Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Prescience, Mustafa Yasar Ii

LMU Theses and Dissertations

In a society where one percent of the population can see into the future, a stubborn man who drinks alcohol to suppress his psychic powers is compelled to use his foresight when his brother disappears.

Los Angeles Miscellany Volume 70, 2022, Loyola Marymount University English Department

LA Miscellany

Faculty Advisor: Sarah Maclay

Editor-in-Chief: Kellie Toyama

Black Steel: Obsidian And Aztec Death Culture, Michael Stevens

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This essay discusses the role played by obsidian, or “black steel” as it is often referred to, in the development of Aztec death culture from human sacrifice to ritualistic mutilation.

Death In Catharism And Its Threat To The Church, Evan Leahy

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

Catharism was one of the most influential and consequential movements in southern France and northern Italy during the medieval period. This article traces the history and main ideas of Catharism, arguing that the Cathar beliefs, rituals, and conceptions of death were the most threatening aspect of the sect to the orthodox Catholic church and is what inevitably led to the majority of their followers being systematically executed.

Race, Class, And Populism: Thomas Watson And The Fall Of The Agrarian Ideal, Max Bouratoglou

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This article reconsiders the politics and political transformation of the Georgia Populist Thomas E. Watson (1856-1922), focusing specifically on the years from 1894 to 1896. Watson began his political career committed to a multiracial agrarian democracy in the epoch of Jim Crow and the New Departure Democrats. While historians have considered his shift from multiracial organizer to self-proclaimed white supremacist, many have failed to correctly point to the defining years precipitating this shift, which coincided with an abandonment of his radical agrarian policies as well. Through a historical contextualization of his life and career, this article provides a new framework …

Piecing It Together: Analysis And Treatment Of A Painted Silk Flag, Katya Zinsli

Art Conservation Master's Projects

Painted flags and banners lie at the intersection of painting and textile conservation. The 37^th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment’s battle flag from the Civil War presented challenges and advantages of bridging the two disciplines by providing an opportunity for study and experimentation for a graduate student from the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department at SUNY Buffalo State College. This study was conducted to better understand the materials and degradation products present in a painted Civil War flag, which then informed the subsequent treatment of said flag. By characterizing the materials, the severe damage in …

Contextualizing And Reconstructing A Model Birch Bark Canoe, Jen Mikes

Art Conservation Master's Projects

To perform a well-informed conservation treatment on an object, it is crucial to understand its context, history, and significance. When an object presents with little provenance or context, it can be difficult to determine the course that its treatment should follow. In this project, a structurally unstable birch bark canoe model of unknown origin was examined, researched, and treated. The treatment campaign was customized for the object based on literature research, owner consultation, and materials experimentation. The canoe model was structurally stabilized with adhesive and adhesive reactivated Japanese tissue, it was locally humidified and reshaped with Gore-Tex sandwiches, and was …

Un-Portalable! An Animated Exploration In Boundaries And Relational Design, Ira Klages

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Un-Portalable! is an animated multimedia short film about two friends who become fused together after using a faulty teleporter. They attempt to conceal their deformity while simultaneously navigating a social situation with one of their friends. The main focus in the film is the concept that boundaries tend to become clearer as they begin to break. This conceptual focus merges into the visual theory of the film in which highly expressive character design and hybrid media utilization are driven by relational and narrative design choices. This film serves as a condensed pilot and proof of concept for a larger prospective …

The Universal Story: Coming-Of-Age In Contemporary Animation, Christina Christie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Cycles is a 3D animated short film about a father who struggles to keep up with his daughter as she races through life. Whereas most coming-of-age films focus solely on the journey of the adolescent, Cycles subverts the expectations of the genre by exploring the impact growing up has on both the parent and child in tandem. As a film, Cycles relies on the careful and deliberate use of tropes, informed character and environment design, and established cinematic devices to support the story's theme of accepting change. Though my personal experience inspired this film, it evolved into a contemporary and …

The Loyalty Of The Lords Of Albret: An Investigation Of The Gascon Rolls At The Outset Of The Hundred Years War, Jason Delaney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis will examine the juxtaposition of the duchy of Gascony's importance to the Plantagenet Crown with the difficulties administering the region and protecting it from French interference during the late-thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, resulting in the necessity of securing the loyalty of Gascon nobles for assistance. The lords of Albret were powerful allies under Edward I (1272-1307), and their defection to the French under his son, Edward II (1307-1327), put Plantagenet Gascony in a vulnerable position when the Hundred Years War began in 1337. Resecuring the loyalty of Albret – and other powerful Gascon lords – was crucial for …

Creating A Reverberating Beat: Digital Curation Of The Women Writers Of The Beat Generation, Elena Maria Rogalle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The focus of my study is the creation of a special topics American literature or Women's Studies course about the women writers of the Beat Generation; this course provides students with a variety of explorations of women's writing during and after Post World War II America. This period saw many changes in terms of women's roles as they challenged the mid-20th century societal constructs. My research examines the women Beat writers by centering on their distinct women's discourse and how their voices challenged the patriarchally-driven canon of Beat Generation writers. To accomplish this task, my research focuses on expanding the …

Digital Humanities & Community College Libraries: Opportunities And Challenges, Mia Tignor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Digital humanities study applies technological tools to the study of humanities topics and allows for the exploration of new questions in ways that were not possible using traditional research models. Librarians have been active participants of the field since its inception, as they explore new ways to critically engage with information organization and information literacy instruction, and most research that focuses on the intersection between these fields takes place within research universities . In contrast, there is very little research examining digital humanities work at the community college, which primarily offers associate degrees, vocational certificates, and other workforce based training. …

Keywords In Caribbean Studies: A Project Statement, Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, Ryan Cecil Jobson

Publications and Research

Responding to a call for a renewed and reinvigorated project of Caribbean criticism, the Keywords in Caribbean Studies project proposes an examination of the critical vocabulary that shapes our field of study. A genuinely regional Caribbean criticism—one that necessarily encompasses the entirety of the Caribbean Sea and its archipelago, its coastal territories of the South and Central Americas, and their global circuits of migration and diaspora—demands concerted attention to the critical vocabulary with which we engage the region.

Review Of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Symphonien V: Nr. 9 D-Moll Opus 125, Ed. Beate Angelika Kraus, Barry Cooper

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

Review Of Beethoven Studies 4, Ed. Keith Chapin And David Wyn Jones, Nicholas Chong

The Beethoven Journal

No abstract provided.

Plato And The Justice That Is Harmony, Lois Eveleth

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

Plato treats of the topic justice in the Republic, offering the concept of harmony as a perspective from which to examine this difficult concept. An ideal existing in a realm that is separate from the human and physical cosmos, justice is difficult to explain and even more so to achieve. Plato's disenchantment with his beloved city urges him on in this difficult task, especially difficult because the word harmony refers to tuning patterns for lyres and not to agreeable blending of musical notes. Does he achieve his goal?

Argentine Afterlives: Race, Hemispheric Comparison, And Translation In Benjamín De Garay’S Los Sertones, Thomas Genova

Spanish Publications

This article considers Argentine Benjamín de Garay’s 1938 Spanish translation of Brazilian Euclides da Cunha’s 1902 Os Sertões as a transnational meditation on racialized processes of nation formation in South America. The translation paradoxically frames the linguistic and historical relationships between Brazil and Argentina in terms of both similarity and difference. While de Garay stresses the parallels between Brazil and Argentina in his translator’s prologue, he also includes a glossary of supposedly untranslatable Portuguese terms, suggesting incommensurability between the two national experiences. Tellingly, many of the glossary’s terms refer to racial categories. In this way, the de Garay text acts …

Marilynne Robinson’S Housekeeping Read Through The Conceptual Prism Of “Tethers”, Sarah Street

The Criterion

Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping, follows her central protagonist, Ruth, her sister Lucille, and her aunt Sylvie as they work to establish their place up against a greater surround. This paper attempts to read the novel through the conceptual prism of the word “tethers.” I argue that the characters' relationships with the surround shifts as they work through their trauma and grapple with the notion of impermanence by reconciling with both those things that tether them, those tethers that do not exist or have been released, and the tethers from which they want to break free. Ultimately I argue that …

Thai Folk Theatre’S Contribution To Wellness Support: A Case Study Of Likay Performance For Hypertension Education, Anukoon Rotjanasuksomboona, Pithi Chanvorachote

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This work demonstrates the employment of Likay, a folk theatre performance, as an educational tool for promoting the awareness of hypertension in elderly Thais. Utilizing interdisciplinary approaches across the academic fields of health science and the performing arts, this project created a Likay production dealing with the topic of hypertension and related medical information. Fifty elderly people from the Ta Ma Prang subdistrict, Kaeng Khoi district of Saraburi province, Thailand, were included in this study. A survey questionnaire was distributed prior to and after the performance to monitor the improvement of understanding as well as the awareness of hypertension …

Journal Policies, Jucr Staff

Journal of Urban Culture Research

No abstract provided.

Artistic Yarn Portraitures On Streetism In Ghana – Highlighting The Struggles Of Street Children, Edem Afful, Edem Kwami Buami, Akosua Mawuse Amankwah, Ebenezer Kofi Howard

Journal of Urban Culture Research

Textile art is widely used by artists to communicate a message. This concept simply employs materials and techniques unconventionally to produce works of art that strives to gain the attention of viewers.This project exercised the concept where yarns of different textures were used in the production of works of art that falls in the ambits of textile art. These works communicate the emotional state and ordeals street children undergo on the streets of Kumasi. The philosophical underpinnings of each textile art seeks to draw the attention of citizens about the struggle of these children in our society and support to …

Smart Band Technology : A Music-Based Activity For The Thai Elderly, Pornprapit Phoasavadi

Journal of Urban Culture Research

The Smart Band Application is a music application paired with a hardware device designed for the Thai elderly at foster care homes to enhance group participation in musical-based activities. It is small, wireless (or wired) and easily attached to most instruments that produce pitches. For this research a set of eight angklungs (a SE Asia bamboo tube shaker instrument) covering the range from C to high C was selected. Angklungs are affordable, easy to play and have an appealing sound. Eight Smart Band devices, which consist of a set of sensors and vibrators, were attached to the angklungs to collect …

Gawain, Women, And The Hunts: How The Body Influences Human-Animal Relationships In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Meghan Gavis

The Criterion

In the narrative poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, women and animals appear, on the surface, to function in a quintessential medieval sense — as physical objects to bolster Sir Gawain’s chivalric image. However, the dynamics between women, animals, and Gawain in this text challenge the human hierarchy presented by other medieval standards. By reading the ritualized hunts as devolving in honorable attention to the animal body and mapping their language onto the Lady’s temptations in Gawain’s bedroom, a feminine reclamation of the body appears. Though Gawain undercuts the Lady and Morgan by reducing them to physical presences, …

18th Century Theater And The Legitimacy Of The Lower Classes, Nina Masin-Moyer

The Criterion

18th century theater developed alongside the expanding role of the lower and middle classes. George Lillo’s working-class tragedy The London Merchant and John Gay’s comedic satire The Beggar’s Opera exemplify how both drama and comedy can bring awareness and legitimacy to the struggles of working-class people. The London Merchant uses cultural references and religious language to elevate the struggles of its titular merchant’s apprentice whereas The Beggar’s Opera uses language of honor and nobility to draw parallels between the criminal underground and high society, both in service of using the medium of theater to acknowledge the middle and lower classes’ …

The Author Of A Fictional Slave Advertisement, Nathaniel Jablonski

The Criterion

Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel, The Underground Railroad, describes the adventures of Cora, a runaway slave from a Georgian plantation. Although a historical entity, Whitehead’s railroad deviates from history’s figurative railroad to a physical one. While Whitehead’s interpretation of the underground railroad is divergent from historical fact, he still grounds his work with the inclusion of all but one authentic runaway slave advertisement. My focus within this essay is centered on Whitehead's final advertisement, which is for Cora. In examining the poster and the unique characteristics of Ridgeway (the slave-catcher), Homer (Ridgeway’s companion), Cora, and Terrance Randall (owner of the Georgia …

Shakespeare’S Staging And The Self In The Sonnets, Xiani Zhu

The Criterion

This essay examines the theatricality of Shakespeare’s young man sonnets and how he uses the “stage” as a shortcut to deliver abstract ideas such as the concept of beauty, time, and love that are otherwise difficult to express. On a micro level, he frames each individual sonnet as a stage, where each specific setting and scenario allows dramatic tension to arise between the characters on stage, and from there, abstract ideas and emotions are naturally presented without being directly stated. On a macro level, the entire young-man sonnet sub-sequence — being in love with a beautiful young man — itself …

“His Own Was Ampler:” Dickinson And Whitman’S Sunset Poetry, Devyn Forcina

The Criterion

Although they are utterly dissimilar poets, Dickinson and Whitman made sunsets frequent subjects of their work. Dickinsonian sunset poetry attempts to imitate the natural phenomena and evokes tension and competition. A kind of closure is forced upon her unwilling speaker, who struggles against the inevitable ending of the day. In contrast, Whitmanian sunset poetry sings and celebrates the finale of the setting sun and delights in the cyclical nature of time. While Dickinson acknowledges the temporary quality of a single sunset, Whitman rejoices in their immortal occurrence. Both poets preserve the imagery of sunsets as photographers would, while imbuing them …

Letting The Cat Out Of The Wall: Irrepressible Perversity In Poe, Kelly Gallagher

The Criterion

This paper examines several short stories by Edgar Allan Poe that feature the motif of immurement, the practice of imprisoning a victim within walls. Poe uses immurement in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” to suggest psychological suppression as the narrators physically hide their victims while simultaneously hiding their own self-destructive natures, which he refers to as “perversity.” His stories “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Cask of Amontillado” convey that attempting to suppress one’s capacity for self-destruction only guarantees self-destruction. Poe’s motif of immurement demonstrates how human beings tend to ignore their inherent perversity, but his stories …

Injustice In Childhood: Jane Eyre And The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, Christian Barkman

The Criterion

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, are autobiographical novels narrated by the fictional Jane Eyre and the real Frederick Douglass. Both stories evoke an outpouring of pity for their respective narrator: Jane, for the unmerited abuses dealt against her by family and school administrators, but most of all Douglass, who reserves the greater portion of lament on account of his dreadful persecution under the evil of slavery. The environments Jane and Douglass inhabit throughout their childhood inflict an immense burden on their physical body and psyche. This essay specially examines the …

Women, Writing, And Storytelling In Medieval England And The Canterbury Tales, Sadie O'Conor

The Criterion

For a woman to succeed in an academic sphere, it is never enough for her to be clever-- she must be brilliant. “The Second Nun’s Tale” in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales explores the metaphorical brilliance (in sexual purity, intelligence, and faith) of St. Cecilia. The tale is also a mechanism for the Second Nun to advocate for her own vocation of “holy work,” for the sake of the learned religious women who preserved such writings. The themes of her tale are quite different from those espoused by the Wife of Bath, but the Wife also argues to have her voice …