Digital Commons Network^™

The Question Of Authenticity: Two Ethiopian Icons, Sonia Dixon

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Cut And Sell: Two Parchment Fragments And The Collection Of Ethiopian Manuscripts In The West, Caitlin Mims

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Bibliography

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, And History By Stephen Chrisomalis, Milton Rosa, Daniel Clark Orey

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This review of Reckonings shares our thoughts on the diverse insights presented by Stephen Chrisomalis’s version of the history of numerical notation. Chrisomalis suggests that members of distinct cultural groups write numbers as an active choice in accordance with their own sociocultural contexts, which reflect the influences of historical, cognitive, social, economic, political, environmental, and cultural factors. This book integrates comparative, cognitive, and evolutionary understandings on numerical cognition with historical and linguistic evidence on the use and transformation of numeral systems through the historical advancement of numeracy. Chrisomalis offers an interesting historical perspective on numbers that builds upon three main …

Un'orrida Bellezza: Religious Polychrome Sculpture In The Kingdom Of Naples (1503-1714), Lindsay Rose Elizabeth Sheedy

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, “Un’orrida bellezza: Religious Polychrome Sculpture in the Kingdom of Naples,” situates polychrome sculpture in the evolving religious and cultural landscape of Southern Italy during the Regno di Napoli (1503-1714). In this period, a series of upheavals inextricably altered the fabric of the Kingdom of Naples, including the establishment of the Spanish viceroyalty in 1503, the Counter Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century, and a series of crippling plagues. This period of change, trauma, and subjugation provoked reactions from all levels of culture, making Southern Italy a fertile laboratory of innovation and exchange. These shifts took physical form in polychrome …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Unesco, Heritage Preservation, And Photography: Balthazar Korab’S “North Yemen: Land And Buildings” And Mario Cresci’S Matera: Immagini E Documenti, Sarah M. Wolberg

Theses and Dissertations

I explore two architectural photo-essays that engage with (reflecting, rebutting, questioning) the concepts of cultural heritage, particularly with regard to preserving vernacular architecture in cities with UNESCO World Heritage status—Balthazar Korab’s photo-essay “North Yemen: Land and Buildings” (1978–81) and Mario Cresci’s 1975 Italian photobook Matera: Immagini e documenti.

Steve Mcqueen, The Filmmaker, And Kant’S Sensus Communis, Livia Melamed Margon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on the ways in which art reinforces community and reduces political polarity by stimulating shared feelings, namely through Kant's idea of sensus communis. To illustrate its argument, this thesis analyzes the work of Steve McQueen, a politically aware, ethically engaged, and broadly recognized filmmaker and artist.

Afropolitan Manifestations In Contemporary African Art: Mobilizing Achille Mbembe, Petra Frank-Witt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Afropolitanism's conceptual-philosophical grounds and how its principles are mirrored in the arts. Achille Mbembe’s conceptualization is presented as a form of cultural cosmopolitanism, as shared by the artists presented, further distilled as a dynamic, forward-looking, emancipatory ideology that favors Africanness as open-ended signifier rather than overdetermined sign.

Table Of Contents (V. 34, 2022)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of Dark, Light And Shadows: Inferences In Art, Materiality And Cultural Practices, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

Our visual awareness relies on light acting on the eye to perceive materiality and colour. Medieval thought wrestled to articulate and comprehend its nature. The notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, for example, included his descriptions to define light and make comparisons so as to differentiate between light and shadow. His focus was on the illumination of surfaces from the perspective of a painter, seeing shadows as ‘the diminution of light by the intervention of an opaque body’ and ‘the counterpart of luminous rays’. In his mind, a shadow ‘stood between light and darkness’, with darkness being ‘the absence of light’. …

Accessing 3d Data, Francesca Albrezzi, John Bonnett, Tassie Gniady, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lisa Snyder

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The issue of access and discoverability is not simply a matter of permissions and availability. To identify, locate, retrieve, and reuse 3D materials requires consideration of a multiplicity of content types, as well as community and financial investment to resolve challenges related to usability, interoperability, sustainability, and equity. This chapter will cover modes, audiences, assets and decision points, technology requirements, and limitations impacting access, as well as providing recommendations for next steps.

Musings On The Grand Mosques Of Djenné And Bobo-Dioulasso, The Cathedral Of Notre Dame, And Western Bias, Sally A. Struthers Ph.D.

Art History Faculty Publications

Unlike the much publicized collapse of the roof of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, in Paris, when the roof collapsed in the Grand Mosque of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso in 2018, it did not make international news. The mosque is a masterpiece of the Sudano-Sahalian adobe mosque style, second in size only to the Grand Mosque of Djenné, in Mali, which is well known. The mosque is a source of pride for people of all religions in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Burkina Faso is a country of numerous languages, many of which are endangered. The tradition of oral history is a primary …

Reclamation, Laura Day Webb

MA Projects

This exhibition will take the form of a group show of African artists who weave
/="/">cultural heritage with the contemporary, to challenge Western perceptions of African art and culture. Artists Wole Langunju (Nigeria), Prudence Chimutuwah (Zimbabwe), Lincoln Mwangi (Kenya), Moira Bushkimani (Kenya), and Angèle Etoundi Essamba (Cameroon) are confirmed to participate. In addition to the contemporary works by these artists on display, two Nigerian Gèlèdé masks have been generously loaned from the private collection of Olusanya Ojikutu, one from the early 20th century and, the other, whose dating is undetermined. In showcasing these works in tandem, the exhibition creates …

Occult Conceptualism, Olivia Shao

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores and defines the term “Occult Conceptualism.” The term questions past models for Conceptual Art, in particular those rooted in Benjamin H. D. Buchloh’s 1990 text, “Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” and Joseph Kosuth’s safeguarding of Conceptual Art in part two of his text “Art after Philosophy,” in which a number of artists (John Baldessari, Douglas Huebler, amongst others) are excluded from his canon. Arguing for a new approach to certain strains of conceptualism, this paper refutes the perspective that the conceptual movement was grounded only in theoretical and rationalist …

Schemata: The Language Of The Body In Middle Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, Nava Streiter

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Representations of body language add a vital layer of meaning to middle Byzantine figural art, and they deserve systematic scholarly attention. My dissertation offers a method for unpicking the meanings of individual movements, and, more importantly, it explores the underlying cultural concerns that shaped the form of the body in middle Byzantine art. I argue that Byzantine images of body language are intentionally schematic and programmatic. By combining a restricted vocabulary of motion with pared-down renderings of physical forms, Byzantine artists engaged the vital force of embodied expression, while also transfiguring the body into a metaphoric representation of disembodied ideas …

The Subsistence Economy In Urban Mayapán : Sustainability And Resiliency Through Diversity, Caroline Elizabeth Antonelli

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Agrarian states are often viewed as premodern manifestations of complex urbanism, with environmental constraints limiting growth and their sustainability. Pre-Columbian states in the Northern Maya Lowlands were one context where these conditions were thought to apply. However, despite environmental constraints such as a scrub forest, periodic droughts and hurricanes, and an uneven distribution of resources, civilization flourished. Critical to the success of these states were social and economic institutions that supported highly effective landscape management strategies. The impact of these systems is still apparent today.Multiscalar approaches are critical to understanding the complex structures of subsistence economies in premodern urban places. …

Front Matter

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

Linear Programming Analysis And Diet Breadth Modeling At Bridge River, British Columbia, Sean Patrick Boyd

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Studies in diet breadth modeling and patch choice have been and continue to be a hot topic of interest among practitioners of human behavioral ecology and the set of data available at Bridge River can certainly add to these debates and discussions that have been dominating anthropology in the past few decades. The faunal assemblage of Housepit 54’s 17 anthropogenic floors have provided researchers with a plethora of data that clearly indicates periods of resource depletion and partial to full site abandonment. Using Linear Programming and Diet Breadth Modelling I analyze the most represented species in the record and establish …

Analysis Of Artifacts And Storage Organization: Clinton Lock 2, Hannah Curtis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For this project, we are hoping to address the potential problems and help refine future work between the storage in the Cummings Center and the Anthropology Department. Some of the research questions that we have are: What is in the Cummings Center from the Anthropology Department? What type of techniques is the most beneficial in storing archaeological material? How are the items stored in the Cummings Center? Is this method of storage going to protect or damage the artifact? Do we still need to keep this material, returned to its original owner, or can it be deaccessioned? We plan to …

Assessment Of Lithic Reduction Methods, Hannah Dory Bergene

Departmental Honors Projects

The way lithic artifacts are analyzed is critical to understand human behavior. How lithic attributes are measured can add important context to archaeological sites and experimental lithic collections. By re-evaluating the way we analyze lithic reduction strategies and measure lithic attributes, we can come to a conclusion as to how they compare. In the project that will be described, nine lithic experiments created by expert flintknapper, Dan Wendt, will be measured and analyzed in accordance with the Hamline University Archaeology Lab Debitage Analysis Protocol. Assessing the data collected from these nine experimental collections allowed me and my fellow researcher, Eva …

Cherokee Abstract Artist Leon Polk Smith: A Convergence Of Traditions, Danielle Montanino

Dissertations and Theses

This paper analyzes how Leon Polk Smith's Indigenous roots and upbringing in Indian Country had a significant impact on his artistic practice in a time of discrimination and segregation in the United States. Through examination contextualizing his work within the history and political events of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations it is revealed how Polk Smith developed a formal language that could navigate both worlds and be viewed through a pure abstraction lens or a lens embodying his Indigenous traditions. In addition to his Indigenous philosophies, Mesoamerican Inca Nation’s cultural motifs further ground Polk Smith’s Indigenous aesthetic, and avant-garde …

The Real And The Digital: Female Agency And Resisting The Male Gaze In Lynn Hershman Leeson’S Works, Kelly Chou

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis focuses on three major feminist works by multimedia artist, Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941), that grapple with the construction and potential of female identity. Considering the works within the context of Laura Mulvey’s seminal text “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” this paper will attempt to elucidate how Hershman Leeson’s works have engaged with the male gaze and its social and cultural implications on female identity in visual spheres. This research demonstrates how Hershman Leeson’s efforts to understand the limitations and boundaries for women reflect the same phenomenons observed by Mulvey within “Visual Pleasure.” Rejecting this, Hershman Leeson also …

Colonial Prehistories Of Indigenous North America, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

One of the most common inquiries received by Filson Historical Society librarians concerns the myth of Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians. Of the myth’s many versions, the one most familiar to Ohio Valley History readers goes like this: Madoc, a Welsh prince escaping an internecine conflict over political rule at home, supposedly sailed to North America in the twelfth century. His force either landed at the Falls of the Ohio or made it there after landing further south and being driven north by hostile locals, possibly Cherokee people. Madoc and his contingent intermixed with Indigenous populations, whose fair-haired, blue-eyed, …

Living In The Ruins Of Utopia: The Collapse Of The Soviet Union And The Formation Of Russia's Postcolonial Identity, Erik G. Livingston

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

68 | ‘En Esur (‘Ein Asawir) Iii Excavations In The Bronze Age Cemetery, Yehuda Dagan, Shelley Sadeh

IAA Reports—Monograph Series of the Israel Antiquities Authority

This volume is the third in a series of reports documenting excavations at the large protohistoric site of ‘En Esur and its extensive burial grounds, located in the northern Sharon plain along a major ancient trade route. The four relatively intact and undisturbed Early Bronze Age burial caves presented in the current volume, excavated in the framework of the Cross Israel Highway Project, revealed over 2000 complete ceramic vessels representing an uninterrupted sequence over several hundred years. These four burial caves comprise an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of the society, trade relations and burial customs in the region during …

Mosque Architecture And Identity: A Study Of The Autochthonous Mosque In China, Yutong Ma

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

This thesis argues that an autochthonous mosque architecture exists in China, and this historical type adequately serves as a reference for contemporary mosque building in southeastern China in light of how it responded to the Chinese cultural and urban contexts. Many Hui Muslims and architects in this region refuse to consider historical mosque architecture built in traditional Chinese architectural style as their cultural references in constructing new mosques, as they believe that the traditional Chinese architectural language is insufficient to express their identity as Muslims. Instead, they prefer a collection of symbolic architectural elements to be used in mosque architecture …

Forms Of Femininity: The Esoteric Visual Language Of Amazigh Women Through Ceramic Traditions And Symbolic Motifs, Mackenzie Nunnally

Theses and Dissertations

Amazigh women exercise agency and maintain autonomy as individuals through an esoteric feminine visual language. This language incorporates traditional, ritual-based pottery-making practices that are grounded in ancient spiritual beliefs and socio-cultural roles. Highly functional yet artistic ceramicwares serve as forms of femininity, or visual representations of the women. Decorative yet decidedly symbolic, geometric motifs decorate these wares and serve as esoteric signifiers of Amazigh heritage while allowing the female artisans to communicate their own experiences, principles, and worldviews. This esoteric visual language is defined and analyzed by connections made between ancient aspects of Amazigh culture and ritual-based pottery-making practices, comparing …

Designing Digital Antiquity: Classical Archaeology In New Virtual Applications, William Loder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I argue that the combination of existing archaeological theory with game design theory offers an innovative avenue for creating serious 3D applications of archaeological sites in virtual reality that can be productively used for pedagogical, research, and outreach solutions. In this thesis, I engage with the archaeological theories of phenomenology and sensory studies, briefly touching on structure and agency as well as discussion of some current digital applications in use in the field. For this project, I am interested in game design theory as it relates to education and I view Virtual Reality as an important tool …

Women And The Mealing Room: Presenting A Comparative Analysis Of Female Spaces Across The Chacoan Landscape, Olivia H. Thomsen

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

In the two papers presented in this thesis, I examine mealing facility architecture both within and beyond Chaco Canyon. Both ethnographic and archaeological evidence tie the secular and sacred action of grinding corn to the gendered labor of women in modern and Ancestral Pueblo societies. In both chapters I utilize the defining elements of context, scale, association, and access to measure the ways in which corn grinding facilities in various Chacoan sites are similar and dissimilar to one another.

In chapter 2, I examine the dichotomy between great and small houses located within Chaco Canyon regarding mealing facilities. Utilizing legacy …