Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Gendered Duality Of Coldness In The Portrayals Of Eliza Hayley, Francesca Blanch-Serrat

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In the eighteenth century, coldness was defined, on the one hand, in relation to the body and the senses (a body that is lacking in heat) and on the other, to emotion (an individual lacking in passion). It was linked to illness and disability (Turner, 2012), equated to death, seen as both a cause and effect of physical decline and older age, and used as a synonym for low libido and infertility (Toulalan, 2015). In contrast to these negative connotations, coldness was also regarded as a remedy to temper the passions and to ensure longevity (Yallop, 2015), and taking cold …

Curious Objects: Form And Feeling In Mary Leapor's Thing Poems, James Metcalf

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Mary Leapor (1722–1746) has long been recognized as something of a curiosity: a Northamptonshire kitchen maid with a rudimentary education who died at the age of 24, but who also wrote two volumes of poetry. In this essay I read Leapor’s “thing poems” to show how curiosity is also a supervening affective regime in her poetics. Minor and marginal, fixated by perverse objects which tend more to derail than deepen the production of knowledge, curiosity is an unsettling mode of inquiry because of its imaginative attachment to the strange stuff lurking within the ordinary as a diminished site of aesthetic …

Managerial Forms: Narrative, Information, And Household Government In The Diaries Of Sarah Cowper, Robert Stearn

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

The diary of Sarah Cowper (written 1700-16) is characterized by elaborate techniques of information management and a sustained attention to the fractious emotional dynamics of her household. Bringing together historical scholarship on domestic service and literary analyses of organizing practices in print and manuscript, the article argues that the finding devices in Cowper’s seven-volume diary disclose a practical knowledge both textual and social—one which took the affective dynamics of the household as its object, but which was also shaped by and afloat in those dynamics. The article is in two parts. The first explores how Cowper’s information management practices were …

Epic Anger And Shame In Lucy Hutchinson’S Order And Disorder, Mary Trull

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In his didactic epic, De rerum natura, the Roman poet Lucretius rejects the unity of affect and genre in Homeric epic. Instead, in Lucretius anger is anti-heroic: the human race is demeaned by fear, cowering before a fabricated vision of vengeful gods. The gods are not angry, and human fear is therefore absurd, even shameful, since it leads to outrageous acts of appeasement that violate basic human decency. When Lucy Hutchinson, the first English translator of the full De rerum natura, approached the task of writing an epic version of the book of Genesis, affect was already a central, …

Queer Excess And Hybrid History In Elizabeth Cary’S Edward Ii, Kelley K. Glasgow

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Elizabeth Cary’s prose history The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II (1627) follows the fourteenth-century king of England, whose love affairs with his favorite courtiers ultimately resulted in his overthrow and execution. She identifies Edward’s queerness, and his resulting lack of emotional control, as central to his inability to govern England, and as an example of the dangers of excessive emotions for her readers. Because of Edward II’s complicated publishing and attribution history, much of the scholarly effort around this text has been spent attempting to interpret it through Cary’s personal life and political aims. …

Introduction: Affective And Emotional Encounters In/With British Women's Writing, 1600–1800, Anna-Rose Shack, Zoë Van Cauwenberg, Fauve Vandenberghe

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This special issue explores the methodological affordances of the fields of affect theory and the history of emotions in the study of women’s writing from the early modern period, the long eighteenth century and the Romantic period. It posits that the vocabularies of affect theory and the history of emotions offer a productive critical framework to approach historical women’s writing. In reading women’s writing through this lens, this special issue aims to model a theoretically flexible and historically informed approach to affect and emotions that may be taken up across and beyond traditional literary periodizations and in different forms of …

Winter Dance Concert (January 29-31, 2026), Lindenwood University

Student Dance Programs & Brochures

Event program for the Winter Dance Concert (January 29-31, 2026), Lindenwood University.

Transformative Experiences In A Community College Theatre Program: A Study Of Students' Growth Through A Pedagogy Of Caring, Karen J. Oster

Educational Studies Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research examined the transformative impact of participation in a community college

theatre program on students’ sense of belonging, confidence, and personal growth. Using a

multiple case study design informed by portraiture methodology, the study focused on five

students who took part in a semester-long production of The Rocky Horror Show. Data were

collected through in-depth interviews, field observations, the researcher’s reflective journaling,

and a pre- and post-semester self-esteem survey to investigate how theatre engagement shaped

students’ social and personal experiences. The program fostered a pedagogy of care emphasizing

mentorship, individualized attention, and the cultivation of a supportive …

A Review Of Alberto Toscano’S Late Fascism, Clint Burnham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Zahi Zalloua's The Politics Of The Wretched: Race, Reason, And Ressentiment, Benjamin Davis

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Exploring Chinese Elements In J.D. Salinger’S Works: A Response To Mccarthyism In The Early Cold War Era, Yixin Lu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Since the publication of “The Laughing Man” in 1949, various ideas about “China” have emerged in J. D. Salinger’s famously obscure works. This article aims to argue that Salinger’s incorporation of elements related to China and ancient Chinese philosophy in his works illustrates an artistic response to American anxieties during the McCarthy Era. The article uses “The Laughing Man” and “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” as case studies to demonstrate how Salinger’s engagement with “China,” including the concept of indiscrimination from Zen Buddhist ideas, as well as notions of naturalness and non-action from Taoist ideas, develops not only a mystical writing …

Ginsberg’S China Experience And Its Influence On His Series Of Poems On China, Xiankai Ren

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As a renowned poet and representative of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg was invited to be a member of the US Writers’ Delegation to visit China in 1984. His China trip as well as his reading of traditional Chinese literature constitute his China experience, which is represented in Ginsberg’s poetry. This essay examines Ginsberg’s series of poems on China. It first shows that Ginsberg’s introduction to the Beat Generation poets and their poetics provided the inspiration for his poetry writing. Then it discusses Ginsberg’s observation of Chinese society during his visit and his reading of the Chinese poet Bai Juyi. …

Fugitive Formalisms: Strategies Of Dissemblance And Dissent In The Work Of Queer-Identifying Artists, 1970–Present, Rowan Diaz-Toth

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing case studies of works by Hélio Oiticica, Scott Burton, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres as points of departure, this thesis puts forth a speculative historical framework for reconsidering queer art practices up through the present day in opposition to regimes of visibility and transparency, exploring the subversive, fugitive potential of non-representational formalisms.

Lora Test Iv, Lora Lennertz

Theatre Undergraduate Honors Theses

This is a test of the comments field

Directing Young Actors, Mitchell Whelan

Theses : Honours

This reflective practice case study examines the studio environment of a small ensemble of female actors aged 16-19, in the rehearsal of a one-act play. Performing arts researchers working in youth spaces commonly adhere to conventions of ethnodrama and facilitate a process in which participants contribute personal stories as performance material. The present paper uses a published text (Slut by Patricia Cornelius) to position participants as actors, rather than devisors who must conjure original material. Through critical reflection, the project assesses the impact of developing performance material slowly while also making time for socialisation between castmates. Drawing on my repertoire …

Italian Commedia Dell’Arte And Modern American Performance: Comedy As A Cultural Window, Sofia Craig

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Commedia dell’Arte, a form of improvisational comedy for the stage developed in the Renaissance, is at least half a millennium old, and leaves minimal records of its content. However, its stock characters still seem to appear in modern media, including television, movies, and current theatre. Commedia characters' noticeable persistence in the modern day suggests that our culture continues to enforce social dynamics which have elements in common with sixteenth-century Italy. This thesis compares Commedia stock characters with their counterparts in modern media, to learn what cultural analysis can be made from their similarities and differences. Most retain traits that keep …

The Shape Of The Wind: How Our Homes Create Us, And We Create Them, Ava Norris

Dance Department Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

One, And Other, One Another, Another (Again): A Historical And Embodied, Kinetic And Theoretical Investigation Of Otherization, Emily Brankman

Dance Department Honors Papers

This thesis investigates otherization and its use as a tool for power through theoretical, historical, and movement based investigations. Over the course of this academic year, I worked with a group of Connecticut College dancers in weekly rehearsals to build choreography and to hold discussions. This took place alongside external, independent research into thinkers and artists from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Martha Graham, theories by historians such as Edward Said, and both historical and current events. These elements were not approached sequentially, but simultaneously, with the intention that each element influence and inform the others. I reference this variety of topics …

The Reckoning: A Mostly Lamentable Tragedy Comedy Of One Christopher Marlowe (...), Mac F. Mitchell

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

The Reckoning is a play by Mac Mitchell in completion of his MFA in Playwriting from Hollins University. It is a farce set in the Elizabethan Era inspired by the life of Christopher Marlowe and his involvement in the complex world of Elizabethan espionage. After investigating a counterfeiting plot designed to bankroll an assassination plot on Queen Elizabeth's life, he unwittingly implicates himself in the plot.

Marlowe will dropkick the fourth wall and, with a team of crackpot actors, attempt to set the record straight. He most certainly did not have anything to do with it and will prove his …

Backward, Benjamin W. Abbott

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Backward is a solo show about a man who, when he turns forty-five, starts living backward in time. Every day he wakes up, he has traveled back to the day before the one he just lived and there's nothing he can do to stop it. As he relives his life in reverse, he must confront his failures as a husband and father. Even as he learns the lessons necessary to repair them, those relationships get left behind in the future. He continues moving backward and eventually must confront the most difficult relationship of them all: his relationship with his own …

Theater's Need To Pursue Social Flourishing, Alex Voeller

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

There is an established precedent in the theater industry of fighting for its survival and financial stability: through constant grant applications, changes in government and foundational support, and the challenge of maintaining a strong audience base while competing with other forms of entertainment. This financial tug-of-war has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in years when theater could not be produced through traditional practices, effectively increasing the potency of these challenges the theater industry is already facing. The pandemic, along with increased access to on-demand entertainment and further inflation, has seemingly pushed the theater industry further out of …

Rainbows And Shades Of Gray, Lillian I. Savage

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

Rainbows and Shades of Gray is an original musical that explores the complexities of addiction, memory, and grief through a nonlinear, liminal narrative structure. The story follows Aaron, a deceased veteran, father, and musician forced to confront moments from his life as he grapples with the impact of his addiction on his relationships with his wife, Danielle, and daughter, Natalia. Through a series of fragmented scenes spanning past and present, the musical examines the emotional aftermath of trauma and the ways in which love persists despite harm.

Blending dialogue and original music, the piece uses song as a narrative device …

Transversal Storytelling | Wintersession 2026 Syllabus, Patrick Buhr, Movement Lab

Course Materials

What does "story" mean? How can stories help us understand what appears profoundly different from us? How might seemingly unrelated elements converge in poetic resonance?

A “transversal line” cuts across worlds — moving through unexpected spaces, ideas, people, and moments. In this course, we explore how such crossings can inspire new forms of expanded storytelling and technique, looking at vivid examples from animation, film, coding, and performance. The students will choose contrasting elements (stories / characters / places) from their personal experience and together explore artistic ways of creating meaningful transitions and intersections.

The class will culminate in the development …

Transversal Movement Framework, Patrick Buhr, Movement Lab

Personal Work

"Every type of art can be understood as performance, and every performance involves movement. Every movement has a mover, and every mover relies on something through which to move…." – Patrick Buhr

Know Fear: The Culture Of Fear In Community Conversations, Penelope Meredyk, Lotus Porte-Moyel, Fiona Carson, Cosley Bruno, Barrett Clement, Sophia Sproull, Morgan Davis

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

“K(no)w Fear” is an award winning piece of verbatim theater based on word-for-word interviews and collected research that's goal was to cultivate a connective and thoughtful community open to exploring what shapes us all: fear. Our GLI Capstone team gathered the resources for this theater piece by conducting interviews with a mixed demographic of people we know as well as strangers on the street, asking questions like: “How do you feel about death?” and “If fear were a place for you, where would it be?” With consent, their answers were used to build an immersive, verbatim theatre piece where actors …

Creating The Role Of Passerby And Stationmaster In The Cherry Orchard, Selwyn Ofori

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This paper will serve as a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting. It is a detailed account of Selwyn Ofori's artistic process in creating the role of Passerby and Stationmaster in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard staged at Ted Paul at Minnesota State University, Mankato in Spring 2026. This thesis entails the actor's analysis from pre-production till performance in five chapters, namely: pre-production analysis, historical and critical perspective, journals, post-production analysis, process development, and appendix. The sources of my research are also recorded in the works cited.

Competitive Dance And The Adolescent’S Body: Considering Pedagogical Approaches To Teaching Competitive Dancers, Catri E. G. Barba

Dance (MFA) Theses

Diving into the past and researching for the future, this thesis explores the development and perpetuation of hyper-sexualized adolescent bodies through the competitive dance scene. Drawing on dance theorists, educational theorists, and embodied research (i.e., the author’s body archive), this thesis explores how the competition gaze is performed for and by a capitalist patriarchy. Specifically, this thesis critically reflects on the author’s career as a young competitive dancer in the greater Los Angeles, California, area during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as a competition dance instructor and K-12 educator for two decades, and how those personal experiences have shaped …

Dancing With Ghosts: Memory And Melancholy In The Subversive Artist, Caley R. Vancil

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis examines how subversive artists use autonomy and memory to imagine new ways of existing beyond systemic violence. Through analysis of theory and performance studies, it highlights the efforts and risks these artists take to challenge representation and the political aspects of embodiment. The interconnected roles of language, power, and imagination are emphasized as essential to creating a more just and liberated world.

Accompanying this research is a dance piece that responds to the sorrows within American society. Developed as an improvisational score, the dance becomes a process of reinvention, employing movement and imagination to seek collective solutions. The …

Ibeji: Screendance As Living Archive, A Manuscript For Live Performance, Quentin W. Sledge

Dance (MFA) Theses

This work is a multimedia live performance that simultaneously moves through a live archival process which captures the essence of the work. It asks: how can dance archives evolve into participatory, user-centered repositories that account for the embodied and ephemeral nature of dance, and how might screendance expand archives into interactive, co-curated spaces that sustain liveness beyond preservation? Grounded in archival theory, Africana Aesthesis over Euro-Western Aesthetics, and auto-ethnographic practice, this project responds to the historic limitations of Euro-Western archival systems, particularly their inability to hold the spiritual, cultural, and embodied dimensions of dance.

The objective of this research is …

Theatre And Dance As Divine Purpose: Liberating The Christian Performer In Pursuit Of Artistic Worship, Abby Owen

Dance (MFA) Theses

This study examines the historical relevance of theatre and dance alongside religious forms of worship, with a particular emphasis on their integration into Christian churches of the Middle Ages, in comparison to the current Western era. Beginning with their origin, this research examines the creation of theatre and dance in Ancient Greece as a means of connecting with spiritual deities, tracing their recorded transition into accepted acts of everyday worship by Christian leadership. At the same time, this research scrutinizes contemporary congregations’ lack of artistic incorporation, denouncing the rise of restricted worship in response to present-day condemnation of the female …