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Editor’S Note, Deepak Shimkhada

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This special issue of Monsoon is dedicated to the studies honoring the goddess traditions in South Asia. The onset of the Monsoon Season in South Asia typically commences in June and continues until late August and early September. The publication of this issue, therefore, has been strategically timed to coincide with that season, which is a vital source of sustenance for millions of individuals in this part of the world. This anthology consisting of five papers—written by scholars with expertise in the field of goddess and women studies—speak unequivocally about the goddesses or women for their strength, beauty, wisdom, and …

Constructing Jain Goddess Padmavātī In Gujarati Literature, Venu Mehta

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Worship of the goddess Padmāvatī emerged more than a thousand years ago. This article explores three songs about her in Gujarati by Paṇḍit Vīrvijayajī (1773-1852). By analyzing the style and form of his work, one learns a great deal about devotional liturgies that commemorate goddess Padmāvatī’s protection of the Jina Pārśvanātha and, in turn, his protection of her.

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.

Mai Bhago And Amrita Devi Bishnoi: Women Of Strength, Sowmya Ayyar

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mai Bhago (1670-1720), also known as Bhag Kaur, distinguished herself on the battlefield to defend the Sikh faith. Amrita Devi Bishnoi (d. 1730) is said to have sacrificed her life with 362 others to protect the Khejari trees in the Rajasthan desert. Both women continue to inspire social justice and ecological activism.

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).

Indigenous Stitch-Arts Of India: Tradition And Revival In A Global Age, Punam Madhok

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Stitch art allows for the creative expression and economic support of countless women throughout India. This article examines four notable styles: chikankari, flora and fauna stitched in white thread on fine white cotton, rabari, the stitching of mirrors into colorful cloth, phulkari, resplendent flowery motifs sewn into shawls in Punjab, and kantha, Bengali patch work yielding quilts and seating mats. In addition to describing each technique, this article discusses how women have been economically empowered through this art by such organizations as Self-Help Enterprise (SHE) in Kolkata and Adithi, a women’s cooperative, in Bihar.

The Plight Of The Beautiful People: Sexuality And Death In Less Than Zero And The Doom Generation, Ariana M. Martinez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This essay analyzes how the films Less Than Zero and The Doom Generation intersect with their overlapping themes regarding sex, sexuality, and death. The intended goal of the readings in this essay is to examine how queerness was represented in film during the AIDS crisis, specifically through the feature of a sexually fluid trio of friends. It first identifies the common elements of both films, including the gender makeup of the friend group, ambiguous or unrealized queerness, the role of the car in sexual desire, and themes of death and demise. The essay then considers the context of the AIDS …

Easy Prey, Annika L. Norris

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Easy Prey is a three-dimensional (3D) animated action comedy short film about stereotypes, expectations, and portrayals of strength that follows a ballerina as she is cornered in an alley. The fight that ensues expresses women's empowerment, physically and emotionally, by challenging preconceptions of ballerinas and the performance of femininity. This expression is founded on the intentional inclusion and exclusion of common cinematic tropes to efficiently convey key information while undermining common stereotypes. The action and atmosphere utilize classic film techniques to heighten and release tension. Easy Prey is inspired by my personal journey in healing my relationship with femininity and …

The Art Of The Adaptation: An Analysis Of The Phantom Of The Opera, Alaina B. Westee

Emerging Writers

An evaluation of the extent to which Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera (2004) is a good adaptation of both Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical and the original 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux.

Me, Myself, And My Muppets, Sara Jones

Emerging Writers

In this personal narrative, the author explores her relationship and upbringing in relation to Jim Henson’s Muppets. She illustrates her experience at puppet camps, on long Muppet-filled road trips, and the special connection her mother and her share with the Muppets. Find out how the Muppets have shaped the author’s life, morals, and aspirations, as well as how Jim Henson’s creations have influenced and brought joy to past generations and future generations to come.

Miss-Adventures: Fantasy And Friendship In The Context Of Animation, Nathaniel Shrage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Friendship is not always magical, as the protagonists learn in "The Miss-Adventures of Molly & Sage." In this buddy-comedy set in a magical fantasy world, the titular characters are two teenage girls who go on epic quests and cause mischief. Many aspects of the story went through changes during the production of this hand-drawn animated short film. However, the main characters and their chaotic friendship remained consistent throughout the animation process. While developing this film, I noticed that my peers responded positively when I referenced my Ashkenazi Jewish heritage in various story elements. The film's artistic style was heavily inspired …

Inkling: An Exploration Of Visual Effects As A Character, Joshua Cooper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Inkling is an animated short film about a creature made of ink falling into a cycle of anxiety. This film explores the use of visual effects in character design. Inspiration for this film was drawn from Absurdist essays and stories and used abstract imagery and cinematic devices to manipulate the audience into feeling the character's anxiety. This thesis briefly examines the foundation of methods pioneered by visual effect artists. To produce this short film, critical decisions in software and animation were made to streamline the process to allow more time to focus on creating a method for the visual effect …

Artistic Representation And Self Esteem, Brianna Davis

Honors College Theses

Dependent upon the constructs of the perception of self and the viewpoint of others, humans base the value of their self esteem on outer perspectives rather than internal ones. For this thesis in particular, the outer perspective to be examined is representation in the field of the arts. This thesis project explores the process of self esteem, artistic representation in the arts, how one affects the other, a history of the correlation between the two, and ways to inform and educate the masses with the tools necessary to advance representation in the arts thus raising the self esteem of its …

My Physical-Digital Self: Exploring The Detrimental Effects Of The Metaverse On Relationship & Identity Development, Sophia De Castro

CMC Senior Theses

The metaverse, which is the next iteration of the internet--an immersive, virtual world--poses a threat to the essential human need for healthy relationship and identity development. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of isolation and virtual socialization led many to prefer physical experiences, despite society’s overall dependency on and connectedness to the internet and technological devices. Framed by Maslow’s hierarchy of human psychological needs, Turkle’s analysis of the human relationship to earlier forms of virtual reality, and Foucault’s principles of caring for and knowing the self, this paper argues that the metaverse will be detrimental towards developing participant’s …

Theorizing The Korean Wave| K(Q)Ueer-Pop For Another World: Toward A Theorization Of Gender And Sexuality In K-Pop, Jungmin Kwon

School of Film Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article argues that the K-pop space, which on one level appears to be homogeneously cishetpatriarchal, actually encompasses multiple configurations of gender and sexual identity. Nonetheless, academic discussions about gender and sexuality in K-pop have been significantly weighted toward the idea of “soft masculinity” regarding male performers, thereby muffling other possible interpretations. I suggest a new term, K(Q)ueerness. It means the aesthetics, imaginations, practices, performances, and ideas of K-pop players sublate binaristic identifications, including masculinity and femininity and heterosexual and homosexual—as well as Butler’s distinction between performance and performativity—to embrace the multifarious expressions of gender and sexuality surrounding K-pop. This …

Identity And Perception Among Aspec Consumers Of Mass Media, Jericho Franke

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The portrayals of sex and romance, as well as asexuality and aromanticism, in mass media can have a profound impact on the way asexual and aromantic media consumers view relationships and their own identities, and affect the perception and treatment of the aspec community as a whole. This study uses mixed qualitative methods of online discourse analysis and participant interviews to examine the how mass media has shaped the self-perception and life experiences relating to sex and romance among aspec audience members.

Bloodred: Violence On Screen, Emma Kuitunen

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

The dishonest mob boss goes down in a spray of bullets and blood; a humanoid machine meets her end amidst flying glass shards; a son smothers his mother in her hospital bed; a former assassin confronts the red in her ledger. Violence in films exists in a variety of dimensions. It can be graphic or subtle, triumphant or tragic. It can be primarily masculine and heterosexual, or it can involve other genders and sexualities. However it is portrayed, violence plays an important role in a film’s narrative and cultural messages. The four films I analyze in this essay—The Godfather (1972), …

How To Build A World: Stereoscopes, Tourism, And Land In Zion National Park, Emma Duggleby

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis fundamentally questions how representations of the environment and land impact how we relate to and live in it. By examining a set of 1925 stereoscope images of Zion National Park, it considers how use-based perceptions of place – structured by the entertainment of tourism and mass media – become part of the mundane practices of consumption. By revealing how these capitalist-colonial relationships to the land have been built through time, an analysis of these stereoscope slides reveals that these stories are anything but natural in hopes of making room for other stories to be built instead. The second …

The Culture Of Resistance Featuring Pleasure, Leisure, And Joy, Gabriella Osifo

Scripps Senior Theses

Black students within predominantly white institutions (PWIs) have a unique experience due to the fact that they reside in higher learning institutions that were never meant to hold Black, queer bodies. Residentially, academically, and structurally PWIs display a quality of lacking which consists of failing to provide appropriate resources, acknowledge structural barriers, and address complaints made by students of queer identities, namely Black students, in meaningful and effective ways. Through examining the history of Black student-led movements within the five Claremont Colleges (5Cs) using a Black Existentialism lens, this paper seeks to understand the positionality of this quality of lacking …

Syllabus For Com 310/Enl 313 Writing For Advertising And Public Relations, Rachel Kovacs

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Off The Rails: Cinematic Trains As Technological Controls Of The Natural World, Trinity Thompson

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Short train rail lines across the United States are seeing increased national funding to reduce toxic chemical spills caused by train derailments, the most notable of which happened in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. A year prior, the film White Noise (2022) featured a similar toxic train derailment incident, taking place, too, in Eastern Ohio, and featuring actors from the town of East Palestine. In considering other films featuring trains, I identified a pattern of environmental conflict, leading me to question the relationship between trains and the natural environment as portrayed in popular cinema. To conduct my research, I …

And They Saved My Sorry Ass: A Documentary Discovering Self In Contemporary Fan Culture, Chunxiao Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

"And They Saved My Sorry Ass" is a documentary/personal essay film about queer ani- me lovers (including the filmmaker) based both in the US and in China. This film focuses on how these fans express their identities by embodying and re-interpreting anime characters. Experimental methods, such as staged performance, first-person narration and abstract imaging are explored in addition to conventional interviews. This thesis follows the pre-production, production and post-production processes of making this film through 2020 to 2023, also mapping out marketing and distribution plans after finishing the project.

Jogakpo Window (7 Feet X 4 Feet), Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Materials: glass, sunlight, post-it notes. Image description: Photographs show a large window covered with a 조각보 patchwork of colorful post-it notes. Sunlight illuminates the paper.

Simulacra And Simulation Hypothesis: How Real Is Our Reality?, Annika Larson

CMC Senior Theses

Metaphysical quandaries have plagued humans for centuries, beginning with Plato, who in his Allegory of the Cave, illustrated a world where people misinterpreted shadows on the wall as reality. This paper examines the notion that our reality is a simulation, either created by us or by external forces. The ontological theories presented in this paper are mainly derived from the work of media theorist Jean Baudrillard and his concept of hyperreality as well as Nick Bostrom’s argument for the simulation hypothesis. I also analyze Slavoj Zizek’s comments on media depictions of simulations in mainstream movies like The Matrix and The …

Portrait Of An Insecure Young Man; An Exploration Of The Online Propagation Of Mewing, Jamie Cockburn

CMC Senior Theses

As social media becomes more ubiquitous in our cultural existence as humans it plays an increasingly large role in the formation and expression of identity. On many social media platforms, the way people look is emphasized, with more attractive people garnering the most attention. This results in the phenomenon of upward social comparison, which leads to the lowering of self-esteem. Social media and the internet also enable the spread of information and ideologies, which has resulted in the propagation of pessimistic and misogynistic world views in in communities that make up the manosphere. One popular topic on the manosphere is …

Can You See Me Now?: A Critical Examination Of The Progression, Reception, And Impact Of Performances Of The Body As A Mechanism For Critiquing & Transcending Social Constructs In The West, Lauren Spencer

CMC Senior Theses

Beginning with Adolf Loos’s famous “Ornament and Crime” essay, I examine the progression, reception and impact of performances of the body using Amelia Jones’ framework for distinguishing body art from performance art. As Primitivist Modernism became popular in the West, racialized bodies garnered new attention as subjects of both inspiration and criticism. Through a critical exploration of Black artists, I determine that the use of bodily performances aided in the subversion of the gender, sexual, and racial discrimination perpetuated by Primitivist Modernism and continued into the 21st century. Starting with French icon Josephine Baker and concluding with American legend Janet …

The Ilm Industrial Complex: Star Wars And Vfx In The Digital Age, Jane Baldwin

CMC Senior Theses

This paper proposes an expansion of Tom Gunning’s seminal theory of the “cinema of attractions.” Advancements in visual effects (VFX) technologies—such as the rise of George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and the advent of the digital age, among others—necessitate a more rigorous, updated understanding of effects as objects of media study. Using the Star Wars franchise as an analytical center, I aim to bring the subfield of effects study closer to compatibility with the ever-evolving VFX landscape.

Excuse Me, Everybody, Noah G. Battaglia

CMC Senior Theses

For my senior thesis I planned to write, produce, and direct a short-form, narrative film, entitled Excuse Me, Everybody. The original plot of the film is about a 19-year-old college student named Jacob who feels that his life is turned upside down after taking lewd photos of a fellow female student. While meeting with his psychotherapist, he refuses to reveal to him the true nature of his distress. He ultimately comes to terms with his crime by experiencing a hallucination where an imaginary being named Ego appears to him and forces Jacob to recollect the past events and explain …

Playing To Win: The Effects Of Implementing Gamification Strategies In Product Marketing, Sabrina Stone

CMC Senior Theses

Let’s play a game. What effect do you think video games have on twenty-first-century marketing? In this age defined by its nature of digitality, capturing the attention of consumers is an arduous competition. Through market segmentation, research, and the observable variables of consumer behavior, product marketing has turned to video games as a solution to appeal to younger demographics. Gamification is an increasingly applied product marketing strategy employed to increase favorable metrics. Of those key performance indicators (KPIs), boosted measures such as click-through rates, impressions, and engagement rates suggest that gamification is a strategic opportunity to persuade consumers to take …

Finding Aid For The Gary Hawkins Multimedia Collection (Mum00705)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Physical and digital files including moving image files, audio, photographs, small manuscripts, and ephemera related to the films Joe and The Rough South of Larry Brown created by filmmaker Gary Hawkins.