Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reflections Of Little Red Dot: An Interactive Mixed Reality Archival Experience, Chloé Lee

Theses and Dissertations

It has been nearly a decade since I last visited Singapore, a place I am connected to yet an outsider. Reflections of Little Red Dot is a mixed-reality experience that animates my archive of drawings, videos, and 3D imagery from everyday Singaporeans in 2015, the year their country celebrated its 50th birthday.

Walking through this liminal mixed reality space, we hear how citizens are personally affected by the rapidly developing landscape and erasure of personal and historical sites of significance while reflecting on our collective agency to shape the future of our environments. We are invited into homes where loved …

Linguistic Heritage In Digital Landscape: A Collective Memory Of Indigenous Script, Sumi Limbu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present-day digital world reflects the historical structures of power, as evidenced by the dominant presence of specific languages in online spaces. Globalization, post-colonization, and language preferences on digital platforms also present significant dangers to indigenous languages, resulting in their gradual disappearance in both online and offline settings. The insufficient provision of typographical support and acknowledgment worsens the marginalization of indigenous languages by hindering their inclusion in digital spaces. The script plays a vital role in visual design by effectively delivering information. Language serves as the primary means of communication, which enables knowledge production. This study aims to look into …

Creating Legitimacy: The Dyarchy In Spartan Social Memory, Stephanie J. Dennie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Scholars of the constitutional development of Archaic Sparta and its dyarchy (or dual kingship) have long considered Tyrtaios’ Eunomia contemporary evidence for the mysterious lawgiver Lykourgos, whose alleged reforms have largely been reconstructed from late-Classical and Roman sources. According to orthodox narratives of Lykourgos, seventh-century Sparta enjoyed internal stability and good governance, but Tyrtaios’ seventh-century poem strongly suggests the continued existence of civil strife. Drawing on social memory studies and archaeological survey data, this dissertation questions the Lykourgan grand narrative and explores the capacity of Tyrtaios’ Eunomia to help us recontextualize Sparta’s socio-political development in the seventh century BCE.

I …

Remembering Martyrdom: Delacroix's Massacre Of Chios As A Site Of Collective Memory, Colette Burton

Theses and Dissertations

The Massacre of Chios (1824) by Eugéne Delacroix illustrates the titular genocide from the Greek War of Independence. This genocide was a veritable razing of the entire island by Ottoman Turks in 1822. Today, a replica of Delacroix's painting resides on the island inside the entrance of the Chios Byzantine Museum, located in a converted mosque built on the ruins of a Christian church. This site is a case for the existence of non-Western temporalities, including liturgical and Aegean temporalities, as they pertain to the commemoration of the massacre through interaction with the replica. These temporalities are not causal or …

“I Found It Again. My Home.”: The Role Of Art In The Mediation Of Trauma And Loss In Station Eleven, Emily Zhong

All Theses

This project examines the role of the fictional graphic novel – “Station Eleven” – at the center of HBO’s Station Eleven as a form of trauma mediation. The graphic novel serves as a central, physical object in the show through which the characters Miranda, Kirsten, and Tyler process trauma, find comfort, and connect with others. I trace the creation process of “Station Eleven,” from Miranda’s original doodles as a child to the surviving physical copies in the hands of Kirsten and Tyler, exploring how each character engages with the artwork. Situating my analysis within a theoretical framework of contemporary trauma …

"Azat, Ankakh, Artsakh": Music, Memory, And The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Sasha Linn Arteaga

Music ETDs

In this thesis, I examine a selection of music videos, from those created in 2015 at the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, to those created in response to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, considered by Armenians to be a continuation of the Armenian Genocide. To the Armenian people, Nagorno-Karabakh is part of their ethnic homeland and has maintained a majority-Armenian population and separatist government backed by the Republic of Armenia since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. I apply a music-as-text approach in this thesis, examining these music videos through examination of the visual, musical, and lyrical elements. I then analyze these videos …

Making And Unmaking Collective Memory Through Food: A Case Study Of Windsor, Ontario’S Yugoslav Diaspora, Amanda Skocic

Major Papers

The preparation and consumption of food is not merely a physical act, but a deeply social one, conveying cultural meaning that functions to tie us to our identity and profoundly influence our memory. Drawing upon interviews done with members of Windsor’s Yugoslav diaspora community, this research seeks to explore the ways in which this group has negotiated its collective memory within the host society through the use of food. I identify four central aspects of food’s relation to collective memory within the diaspora. First, the use of food as a means of connection to the homeland, and therefore, to collective …

America's Main Street Misremembered: The Myth Of Route 66, Jessica Corsentino

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Most Americans’ idea of Route 66 is misinformed. The collective memory of the iconic highway was built on the existing problematic image of the American West, shaped by early Route 66 boosters, and perpetuated through popular media and amateur preservationists, all of whom stood to benefit from a selective, marketable version of the highway’s past. The gaps left by these promotional revisions are indicative of problems with the transmission of collective memory on a larger scale, in which elements of history that do not align with the desired image are softened or removed. The sense of continuity and shared identity …

Methods Of Memorialization: Holocaust Commemoration In The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Kylee Bolinger

University Honors Theses

Memorials, both formal and informal, both private and public, have long participated in the pursuit to honor the victims of tragedy, disaster, or genocide. Memorial museums serve both to memorialize victims and to foster an environment conducive to reflection and education about these stories. Such memorial museums have especially made their mark after one of the most notable and devastating genocide events in history: the Holocaust in twentieth-century Europe. This thesis examines how memorialization methods utilized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) make up the American interpretation of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the concept typically applied to how Germans deal …

Instrumentalizing The Past: The Politics Of Holocaust Memory In Contemporary Poland, Jonathan Zisook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigates Poland’s politics of Holocaust memory from the contentious Jedwabne debate in the early 2000s through the present and shows how the history of the Holocaust has been both distorted and exploited in contemporary Polish politics and culture. It pays special attention to the most recent period of Law and Justice Party rule (2015-2020) and considers the varying ways that the government has constructed its approach to the past by asserting a “policy on history” (polityka historyczna) in state-sponsored research, the educational system, legislation, museum narratives, and more. In so doing, this work argues that the …

The Island Remembers : Land Memory, Collective Memory & Trauma In Gloria Naylor’S Mama Day, Justine Prusiensky

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this project is to define the concept of land memory in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day, considering it in relation to scholarship by Jeffrey Andrew Barash, Paula Gallant Eckard, Patricia San José Rico, and others. This exploration of the relationship between land and memory alongside the magical realistic novel, Mama Day, reveals how the island’s memory constructs, preserves, and coveys the past while influencing the present. The island of Willow Springs retains and remembers the events that transpired there in 1823, which tethers the past to the present and exposes a ripple of consequences felt by Naylor’s characters. …

The Grid As Organizing Principle Of Space, Information, Time, And Display, Sam Sherman

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several centuries, the grid has colonized nearly every aspect of human life. This text traces the development of the grid in technology and art, and links the grid’s proliferation to the rise of modern governance. The grid has become the primary tool by which government exerts social control via the production of spectacle. As such, artists have increasingly recognized the grid as a central problematic to confront rather than reiterate. Within this context, I consider two of my videos: Today’s News (2020) and Tiles (2020).

In Need Of A Hero? The Creation And Use Of The Legend Of General George S. Patton, Jr., Nathan Curtis Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During WWII, General George Patton became the hero Americans needed through the creation of a self-crafted brand and with help from journalists. After Patton’s death, opportunists forwarded a legend narrative that developed into a collective memory that morphed over time to meet contemporary challenges. Stakeholders of that collective memory commemorated and memorialized the dead hero for monetary and political gain, to promote patriotism, make military doctrinal changes, and even promote peace. Today, this collective memory has potential for the U.S. Army as it transforms civilians into soldiers and officers. This study contributes to history and memory studies by linking representations …

Race Relations During The 1937 Flood: Confronting Polite Racism, Identity, And Collective Memory In Louisville., Elizabeth J. Standridge

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on race relations during the 1937 in Louisville. The dominant narrative of the 1937 flood in Louisville is that the city united while facing mutual adversity and rebuilding the city. In this story, the waters of the flood washed away any social or racial distinctions, rendering everyone equal during the crisis. Despite this popular narrative, the reality of race relations during the flood was much more complicated. Louisville’s race relations from the nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century have been described by historian George C. Wright as “polite racism.” This complex and unequal relationship between …

“We Will Never Forget:” Developing Collective Memory And Meaning After 9/11, Kylie Harrison

CMC Senior Theses

From the oval office to town halls, from the television screen to the archive, Americans sought to define 9/11 and its role in American national identity and history. This thesis will focus on the ways collective memory regarding 9/11 was established, the role of elites in memory initiatives that ingrained 9/11 in American national identity, and how collective memory can be used as a political or cultural tool to create national unity. Throughout this thesis, I will rely on the theoretical frameworks of collective trauma and collective memory to inform and guide my examination. The framework of collective memory lays …

The Captivity Narratives Of Cynthia Ann Parker : Settler Colonialism, Collective Memory, And Cultural Trauma., Treva Elaine Hodges

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores representations of the captivity narrative of Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo woman captured as a child by Comanche, with whom she lived in a kinship relationship until her forced return to Anglo society twenty-four years later. The project draws upon trauma theory to explain the persistent appeal of Parker’s narrative. Interpretations analyzed include the original historical account of Parker’s narrative, and appearances in the genres of opera, film, graphic novel, and historical fiction. The dissertation reveals how appearances of Parker’s narrative correspond to periods in US history in which social change threated the dominant position of Anglo …

Remaking Of A Modern Islamic Turkey, Ayҫa Korkutan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis engages the work of Reinhart Koselleck and in particular his notion of historical time(s) in an effort to understand how the scholarly and popular historiography with regard to Turkey’s Ottoman past have changed since the foundation of the Republic. Focusing especially on the present representations of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909), a contentious figure who is increasingly recognized to be the face of the Ottoman Empire, it attempts to provide fragments from the newly emerging narrative of history which reimagines contemporary Turkey as a nation in a continuous dialogue with its Islamic past and possible futures.

Remembering Rebellion, Remembering Resistance: Collective Memory, Identity, And The Veterans Of 1869-70 And 1885, Matthew J. Mcrae

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation analyses two of the Canadian state’s earliest military operations through the lens of personal and collective memory: The Red River conflict of 1869-70 and the Northwest Campaign of 1885. Both campaigns were directed by the Canadian state against primarily Métis and First Nations opponents. In each case, resistance to Canadian hegemony was centered on, though not exclusively led by, Métis leader Louis Riel.

This project focuses on the various veteran communities that were created in the aftermath of these two events. On one side, there were the Canadian government soldiers who had served in the campaigns and were …

Since The Time Of Eve : La Leche League And Communities Of Mothers Throughout History., Joanna Paxton Federico

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

La Leche League International (LLL) is the oldest and largest breastfeeding support group in the world. This thesis examines how, beginning in 1956, seven Catholic housewives from suburban Chicago built up the institutional knowledge to sustain a cohesive global network of breastfeeding mothers. It also explores how LLL managed this knowledge over time in response to developments in scholarship and changing social conditions. Based on a narrative analysis of LLL publications, this thesis argues that the League’s founders drew selectively from existing bodies of knowledge and from their own cultural perspectives to establish a sense of community among breastfeeding women. …

Holocaust, Memory, Second-Generation, And Conflict Resolution, Leslie O'Donoghue

Dissertations and Theses

Ten Jewish second-generation men and women from metro Portland, Oregon were interviewed regarding growing up in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The American-born participants ranged in age from fifty-one to sixty-four years of age at the time of the interviews. Though the parents were deceased at the time of this study the working definition of a Holocaust survivor parent included those individuals who had been refugees or interned in a ghetto, labor camp, concentration camp, or extermination camp as a direct result of the Nazi Regime in Europe from 1933 to 1945.

A descriptive phenomenological approach was utilized. Eight open-ended …

Remembering In Spite Of All: The Construction Of Collective Memory Of State Terrorism In Mexico, Argentina, And Chile, Telba Espinoza-Contreras

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the understanding of the formation of collective memory of State violence in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. By comparing these three cases, I pursue to discern how citizens can challenge the silence and amnesia that the groups in power want to impose on society after a period of State terrorism. In order to examine the process of formation of collective memory, this dissertation highlights two important figures from which citizens have been able to build counter-hegemonic narratives, that is, los exiliados and los desaparecidos. I will highlight how they become lenses through which citizens can …

Construcción De La Memoria Colectiva Del Conflicto Armado En Colombia La Toma Y La Retoma Del Palacio De Justicia, Amira García Noguera

Maestría en Filosofía

Este texto hace un acercamiento a la cuestión de la construcción de la memoria en el contexto del conflicto armado en Colombia. Dicho acercamiento está dividido en tres etapas dentro de las que se cuentan, la aproximación al concepto de Memoria Colectiva de M. Halbwachs y la relevancia de dicho concepto para la construcción de una memoria heterogénea del conflicto, y el acercamiento a la creación de los dispositivos. de memoria en nuestro país y del rol que han tenido en la compilación de información relacionada con el conflicto armado, en especial con la Toma y la Retoma del Palacio …

Shakespeare, Orson Welles, And The Hermeneutics Of The Archive, Benjamin Lynn Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines certain theoretical underpinnings of the historical processes by which Shakespeare's history plays became the de facto collective memory of the events they depict, even when those events are misrepresented. The scholarly conversation about this misrepresentation has heretofore centered on Shakespeare's potential political motivations. I argue that this focus on a political, authorial intent has largely ignored the impact these historical distortions have had over the subsequent 400 years. I propose that, due to Shakespeare's unique place in the historical timeline of the development of collective memory, Shakespeare's historical misrepresentation in the history plays is a byproduct of …

Contesting “Obligation”: Memory, Morality, And The (Re)Construction Of Divestment Narratives, Christina Quint

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Leaders in the medical field representing organizations abroad such as the British Medical Association (BMA) and MedAct have called for health care organizations to divest from fossil fuels, on the grounds that it is hypocritical for health care leaders to take the Hippocratic Oath and be implicated in the health impacts for which the burning of fossil fuels is responsible. The emerging discourse highlighting the imperative to divest draws parallels to the health care sector’s leadership in divesting from tobacco in the 1990s on the grounds of its health implications. Even before the current fossil fuel divestment movement and the …

9/11 Memorials : Contested Memory, Competing Narratives, And Healing., Jennifer A. Fraley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I examine the role that monuments and memorials play in our lives including artistically, historically, and culturally. I begin by examining what monuments and memorials are and how these public works should be their own classification of public art. I argue there are many things these works can be (place of mourning, celebration, historical marker, etc.) and should not be (a single source for a historical accounting); yet, memorials do have the necessary condition of creating a referential relationship between the viewer and the memorialized objects. Without this relationship, the work fails as a memorial. Memorials are …

(Re)Writing History In Maryse Condé, Femi Euba, And Reinaldo Arenas, Lázara Bolton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This comparative study asserts the centrality of spirituality to literature that explores life in the African Diaspora. Specifically, it emphasizes the importance of spirituality both to the authors and to the lives of their characters in the novels Victoire, les saveurs et les mots (2006) by the Guadeloupian author Maryse Condé, Camwood at Crossroads (2007) by Nigerian author Femi Euba, and El color del verano (1991) by Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas. A close reading of the three novels shows that they are representative of autohistoría literary works, which represent the spirituality of the writer, as well as the people written …

Poisoned Hope : Mias, Mythmaking, And Trauma In Defeated Nations, Patrick Gallagher

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines a postwar phenomenon that it describes as the secret camp myth. That myth arises from uncertainty about the fates of POWs and MIAs, and its advocates argue that the MIAs must survive in secret captivity after the war. This dissertation examines two historical examples of this phenomenon: West Germany following World War II, and the US after the Vietnam War. These two examples have been examined individually, but have not been compared extensively, and prior historiography has only examined each within the context of German and American histories of those wars. This dissertation argues that both cases …

'The Tourist Soldier': Veterans Remember The American Occupation Of Germany, 1950-1955, Meghan Vance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies of postwar Germany, from 1945-1955, have concentrated on the American influence as a military occupier, the development of German reconstruction and national identity, and memory of this period from the German perspective. Within the memory analyses, firsthand accounts have been analyzed to understand the perspectives of Germans living through the postwar period. Absent from this historiography is an account of American memories and firsthand perspectives of the occupation, particularly during the 1950-1955 period. This thesis employs oral histories of American veterans stationed in postwar Germany, American propaganda and popular cultural mediums during the early 1950s, and modern historiographical trends …

Speculative Archives : An Index, Sameer Farooq

Masters Theses

Building an official archive, a comprehensive depository of cultural memory, is an impossible pursuit.My work centers around the question: what gets lost in the capture ? Responding to this problematic, I create “speculative archives”— setting the practice of archiving against the archive. In doing so, my display systems (including photography, film and writing) reveal countless ruptures, even blind spots, in the smooth surfaces of the archive: the invisibility of the archivist, the challenge of capturing ephemera, the inherent value bias in collecting, and the inexhaustibility of documenting a subject.

Speculating on the archive has consequence for design practice. From the …

Ritualized Rhetoric And Historical Memory In German Foreign And Security Policy, Sara A. Hoff

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Recent changes in German foreign policy behavior have led to questions about Germany's European vocation. At the center of this inquiry is Germany's struggle to resolve the intersection between historical memory and present day international responsibility, especially in cases involving the use of force. This dissertation examines how and when historical memory has influenced, shaped, and informed contemporary German foreign and security policy and rhetoric by examining cases within two policy areas: out of area operations and nuclear nonproliferation. Focusing on the case of Libya, this dissertation also considers the cases of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Nuclear nonproliferation, a global …