Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Humanistic View Of Satan: The Role Of Satan In Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot, Yohance Myles

LSU Master's Theses

The role of Satan, in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, was selected as the topic of this thesis in acting to be submitted to the Graduate School of Louisiana State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater. The thesis includes an introduction; discussions of acting methods: the Art of Being, logical thinking, rhythmic sounds, the rehearsal process, journal notes, photos, research, and a conclusion. It details my role/character from a theatrical and humanistic point of view. I will highlight points that will reveal my daily discoveries of this …

Yours, Mine, & Ours, Mallory Lynn Feltz

LSU Master's Theses

Yours, Mine, & Ours utilizes found object assemblage, textiles, art multiples, and installation to present the theme of discovering personal identity through collecting, ownership, affiliations, cultural context, and transformation. This work presents to viewers a tactile experience to be investigated, touched, and transferred to their own lives. Centered on domesticity, the familiar and ordinary becomes transformed through labor-intensive processes into unique and personal works of art. Viewer participation, in all aspects of the making process, emphasizes the universal human experience of searching for comprehension of our culture. Each artwork is a metaphor for this search and how we are constantly …

Playing With A Different Sex: Academic Writing On Women In Rock And Pop, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock in pop should provide an overview of most of the scholarly literature on the topic and reflects my personal interest in methodology. When I returned to graduate school in the late 1990s to study American studies and popular culture, I discovered that academe had changed considerably from my undergraduate days when I studied history of art. Although traditional academic disciplines continue, I found that in the humanities and social sciences, there were no longer neat categories for disciplines and disciplines no longer were isolated from each other.

The topic of …

Markets Rising, Philip Bastian

LSU Master's Theses

Markets Rising is a thesis that incorporates video and the Internet to communicate with viewers, engage them, and inform them of the socially relevant topic of the 2007+ economic crisis. I intend to visually interpret the crisis in an artistic and accurate manner.

Didacticism And Reconciliation: Instructive Discourse In The Novels Of Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Christopher M. Ray

LSU Master's Theses

Ignacio Manuel Altamirano’s novelística is of insurmountable importance for any study of the development of Nineteenth century Mexican literary culture and the Mexican liberal national narrative. Nevertheless, the ample criticism which treats Altamirano’s novels has to date failed to grasp anything more than a tenuous unity latent in those works. This investigation provides a new framework for a unified interpretation of Altamirano’s three most widely read and commented novels, Clemencia, La navidad en las montañas, and El Zarco. By way of an examination of historiographic-political narratives contemporaneous with the period informing the writing of those novels, in conjunction with an …

Recollections Of Paradise Lost, Japheth Alan Storlie

LSU Master's Theses

Recollections of Paradise Lost is both a memoir and a fictitious account. While the images in this series are based on actual people and events from my childhood, they are nonetheless implied narratives. Through the employment of universal symbols of childhood nostalgia such as tricycles, tire swings, toys, etc., these photographs are intended to implore the viewer to make connections with their own pasts. These narratives are meant to captivate and enchant and at the same time, disturb and haunt. Ultimately, the objective is for the audience to reconsider and re-experience the joys, fears, losses and traumas associated with childhood …

The Direction We Grow, Reid Willis

LSU Master's Theses

The Direction We Grow is a composition for orchestra, solo soprano, and choir. It is a summation of the compositional knowledge I’ve accumulated throughout my undergraduate and graduate programs at LSU. The piece reflects my compositional style, which is characterized by rich melody and complex rhythm. With sweeping melodic motives, climactic builds, and percussive coloration, the piece incorporates characteristics of the Classical, Romantic, and Impressionistic musical periods. The piece is palindromic in structure. It builds upon a simple, celestial one-note motive and introduces new melodic patterns until it finally morphs into a steady, percussive section. The section builds to a …

Building Codes: Mapping Technology And Tradition, James David West

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the crossroads between printmaking and digital technology as our culture shifts towards a more digital media focused existence. As technology shifts art-making more and more away from the analog creation process towards a more digitally mediated one, printmaking’s history stands out among other traditional mediums as well suited to embrace the transition whole-heartedly. By using the analogies of the matrix, the map, and the building, this body of work creates a bridge from the historical and time-tested approaches of printmaking towards the future of the art form; a chimera of technology and tradition.

Heidegger, Aletheia, And Assertions, Erin M. Kraus

LSU Master's Theses

This essay is interested in Heidegger’s radical reconception of truth as disclosure and how this reconception relates to truth as it operates in assertions. This concept of truth derives from his interpretation of the ancient Greek work for truth, aletheia, which means unhiddeness or disclosure. Heidegger appropriates this notion of truth to criticize post ancient Greek philosophy, which advocated the correspondence theory of truth. This theory contends that the locus of truth lies in an assertion’s correspondence with states of affairs or facts in the world. In contrast, Heidegger contends that, although correspondence is a way of accessing truth, it …

The Role Of Nina In Diana Son's Satellites: A Production Thesis In Acting, Jessica Wu

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis explores the role of Nina in Swine Palace’s 2009 production of Diana Son’s Satellites. The play investigates themes dealing with interracial relationships, major life transitions, and parenthood. Included in this study are a character autobiography written from the actor’s interpretation of the role, the actor’s journal, and a detailed account of the in rehearsal and performance process. In addition, this study includes production photos, reviews, a working copy of the script scored for subtext/inner life, objectives, and tactics, and an interview with the playwright.

Reflections On Pleasure: The Fourteenth-Century Alhambra, Amanda Sharon Foret

LSU Master's Theses

The Nasrids were the last Islamic power on the Iberian Peninsula. They created a place of luxury and wealth in their hilltop fortress, the Alhambra, which is one of the best-preserved examples of medieval Islamic palace architecture. It was transformed in the thirteenth century into a palace-city and during most of its early history housed the most important figure in an Islamic society, the sultan. The Alhambra displays bare, natural elements on the exterior, while the interior mimics and references these natural elements in a grander fashion with gardens, fountains, beautiful vistas, sculpted porticos and lavish rooms. These interior spaces …

Les Mains Désenlaceuses: Unlocking The Relationship Of Text And Music In The Proses Lyriques, Sacha Alexandra Grace Peiser

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines Claude Debussy’s Proses Lyriques, a set of four chansons published in 1895. These songs were composed during a pivotal time in the composer’s life—concurrent with Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the String Quartet, and the commencement of work on Pelléas et Mélisande. Also noteworthy is that out of a complete output of over 90 songs, these are the only published works with both text and music by the composer. Because of this unique property, the Proses Lyriques allows researchers, analysts, and performers to gain valuable insight into Debussy’s intertwining of music and text. This thesis utilizes various …

Towards Pragmatic Competence In Communicative Teaching: The Question Of Experience Vs. Instruction In The L2 Classroom, Sarah J. Vitale

LSU Master's Theses

Traditionally, pragmatic aspects of the Spanish language are overlooked in the communicative classroom. Pragmatic competence is important because it may ultimately determine whether a successful communicative interaction takes place. Successful communication in language learning must not only address linguistic forms but also acknowledge language as a reflection of the socio-cultural norms of the L2 community. The research questions of this thesis explore the aspects of experience and instruction and their degree of influence as they relate to the development of pragmatic competence. This thesis reports on the results of a pedagogically-based, empirical study in which the researcher investigated the extent …

The Role Of Fabiana Aziza Cunningham In Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot: A Production Thesis In Acting, Leigh-Erin Balmer

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis will follow the experience of Leigh-Erin Balmer in creating the role of Fabiana Aziza Cunningham, a character written by Stephen Adly Guirgis in his play, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. The role of Cunningham is the topic of this production thesis in acting, which will be submitted to the Graduate School of Louisiana State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre. The thesis contains an introduction; textual analysis and research (regarding author and original production history as well as other text materials); a character study, including …

Jewish Identity On The Stage: The Roles Of Saint Matthew And Caiaphas The Elder In Stephen Adly Guirsis's' The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot, Andrew Paul Fafoutakis

LSU Master's Theses

The roles of Saint Matthew and Caiaphas the Elder in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot were performed in the fall of 2008 and elected as a thesis role at the time. This thesis is a written record of the actor’s research and development of the characters. This thesis includes background information on the production, historical research on the characters, character analyses, reflections on performance issues and the rehearsal process, and production photos.

City As Prison: Negotiating Identity In The Urban Space In The Nineteenth-Century Novel, Anita Michelle Dubroc

LSU Master's Theses

The primary goal of this thesis is to examine how the city is read in the works of four nineteenth-century authors: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1860), Honoré de Balzac’s Le Père Goriot (1834), Fernán Caballero’s La Gaviota (1849), and Madame de Staël’s Corinne ou l’Italie (1807). They show the city not just as a setting, but as a character. At times, nineteenth-century urban life becomes so overwhelming to urban newcomers, that the geographical space and its society imprison residents. The nineteenth-century city was marked by change: industrialization, population shift from rural areas to urban capitals, and changes in political regime. …

The Spontaneous Generation Of Excess And Its Capitalist Capture, Ryanson Alessandro Ku

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis evaluates the economic and Marxist claims on excess. As its official science, economics takes the capitalist economy as a given and explains excess as savings on costs resulting from the strategic planning of capitalist agents, whose point of view, in studying economic phenomena, economics takes. Marx, in a historicist move, argues that capitalism is but one political economy among many, where the facts assumed by economics, such as savings, are, far from given, attributable to a particular systemic formation (a political event) of social relations and materials into an economy. This systemic social formation that comes to be …

The Role Of Judas Iscariot In Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot: A Production Thesis In Acting And The Actor Director Relationship, Scott Matthew Woltz

LSU Master's Theses

Directing The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and playing the title role was chosen as the basis for a thesis project in the fall semester of 2008 to be presented to the Graduate School of Louisiana State University in partial fulfillment of the graduate requirement for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre. The thesis will contain an introduction, a text analysis, a director’s concept, a chapter on the rehearsal process (to include a physical score and a tactical score), a chapter on performance, and a conclusion. The purpose of this thesis is to explore both an actor’s interpretation …

Concert Recording 2009-12-01, Patrick Sallings, Jerilyn Renfroe, Barbara Smith, Becky Whitely, Juliana Sallings, Peggy Sallings, Jessica Warr, Sherry Sallings, Jan Sallings, Max Sallings, Patrick George, Pam Olsen, Mike Sorenson, Johnathan Paape, Joseph Ralston, Zack Plumlee, Jeff Chipman, Justin Dollman, Trent Rhodes

Concert Recordings & Programs

La catedral / Agustin Barrios Mangore -- O come o come Emmanuel / Traditional ; arr. by Patrick Sallings -- Good Christian men rejoice / Traditional ; arr. by Patrick Sallings -- Suite no. 1 for solo cello / Johann Sebastian Bach ; arr. by John Duarte -- Barcarolle / Emilio Pujol -- So nice / Valle ; Valle ; Gimbel -- Scherzino Maya / Manuel Ponce -- I'll remember April / Gene de Paul -- All the things you are / Kern & Hammerstein -- Theme from Monk / Jeff Beal -- Limehouse blues / Philip Braham -- Honeysuckle …

Sulpicius Severus And Martin Of Tours: Defending A Mentor, Securing A Saint, Matthew Ryan Reed

LSU Master's Theses

Martin of Tours has become one of the most famous saints of Western Christendom, yet his life was shrouded in controversy. Martin’s initial fame in Aquitaine came from the circulation of Sulpicius Severus’ writings in the early fifth century. A pupil of the holy man and lawyer from Aquitaine, Severus used his pen to protect Martin’s sanctity from attacks by critics such as Ithacius and other members of the clergy. This thesis will use the three works of Severus, the Vita Martini, Chronicorum, and Dialogus to argue that Severus used a rhetorical strategy throughout his Martinian writings to secure Martin’s …

High School Students' Attitudes Toward Single-Sex Choir Versus Mixed Choir, Jenna Leigh Jackson

LSU Master's Theses

Participants in this project included high school choral students (N = 54) from central Mississippi and their directors (N = 3). Participants were enrolled both in a mixed choir and either an all boy or all girl choir. A survey was constructed by the researcher to determine the attitudes of the participants toward singing and participation in choir. The 32 survey statements fell into one of four categories: perception of self as singer, attitude about gender in choir, others’ perception of self in choir, and attitude toward choir. In addition, participants were asked to provide demographic data about their gender, …

My Journey: Eight Thousand Miles Of Clouds And Moon, Frances D. Hu

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis explains the thoughts behind the body of art work that the artist produced for the MFA program. These three large paintings (72"x40") will lead viewers through a seventy-year-old woman's personal journey from the East to the West. The paintings display compositions in a bio-epic representation of traditional oil on canvas. The thesis not only expresses the artist's thoughts through formal means, but also the manner by which the emotions evolved.

Catholic Missionaries In Africa: The White Fathers In The Belgian Congo 1950-1955, Kathryn Rountree

LSU Master's Theses

Catholic missionaries played an important role in the colonial scramble in Africa and the subsequent years. They served as educators and medical support for the state in many cases. The state relied on missionaries to staff schools, educate the population, and aid in the civilization of the Africans. In the Belgian Congo, Catholic missionaries - specifically the Society of Missionaries of Africa or White Fathers - played an especially important role as agents of evangelization and European civilization. The Belgian state relied heavily (and provided subsidies) on missionaries to educate the native people. Through education and medical help, missionaries fostered …

Sociolinguistic Characteristics Of The Latino Population In The Baton Rouge Metro Area, Dally Campos Molina

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines sociolinguistic characteristics of the Latino population in the Baton Rouge metro area and has a manifold purpose. The main purpose of the study is to determine whether Latinos consider that the way they speak their native language –Spanish– has changed as a consequence of their living in Baton Rouge, i.e., the United States. A questionnaire was applied to 106 Latinos in Baton Rouge, 58 male and 48 female, between the ages of 18 and 71 years old, from several socioeconomic backgrounds (white collar workers, blue collar workers, etc.). They represent 14 Latin American countries. I tested a …

The Context And Function Of Four Exceptions To Effigial Wall Tomb Patronage In Quattrocento Florence, Katy Gail Richardson

LSU Master's Theses

Entitlement to burial in a wall tomb with sculpted effigy, the Florentine tomb-type above all others in honor and prestige, belonged solely to members of the ecclesiastical elite throughout the Trecento and into the Quattrocento, but that changed in the mid-1440s with the inclusion of the most illustrious laymen among those memorialized by this type of monument. This modification of patronage, however, does not signify a major reform that allowed unmitigated access to the tomb-type for all laymen of high repute. On the contrary, eighteen of the twenty-two known effigial wall tombs erected in Florence in the fourteenth and fifteenth …

A Catalogue Of British Old Master Paintings In The Collection Of The Louisiana State University Museum Of Art, Quincy Lee

LSU Master's Theses

The Louisiana State University Museum of Art owns a collection of British paintings that highlight the popular styles of portrait painting from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. This British collection includes examples of Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and neoclassical portraiture along with typical British Romantic landscape paintings, a tradition following earlier Dutch landscape examples. The collection includes works by such internationally known artists as William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, John Michael Wright, John Hoppner, Sir William Beechey, Patrick Nasmyth, Sir Nathaniel Dance, Sir Henry Raeburn, William Westall, and Peter Monamy. Many of these artists are represented in such …

Ficta As Mentalia: Surveying Theories Of Fiction In Search Of Plausible Ontology, Joseph John Dartez

LSU Master's Theses

In the philosophy of fiction, there is a major debate between those who hold realist theories (theories which incur the existence of entities independent of human cognition) and those who hold anti-realist theories (theories which incur the existence of no independent entities). With this debate in mind, the primary goal of this essay is to construct a mentalist theory of fictional entities and worlds. Besides the mentalism constructed herein, three other theories are outlined and held to the same explanatory standards as the focal theory: two augmentations of modal realism (Lewis’ concrete realism and van Inwagen’s abstract realism), and a …

Making History In The Bedroom: Americo-Liberians And Indigenous Liberians Sexual Unions, 1880s- C. 1950s, William E. Allen

Faculty Articles

The article discusses sexual unions between black American settlers and majority indigenes in Liberia. According to the author, these unions forged political alliances between indigenous Liberians and Americo-Liberians, furthered the so-called civilizing mission of the colony, and created space for social mobility. Details related to the different groups living in the region, including indigenous Africans, recaptives who had been taken off illegal slaving vessels and resettled in Liberia, and free and formerly enslaved blacks from the U.S., are presented. Other topics include Christianity, polygamy, and illegitimate children.

Gendered "Relations" In Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1719-1742, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The two autobiographical narratives- so similar in content, structure, and physical appearance-raise intriguing questions regarding the degree to which Puritan gender norms shaped the religious experiences of laymen and laywomen in early New England. Historians remain divided in their analyses of this issue. Two decades ago Charles Cohen posited a spiritual equality in Reformed theology that rendered "androgynous" the language that laymen and laywomen deployed in the oral church admission testimonies recorded by Cambridge, Massachusetts, minister Thomas Shepard during the seventeenth century. Elizabeth Reis recently challenged Cohen's argument by highlighting the "subtle but significant ways" in which women internalized Puritan …

Latin Rhapsody For Clarinet And Orchestra And Magical Realism In Alejandro Cardona's String Quartet No. 4, Alejandro José Arguello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is in two parts. The first one is an original composition, Latin Rhapsody for Clarinet and Orchestra. The second is a musical analysis, Magical Realism in Alejandro Cardona’s String Quartet No. 4. Latin Rhapsody for Clarinet and Orchestra uses Costa Rican ideas combined with classical contemporary sonorities, such as clusters and small pitch-class sets. The first movement, Tambito, is based on a Latin American dance rhythm in six-eight meter. The name of this dance is particular to Costa Rica, but it is a widely used rhythmic pattern used in other Latin American countries under other names. This movement …