Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Audiating And Vocalizing Voice-Leading In Seventh Chords: Harmonic Recognition In Freshman Ear-Training Courses, Caroline E. Dunmire

Masters Theses

Harmonic dictation is one of the most challenging topics in the aural skills curriculum. Consequently, researchers have identified sub-skills associated with success in ear-training. Among these are development of audiation skills, understanding of functional harmonic progression, and scale degree resolution. The PASS Method teaches chord quality through a four-step process of playing, audiating, singing, and solving the voice-leading paths in common tonal resolutions. This method was examined in a quantitative study of 52 freshman ear-training students in which a control group studied seventh chords through the traditional, Arpeggiated Method and an experimental group used the PASS Method. The experimental group …

Influential Women In The History Of American Music Education, Christina Genae Mathis

Masters Theses

Early American music education is rooted not only in the work of Lowell Mason and other male music education pioneers, but also in the lives of a number of women whose work in the field was largely unnoticed until the twentieth century and the evolution of women’s rights in America. This project researched the lives and contributions of five of these women: Frances Elliott Clark, one of the first educators to take advantage of the technology available at the time, who incorporated the use of phonographs in the music classroom; Julia Ettie Crane, whose legacy lives on through the Crane …

The Philosophical Underpinnings And Negative Consequences Of The Indian Child Welfare Act, Elizabeth Sharon Morris

Masters Theses

This paper will examine the philosophical underpinnings of current federal Indian policy and its physical, emotional, and economic consequences on individuals and communities. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found in 1990 that “[T]he Government of the United States has failed to provide civil rights protection for Native Americans living on reservations” (W. B. Allen 1990, 2). As Regan (2014) observes, individuals have been denied full title to their property – and thus use of the property as leverage to improve their economic condition (Regan 2014). Tribal executive and judicial branches have been accused of illegal search and seizures, denial of …

Design Your Career - Design Your Life, Joshua R. Beal

Masters Theses

This research investigates the current plague of unemployment and underemployment that nearly half of qualified individuals in the field of Visual Communications are met with after graduation. Students who major in this field dedicate a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy toward developing a broad skillset that resolves critical matters of communication through visual solutions. Research has demonstrated that despite conditions that are subject to ongoing change of economy, industry, and marketplace there are contributing factors that must be addressed to overcome un/underemployment regardless of circumstances. These include an underdeveloped network of professional contacts, deficiency in recognizing or responding …

Deep Imprints 20th-Century Media Stereotypes Towards East Asian Immigrants And The Development Of A Pan-Ethnic East-Asian-American Identity, Christopher Maiytt

Masters Theses

Existing scholarship on ethnic representation in the American film industry most prominently features Black and Latinx subject matters, with little attention devoted to Asian American depictions. In contrast, this study tracks the use of persistent stereotypes in the American film industry directed at East-Asian immigrants and the influence American racism in popular media has on the emergence of a Pan-ethnic East-Asian American identity. The first appearance of a cooperative Pan-ethnic minority group materializes during the Yellow Power Movement of the 1960s, which is followed by the emergence of East-Asian film direction en force. Analysis of these films and in the …

Cormac Mccarthy’S Border Trilogy And The Modern American Identity Crisis, Michael G. Cox

Masters Theses

The narrative trope of the American western is a long-standing literary convention rooted in a convoluted history of conquest, exploration, settlement, and exploitation. At the heart of the western genre is the idyllic vision of self-reliance. From its inception, the United States developed westward, pushing the limits of self-governance into the farthest reaches of empty terrain. As a result, the frontier has long been a symbol of personal liberty, a place where travelers and homesteaders have the freedom to achieve private independence in its purest form. Hollywood has done much to nurture this nostalgic image of prairie life. Iconic silver …

“Not To Be Loved But To Lead”: Homosocial Soldiering In Tim O’Brien’S The Things They Carried, Cliffton M. Young

Masters Theses

This study explores the presence of homosocial bonds for Tim O’Brien’s characters in his short story collection, The Things They Carried, and examines the value of them for soldiers in and out of the war theatre. Their vulnerabilities and fragilities create for the soldiers false fronts of masculinity, and they attain comfort in and attach themselves to others with whom they share military experiences. Members of Alpha Company deal with both physical and mental burdens stemming from battle. Their timidity and emotional / physical ineptness complicate their being able to have honest and affectionate interactions with other men in …

“We Are The Walking Dead”: Morality In Robert Kirkman’S Comics Series, Amy L. Jacobs

Masters Theses

Despite widespread cultural success, Robert Kirkman’s comics series, The Walking Dead, has received little critical attention in the literary canon. The limited critical attention it has received fails to provide an in-depth examination of the work’s morality. This could be a result of the ever-present influence of Frederic Wertham’s claims in his 1954 work, Seduction of the Innocent. However, when viewed through the frameworks provided by John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction and Wayne C. Booth’s The Company We Keep, Kirkman’s zombie narrative exhibits morality in multi-layered and complex ways with every turn of the page. Through the …

“Arriving At Your Own Door”: Transnational Identity Formation In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’S Americanah, Julie Oosterink

Masters Theses

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013) guides readers through the internal questions and external pressures that contribute to identity formation of her transnational characters. This paper examines the specific ways in which Adichie’s protagonist, Ifemelu, engages with both self-discovery and self-fashioning in order to shape the narrative of her past and make a plan for her future. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s The Ethics of Identity offers a philosophical framework to consider the many components of identity formation and the ways in which individuals form personal and collective identities. Adichie uniquely addresses personal and collective identities through the transnational experiences of her characters. …

The Boundaries Of Modern Jazz Composition: Interaction Between Tango And Jazz Music, Evgeniya Kozhevnikova

Masters Theses

The history of jazz music is not very long in comparison to the history of music in general – from the end of the 19th century until present. This period, however, is very dense in terms of musical influences and became especially denser recently because of globalization.

Several researchers explored the jazz influences in the music of Astor Piazzolla, whom renovated traditional tango. While Piazzolla is considered a tango composer, some jazz bands use Piazzolla’s music as jazz standards and create compositions with traditional elements of jazz, such as improvisation. There are also composers influenced by tango music who write …

Creation, Destruction, And The Tension Between: A Cautionary Note On Individuation In Tristan Egolf, W. G. Sebald, And Niall Williams, Nicholas Kanaar

Masters Theses

The modern individual faces a psychological disconnect between his conscious mind and unconscious due primarily to the outward attachments that dictate false tenets of ontological worth. This thesis investigates the benchmark of creation and destruction and narrows in on its utility in the individual’s pursuit for individuation. The creation and destruction paradox is used to penetrate liminal space where personal transformation occurs, and it is used within those spaces to strip away old, ego-centric ideals in the service of new ones. C. G. Jung’s “archetypes of transformation” are the main tools of the psyche for assisting the conscious mind to …

Music History- Laugh And Learn, Jessica Ellen Fagan

Masters Theses

The project I have chosen aligns with my curriculum project and research. Data will be gathered on the effects of laughter in the classroom. This research will show that humor can motivate students as well as aide memory. Overall, the project should conclude that laughter aids in the learning process. This project has great importance in the field of education, especially music education. Students have come to memorize for the tests, soon forgetting what they have learned. Adding a fun twist on a class that will aide students in their first year of college may increase enrollment. This may also …

Music Direction For The Stage: Training For Success In Christian-Based Performing Arts, David Keith Schubert

Masters Theses

The stage production music director is a position requiring highly advanced musical, managerial, and administrative skills. Many churches, Christian schools, and community groups have an interest in mounting a show or launching a performing arts ministry; however, most worship pastors, choral/instrumental conductors, and music teachers have not been adequately prepared for this specialized assignment. Of the available training resources on production and theatrical work, few address the role of the music director. Additionally, most of the literature is written for the mainstream theatrical environment. Still missing is a treatment that blends standard industry practices with the pastoral leadership and spiritual …

Biblical Archaeology As An Effective Apologetic, Cooper Wyatt

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to demonstrate the relationship between biblical archaeology and Christian apologetics, where archaeology can be used as way to show that the Bible has accurately preserved the history it reports.

Stories Told Through Music: Soprano Aria "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" From Messiah And Peter And The Wolf Op. 67, Everett Scott Godwin

Masters Theses

From the beginning of creation, people have told stories and passed them down from generation to generation. Stories come to life through all forms of communication: watching a play, listening to a podcast, or looking at a picture are just a few examples. The best stories have been written down in manuscripts, books, novels, and then sometimes eventually written into a script for a movie. But something about music makes it one of the most compelling and exciting ways to portray a story. It is one of the earliest and long-lasting forms of storytelling. Every musical work tells a story …

Where Is God In Symbolic Exchange? A Theo-Semiological Analysis Of The Sons Of Anarchy, Alex Justin Holguin

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to uncover the religious nature of communication by re-visioning and situating French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory of communication within a Christian theological context. By critically engaging Lacan’s theoretical concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real within this context, the thesis is able to access the intersection of rhetorical semiotics, psychoanalysis, and Christian theology to have a more fruitful understanding of how meaning is exchanged between subjects. Lacan’s inter-disciplinary affirmation of rhetoric and psychoanalysis has been able to produce incredible explanatory potential for how meaning, as the bedrock of speech and communication, operates through the psyche …

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, Hollis Claire Wittman

Masters Theses

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, composer and pianist, spent the majority of his career serving the community at Western Michigan University. His development of the bowed piano technique contributed significantly to the course of music in the late twentieth century; his prolific compositions stand on their own artistic merit. This document attempts to provide a summation of the composer’s life, particularly in regard to his compositional activity. The first section, a biography, discusses Curtis-Smith’s life and the changes to his compositional style over his lifetime. Next, a catalog of works details the available information about the many pieces written by the …

In-Between Places, Jonah Fleeger

Masters Theses

I am an emerging artist originally from Northwest Indiana. I attended a small boarding school called Verde Valley School, in Sedona, Arizona, which is where my love for pottery first started. I received my BFA in ceramics from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After college I was fortunate enough to find studio space and work at the Lillstreet Art Center, where I was a teacher, teaching assistant and glaze maker. Since then I have completed post-baccalaureate programs at The University of Colorado Boulder and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. This book is a presentation of myself …

Train Boy, Shannon Gross

Masters Theses

This thesis tells the story of the author's interactions with the hallucinatory figure of Train Boy.

The Movement In Nature : Deep Missing, Missing You From Far Away, Chia-Chi Wu

Masters Theses

The Movements in Nature

Soft waves, soft clouds, soft grass,

In the ocean, in the sky, on the ground. Mellow, smooth, satisfying,

No sharpness, no harm, just round circles.

Imagination of the mixture of the nature.

The Moment Someone Opens A Book, A Venus Flytrap Is Tightening Its Cage, Chenlu Hou

Masters Theses

his thesis examines transitions as a form of transformation.

Throngs, Yinan Chen

Masters Theses

Ceramic is an important element of my artworks. It is a material with strong bearing capacity, and at the same time, it is a tool with the attribute of nature and social function, for the similarity with humans can be found in it. Thanks to its characteristics, I am able to transform the forms, colors, and quality to complete my works. Collected from nature, carved with human hands, the clay is cultivated and my expectation of the outside world is satisfied.

Grid As A Frame, Young In Sa

Masters Theses

A grid is a type of framework applied to an area in order to articulate information through coordinates and units. Nowadays, the world we experience has become overwhelmed by digital displays. How can we perceive the different form of reality when both experience and our perspective are shaped by digital representation? What if our life continues in virtual topography where I can see my GPS location, or in a rectangular camera frame instead of on the spherical earth? I walk with my feet touching the ground and I see the landscape around me, but still, now, I navigate myself in …

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 …

Pekka : Social Software To Improve In-Game Dynamics, Yu Mo

Masters Theses

Video games are like virtual cities. Similar to towns in the real world, virtual cities contain facilities and communities represented by game elements and players. There is a question for us: Can a game be a better city?

To answer the question, we need to understand what a good city looks like. Generally, a good city needs sound facilities and harmonious communities. Similar to a real city, we need to build more advanced game elements and peaceful game communities to make the game to be a better city. Games like Paragon have failed because they lacked game communities, even though …

American Slavic : And Other Writings, Zac Banik

Masters Theses

My current cycle of work deals with the exploration, digestion and reinvigoration of traditional Slavic craft and material culture with goal of contributing to a contemporary design vernacular which eschews the idealization of Western-European forms and stands on its own: aesthetically discrete and externally respected. This line of inquiry arose from my own journey to understand myself as a Slavic-American; what it means to be such a thing; how to reconcile assimilation against perceived authentic identity and what value the voice of the diaspora can bring to the discourse of the old world. The outward mission of this project is …

Conversations In 2019, Kit Howland

Masters Theses

This thesis is a collected series of interview questions and my responses. The topics include aesthetics, phenomenology, queerness, the void, distinctions between art and design, designing emotional content, scale, minimalism, duality, multiplicity, formalism, intellectualism, the experience of living with your work, the critique, presentational strategies, and otherness.

Glossary I : Graduate Thesis, Eli Backer

Masters Theses

Situated across various contexts and spaces– studio, domestic, gallery– Eli Backer’s work explores open collaboration with machines, often producing multiples to reflect on, obfuscate, and to futilely hold the space and shape of loss. In this text, she surveys radio stations, music, writing, and art that has formed and driven her practice and sets a framework for the limited continuation of this document.

Distance Is A Place, Zhiqing Guo

Masters Theses

Distance is a Place documents a body of work and a process — a journey in translation, where a quality of feeling becomes an effort of physical capture in jewelry.

The desire to reveal how a deep responsiveness to the atmospheric distance of the sky is associated with an innermost nonverbal place of refuge motivates me to make perceptible this awareness for contemplation. Incorporating photographic images of the immeasurable dimensions of sky within translucent resin, a spatial distance collapses into wearable, tangible stillness to be worn on the body as an eternal present. 8

Floating, Nina Shishkina

Masters Theses

My writing is influenced by the concept of Montage. It has bits of readings, thoughts, memories. Everything is carefully picked and curated to inform the viewer of the ideas behind the work.

This book is aiming to explain the context of the time and space I was born and raised. The nineties in Russia were an extremely dynamic space. The flow of information, ideas, cultural events were enormous. Everything coexisted. the real democracy and freedom, as now it would be described. It was a dark time, full of hope and expectations.

Unfortunately for the reader, this text is not that …