Arts and Humanities Commons^™

'Our Sacred Rights': The Southern Baptist Convention And The Rhetoric Of Oppression, 1845 And Present Day, Katlyn Durand

Masters Theses

My master’s thesis focuses on the endurance of white supremacy and patriarchy in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), founded in 1845 and currently the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. I look at two moments in the SBC’s history and place these moments within their broader contexts to elucidate the political and cultural characteristics that shaped these moments: its founding in 1845 upon proslavery partisanship, as well as its current sexual abuse scandal. I argue that the Nullification Crisis of 1828-1834 and the cult of domesticity greatly influenced SBC policy and culture at its origins. Additionally, I examine the …

Zal And Simorgh From Shahnameh (Book Of Kings) A Design And Fabrication Film Project In Stop Motion Puppetry, Maryam Taghizadeh Hemayati

Masters Theses

This thesis is a reflection of the design, fabrication, and production of the Zal and Simorgh story in Shahnameh in puppet and stop motion. It is an original performance piece of my concept, design, and fabrication and it was presented to the public in August 2023.

The Near-Synonymous Classifiers In Mandarin Chinese: Etymology, Modern Usage, And Possible Problems In L2 Classroom, Irina Kavokina

Masters Theses

Many Chinese classifiers are nearly synonymic – they can be used with the same head nouns without changing the meaning of the sentence, in other words, such classifiers can be used interchangeably or almost interchangeably. This poses a challenge for Chinese language learners, especially those who lack such a grammatical category in their own native language. Another complication arises from the ambiguous English translations of many classifiers.

In this paper we investigate the collocation behavior of near-synonymous Chinese classifiers, focusing on their semantic nuances and interchangeability. Analyzing 6 pairs of classifiers — 栋 and 幢, 匹 and 头, 批 and …

Collaborative Storytelling In The Parable Task: The Dramaturg As Game Designer In Pervasive Performance, Percival Hornak

Masters Theses

Proceeding from a framing of theater as collaborative storytelling, I argue for defining role-playing games as a kind of performance and for their value in structuring experiential and participatory theater. Building on the impulse at the heart of experiential and immersive theater to place the audience within the world of the performance and center their experience, I explore what it means for theater artists to cede control over how audiences make meaning of their work in favor of letting narrative emerge from the participation of the audience during the performance event. I propose a framework called pervasive performance that merges …

Imagining The “Day Of Reckoning”: American Jewish Performance Activism During The Holocaust, Maya C. Gonzalez

Masters Theses

Scholars of American Jewish history have long debated the complicity of the American Jewish community in the loss of six million Jewish lives in Europe during the Holocaust. After Hitler took power in 1933, American Jewish leaders took to the streets to protest the Nazi Party’s abuse of German Jews. Two central figures in this history are Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise and Revisionist Zionist Ben Hecht because of their wide-reaching protest movements that operated in competition with each other. Although the historiography presents Wise and Hecht's inability to unite as the product of difference, my examination of their protest performances …

Memories Of Hope And Loss: “Kerhi Maa Ne Bhagat Singh Jameya”, Sheher Bano

Masters Theses

My Masters thesis focuses on socialist Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s memory in contemporary Pakistani Punjab. I use the analytical category of memory to argue that Bhagat Singh is invoked by various groups and individuals, specifically those who identify as leftists or Marxists, in contemporary Pakistan to serve a range of political purposes. My analysis particularly sheds light on how activists and writers use the figure of Bhagat Singh to highlight the erasure of regional and lingual identities in Pakistan. Their remembrances underline a perceived historical injustice; the imposition of a national identity based on Urdu language and Sunni Muslim-ness, …

Tea Ceremony And Girls' Education From Edo To Meiji, Yuko Mizutani

Masters Theses

This study explores the development of women's tea ceremony from the Edo (1603-1868) to the Meiji period (1868-1912) onward, focusing on its connection to the "good wife, wise mother" ideology in the Meiji period. Many girls' schools, led by Atomi school, adopted the tea ceremony around the time of establishing the “good wife, wise mother.”

During the Edo period, the population of women practitioners increased significantly. This was not limited to just women from samurai families; it extended to commoners as well. The women’s tea ceremony during the Edo period was greatly influenced by Confucianism and its expectations for women. …

Transgender In Neverland: Dysphoria In A Supernatural Anime, Arya Arsenault

Masters Theses

This research asks the question of why the anime Zombie Land Saga has been hailed as positive and progressive transgender representation by international fans. I examine a famous episode in which the character Lily Hoshikawa comes out as transgender in terms of its themes of gender dysphoria and identity. After considering the changing understanding about these concepts in Japan as a result of Gender Identity Disorder, those two themes are suggested as key to popularity. The impact of the “wrong body” narrative created by GID on transgender culture in Japan is considered through personal accounts and commentary on recent changes. …

Music As A Tool For Ecstatic Space Design, Pranav Amin

Masters Theses

Music and architecture share a sacred bond across cultures. Their histories intertwine and together, they shape ritualistic, religious, and popular practices. As one of the few remaining avenues of universal transcendental experiences that have been so integral to humans, music’s ability to create ecstatic spaces is ever more necessary for the modern human. This thesis uses spatial, artificial intelligence, visual, and aural tools—while engaging in a dialogue between rationalist architecture and shamanic conceptions of spaces—to create an ecstatic space that seeks to reimagine the union of music and architecture. It reveals new ways in which this union can be experienced …

Insights Into Chinese Second Language Acquisition: The Relationship Between Glossing And Vocabulary Recall In Reading, Steven S. Devellis

Masters Theses

Reading enhancement strategies are an important tool utilized by foreign language teachers. One of the most common types of during-reading assistance is the marginal gloss, which provides first language (L1) translations of selected foreign language (L2) terms in the margins of a text.

Glossing is an inherently individual approach to reading. It is predominantly motivation-driven, and provides as much assistance to the learner as he or she is willing to use it. Studies to this point have been largely inconsistent in regards to the exact usefulness of glossing, analyzing many variables such as the size, scope, and type of gloss, …

A New Language: Apophatic Discourse In John Donne's "Devotions", Jessica M. Farris

Masters Theses

Not much ink has been spilled over John Donne’s relationship to negative, or apophatic, theology. A few scholars have written about apophatic discourse in Donne’s poetry and sermons, but, in general, the subject continues to be overlooked. This thesis seeks to (re)start the conversation by shedding light on Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, a text which has yet to be linked to the negative tradition despite its clear engagement in apophatic discourse. Indeed, throughout Devotions, Donne wields several apophatic strategies when speaking of God including via negativa, predicates of action, linguistic regress, paradox, and a consistent reliance upon metaphorical …

"Kore Saa (コレサア)": Visual Representations Of Dialogue In Edo Popular Fiction, Lauren Gatewood

Masters Theses

During Japan’s Edo period (1600-1868), popular literature began to take on a variety of physical formats and develop into various genres. Because many authors of this period were familiar with and producing creative works in a number of these genres, there was much crossover of content, format, and style. Authors were experimenting and playing with different ways to represent and give information about their characters through devices such as the dialogue they wrote, the illustrations included in the works, asides in the images, and many more. In this thesis, I explore the myriad ways authors of Edo period popular fiction …

The Evolution Of Chinese Supermarkets In North America: An Alternative Approach To Chinese Supermarket Design, Ruoxin Lin

Masters Theses

This thesis begins by investigating the evolution of traditional Chinese markets to Chinese supermarkets in North America. By charting the trends of these structures in shop floor layouts and site approaches, a hybridized architecture is uncovered. Then, through the design of a contemporary Chinese supermarket in Philadelphia, PA, the thesis demonstrates how values of identity and cultural awareness can be brought into dialogue with architectural trends.

Cut Out Of Place: The Geography And Legacy Of Otto Ege's Broken Books, Melanie R. Meadors

Masters Theses

Otto Ege cut apart hundreds of medieval manuscripts during the first half of the twentieth century, claiming to do so to provide wider access to them. His destruction resulted in the loss of provenance, material history, and context of these manuscripts. Moreover, he made mistakes when identifying and dating the manuscript leaves he cut, and the loss of the bindings and front matter of the manuscripts makes it difficult to correct these. Much of the research concerning Ege focuses on his identity as a biblioclast, yet even scholars who denounce his book-cutting admit he allowed for places and people to …

Voices Against An Era: Alternative Voices, Cultural Heroics, And The Impact Of He Yong And Zhang Chu On Chinese Rock Music, Peter J. Moncur

Masters Theses

The music of He Yong and Zhang Chu, two of the Three Heroes of Magic Stone, has played an integral part in the development of Chinese rock. Often relegated to footnotes in the music’s history, this thesis aims to prove their cultural and musical significance during the late-eighties and early-nineties of China’s Reform and Opening period. The term “voices against an era” was chosen to define He Yong and Zhang Chu’s role as rock musicians with alternative voices during this historical period, with an investigation of the term’s role in creating an alternate dialogue. To do this, I first define …

"Voices In My Head:" Representations Of Mental Illness In Contemporary American Musical Theater, Mckay Perry

Masters Theses

In the years since 2010, themes of mental illness on the musical theater stage have increased dramatically, most notably with the Broadway premiere of Dear Evan Hansen in 2016, which quickly became a popular and critical success, winning six Tony Awards the following season. Despite scope and reach of the modern American musical, relatively little musicological scholarship has explored this area, and of that literature, even less has examined contemporary musicals. In this thesis, I will begin to fill this gap in the literature through the application of emerging critical musicological lenses to modern musical theater, both on and off …

Spaces Between Exploring Ma As A Literary Theory, Codi C. Reynolds

Masters Theses

This thesis is an attempt to understand the concept of ma 間 as it appears traditionally in Japan and how it may be applied to literature as an analytical framework. Ma is most simply defined as an empty space, but has a long history of artistic connotations in various fields, such as architecture, music, and poetry, that may theoretically be applied to literature as well. First, I look at the historical and theoretical background of the concept of ma as it exists in the visual, musical, and literary arts. I consider how ma was first used when it was developed …

Between Verb And Preposition: Diachronic Stages Of Coverbs In Mandarin Chinese, Glynis Jones

Masters Theses

Mandarin Chinese has long been known to possess a category of words known as ‘coverbs’ in the literature, which sit in the gray area between verb and preposition. Li and Thompson (1974) describe the historical origins of Mandarin coverbs to be full transitive verbs, despite their modern state being decidedly less verbal. They also note that coverbs are a non-homogenous class. This thesis works to establish categories of coverbs in Mandarin Chinese and their distance from true verbhood in order to understand the diachronic shift that coverbs are currently undergoing before our very eyes. I will draw on the work …

Tableaux For The Future, Sally Curcio

Masters Theses

My sculptural installations aim to elicit a sense of optimism and possibility through form, color, and mode of display. The work subverts the symbolic order by repurposing everyday forms and objects, allowing us to see the familiar as new, and thereby awakening us to what may be possible to formulate a better, more beautiful, more universally connected order.

Introverse Arrangements: Rediscovering The Typewritings Of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, Savannah M. Champion

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to understand Wolf-Rehfeldt’s place in the unofficial art world of the GDR by examining her work in light of her status as a clerical worker with social rather than professional ties to the art world. She stands out within the East German Mail Art context, not just for her inventive use of a typewriter to create abstract figurations, but for the way she used it to interject considerations of gender and power into a network of artists overwhelmingly dominated by men with her open-ended Typewritings.”

Through historical research and close readings of her work, this study uncovers …

La Circassienne: A Study Of The Female Circus Artist In French Literature, Crystal Menninga

Masters Theses

This study examines how the female circus artist is represented in twelve pieces of French literature ranging from the late nineteenth century to the modern day. The books are divided into three categories by author type: first, authors without a circus background; second, male authors involved in the circus world; and third, women involved in the circus world. Although predicted that the first section would reveal the largest use of stereotypes and misogyny, the second would show the sexist expectations of the circassienne onstage and off, and the third would call out these stereotypes and suggest improvements, there was less …

Second Language Competence And Translation Ability: An Investigation Of English-Native Speakers Learning Chinese As A Second Language, Chensimeng Pan

Masters Theses

Translation is an important language skill in multilingual societies and the globalized world. Some scholars even claim that translation skill should be the fifth language skill in addition to the conventional four basic skills of second language competence - listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Newmark, 1991; Naimushin, 2002; Leonardi, 2011). However, the current mainstream communicative teaching approach tries to avoid the use of translation in language classrooms, mainly because of the possible negative transfer of the first language and low priority given to writing. This study aims to identify the pedagogical role of translation in language teaching through the exploration …

Historic Houses And The Food Movement: Casey Farm And Coastal Growers' Market, Allison L. Smith

Masters Theses

Community engagement and relevance are topics prominently discussed in the museum field. Conversations about public history and social justice, however, are less common. Combining these two ideas and thinking broadly about how museums, particularly historic houses, can stay relevant in their community by adopting a community-centered mission, this thesis uses Casey Farm as a case study. By conducting interviews with the site managers and market manager alongside surveying market vendors and visitors, this thesis compares the museum’s perspective of their relevance with the lived experiences of visitors. Ultimately arguing that historic houses should prioritize community interests when creating programming to …

The New Normal - Exploring Theater Design Pedagogy Through Production Work In The Post-Covid Era, Benjamin J. Stanton

Masters Theses

An overview of the lighting design processes for two main stage productions produced by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater, EVERYBODY by Branden Jacobs Jenkins, and DANCE NATION by Clare Barron, with specific emphasis on the emotional, logistical, and pedagogical challenges of producing live theater in an educational setting after a year of isolation due to the covid pandemic. This thesis documents my design process for each production including text analysis, preproduction process, collaboration with the assistant Lighting Designer Hyejung Kang and the production electrician Michael Dubin, and includes reflections on my experiences teaching and mentoring students throughout …

The Name Is A Guest Of The Substance, Jessica Scott

Masters Theses

The Name is a Guest of the Substance brings together works of video, installation, live performance, sculpture, and print to investigate the constructions of kinship that organize us into the world as historical, ecological, and political subjects. Herter Gallery’s 1600 sq. ft space is utilized in full for this project. The work in both galleries evaluates systems of categorization in light of their power to foster or discourage kinship within overlapping local, global and ecological communities. While the West Gallery uses my own multi-racial American genealogy to challenge the authority of historical and autobiographical origins, the East gallery uses manipulations …

In-Between Spaces: Atmospheres, Movement And New Narratives For The City, Paul Alexander Stoicheff

Masters Theses

We often think of architecture as distinct buildings, yet as we move through the city we continuously pass through a built environment that is a collage of buildings. These spaces between buildings are underestimated as influences on our experience of everyday life in the city. Considering architecture as linked existential experiences through spaces rather than confined to individual buildings is more in line with our experience of the city as a series of interconnected spaces and places. Rather than describing a single, static architecture through words, how can we express this linked experience of spaces dynamically through narratives? Can writing …

Half In Dream: The Tangle In The Grid, Abbey L. Paccia

Masters Theses

Half in Dream: The Tangle in the Grid discusses the form and content of a physical art installation by the same name. The site-specific installation is a large three-dimensional collage of natural ephemera collected from the area around Amherst, Massachusetts, which interacts with natural lighting conditions to illuminate a gallery-facing image of ever-moving light and shadow. The written work elaborates some of the many details within the structure of the artwork, and reveals the philosophies, embodied practices, and methodologies that informed the visual work's creation. Woven throughout are reflections on phenomenology, walking practice, General Systems Theory, collective making, narrative arts, …

An Economy Of Care: George Eliot's Middlemarch And Feminist Care Ethics, Madison V. Newman

Masters Theses

This thesis assesses the centrality of care relationships in George Eliot’s Middlemarch and, by doing so, seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of individual and collective morality. Using the ethics of care as a methodological framework to acknowledge the importance of care acts and successful care relations – especially those complicated by the presence of dichotomized socioeconomic hierarchies – will allow readers to engage more fully with this text, its author, her relations, her characters, and the community of readers; reading Eliot’s work from this lens will allow us to validate every interaction, every thread of connectedness, and every act …

Talking To Ai Tutors: Speaking Practice Using A Japanese Language Learning App To Improve L2 Learners’ Fluency, Ryo Nakayama

Masters Theses

This study examines (1) whether L2 learners’ oral fluency and accuracy improve through conversation practice with AI tutors in a Japanese language learning app, (2) when fluency increases, and (3) which learning cycle is most effective. Ten participants joined the study and practiced conversations with Kaizen Languages’ AI tutors for three weeks. Learners selected their preferred learning cycle: a group with fewer lessons to complete per day but more practice days per week or a group with more lessons to complete per day but less frequent practice days per week. After three weeks of self-study, participants took an oral test …

The Different Waves Of "Chineseness": Analysis Of Culture References And Lyrics In Zhongguofeng Music, Austin S. Ye

Masters Theses

Zhongguofeng music 中国风流行曲 has had an impact on the Chinese pop music industry. Although the style of music uses familiar overtones that have been in wide usage within Western pop music, Zhongguofeng aims to emphasize more of a connection to a unified sense of Chinese culture, ethnicity, and identity. Specifically, I will argue that “Chineseness” is constructed through lyrics, which contain cultural references to the imperial era of China, and accompanying music videos, which provide visual imagery that further draws the viewer into an idealized “China”. In addition, the song’s instrumentals blend Western pop stylings with traditional Chinese instruments and …