Theory and Criticism Commons^™

Cecily Brown And Maureen Gallace: Teaching Covert Feminism In Public School, Danielle Salyers

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Feminist art consisting of explicit, provocative, and politically charged imagery is common in the university setting and the wider art world. Although this freedom from inhibition certainly functions as a valuable source of inspiration for those fortunate enough to participate in the institution of higher education, content of this nature potentially works against feminism’s goals by excluding the youngest audience at the moment they are forming ideas about gender relations; students at the K-12 level. As a public-school art educator, I am faced with strict censorship policies that make it difficult to include students in the ongoing feminist conversation by …

Kijang Sebagai Simbol Dalam Rekaan Logo Bank Negara Malaysia, Mohd Isa Mohd Helmi

Student Works (2020-2029)

The main purpose of this research was to identify the symbol of barking deer used in the design logo of Bank Negara Malaysia from the aspects of significant and the elements of art usage that are in it. In this study, the authors selected Bank Negara Malaysia as a sample of the organizations to study the symbol of barking deer designed by the famous sculptor Abdul Wahab. This research covers aspects of understanding and significant of the barking deer and the use of elements of art. In addition, there were also interviews with academicians on the design, arts and the …

Women Of Pop., Jourdan Cunningham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hegemonic values that were represented in 1960s mass media were heavily reinforced by the Pop Art movement. Male Pop artists have often been viewed as genius, while the women were pushed aside to reside within the margins of the Pop canon. This thesis emphasizes the work of four female artists who participated in the Pop Art movement and were largely overlooked throughout Pop’s discourse. By analyzing their “popness” and Feminist viewpoints, it allows for the imbalance that has resulted from women Pop artists neglect throughout Pop’s discourse to be readdressed. In the Introduction I analyze the background of the …

Famine In Art - Imagery, Influences And Exhibition In Mid-20th-Century Ireland, Niamh Ann Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Gut Feeling, Shelby Fleming

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Through curated space and abstracted sculptures that reference the viewer’s body, Gut Feeling, acknowledges the viewer’s experience as the focal point of the exhibition. I designed the whole gallery as an art object using both positive and negative space. The sculptures act as one unified system that guides the viewer through the exhibition in a counterclockwise rotation inward. The viewer follows the forms as they puncture through the walls of the gallery, while considering their own body’s relationship to the forms being seen. The viewer directly engages with the scale of the forms, sculptural placement, and sensory experience; these elements …

Aids Normalization, Alexandra Juhasz, Theodore Kerr

Publications and Research

Review of On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work, curated by Alexis Heller for New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which was on view from September 2019 to January 2020, and other contemporary AIDS culture.

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 …

Purposefully Forgetting: Surveying San Diego’S Founding Narrative During The City’S Bicentennial Celebrations Of 1969, Noah Pallmeyer

Keck Undergraduate Humanities Research Fellows

The city of San Diego owes much its success and prosperity to the “victories associated with colonization.” This quote comes directly from the current National Park Service description of the San Diego Presidio. This project turns to the 1969 bicentennial celebrations of San Diego’s founding. This was a rhetorically powerful period in San Diego’s historical remembrance. This project argues that native and other marginalized populations were not properly considered in the narrative of San Diego’s founding during these celebrations. To understand why and how these populations failed to be properly considered, this project turns to the narratives of colonial monuments …

Do You Wanna Go Dancing?, Anthony Kascak

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The transdisciplinary art work within Do you wanna go dancing? unpacks the experience and perception of my interpersonal relationships, as well as the role that touch and introspection has in my visual arts practice and everyday life. I am interested in pairing the act of looking with the sensation of touching through specific installation and arrangement of intimate imagery, ceramic fragments and frames, and manual or digitally fabricated surfaces. The negotiation of these installations orient the viewer to consider their positionality within space, as well as the extent in which distance, intimacy, and vulnerability fluctuate inside these psychological spaces.

The …

Gendering Art History In The Victorian Age: Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Eastlake, And George Eliot In Florence, Antje Anderson

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis investigates how three professional Victorian women writers, Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Eastlake, and George Eliot, wrote about Renaissance art in Florence. As nineteenth-century women, they were excluded from certain realms of knowledge, agency, and influence. This exclusion (complicated by their privilege in terms of class, nationality, and education) influenced the way they experienced and wrote about art. The introduction addresses how changing modes of travel, broader access to publication, and art history’s gradual emergence as an academic discipline helped shape their careers as women art writers—the well-known “Mrs. Jameson” as a popularizer of art history for a broad readership; …

The Complexities Of Intimacy, Brie Henderson

Graduate School of Art Theses

Through my research I have discovered there are many complexities that exist within the topic of intimacy. Of these complexities, I chose to explore the topics attachment and codependency in my final series. Attachment and codependency are deeply rooted in psychology, poetry, and many artist’s practices. The relationship between poetry and my work has become deeply intertwined. I combine poetry with my work as a way to document my feelings and to inspire the titles for my paintings. Through a series of intimate watercolor paintings, I reference bodies, intimate interactions and the ambiguity within the two. This ambiguity asks viewers …

An Exploration Of Provenance And Ownership History And The Critique Of Curatorial Practice., Sacra J. Fallen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the art world, the artwork is under evaluation to determine its worth from its historic value to its monetary value. One of the primary strategies used to evaluate the artwork is the work's provenance which can be broken down into the work's collector history and the authenticity of its authorship. The first question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its historic value? The second question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its monetary value? These questions will be supported by two case studies …

Working Towards More Inclusive History Museum Exhibits: How Can History Museums Better Incorporate The Female Narrative Into Their Exhibits, Morgan Corbett

Student Theses

The purpose of this study was to understand how history museums can better incorporate the female narrative into their exhibits. Women’s stories play an integral role in history and are an important element of authentically and accurately portraying the events of the past. For museums, that is the ultimate objective. As institutions of learning and preservation, museums are empowered with the responsibility to present information with integrity and accuracy. That includes presenting all perspectives in a holistic view. Museums are a significant source of knowledge and information, especially for school children. The images and messages that are portrayed have an …

Seductive Sacrality: Questioning The Nature Of Seduction Through Golden Age Spanish Paintings Of The Virgin Mary, Nicole V. Jozwik

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Major: Art History
Minor: Spanish, Latin American Studies, and Business and Innovation
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Deborah Johnson, Art and Art History

"Seduction is traditionally understood to have a sexual undertone, but this investigation aims to prove that the seduction of the female nude is not just a manifestation of carnal sexuality, but rather, can be ignited by the qualities of power, motherhood, and salvation.

Spanish Marian images by Zurbarán, Morales, and Machuca will be used to analyze how nudity allures the viewer, but allows the religious message to remain the central force. By referencing John Berger and Laura Mulvey and …

Digital Landscapes Of The Mind, Ashley M. Dicaro

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Major: Health Policy and Management
Minor: Italian and Studio Art
Faculty Mentor: Professor James Janecek, Art & Art History

For my independent study, I used Photoshop extensively. The software allows me to use digital imagery to maintain a specific color palette that translates to the time of day. This color theme is extracted from my personal photographs of favored landscapes, after which I build in layers to create whimsical landscapes. They are whimsical for their non-uniform distortions of perspective and viewing angle, a combination that is amplified by the painterly application of color. Technology allows me to paint, cut, collage …

Mid 20th Century America Through The Words And Lens Of Allen Ginsberg, Lily M. Conover

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Major: Art History and American Studies
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Deborah Johnson, Art and Art History

Allen Ginsberg began producing provocative poetry in 1955 when he first devoted his life to writing. There was even a court case in 1957 to decide whether or not his most famous piece, Howl, should be banned for its content. All of this press made Ginsberg a famous poet; however, he also had what he called an “amateur hobby,” his photography.

In the same way he wrote, Ginsberg photographed the world around him: members of the Beat Movement, his friends, lovers, etc. Most of the …

The Exchange Happens Here: Net Art's Alternative Currencies, April Riddle

Art History Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines three installation pieces from the New Museum and Rhizome’s 2019 exhibition “The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics.” Throughout, I question if net art can act as an alternative currency itself, if different projects can interfere with existing economic systems, and, if so, what they can reveal about changing economic structures.

Ultimately, I explore how Cory Arcangel’s Arcangel Surfware, a lifestyle brand offering products for web-surfing, is representative of works that play with accessibility and inaccessibility and alternative patronage systems in relation to social currency; how Shu Lea Cheang’s Garlic=Rich Air, a browser-based and physical garlic …

Titian’S Poesie: The Visual Allegories Of Morality And Religion, Holli M. Turner

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio, more commonly referred to as Titian, created a cycle of mythological paintings based on scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses for King Philip II of Spain. These works are often viewed through an eroticized lens due to this inclusion of nude mortals and goddesses. This thesis argues for the cycle’s moral and religious significance for Philip by utilizing comparative iconography, scholarly texts, and translated allegorical material.

Criticism Through Interpretation: Jules Olitski, Brooke E. Benham

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Modernist art critics tend to focus solely on formal elements. Clement Greenberg’s descriptive approach on the medium and Jerry Saltz’s off-the-cuff judgements fail to utilize the relevant insight that can be collected through cognizant interpretation. Susan Sontag attempts to justify the medium-specific approach by arguing that the merit of a work of art is independent of any interpretation. However, an interpretation based on historical and cultural connections can produce valuable insights about the form itself. A research-based analysis of Kristina Type 3 (1976) by the late-modernist painter Jules Olitski will show that criticism can serve viewers best through knowledgeable interpretation. …

The “Olympiad Of Photography”: Fiap And The Global Photo-Club Culture, 1950–1965, Alise Tifentale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the global photo-club culture of the 1950s through the work of the International Federation of Photographic Art (Fédération internationale de l'art photographique, FIAP), founded in 1950. By 1965 FIAP united national associations of photo clubs in fifty-five countries across Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The regular exhibitions and publications of FIAP provided a unique platform where photographers living in the “second” and “third worlds” were welcome to present their work on equal grounds with their peers from the “first world.” FIAP, I posit, created a nonprofit, egalitarian, and open system of image production …