Digital Commons Network^™

Boundary As Borderland: Mexico City’S Central Plaza And The Politics Of Presence, Re'al Christian

Theses and Dissertations

In the postcolonial era, the land surrounding national borders—the borderland—has inherited a specific identity and relationship with those who navigate it. While national borderlands are oft discussed amid conversations on globalization, land disputes, and war, the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw the new establishment of borderlands from within in the form of segregative boundaries that purported to separate Indigenous and European peoples. This thesis concerns the manifestation of the borderland as not only an external entity, but an internal one as well. Using Mexico City, the center of the Spanish colonial empire, as …

Always Wednesday, Danielle Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Danielle Roberts’ work explores personal narratives. The spaces she paints radiate, simultaneously dark and luminescent. Resembling the kind of archetypes of place used in film her cinematic compositions invite the viewer into the frame. Her figures capture feelings of alienation illuminated by the unnatural existential glow of constructed contemporary light.

The Rusty Butler Archive: Revelations Of Cultural Repression During The Brazilian Military Dictatorship, Calla J. C. Knapp

Theses and Dissertations

The twenty-one years of military dictatorship in Brazil were marked by severe repression as government censors controlled every aspect of the media and artistic production. During these tense years from 1964 to 1985, many journalists, academics, writers, and artists struggled to voice their opposition to oppressive military control. In this same period, many playwrights turned to protest theater as a way to speak out against the dictatorship's abuses. Unsurprisingly, some of the plays produced at this time were heavily censored or shut down. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a young Brazilianist scholar, Ross "Rusty" Butler, befriended, interviewed, and …

Exploring Mentions Of Pornography In Popular Television Shows, A. Lucia Pollock

Theses and Dissertations

While pornography has become highly accessible, another way in which pornography is present in media is through discussion in movies and television shows, which is often framed through casual reference, by way of a joke, or in a teasing manner. A content analysis of 55 episodes that reference pornography—looking specifically at the framing of pornography in individual scenes—provides valuable insight into the media ecosystem surrounding pornography and its potential impact on adolescents. Using cultivation analysis and framing theory as a theoretical basis, this study analyzes the inclusion of the terms, “porn,” “porno,” and “pornography” in popular television shows.

Composers And Publishers Of Parlor Songs And Spirituals From Civil War Richmond: 1861 – 1867, Michael Gray

Theses and Dissertations

This document is an historical compendium of how Richmond, Virginia contributed to a significant shift in early American music during and after the American Civil War. Firstly, we will explore the music industry practices of the 1850’s and 1860’s in Richmond, and how they were a reflection of the rest of the American South at that time. Secondly, we will explore the height of parlor song repertoire in the South, its technical simplicity, and use as a tool for music education, artistic expression, but perhaps most notably as a means of informal propaganda for the Confederate cause. Finally, we will …

A Conductor’S Guide To J. N. Hummel’S Forgotten Oratorio: Der Durchzug Durchs Rote Meer, Rebecca J. Ostermann

Theses and Dissertations

Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s only oratorio, Der Durchzug durchs rote Meer, was lost to the musical world until around 2004. Hummel (1778–1837) was greatly esteemed during his life as a concert pianist and as a composer, and several of his choral works were among those highly regarded by his contemporaries. Interest in his works, along with Hummel scholarship, has increased in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Hummel’s oratorio is for Classical orchestra plus guitar, harp, and bass drum, four to ten vocal soli, and chorus. Its thirteen numbers run about 51 minutes, recounting the biblical story of Moses and Pharaoh, the …

Advancing Research Methodology And Educational Policy: An Application Of Mixture Modeling Using School Climate, Kathleen V. Mcgrath

Theses and Dissertations

School climate is a well-studied issue in educational research. However, surveys of school climate tend to be analyzed using item-centered as opposed to person-centered methods. The current study evaluated the 2018 South Carolina School Climate Survey using advanced applications of mixture modeling in an attempt to identify latent profiles at the student and school levels. The relatively new manual BCH 3-Step approach was applied given its usefulness in analyzing multilevel data with covariates and distal outcomes. However, its application to multilevel mixture models leaves room for advancement and prompted the adoption of an alternative analysis plan that included separate analyses …

The Banality Of Corporate Evil, Amina Dessouki

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis critiques the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) through tracing the multiple dynamics between a multinational corporation and a development consultancy working on a recycling project in collaboration with the Zabaleen in Mansheyet Nasser, Egypt. The thesis looks at the ways in which actors negotiate their different positions, the harmonies and discordances that unfold through various agendas coming together, the silences produced, and the ways in which structural violence is intensified under the guise of development. The thesis contrasts the detached efforts of corporate workers and development consultants with the lives of the zabaleen, who live in a …

Optimizing University Campuses For Learning, Wellbeing And Equity: An Applied Study Of Higher Education Facilities Organizational Systems, Melissa Nergard

Theses and Dissertations

College and university campuses are designed and maintained by experts in facilities management and planning. What is lacking in these processes is expertise in learning environments and creating spaces that are healthy and inclusive. University organizational structures aid in the autonomy of academic freedom and the nimbleness of research endeavors but hinder operational effectiveness of the campus as a learning and research environment. A more integrated approach, which optimizes the knowledge on campus regardless of where it is housed, can mitigate the unintended conflicts that develop through the disparate approach to learning, equity, and wellbeing in the built environment. This …

Shrew Or Sure? Rethinking Power In Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew, Devenny Denise Lupear

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the difference between Shakespeare’s written work The Taming of the Shrew and twentieth-century film director Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation in 1967, specifically the final outcome in the issue of power of Katherine’s character. While some scholars consider Shakespeare a proto-feminist who endows Katherine with cleverness, wit, and cunning to secretly tame Petruchio in order to gain personal freedom within the walls of a forced marriage, Zeffirelli denies Katherine dignity in the face of public humiliation and physical violence. Furthermore, Zeffirelli also undermines Shakespeare’s progressive agenda by perpetuating an oppressive narrative against women using twentieth-century film as his medium …

Pseudomyxoma Peritonei Derived Cancers: A Novel Study On Growth And Growth Suppression Utilizing Common Colorectal Cancer Agents, Raymond Kennith Bogdon

Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomyxoma peritonei is a devastating gastrointestinal disease characterized by the production of mucinous ascites within the peritoneal cavity. Historically, this condition is discovered in the advanced state due to the lack of adequate screening tests and typically presents as an enlarged abdomen and with symptoms of gastrointestinal distress. Treatment for this disease is a combination of cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal perfusion chemotherapy, but a successful operation does not guarantee full remission of this malignancy. This study focuses on 3 untested variants of PMP cancer, and 2 mucinous colorectal adenocarcinomas that had invaded into the peritoneal cavity. Clinical presentation of …

Power Delivered Through Dance: Choreographer Intent In Creating American National Identity 1935-1965, Patricia Yvonna Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the impact of American choreographers’ personal experiences in their works of dance, and the constructions of American national identity that surface as a result during the period of 1935-1965. Individual choreographers included in this study are Helen Tamiris, Edith Segal, Anna Sokolow, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and George Balanchine. Primary source material was gathered mainly from the choreographers’ published writings, interviews, and personal notations kept in archival collections at either the New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Division or the Library of Congress Music Division. Other primary sources were gathered from archived governmental files such as …

Now Showing: Cinematic Trends In Little Rock Movies, 1933-1963, Emily Summers Yarberry

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the connection between film and culture by examining how major historical events impacted what types of movies were made. While previous cinema research uses a micro approach to analyze a few key films and draw conclusions about genre trends, this project takes a macro approach to examine thousands of movies in order to assess wider trends in consumer behavior. By creating a database of movie information using records from the Arkansas Amusement Corporation in Little Rock, I tracked trends in the popularity of war, film noir, horror, and family movies from 1933 to 1963. All four genres …

Homesick, Or Sacred Heterosexual Spaces, Ryan A. Drake

Theses and Dissertations

A dark satire about a young queer man who comes home under mysterious circumstances to find that he's been replaced by someone who looks just like him. He starts having dreams that his family is trying to kill him...but are they dreams?

The Eternal And The Transitory: Exoticism, Otherness, And Commodity In Giovanni Boldini's La Zingara, Brandon Esposto Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Giovanni Boldini's La Zingara is an image fraught with mystery. As a lesser-known artist, scholarship on him and this painting is sparse. This thesis details the innovations that Boldini exhibited as an artist working in nineteenth-century France, using the lenses of feminist and Marxist art historical readings for a new interpretation of this piece. Participating in the oppressive systems of capitalism, sexism, and prejudice, Giovanni Boldini created the image of La Zingara for personal gain. Painting a subject from a marginalized community, the Romani, Boldini benefitted from those systems. He "others"his Italian heritage and modern art developments to construct a …

Challenges Facing Independent Cultural Actors: The Case Of Egypt, Reem Khedr

Theses and Dissertations

The independent art scene in Egypt flourished following the January 25 revolution in 2011. This study examines the experiences of Egyptian artists and cultural operators through a looking glass into the evolving democratization of arts towards cultural democracy from a global perspective and using the intrinsic and instrumentalist arguments regarding the value of arts. Furthermore, it employs a qualitative analysis of case studies of 18 cultural operators in Cairo and Alexandria, who work in different artistic fields ranging from visual arts to performing arts and academia. The results demonstrate that the cultural policy framework guiding the arts sector in Egypt …

An Eye-Movement Examination Of Gender Stereotype Processing, Elva Adriana Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study investigates how bilinguals comprehend gender, especially when one of their languages is grammatically marked in gender. This study explored influences of world knowledge, lexical representations, and language activation in a bilingual population. Eye-movements were recorded as bilinguals read sentences containing gender-stereotyped nouns (e.g., surgeon) followed by a male or female pronoun (he/she) that served as an anaphoric referent. Language dominance in Spanish and English dominant and balanced bilinguals, the gender of the stereotype noun (i.e., female or male), and congruency between noun and anaphor (match or mismatch) were included as variables. The following eye …

Beirut/The Other Side Of The City: The Impact Of Visual Texture Production Of The Lebanese Postmemory Generation, 1989 - Present, Mohamed Moustafa Gameel Ebada

Theses and Dissertations

In 1989, after the Ta'if agreement, the war in Lebanon started to fade, which ended years of one of the most destructive civil conflicts in the region with no decisive winner or loser. The year also marked the birth of a new Lebanese generation who did not experience the war in person. It is a generation of postmemory, a term Maria Hirsch coined to describe the reminisces of those who did not have a personal encounter with past traumatic events. However, it was not before February 2005, when Rafic Al-Hariri's violent assassination occurred, when the postmemory generation started to question …

My Body, No Apologies, Maxine Montilus

Theses and Dissertations

“My Body, No Apologies” is a 20 - minute autobiographical dance film, conceived, choreographed and performed by Maxine Montilus, with text from Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love. The supporting paper examines the impact of family, history and societal forces on her Black female body.

The film premiered on the Hunter College Dance Department’s website, www.hunterdances.com/mybody, on Saturday, May 1, 2021.

Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams, Ella Boureau

Theses and Dissertations

CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS is a multilingual retrofuturist couscous western starring two eco-militant sisters living on a polluted Mediterranean beach.

Signal To Noise: Harmonic Temperaments And Patterns Of Interference, Dylan A. Marcheschi

Theses and Dissertations

An audio/visual exploration of historical tuning systems. Most contemporary Western audiences will seldom if ever encounter harmony outside of post-Renaissance tuning conventions. This presentation highlights some of those pre-orthodox harmonic relationships which existed throughout most of history. The corresponding paper documents correlates in recent advances of acoustic ecology.

Musical Irony In Selected Piano Sonatas By Ludwig Van Beethoven, Andrew J. Hochler

Theses and Dissertations

In the third variation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 111, there is an abrupt shift in rhythms that almost resembles an excerpt of early jazz. This passage is so seemingly out of place that it appears to be an ironic commentary on the music that came before. This variation thereby raises an interesting question: how can irony play a role in music?

In an attempt to answer this question, this thesis examines the aesthetic property of irony, suggesting ways in which might be understood to impact three piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven: namely, his …

The Communal Roots Of The Tree Of Life: The Performativity Of The Torah Scroll In Jewish Ritual, Joseph Maybloom

Theses and Dissertations

The Torah scroll’s materiality is central to its use in ritual and encourages a performance-based analysis. The object acts as a physical connection to the divine, a material embodiment of Jewishness. The congregation’s participation in the scroll’s lifecycle rituals fosters their communion with the object and with each other.

Enlightenment Ideologies And The Non-European Other In Eighteenth-Century Opera, Daniel Silva

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how French Enlightenment ideologies influence representations of non-European figures in eighteenth-century opera and opera-ballet. The venue of the fair theatre created a space for egalitarian principles to covertly criticize autocratic control as is exemplified in the utopian ideals of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes galantes.

Pepón Osorio And Merián Soto: Multidisciplinary Collaborations, From 1985 To 1995, Zuna Maza

Theses and Dissertations

This paper assesses Pepón Osorio and Merián Soto’s collaborative multidisciplinary works created from 1985 to 1995. Underdiscussed in their individual scholarships, these joint works are reexamined through their collaborative approach, multidisciplinary framework, and their thematic explorations of the nuances of culturally specific subject matter.

Transatlantic Triangulations: Genre And Traumatic Memory In The Novels Of Esmeralda Santiago And Alejandro Zambra, Amanda A. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

When a traumatic event collectively happens to a group or body of people, be that geographically, emotionally or physically, an imprint is left behind which impacts a part of a culture or society. The larger the scale of the incident, the wider the scope in terms of lives affected and memory established, which creates a new history for many.

In Alejandro Zambra’s (2011) Ways of Going Home, Zambra remembers his traumatic childhood growing up under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in war torn Chile in the 1980s. While this postmodern novel uses memory and historical perceptions from a child’s …

Taste Of Grief & Other Unconventional Love Stories, Madison Brown

Theses and Dissertations

In her book The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing, Margot Livesey uses the phrase "the hidden machinery" to refer to two different aspects of novel making: on the one hand, how certain elements of the text characters, plot, imagery work together to make an overarching argument; on the other hand, how the secret, psychic of life of the author, and the larger events of his or her time and place, shape the argument (29). To me, the interconnected craft elements of fiction remains an ongoing enigma. I will delve into the hidden machinery of two authors with whom my own …

Eagle Eye Vs. Gear Jammer, Jessica Danielle Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Where similarities in class struggle have historically operated as a unifying force globally, the American crafted mythos isolates the individual and dehumanizes those that do not fall within the parameters of the cowboy archetype. The national protagonist is turned into a class traitor and an extension of government power.

'Give Us More To See': A Feminist And Queer Look At Stephen Sondheim, Kevin P. Goffard

Theses and Dissertations

As our world begins to reopen following the closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries—including the theatre—will be left with starting to get back to a new normal. Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, theatre also faced another reckoning within the industry: despite often being a place of refuge for many marginalized groups, racism, discrimination, and harassment has been a common occurrence within the industry. As the theatre community looks forward, many are yearning for a more inclusive theatre community. As such, the theatre community will be tasked with an overarching question of: what will our new normal look like? …

Redemption Through Representation: Grace Carpenter Hudson And Her Portraits Of American Indian Children, Meagan Camille Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

In his 1978 biography of Grace Carpenter Hudson, Searles R. Boynton refers to the artist as "the best in California," praising her life-long dedication to depicting the Pomo children of Northern California. During her lifetime (1865-1937), Hudson's work traveled to museums, world fairs, and expositions across the United States. The purpose of this research is to assert that Hudson's work is evidence of, and a response to, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Euro-Americans' hopes that the American Indian child could be "redeemed," or "saved," from their "savage" or "undomesticated" past. Additionally, this paper aims to convince the reader of the significance of Hudson’s art …