Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Unbound, Changrui He

Masters Theses

For many years, I have been repeatedly trying to understand what the term “trauma” means to me. While invisible, my trauma is ever-present, and I have not been able to understand how it has trapped me and my inner feelings. At the same time, more recently I don’t feel helpless or abandoned. I have been trying to tap the potential of connecting with the world outside, thereby piecing together the broken bits and pieces and reconciling with my family, past sorrows and myself.

In my thesis collection, I pay homage to a garden I often visited as a child. The …

Strata : Lessons In Latency, Mukul Chakravarthi

Masters Theses

Every visual artifact, from a street sign to advertising commercials, is an event of culture, a cross-section of time. Crucial to my work as a designer is to build an interpretive understanding of these images as more than surface, more than banal. Embedded in their construction are dense, unseen contextual latencies— social, economic, and political forces — that combine to define a cultural moment.

This thesis offers a series of lessons in making visible visual infrastructure. It emphasizes design’s semiotic potential to examine and leverage a view on what these visual signs represent as ideological constructions. Through a conscious un-layering …

Binge [Fantasy Reality], Elena Foraker

Masters Theses

[My appreciation for mainstream pop culture is genuine, but I am not a passive consumer.]

[Drawing from embodied experience and contemporary feminist theory, I design as a participant, cultural surveyor, and critic.]

[From these vantage points, I binge-watch to discern the tropes of media such as reality TV romance and dead girl shows.]

[My data bingeing leads to a process of archiving, de/recoding, and making visible the algorithm structuring pop culture.]

[“Fantasy” is derived from the Greek phantazein, meaning “to make visible.”]

[In this thesis, I demonstrate that the reality-fantasy relationship is not an either/or.]

[Reality TV challenges this notion …

Re: Ornament, Aleks Dawson

Masters Theses

Re:Ornament calls for a rethinking of ornament within the history and practice of design, urging a broad reconsideration of ornament’s value and a complete reimagining of ornament’s future potential. Charting the arc of ornament in the Western tradition, this thesis reexamines the impact of modernism’s rejection of ornament—and, with it, its embedded culture, history, knowledge and craft.

Studying ornament’s structure as a language, I make the case for ornament’s inherent beauty and excess and speculate on how ornament could apply to thinking and making beyond design. Through graphic form, material exploration and pattern thinking, I …

Ethnographemes, Vaishnavi Mahendran

Masters Theses

Spoken and written languages are living processes. As with our own natural systems, they are born, evolve in stages, yet also face the eventuality of death. Current research indicates that there are 7,111 spoken languages in the world. UNESCO lists a total of 577 languages as critically endangered.

This thesis examines the role of graphic design and its potential contribution to the preservation of endangered languages and writing systems of indigenous communities. My interest lies in exploring possibilities of the script serving as a vessel to share and celebrate deeper stories of each of these communities’ heritage.

Through my practice, …

Something To See Here, Weixi Zeng

Masters Theses

“Nothing to see here” is a suspicious phrase.

Whenever we hear it, we pause and become alerted. Something is most likely indeed happening, and worth noting — mishaps ranging from either an embarrassing coffee spill, unfair abuses of privacy, or insidious early signs of a pandemic.

Historically, states and national entities have always valued the power of information to allow them to see more, and see better — all the while obstructing the path to clarity for ordinary citizens. Systems and infrastructure have become expressions of authority, rife with distortion and deception. Familiar systems are commandeered to surveil us, yet …

Bluenessless, Yuxin Long

Masters Theses

Jewelry has a long history of functioning as wearable objects with memories. A small piece of jewelry on our body can become the bridge between one person and another.

My work is a memorial for the avifauna. It serves as a place that allows me to find the balance between myself and nature. The ritualized actions from the making process help me mourn for the loss of the kingfishers, who are hunted for the bright blue feathers used in traditional jewelry. Sometimes, people put a photograph in their jewelry to keep the memory of the one they love. I use …

Sol, John Beck

Masters Theses

Sol. Spirituality for the digital age. A move towards a more cosmic future. A hopeful call to arms for a more inclusive, liberated culture where the impermanence of life can wash over us in a wave of ambient sonic splendor. Using solar energy to create shifting ambient soundscape Sol is an immersive, interactive civic space for all lifeforms of all persuasions. A reintrepretation of the Shinto shrine for the digital age. An alliance between codified physical computing, emerging interactive technology and the ancient spiritual traditions of the East. Non denominational, non religious wholly universal. Where all beings can remember their …

Ocean State Food Stories, Charlotte Clement

Masters Theses

Many Rhode Islanders lack access to local food system education. They struggle to connect with local food outlets as well as understand why supporting a resilient local food community matters. Local food producers face great challenges within the system such as finding stable ways to produce, distribute, and sell their merchandise. In addition, the RI government’s agricultural marketing efforts are not innovative and local food-centric nonprofits are swamped with work resulting in the outsourcing of creative marketing jobs that have yielded questionable results. In order to engage with a wider audience, both the government and the non-profit sector need to …

Repairer's Recipe : Volume 0, Joyce Chang

Masters Theses

Why?

Technology is accelerating; so is the amount of e-waste. Proliferating new purchases is a shortcut to economic gain, yet proliferation sacrifices social and ecological well being. Activating repair benefits systems— by decelerating the waste stream, and serving as a regenerative module for ethical material collection. Repair literacy encourages an individual’s engagement with materials while challenging corporations to acknowledge repair in the design process. Therefore, electronics users should have the opportunity to learn about repair before the need arises. A sustainable product ecosystem asks for the collaborative effort of public and private sectors and most importantly, the repair practices of …

Beautiful Dirt : Exploring The American Taboo Of Death Through The Things We Leave Behind, Jake Dangstorp

Masters Theses

‘Beautiful Dirt’ is a project meant to help people think about death as a way to learn and grow, rather than a ‘never happening’ taboo. Contemporary research into western dialogues around death show a consistent anxiety towards being forgotten, as well as a fear of being a burden when passing away. The abject nature of the topic leaves people diminishing the weight of the things they leave behind, and the things they forget to. This perpetuates a cycle of denial in order to avoid stress, emburdening loved ones with an unplanned mass of personal items and piecemeal stories to assemble, …

Acute, Alex D'Haeseleer

Masters Theses

This project digs deep into issues of accessibility, education, and transparency for those who create health data. By using surveys, interviews, user testing, and secondary research, this project aims to both provide a possible solution while also underlining the market resistance to a more equal exchange between consumer and producer. Data collection is a part of everyone’s lives. Privacy is a hot topic. Many people misunderstand data use, and it seems corporations are taking advantage of that. Our bodies and our devices produce and create data, and that information is then used for research, profit, or general consumer benefit. This …

Designed Body, Jingwei Deng

Masters Theses

Designed Body is a project about gendered design and identities. It is an investigation into the relationship between the persona analyzation process and the social identity categorization. It is a criticism towards capital driven planned obsolescence and binary determinism based design. It is a discussion around the future of our subjective and objective self under the circumstance of technological development. It is a material exploration of body, extended body and transformative body.

Invisible: A Guide To Understanding & Designing For Introverts, Ashesh Gohil

Masters Theses

The Extrovert Ideal has been an unspoken pillar of society: a vocal, go-getting person with a Carpe Diem mindset has become a requirement that most are told to strive for in order to be successful. Fundamental institutions like schools and workspaces are designed for extroverts and their need for stimulation, which becomes a hurdle for introverts since it obstructs them from being their dispositionally quiet and thoughtful selves. Such spaces need to be inclusive to allow introverts to be present in the way they prefer. One way to make space for introverts in settings otherwise designed for extroverts is through …

Voran Test Lab : An Exploration Of Teaching Collaborative Problem Solving And Critical Thinking Through Emergent Gameplay, Taber Gifford

Masters Theses

This book explores emergent gameplay as a methodology for teaching collaborative problem solving and critical thinking. These are both key 21st Century Skills and are important in educating and building future professionals and leaders. I explored the precedent analysis of game design in this category before conducting my own design research activities and experiments. Ultimately, my work culminated in the design and development of a game called Voran Test Lab. The game is designed to engage early middle school students and ask them to critically evaluate problems and collaboratively solve them.

Through The Labyrinth, Rebeca Gonzalez Morales

Masters Theses

After many turns, I made my way through. Making connections between different paths, paths I thought I had forgotten, abandoned, discarded. My goal is to understand how the environment around us affects our emotional state, our behaviour, our mental health. I seek a destigmatized idea of mental health, a way to show that it is a factor of everybody’s health meant to be prioritized as much as physical health, to expose the burden of frivolousness that it carries. I seek ways to burst the bubble that mental health lives in the world of design, to show that mental health should …

Fifty Fifty: Redefining Domesticity, Ziying Qiao

Masters Theses

I want to redefine domesticity and challenge traditional gender roles by rethinking the division of domestic chores.

In this project, I discussed gender roles, especially for how the house design impacts gender inequality and the perfect female figure in traditional context— good mother, good wife. In the experiment part, I explored the possibility of collaborative housework and designed different objects related to daily life to remind people of the importance of collaboration.

For the final design part, I applied surveillance camera and machine learning technology to a private space, designed a radical service about chores, and also discussed how people …

Totem: An Embodiment Of Human Character And Personality In Footwear Design, Sushant Shivaram

Masters Theses

This thesis is an attempt at drawing parallels between human character traits and footwear design as an evocative means to communicate character. The idea here is to translate qualitative elements of personality traits and communicate expressions through the embodiment of meaning within form in the context of footwear design. I am making an attempt at equating the meaning in form and footwear gestures that serve an emotional or functional purpose in footwear to break down the sculpture into a combination of different attributes so as to create a character taxonomy. This character taxonomy serves the purpose of assisting me in …

"The Sweet And The Bitter": Death And Dying In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings (2018) By Amy Amendt-Raduege; And Fantasies Of Time And Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien (2020) By Anna Vaninskaya, Kris Swank

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book reviews by Kris Swank of "The Sweet and the Bitter": Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (2018) by Amy Amendt-Raduege; and Fantasies of Time and Death: Dunsany, Eddison, Tolkien (2020) by Anna Vaninskaya

The Worst Thing Since Sliced Bread: The Chorleywood Bread Process, Jeremy Cherfas

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

In the 1950s, Britain’s local bakers were under siege. Large, highly automated bread factories could supply bread at a lower price, finding a ready market in the growing supermarket presence on the high street. The small bakers turned to the British Baking Industries Research Association (BBIRA), based in Chorleywood, outside London. After very few years of research, the bread scientists unveiled a method that took less time and was able to use lower-protein home-grown wheat: the Chorleywood Bread Process. If the high street bakers thought they were saved, they were sorely mistaken. The big industrial bakers adopted the same process …

‘No One Wishes To Say That You Are To Live On Preserved Meats’: Canning And Disruptive Narratives In Nineteenth-Century Food Writing, Lindsay Middleton

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

"Manly’ Plates: Generation Z And The Rhetoric Of Vegan Men, Erin Trauth

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

‘‘Please Can We Talk About Politics Or Something Controversial, Instead Of My Stomach?’: A Communication Study Of Food Discourse And Identity Construction., Rhonda J. Stewart

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The study of food, an integral component of culture, provides insights into our beliefs, customs, and daily life. When our lives revolve around the importance of food, how do we make sense of an interruption in that system? People with food allergies discover ways to make sense of their food allergies and learn how to communicate their stigmatized allergies to others. The reactions of non-allergic people to those with dietary restrictions have implications for allergy sufferers as well. Interviews revealed the taint perceived by food allergy sufferers and the sensemaking process they implemented to confront the taint through three distinct …

How Indian Vegetarianism Disrupted The Way The World Eats, Coleen Taylor Sen

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Festive Gastronomy Against Rural Disruption: Food Festivals As A Gastronomic Strategy Against Social-Cultural Marginalization In Northern Italy, Michele F. Fontefrancesco

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Bombadil And Bible Stories: A Biblical Function For Tom Bombadil Within Frodo’S Quest, Clive Shergold

Journal of Tolkien Research

This essay probes the purpose of the encounter between Tom Bombadil and Frodo and his friends, within the overall narrative of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It asks: Why do the hobbits encounter Tom at this point in their journey? Why does Tom rescue, care for, equip and send them on? Why does Tom not accompany them further, and why does he never meet them again? Then it proposes an explanation based on comparisons with Bible stories that include theophanies and angelic appearances, and shown to provide answers to the questions, and suggestions for Tom Bombadil’s wider …

Flooded Out, Baked Out, Bugged Out: Disruption In America’S Agricultural Heartland., Bruce Kraig

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Food Waste, Wasted Food: Reframing Waste And Edibility, Catherine Pedtke, Thomas Pedtke

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Kicking & Streaming! Enhancing Digitally-Born Oral History Collections In Digital Commons, Autumn Johnson

Digital Commons Southeastern User Group Meeting (2020) (Archived)

Oral history collections pose unique challenges for archival institutions. Making these important histories available to researchers is often impeded by complex issues of access, privacy rights, and media obsolescence. These challenges are magnified when histories are digitally-born. Not only do they face the same issues as their analog counterparts, but digital materials have their own unique preservation and access issues with which archivists are still struggling to identify best practices. Digital Commons offers archivists a platform for sharing digitally-born oral histories that mitigate many of these complex issues. Not only does the platform allow for the consolidation of files from …

Backing Up Into Advocacy: The Case Of Smartphone Driver Distraction, Robert Rosenberger

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

For the last decade, I’ve been studying the topic of the driving impairment of smartphones. While this began as an exclusively academic project, it has increasingly compelled public engagement. One example of this came in an opinion piece I wrote in 2018 in response to a new traffic law. I take the opportunity here to fill out the academic backstory of this particular op-ed, reflect on how this larger project has evolved to include an unanticipated public-facing edge, and abstract some lessons about public writing.