Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Women In Engineering And Technology Barriers Project, Carrie Etherington, David Morgan

Journal of Undergraduate Research

With women making up less than 18% of positions in engineering and technology fields, I feel there are many doors that still can be opened. My intention with this project was to identify what was acting as a barrier keeping women from these fields and to use euthenics (a science concerned with improving the human experience through the improvement of its environment) to make project development spaces often used by individuals in these fields places where more people are welcomed and comfortable. I specifically wanted to see if there were any physical factors that were keeping women from these fields.

My Original Musical Project In The Arts, Kira Stone, George Nelson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Hello! My name is Kira Stone. For my ORCA project, I wrote an original musical, and because of the grant, I have been able to begin the production of this musical. I have dealt with having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in my life, and it tends to come and go in waves. I have family members and friends who have experienced different kinds of anxiety disorders, depression, and bipolar disorders. Because I feel as though I know about the topic of mental disorders, I wrote a musical focused on two people who fall in love, despite their combative minds. I am …

Trumpet Transcription Of Frederic Chopin’S Nocturnes For Piano, Opuses 9, 15, 27, And 32, Logan Anderson, David Brown

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The art of trumpet playing has existed for thousands of years, but today’s trumpet is a relatively new instrument. The addition of piston valves in the early 19th Century (see figure 1) allowed the trumpet to play in every key, while its predecessor (see figure 2) was limited to the harmonic series of only one key. The piston trumpet came about at the start of music’s Romantic period, but little Romantic music was written for the new instrument. As a result, there is a large gap in the trumpet repertoire. There are a number pieces for trumpet without valves from …

2015 Japanese Field Project, Bradley Duke, Justin Kunz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Alongside my mentor, I have been working to create an illustrated collection of Japanese stories. Originally, I had a team of 5 BYU students, that were to select a story, research it, and develop it into a cohesive and beautiful volume; we were also working with the Japanese Department so we could collaborate with the Kyoto University of Art and Design. Unfortunately, we were unable to collaborate with the Japanese University, and we had to narrow the project scope.

Communication A Collaboration Between Theatre And Visual Artists, Kristin Perkins, Lindsay Livinston

Journal of Undergraduate Research

With my collaborators, Pearl Corry and Aloe Corry, I constructed installation, video, and visual art pieces and presented this art as part of an exhibit entitled Striking the Set. Our initial objective was to use collaboration between theatre and visual artists in order to encourage healthy communication within our community. As our project evolved we encountered many problems. While our final product was something we could all be proud of, the setbacks in our process proved to be the greatest learning experience. The final exhibit was attended by more than sixty people and explored the theatrical elements present in visual …

Six Week Cinema, Matthew Siemers, Thomas Lefler

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Six Week Cinema project had two main goals: A mentored film production learning experience and researching distribution for short films. Students face various obstacles when trying to create a film including funding, equipment, and crew. Six Week Cinema provided all these resources in one place in order for students to have an opportunity to work on projects with a mentored support system. Another obstacle for students is getting their projects shown. Our second goal was focused on getting these films to various audiences and finding out what methods worked the best in accomplishing this objective.

Studio Orchestra Club, Dallas Crane, Ron Saltmarsh

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Studio Orchestra Club was successfully initiated and its first stages of implementation were successful. We were able to accomplish the following goals:

1. Establish Studio Orchestra Club as an Academic Association under the Commercial Music program. This lends official recognition to the group, as well as funding from the Commercial Music program (ideally, see below). This also allowed Studio Orchestra Club to schedule room usage as an independent unit, instead of relying of faculty.
2. Record various projects, including two film scores, a graduate audition and a concept album. Link to the audio files: https://soundcloud.com/studio-orchestra-club.
3. Create a growing roster of BYU …

An Introduction To Baroque Interpretation For The Modern String Player, Molly Cowley, Alexander Woods

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Historically informed performance, or playing music how we think it would have sounded within the era that it was written, is becoming increasingly popular. Because recordings are not available for anything played in the 17th or 18th century, we rely on books and treatises of that era to determine style (phrasing, tempi, pitch, articulations, etc.) Although many scholars have published on the subject of Baroque Era playing, I have discovered that these, often large, books can be intimidating to the average music student. Watching students avoiding the texts and attempting to learn the style from mere imitation has motivated me …

Stage Management New York Shadowing Opportunity, Crysta May Powell, Nathan Balser

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Everyone has those moments in life when everything seems a bit surreal.

For me, one such moment was that moment I was standing in front of the stage door of the Lyric Theatre about to go shadow the stage manager for On the Town. Broadway had always been this impossible dream in my mind and here I was about to enter that world first hand. It was something that I never dreamed that I’d be able to do while I was at college and I was so excited to learn and go from this experience.

Dr. Gordon Childs And The Viola D’Amore, Caryn Jackson, Dr. Claudine Bigelow

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The viola d’amore, a unique instrument that many are not familiar with, is more important than we give it credit for, not only musically but also for the research opportunities it presents. I was first introduced to the viola d’amore two years ago when I received my mission call to the Scotland/Ireland mission. As a music major and violist at BYU, I became deeply interested in Scottish and Irish music both before and after my mission. Around that time, I learned of Irishborn Garth Knox, a prominent violist/viola d’amore player and composer who has written many Scottish/Irish pieces for the …

Globalization Of Western And Middle Eastern Cultures Through Fashion, Rebekah Silver Jackson, Mary Farahnakian

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The intent of this ORCA project has been to explore the relationship between the West (specifically the U.S.A) and Middle East through a new perspective: fashion. With the help of my mentor, Mary Farahnakian, who immigrated from Iran, I studied Middle Eastern fashion identifying elements that have transferred in to Western fashion or vice verse. I then designed a fashion collection inspired by this research, which will be presented at two (or more) events in 2016.

Iceland Through The Eyes Of William Morris: An Aesthetic Antithesis To England’S Industrial Revolution, Emily Snow, James Swenson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The project for which I received an ORCA grant in the 2014-2015 academic year stemmed from my senior thesis project, a requirement for graduating with a bachelor’s degree in art history and curatorial studies, which I did in August 2015. The senior thesis project includes writing a 15- page research paper and giving a ten-minute formal. My topic of choice was the connection between William Morris’s textile designs c. 1875-1885 and his travels to Iceland in 1871 and 1873.

Streamlining The 3d Animation Process, Dylan Hoffman, Kelly Loosli

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I knew from the beginning that this project – centered around improving the collaborative process of making a 3D animated film across several “stages” and made by several artists of different specialties, temperaments, and backgrounds – would be two-fold. The first phase was learning more about the process itself, and how each phase related to another. The second, zoning in on an area that has been a weakness for BYU Animated Films in the past – character effects and cloth simulation. The project evolved much over the course of the year, with far more time and value being placed in …

From Punjab To Provo: Assimilation And Alienation Of Asian Mormons In The Heart Of Lds Culture, Rabia Cheema, Gregory Wilkinson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

After moving to the United States and especially in a culture like BYU, I wanted to share my experiences as an immigrant. Through this paper, I wanted to open up about the struggles that I believe that almost every immigrant in the United States goes through. To add on to those struggles, being in a place like Utah which is Mormon dominated, it becomes extremely hard to retain your own identity. I have seen myself losing my identity just to fit in the culture of BYU. Just to feel accepted here, I changed myself a whole lot which now I …

From Staged Reading To Fully Staged Models For Academic Production Of New Works, Preston Yates, Timothy Threllfall

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Last January at BYU, we had the incredible opportunity to work with one of Broadway’s best composures, Frank Wildhorn. This came about due to a master class that Frank was holding at BYU in October of 2013. He was very impressed with the level of talent the students that he worked with possessed. After the master class he talked to some of the staff including Tim Threlfall and thought that doing a new work at BYU would be a good idea. It allowed him not only to work on his new show, but it gave us students the opportunity to …

Culminating Project, Logan Mcgill, Nathan Balser

Journal of Undergraduate Research

During my time as a dance major at BYU I devoted countless hours to refining my technique, artistry, and performance quality in order to be the best dancer I could be. “Culminating Project” took those skills that I have spent so long refining and put them to the test in a five minute solo performance choreographed by the world renowned choreographer Stacey Tookey. This piece was meant to push me to my limits as a dancer, which is exactly what it did.

Food As A Cultural And Human Experience: Exploring The Italian Social Traditions Around Food Through Photography, Sarah Wight, Paul Adams

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Last June, I set out with camera in hand to explore the Italian social traditions around food. I wanted to capture what mealtimes mean to Italians, and how they differ from Americans. I planned to create a body of work that acts as a window into the Italian culinary culture.

Ornamentation In Bach’S 21st Century Evangelist, David Seay, Dr. Robert Brandt

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Vocal performers of the past century appeared to be unaware of Bach scholars’ discoveries regarding ornamentation. Despite scholars having written more about ornamentation than any other performance-related topic, recordings from 1945-1975 indicate that vocalists performed Bach’s music with “basic principles [of ornamentation] but took little account of scholarly detail or stylistic specifications.” ¹ It was also discovered that despite Bach scholars’ efforts to reach their vocalist-audience, discussion on how to ornament the recitative – a music form most unique to vocalists – was largely overlooked.

Translation From French To English Of A Women’S Rights Study By A Senegal Research Group, Danielle Stanford, Daryl Lee

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The goal of this project was to make an academic study on violence against women in Senegal accessible to a non-French speaking audience. The study was conducted by a university research group on gender issues (GESTES) at the Université Gaston Berger, Saint Louis, Senegal. I worked as part of a team of three translators, rendering it from French into English. GESTES (in English: “Gender and Society Research and Study Group”) is coordinated by Dr. Fatou Diop Sall, a professor at the Université Gaston Berger. Dr Sall’s group study on violence done to women, published in a limited number of copies …

The Unsuccessful Japan Mission And Lds Missiology, Kaitlyn Jensen, Gregory Wilkinson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the early years of the Latter-day Saint church a mission to Japan was opened in an effort to continue the spread of the gospel and the advancement of a worldwide church but in terms of evangelical success the mission was largely ineffective. The focus of this project has been to delve into the methods of evangelism in order to understand and contextualize the failure of the Japan mission. The experiences of Jay Clair Jensen and other LDS missionaries at the time have offered a clearer picture of the underlying problems that stymied the mission.

Ilhan, Nura, Radwa, Ziagull And Children, Ilhan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ilhan, his wife Nura, and their children resided near Kabul, in a region where both the Taliban and ISIS were active. As Shias, Ilhan’s family faced numerous menaces, including threats from ISIS that they would be beheaded if they did not display ISIS flags. Ilhan’s sister Radwa, who is deaf and mute, was forced to marry a regional leader. In addition to being threatened on religious grounds, Ilhan’s family was also threatened by an elder of their town. Out of desperation, Ilhan’s family sold their house appliances, escaped Afghanistan, and arrived at the …

Mark S. Smith. Where The Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions Of Anthropomorphism In The Biblical World. New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 2016., Daniel O. Mcclellan

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

Smith’s newest book, Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World (part of the Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library), continues that multidisciplinary trajectory, examining early anthropomorphic conceptualizations of deity in the Hebrew Bible and in cognate literature, as well as the way place and space mediated, influenced, and constrained those conceptualizations. The salience of anthropomorphism in recent years owes much to recent publications like Esther Hamori’s “When Gods Were Men” (2008),4 Benjamin Sommer’s The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (2009),5 and Anne Knafl’s Forming God: Divine Anthropomorphism in the Pentateuch (2014),6 and …

Full Issue

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

No abstract provided.

Editor's Introduction, Mormon Studies Review

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Pedagogical Impulses And Incommensurables: Lived Mormonism In Hong Kong, Stacilee Ford

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

The Matrilineal Cord Of Rahab In The Via Latina Catacomb, Catherine C. Taylor

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

Rahab, Tamar, Susanna, Mary, and Eve are all biblical women traditionally associated with sexually scandalous narratives in biblical text. Their stories are easily read initially as types of revealed shame that do not often carry that same burden for men in the story. Rahab’s narrative is found in Joshua 2 and 6, and its legacy continues in the genealogical references found in Ruth 4 and Matthew 1 as well as in the typology of her conversion in Hebrews 11 and James 2. Rahab’s story is ultimately part of a larger story about the sovereignty of Israel’s God and the accounting …

Catherine L. Mcdowell. The Image Of God In The Garden Of Eden: The Creation Of Humankind In Genesis 2:5–3:24 In Light Of Mīs Pî Pīt Pî And Wpt-R Rituals Of Mesopotamia And Ancient Egypt. Winona Lake, In: Eisenbrauns, 2015., Cory Crawford

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

The discovery of Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian ritual prescriptions for creating and enlivening divine statues ranks among the more important in providing depth and context for reading biblical texts, and it is one that has only relatively recently begun to bear fruit. As the most recent and sustained study of these texts and their significance for understanding the Hebrew Bible, Catherine L. McDowell’s The Image of God in the Garden of Eden demonstrates the gains in understanding made possible, with all due caution, by bringing the mīs pî pīt pî (mouth-washing, mouth-opening) ritual instructions from Mesopotamia and the wpt-r (mouth-opening) …

The Book Of Mormon As Biblical Interpretation: An Approach To Lds Biblical Studies, Joseph M. Spencer

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

Recent years have witnessed a growing recognition in the academy that the Book of Mormon deserves closer attention than it has received. Not surprisingly, adherents to the various Mormon faiths have long read the book with some care. But larger numbers of believing and nonbelieving academics have come to recognize that, despite its often didactic style and relative literary artlessness, the Book of Mormon exhibits remarkable sophistication. This is perhaps nowhere truer than in those passages where the volume interacts—whether explicitly or implicitly—with biblical texts (always in or in relation to the King James rendering). Close reading of the Book …

Reflections (Personal And Otherwise) On Protestantism’S Uneasy And Diverse Response To Higher Criticism, Peter Enns

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

Each of us has been asked to address some important questions about the intersection of our own faith traditions and higher criticism— an apt metaphor, since “intersections” are where collisions often happen. This brings me to my topic, Protestantism and higher criticism, a messy subject to be sure.

David E. Bokovoy. Authoring The Old Testament: Genesis–Deuteronomy. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014., Alex Douglas

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

David Bokovoy’s most recent book, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis–Deuteronomy, represents a fresh and much-needed perspective on how Latter-day Saints can simultaneously embrace both scholarship and faith. This book is the first in what is anticipated to be a three-volume set exploring issues of authorship in the Old Testament published by Bokovoy with Greg Kofford Books. Bokovoy uses current scholarship on the Pentateuch as a springboard for discussing LDS perspectives on scripture, revelation, and cultural influence. To my knowledge, this is the first book-length attempt to popularize the classical Documentary Hypothesis among Latter-day Saints, and Bokovoy does an exemplary job …