Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Synthetic Reductionism In Moral Philosophy, Scott Hill

Doctoral Dissertations

I defend the view that moral properties are identical to properties that can be expressed without using moral vocabulary.

Heard Or Dreamed About, Priya Nadkarni

Masters Theses

ABSTRACT

HEARD OR DREAMED ABOUT

MAY 2014

PRIYA NADKARNI, B.F.A. RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

M.F.A. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Shona Macdonald

Improving Anti-Racist Education For Multiracial Students, Eric Hamako

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores how anti-racist education might be improved, so that it more effectively teaches Multiracial students about racism. A brief history of anti-racist education and a theory of monoracism – the systematic oppression of Multiracial people – provide context for the study. Anti-racist education in communities and colleges has supported U.S. social movements for racial justice. However, most anti-racist education programs are not designed by or for students who identify with two or more races. Nor have such programs generally sought to address Multiraciality or monoracism. Since the 1980s, Multiraciality has become more salient in popular U.S. racial discourses. …

"Survival Kits On Wax": The Politics, Poetics, And Productions Of Gil Scott-Heron, 1970-1978, Donald Geesling

Doctoral Dissertations

For over four decades, from 1970 until his death in 2011, poet, novelist, and musician Gil Scott-Heron served as an architect of artistic protest and a conduit of social consciousness. Often referred to as “The Godfather of Rap,” Scott-Heron was a formidable presence in postwar African American music and literature. This dissertation demonstrates Scott-Heron’s significance to the praxis of black cultural politics in the postwar era with a particular focus on his productions and social activism during the 1970s. It examines the ways in which his poems and songs gave voice to historical events and intellectual currents that, in part, …

Here, There, And In Between: Travel As Metaphor In Mixed Race Narratives Of The Harlem Renaissance, Colin Enriquez

Doctoral Dissertations

Created to comment on Antebellum and Reconstruction literature, the tragic mulatto concept is habitually applied to eras beyond the 19^th century. The tragic mulatto has become an end rather than a means to questioning racist and abolitionist agendas. Rejecting the pathetic and self-destructive traits inscribed by the tragic label, this dissertation uses geographic, cultural, and racial boundary crossing to theorize a rereading of mixed race characters in Harlem Renaissance literature. Focusing on train, automobile, and boat travel, the study analyzes the relationship between the character, transportation, and technology whereby the notion of race is questioned. Furthermore, the dissertation divides …

Seeing Blindness: The Visual And The Great War In Literary Modernism, Rachael Dworsky

Doctoral Dissertations

The Great War introduced explosive weaponry and military tactics that would create an entirely new economy of visuality and blindness in war. Over 23,000 soldiers were discharged from the British army during the First World War as a result of seriously damaged eyesight, the French army suffered approximately 2,400 blinded casualties, and the United States incurred approximately 850 soldiers with visual defects, 400 of whom were totally blinded. These historical contexts anchor my analysis of modernists’ attention to the wartime pressure to be blind (a pressure materially abetted by the war’s wounding technologies), and their texts’ corresponding interest in the …

“Give Light And People Will Find A Way”: Black Women College Student Leadership Experiences With Oppression At Predominantly White Institutions, Andrea D. Domingue

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT “Give Light and People Will Find a Way”: Black Women College Student Leadership Experiences with Oppression at Predominantly White Institutions MAY 2014 ANDREA D. DOMINGUE, B.A., THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN M. A., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Ed.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Emerita Maurianne Adams Black women college students have a collective history of marginalization and discrimination within systems of higher education (Brazzell, 1996; Turner, 2008). Unlike their White women and Black men counterparts, these women have unique social location in their racial and gender identity where they experience multiple types of oppression from dominant groups …

Discovering Brazil In Twentieth-­Century France, 1930-­1964: Franco-­Brazilian Cultural Politics In The Era Of Decolonization, Andrew R. Dausch

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a case study in the international exchange of ideas. It begins with the 1934-­‐1940 French University Mission to establish the University of São Paulo—Brazil's premier institution of higher learning. I argue that the experiences and intellectual networks that French intellectuals formed with Brazilian social scientists in the 1930s provided a conceptual framework for thinking about France and its role in a postcolonial world. Brazil and its intellectual traditions forced thinkers such as Claude Lévi-­‐Strauss, Fernand Braudel, and Roger Bastide to engage race and racial politics in a new key. By demonstrating the substantial links between Brazilian and …

En Honor A Elegguá: Máscaras Y Trampas Trazando Los Caminos De Juan Francisco Manzano, Carmen L. Cosme Puntiel

Doctoral Dissertations

La Autobiografía de un esclavo le dio fama internacional a Juan Francisco Manzano cuando fue publicada en Inglaterra en 1840. Sin embargo, en su tierra natal, Cuba, no fue hasta 1937 que su obra fue reconocida como instrumento fundamental para la abolición de la esclavitud en la isla. Pero Manzano como intelectual Afrocubano aún no ha recibido la atención que requiere en el ámbito intelectual Afrolatino. Uso varios métodos de ensamblaje en esta disertación. Analizo documentos de archivo como el manuscrito original en español de la Autobiografía, correspondencias entre el grupo abolicionista cubano encabezado por Domingo del Monte, las cartas …

Taste Disagreements And Predicates Of Personal Taste, Heidi Teres Buetow

Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, I explore the role of taste disagreements in the debate about the semantics of predicates of personal taste. Linguistic data derived from examples of gustatory disagreement often plays a major role in deciding the correct semantics of taste. I claim that, contrary to the trend in the recent literature, taste disagreements should not play any part in this debate. I argue that the data can be accommodated independently of the semantics by a theory of the purpose of “subjective” disagreements, such as taste disagreements. In support of this claim, I develop such a theory—one that includes an …

The Cable Network In An Era Of Digital Media: Bravo And The Constraints Of Consumer Citizenship, Alison D. Brzenchek

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation takes a historiographical approach to the evolution of cable television over thirty years. Case analysis of archival data is used to trace the trajectory of the Bravo cable network from 1980 through 2010. My dissertation is a vital contribution to critical cultural studies, feminist studies, citizenship studies, and media history because it historicizes the role branding, commodification, and convergence played in Bravo’s evolution from a highbrow arts programmer guided by bourgeois consumer citizenship, to a affluent lifestyle network guided by nouveau riche consumer citizenship. My combination of production studies and political economic analysis gives visibility to the interpenetrating …

Engineering Victory: The Ingenuity, Proficiency, And Versatility Of Union Citizen Soldiers In Determining The Outcome Of The Civil War, Thomas F. Army Jr

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation explores the critical advantage the Union held over the Confederacy in military engineering. The skills Union soldiers displayed during the war at bridge building, railroad repair, and road making demonstrated mechanical ability and often revealed ingenuity and imagination. These skills were developed during the antebellum period when northerners invested in educational systems that served an industrializing economy. Before the war, northern states’ attempt at implementing basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices directed at mechanics and artisans, and the exponential growth in manufacturing all generated a different work related ethos than that of the South. Plantation …

Correspondencias Tempestuosas: Tres Ensayos Para Acompañar A Sycorax Y Calibán, Santiago Vidales

Masters Theses

William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) theatrical work The Tempest was first performed in 1611 at the court of James I. Since the XVII century until today this work of art has travelled the world and has been (re)interpreted from the perspective of multiple ideologies. This thesis seeks to understand the representations and uses that Caliban has had in different spaces and historical moments. The anti-colonial interpretations of Roberto Fernández Retamar authorize us to read metaphorically the current socio-political situation of Latin immigrants in the United States through the perspective of The Tempest. The first chapter of this thesis studies and critically …

The Politics Of Psychiatric Experience, Shuko Tamao

Masters Theses

This paper examines the correspondence, manuscripts, and speeches of ex-mental patient activists. I chronicle the activities of the emergent psychiatric survivors movement from its beginnings in the early 1970’s focusing on the work of the Boston based activist, Judi Chamberlin (1944-2010). This paper examines how mental patients in post-war America began to organize in order to have their voices included in the process of their own recovery. I present Chamberlin’s experience as a mental patient as being representative of the “rootlessness” that many post-war women experienced. Chamberlin’s work as an ex-patient activist presented one aspect of the overall struggle on …

Venerable Style, Form, And The Avant-Garde In Mozart’S Minor Key Piano Sonatas K. 310 And K. 457: Topic And Structure, Andrew L. Moylan

Masters Theses

Although the topoi and elements of what has been described as the “Venerable Style” (V.S.) are found in many places in Mozart’s solo keyboard sonatas, the obsessive juxtaposition of these elements against brilliant, concerted, Empfindsamer Stil, and Sturm und Drang topoi can be shown to define the first and third movements of his minor key piano sonatas K.310 and K.457. This thesis will investigate using the theoretical tools developed by a range of Topic Theory authors such as Ratner (1980,) Allanbrook (1983,) Hatten (2004,) and Monelle (2000, 2006,) a newly developed analytical concept known as topical expansion, and …

The Impact Of Rhythm And Meter On Form In Two Works By David Maslanka: Mother Earth: A Fanfare (2003) And Symphony No. 8 (2008), Renee K. Morgan

Masters Theses

For pieces that do not lend themselves to an analysis of form based completely on tonal harmony and thematic material, an analysis based on rhythm and meter can enrich the reading of a piece and prove to be a more successful endeavor for the analyst. This thesis will provide such a form analysis of Mother Earth: A Fanfare (2003) and Symphony No. 8 (2008) by David Maslanka, paying special attention to the rhythmic and metrical events in addition to shifts in theme, texture, and harmony.

Chapter 1, “Introduction,” addresses information about the composer, the need for research, and challenges that …

The City Of Minas: The Founding Of Belo Horizonte, Brazil And Modernity In The First Republic, 1889-1897, Daniel Lee Mcdonald

Masters Theses

The foundation of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais in 1897 represents a pivotal moment in urban planning and the search for modernity in Brazil. This thesis argues that the decision to move the capital of Minas Gerais at the outset of the First Republic and the designing of the new city encompassed an evolving vision of modernity that helped establish the planned city as a means to transport Brazil into the future. It also situates the effort to build Belo Horizonte within the wider theoretical discourse on modernity and the development of urban spaces in Brazil. The …

Acoustic Analysis Of The Tones In The Shantou Dialect, Danni Li

Masters Theses

This paper mainly analyzes the different tones in the Shantou dialect. The Shantou dialect is known as one of the branches of the Chaoshan dialect which is a sub-group of the southern Min. Compared to other sub-group southern Min dialects, one of the distinguishing tonal characteristics of the Shantou dialect is that it has eight tones while the others have seven. Common views have explained that the eight tones in the Shantou dialect are the result of the four Middle Chinese tones further splitting into the upper register and the lower register. Thus, the Shantou dialect has its unique position …

The Newlywed, Lauren E. Kohne

Masters Theses

This text is a written articulation of my M.F.A. Thesis show titled, The Newlywed wherein description of the work produced and my artistic process is present. This body of work is explored through a fictional character, a newlywed, who acts as an outlet for my recent experiences living in western Massachusetts. The sculptures are made up of collections of the everyday, mundane objects that surround me and that propel me to contemplate where they came from, and what their histories were. The objects then become instruments for the creation of new stories.

« Notre Petite Ferme Me Sera Un Paradis » : Nature, Magie Et Violence Illustrées Dans Les Nouveaux Contes De Fées De La Comtesse De Ségur, Benjamin A. Fancy

Masters Theses

This paper examines the interconnections of nature, magic, and violence in the Nouveaux contes de fées (New Fairy Tales) of the Countess of Ségur and their illustrations. It focuses on the ways in which the Countess reappropriates the framework of the literary fairy tale and subtly breaks with the traditions established by past fairy-tale authors, encouraging a return to nature and a movement away from the perceived corruption of the nineteenth-century city within the context of a timeless magical world. Close study of the Countess’s multiple perspectives on violence as either a motivating form of punishment or as a display …

Motives Of Humanity: Saint-Domingan Refugees And The Limits Of Sympathetic Ideology In Philadelphia, Jonathan Earl Dusenbury

Masters Theses

This thesis examines two crises that occurred in Philadelphia in the middle of the 1790s: the arrival of refugees from the revolution in the French West Indian colony of Saint-Domingue and the outbreak of yellow fever the followed their arrival. These crises are studied together in order to understand the challenges that they posed to the post-Revolutionary culture of sensibility and to the sympathetic construction of social order that drew upon this culture.

Philadelphians’ post-Revolutionary sentimental project – the reorganization of society along lines of fellow-feeling, benevolence, and emotional parity – was strained by the arrival of refugees from Saint-Domingue …

Against The Odds: Accounting For The Survival Of The Berkshire Athenaeum, John Dickson

Masters Theses

Comparative approaches in historic preservation usually involve two or more different buildings. The old Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts allows for a comparative approach with the same building, but in two different eras: one where the clamor to replace the library building came close to resulting in its destruction (1960s); the other, 35 years later, where the question of the building’s survival was never in doubt, never even raised (2000s). From its earliest days, serious design and workmanship flaws have plagued the structural integrity of the monumental Victorian Gothic building that stands in the center of Pittsfield. Its grand space …

“Hagene, Der Vil Ungetriuwe Man”? Courtly Rivalry, Loyalty Conflict, And The Figure Of Hagen In The Nibelungenlied, Katherine Devane Brown

Masters Theses

The variety of scholarly approaches to the Middle High German poem Das Nibelungenlied has generated a wide range of conflicting analyses of the character of Hagen, a figure who plays a key role in both the plot and the interpretation of the work. This thesis proposes that viewing Hagen’s relationship with Siegfried in relation to the poem’s central theme of loyalty (triuwe) allows for an analysis that integrates both the positive and negative aspects of Hagen’s character. By examining the depiction of courtly rivalry in four contemporary Middle High German works (Herzog Ernst B, Wolfdietrich A, …

We Are French. Et Anglais Nous Restons., Alison Jane Bowie

Masters Theses

French Canadian playwright Joseph Armand Leclaire (1888-1931) was very well known and respected in his time. Although he wrote over thirty plays, lyrics to several songs and an abundance of political poems, most of his work has been lost and Leclaire himself seems to have been forgotten. Several of his plays were produced at the time they were written, including his 1916 play La petite maîtresse de l'école (later published in 1929 as Le petit maître d'école), but none have been presented postumously nor have any been translated. This M. F. A. thesis presents the first ever translation and …

À Lire Et À Voir, Entre Mot Et Image: Selected Translations Of Works By Henri Michaux, Victoria Arend

Masters Theses

This Master’s thesis investigates the language of words and images in the work of Belgian poet and painter Henri Michaux (1899-1984) through the practice of translation. I have chosen to translate texts that serve as critical and poetic inquiries into the nature of verbal and visual representation. In the critical introduction preceding the translations, I analyze Michaux’s relationship to the languages of words and images in the selected works. The selected translations appear in two sections: “On Words and Images” and “Images in Words.” In the first, I translate selections from Michaux’s reflective works on the practice of painting and …

A Geometrical Approach To Two-Voice Transformations In The Music Of Bela Bartok, Douglas R. Abrams

Masters Theses

A new analytical tool called “voice-leading class” is introduced that can quantify on an angular scale any transformation mapping one pitch dyad onto another. This method (based on a concept put forth by Dmitri Tymoczko) can be applied to two-voice, first-species counterpoint or to single-voice motivic transformations. The music of Béla Bartók is used to demonstrate the metric because of his frequent use of inversional symmetry, which is important if the full range of the metric’s values is to be tested. Voice-leading class (VLC) analysis applied to first-species counterpoint reveals highly structured VLC frequency histograms in certain works. It also …

Not The Boy Next Door: An Essay On Exclusion And Brazilian Foreign Policy, Diego Santos Vieira De Jesus

Portuguese Cultural Studies

No abstract provided.

Interview With Ella Shohat And Robert Stam: "Brazil Is Not Travelling Enough": On Postcolonial Theory And Analogous Counter-Currents, Emanuelle Santos, Patricia Schor, Robert P. Stam, Ella Shohat

Portuguese Cultural Studies

No abstract provided.

Editorial Note, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Patricia Schor, Emanuelle Santos

Portuguese Cultural Studies

No abstract provided.