Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Visualizing Complexity : A Spatial Analysis Of Decorative Geometric Pattern In The Islamic World, 900-1400 Ad, Tracy Elizabeth Harrison

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis.

For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty …

William Morris And The Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings: Nineteenth And Twentieth Century Historic Preservation In Europe, Andrea Yount

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Iroquois And Dutch: An Exploration Of The Cultural Dynamics And Rise Of The Iroquois Resulting From The Fur Trade, Nancy M. Clark

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

Along the coastal region of eastern North America, the fur trade created a number of changes within Native American cultures. In part, the fur trade exasperated deteriorating conditions between neighboring tribes by contributing to an escalation of internecine warfare which was on the rise throughout the centuries prior to contact. Competition for access to trade goods led to a destructive cycle of rivalry between the Iroquois, Hurons, and Mahicans that culminated in the destruction of the Huron, the displacement of Mahican tribes from the Fort Orange area by the Mohawk, and the creation of a rivalry within the Iroquoian League. …

An Investigation Of Contributions Made By Women Writers To The Harlem Renaissance, Doretha Kamaya Rashan Green

McCabe Thesis Collection

The purpose of this study is to examine the contributions that women writers made to the Harlem Renaissance. By studying these women and their works, their contributions will be exposed.

Art Is Dead?: A Criticial Analysis Of Arthur Danto's End Of Art Theory, Laura M. Ginn

Honors Theses

The idea of art as a reductive process is not new within the art world. In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg created the piece "Erased DeKooning" for which he erased a painting by DeKooning and displayed the end product (a blank canvas). The author found herself considering the way in which art has changed over the course of the twentieth century. The 20th century could be viewed as a time in which the main purpose of art was to destroy all artistic conventions and redefine art. Some would say art has come out unfocused and without a purpose. The author explores the …

Hidden Meanings: A Search For The Historical Worldview In The Oberlin College Ethnographic Collection Organizational Systems, Erin Evangeline Allen

Honors Papers

My study will aim at revealing the role of system authors in creating and maintaining catalogue systems for museum collections. These systems, created to organize, structure, and keep track of the material in a museum collection, often hold the theoretical autograph of the people involved in their conception, and are "artifacts in their own right" (Southwood 2003:105). As a result, Kaplan notes, "any residual claims of innocence and objectivity are completely unfounded" (Kaplan 2002:211). To demonstrate, this paper will look extensively at the catalogue systems and reorganizations that have affected the Ethnographic Collection at Oberlin College since its codification in …

The Photographer's Wife: Emmet Gowin's Photographs Of Edith, Mikell Waters Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Exemplified in the oeuvres of photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, and Emmet Gowin, the photographer's wife is a distinctive subject in twentieth-century American fine-art photography that fuses the domains of public and private life through the conflation of art and marriage. The transgressive nature of this juncture can be located in a confluence of gazes - the artist's, the subject's, and the viewer's - that are embroiled in constructing subjectivities. The phrase "photographer's wife" underscores an assumed imbalance of power reflecting a binary of active/passive, artist/model, and husband/wife. It is this study's contention that the complexity of the …

Medicating Slavery: Motherhood, Health Care, And Cultural Practices In The African Diaspora, Ywone Edwards-Ingram

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

A sophisticated exploration of the intricacies of motherhood and health care practices of people of African descent, especially the enslaved population of Virginia, can shed light on their notions of a well-lived life and the factors preventing or contributing to these principles. I situate my dissertation within this ideal as I examine how the health and well-being of enslaved people were linked to broader issues of economic exploitation, domination, resistance, accommodation, and cultural interactions. Historical and archaeological studies have shown that the living and working conditions of enslaved people were detrimental to their health. Building on these findings, I explore …

The Role Of The Artist At The Beginning Of The Twenty-First Century: An Exploration Of Dialectical Processes In Art And Science With Particular Reference To Biologically Based Art, Judith D. Roche

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the role of the artist at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It focuses on the interaction between art and science in an exploration of the dialectical processes that may occur in that interaction. Researchers have recently developed techniques in stem cell technology and genetic modification that offer remarkable potential and bring possible advantages and disadvantages for scientists and the wider community. In response to these new technologies, scientists and artists have developed collaborative projects and, in some instances, artists have moved from the studio to the science laboratory to create work called sci-art, bio-art, or moistmedia. …

Nathaniel Jocelyn: In The Service Of Art And Abolition, Toby Maria Chieffo-Reidway

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Through my dissertation, I embark on a biographical, cultural and historical study of artist and abolitionist Nathaniel Jocelyn (1796-1881), primarily known as a nineteenth-century portrait painter and engraver in New Haven, Connecticut. Although Jocelyn received little formal training, he sought to become a preeminent portrait painter. Together with his younger brother, Simeon Smith Jocelyn (1799-1879), he established a successful engraving firm designing banknotes, maps, atlases, and book illustrations.;Jocelyn lived in an age of evangelical revivalism commonly called the Second Great Awakening. He was a devout Congregationalist and saw the various aspects of his life embedded in his religious convictions. Jocelyn's …

The Jeffersons At Shadwell: The Social And Material World Of A Virginia Family, Susan A. Kern

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

From the 1730s through the 1770s Shadwell was home to Jane and Peter Jefferson, their eight children, over sixty slaves owned by them, and numerous hired workers. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveals much about Thomas Jefferson's boyhood home. Shadwell was a well-appointed gentry house at the center of a highly structured plantation landscape during a period of Piedmont settlement that scholars have traditionally classified as frontier. Yet the Jeffersons accommodated in their house, landscape, material goods, and behaviors the most up-to-date expectations of Virginia's elite tidewater culture. The material remnants of Shadwell raise questions about the character of this frontier …

Mission San Juan Bautista: Zooarchaeological Investigations At A California Mission, Michelle C. St. Clair

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Facing Independence: American Revolutionary Portraits Within The Context Of British Identity, Susan Jensen Rawles

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This paper examines the content of eighteenth-century American and British portraits within the ideologically-expanding context of eighteenth-century British identity. It explores the ways in which Britons and Americans negotiated who they were and, consequently, their claims on society, in the era preceding and including the American Revolution. It does so for three reasons: to advance a more interdisciplinary approach to the study of American portraiture; to motivate further dialogue on the relationship between American and British portraits; and to invoke the potential for American portraits as documentary evidence of social history.;Through historical examination of philosophical influences informing the development of …