Digital Commons Network^™

Between The Lines, Yu Su

Theses and Dissertations

Belonging comes from the act of active listening that goes beyond borders of nationality, gender, race, sexuality, beyond the first glance. Listening creates a bond of trust that helps us find understanding and compassion.

I feel I belong when I am listening and being listened to, when both ends extend towards the other and meet half way, when neither part is afraid. I belong thanks to my friends that together have helped me create a home in a multitude of displacement.

Look, listen. Look beyond the images, listen between the lines.

An Interview With Karen Graffeo, Sonja Rieger, And Carolyn Sherer, Kerr Houston

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Acts: Queer Voices And Radical Adaptation In Multi-Ethnic American Literary And Visual Culture, Michael M. Means

Theses and Dissertations

Adaptation Studies suffers from a deficiency in the study of black, brown, yellow, and red adaptive texts, adaptive actors, and their practices. Adaptive Acts intervenes in this Eurocentric discourse as a study of adaptation with a (queer) POC perspective. My dissertation reveals that artists of color (re)create texts via dynamic modes of adaptation such as hyper-literary allusion, the use of meta-narratives as framing devices, and on-site collaborative re-writes that speak to/from specific cultural discourses that Eurocentric models alone cannot account for. I examine multi-ethnic American adaptations to delineate the role of adaptation in the continuance of stories that contest dominant …

Teaching About Racially Diverse Artists And Cultures, Hannah Sions

Theses and Dissertations

Art education scholars have redefined multicultural teaching practices to include a need for addressing social inequities. To understand art educators’ multicultural teaching practices, it is important to measure the extent to which they present cultural diversity in the classroom and present a racially diverse pool of artists. The purpose of this this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to measure the extent to which practicing K–12 art educators who are members of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) engage students with racially diverse artists and cultures within their curricula. The study aimed to measure the extent that educators address racial and cultural …

Proteinic Geontopower, Agustine Zegers

Theses and Dissertations

PGP is a study of how we come into intimate contact with capitalism through our digestive tract. It is a study of the increasing valuing of protein in contemporary diet culture, focusing on how this phenomenon has resulted in mass-scale global soya production. Protein synthesis and distribution are rearticulated in this work as a set of molecular transactions enacted within/out bodies, moving loosely through ligaments and industrial machinery.

PGP is a speculative exercise in communing with a damaged planet through our daily ingestions.

Relational Aesthetics: Creativity In The Inter-Human Sphere, Carl Patow

Theses and Dissertations

RELATIONAL AESTHETICS: CREATIVITY IN THE INTER-HUMAN SPHERE

By Carl Patow, MD, MPH, MBA

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Fine Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019.

Major Director: Pamela Taylor Turner, Associate Professor, Kinetic Imaging, VCU Arts

Relational Art was first described as an art movement in Nicolas Bourriaud’s catalogue for the exhibition Traffic in 1995, and in an eponymous book in 1998. He observed that contemporary artists were shifting the focus of their work away from creating objects of spectacle to interaction with viewers through dialogue. Examination of a sample …

Breakdown Of Relations: American Expansionism, The Great Plains, And The Arikara People, 1823-1957, Stephen R. Aoun

Theses and Dissertations

Arikara people had been adapting their tribal structures to European influences since Europeans first arrived on the northern Plains in the early seventeenth century. Their sedentary lifestyle, focused on agriculture and hunting, increasingly included trade with French, British, and American trappers by the seventeenth century. The goods procured from European traders, such as firearms and other metallurgical works, began to upset the balance of geopolitical power on the Plains, setting the stage for the violence and political realignments at the center of this thesis. As my research reveals, by the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, tensions between the …

The Mountains At The End Of The World: Subcultural Appropriations Of Appalachia And The Hillbilly Image, 1990-2010, Paul L. Robertson

Theses and Dissertations

There is an aversion within the field of Appalachian Studies to addressing the cultural formulations of the Appalachian/hillbilly/mountaineer as an icon of aggressive resistance. The aversion is understandable, as for far too long images of the irrationally and savagely violent mountaineer were integral to the most gross popular culture stereotypes of Appalachia. Media consumers often take pleasure or comfort in these images, which usually occur in a reactionary context with the hillbilly as either a type of nationally necessary savage OR as an unregenerate barbarian against whom a national civilization will triumph and benefit by the struggle.

I bookend my …

In A Building, A Stairwell, A Room Speaks, Tsz Wai Wallis Cheung

Theses and Dissertations

Working toward a personal definition of womanhood while progressing with my research in feminist discourse, I frame biographical events alongside the intricate use of language surrounding feminist theory. Experimenting with material specificities that speak to my personal narratives and cultural significance, my work seeks to address the interlacing operations of subjectivity expanding on the intersection of class, gender and race.

The Day Is Just Another Surface, Brooks M. Heintzelman

Theses and Dissertations

Within a practice founded on both typographic form and language, I have continued to push myself to make work that is more sensitive to place, more contextual, more (hopefully) generous toward a public audience. These pieces might serve as useful instruments of institutional critique, resources for comprehension, or moments in which to interrogate preconceived modes of seeing. I deploy original texts in public spaces in order that they might force viewers to decide how to personally resolve the content they encounter. Is it language or object? Literal or figurative? Graphic design or art? The further I develop this body of …

Humans Aren't Boxes, Art Isn't Finite, Brianne Alta Humphreys

Theses and Dissertations

I am bored. All around me are systems that perpetuate repetitive, reductive, and mundane modes of living. In an attempt to counter a culture obsessed with singular ways of existence and bite-sized perfection, I utilize moving mediums of video and performance to dive head first into a vast array of sloppy sincerity. The crisp, white-washed, analytical, and restrictive is loudly replaced with the empirical, haphazard, and instinctual. My intention is to create and encourage raw, performative-based work that is as multifaceted as unbridled life itself. This alive and physical practice hosts a conglomeration of sweat, memories, heartbreaks, hymn singing, line …

The Wild Beasts, Peter Cochrane

Theses and Dissertations

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to …

Revealing The Human Resource Development Discourse: A Mixed Methods Study Of Similarities And Differences In Academic And Practitioner Language, Or Labels-In-Use, Holly D. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Woven within the pages of HRD’s historical literature, a variety of scholarly voices can be found drawing attention to the increasing inconsistency in the language of the field. Within the literature, we also find evidence of a long-standing discord and debate regarding the field’s definition and identified boundaries. This is the first study that attempts to elevate the conversation of HRD’s definition to that of an exploration of what is shared, and what makes the discipline’s members unique. Utilizing Li’s (2009) lens of disciplinary identity and elements of Gee’s (1999) theory of Discourse, this study presents a concept of what …

Toward Liveness: The Polytemporality Of Performance Objects, Tracy Stonestreet

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the temporal and material connections between component parts of hybrid artworks, specifically between live events / acts of performance and the long-lasting sculptural elements that those events / performances produce. I propose a re-orientation of the temporal gaze of performance art history, from one oriented to the past to one focused on the continually unfolding present. Such a re-orientation requires a nonlinear approach to art making that complicates set boundaries of past and present, liveness and record, and presence and absence, and disrupts in potentially corrective ways our historically normative systems of looking, categorizing, and …

Intergenerational Narratives: The Personal Is Professional, Jodi Kushins, Amy B. Snider

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

What began as a teacher-student relationship between educators Amy Brook Snider and Jodi Kushins has developed into a friendship and working partnership. At first, they did not consider their continuing long-distance connection as intergenerational. They shared experiences and exchanged ideas oblivious to the great difference in their ages. But as online tools, research, and communication emerged as a central focus of Jodi’s life and teaching, they became aware that this development might lead to an intergenerational digital divide between them. In order to explore their different responses to what has been called screen culture, they brought back their puppet alter …

Identity, Discourse, And Rehabilitation In Parole Hearings In The United States, Danielle Lavin-Loucks, Kristine M. Levan

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

Research on parole in the United States has primarily followed a deterministic approach, favoring an examination of variables contributing to release. However, a great deal of prior research neglects a central aspect of the parole process: mainly the hearing. Adopting an ethnographically informed conversation analytic approach, this article addresses one tactic offenders utilize to appeal to a state parole board for release– claiming rehabilitated status. Offenders appealing for parole attempt to establish, in a performative space, their identity as rehabilitated. More globally, this article addresses how individual manage, assert, and negotiate identity in the course of interaction. The achievement of …

Commonwealth Times 2018-04-02

Commonwealth Times, 1969-

No abstract provided.

Hip Hop Pedagogy As Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Melanie L. Buffington, Jolie Day

The Melanie Buffington Papers

This paper argues that Hip Hop Pedagogy is a version of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and should be a part of art education. Further, we believe that when exploring Hip Hop Pedagogy, teachers need to reference the work of Black female and non-binary artists. After an overview of Hip Hop Pedagogy and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, we argue that these approaches should be a consistent part of art education. Through the work of contemporary visual artist and DJ, Rozeal, we offer suggestions for art educators about how they might transition their practice to embrace some aspects of Hip Hop Pedagogy. Specifically, through …

Virginia Commonwealth University Fall Commencement Program [2018], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Virginia Commonwealth University Courses [2018], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Listing of courses for the 2018-2019 year.

Temporal And Spatial Impact Of Human Cadaver Decomposition On Soil Bacterial And Arthropod Community Structure And Function, Baneshwar Singh, Kevan J. Minick, Michael S. Strickland, Kyle G. Wickings, Tawni L. Crippen, Aaron M. Tarone, M. Eric Benbow, Ness Sufrin, Jeffery K. Tomberlin, Jennifer L. Pechal

Forensic Science Publications

As vertebrate carrion decomposes, there is a release of nutrient-rich fluids into the
underlying soil, which can impact associated biological community structure and
function. How these changes alter soil biogeochemical cycles is relatively unknown and may prove useful in the identification of carrion decomposition islands that have long lasting, focal ecological effects. This study investigated the spatial (0, 1, and 5 m) and temporal (3–732 days) dynamics of human cadaver decomposition on soil bacterial and arthropod community structure and microbial function. We observed strong evidence of a predictable response to cadaver decomposition that varies over space for soil bacterial and …

Virginia Commonwealth University Undergraduate Bulletin [2018], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Undergraduate bulletin for Virginia Commonwealth University for the academic year 2018-2019. It includes information on academic regulations, degree requirements, course offerings, faculty, academic calendar, and tuition and expenses for undergraduate programs.

Structural Stress And Otherness: How Do They Influence Psychological Stress?, Christine Dewilde

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The Theory of Cultural Distress offers a framework for understanding the potential outcomes in patients who do not receive care that incorporates their cultural beliefs (DeWilde & Burton, 2017).This study represents initial steps in researching the theory byexploring the layering of stressors that place the patient at risk for Cultural Distress. Methods: Utilized aCross-sectional descriptive correlational analysis of intersecting identities (Structural Stressors), ethnicity-related stressors (Otherness) and ethnic-identity (Otherness) to develop understanding of the potential effects of these variables on psychological stress. Independent variables included intersecting identities, perceived ethnic discrimination, concern for stereotype confirmation, own group conformity pressure, and …

Unpacking Students’ Writer Identity In The Transition From High School To College: A Mixed Methods Study, Marcie J. Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1975 publication of Newsweek’s article asserting that “Johnny” can’t write, many have continued to support the claim that students graduating from American high schools and universities can’t write. This criticism has led many students to believe the problem lies exclusively with them. Efforts to improve students’ writing have had little effect, as reflected in continually concerning scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Recently, researchers have begun to suggest that the problem should be addressed by working to change students’ identification as a bad writer. Two constructs have emerged from these efforts: writer and authorial identity. Research …

Usefulness Of The Captia Syphilis Igg Eia Test Method And Reverse Algorithm For Detection Of Syphilis Infection In A Public Health Setting, Patricia Armour

Theses and Dissertations

Syphilis, a systemic sexually transmitted disease, is on the rise in the US, with infection rates the highest recorded since 1994 according to the CDC. Useful laboratory testing is an important diagnostic tool for determining individual syphilis infection and preventing community-wide disease spread.

The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of a specific automated treponemal test method, the Captia^TM Syphilis IgG EIA, and the syphilis reverse algorithm interpretation for detecting syphilis infection among patients seeking care in a public health clinic. The study employed a retrospective, nonexperimental descriptive correlational design with data collected between 2012-2013 from …

Women In Music: Letting A Long Story Be Long Contemplating Women’S Sonic, Musical, And Spiritual Experiences In Prehistory, Deborah J. Saidel

Theses and Dissertations

Situated within deep history, this study explores the auditory and spiritual lives of Paleolithic women. It considers their personal agency in mediating the spiritual power of sound and how doing so contributes to a multifaceted musicality. The theoretical framework involves a wide spectrum of topics, from ways of rethinking the writing of history and reckoning with time, to sound studies and the study of acoustics in ancient sites, to a critical examination through a feminist lens of normative disciplinary scholarship in anthropology and archaeology, religious studies, and musicology. I explore potential audio-visual-lithic relationships for their implications for deepening an understanding …

Examination Of The Role Of Dehumanization As A Potential Mechanism Underlying The Racial Disparities In School Disciplinary Measures., Ebony A. Lambert

Theses and Dissertations

Schools should be safe and supportive spaces for all students, yet Black students tend to face biased treatment in the education system, which often results in harsh disciplinary measures. This research examined the role of animalistic dehumanization (i.e., perceiving others as animal-like and uncultured and denying uniquely human characteristics), in predicting choice of harsher disciplinary measures for Black students as opposed to White students. It was hypothesized that individuals who dehumanize Black students to a greater degree would be more likely to believe that Black students need to be disciplined through harsher measures. Additionally, it was hypothesized that the link …

On Lgbt Studies At Vcu: An Interview With Richard Godbeer, Amita Rao, Emily Furlich

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction: "Ain’T It Evil To Live Backwards?": A Hip Hop Perspective Of Religion, Travis T. Harris, Cassandra D. Chaney

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

Historically, Black religion has been the cornerstone of the African experience in America. Due to the "peculiar institution” of slavery" and the ways this institutional residue still affect the lives of slave descendants, Hip Hop provides a forum to simultaneously acknowledge similarities and highlight differences. What scholars of religion and Hip Hop studies have revealed are the ways in which the effectiveness and our very understanding of “religion” changes when we bring Hip Hop in to the mix.

Journal Of Hip Hop Studies

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.