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Articles 1 - 30 of 40
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Here—There, Glikeriya Shotanova
Here—There, Glikeriya Shotanova
Masters Theses
Here—there explores the nature and ways of gathering, proposing an alternative path to organizing a cultural center. Divided into three acts (Act One: There, Act Two: Here, and Act Three: Together), it touches on the topics of collective knowledge and the importance of its accessibility to the local communities. How do we organize communities in a way that operates as a body, and how do we use industrial spaces as a bridge between knowledge and those who carry the knowledge? Due to alienation in societies, the decentralization of creative communities, and the inaccessibility of real estate to younger generations, there …
Navigating Black Identity: Black Young Adults’ Perception Of Being ‘Black Enough’ In America, Tabitha Omanano
Navigating Black Identity: Black Young Adults’ Perception Of Being ‘Black Enough’ In America, Tabitha Omanano
Masters Theses
This thesis highlights young adults’ assumptions that social performance and certain cultural proficiencies validate one’s Blackness. I discuss cultural expressions and differences and social behaviors and why such markers and differences are insufficient to define and authenticate Black identity. I posit that the primary determinant of Blackness is a matter of biology and a shared historical context. I begin by reviewing historical and contemporary perspectives on the racial identity of African Americans and Black Africans across various eras in the United States. This is followed by analyzing the ways in which young people question their Black identities—ethnic, cultural, social, and …
Invisible Systems, Mina Kim
Invisible Systems, Mina Kim
Masters Theses
We are immersed in an efficiency-and-profit-obsessed world where products are advancing for the sake of updates without meaningful outcomes. The products’ seemingly simple and seamless interfaces bear the marks of deception and promote the world’s obsessions as a norm. My work defines the visual language and methods that hide complex truth within invisible systems. I aim to strike through invisibility for greater transparency and visibility.
I employ techniques that dis-organize the guidelines and components of invisible systems, reframing expectations and opening up new ways of understanding our surroundings. I intend whimsical reconfigurations to act as a mirror, providing a moment …
Luminous Eating, Ayesha Mohyuddin
Luminous Eating, Ayesha Mohyuddin
Masters Theses
My work strives to reorient my gaze away from outward definitions of identity toward the complexities and nuances of experiencing the intersections of identity that comprise me and the space of home where I felt most extended. I do not want to essentialize the identifiers of Muslim, Bengali, and Tennessean, nor do I want to neglect the role memory and nostalgia play in shaping home as a place of expansion and ease. Food, cooking, and eating ground both nostalgia and identity in something physical. Through the sense of taste, I reorient myself to the inseparability of experience that cannot be …
Gustav Mahler's Symphonies And The Search For Identity, Brian Hailes
Gustav Mahler's Symphonies And The Search For Identity, Brian Hailes
Masters Theses
Throughout his life Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was aware of his role as an outsider and had a deeply conflicted view of his identity. The challenges he faced as a Jew in an overwhelmingly Christian and increasingly anti-Semitic Central Europe, as a German speaker in predominantly Czech speaking Bohemia and Moravia, as a Czech in the Austrian empire, and as an Austrian in a highly militarized but rapidly declining empire in the face of increasing pan-German nationalism, all contributed to this status. At the same time, his diverse early background provided a rich variety of musical experience, leading to an openness …
Ports Of Entry, Forough Abadian
Ports Of Entry, Forough Abadian
Masters Theses
Ports of entry are places where one may lawfully enter a country by crossing land and sea borders. This thesis frames the space conceptually where the boundaries of place, time, culture, and identity are crossed through existing ports or by building new ones.
As an Iranian immigrant in the United States, displacement of identity informs my worldview and design practice. I find myself between two worlds, one inherited and the other adopted. Both worlds are simultaneously active and exert their forces on my thought process. However, their interrelated dynamic is ambivalent because their path intersects and diverges unforeseeably. My …
Capture, Control, Circulate : Can We Queer Regulatory Power In Graphic Design?, Adie Fein
Capture, Control, Circulate : Can We Queer Regulatory Power In Graphic Design?, Adie Fein
Masters Theses
Capture, Control, Circulate addresses regulatory power, the transmission and enforcement of culturally-sanctioned behaviors and identity. How does regulatory power operate in graphic design and what—if anything—can the graphic designer do to subvert that operation? The methodologies for subversion explored in this book typically draw from queer and trans* experience and thought. Therefore, the work herein takes up issues of identity, normativity, marginalization, and community.
This thesis also considers design education, and its contemporary emphasis on the capture and control of content. It advocates instead for an educational model that centers circulation; that is, graphic design’s capacity to platform, to publish, …
Can’T Stop Coyote, Tala Worrell
Can’T Stop Coyote, Tala Worrell
Masters Theses
I work hard to keep language out of my studio. Language reminds me of my mom’s voice, people telling me what to do, not having the right accent, critiques, criticism in general, mis-truths, and never being good enough. Language is the material of my thoughts, and most of my thoughts, or the ones on a constant loop anyhow, are all those voices over and over again.
Painting is where I get to be me, with myself, and in my body. Painting is my home, family, refuge, and best friend. I’m not looking at myself from the outside, no one can …
Alien Encyclopedia, Zengqi Guo
Alien Encyclopedia, Zengqi Guo
Masters Theses
Alien Encyclopedia is a body of work that analyzes, expands, redefines, and leverages the definition of “alien” as both problematic and an avenue of possibility. By mapping the word “alien” as a fragmented play of alternatives, I translate the lessons derived from this exploration into a maker’s lexicon. I use “alien” to frame my identity, as a prompt to ground my projects, a factor to interrupt existing typography and to spark questions, a generative tool to explore the interpolation between the familiar and unfamiliar, and to incite new solutions and actions to solve the problems we are facing now. Alien …
Mason & Dixon: History And Identity In The Borderlands, Drew Leventhal
Mason & Dixon: History And Identity In The Borderlands, Drew Leventhal
Masters Theses
My project, Mason & Dixon, traces the footsteps of the original surveyors of the Mason-Dixon Line and their search for purpose in the borderlands between Pennsylvania and Maryland. For the past 250 years, the Line has inscribed a violent and painful scar on the land, filled with memories and (re)written histories. Holding the legacies of slavery and colonial expansion deep in its soil, the region is now a visceral example of the ongoing divisions and conflicts around the past, the present, and the future of the United States. The friction is in the air, it is in the monuments, and …
Mending What’S Invisible, Chaehee Yoon
Mending What’S Invisible, Chaehee Yoon
Masters Theses
A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Mending What’s Invisible, in which the artist’s personal experiences and memories explore the cultural identities and femininity in Korea and the US. These identities are explored by using traditional Korean motifs, embroidery patterns, and the visual images of the artist's childhood photographs in the projects of “Reconnecting of Nostalgia” and “Mutating”. Also the visual clips of the artist's hometown is demonstrated in the video project “Things I hated” that discusses criticalities of Korean cultures and a sense of nostalgia for childhood in Korea. The project comes out of a personal need to …
The Beauty Of Collision, Yixuan Pan
The Beauty Of Collision, Yixuan Pan
Masters Theses
As a Chinese artist living in the United States, I’m researching the integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics, as well as the loss of identity that can occur when visual cultures begin to assimilate. My work endeavors to locate the connection between Eastern and Western arts through my own memories and experiences. From the age of five, I have studied calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting with my grandfather, who was a calligraphy professor. Today, I use the shapes of traditional Chinese hand fans as symbols of youth, drawing from memories of my mother and grandmother brandishing the fans to help …
Martyr (In Exile), Xinyi Mei
Martyr (In Exile), Xinyi Mei
Masters Theses
Xinyi Mei (meimei) is an image maker. She looks to make assessments on the moments when consilience is woven through viewing and limited imagination. She also uses images to examine the precarious state of identity flowing between the individual and the collective. She usually practices with video installation, photography, and writing.
This Feels Familiar, E. Winslow Funaki
This Feels Familiar, E. Winslow Funaki
Masters Theses
This is a book about in-betweenness. It’s an examination of how we identify people and objects, the categories we use to do so, and those that don’t fit squarely into one or the other. It considers the grey areas of identity--race, gender, species, function, living, inanimate. It slips and slides through the ambiguous and indefinite, forever moving, always simultaneously being “both,” “all,” “neither,” and “none.”
Glurp, Glurp, Glurp, Zihe Gong
Glurp, Glurp, Glurp, Zihe Gong
Masters Theses
My thesis is an accumulation of many different things. It contains a body of work that consists of furniture, objects, sketches, illustrations, and spontaneous thoughts, as well as improvised writings and images of a variety of things that have largely influenced my own making. For me, design is a discipline that does not come into being through a linear direction. Similarly, I believe that a thesis does not comprise just one single narrative, culminating from one starting point. The process of designing and making is more like the way one prepares a meal - all of the ideas and research …
Make Yourself At Home, Han Seok You
Make Yourself At Home, Han Seok You
Masters Theses
“Make Yourself at Home” is a personal journey of self-documentation to discover a definition of “home” and family, and to reenact the missing scenes from my youth. As a child who grew up in many different places far away from home, I missed out on many family moments and a sense of belonging. As a South Korean passport holder who has lived mostly in North America, my identity is unresolved. I find myself in the balance between Korean and American. With the progression of this project, I try to reconcile my past in order to gain an understanding of my …
Hain't, Jarrett Key
Hain't, Jarrett Key
Masters Theses
Jarrett Key’s thesis book examines their journey towards understanding their freedom through three lenses: Survival, Transformation and Celebration. Through pointed excavation of the oral histories and lost stories of their upbringing in rural Alabama, their work presents critiques of the historical conditions that sowed the seeds of their contemporary personhood, while simultaneously creating spaces to celebrate beauty, joy, and survival. The objects Key builds perform their freedom and are crafted from materials that reference pieces of their own personal narrative. Highlighting works from Leaving the City (oil paintings on cement), the Hot Comb (forged black steel sculptures), and Slave Ship/ESP …
Shopping For Vibrators With My Abuela… #Space #Representation And #Latinidad In @Janethevirgin, Maria Guarino
Shopping For Vibrators With My Abuela… #Space #Representation And #Latinidad In @Janethevirgin, Maria Guarino
Masters Theses
Jane the Virgin debuted on the CW in 2014 at a time when anti-immigrant, particularly anti-Mexican and anti-Latinx, sentiment in the U.S. felt very prevalent. This TV show was the latest to offer representations of Latin@s at the forefront and advanced a distinct political stance on immigration by calling for #immigrationreform. The series has not only been a ratings hit amongst the Latinx community, but has garnered wide acclaim from other races, ethnicities, and gender identities across the United States. This thesis explores the representation of the character of Alba (Ivonne Coll), through an investigation of the various physical and …
Mis Jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens
Mis Jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens
Masters Theses
This thesis offers an insight into the complex relationship between identity, memory and the creative process. A Q&A follows, designed to deepen the understanding of the self in different situations, places, cultures and design objects.
Apparently, memory has a leading role in triggering creative processes and this has forced me to do further research on my own past and on the objects that my memory retains. In the end, this “research on the self” has produced an interesting view on this particular creative process of designing.
Bitter Son, Adam Chuong
Bitter Son, Adam Chuong
Masters Theses
This thesis concerns itself with centering the experiences of Asian Americans in order to better understand the complexities of the Asian American diasporic experience. The title of this thesis, 苦儿, roughly translates into English as “bitter son,” and is phonetically pronounced in Mandarin as “queer.” It lives directly at the intersection of these identities — Asian, American, Queer. This body of work is an act of making space and taking up space in an institution and discipline that has not largely been concerned with minority identities, or when it has, it has been misguided and prone to tokenism. It is …
Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative Performances Of Ancestral Return, Porntip Israsena Twishime
Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative Performances Of Ancestral Return, Porntip Israsena Twishime
Masters Theses
Asian American belongings, migration patterns, and transnational identities are largely constructed in the United States as static, unidirectional, and invisible. Asian Americans complicate these constructions through the practice of ancestral return. In this thesis, “ancestral return” is constituted through one’s participation in a university study abroad program to a specific place to where one traces her heritage. I use “return” not necessarily to account for a form of reverse migration; rather “return” here names the multiple, sometimes contradictory kinds of return, including “return” to a place that one has not yet been. This project examines how Asian American identities are …
Pretend Power, Rosemary Engstrom
Pretend Power, Rosemary Engstrom
Masters Theses
This is an anti-thesis about being a tender and tuff queer femme bitch with mental illness trying to exist in this shitty world by creating worlds of their own. With bright colors, video performance, dress up, collage, and a lot of feelings, I turn power structures on their upside. They become a game of pretend where queers run the show. It’s ok to be sick. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s ok to be queer. You’re not alone.
Translating Arab Cuisine Into English: 101 Recipes, Paiman Salih
Translating Arab Cuisine Into English: 101 Recipes, Paiman Salih
Masters Theses
This thesis provides a practical translation of 101 Arabic recipes selected from three cookbooks by the distinguished Egyptian chef and author Osama El-Sayed, plus a long introduction discussing the history of Arab cuisine including cultural and linguistic factors and the translation strategies employed. The cookbooks are entitled Bil Hanna Wa Shiffa, (With Joy and Good Health) 2001; Maa Osama… Atyab, ‘With Osama, Food is more Delicious’[1], 2007; and Al-Halawiyat Al-Sharqiy, (Sweets of Arabia) 2010. I argue that food plays a defining role in shaping a culture and its identity. In general, Arabic recipes have been translated and …
From Subject To Cyborg: Reframing Identity Within Female Spaces In Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid And A Game Of You, Mary A. Ruge
From Subject To Cyborg: Reframing Identity Within Female Spaces In Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid And A Game Of You, Mary A. Ruge
Masters Theses
Whether they are secret or whether they are household names, identities are paramount in superhero comics. Yet those that create these identities do so from a place of privilege in a hierarchy which results in inauthentic characters and repetitive plots. For the superhero genre, the misrepresentation of female characters (perhaps related to a severe underrepresentation of female creators) has resulted in highly patriarchal storylines that are reductive, stereotypical, and often violent toward women. To combat this trend, one must consider the ways in which a more complex female character violates the current framework and offer a solution. For superhero comics, …
Untitled, Ting Tan
Untitled, Ting Tan
Masters Theses
This is a collection of things I am interested in. Through these things I attempt an understanding of myself. They are unpredictable and often difficult to capture like clouds, trees, water, winds. This book is my journey of self discovery.
I walk in my memories. I walk in the city. There, I capture and record fleeting moments of things I love. Through this process, I give myself a chance to understand the reasons for this attraction. It also gives me an opportunity to understand why I want to find myself, and why I always want an exact answer to this …
Materializing Conflict And Resilience, Neta Ron
Materializing Conflict And Resilience, Neta Ron
Masters Theses
As I was growing up, making objects felt like a superpower. It was, and still is enchanting to take an idea and transform it to an existing, tangible thing. I grew up in a family that encouraged self-sufficiency and creativity. Art has always been a great part of my life and it is an anchor that I rely on when I feel that I need to strengthen myself emotionally. In the last two years, I have been focused on understanding what is the role of making in my life, and why I am attracted to making jewelry. My work allows …
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg
Masters Theses
Standup comedy actively performs and engages with constructions of self and social identity, especially in terms of ethnic difference and the negotiation of American race relations. Musical comedy, wherein standup comedians perform song onstage, represents one facet of this expression that configures musical texts and expectations in the service of cultural observation and critique. Bo Burnham and Reggie Watts characterize two disparate approaches to the practice based on their aesthetic tastes, existential anxieties, and racial experiences. The two present their respective identities onstage in relation to a changing American political landscape of the early 21st century that has seen widespread …
The Importance Of Disguise In The Middle English Romances, Sarah Catherine Moore
The Importance Of Disguise In The Middle English Romances, Sarah Catherine Moore
Masters Theses
This thesis examines the literary motif of disguise in the context of the Middle English romances. The thesis seeks to explore the various manifestations and functions of disguise, and how they relate to the familiar exile-and-return structure of the genre. Chapter I discusses the conversation of genre description of the Middle English romances, and presents the scholarship reviewed for this project along with relevant terms to the discussion at large. Chapter II explores disguise as it relates to a character’s social mobility in King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and The Tale of Gamelyn. Chapter III looks at …
Japanese Pronoun Adventure: A Japanese Language Learner's Exploration Of His Japanese Gender Pronoun, Takumi Nakano
Japanese Pronoun Adventure: A Japanese Language Learner's Exploration Of His Japanese Gender Pronoun, Takumi Nakano
Masters Theses
In Japanese, there are various kinds of first-person pronouns, and some of them express the referent’s gender identity. Gender-neutral pronouns are made in English- speaking world day by day, but there is not any common first-person pronoun which indicates the gender identity that positions the referent’s gender somewhere between masculine and feminine. The present paper conducted a life story research on the “Japanese life” of an advanced learner of Japanese at a university in the United States who has been exploring his gender identity by coining and using a new Japanese first- person pronoun 㛪 ore, which indicates “in the …
Context Clues, Brynn Trusewicz
Context Clues, Brynn Trusewicz
Masters Theses
Context Clues explores the tensions between identity and appearance, especially as it relates to queer identities and the bodies that carry them.
It assumes that identity and appearance aren’t always straight forward or line up in expected ways.
It aims to expose our discomfort about this uncertainty.
It explores how we look at and evaluate others; what we observe and what we fill in.
It compares how we look at others and how we look to others.
It critiques the absurdity of how people perceive and interact with each other, by putting them in uncomfortable scenarios and exaggerating awkward situations. …