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Technology, Power, And Colonial Modernity: The Making Of The Egyptian Railways, Ahmed Mohamed Rahmy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Egyptian railways as a technology of power through which modern temporal order was gradually formed, reorganized, and contested. Focusing on the period from 1850 to 1920, it argues that railway infrastructure did more than facilitate mobility, economic exchange, and imperial administration: it reorganized the temporal relations through which social life was governed and experienced. Timetables, standardized schedules, fares, penalties, stations, and administrative procedures made punctuality, regularity, and measurable time appear as neutral requirements of life, while positioning existing ecological, agricultural, religious, and communal rhythms as signs of backwardness.

The thesis draws on British official correspondence, parliamentary debates, …

Embodying The Art: Reflections On Process And Performance Through The Mfa Acting Program At The University Of South Carolina, Olan James Domer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains a collection of reflections on each role performed as a student enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts in Acting program at The University of South Carolina. The shows, The Visit, A Raisin in the Sun, Antigone, Twelfth Night, and The Importance of Being Earnest included a combination of undergraduate and graduate actors. Each chapter outlines the processes of an actor in preparation, practice, and performance of a theatrical role. In-depth discussions of audition material choice, faculty feedback, vocal and physical technique, challenges, successes, and points of personal growth are included for each performance. These reflections reveal …

The Narrative Legacy Of Shajar Al-Durr In Arabic Literature, Mary Evelyn Quinlan

Theses and Dissertations

The story of the life of Shajar al-Durr (d. 1257) has been retold many times in Arabic literature in a variety of genres and mediums. In the pre-modern era, Shajar al-Durr’s biography appeared in the works of Ibn Wāṣil, Abū al-Fidāʾ, Al-Maqrīzī, and Ibn Taghrībirdī as well as the popular epic Sīrat Baybars. Many others have written about her since the 19th century, including Qadriyya Ḥusayn and Jurjī Zaydān. Writers of her biography used varying degrees of narrativization to create a story that served their needs, whether that was chronicling the history of 13th century Egypt or promoting contemporary ideological …

Creative Media Production Curriculum Design, Development, And Implementation For Undergraduate Programs, Christopher P. Misun

Theses and Dissertations

This capstone explores the limited availability of structured, production-focused creative media education within the examined institutional context, despite increasing student interest and industry demand. The aim of this study is to design a research-based undergraduate Creative Media Production (CMP) curriculum that aligns with institutional needs, industry standards, and evidence-based teaching practices. The study utilizes a conceptual framework combining constructivist learning theory, Understanding by Design, Project-Based Learning, High-Quality Project-Based Learning, and the ADDIE instructional design model. The research questions investigate how curriculum design and teaching methods prepare students for professional creative media production education. Using a qualitative, design-based approach, data are …

Hannah, Nora Brigid Monahan

Theses and Dissertations

Hannah is a contemporary adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, which reimagines Ibsen's heroine as a "stealth" (or undetected) transsexual woman living among the American conservative elite in Washington D.C. Newly married to George Taylor, a charismatic but financially strained far-right media personality, Hannah struggles to maintain the façade she has constructed when Eliot Loving, a volatile political streamer and figure from past, reappears in her life. Their collision, orchestrated by the manipulative power-broker Judge Brock, upends Hannah's sense of self and forces her into a desperate struggle for her own autonomy and security. In a deliberate subversion of …

Beauty Over Perfection: The Idealization Of Drapery In Classical Greek Sculpture And The Stylistic Reinvention Of Roman “Copies”, Lauren M. Grover

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Margarete Bieber’s claim that the drapery of Greek sculpture accurately reflects ancient garments. I introduce a method of tracing drapery to capture the garment pattern of sculpted drapery and argue that the drapery of Greek originals and Roman “copies” is an idealized representation of ancient dress.

Notes On Rhythm, Maya Lee-Parritz

Theses and Dissertations

Line meets impulse, association meets sign. I weave the eye towards the smudge and sublime—a fractal lineage flowing through the brush, my body, space itself. I walk toward reality in serial successions, allowing what is fragmentary to move me, to cohere in shards, murky and strange inside of me. My body is a repository of images, of broken rhythms and dissonant ideologies. All of these flow and stutter onto the surface, dripping and blurring over each other. Through all of this, I always try to make something whole, perfect, and true.

Granted, Emily Weissman

Theses and Dissertations

Granted is an Alice in Wonderland-style psychotic break of a play about trying and explosively failing to dodge the landmines of being an artist–only to become your own worst enemy: a gatekeeper.

I Now Pronounce You..., Paul Mims

Theses and Dissertations

In this satirical dramedy, an interracial gay couple’s picture perfect relationship is  upended when a “beloved” family member decides to get married—on a plantation

The I Need More Time Machine, Suzanne L. Schulz

Theses and Dissertations

The I Need More Time Machine imagines alternatives to gendered overwork and exhaustion. Incorporating animation and the interviews of twelve NYC-based female and nonbinary artists who are caretakers and full-time workers, the film dwells in spaces of fatigue and repetition — from the vantage point of commuting — then draws on forgotten feminist and utopian housing blueprints to create science fiction-inspired, fantasy-imbued sites for gendered flourishing. The animated fantasy segments imagine elastic time, deep rest, experiments in collaboration, and liberating feminist spatial possibilities

Do Clothes Make The Man? Ftm Crossdressing In The 18th-19th C. Anglo-American World, Aidrian Graber

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the legacy of "Female Husbands" and other female-to-male crossdressers in the 18/19th c. Anglo-American world and how such people can illuminate the field of transgender history.

A Special Place In Hell: The Iconography Of Judgment In Twelfth-Century Sculpture And Manuscript Illumination, Nina Piper

Theses and Dissertations

While art historians have focused on the meaning of individual scenes of the Last Judgment and collections of “monstrous” images, this thesis considers images of Hell and its inhabitants as a single subject. It investigates the space of Hell itself and the beings most closely associated with it—whether or not they are depicted within the space of Hell—to identify iconographical consistencies across those images. In addition, this thesis draws upon material evidence from the medieval world to interpret images of Hell, the Devil, demons, and the damned in new ways, identifying connections between the imagery and what artists and other …

Heirloomed: An Italian-American Daughter Weaving Past And Present, Catherine Santino

Theses and Dissertations

Amid a string of family deaths, writer and journalist Catherine Santino found herself preoccupied by the idea of lineage and inheritance. As she digs into her Sicilian heritage, she explores how the traditions and values set forth by her family’s matriarchs have shaped the woman she’s still becoming. From grappling with the shame caused by the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings of purity to examining how Italian food customs impacted her body image, Santino interrogates the complicated truth that the belief systems she was raised with offer both comfort and torment.

On A Small Strip Of Land On The Great South Bay: A Vaudeville, Kev Berry

Theses and Dissertations

In this epic, genre-exploding tragedy about the Long Island Serial Killer case, On a Small Strip of Land on the Great South Bay unearths the complex story of police corruption, sensationalized violence, and the broken dreams of the women discarded along Ocean Parkway.

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

Landscaping The Exotic And The Ancient Through Picturesque: Reconsidering The Impact Of David Roberts’S Egypt And Nubia, Sophie Cooke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers David Roberts’s use of picturesque art for imperial Britain and analyzes the ways Egypt and Nubia played an influential role in the cultural transmission of ancient Egypt. By confronting both antiquity and modernity, his Egyptian landscapes are evidence of how Western picturesque artworks influence historical narratives.

“Music Is The Instrument To Bring The Heart Of A Community Together”: Frederic Balazs And The Tucson Symphony Orchestra, 1952-66, Jackie Bodily Biggs

Theses and Dissertations

The audience for classical music is declining, according to data from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the face of such challenges, aspiring music professionals may find inspiration in the musicological illumination of pertinent historical case studies. This paper offers one such example via a foundational exploration of the musical career of Hungarian American violinist, conductor, and composer Frederic Balazs. Though lacking any dedicated scholarly literature to speak of, Balazs’s legacy as the first full-time conductor of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra (TSO) from 1952 to 1966 included establishing arts organizations and nourishing the classical tradition at its very grass …

Answers “Go By Water”: Felt Knowledge As An Alternative Epistemology In Othello, Annalisa Gulbrandsen

Theses and Dissertations

William Shakespeare's Othello is fundamentally a play about epistemology--how does one know what he/she knows amidst the sea of words, evidence, and misdirection? Traditionally, the problem of knowledge in Othello has been treated as an intellectual problem of the mind. However, this thesis argues that the play purposefully draws attention to the limits of what the mind can know by way of the eye (what is seen) and ear (what is spoken or heard), instead offering an alternative epistemology that is felt through embodiment. When Desdemona's words no longer have the power to affect what Othello believes, Desdemona's answers to …

The Mountains Call: Escaping To Zones Of Seclusion, Alec Lee Parry

Theses and Dissertations

The biographical and thematical overlap between the literature of Austrian authors Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard, and Swiss writers Max Frisch and Fleur Jaeggy, is established in literary scholarship. However, similarities in the role Alpine spaces play in their works remain unaccounted for. The Alps represent a cultural and geographical boundary between linguistic identities and international borders. Protagonists across this dissertation’s three chapters face internal crises, prompting them to move to “zones of seclusion.” Within these “zones of seclusion,” characters spark discussions of collective memory even if they are isolated themselves. These peripheral locations force recollection, often on collective memory, …

A Conductor’S Guide To Charles Villiers Stanford’S Songs Of The Sea & Songs Of The Fleet, Brian Niu

Theses and Dissertations

Charles Villiers Stanford is best known for his contributions as a composer to the sacred choral genre and his role as Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London during the Second English Musical Renaissance. Beyond his church music, which is still regularly performed today, Stanford’s secular compositions are largely underperformed, especially for a composer and teacher of his stature. This document provides a conductor’s guide to Charles V. Stanford’s two works: Songs of the Sea and Songs of the Fleet. These two choral-orchestral works are less than 25 minutes in duration each and are scored for …

The Czech Double Bass School: The History And Development Of Bass Education Through The Prague Conservatory, Geordan Raisler

Theses and Dissertations

As a member of the violin family, the double bass has existed for the majority of the instrument's history in an ephemeral state. Across Europe the instrument varied regionally, and differing performance practices hampered the development of pedagogical materials for the instrument, of which wouldn't be developed until the turn of the 19th century when the instrument’s construction began to stabilize.1

The focus of this document emerged from noticing a pattern between the increasing quality of bassists in Central Europe, particularly in the genre of solo music, and the development of pedagogical materials for the double bass during this time. …

The Importance Of Being Present: Presence Over Performance, De'on Turner

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development of presence as the foundational element of the actor’s craft through a sustained analysis of four major roles performed during the Master of Fine Arts Acting program at the University of South Carolina: Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun (Spring 2024), Kesi/the Astronaut in Moon Man Walk (Fall 2024), Dennis in Mauritius (Spring 2025), and Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest (Fall 2025).

The central argument of this thesis is that the actor does not bring the character to life — at full depth; it is the character who brings …

The Art Of Dicky Wells: An Analysis Of Improvisational Style From 1927-1948, Larry Nathan Duvall Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

William “Dicky” Wells was a swing era trombone soloist for the bands of Lloyd and Cecil Scott, Fletcher Henderson, Buck Clayton, Jimmy Rushing, Rex Stewart, Count Basie, and countless others throughout a career that spanned more than five decades. During his career, Wells recorded albums with famed artists Django Reinhardt, B.B. King, James Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, and Buddy Tate, as well as his own albums as band leader. His time with the Count Basie Orchestra coincided with the height of the band’s popularity, 1938-1945 and 1947-1950, totaling nearly eleven years and eighteen records. Through a selection of exemplary recordings spanning …

A Compositional Analysis For Selected Works Featuring Saxophone By Braxton Blake, Matthew Allen Floeter

Theses and Dissertations

During the 2025-2026 school year, I have had the pleasure of working with Braxton “Brad” Blake to analyze and present on his theoretical approach to composition. As part of this project, I have learned and performed all of the music in this document. I firmly believe that one’s understanding of compositional technique is more fully realized through the preparation and performance of it. This document will provide insight into the compositional method in Seven Places (1998), Partita (2018), Three Dances (2022), and a Four Pieces for Baritone Saxophone and Piano (2026), presented in chronological order. Additionally, I have conducted several …

The Practice Of Being Human: Reflections On The Evolution Of My Acting Process, Elaine Christine Werren

Theses and Dissertations

An actor’s work is defined by process. Growth occurs not only through performance, but through examination and reflection on how this work is made. This thesis explores the evolution of my acting process as I created a variety of characters in shows performed on the mainstage at the University of South Carolina. Each role tested previous approaches, led to new ideas, challenged assumptions, and shaped my opinions about this craft. With the passage of time and new roles explored, my reflections have revealed that my process is not purely a technical pursuit, but a human one. Through sustained efforts and …

Between Traditions And Techniques: The Growth Of An Actor Across Styles And Cultures, Didem Ruhi Karci

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on my artistic development during the Master of Fine Arts in Acting program at the University of South Carolina through an analysis of several performance processes, including The Visit, the Commedia dell’arte devised piece Mad Love, Antigone, Twelfth Night, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Drawing from rehearsal experiences, performance practices, and classroom training, the thesis examines how different acting techniques and theatrical traditions shaped my approach to character creation and performance. Throughout these productions, I explored the relationship between voice, body, and emotional truth while applying tools such as the Alexander Technique, Lessac voice work, Michael …

Learning To Stop Being Clever, Dominic Delong-Rodgers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the actors process for four productions in the University of South Carolina’s Theatre and Dance Department spanning from Winter of 2024 to Fall of 2025 and taking place as part of the MFA program in acting. These four productions – The Visit by Frederich Durrenmatt, directed by Craig Miller; Antigone by Sophocles, directed by Lauren Wilson; Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Erica Tobolski; and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, directed by Dustin Whitehead – form critical points in the MFA program of study, allowing for the practical application of techniques and approaches learned …

Recollection Of The Archaic Psyche: A Comparative Study Of Viacheslav Ivanov’S Realistic Symbolism And Carl Gustav Jung’S Analytical Psychology, Elizabeth Jay Wheless

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my three years at the University of South Carolina’s Master of Fine Arts in Acting program, including the roles I’ve played and shows I’ve acted in. The chapters include detailed accounts of my time acting as The Teacher in The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt in March 2024, the Choragos in Antigone by Sophocles in October 2024, Mary in Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck in February 2025 and Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde in November 2025. Each chapter has subchapters of “auditions and callbacks,” “rehearsals,” “performances,” and “lessons and conclusion.” This thesis is a …

Exploring Secular Jamaican Art Songs: A Performance Guide For Peter Ashbourne’S Fi Mi Love Have Lion Heart, Christine A.S. Powell-Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Jamaican art song remains underrepresented in mainstream classical training. As a result, singers may lack exposure to its linguistic and cultural nuances. This dissertation addresses this gap by providing a performance guide specific to Peter Ashbourne’s (b. 1950-) Fi Mi Love Have Lion Heart, a set of five art songs. Attention is given to matters of text delivery, rhythmic clarity, stylistic character, and the balance between authenticity and vocal freedom. In doing so, the study honors both the classical vocal tradition and the cultural context from which these works emerge.

This document provides performance practices, interpretation and diction, including an …

Under The Guardianship: Experiences Of Mothers In Egypt’S El Nayaba El Hesbaya, Hana Khayry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intersectional lived experience of El Nayaba El Hesbaya in Egypt. El Nayaba El Hesbaya, operating under Law 119/1952, is the administrative and judicial body responsible for overseeing the financial and legal affairs of minors whose father or mother had passed. Hundreds of thousands of mothers in Egypt have (had) children under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya. This research delves into the experience of mothers whose children are or were under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya, examining how it shape(s/d) their everyday life as women, mothers, widows or ex-wives, citizens, and legal subjects. …