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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Rhetoric Of Second Chance: The Invention Of Ethos For An Ex-Offender, Modu Fofana-Kamara Apr 2011

The Rhetoric Of Second Chance: The Invention Of Ethos For An Ex-Offender, Modu Fofana-Kamara

Theses and Dissertations

For many, literacy is reading and writing- a critical tool for ethos construction. But for a marginalized group of ex-offenders, former prison inmates, who were not accustomed to reading and writing as an agent for character invention, the ability to employ literacy and to construct ethos was a challenging and almost unsuccessful attempt. I discuss in this thesis a community-writing project I designed as a graduate student and my partnership with Boaz & Ruth, a local faith-based non-profit organization working with ex-offenders. Through the collaboration I facilitated writing skills workshop, which objective was to have the ex-offenders to write personal …


Signifying Ruins: The Wreck And Rebirth Of Modernity, Language, And Representation, Audrey Farley Apr 2011

Signifying Ruins: The Wreck And Rebirth Of Modernity, Language, And Representation, Audrey Farley

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores formal and thematic representations of ruins in twentieth century literary texts, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, and Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck.” Analyzing these texts and concepts of ruins in the theoretical work of Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and Julia Kristeva, I argue that ruins underscore the arbitrariness—and, thus, the fragility—of symbolic systems of signification. Ruins, by virtue of their fragmentation, invite nostalgic projections of totality only to betray totality as an illusion. Thus, the imagination of wholeness that the ruin incites allows—only to disallow—meaning. Modernity and …


Welcome To The Circus: Finding Ways To Artistically Express The Martial Way, Donzell Lewis Apr 2011

Welcome To The Circus: Finding Ways To Artistically Express The Martial Way, Donzell Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores various artistic and ritual practices of martial arts in relation to its presentation on stage. As a martial artist and actor I believe there are complementary practices in both crafts interdisciplinary of each other. For a martial artist, the individual’s performance and execution of martial arts techniques can be enhanced through emotional availability and characterization. For the actor, the martial arts can help condition the body physically, mentally and emotionally to create a grounded presence of connectivity to the earth. However, sometimes the martial arts are viewed as a militaristic discipline and not as artistic expression. I …


Conrad Wise Chapman And The Mexican Landscape, Marisa Day Apr 2011

Conrad Wise Chapman And The Mexican Landscape, Marisa Day

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on several paintings of the Mexican landscape produced by Conrad Wise Chapman (1842 – 1910) and held by the Valentine Richmond History Center in Richmond, Virginia. Chapman lived in Mexico from 1865 to 1867 and from 1883 to 1908 (with a few short absences), and during this period, produced a large number of landscapes, which are the subject of this thesis and will be considered as an amalgamation of both nineteenth-century Mexican landscape painting and traveler-art. It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that Chapman’s artistic style embodies both classical components of landscape painting and …


Terror, Performance And Post 9/11 Literature, Elise Christine Silva Apr 2011

Terror, Performance And Post 9/11 Literature, Elise Christine Silva

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores 9/11 as a performative act that is re-represented in post 9/11 fiction. Although many scholars have engaged spectacle theory to understand the event, this project asserts that performance theory gives a more dynamic and ethical reading of post 9/11 literatures like Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Don DeLillo's Falling Man. The aforementioned post 9/11 texts showcase narrative performances and also give formal performances for an audience of readers. Theatricality in these texts promotes dialogue and healing through interactive communication.


“That I Should Always Listen To My Body And Love It”: Finding The Mind-Body Connection In Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Slave Texts, Emily Stuart Watkins Apr 2011

“That I Should Always Listen To My Body And Love It”: Finding The Mind-Body Connection In Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Slave Texts, Emily Stuart Watkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the presence of the movement theories of Irmgard Bartenieff, Peggy Hackney, and Rudolf Von Laban in the following texts: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Written by Himself (1845), The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave (1831), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Linda Brent (1861), Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose (1986) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987). The terms and phrases of movement theory will be introduced to the contemporary critical discussion already surrounding the texts, both furthering and challenging existing arguments.


Integration/Interpretation: The Stylistic Motifs Of Mughal Architecture At Fatehpur Sikri, Glenna Barlow Apr 2011

Integration/Interpretation: The Stylistic Motifs Of Mughal Architecture At Fatehpur Sikri, Glenna Barlow

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the ornament of Fatehpur Sikri, imperial city of the Mughal emperor Akbar, was created by and for a transcultural audience as a subtle means of unification. Scholars have largely characterized Fatehpur Sikri as a site that epitomizes the blend of Hindu and Islamic architecture. Inherent in this description is the assumption that these visual elements are distinctly religious and mutually exclusive, identified as solely Hindu or Islamic. Yet the integration of various types of imagery is indicative of more dynamic cultural interactions. I have used photographic documentation to classify and analyze the ornamental elements present in …


Dialogue In The Galleries: Developing A Tour About Contemporary Art For The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts, Elizabeth Reilly-Brown Apr 2011

Dialogue In The Galleries: Developing A Tour About Contemporary Art For The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts, Elizabeth Reilly-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This museum thesis project considers the challenges involved in developing engaging museum tours. The purpose of this project was to develop a fifty-minute, guided gallery tour that uses inquiry-based instruction to engage participants in dialogue and critical thinking about artworks. The tour was designed specifically for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond, Virginia, using artworks selected from the museum’s twenty-first-century art collection that relate to the theme hybridity. This project contributes to the museum studies field by exemplifying how gallery tours can stimulate active learning, encourage visitors to find meaning in artworks, and form their own conclusions …


Kenneth Burke, John Dewey, And The Rhetoric Of Aesthetics, Meridith Reed Apr 2011

Kenneth Burke, John Dewey, And The Rhetoric Of Aesthetics, Meridith Reed

Theses and Dissertations

Kenneth Burke and John Dewey each published books on aesthetics in the 1930s. These texts present parallel conceptions of aesthetics as holding a distinctly rhetorical role in society. My project is to line up these theories, focusing particularly on two key terms in each theory: Burke's eloquence and Dewey's expression. Together, these two terms explain what constitutes an aesthetic experience and explain how an aesthetic experience can open up individuals in a society to a variety of perspectives and identifications. As individuals are allowed to inhabit the experiences of others through their interactions with art, they are poised to …


Gesamtkunstwerk And Other Trifles: Poems, Derk A. Olthof Apr 2011

Gesamtkunstwerk And Other Trifles: Poems, Derk A. Olthof

Theses and Dissertations

In all their various categories, the arts serve as the dominant subject matter of Gesamtkunstwerk and Other Trifles. The title itself begins with a German word-meld—gesamt (total) + kunstwerk (work of art). Thus a primary aim of these poems is to bring as many elements of art together as possible and to use their various forms (self-portraits, nocturnes, odes, etc.) as metaphorical frameworks that inform abstractions such as regret ("How to Draw Regret"), psychological disorders ("Insomnia Nocturnes") and confusion in how one should feel about living realities as opposed to inanimate objects ("Dead Starling"). Most of the poems …


Reviving The Latent Content Of Alchemy In William Shakespeare's Othello, Sarita Clara Rich Apr 2011

Reviving The Latent Content Of Alchemy In William Shakespeare's Othello, Sarita Clara Rich

Theses and Dissertations

While many of Shakespeare's alchemical allusions are noted for their language of positive regeneration and healing, the playwright's departures from these conventional uses of alchemy deserve further attention. This essay presents an examination of inversions in the redemptive alchemical paradigm of Othello, a play whose connections to alchemy are not announced by obvious references to gold making, the philosopher's stone, or other key terms relating to the discourse of the opus that a modern audience is likely to recognize. I argue that in Othello, alchemical allusions are more subtly deployed in the language that describes Othello and Desdemona's …


Between The Camera And The Gun: The Problem Of Epistemic Violence In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Katherine Ann Rich Apr 2011

Between The Camera And The Gun: The Problem Of Epistemic Violence In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Katherine Ann Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 75th anniversary of the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane in 2003, a growing number of journalists and historians writing about the disaster have incorporated Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as part of the official historical record of the hurricane. These writers often border on depicting Their Eyes as the authentic experience of black migrant workers impacted by the hurricane and subsequent flood. Within the novel itself, however, Hurston theorizes on the potential epistemic violence that occurs when a piece of evidence—a photograph, fallen body, or verbal artifact—is used to judge a person. Without a person's …


Cold War Educational Propaganda And Instructional Films, 1945-1965, Claire Hope Apr 2011

Cold War Educational Propaganda And Instructional Films, 1945-1965, Claire Hope

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will examine the response of educators to the use of the American public school system for ideological management during the early Cold War period. Through an assessment of instructional films, this work will show that the objectives of educational propaganda fell into three main categories: to promote Americanism as the national ideology, to deter students from communism or communist sympathy, and to link the potential for nuclear warfare to ideological lassitude. It will be argued that although the majority of educators accepted these goals, as films became increasingly extreme in their presentations, a critical minority revealed discontent with …


Iain Baxter& And N.E. Thing Co.: A Study In Pop-Inflected Conceptual Art, Dennis Durham Apr 2011

Iain Baxter& And N.E. Thing Co.: A Study In Pop-Inflected Conceptual Art, Dennis Durham

Theses and Dissertations

The Canadian artist IAIN BAXTER&, known before 2005 as Iain Baxter, created an innovative Conceptual Art practice in the mid-60s that continues to make important contributions even today. He has maintained a strong collaborative element in his art, as witnessed by his role in the short-lived group IT (1965) and N.E. THING CO. (1966-1978)--an actual incorporated company consisting of BAXTER& and his first wife, Ingrid Baxter as chief officers--and by the addition of an ampersand to his legal name in 2005 to signify the open-ended quality of his work that relies on viewers‘ contributions to help determine its meaning. This …


Signifyin' Black Power: Soul On Ice And The Subversion Of Normative Whiteness, James David Fife Apr 2011

Signifyin' Black Power: Soul On Ice And The Subversion Of Normative Whiteness, James David Fife

Theses and Dissertations

This study emphasizes the methodology of linguistic resistance in Eldridge Cleaver's best-known work, Soul on Ice. Through a process of signification, Cleaver works to redefine key words and concepts that form a web of racialist and racist thinking called normative whiteness. By emptying key terms, like those of "life," "liberty," and "property," Cleaver's text attempts to offer a new, less biased foundation on which a more inclusive and pluralistic American narrative can be written, a move that both makes his rhetoric significantly different from that of many contemporary resistance writers and positions him as an important link in a …


Little Buildings: A Study Of Aedicular Furniture From The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts (1500 - 1900), Sarah Mcilvaine Mar 2011

Little Buildings: A Study Of Aedicular Furniture From The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts (1500 - 1900), Sarah Mcilvaine

Theses and Dissertations

For millennia, furniture design has emulated architecture. In Western design, furniture has taken the structural conventions suggestive of a "little building" or an aedicule. This thesis will present close examination of the development of aedicular design through the ages with a chronological study of exemplary case pieces in the permanent collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.


Day Jaw Boo, A Re-Collection, Rachel Vanwagoner Mar 2011

Day Jaw Boo, A Re-Collection, Rachel Vanwagoner

Theses and Dissertations

For my MFA thesis exhibition, I have collected ideas surrounding events that happened in the past and combined them with the ceramic work I have made in the three years of my master's program at Brigham Young University. I have grouped visual elements from Buck Rogers and other Futro (retro-future) pop-culture with ideas surrounding the Voyager Interstellar Mission and the compiling of the Golden Record. Combining these elements in an installation, will create an environment where people can reflect on things they have "already seen" and envision a brighter future. For that reason I playfully call the show Day Jaw …


"It's What You Do That Defines You": Batman As Moral Philosopher, Vilja Olivia Johnson Mar 2011

"It's What You Do That Defines You": Batman As Moral Philosopher, Vilja Olivia Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

In 2008, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight became the most commercially successful comic book adaptation to date. His film, which highlights the humanity and fallibility of Batman, builds on a long character history while also functioning as an individual work. Nolan's depiction of Batman, which follows a long progression towards postmodernism in graphic novel versions of the character, is just one of multiple filmic superhero representations in recent years to depict a darker side of the "superhero" mythos. These films highlight the humanity and fallibility of these heroic figures and place their actions under scrutiny. In Nolan's two Batman films, …


A New Policy In Church School Work: The Founding Of The Lds Supplementary Religious Education Movement, 1890-1930, Brett David Dowdle Mar 2011

A New Policy In Church School Work: The Founding Of The Lds Supplementary Religious Education Movement, 1890-1930, Brett David Dowdle

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is a study of the founding years of the Mormon supplementary religious education between 1890 and 1930. It examines Mormonism's shift away from private denominational education towards a system of supplementary religious education programs at the elementary, high school, and college levels. Further, this study examines the role that supplementary religious education played in the changes between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. During the 1870s and 1880s, Utah's territorial schools became an important part of the battles over polygamy and the control of Utah. As the Federal Government began to wrest control of the schools from …


From Obsurity To Fame And Back Again: The Caecilii Metelli In The Roman Republic, Dustin Wade Simmons Mar 2011

From Obsurity To Fame And Back Again: The Caecilii Metelli In The Roman Republic, Dustin Wade Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

The house of the Caecilii Metelli was one of ancient Rome's most prestigious yet overshadowed plebeian families. Replete with dynamic orators, successful generals, and charismatic women, the Caecilii Metelli lived during the period of Rome's great expansion. Having participated in its transformation into the principal power in the Mediterranean, they survived until the fall of the Republic. By contemporary Roman standards they were a powerful and respected family. Seventeen consulships, nine triumphs, nine members of priestly colleges—including three who became pontifex maximus—and five censors are evidence of their high position in Rome. The trappings of magisterial office and military …


The "Crafting" Of Austen: Handicraft, Arts And Crafts, And The Reception Of Austen During The Victorian Period, Natalie Quinn Mar 2011

The "Crafting" Of Austen: Handicraft, Arts And Crafts, And The Reception Of Austen During The Victorian Period, Natalie Quinn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the significant but often overlooked relationship between Jane Austen's works and the body of criticism about them and the two major craft movements of the nineteenth century: the Handicraft Movement and the Arts and Crafts Movement. The connections occur at two important moments during that century—first, at the moment of Austen's career during the Regency/Romantic period, and second, at the Victorian moment of the years surrounding the 1869 publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir about Austen. In both of these moments, critics and reviewers repeatedly respond to Austen's life and works by using craft-related diction. This diction …


The Functions Of Guilt And Shame In Juan José Millás' El Mundo And My Olive-Green Fridge And I: The Posthuman Identity In El Púgil, Constantin Cristian Icleanu Mar 2011

The Functions Of Guilt And Shame In Juan José Millás' El Mundo And My Olive-Green Fridge And I: The Posthuman Identity In El Púgil, Constantin Cristian Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations

In his celebrated 2007 novel El mundo, Juan José Millás tells the story of the development of Juanjo, a simulacrum of himself, and describes a series of negative developments that the protagonist faces in his childhood. While much has been written about Millás and the “testimonial realism” of his literary generation, little has been written about the psychological factors that influence his characters. In this paper I analyze Juanjo's development as understood from the gradation of guilt to shame, depression, and later suicidal thoughts. Because Juanjo is not able to find an appropriate mechanism of release for his guilt, …


"A Considered Conversion": The Conscious Choice To Accept Christianity By The Populace Of Iceland And Greenland In The Era Of Scandinavian Conversion, Robert A. Burt Mar 2011

"A Considered Conversion": The Conscious Choice To Accept Christianity By The Populace Of Iceland And Greenland In The Era Of Scandinavian Conversion, Robert A. Burt

Theses and Dissertations

A Considered Conversion: The Conscious Choice to Accept Christianity by the Populace of Iceland and Greenland in the Era of Scandinavian Conversion Robert A. Burt Department of History, BYU Master of Arts Most studies of the Christianization of Scandinavia attribute the phenomenon to the influence of powerful kings. However, many times the conversion experiences of Iceland and Greenland are either ignored, or tied to the influence of these distant kings. This thesis unites sociological ideas relating to conversion along social and familial lines, ideas introduced by Roger Stark and Rodney Finke, with historical details of Icelandic and Greenland family genealogies …


Maurice Scève, Lyonnais: Identité Régionale, Topographie Urbaine Et Lyrisme Dans La Délie, Elise Agathe Alice Danguy Mar 2011

Maurice Scève, Lyonnais: Identité Régionale, Topographie Urbaine Et Lyrisme Dans La Délie, Elise Agathe Alice Danguy

Theses and Dissertations

Ce document est une méta-narration de l‘article « Maurice Scève, Lyonnais: Identité régionale, topographie urbaine et lyrisme dans la Délie » écrit par Professeur Robert J. Hudson et moi-même, et que nous espérons voir publier d‘ici peu. Il contient une bibliographie annotée de toutes les sources primaires et secondaires consultées, d‘un compte rendu du processus d‘écriture de l‘article ainsi que l‘analyse de plusieurs dizains nécessaires pour soutenir l‘argument principal de l‘article. Notre article traite la façon dont Maurice Scève, un poète lyonnais du 16e siècle, utilise la topographie lyonnaise afin de se définir comme Lyon mais aussi comme auteur …


The Gaps We Choose To Fill And How We Choose To Fill Them: Readers' Creation Of Turkish German Identity In Texts By Zehra Çirak, Whitney Roberts Ehle Mar 2011

The Gaps We Choose To Fill And How We Choose To Fill Them: Readers' Creation Of Turkish German Identity In Texts By Zehra Çirak, Whitney Roberts Ehle

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores why readers insist on interpreting Zehra Çirak's texts in light of her Turkish German background when she claims that her texts have little to do with her Turkish heritage and are more universally applicable. While readers can interpret her texts without considering the author's biography, thereby obtaining insights into their own personal identity, I suggest that it also makes sense for readers to interpret her texts with the author's biography in mind because of current events and the history of Turkish migrant labor in Germany. To explore different possible interpretations of her texts, I have categorized Çirak's …


The Hapsburg And The Heretics: An Examination Of Charles V'S Failure To Act Militarily Against The Protestant Threat (1519-1556), Christian R. Kemp Mar 2011

The Hapsburg And The Heretics: An Examination Of Charles V'S Failure To Act Militarily Against The Protestant Threat (1519-1556), Christian R. Kemp

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Charles V's inability to take decisive military action against the Protestant threat in Germany before 1546. It treats modern historiography on Charles V in Germany. The thesis offers a new theory concerning religious motivation for the delay. Charles was a man of deep and devoted faith in the Catholic Church and consequently, was unable to accept the possibility that any individual would doubt or abandon that persuasion without calculated intention or gross error. Charles was influenced by the Humanistic cries for reform in his age. As a result, Charles, a strong advocate for reform, declined military action …


The Political, Social, Historical, And Literary Significance Of The Writings Of Carolina Maria De Jesus, Kristin Alexis Brown Mar 2011

The Political, Social, Historical, And Literary Significance Of The Writings Of Carolina Maria De Jesus, Kristin Alexis Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The writings of Carolina Maria de Jesus, specifically Quarto de despejo, Casa de alvenaria, Diario de Bitita, and poetry selections from her collection Minha antologia are oft times excluded from "canonical" literature. Many critics both in the press and in academic circles refuse to recognize her writings and story as works of merit, focusing primarily on surface issues without addressing the content of her works. The reason for this is complex, spanning the issues of race, education, socio-economic status, and gender. Contrary to the arguments of many critics over the past sixty years, Carolina's writings are valuable …


The War Without A Name: The Use Of Propaganda In The Decolonization War Of Algeria, Benjamin J. Sparks Mar 2011

The War Without A Name: The Use Of Propaganda In The Decolonization War Of Algeria, Benjamin J. Sparks

Theses and Dissertations

The Algerian war for independence, 1954-1962, also known as the War Without a Name due to its lack of recognition as a war by the French government, remains an indelible scar on the face of France. The Algerian war represents one of the most critical moments in modern French history since the French Revolution (Le Sueur 256), putting into question the motto of the French republic, "liberté, égalité, fraternité". This thesis will show that although the French won the war militarily they lost the war of ideas, that of propaganda and persuasion. Thus, this thesis will demonstrate that propaganda by …


Sacred Union And Sacred Violence In Tournier's Gilles Et Jeanne, David Doyle Drake Mar 2011

Sacred Union And Sacred Violence In Tournier's Gilles Et Jeanne, David Doyle Drake

Theses and Dissertations

Written in 1983, the novella Gilles et Jeanne seems to be one of Michel Tournier's simpler works at first glance. Yet, for all of its simplicity, Tournier does not repress his desire to lace the tale with metaphoric and metaphysical symbolism. It is through a symbolic marriage on the battlefield that Tournier links the two characters in a sort of mystical union. All of the crimes following this ritual that precipitated Gilles descent into depravity were in fact an attempt to reunite with the departed spirit of his "spouse", either by mimetically recreating the circumstances of her death, or by …


Letting Go And The Silence That Remains: The Effects Of Translating Point-Of-View From Text To Film In The Remains Of The Day And Never Let Me Go, Jennifer L. Price Mar 2011

Letting Go And The Silence That Remains: The Effects Of Translating Point-Of-View From Text To Film In The Remains Of The Day And Never Let Me Go, Jennifer L. Price

Theses and Dissertations

Kazuo Ishiguro's novels The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go exhibit many of the same characteristics as his other works. Out of all of those works, however, only these two novels have been adapted to film as of yet. Because of Ishiguro's reliance on first-person narration and point-of-view his novels are particularly more problematic to adapt to screen. This phenomenon is partially due to the audio-visually dependent medium of film and the camera lens' limitations when it comes to exhibiting character interiority. Therefore, the effect of the translation to screen for both of these films is a …