Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Transgressive Acts: Adapting Applied Theatre Techniques For A Transgender Community, Theo F. Lefevre

Masters Theses

This MFA Thesis traces my work as a joker (a la Theatre of the Oppressed) and facilitator through a three-year-long project with a trans applied theatre troupe. The troupe explored several techniques, including Image Theatre, Playback Theatre, storytelling exercises, and somatic movement. In three semester-long workshops, the troupe focused work around three sets of techniques. In the first workshop, the troupe explored the community-based interview process of Undesirable Elements, as designed by Ping Chong in collaboration with Talvin Wilks and Sara Zatz. These techniques were interrogated using queer and trans temporalities. In the second unit, the troupe practiced Augusto …

Les Corps Démoniaques Dans La Démonomanie Des Sorciers : Un Examen Ontologique Et Épistémologique, Steven Davis

Masters Theses

The numerous ontological and epistemological paradoxes found within La Démonomanie des sorciers, a demonological treaty of the 16^th century, are studied within the context of demonic corporality: exploiting a rich philosophical and theological intertextuality as well as, more generally, a confessional model of logic, La Démonomanie (1580) constructs a linguistic world of demonic bodies capable of copulation, transformation, and imbuing humans with the power to practice magic. Following in the footsteps of the demonologists who precede him, Bodin constructs a system of the real and of knowledge which is as much dependent upon the authoritative ethos of his …

Recursive Properties Of Srdc Structures In Golden Age Musical Theater Songs, Morgan Markel

Masters Theses

The srdc is a four-part phrase pattern in popular music consisting of four formal functions: statement (s), restatement (r), departure (d), and conclusion (c). In recent scholarship, the applicability and scope of the four-part pattern has been vigorously debated. The question of whether entire song forms, such as the AABA and verse–prechorus–chorus song forms, can be interpreted as large-scale SRDC patterns has become a primary topic of interest among popular music scholars. In this thesis, I seek to further the argument for the large-scale SRDC reading of the AABA song form by demonstrating the recursive potential of srdc structures in …

Forgetting Traumatic War Memory: A Case Study Of The Japanese Anime Series "The Big O", Naomi Chiba

Masters Theses

This thesis addresses the issues of traumatic war memory concerning remembering and forgetting as presented construction of war memory in popular culture by closely examining the Japanese television anime series The Big O. The thesis proposes that the story told in The Big O can be seen as a vehicle for understanding why the Japanese wished to forget traumatic war memories related to the defeat of Japan in World War II. The Big O is a science fiction story that is set in a postwar defeated society. The protagonist of the story is Roger Smith, who searches for his …

Second Language Acquisition Of Chinese Verb-Noun Collocations, Ying Cai

Masters Theses

This study aims to investigate the acquisition of verb-noun collocations in Chinese by learners who study Chinese as a foreign language. By conducting a survey, this research attempt to discuss the following issues. 1) Does learners’ acquisition of verb-noun collocations increase with years of learning? 2) Is learners’ acquisition of verb-noun collocations related to the usage frequency of the verbs? 3) Are there any differences between patient objects and non-patient objects in verb-noun collocation acquisitions? 4) Does natural L2 exposure have an impact on collocational competence?

Seven verbs are selected in this study, 看 kan, 开 kai, 做 …

A Linguistic Study On The Four Editions Of BǎIjiā Xìng 百家姓 In Hp’Ags-Pa Script, Sicheng Wang

Masters Theses

The hP’ags-pa script was created in the late 13th century (the early Yuan dynasty) which was intended to transliterate all the languages of the Mongol empire such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Chinese into a single writing system. Among all the Chinese hP’ags-pa materials, the primer Bǎijiā xìng 百家姓 [Surnames of the Hundred Families] (BJX) offered us extensive hP’ags-pa syllables and their corresponding Chinese characters.

The BJX in hP’ags-pa script has four editions that are currently known to scholars. A careful comparison and examination of the four editions of the BJX text reveals three main types of …

Conformity And Digression: Change Of Narrative In A Chinese Peasant's Personal Writing, Danping Wang

Masters Theses

Rural China has gone through dramatic transformation from the Mao era to the post-Mao era. China scholars have been studying the institutional changes closely in the past few decades. However, Chinese peasants’ living experience and their memory and understanding of the past have not yet received enough attention and discussion. By examining personal writings of a peasant named Luo Xuechang in Jiande, Zhejiang province, this paper discusses the complex interactions between the state and the individual. This paper attempts to unfold the juxtaposition of state narratives and personal narratives embedded in Luo’s unpublished memoir, almanacs from 1972 to 1980, notebooks …

Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, And Censorship: Reflections On Religious And Political Radicalism In John Adams’S The Death Of Klinghoffer, Allison R. Smith

Masters Theses

The issue of anti-Semitism in John Adams’s 1991 opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, has been widely discussed by scholars such as Richard Taruskin, Robert Fink, and others. For instance, Taruskin asserts that Adams favors the Palestinians through musical grandiosity and by describing them as “men of ideals.” However, this fails to consider the possibility that Adams intended to portray an evenhanded view of diverse religious groups. Through close readings of the libretto and select numbers from Klinghoffer, such as the “Chorus of Exiled Palestinians,” the “Chorus of Exiled Jews,” and the “Aria of the Falling Body,” my thesis maintains that …

Meter In French And Italian Opera, 1809–1859, Nicholas Shea

Masters Theses

Current and historical methods of metric analysis often assume that the first beat of a metric group is stronger than the second. This, however, is not the case in all repertoires. For example, a study by William Rothstein (2011) demonstrates that Verdi’s midcentury operas often place emphasis on even-numbered beats. This paper shows this metric trend to be even more prevalent in a corpus of 208 nineteenth-century operatic excerpts, (1809-1859).

I present a formal model that classifies phrases according to anacrusis length and prosodic accent, showing where large-scale metric accents fall within a phrase. This model produces three metric types …

Storytelling In The Age Of Post-Socialism: Wang Xiaoshuai’S “Third Front Trilogy”, Xuesong Shao

Masters Theses

China, for the past six decades, has witnessed two massive population movements in reversed directions: the government-imposed relocation to rustic hinterlands during the Mao era, and the market-driven rural-to-urban migration in the post-socialist age. Revolving around a group of socialist workers’ relocation and homecoming, Wang Xiaoshuai’s王小帅 trilogy, comprising Shanghai Dreams (Qinghong青红, 2005), Eleven Flowers (Wo shiyi我11, 2012), and Red Amnesia (Chuangruzhe闯入者, 2014), connects the two movements through its visual representations. By examining the embedded dichotomies, namely the inland area against coastal cities, socialist remnants against post-socialist prosperity, and personal recollections against collective amnesia, I …

Trans-Gender Themes In Japanese Literature From The Medieval To Meiji Eras, Jessica Riggan

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze various texts from Japanese literary history and extract the instances of trans-gender performances from those texts. I define “trans-gender” behaviors as actions that are culturally expected of the gender opposite that of the gender assigned to the performer at birth.

In each text, I identify which character or characters perform actions that go against the expectations of the gender they were assigned at birth. I analyze how their performance is portrayed within the narrative, as well as how other characters in the narrative react to their performance. In this way, nuances are …

On The Contrary: Subverting The Canon With Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Christina Pellegrini

Masters Theses

This written portion of my thesis is aimed at documenting and synthesizing how I, as director, staged an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler through ongoing collaboration with a creative team comprised of dramaturges, designers, and actors.

I walk the reader through my exploration of Ibsen’s life and work through travel to the International Ibsen Festival in Oslo, Norway, and describe how I endeavored to lead the production’s creative team by applying feminist theories in directing and embracing the possibility of failure as a means of discovery. I discuss the casting process and establishment of an all-women ensemble, explore the …

Springing Forth Anew: Progress, Preservation, And Park-Building At Roger Williams National Memorial, Sara E. Patton

Masters Theses

The process of local preservation, urban renewal, and national park building at Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence, Rhode Island, reveals important facets of the urban park idea. In 1958, the Providence Preservation Society and the Providence City Plan Commission jointly released the College Hill Study, which called for renewal of the College Hill neighborhood through preservation of the architecturally significant homes, selective demolition, and the creation of a new National Park Unit dedicated to Providence’s founder, Roger Williams. The new park, established in 1965, went through a lengthy planning process before opening in 1984. The planning process revealed concerns …

A Transformational Approach To Japanese Traditional Music Of The Edo Period, Kenneth J. Pasciak

Masters Theses

Analysis of sōkyoku jiuta, Japanese traditional music of the Edo period for koto and shamisen, has in the past relied primarily on static tetrachordal or hexachordal models. The present study takes a transformational approach to traditional Japanese music. Specifically, it develops a framework for six-pitch hexachordal space inspired by Steven Rings’s transformational approach to tonal music. This novel voice-leading space yields insights into intervallic structure, trichordal transposition and hexachordal voice leading and transformations of this music at both its surface and large-scale levels. A side-by-side comparison with Rings’s approach highlights differences between the hexachordal and diatonic systems.

The Unaccustomed Vanishing Point, Procheta Olson

Masters Theses

The Unaccustomed Vanishing Point is an exhibition of miniature paintings and installations that explore the irregular and fluid terrains of multicultural exchanges in India. Although drawing heavily from Mughal and Persian painting traditions, the paintings are rife with allegories of the postcolonial history, politics, and visual and material culture of contemporary India in the age of globalization. The installations, on the other hand, navigate the intersection of sensory experience and memory while simultaneously examining the dynamics of transnational experiences. Together they map the overlapping boundaries of the personal and social to probe into the complex interplay of cultural hybridity, class, …

Women On Trial: Translating Femininity Through Journalism, William B. Ollayos

Masters Theses

The focus of this thesis is on cultural translation as a means of understanding the relationship between sociocultural identity with respect to bourgeois white female sexuality and interpretations by news journalists, writers and filmmakers. The thesis brings translation scholar Lawrence Venuti’s description of foreign and domestic texts (2008) into conversation with Catherine Cole’s analysis of journalists as active interpreters of newsworthy events (2010) to support my view of the media as a translator of sociocultural identity. The thesis outlines the construction of bourgeois white femininity within the U.S. imaginary and a more detailed account of its direct impact upon journalistic …

The Loss You Feel, Andrew Napoli

Masters Theses

The Loss You Feel is an examination of my personal artistic exploration of disposable objects and everyday actions as sites of potential introspection and understanding. Through an investigation of the mundane and its capacity for transformation, this paper maintains that a more deliberate engagement with the prosaic may reveal dynamic spaces between the familiar and the strange, the inanimate and the autonomous, and that actively engaging these spaces helps to facilitate both empathy and understanding.

Peter Mack Show, Peter Mack

Masters Theses

My animations and videos are personal articulations and reflections of the roles in life I assume: father, employee and artist. I have a particular interest in the seemingly mundane interactions in life, which often becomes a starting point for me to explore larger themes of family life, failure, and happiness. I approach these themes with humor and playfulness. The “show-and-tell” manner of many of my narratives, working in tandem with humor and DIY production values, gives my work the feeling of a strange children’s educational TV show in which I play the host, while underlining the personal nature of my …

Honeymoons, Ethan Kiermaier

Masters Theses

Through investigating my installation, performance, video and collaborative practice, Honeymoons builds connections between timelessness in repetition, the sacred potentials of pop culture, the animation of matter and the relationship of the body to space. Central to these relationships are questions about the function of the erotic in a mediated world. How can a sensual experience help us to define what is real, what has value?

A Lesson In Loving The Word: Translating Clarice Lispector Into Polish, Agnieszka Gabor

Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to discuss Clarice Lispector in the Polish context and address the potential gaps in the reception of her oeuvre. Since the principal vehicle of popularizing her writing outside of the Portuguese-speaking world is translation, my thesis also examines the current situation of the Polish translations of Lispector’s work. Based on my research, I contend that the angle of interpretation related to Lispector’s literary awareness has not been well explored in Poland. Given that the perspective related to the creation process constitutes a recurrent characteristic of Lispector’s narrative, I provide a textual analysis of four …

Gender Ambivalence In Late-Renaissance Italy: The Career And Reception Of Tarquinia Molza, Kathryn Firth

Masters Theses

The role of women changed constantly during the Renaissance era. Especially notable was the evolution of the role of women within the arts, in which the female gender was becoming particularly sought after. One woman deserving of attention is poetess, philosopher, and musician Tarquinia Molza (1542-1617) who enjoyed notable success at the court of Ferrara. Molza by-passed gender conventions of the day by engaging in traditionally “masculine” activities like philosophy and “feminine” ones such as singing. While there is plentiful scholarship about Molza, no current scholarship has specifically considered how questions regarding the ambivalence of her gender affected Molza’s relationship …

Designing Hedda: Questioning The Canonical Play Hedda Gabler, As A Feminist Text Through Abstraction, Bethany Eddy

Masters Theses

A thorough reflection on the process of costume design for the theatrical production of Hedda. An adaptation of Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Eva Le Gallienne, edited by Finn Lefevre and Directed by Christina Pellegrini. Performed at The Rand Theater, University of Massachusetts Amherst, February 24th to March 4th, 2017.

Ibsen is considered “The Father of Modern Drama”, with Hedda Gabler as one of his most widely performed plays. Hedda Gabler in the 1890’s was a disruptive reflection of society, and is considered by many to be a feminist work. I disagree with this assessment of …

The Economy Of Evangelism In The Colonial American South, Julia Carroll

Masters Theses

Eighteenth-century Methodist evangelism supported, perpetuated, and promoted slavery as requisite for a productive economy in the colonial American South. Religious thought of the First Great Awakening emerged alongside a colonial economy increasingly reliant on chattel slavery for its prosperity. The records of well-traveled celebrity minister and provocateur of the Anglican tradition, George Whitefield, suggest how Calvinist-Methodist evangelicals viewed slavery as necessary to supporting colonial ministerial efforts. Whitefield’s absorption of and immersion into American culture is revealed in his owning a plantation, portraying a willingness to sacrifice the mobility of the disfranchised for widespread consumption of evangelical thought. A side effect …

A Light On The Subject: Refugee By Milan Dragicevich, Colin Marsh

Masters Theses

The role of the American theatrical lighting designer is to be a visual collaborator on the design team. While other designers can produce elements that the rest of the team can hold or listen to such as a model of the set by the set designer or a sound effect from the sound designer, the lighting designer must rely on his or her ability to communicate his or her ideas. Visual lighting elements are complex ideas and must be clearly stated and planned for if the production is to be cohesive. This thesis presents the goals to communicate verbally, collaborate, …

Rewriting The Twentieth-Century French Literary Right: Translation, Ideology, And Literary History, Marcus Khoury

Masters Theses

For English-language audiences, twentieth-century French literature is often identified with a variety of literary movements tied to the political left. In spite of its lesser visibility, the French literary right enjoyed considerable prestige during the first half of the twentieth century. This thesis employs methodologies from translation studies in order to study how the French literary right has been translated, or not translated, into English. Case studies devoted to three seminal writers of the right, including Charles Maurras (1868-1952), Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893-1945), and Roger Nimier (1925-62), demonstrate that right-wing committed literature was a central mode of literary production …

The Unreliable Narrator: Simplifying The Device And Exploring Its Role In Autobiography, James Ferry

Masters Theses

The primary goal of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the unreliable narrator as a literary device. Furthermore, I argue that the distance between an author and narrator in realist fiction can be simulated in autobiographical prose. While previous studies have focused mainly on extra- and intertextual incongruities (factual inaccuracies; disparities between two nonfiction texts), the present study attempts to demonstrate that the memoirist can employ unreliable narration intratexually as a rhetorical tool. The paper begins with some examples of how the unreliable narrator is used, interpreted, misused and misinterpreted. The device’s troubled history is examined—Wayne Booth …

Precarious Provenance: Legitimacy, Surrogacy And Betrayal In The Value Of Art And Family In Honoré De Balzac's Le Cousin Pons And Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Ryan Coburn

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the problematic nature of art valuation, more specifically concerning the ideas of use-value and exchange-value in Honoré de Balzac’s Le Cousin Pons and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Written in nineteenth-century France, Balzac’s novel paints a bleak portrait of what he believes to be a morally corrupt society obsessed with the lesser things in life such as money and status rather than what is truly important: culture and art. In her novel, which bears a striking resemblance to Balzac’s, Tartt presents her perception of present-day United States, also plagued with moral corruption and disregard for the …