Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“A Drunken Cunt Hath No Porter”: Medieval Histories Of Intoxication And Consent, Carissa M. Harris

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This essay traces medieval representations of intoxication and consent and links them to contemporary cases, including Brock Turner’s 2016 rape trial and the 2017 slew of lawsuits filed against Baylor University. Through an examination of medieval texts from a range of genres, including the Biblical stories of Lot and Noah, the Digby Mary Magdalene play, proverbs, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue, the 1292 legal case of Isabella Plomet, and Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne, this essay explores past views of gender, perpetrators, culpability, alcohol, and consent. It argues that victim-blaming those who have been assaulted while intoxicated has …

The Wealth Of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual, Olympia Pelosi

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Cristalian De Espana, Ana Grinberg

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Encyclopedia Of Medieval Literature In Britain, Alexandra Reider

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory And The Environmental Imagination, Renee R. Trilling

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

A Revelation Of Purgatory, Barbara Zimbalist

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Approaches To Teaching Behn's Oroonoko, Laura Saetveit Miles

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Poster, Expanded, Lynnae Strait

Honors Theses

The poster is a fundamental part of graphic design that has existed since the 1800s. Throughout the years, its purposes and aesthetics have changed, but its format has adapted very little. This thesis project sought to define the traditional format of the poster, and then challenge the definition to expand the audience’s understanding of what a poster is and isn’t. This project’s primary goal was not to create aesthetically unique poster, but to create a poster that redefined the format—which would likely result in the achievement of the former goal as well.

The definition was derived by viewing and understanding …

United Families Through Interior Design, Marissa Heintz

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the current problems and support systems within the foster care system and how it could be improved upon. It studies the removal process of children from a hurtful home, the common reasons for placement within foster care, what some of the major problems within foster care are based surveys and existing research. Furthermore, this study seeks to understand the different perspectives of those involved in foster care including; biological parents, foster parents, children and social care workers. In order to better understand what would be best for all of the people involved, research also explores the effects …

Re-Purposing A Dead Mall Into An Art And Innovation Center, Veronika Gaska

Honors Theses

Many years ago, when the shopping industry was booming, shopping malls were being built one after another—more than were needed to support the population. They served as a hub for all kinds of people. But with time, the focus of the retail industry shifted to the convenience of online buying instead of in-store, which contributed in the lack of demand for retail stores, running them into the ground, and leaving the malls empty. Approximately 1/3 of the 1,200 malls in America are dead or dying. With malls emptying out, the future of these buildings comes into question. Either they need …

Benefits Of Doodling, Olivia Bevacqua

Honors Theses

Hello, my name is Olivia Bevacqua and my thesis is on the benefits of doodling. Doodling is something that’s really important to me as an artist and a human. I doodled growing up at lot, especially in high school. It’s something that I often do when I’m bored or when I need something to ground myself during lectures.

Growing up and into adulthood, doodling is seen as a frivolous act. Multiple studies have proven that doodling can be beneficial in many ways including relaxation, focus, and information retention. For these reasons among others, discouraging doodling during development and into adulthood …

Lori Sims, Piano 04/14, College Of Fine Arts

School of Music Faculty Recitals

Faculty Recital

Lori Sims, Piano

Sunday April 14, 2019

540th Concert

Screaming, Humming: A Look Into Student Theatrical Direction And The Importance Of Queer Narratives On Stage And In The Rehearsal Room, Kropveld Danielle

Honors Theses

There is a large lack of discussion and writing concerning the intersections of queer theory, theatre as an art form, and student direction. My thesis attempts to add to this small amount of work. Using historical evidence, I define radical queer theory and its implications for art. I contextualize my own work in the rehearsal room with the piece Screaming, Humming by Hannah Manikowski with this framework, and speak to my experience of casting and rehearsal.

As a student director whose acting collaborators are also students, there are additional considerations to be taken into account. This experience also serves as …

Cloud Tectonics: A Footlight 2 Production, Cal Kreiner

Honors Theses

The purpose of “Cloud Tectonics: A Footlight 2 Production,” was to produce a full length, professional production of Jose Rivera’s one-act play, Cloud Tectonics, part of which includes the creation of a professional grade directorial book detailing the process and thought that went into the staging of the show. Because of copyright and other legalities, the directorial book without the annotated script is all that can be included in Scholarworks; however, in the book you’ll find a thorough analytical examination of the playwright’s dramaturgical choices, their intended impact, and how the director interpreted and expressed those concepts in the …

The Laureate, Hannah Ryder

Honors Theses

In its eighteenth edition, the only undergraduate literary journal on Western Michigan University’s campus returns with more phenomenal student creations. The Laureate, led this year by senior Hannah Ryder, compiles fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, art, and photographs to provide a yearly snapshot of the best work from the university’s brightest individuals. Inside, the pieces explore not only what it means to be an individual, but how different surroundings and influences shape characters and experiences. The journal kicks off with a photograph staring up at a golden-leafed tree, representing both hopefulness and light. It then moves quickly and seamlessly through a …

Voice Faculty Showcase 04/03, College Of Fine Arts

School of Music Faculty Recitals

Dalton Wed@7:30pm: Live and Interactive

April 3, 2019

Pre-Concert talk with Dr. Robert White at 7 p.m.

Voice Faculty Showcase

Karen Kness, Soprano

Rhea Olivacce, Soprano

Elizabeth Stoner, Soprano

Ken Prewitt, Tenor

Carl Ratner, Baritone

Gunta Laukmane, Piano

The Art And Process Of Wood Carving As A Meaningful Occupation, Jennifer Fortuna

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Leonard G. Trujillo, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, occupational therapy professor and chair emeritus based in North Carolina, provided the cover art for The Spring 2019 issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy (OJOT). The piece, titled “Life’s Struggles,” is a relief carving made from butternut wood. Dr. Trujillo enjoys carving lifelike images that depict previous travels and his love of nature. His carvings are sculpted from a solid plank of wood, yet they provide the illusion of a three-dimensional form. Dr. Trujillo’s body of work reflects a lifetime of learning and engagement in the art and process of wood carving …

The Shapes Of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History, Eric Weiskott, Irina Dumitrescu

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume contributes to the study of early English poetics. In these essays, several related approaches and fields of study radiate outward from poetics, including stylistics, literary history, word studies, gender studies, metrics, and textual criticism. By combining and redirecting these traditional scholarly methods, as well as exploring newer ones such as object-oriented ontology and sound studies, these essays demonstrate how poetry responds to its intellectual, literary, and material contexts. The contributors propose to connect the small (syllables, words, and phrases) to the large (histories, emotions, faiths, secrets). In doing so, they attempt to work magic on the texts they …

Ballads Of The North, Medieval To Modern: Essays Inspired By Larry Syndergaard, Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, Richard Firth Green

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

This volume is intended as a belated but heartfelt thank-you and Gedenkschrift to the late Larry Syndergaard (1936-2015), long-time professor of English at Western Michigan University and Fellow of the Kommission für Volksdichtung (International Ballad Commission). Larry’s contributions down the decades to ballad studies--particularly Scandinavian and Anglophone--included dozens of papers and articles, as well as his supremely useful book, English Translations of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballads. As David Atkinson and Thomas A. McKean of the Kommission have written (May 2015): “Larry... was a sound scholar with a penetrating mind which he used to support, encourage and befriend others, rather …

Somos Y Estamos, Primavera/Spring 2019, Department Of Spanish

Somos y Estamos

For Friends of the Department of Spanish at Western Michigan University. In both Spanish and English.

The Caregiver: A Play Script To Raise Awareness Of The Caregivers Of Alzheimer's Patients, Sarah Stiner

Honors Theses

Inspired by true events that are happening every day, The Caregiver shows glimpses into the life a woman who is caring for her husband, who has been diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s. Follow the woman, her husband, and her daughter as they search for answers and experience the emotional rollercoaster of living with this disease. There is sadness, confusion, frustration, but also joy, hope, and love in a story which explores how much care we all truly need, wherever we are in life.

Mal_Functions For String Quartet And Live Electronics, Elliott Andrew Lupp

Masters Theses

Mal_Functions is a four-movement work for string quartet and live electronic that takes as its subject the timbrally rich and expansive acoustic capabilities of a string quartet and twists, warps, and expands upon them with the addition of the live electronic processing. The addition of electronics acts as only an extension of the performer, and therefore, appears to be generated by the performers themselves - as opposed to the computer. The overall goal of this piece is to take a well-established object of the musical past (the string quartet) and add to it something from the present day (live electronic …

Bones, Holly Palmer

Honors Theses

For my thesis I am using all of the technique I acquired in my oil painting class, as well as my past three life drawing classes. Working with oils allows me to achieve smooth color gradients and rich pigments. Life drawing taught me to understand ratios between different parts of a subject as well as the relationship between it and its negative space. By using all of these techniques I am working to create the most accurate representation of the pieces as possible. I am painting a series of bones floating on the canvases over different tones, allowing each one …

Stigma Mitigation Through Fine Arts, Kendall Owens

Honors Theses

Social stigma has plagued our society for centuries. It isolates groups of people based on erroneously defined characteristics causing stigmatized persons to be viewed as socially “abnormal”. This debarment from full social acceptance results in poor population health and well-being. Fine arts have been an integral component of society since the beginning of civilization; current and past research have found involvement in fine arts to improve health and well-being in many ways. In this project, relevant studies related to stigma, fine arts, and population health will be reviewed to support the argument that “fine arts combat and mitigate the …

Marginal Commentary: Are Students And Instructors On The Same Page?, Maria Ornella Treglia

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article reports the findings of 141 student questionnaires and interviews with six teachers to investigate whether first-year students’ preferences align with their teachers’ written commentary in composition classes in an urban community college. Results show that students appreciate and rely on teacher commentary and prefer it to be clear, detailed, and supportive. They indicated that commentary that combines the message with a positive phrase works best. Teachers, on the other hand, were not aware of their students’ needs and preferences, and expressed self-doubt and frustration about their students’ reception of written commentary.

Teaching Invention: Leveraging The Power Of Low-Stakes Writing, Eamon Cunningham

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

"Translating Writing Tasks into a Language Students Understand: Leveraging the Power of Low-Stakes Writing" argues for the central role "authentic questioning" can play as a generative step in the composition process. The article outlines key criteria in what exactly an authentic question is, how these can be communicated to students, and how students can learn to generate their own authentic questions without teacher intercession - i.e. compose their own self-generated close reading assignments - as a stage in the process of high-level, analytical discourse. The article details how students may ask questions of a text, but also provide answers to …

The Threshold Concepts Of Writing Studies In The Writing Methods Course, Kristine Johnson

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

I argue that the threshold concepts of writing studies enable preservice writing teachers to meet several goals for the writing methods course: comprehending composition theory, understanding themselves as writers, and developing effective pedagogical practices. After introducing these concepts, I first outline how they—because they define writing as a subject of study and as an activity—bridge theoretical knowledge, pedagogical application, and personal writing practices. Second, I quote from my own students to illustrate the ways in which threshold concepts help preservice teachers reflect on their own writing practices and become thoughtful, theoretically informed teachers.

Fashion Startup Focused On Sustainability Wins Wmu's Business Pitch Competition, College Of Education And Human Development

Family and Consumer Sciences News

A clothing company focused on sustainable fashion won first place at Western Michigan University’s seventh annual K.C. O'Shaughnessy Business Pitch Competition and Showcase held on campus Feb. 15.

The Unruly Womb In Early Modern English Drama: Plotting Women's Biology On The Stage, Ursula Potter

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

This study provides an accessible, informative and entertaining introduction to women’s sexual health as presented on the early modern stage, and how dramatists coded for it. Beginning with the rise of green sickness (the disease of virgins) from its earliest reference in drama in the 1560s, Ursula Potter traces a continuing fascination with the womb by dramatists through to the oxymoron of the chaste sex debate in the 1640s. She illuminates how playwrights both satirized and perpetuated the notion of the womb’s insatiable appetite.

Point Of Contact, Melina Wilcox

Honors Theses

Dance exists as an expression which originates in the body. This work derives from contact improvisation: a nonverbal conversation wherein each partner concentrates completely on the other, dialoging through touch. At this point of contact, a mark is made.

In life, scars blemish our skin and serve as indications of previous touch. Here, pigments interrupt skin—performer, sculpture, gallery wall, or otherwise—and document the interaction between two bodies.

Our bodies are vehicles for communication. Through tactile interaction and spatial relationships, we understand each other in ways beyond words. Our innate intelligence and intuition arise from a lifetime of moving through space …