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Theses and Dissertations

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Articles 4831 - 4860 of 6866

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Road Beyond Suffrage: Female Activism In Richmond, Virginia, Denise Gammon May 2012

The Road Beyond Suffrage: Female Activism In Richmond, Virginia, Denise Gammon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the continued activism in the YWCA, the Equal Suffrage League and the League of Women Voters after 1920. The work examines the uses of motherhood, social religion, race and traditions as tools for activism and compares the YWCA to the Equal Suffrage League and League of Women Voters after 1920. The date range is roughly from 1915 to 1925.

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Mamluk Carpets, Ramza El-Gammal May 2012

Mamluk Carpets, Ramza El-Gammal

Theses and Dissertations

"The subject matter of this thesis will be the Mamluk rugs of Egypt. What is meant by this are the geometric carpets that are thought to have been manufactured in Egypt under Mamluk rule as well as those in the same style that were manufactured during the first few decades of Ottoman rule".

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A Pedagogical Perspective On Storytelling Through Movement And Dance, Penny Maas Apr 2012

A Pedagogical Perspective On Storytelling Through Movement And Dance, Penny Maas

Theses and Dissertations

Dance in most musical theatre is an assumed visual element and something that is often taken for granted in production. What is its purpose is the question being pondered in this paper. Since Agnes de Mille first presented her legendary dream ballet in Oklahoma! in 1943, theatrical dance has never been the same. She revolutionized the function of dance in theatre forever. No longer would dance merely be used as interludes or divertissements. Though a seemingly simple theatrical concept, to use movement and choreography to either further the plot or to communicate a character’s journey, it is not only much …

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Understanding Experience: Reflections On The Empowering Nature Of Story, Sarah Provencal Apr 2012

Understanding Experience: Reflections On The Empowering Nature Of Story, Sarah Provencal

Theses and Dissertations

Technological growth has changed our relationships and interactions within society and theatre artists are calling into question the future of our art form. Are we still essential? And if so, how do we renovate our form in order to relate to our changing society? In my experience, I’ve found that all renovations of our art have one thing in common: the empowering nature of story. Story helps us to understand our experiences in life. It is not the self, the cause, or the goal that is behind the wheel, but the story itself. This thesis explores three instances of the …

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Starting A Standardized Patient Program Using A Theatre Model, Richard Edward Carter Apr 2012

Starting A Standardized Patient Program Using A Theatre Model, Richard Edward Carter

Theses and Dissertations

The methods used to train actors can be modified to train standardized patients to simulate patient encounters with medical students. With some background in standardized patients and simulation, a member of Theatre Department can start a standardized patient program at their own institution. This is based on the pilot year of the VCU Standardized Patient Program which began in June, 2011.

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But From This Moment On We Know Nothing, Jacob Vincent Apr 2012

But From This Moment On We Know Nothing, Jacob Vincent

Theses and Dissertations

As a student enrolled in Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Craft/Material Studies' Master of Fine Arts Graduate Degree program, Jacob A. Vincent's sole obligation to the world for the time period beginning in September of 2010 and continuing through April of 2012 was to dwell on things, and to eventually produce something tangible as a result. Having charged himself with the burden of indulging in the task of re-contextualizing all of existence, and ensuring that his peers and professors knew how vitally important that is, this thesis outlines select aspects of his research methodologies and provides a glimpse into the …

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Design Invites Stories: A Mental Health Facility, Christina Lee Waters Apr 2012

Design Invites Stories: A Mental Health Facility, Christina Lee Waters

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the design process for an out-patient mental health facility for veterans of war. Here are some questions that drove my design work. How are stories told in design? How are stories generated from users within a designed space? Can users participate in contributing to a space's design? Many structures create psychological stories through graphics, color, and layout to involve users in their procedures. For example, commercial retailers will setup a story line to promote a more personalized connection with their customers which encourages repeat business, while places of worship also use this narrative strategy to evoke a …

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The Revitalization Of Pump House Park: An Adaptive Reuse Of An Historic Industrial Landmark, Tugman Jacqueline Apr 2012

The Revitalization Of Pump House Park: An Adaptive Reuse Of An Historic Industrial Landmark, Tugman Jacqueline

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the way design facilitates people’s understanding of a place. Hermeneutic theorist Hans Georg Gadamer wrote that we belong to history in the “splendid magic of immediately mirroring the present in the past and the past in the present”. Hermeneutics is the study of how we interpret non-verbal communication. Researching the history of the site on multiple scales guided design decisions that will intuitively shape visitor’s comprehension of Pump House Park’s past, present and future relationship with the city.

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Broad To Marshall Bridge | A City Block Interior That Separates And Connects Place, Emily Smith Apr 2012

Broad To Marshall Bridge | A City Block Interior That Separates And Connects Place, Emily Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This is a project about an old city block. It once housed confectioners, jewelers, restaurateurs, pharmacists, and retailers in street-level parcels with residents in the apartments above. Now, it is home to a barber, a few restaurateurs, and street vendors. Over 200 years of building and development have shaped what is now the north 100 block of E Broad Street and although most of it still stands, it shows the effects of renovations, time, and neglect. This is also a project about paths. As sidewalks move pedestrians along streets they provide paths to retailers, employers, homes, and places to gather …

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Art Center: Individual And Group In The Context Of Galleries And Studios, Melinda Harvey Apr 2012

Art Center: Individual And Group In The Context Of Galleries And Studios, Melinda Harvey

Theses and Dissertations

This is an adaptive reuse thesis project of an old warehouse on the south side of Richmond, Virginia. Through this project, the possibility of designing an art center to occupy the space is explored. This art center houses artist studios, gallery space as well as open studio space for art classes. The design concept establishes a building language and varies that language based on the space and its requirements. The final design also deals with the spaces in between, where one rule set meets another.

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Composing 'An Experience': Experiential Aesthetics In First-Year Writing, Aimee E. Blau Apr 2012

Composing 'An Experience': Experiential Aesthetics In First-Year Writing, Aimee E. Blau

Theses and Dissertations

Students often struggle to understand why the required writing course is important in their academic and non academic life. My project seeks to bring these two parts of students' lives together by urging writing teachers and students to consider a richer concept of the term "composition," one that includes the fundamental work of composing meaningful knowledge by assembling and reflecting on raw experiences. Dewey's term "an experience" clarifies how students constitute knowledge from their experiences, and Burke's methodological concept of form offers students a model for writing that accommodates that Deweyian sort of learning. Building off of these aesthetic …

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Between City Street And River Bed: An Urban Indoor Park, Meredith Salley Apr 2012

Between City Street And River Bed: An Urban Indoor Park, Meredith Salley

Theses and Dissertations

A park is a place of many uses. A place to: walk, sit, reflect, eat, play, gather, people-watch, work, re-energize. A park can be quiet, loud, busy, or slow, sometimes all at once. Parks bring together friends, family, and people who may not otherwise ever interact with each other. Everyone has their own place in a park. This park intertwines open, public space with intimate, private space throughout. The question of how to attain privacy within a potentially very bustling public space is examined in depth and carefully considered throughout this design process.

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Youth Development And Cycling Center: Transforming Space To Create Places For Growth, Exploration And Community., William Poole Apr 2012

Youth Development And Cycling Center: Transforming Space To Create Places For Growth, Exploration And Community., William Poole

Theses and Dissertations

Cycling is a sport of opposites. The mechanisms that comprise a bicycle are beautifully simple and work in perfect harmony to produce a graceful and efficient means of transportation. Additionally, cycling is a rigorous form of full-body exercise that has a relatively low-impact on the body’s bones and joints. Most importantly cycling tears down boundaries, it forces the rider to notice his surroundings and be aware of those around him. Cycling builds community and allows for interactions, both between riders and between rider and place. Juxtaposed against the simplicity and elegance of the bicycle, is the complexity and corruption of …

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Piecing, Ginger Metzger Apr 2012

Piecing, Ginger Metzger

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is part story telling, part exploration of research and part narrative of my experience in graduate school that culminated with my thesis work Piecing. My work explores how memory and history are connected to objects and the role they play in our ability to feel ‘at home’ at a moment when that is challenged in many ways. I extensively explore recent literature on the topic of nostalgia that is described as a reaction to the fragmentation and dislocation of our current moment, nostalgia as mal du siecle.

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Score For The Big Bang: The Universe As Voice, Ander Mikalson Apr 2012

Score For The Big Bang: The Universe As Voice, Ander Mikalson

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is a multimedia document, including a documentary video and audio recordings, that catalogues and unpacks the cross-disciplinary project Score for the Big Bang. On April 13, 2012, thirty-six vocalists sang the sound of the Big Bang in a historic church in downtown Richmond. For this project I worked with an astronomer, composer, choral director and organist to translate the primordial sound into musical notation. This is the universe as voice, through humans, recreating what we have come to understand was present at its birth.

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Between Nothingness And Spectacle, Mayme Donsker Apr 2012

Between Nothingness And Spectacle, Mayme Donsker

Theses and Dissertations

Looking closely at anonymous subjects in found photographs to jog collective memories and point at gestures, bodily traces of complexity, connectedness or just a quiet moment where nothing monumental is really happening; a pause for distance, a pause for discernment, there is no real difference between nothingness and spectacle.

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“The Nonmusical Message Will Endure With It:” The Changing Reputation And Legacy Of John Powell (1882-1963), Karen Adam Apr 2012

“The Nonmusical Message Will Endure With It:” The Changing Reputation And Legacy Of John Powell (1882-1963), Karen Adam

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the changing reputation and legacy of John Powell (1882-1963). Powell was a Virginian-born pianist, composer, and ardent Anglo-Saxon supremacist who created musical propaganda to support racial purity and to define the United States as an exclusively Anglo-Saxon nation. Although he once enjoyed international fame, he has largely disappeared from the public consciousness today. In contrast, the legacies of many of Powell’s musical contemporaries, such as Charles Ives and George Gershwin, have remained vigorous. By examining the ways in which the public has perceived and portrayed Powell both during and after his lifetime, this thesis links Powell’s obscurity …

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Teller Machine, Reid Ramirez Apr 2012

Teller Machine, Reid Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations

This document examines the work in my MFA thesis exhibition. The objects in that installation address specific socio-aesthetic sites of class and power. The personal and cultural narratives examined here further explain the objects’ symbolic potential.

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Dismemory: On History, The Southern Imaginary, And Abusing The Visual Record, Matthew Pendleton Shelton Apr 2012

Dismemory: On History, The Southern Imaginary, And Abusing The Visual Record, Matthew Pendleton Shelton

Theses and Dissertations

Using the literary device of a fictional interview between the artist and a sympathetic intellectual, I explore concepts relating to subjectivity, pedagogy, memory, “Southernness,” whiteness, the deceptive nature of images, social justice, and 20th century art as they relate to a contemporary artistic practice.

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1700 Library: A Public Library In Scott's Addition, Anna Kreyling Apr 2012

1700 Library: A Public Library In Scott's Addition, Anna Kreyling

Theses and Dissertations

Thesis book documents process of creating design schematics for a proposed public library located in Scott's Addition at 1700 Summit Avenue. The final design uses a series of meandering ramps punctuated by bookshelf stacks in order to create a narrative experience. Specificity and simplicity were two main goals for the project.

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The White Album Restaurant, Kalee Hartman Apr 2012

The White Album Restaurant, Kalee Hartman

Theses and Dissertations

The White Album Restaurant occupies the old WRVA Radio Station in Church Hill. The building site provides exclusive views across downtown Richmond. The restaurant's interior design is a response to the obviously attractive exterior views of the site. Through the placement of paneled walls, views of the interior space are choreographed to create an engaging environment from any seat in the restaurant.

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Youth Hostel: Interior Porches Connecting A Home Away From Home And The City Outside, Li-Wen Lin Apr 2012

Youth Hostel: Interior Porches Connecting A Home Away From Home And The City Outside, Li-Wen Lin

Theses and Dissertations

In a centrally located area in the city of Richmond, the youth hostel that I propose provides young people and backpackers a suitable place to stay while enjoying their journey in the historical city of Richmond. The youth hostel offers inexpensive overnight lodging and other amenities they can use for themselves such as self-serve kitchens, laundtry rooms, etc. Something that is worth mentioning, the youth hostel's site is also close by the Richmond Visitor Center. It can offer travelers some travel information or souvenir venue. Furthermore, with the distinguished site, there is another characteristic. That is, the building was built …

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Endure, Jacob Copetillo Apr 2012

Endure, Jacob Copetillo

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is an account of my research on Deconstruction as it relates to family structure and the making of the objects leading to, and consisting of, the work shown in the installation, Endure. The work is a product of my intercessory labor to make sense of the breakage within family structure. Through forced brokenness, domestic imagery, and intercessory reconstruction, I am building a memorial that expresses my concern with deconstruction and hope for reconciliation.

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Bad Infinity (Or) Some Examples Of Displacement, Andrew Meerow Apr 2012

Bad Infinity (Or) Some Examples Of Displacement, Andrew Meerow

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is comprised of an edited interview between Andrew Meerow and an undisclosed questioner in which the two discuss Meerow’s visual thesis, a body of paintings titled “Some Examples of Displacement.” The interview addresses the production of art and value as Meerow's primary subject, a reflexive position that absorbs qualitative interpretation in either direction. In keeping with the intentions of the artwork, the interview is re-organized, censored, and collaged such that the discussion itself is addressed not as a procedure of truth, but as a performative gesture toward that pursuit.

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Life, The Multiverse, And Everything: How Crisis On Infinite Earths Changed Dc Comics, Kate Simonsen Apr 2012

Life, The Multiverse, And Everything: How Crisis On Infinite Earths Changed Dc Comics, Kate Simonsen

Theses and Dissertations

Published from 1985 to 1986, DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths created the expectation that each crossover will result in numerous deaths and alter the structure or history of the DC Universe. Since many of these changes, such as the death of a popular or iconic character, cannot be sustained long term, the success and influence of Crisis on Infinite Earths led to the erosion of the very elements that made it shocking. Entire worlds can be destroyed, but superreaders eventually suspect that no change is ever permanent and, as more iconic characters are revived or rebooted, death is no …

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Thin Time, Jonathan Benjamin Apr 2012

Thin Time, Jonathan Benjamin

Theses and Dissertations

THIN TIME by Jonathan Benjamin, MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012. Major Director: Corin Hewitt, Assistant Professor, Department of Sculpture + Extended Media This thesis is an honest attempt to put language to a non-lingual practice. It describes my studio process, my thoughts on materials and surface, and outlines some of the images and things out in the world that inform my work.

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Blues Trope As A Cultural Intersection In Alice Walker's The Temple Of My Familiar And Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, Julia Leuthardt Apr 2012

Blues Trope As A Cultural Intersection In Alice Walker's The Temple Of My Familiar And Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, Julia Leuthardt

Theses and Dissertations

Though bound historically through hundreds of years, the African-Native American relation has not received much attention by scholars of literature; hence, the emphasis of this thesis is to investigate the literary portrayal of the interethnic relation between African Americans and Native Americans through the blues trope. The blues trope provides an intriguing literary platform for the psychological and physical struggles in finding an identity within such a diverse multiethnic society like the United States. For African American writer Alice Walker and Native American author Sherman Alexie the blues trope is a successful literary device in expressing long lost and rediscovered …

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A Pilgrim, An Outlaw: Features Of Dramatic Adaptation And Theodore Dreiser’S Sister Carrie, Matt Dicintio Apr 2012

A Pilgrim, An Outlaw: Features Of Dramatic Adaptation And Theodore Dreiser’S Sister Carrie, Matt Dicintio

Theses and Dissertations

Although there are countless manuals devoted to playwriting, very few take up the craft of dramatic adaptation in a practical context. My rendering of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is an exploration of fundamental elements that require consideration when adapting for the stage. My approach to the characters’ inarticulateness reveals an inherent theatricality in the novel, which both respects Dreiser’s themes and makes them accessible through the conventions of the stage. I suggest the craft of dramatic adaptation should strike a delicate balance between being a “pilgrim” toward the intentions of the source and an “outlaw” in its innovative theatrical representation …

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Performing Tennessee Williams, Augustine Correro Iii Apr 2012

Performing Tennessee Williams, Augustine Correro Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is dedicated to illustrating the unique challenges of staging works by the playwright Tennessee Williams, and to making suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls in production, performance, and direction of his plays. It uses evidence from the playwright’s various biographical works as well as insight and conjecture from the author’s experience to illuminate these challenges and help the reader to avoid hackneyed or ineffective staging practices. It touches on the effect of film adaptations on stage performances; the typical portrayal of American Southern characters onstage; the aural ramifications of Williams’s poetry to a now-visually-centered audience; stylistic elements …

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Portraits As Relic: A Set Of Nineteenth-Century Tibetan Lineage Paintings Of The Dalai Lamas, Rachel Levy Apr 2012

Portraits As Relic: A Set Of Nineteenth-Century Tibetan Lineage Paintings Of The Dalai Lamas, Rachel Levy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a close iconographic and contextual study of a set of seven Tibetan thangka paintings depicting portraits of the First through the Ninth Dalai Lamas, currently in a private collection and dated to the nineteenth-century. Through this case study, I propose to situate the genre of Dalai Lama portraits within the larger context of Tibetan Buddhist practice by considering their role and function in merit-making activities. I propose that as visual reminders of the Dalai Lamas, these portraits can be considered a type of “relic” that is foundational to devotional practices in Buddhism. Specifically, this thesis will investigate …

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