophia K. Meshel

MA Theses

This thesis examines the role of regional art fairs within the wider American art market and examines how these events contribute to the growth of local cultural artistic ecosystems. While firmly established international art fairs often dominate attention within the global market, lesser known regional fairs play an important role in connecting artists, galleries, collectors, and cultural platforms within specific communities. Through analysis of established regional fairs and consideration of factors such as artist selection, audience engagement, institutional partnerships, and economic impact, this study investigates how art fairs can move beyond temporary commercial events to become meaningful cultural platforms. Particular …

Echoes Of A Country In Question: Visualizing And Constructing Lebanese Identity Through Contemporary Artistic Practice At The Venice Biennale, Anoush Manoukian

MA Theses

Historically (and presently) riven by sectarianism, struggling with massively degraded infrastructure, and seething with starkly apparent class divisions, Lebanon has long been tied up with bloody postwar politics, paralyzed by innumerable crippling setbacks on its path to recovery. During war, images of conflict have been plastered across media stations, firming the country’s place in the global conversation and imagination; everyone had heard about Lebanon, and people from the art world were attracted to the work being produced in Beirut: a localized body of work that was thematically interesting, formally unique, aesthetically neoconceptual and allegorical in approach. Unresolved conflicts have long …

Curating The Other: Colonial Genealogies, Institutional Logics, And Market Classification In The Construction Of 'Latin American Art', Mariana Duque Mordecai

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how “Latin American art” emerged as a category within the intertwined fields of museums and the art market, revealing how institutional, linguistic, and economic practices shaped its visibility and limits. It argues that the label was never neutral, but a performative construct born from colonial histories and sustained by market logics that translated cultural difference into economic value. Drawing on decolonial theory, the study examines the creation of MoMA’s Latin American Collection (1943) and Sotheby’s establishment of its Latin American Art Department (1979) to trace how regional identity became a curatorial and commercial framework. Through discourse analysis, …

Ottoman Wikālas In Cairo: Islamic Architecture Beyond The Mosque, Yumna Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces one of the largest architectural typologies in Cairo: the wikāla, a type of urban caravanserai unique to Egypt. Estimated to have reached more than five hundred buildings by the 18^th century, the wikāla was the building of choice for most patrons in Ottoman Cairo. This study initially investigates the evolution of commercial architecture within the Islamic city. It then explores the defining architectural features of Cairene wikālas built between the 16^th and 18^th centuries—their plans, decorative/iconographic programs, and urban distribution—based on waqfiyyas, chronicles, travelers’ accounts, and photographic archives. Since many of …

Faik Tagirov And Tatar Constructivism: The Making Of A New Tatar Book, Miriam Akhmetshin

Scripps Senior Theses

Working in the style of constructivism, Faik Tagirov primarily designed book covers for Tatar agitational literature in the 1920s. Studying at VKhUTEMAS and working for numerous publishing houses, Tagirov participated in several domestic and international exhibitions with well-known artists like Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky. Tagirov utilized photomontage, geometricism, and unique typographical designs to create potent materials for a Tatar population. Current scholarship fails to adequately acknowledge the diverse influences impacting the work of non-Russian artists such as Tagirov. Using visual and iconographic analysis, I argue for an approach that recognizes Tagirov's work as syncretic in nature, utilizing both indigenous …

Still Life As A Photographer: Visual And Mnemonic References To Photography In Yasuo Kuniyoshi’S 1944 Broken Objects And Room 110, Tara A. Attanasio

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953) and his still life paintings titled Broken Objects and Room 110 as modes of implicit portraiture, self-declaration, and self-reclamation. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, government authorities deemed Kuniyoshi an “enemy alien” and confiscated his photographic equipment. Painted two years following his camera’s confiscation, Broken Objects and Room 110 contain references that recall Kuniyoshi’s prewar photographic practice and visualize his response to the loss of his camera. I foreground my analysis with Kuniyoshi’s Self-Portrait as a Photographer from 1924 and his photography from the 1930s to detail his metacritical relationship …

Photographic Perceptions: Reconstructing The Life And Career Of Dody Weston Thompson, Virginia Carroll

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis reconstructs the life and career of photographer Dody Weston Thompson (1923-2012), presenting a narrative that has been absent from photographic history. Dody trained beneath significant figures like Edward Weston and Josef Albers, exhibited among some of the most canonical figures in photographic history, and served as a founding member of Aperture magazine—one of the foremost photographic journals to this day. Despite this, there has been no academic scholarship on Dody’s life or career, leaving her largely absent from the art-historical record.

Through the analysis of The Dody Weston Papers at the Ella Strong Denison Library and photographs held …

Rodcon, Program, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

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John Frederick Kensett & Lotus-Eating, Elizabeth Montfort

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis examines Lotus-Eating: A Summer Book (1860) by George William Curtis, with illustrations by John Frederick Kensett. Situating the work within the broader culture of the nineteenth-century travel literature, it analyzes the text’s intermedial construction across memoir, poetry, and visual imagery. By considering each of these modes both independently and in relation to one another, the thesis argues that Curtis and Kensett collaboratively produce a hierarchical framework for viewing and experiencing nature.

Drawing on intermedial and ecocritical methodologies, this project demonstrates how the book does not simply depict landscape but actively instructs its audience in how to see it. …

Uncovering The Keystone: Case Study Of The Ubs Art Collection Gift, Loan And Contemporary Voices Exhibition At Moma In 2005 - Twenty Years Later, Maria Glikman Yamarakov

MA Theses

This research aims to reconstruct foundational history of the Case, based on the publicly available sources. Using the established factual background to test the significance of each of the three major assumptions, referred traditionally as motivation behind the studied Case undertaking. Through critical analysis this Thesis targets to uncover the keystone of this Case and use it as the background to introduce the governance Duty of Stewardship concept in the corporate collection context. Assuming the introduced concept sustains initial analysis, assess its potential value for further strategic development of the corporate collections of the contemporary art.

On Dark Skinned Jesus Of Nazareth: Why Color Matters, Nicholas Berkel

MA Theses

This thesis examines the historical, religious, and cultural consequences of portraying Jesus as white within Christian art. Although Western art has overwhelmingly depicted Christ with white skin, archaeological, and contextual evidence supports a dark-skinned Jesus rooted in the ethnogeography of first century Palestine. The persistence of a White Jesus has shaped religious imagination and perception for centuries, reinforcing racial hierarchy and legitimizing systems of white supremacy. Through an interdisciplinary analysis combining biblical studies, Christian iconography, ethnography of ancient Semitic, Greco-Roman, and Egyptian peoples, medieval symbolism, modern mass-produced imagery, and Black thought, this study demonstrates how Jesus’ original complexion was gradually …

From Monasteries To The Market: The Legal And Spiritual Economies Of Himalayan Art In China, Hengshi An

MA Theses

In recent years, the Himalayan art market in China has shown a remarkable transformation, emerging as one of the most dynamic segments within the broader Asian art economy. While much of the global and domestic art market has stagnated, Tibetan and Himalayan artworks have achieved sustainable growth and high auction price with major collections been published, showing structural strength rather than speculative enthusiasm. This paper examines the drivers behind this phenomenon through a qualitative analysis of auction data, dealer networks, and collector behavior across key hubs in China such as Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The findings suggest that …

From It-Girls To Obscurity: What Happened To The Stettheimer Sisters?, Catherine Pierce Higgins

MA Theses

This dissertation explores the lives and impact of the three Stettheimer sisters, Florine, Carrie and Ettie, cultural innovators, and major influencers of a distinctive, feministic strand of American modernism in New York between 1914 and 1950. The Stettheimer sisters did not use their privilege to assimilate into society but to create an alternate artistic universe, resisting the male hierarchies of the dominant avant-garde. By controlling a salon, an intellectual and creative social center where artists, writers, and intellectuals such as Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O’Keeffe and Carl Van Vechten held court, they were able to create an environment in which femininity, …

An Evolution Of Drag In Theatre: A Historical Reflection, Krista Peters

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will serve as an overarching analysis and historical discussion on the art of drag within the traditional theatrical space. By employing queer theory, I will analyze how the use of drag has evolved throughout the history of Broadway and the United States and how it is responding to the contemporary social attitude. Drawing from the arguments of Butler, Lorde, Rich, Foucault, and others, this thesis uses historical survey to examine the direct representation of drag in theatrical spaces in conjunction with each representation’s sociopolitical and cultural environments. Sociopolitical contemporary contexts of each representation influence not only the form …

The Weight, Hammet Reavis

Theses and Dissertations

What follows drifts between out to under, argument to object, learned to unlearned, and then back again, for now. What remains is not erased, but held in tension - pressed forward by an unspoken weight. However, let's go on record and retrace this gesture, not by means of crossthru, but as underline.

The Symbolic Language Of Militarized Orthodoxy In Patriarchal Sermons, Architecture, And Pseudo-Historical Memory, Oleksandr Lukyanenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to a comprehensive cultural and religious analysis of the processes of militarization of religious worldview in modern Russia using the example of public speeches of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, as well as the symbolic space of the Main Temple of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Particular attention is paid to the study of the mechanisms of sacralization of war through the integration of historical memory, Orthodox rhetoric and the state ideology of the “Russian world”. The study analyzes the peculiarities of the interpretation of World War II as the sacred foundation of modern Russian …

Oral Religious Mediation And Transmission Of Islamic Discourse In The Kazakh Steppe: Case Of Syrdarya Poets, Nurzhan Darkulov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article investigates the role of Syr Darya poets as mediators of Islamic ethical and religious discourse in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Kazakh steppe. The analysis demonstrates that these poets occupied an intermediary position between broader Islamic traditions and local communities, translating ethical teachings, theological ideas, spiritual reflection, and social criticism into culturally accessible forms of oral expression. Their influence extended beyond literary activity, functioning as a socially recognized mode of religious mediation within a decentralized religious environment. The study argues that oral poetic performance constituted an important mechanism through which Islamic knowledge, moral norms, and religious values were …

Counter-Mapping A Sugar Mill In Mascarilla, Afro-Ecuadorian Ancestral Territory Of The Chota Valley, Andrea E. Chavez Chuquimarca

Graduate Masters Theses

This project examines the legacies of the colonial hacienda (estate) system in the community of Mascarilla, situated in the Ancestral Territory of the Chota Valley, Carchi Province, in the northern highlands of Ecuador. This study is framed within the first half of the 20th century, during the early stages of industrialization in Ecuador, and the last period in which the Trapiche de Mascarilla was still functioning. These elements will be viewed through the lens of the archaeological feature of the trapiche (panela production facility), serving as a referential space of history under the huasipungo system (debt-peonage). The interconnected components of …

Archaeology Of Roads: A Case Study Of The 18th-Century Surosowan–Tasikardi Old Road In Banten Lama As The Sultan’S Road, Destian Pandu Dwicahyo Santoso Putro, Ghilman Assilmi

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Archaeological studies on roads in Indonesia remain relatively limited, although international research indicates that roads are not merely transportation infrastructure, but also embody social, political, and symbolic dimensions. A significant example is the ancient road in Banten Lama, which connects the Surosowan Palace with the artificial lake of Tasikardi. This study aims to present archaeological data and identify the distinctive characteristics of royal roads compared to common roads, applying a landscape archaeology approach within a post-processual paradigm. The research stages include data collection, processing, and interpretation through qualitative methods, encompassing literature review and field observation. The analysis shows that the …