Digital Commons Network^™

A Study Of The Effects Of An Amino Acid Residue On The Thermal Stability Of A Collagen Triple Helix In Varied Sequence Context, Ph, And Ionic Strength Of The Buffer, Zhenxun Xu

Theses and Dissertations

Collagen mimetic peptides are used broadly for collagen research and biomedical applications. Unlike the synthetic peptides obtained by solid phase chemical synthesis, recombinant peptides have more than 100 amino acid residues in length and are expressed in E. coli using designed genes. These longer peptides can offer improved, more native-like functions of native collagen for biomedical applications. One major challenge is the intrinsically low stability of native collagen, which has a melting temperature just above the physiological temperature of the organism. To understand how to enhance the thermostability of the peptides, I investigated the effects of amino acid sequences on …

Archaeomalacological Studies In The North Atlantic Islands, Kelly A. Mclafferty

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis expands upon the archaeomalacological narrative of the North Atlantic islands (the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Orkney) from the mid-8^th through the 20^th century. The main objectives are to identify exploited mollusk populations and ecological zones; investigate the roles of mollusk exploitation; contribute to laboratory methods of marine shell.

Judaism, Conversion, And The Limits Of Christian Orthodoxy: The Jewish Identities Of Joseph Wolff And Michael Solomon Alexander As Detailed In Their Memoirs And Missions To Palestine, Michael Iodice

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Jewish identities of the Anglican missionaries Joseph Wolff and Michael Solomon Alexander by examining their conversion memoirs and evangelical missions to Palestine. It argues that they used Protestant biblical exegesis to emphasize their Jewish heritage and its importance in Christian prophecy.

Ākāśā, Ramya Thiyagarajan

Theses and Dissertations

Program Notes

Ākāśā represents the subtlest form of matter and is often described as the infinite space in which all other elements exist, akin to a canvas upon which the universe is painted. From this primordial element emerges all vibrations that become Sound.

While waiting in line at a Shiva temple in South India, I was struck by the multitude of sounds filling the vast space. Percussion instruments played different rhythms in front of different deities, there was a melodic reed instrument, chants, singing and bells. Voices of people conversing intertwined with this musical tapestry. As the busy soundscape intensified, …

The Body Of God: The Experience Of Eleventh Century Churches In France, Henry B. Piper

Theses and Dissertations

In its history, philosophy and art, 11^th century France is a distinct historical period and speaks in a distinctive voice that still murmurs in its churches. I seek to occupy this period, as we occupy a church, through immersion in its spirit and thought, which still resound in its stones.

Rebetiko In Nyc: New Ideas Of Greek Diaspora, Mihalis Alisandratos

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores ideas of Greekness within the modern rebetiko space of New York City through the use of both ethnographic and reflexive techniques. Combining thick description, interview analysis, and extensive self reflection, this thesis endeavors to better understand how Greek American rebetiko musicians in NY today conceive of their experience in diaspora.

"This Unshakable Dandy": The Life And Work Of Heinrich Maria Davringhausen (1894–1970), Jacob M. Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a monographic study of Heinrich Maria Davringhausen (1894–1970), an artist best-known for his contributions to the art of interwar Germany—and the political and historical contexts of his time. It examines his pre-1918 emergence as an avant-garde artist, asserts a more prominent place for his role in the development of German Post-Expressionism (commonly known as Neue Sachlichkeit or Magic Realism), and broadly overviews the increasingly abstract paintings he produced after fleeing Germany in early 1933, eventually settling in the South of France as Henri Davring.

Édouard Manet’S Defense Of Modernity: Recontextualizing The Cat In Olympia, Rebecca Schiffman

Theses and Dissertations

The black cat in Édouard Manet’s seminal painting, Olympia, has often been relegated as a crude joke or symbol of reprehensible sexuality. This thesis argues that the cat plays a larger role in Manet’s representation of modernism, and functioned as a defense mechanism by the artist against his critics.

Human Experience In The Immersive Experience Economy, Beliz Yuksel Inal

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the growing trend of immersive experiences, examining how they are designed and experienced. It compares the artistic Machine Hallucination and the commercial Van Gogh Immersive Experience examples. Analyzing audience engagement and social contexts, the research aims to understand the impact of immersive experiences on individuals and society.

A Biography And Case Study On Marthe Wéry Her Ceaseless Exploration Of The Components Of Painting: Tracing Journeys In The Artist’S Life And Work, Sarah Grace Jones

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis investigates Belgian artist Marthe Wéry’s oeuvre, determines art-historical contexts for her paintings, and examines the many milestones that exemplify her work. Her monochromatic paintings, radical experiments with paint, empirical way of thinking, and exploration of architecture defend her robust career and demand involvement in today’s art historical conversation.

The Great Synthesizer: Yuji Agematsu’S Map Works, Rare Objects And Affinities To Fluxus, Renāte Lagzdiņa

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis examines Yuji Agematsu’s artistic practice offering novel lens through which to explore artist’s oeuvre and employed methodologies. It delves into Agematsu’s map works, strategies for collecting the debris of the city, and researches his potential affinities to Fluxus movement.

“Liberté, Égalité, Sororité”: The Revolutionary All-Female Studio Of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Julia Oxman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers the first in-depth exploration of French portraitist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s all-female studio. It argues that her efforts toward expanding access to women’s arts education played a key role in the foundation of a larger movement for gender equality in the wake of the French Revolution.

The Musical, The Spectacle, The Spiritual, And The Political: An In-Depth Analysis Of Amiri Baraka’S 1972 Album, It’S Nation Time – African Visionary Music, Ryan St. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Perhaps no work is a better representation of Amiri Baraka, the Black nationalist, than the 1972 album, It's Nation Time – African Visionary Music. The album serves as an amalgamation of the most present themes during that point in his career: the musical, the spectacle, the spiritual, and the political. Through a track-by-track analysis of the album, we can better understand Baraka's social outlook at such a pivotal period in the Black culture visionary's career.

A Taste For The Distasteful: The Aesthetics Of Gore In The Giallo And Horror Films Of Mario Bava, Thais Casado Bignardi-Engstrom

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Italian experience with horror in cinema in both psychoanalytic feminist and cognitive Marxist critical film theories through a study of visual renderings of excessive violence and sex in gothic and thrillers known as giallo films created by the film director Mario Bava. This is an art historical study that looks at Bava’s work against the Italian cultural landscape in the post war period.

Gold, Victoria Storm

Theses and Dissertations

Gold is a novel of careful attention and love for landscape, family, and what we call home.

A Spatial Decision Support System For Rent Estimation Of Retail Spaces In Manhattan Using Geographically Weighted Regression And Spatial Regression, Andie M. Migden Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This report outlines an automated, three-phase Spatial Decision Support System that creates models to estimate rent of retail spaces across Manhattan. First, enrich data with predictors. Second, optimize spatially aware neighborhood-level models by combining GWR, spatial regression, and non-spatial regression. Finally, visualize results in an Esri-based WebApp.

Stages: Social Dance Forms As Catalyst For Recovery, R. Austin Marquez

Theses and Dissertations

Dances originating in social settings have served as catalysts for community building, liberation, and healing for decades. Hip hop, house, krumping, voguing, and other forms of dance have empowered communities in their struggle against oppressive forces and have subsequently become influential in media based popular culture. This research explores how social dance forms promoting empowerment are popularized through mediated culture and how this process informed the creation of Austin Marquez's MFA thesis, "STAGES.""STAGES" is an interdisciplinary performance that integrates Marquez's album and choreography to explore his recovery from alcoholism. This study investigates how choreographing narratives of recovery using social dance …

Aguaaaa!!!, Cory Villegas

Theses and Dissertations

“AGUA” is a call for new models of learning and sharing, celebrating the diasporic as a place of global revolution. Salsa, rooted in Latin American and Afro-Caribbean histories, is choreographer Cory Villegas’s expression of cultural legacy. As an Afro-diasporic dance, Salsa carries the wealth and variety of African and Indigenous roots. Villegas contextualizes her thesis event “Las Leyendas: An Afro Cuban Suite,” presenting herself and her troupe Soul Dance Co. as evidence that contradicts the erasure of Latin & Caribbean Culture in US dance history. The paper uses English and Spanish, written, visual, and oral materials with an accompanying webpage.

Changing The Narrative: Athinai, An Illustrated Periodical For Modern Greece, 1934–35, Julie Fry

Theses and Dissertations

Athinai provided a Greek counterpart to European popular magazines of the interwar period. The integration of hand-drawn illustration with photographic imagery, collage, and multicolor printing yielded its distinctive visual language. Athinai portrayed changes in the daily life of modern Athens, attitudes to the body, and the role of women.

“Here’S My Brown Soul!”: Identity And Transformation In Tejano Music, Joseph Guzman

Theses and Dissertations

The music genre of música tejana, known later as Tejano music, is the musical celebration of Texas-Mexican, or tejano, identity and transformation. This paper explores and reflects on the topics of transformation, identity, and current state of Tejano music, including first-hand experiences and recent conversations with Tejano musicians.

Rehearsing Attention: Contemporary Dance As A Practice Of Sustained Focus, Eve J. Jacobs

Theses and Dissertations

This paper contextualizes the influences, details the creative process, and reflects on the relevance of choreographer Eve Jacobs' artistic research for her MFA thesis, "Four Statements on Attention." She draws upon the legacies of choreographers Merce Cunningham and Anna Halprin; publications by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Johann Hari, Jenny Odell, and others; and resources from the activist coalition Friends of Attention to articulate how her dance practice continues to shape her capacity for sustained attention in an age of distraction.

Chaucer’S Contradictory Representations Of Fourteenth Century Knighthood In The Canterbury Tales, Nicholas Cabrera

Theses and Dissertations

Differences in interpretation have long dominated scholarship regarding knighthood in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. But these differences fail to consider the nuance of the text and the historical realities of the period in which Chaucer wrote. Chaucer’s depiction of knighthood represents the institution as filled with tensions and contradictions.

Papering Over Colonial Legacies: Chinoiserie, Chinese Wallpaper, And Exotic Obfuscation At Harewood House, Carolyn J. Bishop

Theses and Dissertations

Harewood House is an estate emblematic of eighteenth-century evolutions in aesthetic philosophy, capital flows and social dynamics in the British empire. Built by the Lascelles family, it embraces an eclectic neoclassical decorative style that includes chinoiserie. This thesis argues that this exoticizing decorative strategy, and particularly its Chinese wallpaper – as both fine art and consumer good – translated the Lascelles' fortune, amassed through colonial exploits in the Caribbean, into advancement through domestic British hierarchies.

Road Gives Way: Transiting Indigenous Reconnection, Rosalind Aparicio-Ramírez

Theses and Dissertations

In the vein of the literary and artistic genre of Indigenous Futurisms, the author documents her understanding of indigeneity and the impacts of migration through her relationship with her father and extended family’s culture, one unbeknownst to her until adulthood. Through visitation to her family’s pueblo in Oaxaca, Mexico, her father’s hometown of Mexico City, her hometown in North Carolina, new conversations with family members on their Zapoteco and Mixteco heritage, and re-examination and contextualization of memories, the author begins to understand what the process of ‘reconnecting’ looks like for her family. Particular emphasis is placed on experiences of travel …

Adverse Selection In Online Auctions: A Study Of Ebay Motors, Ilanith Nizard

Theses and Dissertations

This study provides evidence of adverse selection by examining the disparity in the value of a photo between dealer sellers and non-dealer sellers in online used-car auctions. It examines the impact of photos on three outcomes in auctions of auto- mobiles: bid prices, the number of bidders, and the probability of a trade. To do so, it uses non-linear regression models and data from 80,000 completed used-car auctions on eBay Motors from March to October 2006. The results show that an additional photo will increase all three of the outcome variables and more so for non-dealers than for dealers. The …

Old Mac Donald's Party Farm, Aida P. Riddle

Theses and Dissertations

An experimental collection of short stories

Proud Men, Jacob Appet

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the beginning of a novel about a disturbed leftist podcaster that goes missing. His co-host and childhood best friend reflects on their complex relationship before deciding to go search for him. It is a literary mystery with noir elements, that explores themes of political morality, toxic masculinity, and Jewish identity.

Heirloom, Mercedes P. Frias

Theses and Dissertations

This novel excerpt follows a mother, Luz, and her daughter, Rayneli, while they explore womanhood, generational trauma, and family dynamics.

Mourning Before Death: Ferdinand Hodler And Valentine Godé-Darel, Nicolas Dowling

Theses and Dissertations

“Mourning Before Death” explores Ferdinand Hodler's (1853-1918) artistic relationship with death and grief culminating in an examination of his series of paintings and drawings depicting the slow death of his mistress, Valentine Godé-Darel. This thesis primarily utilizes the theories of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross as a framework for understanding Hodler’s work.

Just Save Me, Terrence Mcmanus

Theses and Dissertations

Just Save Me is a work that deals with tremendous personal struggle. The piece was written primarily in May of 2022, with revisions taking place in the months after. Just Save Me utilizes a complex formal structure, improvisation, and incorporates elements of jazz, rock, and minimalism.