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Rhythm Against Poethics, Jayvyn Dacas 2025 University of Central Florida

Rhythm Against Poethics, Jayvyn Dacas

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis stages an auto-poetic ethnography that listens to, and moves with, the anterior spaces of Black life. Those murmurs, hums, musical hesitations, and infrastructural vibrations that refuse capture by dominant epistemic regimes. Drawing from Ramon Amaro’s reading of Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick and Alexander Weheliye’s reflections on sound, Fred Moten’s insights on displacement, and Tendayi Sithole’s attention to the phonographic, the project situates music production as method and unworlding. Through engagements with the 808, sampling, sound systems, and embodied listening across Florida. Spaces like the warehouse, the party, record stores, and community become the work of Black voices, and …


A Study Abroad Immersion And Reflection Of American Liberal Arts Students In Cyprus, Mark Reimer, Yiannis Miralis 2024 Christopher Newport University, Virginia

A Study Abroad Immersion And Reflection Of American Liberal Arts Students In Cyprus, Mark Reimer, Yiannis Miralis

Journal of Global Awareness

Ensemble tours abroad, with a liberal arts focus, provide a rich, unique, and highly educational opportunity to make music while experiencing the history, people, language, and culture of another country. Pre-tour preparation, however, requires research and a trusted relationship between the director and the host to ensure that the musicians in both countries enjoy the same degree of excitement and desire to learn from one another. The following article is research that was conducted for an American college wind ensemble tour to Cyprus. In addition to reviewing several books and journals, the authors listened to hours of classical, folk, and …


The Vagina Dentata: A Case For Unlocking Mouths, Loosing Hips, And Spreading The Gospel Of Healing Women's Sexual Performance Anxiety, Alisha Lola Jones 2024 University of Cambridge

The Vagina Dentata: A Case For Unlocking Mouths, Loosing Hips, And Spreading The Gospel Of Healing Women's Sexual Performance Anxiety, Alisha Lola Jones

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article explores how vagina dentata folklore—stories and imagery about a mythical "toothed vagina"—connects to the ways Black religious communities often cultivate silence around women’s sexual lives, particularly within the “Worth the Wait” and Word of Faith movements. Ignited by womanist religious ethnographer Monique Moultrie’s scholarship on sexual silence in these movement, I take seriously the musicological chasm by exploring how these ministries influence Black women’s sexual agency and moral decision-making through inequitable theological procedures and discourses. The vagina dentata metaphor emerges as a symbol of constrained appetites—respiratory (larynx), digestive (intestine, anus), and reproductive (uterus, vagina)—reflecting broader sociocultural and religious …


Indigenous Metal: Rage, Rejects, And The Reconstruction Of Culture, Louis W. Asbury 2024 University of San Francisco

Indigenous Metal: Rage, Rejects, And The Reconstruction Of Culture, Louis W. Asbury

Master's Theses

Metal music’s latest frontier is Indigenous metal, combining explorations of Indigenous identity with the heavy and aggressive stylings of the music genre. To explore this new subgenre, this study asks to what extent can metal music be used as a political tool and what are some of the broader effects of metal bands working to better their communities. This thesis utilizes case studies of two notable Indigenous metal scenes, the Rez metal scene in the Navajo Nation and the Māori metal scene in Aotearoa. By collecting data from these scenes, including lyrics, videos, interviews, and audience interactions, this thesis thoroughly …


Has K-Pop Lost Its Koreaness?, Madison J. Gusler 2024 Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism

Has K-Pop Lost Its Koreaness?, Madison J. Gusler

Capstones

Since the 2010s, the global expansion of K-pop has been undeniable, with music from Korean idol groups resonating with fans around the world. We’ve seen the industry adapt to cater to this global audience, placing emphasis on non-verbal aspects of performance such as choreography and set design, and integrating more English lyrics in their songs. K-pop has always had multinational, multicultural influences in its production, yet the music has remained distinctly Korean. But as the industry expands into new markets, faces new challenges, and adapts to convey greater global appeal, the public must contend with the idea of a K-pop …


Resurrecting The Muse: Kithara And Lyric Poetry Performance Practice In Greco-Roman Antiquity, Abigail Petersen 2024 Bowling Green State University

Resurrecting The Muse: Kithara And Lyric Poetry Performance Practice In Greco-Roman Antiquity, Abigail Petersen

Honors Projects

Both students and pedagogues of classical studies are familiar with the inherent musicality of Greek and Latin poetry, and they also widely accept the idea that poets sang their works to accompaniment on a kithara, or large lyre. However, little work has been done to perform works of poetry according to this tradition, and thus many modern attempts at oral recitation feature a forced and pedantic rhythm that bores the listener and fails to do justice to the revered art of Greco-Roman poetry. Through a review of primary and secondary sources, I examine the construction of the kithara, the context …


Methods In Environmental Studies, Erika Dunagan, Maya Mendoza, Posey Graber, Alex Cullins, Emma McGinnis, Ally Nepomuceno, Isabella Buchan 2024 University of San Francisco

Methods In Environmental Studies, Erika Dunagan, Maya Mendoza, Posey Graber, Alex Cullins, Emma Mcginnis, Ally Nepomuceno, Isabella Buchan

Featured Student Work

This publication is a collection of undergraduate research conducted in the Methods in Environmental Studies course at the University of San Francisco in Fall 2024. The student-led projects explore the intersections of place, policy, ecology, and cultural identity through applied environmental research methodologies. Topics include a decolonial examination of the Forest Park Mound Group and Indigenous resilience in St. Louis; a comparative study of Navajo cosmology and ecological justice; a social and environmental impact assessment of Costa Rica’s National Decarbonization Plan; a psychogeographical analysis of Golden Gate Park and its impact on the psyche, emotions, behaviour, and health of urban …


How Is Music History Important And How Can Music History Be Included Into Our Regular Music Curriculum?, Abby Michalak 2024 Bowling Green State University

How Is Music History Important And How Can Music History Be Included Into Our Regular Music Curriculum?, Abby Michalak

Honors Projects

From a music education major's perspective, music history is rarely taught in high school and middle schools today. Music history can teach so much to students, including context, style, and even why pieces were written. Through this paper, we explore why music history is an important topic to be taught in schools and how music programs across the country can include it into their curriculums through smaller sized lesson plans. This paper includes a sample curriculum that goes through the different period of music and a unit for "spotlights" for countries that are rarely represented in high school and middle …


Manifest Destiny, A Repeat Of History: Scoring Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Emilie Montoure 2024 Chapman University

Manifest Destiny, A Repeat Of History: Scoring Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Emilie Montoure

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In this paper I will examine Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining through the lens of Manifest Destiny. Using this angle, I discuss how protagonist Jack Torrance takes on the role of a settler as he cares for the Overlook Hotel and becomes verbally abusive and controlling to his wife and son. I use the disconcerting, avant-garde scores of Twentieth Century modernist composers Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki to analyze how this story of westward expansion is conveyed. This chilling soundscape involving extreme dissonance, complex rhythms, layering of sounds, and unconventional techniques scores Jack’s psychological descent into murderous …


Jewish Worship, Music, And Technology During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jeffrey A. Summit 2024 Tufts University

Jewish Worship, Music, And Technology During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jeffrey A. Summit

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Jewish worship and considers a range of worshippers’ reactions to livestreamed and Zoom prayer services. Focusing on the Jewish Emergent Network, innovative communities who are known for cultivating vibrant, participatory music in worship, leaders discuss the challenges of not being able to sing together online, the Jewish legal ramifications of using technology on the Sabbath and the on-going changes they believe could occur as virtual worship returns to in-person prayer. These leaders also discuss surprisingly positive developments in online prayer, as congregants deepened interpersonal relationships in discussion breakout rooms, discovered …


Sacred Recitation Of The Tibetan Yungdrung Bön Tradition: The Kharnatsang Collection Of Skad And The Arrangement Of The Three Heart Mantras, Christiane Strothmann 2024 Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, Germany

Sacred Recitation Of The Tibetan Yungdrung Bön Tradition: The Kharnatsang Collection Of Skad And The Arrangement Of The Three Heart Mantras, Christiane Strothmann

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

The digital age has long dawned in many of the Tibetan Monasteries in exile. Thus, the inclusion of internet platforms and the usage of digital communication technologies was naturally part of my ethnomusicological collaboration with the Tibetan Bön monastic chant leader and scholar Geshé Dawa Namgyal Kharnatsang on the sacred recitation of the Yungdrung Bön tradition of Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India. In this article I will offer insights into Kharnatsang’s and my motivation to develop a hybrid collaboration and discuss the role and impact of the digital technologies on the traditional chain of transmission. I will draw on two …


The Voice Of Azerbaijan: Experiencing Recordings Of Hajibaba Huseynov And Post-Soviet Muslim Musical Identities, Polina Dessiatnitchenko 2024 Waseda University

The Voice Of Azerbaijan: Experiencing Recordings Of Hajibaba Huseynov And Post-Soviet Muslim Musical Identities, Polina Dessiatnitchenko

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Singer and poet Hajibaba Huseynov (1919–1993), revered by some as the “voice of Azerbaijan” is one of the most popular stars featured in recordings of classical devotional ghazal poetry. Curiously enough, video or audio recordings of his recitations seem to be especially moving, often becoming the focal point for audiences of musicians and poets at public live performances, private meetings, lessons, and virtual contexts. While fans of the ghazal genre are found at every turn, I limit my analysis to the subculture of poets, musicians, experts, and especially ardent fans of traditional Azerbaijani arts. Relying on ethnographic data gathered in …


Coltrane’S A Love Supreme: Mediations Of Immediacy In Jazz Ritual And Recitation, James R. W. Crockford 2024 University of Cambridge

Coltrane’S A Love Supreme: Mediations Of Immediacy In Jazz Ritual And Recitation, James R. W. Crockford

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This paper explores the ritualized performance ethic of John Coltrane’s later career, which is charged with a determined exploration of freedom and spiritual ascendance through participative and gestural immediacy. Conceiving of this music as a spiritual and political tool for embodied transformation, this paper traces this ethic at play in Coltrane’s iconic 1965 album A Love Supreme, identifying ways the work effects a mediation of immediacy. Through focus on the album’s closing “Psalm” recitation, its parallels in Coltrane’s other works, and their analogue in traditions of ecstatic liturgical and political oratory, this paper demonstrates the consistent priority Coltrane gives …


Written History And Lived Legacy Of Cape Town Jazz, Grace E. Runner 2024 Franklin and Marshall College

Written History And Lived Legacy Of Cape Town Jazz, Grace E. Runner

South Africa: Multiculturalism and Human Rights

This paper examines the historical and current implications of Cape Town Jazz in juxtaposition with the genre's written history and lived experiences of four key members of the jazz community. Drawing from the interviews with a musician, promoter, educator, and enthusiast, this study explores the influence of Cape Jazz as a subgenre rooted in the Coloured community's cultural heritage and the apartheid struggle. While Cape Jazz remains practiced through its legacy, the current jazz scene in Cape Town reflects a broader global influence that is evolving through younger musicians' interpretations of local and global musics. Key areas of issue as …


Benefit Concerts: Truly For The Benefit Of The Cause?, Emma C. Gardner 2024 Nova Southeastern University

Benefit Concerts: Truly For The Benefit Of The Cause?, Emma C. Gardner

Mako: NSU Undergraduate Student Journal

Benefit concerts have been used as a fundraising method for urgent issues for centuries, beginning in 1749 with concerts put on by George Handel. The first modern benefit concert was the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, which proved that these concerts could raise large amounts of money for their cause. Live Aid was put on by Bob Geldof in 1985 Live Aid in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness in 1992 was staged following Freddie Mercury’s death and worked to raise money for awareness and a cure for HIV/AIDS. The Concert for …


Kajian Konseptual Silabel Ritme Gandang Minangkabau, Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati 2024 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Kajian Konseptual Silabel Ritme Gandang Minangkabau, Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article tryes to initiate the concept of Minangkabau rhythm syllables, which is a method in music learning related to audiation in rhythm learning, the urgency in this study explores the basic elements of the audiation system that can be applied to music learning related to rhythm syllables based on local approaches, taking into account previous concepts that have been popular in recent schools. In West Sumatra, the concepts of syllable rhythm such as Zoltan Kodaly, Kannokol, American Style Syllables, and Edwin Gordon are not so popular, but environments such as schools and art studios have their own ways of …


"If The Gyil Has Died, Dagara Itself Has Died": On The Relationship Of Dagara Music, Food, And Costume, Gordon Cortney 2024 Duquesne University

"If The Gyil Has Died, Dagara Itself Has Died": On The Relationship Of Dagara Music, Food, And Costume, Gordon Cortney

Honors College Undergraduate Theses

The Dagara people, located primarily in the Upper West region of Ghana, take pride in their careful preservation of traditional customs, amidst years of brutal colonization and ethnocide. Previous ethnomusicological research has recognized the gyil, a Ghanaian xylophone, as the focal point of Dagara society, noting how it interacts with and is inherent in all aspects of their culture. Recent developments to the gyil’s design, practice, and performance have created concern for a lost or dying culture among the Dagara. If the gyil is experiencing change, then so too is the rest of Dagara culture. In June and July 2022, …


“And The People Sang In All The Ways Of The City:” A Speculative Ethnomusicology Of Gondor, Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer 2024 Fairfield University

“And The People Sang In All The Ways Of The City:” A Speculative Ethnomusicology Of Gondor, Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer

Journal of Tolkien Research

The music of Gondor is one of the more elusive musical traditions in Middle-earth, described only briefly throughout the text of The Lord of the Rings, and thus often neglected in scholarship on music in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. However, an ethnomusicological line of inquiry brings to the fore questions of performance, perception, and meaning that contribute to our interpretations of the many levels of symbolic transformation seen in Gondor at the beginning of the Fourth Age. The evidence of both musical activity and silence in Gondor mirrors conclusions that have been documented in real-world ethnomusicological studies in …


The Cålåpitå Past The “Dull Edge” Of Extinction: A Shaggy Dog Story Of Repatriation And Refusal In Bali, Tyler Yamin 2024 Bucknell University

The Cålåpitå Past The “Dull Edge” Of Extinction: A Shaggy Dog Story Of Repatriation And Refusal In Bali, Tyler Yamin

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.


Time And Imagined Futures In Eastern African Art Forms, Alex Perullo 2024 Bryant University

Time And Imagined Futures In Eastern African Art Forms, Alex Perullo

Politics, Law, and Society Faculty Journal Articles

This article introduces the NJAS special issue “Art and Imagined Futures in Eastern Africa”, edited by Alex Perullo, Claudia Böhme, and Christina Woolner, and has not been peer-reviewed. Artists in eastern Africa use songs, poems, fiction, cartoons, and other artistic forms to explore their lived experiences and future possibilities. Through their art they can envision alternatives to their current experiences, contest social and political problems, and reveal the dangers of complacency. They can also grapple with regret at missed opportunities or develop a sense of longing for a future that could or should have been had different decisions been made. …


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