Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Only For The Pleasure Of Telling: Filling The Void In Pasolini's Trilogia Della Vita, Courtney Munson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since Pasolini deliberately cultivated an unrecognizable and illegible public image that embraced incoherence, much of the scholarship surrounding him is plagued by contradictions and mutual exclusivity. For some, Pasolini was a utopian prophet, for others apocalyptic, but most agree that he, through his transmedial and highly self-inscribed life-work, was responding primarily to the crises of neocapitalist consumerism, especially its degenerative effects on sexual conventions and the body. Through an investigation of Pasolini’s controversial essays on film theory, the details of his biography, and the films of the Trilogia della vita, this thesis argues that it is a mistake to …

A Peeling Art, Terry Rim

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Action is greater than words, interaction is greater than viewing, and experience is greater than theory. So I came up with a way to make my art into an act of criticism toward consumerism. My art resembles colorful Pop Art on the surface but follows the defiant spirit of Dadaism at the core. It reveals the content full of dark humor and cynicism once the viewer “peels off” the appealing surface by interacting with it. The four artworks analyzed in the paper — Hole, The Twelephone and Alarming Alarm, Self-Destructive Ashtray, and Heavenly Cow — are designed …

Akan Traditional Religion And Catholicism In Dialogue: Envisaging A Paradigm Shift In The Theology Of Marriage In Postmodern Ghana, Daniel Adjei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The changing phases of religions, cultures, and world history in postmodernity call on the Catholic tradition to be religiously and culturally interreligious. The identity and mission of the Church can no longer be defined in a Eurocentric, triumphalist, or exclusivist term as in colonial times. As the Church expands to new religio-cultural and socio-political territories, the theological principles of dialogue, interculturality, listening, and inculturation must guide her mission. This dissertation, tracing the historical, cultural, and theological development of interreligious and cultural dialogue in the Catholic Church, argues that the Catholic Church of Ghana must engage religious and cultural diversity with …

The Connection Between Gen Z And Online Fast Fashion Media; Aiming To Create A Sustainable Future In Fashion., Rachel Peters

School of Art Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is impossible to think about culture in the past two decades without referencing social media. My generation, commonly known as Gen Z (born between 1997-2010), has been on the forefront of social media development. One of the first generations to grow up with some form of unfiltered online social experience, Gen Z has been hard wired to consume media. While using social media alongside my peers, I have observed a problem that has resulted from this: mass consumption. A mass consumption of food, beauty products, home decor, and clothing in particular. On social media we see hundreds of videos …

Social Media As Second Creation: Cyber-Space As A Denial Of Cosmic Community, Carter Ford

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Social media aims to move the communal sphere into the digital world. It is often quipped that the current generation is the most “connected” yet “disconnected” generation in history. If social media truly succeeds in moving the social community into a digital sphere, what is the source of the widely experienced disconnect from one another? I will argue that evaluating social media in light of Bonhoeffer’s cosmic community reveals that social media insufficiently invades the space of human relationship, not capable of supporting either connection between individuals or creation. Thus, rather than affirming real relationship online, social media replaces community …

The Intersection Of Consumerism And The View Of The Christian Church In American Evangelicalism, Nathaniel Mumau

Senior Honors Theses

American Evangelicalism is a religious category that describes a wide variety of Christian denominations and their churches in the United States of America. Church attendance overall has declined, and rates of church membership have plummeted even faster. At the heart of this issue is a misunderstanding of the role the local church is meant to play in the lives of Christians. In modern American society, consumerism is essential to every part of living and thus has confounded the view of the church in the lives of evangelical Christians. The church is viewed as a product to be experienced and at …

Invisible Monsters: Chuck Palahniuk’S Transgressive Look At A Hyperrealized Society, Jordan R. Trevarthen

MSU Graduate Theses

By critically analyzing Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, I was able to conclude that the transgressive portrayal of hyperrealized consumerism warranted a close examination into the value American society places on an individual’s ability to replace authenticity for consumer obedience. Palahniuk’s dangerous representation of the body throughout the novel serves to highlight numerous ways in which a consumer transgresses against their own physical and mental well-being to achieve happiness constructed by capitalistic agendas. By using French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality in connection with gender, disability, and feminist theory and ecocriticism, I attempt to deconstruct the neoliberal ideology to which …

Zen And The Art Of Doughnut Economics: When Limits Are Strangely Liberating, Peter Doran

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

Kate Raworth's celebrated book, Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist, calls for a reconciliation of our design principles for society and the economy with the rhythms and tolerances of ecological systems. It will demand something akin to a new axial revolution that will have to be experienced as much in the body and in the intimacies of a renewed care and appreciation for our relational and ecological selves as in the collective re-design of our societies, democratic decision-making and collective provisioning. Buddhist scholarship offers a distinctive contribution to this conversation invoked in a book that …

Maternal & Spiritual Healing In J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories, Emily Pittman Hoste

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After World War II, spiritual and emotional healing was needed in America, despite a dependence upon materialism and conspicuous consumption for success. J.D. Salinger’s short-story cycle, Nine Stories (1953), explores what loss and trauma look like from all sides of war—mother, child, soldier, lover—all are harmed by war. Nine Stories emphasizes the need for nationwide spiritual healing and suggests that mothers offer the necessary antidote to consumeristic America. In fact, eight of Salinger’s Nine Stories employ one of three types of mothers: the self-serving and ineffectual mother; the spiritual, often surrogate maternal guide; and the ideal mother. While the ineffectual …

Zen And The Art Of Doughnut Economics: When Limits Are Strangely Liberating, Peter Doran

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Kate Raworth's celebrated book, Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist, calls for a reconciliation of our design principles for society and the economy with the rhythms and tolerances of ecological systems. It will demand something akin to a new axial revolution that will have to be experienced as much in the body and in the intimacies of a renewed care and appreciation for our relational and ecological selves as in the collective re-design of our societies, democratic decision-making and collective provisioning. Buddhist scholarship offers a distinctive contribution to this conversation invoked in a book that …

Auto-Exploited: Narrative Explorations Of The Commodification Of Time, Grace C. Willis Ms.

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis is an exploration of the phenomenon of the auto-exploitation of the modern individual through and in conjunction with the commodification of time. It explores the eruption of gig-work in recent decades in the United States, and the ways in which the modern individual is both consumer and product, buying and selling her own constructions of identity in order to gain time, fiscal currency and a sense of socioeconomic worth from herself and others. Using theoretical frameworks of Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Catherine Rottenberg and Byung-Chul Han, I explore the ways in which the modern individual is …

A Leadership Strategy To Identify And Reverse The Effects Of Consumerism On The Commitment To The Mission And Management Of The Village Seventh-Day Adventist Church Members, Ronald Paul Kelly Jr.

Professional Dissertations DMin

Problem

Low levels of commitment have detrimentally affected many aspects of the Village Church's health and vitality. The present study was developed to see to what degree the leaders of the Village Church had imbibed consumer constructs of identity and ministry and to what degree those constructs could be changed when presented with a biblical construct of identity and ministry.

Method

A week of spiritual emphasis entitled "Built on the Rock" examined the principles of the church growth movement as manifest in the megachurch movement. By contrast, the scriptural paradigm of the church as a family was presented as a …