Digital Commons Network^™

2024 Spring Commencement, Harding University

Commencement Programs

Program for the Harding University Commencement on May 4.

Commencement Speakers:
9a.m.: Ross Cochran
noon: Tim Baird
3p.m.: J.D. Yingling

Vol. 61 No. 1 - Whole No. 408, Megan Abrahamson

Mythprint

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

One Ring To Rule Them All: Connecting Johann Herder's Romantic Nationalism & Richard Wagner's "The Ring", Eliana Scheele

Young Historians Conference

In the 18th and 19th centuries in Germany, a new craze was emerging, one that would forever change Germany. The ideas of Nationalism, popularized by Johann Gottfried Herder, revolutionized the way that Germans thought about their country. Through this new kind of "Romantic" Nationalism, an importance was placed on "volksongs," or folksongs and stories as a means to take pride in one’s culture. The massively popular opera epic "The Ring of Nibelung" was written by Richard Wagner over fifty years after Herder's death, but it holds the values that Herder developed in it. In many ways, the Opera is the …

Applied Theatre For Peacebuilding: Exploring The Value Of Embodied Practice, Emily Machin-Mayes

Capstone Collection

Arts, storytelling, theatre, and drama have been woven into strategic approaches to peacebuilding after conflict to engage with people’s experiences and emotions, share silenced stories, and build trust and empathy. Applied theatre challenges audience members to take a more active role, either through participating in the storytelling or acting itself or through dialogue and reflection activities. This collaborative art form has been used for community-building, reconciliation efforts as well as in post-conflict settings. This study examines the impact and value of an intensive applied theatre workshop, using participant-observation, and semi-structured interviews. Some of the qualitative findings include the value participants …

The J In Danger, Zachary Delamater

Theses and Dissertations

“The J in Danger” merges autobiographic and formal concerns in sculpture and installation to describe the existential hazards contemporary life poses to Queer and Disabled individuals. The paper utilizes silent letters as thematic device to connect notions of precarity to a broader sense of contemporary “doomerism.”

Spring Dance Concert

Dance Programs

No abstract provided.

Board Of Trustees Meeting Minutes 2024-05-03, Bowling Green State University

Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes

The official meeting minutes of Bowling Green State University's Board of Trustees.

L’Évolution Du Libéralisme Dans La Littérature Au Xixe Siècle, Sophie Hardy

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

This presentation is a dissection of a quote made by Victor Hugo during the preface of his work Hernani (1830), where he wrote that, “romanticism is just liberalism in literature". This presentation strives to contradict this statement by analyzing Hugo’s early works before the revolution of 1830 to prove that not all of his works discussed liberalism. This presentation will also analyze the works of Alphonse de Lamartine and Alfred de Musset during this romantic era and compares Hugo’s earlier statement to their works.

Luminai: A Performance Collaboration Of Dance & Ai

Dance Programs from the Department of Dance at Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw State University Department of Dance, in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, will present “LuminAI: A Performance Collaboration of Dance and AI” on Friday, May 3, at 8 p.m. The free performance is the first time that artificial intelligence—in the form of an avatar projected onto a screen—will improvise movement with human dance partners.

The Diamond, May 3, 2024, Dordt University

Dordt Diamond

• Front Page: Sioux Center Hospitality Industry Booms in Response to Dordt Events; Dordt Forms Future Vision for Chapel; Dordt Wind Symphony to Perform at Prestigious Concert
• News: Several Co-ed Intramurals Now Include All-Female Teams; Navigating Options in the Sioux Center Housing Market for Immigrant Families; Brown and Walczak Awarded Student Employee of the Year
• Feature: Gary De Vries Says Farewell to Ag Department; Mylia Wagenaar Elected Student Body Vice President; Dordt Grads Take on the Boston Marathon; A Look into Arizona Christian's Student Newspaper
• Senior Reflections: So Long, Farewell; My Final Opinion; Goodbye, Dordt; Gone But Not Forgotten; Diamond Life …

Creatively Reimagining Place And Community In A World Of Extreme Weather, Helena Grehan, Belinda Smaill, Michael J. Ostwald

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This chapter explores connections between place, community and narrative in the context of a world beset by extreme weather events. Drawing on insights and readings from three disciplines—theatre studies, screen studies and architecture—the chapter constructs a rich picture of the ways these fields contribute to definitions of place and can potentially enhance disaster preparedness and recovery activities. Edward S. Casey’s theories of place and community provide a connecting thread throughout the chapter, along with his ideas about selfhood, “implacement” and the environment as a source of danger. As both an example of a work that begins to address these themes …

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 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.

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 …

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.

The Mailroom, Davis Alianiello

Theses and Dissertations

Nadia takes a job in the mailroom of a sinister Boston ad agency. Her coworker is a disciple of Uncle_Hogshit, a radical online extremist. As the packages pile up and the wealthy disappear, we discover that Nadia is not who she seems.

This House Is For Laughing, Sam Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

Kendra has the perfect all-American family. She’s made sure of it. But when her brother Ben proves uncontrollable, she’s forced to confront her concept of family and how we choose to show up for one another.

Corridors, Miguel Antonio Alfredo V. Luarca

Theses and Dissertations

After twenty years away, Anj has come home to the Philippines, where three generations of women mourn the death of her estranged father. But one day in her family’s ancestral house is enough to remind her why she left. And why she might never escape.

Last Gold, Minna Lee

Theses and Dissertations

At the Winter Olympics sponsored by Beef Bowls ™, figure skating’s three-time silver medalist Chili must compete against their perfect girlfriend for one last shot at gold. In an arena filled with penguins, Beef Bowls ™, and real Olympic history, love and success go head to head.

My Sauce! Living In The Polyrhythm, Zakiya Harris

Theses and Dissertations

This paper contextualizes “Ghana: The Place Where the Chief Sleeps,” for which Harris served as dance captain, rehearsal director, dancer, stager and choreographer. Harris details how her work living inside the polyrhythms of performance, practices, and pedagogies can produce a holistic West African dance education for students.

Oblique, Edward Kijowski

Theses and Dissertations

Oblique is a multi-sensory art installation that provides a story of fragmentation in sound and light rendered by an obtuse hexagon arrangement of speakers and associated lighting prompts. The oblique direction of the soundwaves creates sonic sculpturing that propels listeners into an active state.

Container Film, Dena Kopolovich

Theses and Dissertations

Container Film is an experimental nonfiction short film that explores the theme of carrying. Drawing inspiration from a blend of anthropological, religious, and artistic sources, the film is guided by an unknown narrator who contemplates the origins of humanity. Unlike conventional storytelling, the narrator’s uncertainty and inner dialogue punctuate the narrative, challenging a traditional linear structure. Jumping between diverse thoughts, she resists depicting human history with a singular hero or linear trajectory. Visually, the film unfolds through vivid tableaux vivants, dance sequences, and curious object arrangements, illustrating the subtle relationship between human cognition and materiality. Through its nuanced, tactile approach, …

Erase The Record, Anne Sofie Noerskov

Theses and Dissertations

Erase the Record follows a young immigrant as she embarks on a magical journey to unearth her vanished memories and elusive cultural identity.
The film delves into the malleable nature of memory in an allegorical universe in which myth, dream, and magic coexist. Slowly unfolding themes of immigration and the imagination, the film sprung from a personal desire to approach immigration as a psychological experience. Erase the Record explores how the physical landscapes we inhabit affect us, and how memory, language, and time are stored in a body and in a landscape.

Community As A Force Of Action In Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs", Lily Jensen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper explores Hansberry’s philosophy of community in her 1970 play, Les Blancs. The paper analyzes Hansberry’s use of complex characterization in this text to show the wide reach of the colonial power structure and to show what is required of a community to push for effective action. The paper also analyzes the National Theatre’s 2016 production of Les Blancs, and how this production incorporates and enhances Hansberry’s philosophy of community through the characteristics afforded through theatre as a medium.

2024 Spring Commencement Program: Winona State University, Winona State University

WSU Commencement Programs

This is the Winona State University Spring 2024 commencement program. Commencement was on Friday, May 3, 2024.

The Set Falls Apart, Thomas F. Tait

Theses and Dissertations

Using systems, puppets, and reappropriated technologies as central features of my practice, in my work I explore allegorical connections and cross-affiliations between otherwise separate ontological categories. In this text, I draw on sources such as affect theory, science fiction, theater, and the uncanny, to consider our affectual relationship to the nonhuman.

Moving Beyond Recovery And Reconstruction: Imagining Extreme Event Preparedness Through Performing Arts, Jane W. Davidson, Sarah Woodland, Helena Grehan, Simonne Pengelly, Linda Hassall

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This chapter begins by examining the importance of resilience in response to extreme weather events, before considering the role of performing arts projects in dealing with the aftermath of disaster. Including First Nations approaches, examples from diverse cultural settings and the powerful potential of digital technology, it reveals how performing arts endeavours afford aesthetic opportunities that can give voice to and make sense of crisis experiences that precipitate mental health and wellbeing challenges as devastating as the events themselves. Drawing on critical research findings including those from the 10-year Beyond Bushfires study in Australia, the authors demonstrate how empathy and …

間, Lele Dai

Theses and Dissertations

LeLe Dai makes contingent participatory public interventions using sensory materials such as sound, flickering light, and water. This paper examines their works through the lens of Chinese character Jian (間), meaning “gap/slit/incision,” to investigate the concept of “in-betweenness.”

We Can Do It! But Should We? Reflecting On Projects And Priorities, Claire Du Laney Dunker, Wendy Guerra, Amy Schindler, Lori Schwartz

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

What happens when you combine archivists and non-archivists with good intentions, unprocessed collections, institutional push to seek grants, competing pressures and deadlines? At the University of Nebraska at Omaha Archives and Special Collections, this familiar scenario occurred during a period focused on prioritizing Latinx collections including personal papers, Office of Latino and Latin American Studies Records, and oral histories. During our presentation, we will share how archivists attempted to wrangle multiple funding streams to meet processing, outreach, and digitization goals while internal and external forces took a toll. These included stakeholder expectations, the complexities of student employment, campus events, and …