Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cultivating Creation: Exploring Traditional Ecological Knowledge Of Native Song, Sara Moncada

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Humanities scholarship, the result of millennia of deep reflection on the human condition, informs the practices and principles that structure the way we approach our investigation of the human experience. As we consider the ways in which the humanities canon shapes the relationship of what we include as “knowledge” and how we value it, the continued exploration of how meaning and value are perceived in traditional knowledge systems and their contributions to our current models of thinking and process is vital. Through an investigation of relationships between Native song and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), I explore the importance of Native …

The Sea Ranch: Unforeseen Failures And Statewide Successes Of An Ecologically Conscious Coastal Community, Robert Daley

Senior Theses

The term “residential development” or “planned community” brings to mind images of a stereotypical suburbia. The planned community of The Sea Ranch, along the Sonoma County coast in Northern California is a direct challenge to the suburban ideal. Construction of the nearly 1500 homes began in the late 1960s and continues to present day. All of the homes must meet specific design requirements including being ecologically sound and they must fit within the landscape. The strict architectural elements is what provides the distinct look of the community. The construction of a housing development along a ten-mile strip of untouched and …

Abraham Lincoln: Making A Man Of A Legend, Owen Martinelli

Senior Theses

Abraham Lincoln’s legacy has been in a near-constant state of flux since his death. Despite his status as one of the most notable presidents of American history, modern day historians have been unable to develop a complete understanding of Lincoln’s character. In various biographies of Lincoln throughout history, he has been portrayed in every way from a melancholic, faithless, and depressed nobody who fumbled his way into crisis after crisis, to a puritan driven by God to abolish an evil institution. Public views of Lincoln have varied dramatically from veneration to disgust, and everywhere in between. In this essay, I …

Immortal Melancholia: A Psychoanalytical Study Of Byronic Heroes, Kathryn Frazell

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This culminating project examines Byronic heroes using psychoanalytic theory across four case studies in media, including classic literature, theater, film, and television. The Byronic hero is a literary archetype inspired by the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824). Typical characteristics include angst, arrogance, cunning intelligence, criminality, desire, passion, dominance, and otherness. The characters I have chosen to study include Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre (1847), the Phantom from the 2004 film The Phantom of the Opera, James Bond from the 2012 film Skyfall, and Damon Salvatore from the hit television series The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017). Through examining the …

Dark Of The World, Shine On Us: The Redemption Of Blackness In Ryan Coogler’S Black Panther, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Directed by Ryan Coogler, the film Black Panther portrays the heroes of the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda as godlike. They possess otherworldly sophistication by virtue of their blackness, in contrast to longstanding tendencies in mainstream film toward tokenism, stereotyping, and victimhood in depictions of people of African descent. The superhero the Black Panther, a.k.a. King T’Challa, learns to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, even those in whose oppression he has been unwittingly complicit, such as the children of the African diaspora. As a result, the film can function as catalyst for reflection on the part of viewers in …

Moon Dog [Translation], Judy Halebsky (Translating Author), Tomoyuki Endo (Translating Author), Mizuho Ishida

Literature, Languages, and the Humanities | Faculty Scholarship

A Japanese to English translation of the poem Moon Dog originally written by Mizuho Ishida

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo Poetry Reading And Book Signing, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Community Engagement Theme

No abstract provided.

Languages Of Reality, Sarah Lindquist

Senior Theses

Spiritual and philosophic systems and constructs are embedded in the matrix of reality to explicate what cannot be known, but only experienced: Absolute Reality. Religious and spiritual traditions exist to serve as a kind of interface with ultimate reality, or, a unitive state of consciousness, by using symbolic form and language to impart teachings about the nature of reality to spiritual aspirants. The use of symbolic language is integral to these teachings because unitive states of consciousness are not possible to convey to the spiritual seeker using ordinary language; a bridge between the known and the experienced is created with …

Disrupting Narratives And Narrators: A Case For Anna Deavere Smith's Work In The High School Classroom, Amy Hale

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Anna Deavere Smith, American actress, writer, and professor, explores racial conflicts and the nuances that contribute to dissonance and identity politics through her one- woman plays. Employing a journalistic dramatic format of her own, Smith interviews a panoply of people who play major and minor roles involving conflicts. She then brings these interviews to life on the stage. As a high English teacher, I incorporate Smith’s plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 into my eleventh grade American literature class. In this paper, I explain why Smith’s plays help facilitate and nurture important conversations about race for …

Open Ears, Open Mind, Open Heart: Active Listening, Mia Nguyen

Service-Learning | Student Scholarship

Active listening is the act of listening with all senses– the body, the mind, and the soul. It means empathizing with another person and finding that place within ourselves where we can listen beyond our initial judgements and personal feelings. It is listening beyond words and allowing our souls to understand, connect, and accept one another. Active listening sparks internal purity eliminating all types of judgement and allowing us to truly take in what another person has to offer. It is “an experience of language as a bodily felt process” in which we have a felt understanding rather than a …

So, “In Your Eyes, I Am Complete.” A Play In One Act, K. Michelle Sellers

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

So, “In Your Eyes, I am Complete” is a one-act play and a one-woman show. I will be playing various characters such as mom, dad and sister where I will address many layers: such as cross-cultural differences, mental health and alcoholism, to name a few.

Who Died: Redefining The Elegy Through Affect And Trauma, Brittney La Noire

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This project introduces the claim that death literature, specifically elegies and epitaphs, do not rely on set structure or content, but rather are poetic effects of trauma and affect. Both have been defined and redefined by critical scholars, but there is still a division about their use. The beginning of the project will pull together Paul De Man, Cathy Caruth, Theresa Brennan, and Diana Fuss to apply the theoretical principle of trauma and affect transhistorically through Theocritus, John Milton, and Percy Shelley. The final portion will be an original creative collection of elegies combined with epitaphs as ending couplets about …

A Change Of Heart: Internal Narratives, Forgiveness & Health, Keiko Ehret

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

In this thesis I investigate the interconnectedness of forgiveness as a narrative, as a philosophical, religious and cultural phenomenon, and the ways in which forgiveness is increasingly being used as a vehicle for improving health and psychological well-being. By threading together how scholars in a variety of fields have approached these areas of study, we can better understand the way the interdisciplinary nature of forgiveness grants access to heal not merely relationships with others, but also our bodies, our minds, and our relationship with ourselves.

Important to my investigation is understanding that the life circumstances that prompt forgiveness consist of …

Introducing Godzilla To Marianne Moore's Octopus Of Ice At The Intersection Of Global Warming, Environmental Philosophy, And Poetry, David Seter

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This paper explores the question: how can a poet write an ecologically aware poem about global warming? Global warming impacts everything on earth, most visibly the glaciers melting away before our eyes. Adopting Aldo Leopold’s environmental philosophy of thinking like a mountain, the poet may describe the impact of global warming upon the mountain, glacier, flora and fauna, that form an interconnected web of life. A poem that thinks like a mountain already exists: Marianne Moore’s “An Octopus” (published in 1924), which takes its title from the system of glaciers (or octopus of ice) on Mt. Rainier. For a contemporary …

Medieval Japanese Zen: Catalyst For Symbol System Formation, Kendall Ann Roper

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Post-modernism asserts that the world as we know it does not exist independently from the symbolic interpretations we formulate about it. This symbolic and ever unfolding interpretation of reality applies to our understanding of science as well as philosophy, to religion as well as art. In striving to describe religious experiences, various cultures have developed complex symbolic languages whose purpose is to reference a culturally understood version of sacred reality as presented through religion. Religions contribute to shaping these cultural perceptions of reality by utilizing symbolic acts, objects, events, qualities, or concepts to express otherwise inexpressible elements of a culture’s …

The Lost Artist: Biographical Fiction And The Identity Of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Alexandra Fradelizio

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (1900-1948) is widely regarded as the first flapper of the Roaring 20s and is often recognized for her tumultuous marriage to acclaimed American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. As a female icon whose life was filled with salacious incidences and mental struggles, the image of Zelda continues to be reinterpreted in various movies, television series, and novels. However, very few center on her artistic pursuits of writing, painting, or dancing and how her desires to contribute to the art world were overshadowed and disrupted by her successful husband. Therese Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013), …

Architecture Of The San Francisco Bay Area: The Influence Of The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Orion Weinstein

Senior Theses

Just hours after the 1906 Earthquake, Jack London arrived in San Francisco and wrote an article for Collier's Magazine, “The Story of an Eyewitness.” He famously reported, “San Francisco is gone...Nothing remains of it but memories.” The earthquake and subsequent fire left most of San Francisco in ruins; commercial buildings, humble residences and grand estates destroyed. The City was a blank slate and in the process of rebuilding, there was the opportunity to utilize new architectural styles as well as create new architecture; significantly, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 (PPIE) provided the impetus as well as the art, color, …

Wearing Art History: Fashion As An Art, Sofia Killion

Senior Theses

Fashion is often seen as a frivolous craft which many believe to lack substance. Fashion however has for generations drawn inspiration from one of the very things that defines culture and that is art. Some of the most successful fashion designers of our time have drawn inspiration directly from masterpieces of art. The Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972) was heavily inspired by his countrymen including Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), and Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce (1958-present) and Stefano Gabbana (1962-present) created a Fall 2013 collection that was significantly inspired by the Byzantine …

What Is The Experience Of Creating My Own Dance Style?, Jesse Bodony

Senior Theses

Through processes of self-inquiry and external inquiry, this heuristic project rigorously investigates the question: What is the experience of creating my own dance style? In exploring the phenomenon of creation, in understanding my own movement with increasing depth and awareness, in articulating my processes and procedures, I hope to create new knowledge both for myself and those with whom it resonates.

The Arts And Technology: How Educational Technology Can Bring Humanities Further Into Elementary And Primary School Systems, Coleman D. Alameda

Senior Theses

As the world becomes more inclined to implement technology in nearly every aspect of society, the United States Department of Education must find a way to incorporate new styles of modern and high-tech teaching without pushing out certain subjects from its curriculum. I believe technology can be used to bring the Humanities further into the classroom. In today’s society American education programs are desperately trying to make up for subpar primary school scores in mathematics and science. According to the government accredited international education forum (the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) the United States was found to be below …

Root Causes Of The Generational Cultural Disconnect Among Marin County Vietnamese-Americans, Sierra Najolia

Senior Theses

After the fall of Saigon, Vietnam in 1975, 1.6 million Vietnamese fled the victorious communist regime. Many resettled in the United States, roughly half a million settled in California, creating large communities in Orange County and San Jose. Both larger communities express a deep cultural identity, appreciation and sense of preservation along with a strong tradition of passing down this culture to their children and grandchildren. However, a small group of Vietnamese immigrants in Marin County, CA don’t display the same pattern of passing on their culture, religion, and language to their children as other larger Vietnamese communities do. After …

"Do It Yourself": Origins Of Bay Area Hip-Hop, Alexandra Schumacher

Senior Theses

At the present, there is minimal scholarly research on the origin story of Bay Area hip-hop to compliment the various articles and books authored by hip-hop experts and artists. The consensus that emerges from the existing secondary literature is that hip-hop originated on the East Coast and later emerged on the West Coast with its own unique style. These accounts, while well documented, only include a few mainstream figures and styles related to the Los Angeles hip-hop scene. Looking past mainstream hip-hop, this study pieces together the origins of Bay Area hip-hop through both mainstream and underground key figures of …

Hiding In The Archives: The History Of The Art History Department At Dominican University Of California, Maura Wilson

Senior Theses

When students register for classes, they often take for granted the subjects that they register for. To these students their classes represent a means to an end. However, in the midst of the registration rush, when the registering student takes a moment to consider the time and work that had to be invested in to establishing these subjects, they might find a new appreciation for the classes that they are taking. This work is a tribute to the work of Dominican University faculty members who had to work hard to bring to fruition the Art History department as it exists …

Expectations And Participation Among Drama Students, Alexander Pryor

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Not all students are willing to participate actively in a drama class. Most studies about drama and participation focus on the use of drama in other academic disciplines, and there is a lack of information about students’ participation within the drama classroom. This study examines the role that students’ experiences and expectations play in their educational outcomes in drama class. Students from two beginning drama classes at a public high school participated in this study. They were introduced to a short unit on social theater and on Augusto Boal’s Forum Theater. Throughout this unit students responded to journal prompts addressing …

Diary Of A Runagate, David Jon Phillips

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Ztratil sem kolíček. The linchpin is lost, and our young hero’s quest for a new one is highlighted by his faith, awareness of his natural surroundings, and an awakening desire to make sense of life and love. Set in Moravia during the early twentieth century’s technological, political and cultural upheaval, the quest takes him away from his family and the tenant farm. Becoming a runagate is Jano’s destiny; he leaves with the gypsy girl Zefka to begin a new life and family.

The translation finds unexpected discoveries in the poet’s language. Following a dramaturgical thread, the Self-taught Pen of …

Authoritarian Pedagogical Practices In Dance Teaching And Choreography, Charlotte Carmichael

Honors Theses

This paper examines the authoritarian pedagogical practices found in educational settings and more specifically, in Western classical and contemporary dance training and rehearsals. These practices have been a part of dance for centuries, and their legacy has had severe impacts on the ethical, psychological, and political undercurrent of students’ educational and professional experiences. First, the historical roots of authoritarian teaching techniques are presented. Next, the ways in which dance teachers and choreographers employ authoritarian teaching behaviors are considered and examined. Finally, in hopes of providing a better template for the future, an overview of the ways in which some dance …

Origin Of Bay Area Hip Hop, Alexandra Schumacher

Scholarly and Creative Works Conference (2015 - 2021)

There is minimal scholarly research on the origin story of Bay Area hip hop, despite various articles and books by hip hop experts and artists. The overall viewpoint that emerges from secondary literature is that hip hop originated on the East Coast and eventually emerged on the West Coast with it’s own unique style. These accounts, while well researched only include a few mainstream figures and styles related to the Los Angeles hip hop scene. Looking past mainstream hip hop, this study pieces together the origins of Bay Area hip hop through both mainstream and underground key figures of the …

The Prospect Of Human Spiritual Unity Through The Cosmic Story, Philip Novak

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have noted that, “we seem to be moving beyond any religious expression so far known to the human into a meta-religious age that seems to be a new comprehensive context for all religions.” That “new comprehensive context” is of course now known as Big History -- a.k.a. the Evolutionary Epic, Universe Story, or New Cosmic Story—the astonishing contemporary synthesis of modern sciences that tells a coherent story of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to the present.

Yet with the notable exception of the writings of Berry and …

Divorce And Celibacy In The New Testament And The Implications For The Church Today: One Interpretation: Five Conferences For New Camaldoli Hermitage [Lecture Notes], Scott Gambrill Sinclair (Retired)

The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection

Traditional Church teaching on divorce and celibacy rests on an interpretation of key New Testament texts.

In five lectures to the monks of New Camaldoli Hermitage, Dr. Scott Sinclair argued that this established interpretation is basically incorrect. He offered a different interpretation which could justify a new Christian approach to divorce and celibacy.

The accompanying document consists of his detailed lecture notes which clearly present a concise summary of his position. These could be used as a resource for a study group, classroom teaching and discussion, or even a reconsideration of Church policy.

Victorian Media Studies, History, And Theory, Amy Wong

Literature, Languages, and the Humanities | Faculty Scholarship

This article gives an account of Victorian media studies as a sub‐field that emerged primarily from investigations of nineteenth‐century communication technologies and the century's accompanying preoccupations with transmission and the idea of in‐betweenness. Owing to unprecedented developments such as the rise of the universal postal system, telegraphy, phonography, photography, and mass print media, historicist inquiries have proven fruitful for the sub‐field. At the same time, continuities between how Victorians (such as the journalist and editor W. T. Stead) imagined communication's unifying reach across Britain and the globe and twentieth‐century media theory's critique of this same reach have ensured the sub‐field's …