Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Terrible Telegrams, Cara Lindsay Reid

LSU Master's Theses

In compliance to the curriculum at Louisiana State University and Swine Palace’s Actor Training Program, M.F.A. Acting candidates are required to create and develop a one-person show. The objective is to foster the actor’s creative virtuosity and to give them the confidence, capability, and skill set to continue to create their own work after graduation. My play is about Lucy James, a recent college graduate, who moves to New York to follow her dreams of becoming an actress. Lucy's love for the craft is challenged when she takes a demoralizing job and her life begins to spiral out of control. …

One Two One, Brianna Morgan Ozanne

LSU Master's Theses

These things, they speak in whispers. Come close, lean in, listen up. Whisper back. Tell me everything. I know you’ve been here, too. I know you’ll understand. I know you have a shoebox full of memories just like these hidden deep inside your closet. I know.

The Ontological Nature Of Theology: On Heidegger's "Phenomenology And Theology", Casey Garrett Spinks

LSU Master's Theses

Following his newfound celebrity upon publication of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger delivered a lecture in 1927 and 1928, titled “Phenomenology and Theology,” where he discussed how his recent groundbreaking work in existential phenomenology relates to Christian theology. Far from offering his philosophy as a method for theology, he instead attempted to utterly separate the two, setting the former as fundamental ontology and the latter as a positive science more akin to history, with the Christian faith as its positive object of study. The lecture was left unpublished until 1969, when Heidegger added an appendix, a piece exemplary of the …

Baby's Day Out, Andrea Nicole Berg

LSU Master's Theses

Baby's Day Out explores the world through a phenomenological newness that is expressed within abstract figurative painting. Fact and fiction blend in this fantastical array of emotions and real-world referents. I relied on quick mark-making, intuition, and gestural brushwork to explore representations of psychic and emotional states. The results are reminiscent of dreams, poems, secret whispers, unconscious fantasies, and delusions. The viewer is left to navigate the aporia of the space, by gingerly extending each limb forward and backward, to wander from piece to piece. Meaning is relative as the content of each painting is dependent on the interpretive lens …

Redefining The Image Of The Afro-Puerto Rican Woman In Recent Narrative By Mayra Santos-Febres, Chassidy Latrece Simmons

LSU Master's Theses

Many 20th century Puerto Rican writers focused on establishing a national identity through their works. Although the island has very diverse culture, some aspects of Puerto Rican identity have been ignored entirely or inaccurately represented in popular and literary culture. In this thesis I use Nuestra señora de la noche and La amante de Gardel by Mayra Santos-Febres to examine how the writer depicts race and gender based issues in Puerto Rico. With post-colonial theory and otherness theory, I examine how Santos-Febres—a descendant of colonized Puerto Rican people—decolonizes the Afro-Caribbean woman through her writing techniques and reconstructs the image of …

Reach, Abigail Lauretta Smithson

LSU Master's Theses

During the past three years, I have asked the same two questions over and over again: What is a photograph capable of communicating? What is a document of a place? My thesis exhibition and paper explore these questions using basketball, an art form and creative outlet that I have loved since childhood, as a starting point. Basketball is the lens that I have chosen to look through when approaching my work and a metaphor for larger societal issues, such as racism and gun violence.

In Search Of Lost Selves: Memory And Subjectivity In Transnational Art Cinema, Anders J. Bergstrom

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation begins from the position that cinema’s ongoing persistence as a specific operation of subjective perception is intimately related to the questions of self and memory it raises. Even as digitization and global capitalism have ostensibly led to the creation of a “post-cinematic” culture, cinematic forms and practices remain inextricably related to the larger (often unacknowledged) metaphysical concerns of the cultures and social contexts in which they continue to signify. These concerns—which include beliefs in perceptual realism, the relations between images and the past, and notions of selfhood—shape both the production and consumption of cinema as a tool which …

Climate And Capitalism: English Perceptions Of Newfoundland's Natural Environment And Economic Value, 1610-1699, Joshua Tavenor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

For English merchants, planters and politicians, colonizing Newfoundland required learning the limitations and opportunities afforded by the island’s natural environment. The crucial period for this learning process took place from 1610, the first English effort to colonize the island, to the 1699 passing of the Act to Encourage the Trade to Newfoundland, which defined the cod fishery as the island’s only viable industry. During these eighty-nine years, English enterprises and policies consistently failed to meet the expectations of their backers, and new information challenged accepted ideas about Newfoundland’s climate and natural resources, pressuring the supporters of those decisions to …

Narrative Pleasures And Feminist Politics: Popular Women’S Historical Fiction, 1990-2015, Victoria Kennedy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation contributes to a developing body of work on women’s historical fiction and its significance to feminist discourse. Building from Diana Wallace’s 2005 study The Woman’s Historical Novel: British Women Writers, 1900-2000, I offer a modified definition of “the woman’s historical novel” and a transatlantic consideration of several of the most popular titles in the contemporary period, including The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), Outlander (1991), A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003), and Scarlett (1991). Several studies have followed Wallace’s, notably Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn’s Metafiction and Metahistory in Contemporary Women’s Writing (2007) and Katherine Cooper and Emma …

Bye Bye Binary: Exploring Non-Binary Youths' Experiences Of Mental Health, Discrimination, And Community Belongingness, Ellis Furman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, there has been an increase in research focusing on the impacts of social exclusion and discrimination on the mental health of transgender populations. Despite this, few studies have focused on the experiences of gender non-conforming, or “non-binary” individuals. This community-based participatory research (CBPR) study (N = 10) used the arts-informed method of body mapping, individual interviews, and group discussions to examine non-binary young peoples’ experiences of discrimination in relation to mental health. Participants consisted young people (ages 16-25) living in Waterloo, Ontario. A visual analysis, thematic analysis, and member-checking session were employed to analyze collected data. …

Theories Of The Self, Race, And Essentialization In Buddhism In The United States During The “Yellow Peril,” 1899-1957, Ryan Anningson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation is an intellectual history tracing developing notions of the Self in Buddhism through Buddhist publications during the years from 1899-1957. I define this time period as the Era of the Yellow Peril, due to common views in the United States of an Asian “other” which formed a larger clash of civilizations globally. 1899-1957 was marked by pessimism and dread due to two World Wars and the Great Depression, while popular and academic cultures argued for the validity of race sciences, and the application of these “sciences” through eugenics. Buddhism in the United States was created through a global …

The Making Of Astate In Waiting: The Lives Of Fatah Political Prisoners, 1967 To 1985, Rebecca Granato

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

A State in Waiting? The Lives of Fatah Political Prisoners, 1967-1985 looks at the evolution of a Fatah prisoner movement inside Israeli prisons intended for Palestinian political prisoners. An under-researched area in Palestinian studies, this project relies on a combination of oral sources and anonymous documents drafted by prisoners during their internment housed at the Abu Jihad Museum in Abu Dis, Palestine. The dissertation argues that beginning in the 1970s and lasting into the 1980s a kind of collectivity emerged and came to define prisoner interactions and their day-to-day activities. Prison, and later system-wide hunger strikes are addressed in an …

Cold War By “Other Means”: Canada’S Foreign Relations With Communist Eastern Europe, 1957-1963, Cory Scurr

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Following Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became leader of the Soviet Union and ushered in a liberalization campaign that reverberated outward to certain Eastern European nations. Canadian officials recognized that limited freedom of maneuver was conceded to certain Eastern European nations, in addition to Yugoslavia’s existing independent position. This proved important, as Communist Eastern Europe became a deliberate and considered factor in Canada’s foreign policy. Canadian Soviet policy thus evolved into a Canadian policy towards Communist Eastern Europe, equipped with various nuances. Specifically, this project examines Canadian policy with Yugoslavia, Poland, and the Soviet Union.

By the mid …

Manus, Charlotte And Himmelstein, Paul, Bronx African American History Project, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interview: Charlotte Manus and Paul Himmelstein

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Date of Interview: November 17, 2017

Summary by Alison Rini

Charlotte Manus moved from Harlem to the Prospect Avenue neighborhood of the Bronx at an early age. She recalls the pressure that she and other neighborhood children felt to establish a "reputation" for themselves by fighting and also touches upon the jazz and other kinds of street music that influenced her as a child. Ms. Manus discusses which areas of the Bronx were considered dangerous during her adolescence as well as some of the typical ways in which she and other …

The Work For The People Reforming At People's Church?, Timo-Matti Haapiainen

Institute of Liturgical Studies Occasional Papers

(Excerpt)

The aim of this presentation is to give a picture of the place of liturgy in the life of an old folk church and in its identity process. What is the role of the Christian liturgy in ELCF today? How could liturgy reform a folk church that is confronting all the challenges of 21^st century?

Concert Recording 2017-12-05a, Helen Nguyen Ngo, Gustavo Samor Ortega, Dawson Scantling, John Lee, Asher Perkins, Felipe Antonio, Joey Vanderslice, Bryce Holcomb, Shelby Sprott, Carlie Spiers, Patrick Dehart, Don Mayall, Jacob Skinner, Jordan Strickland, Walter Ferguson, Derex Williams, Tucker Houk

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. Lou Brouwer medley / Brouwer -- [05:02]. One summer's day / Daniel Asbun -- [08:03]. What a friend we have in Jesus / Brad Paisley -- [10:51]. Unity village / Pat Metheny -- [17:39] Truth? / Asher Perkins -- [21:35]. Invention no. 13 / J.S. Bach -- [23:09]. Black Orpheus / Stan Getz arranged Luiz Bonfa -- [25:58]. Five Hawaiian minutes / Shiro Mori -- [31:00]. Birks works / Dizzy Gillespie -- [36:27]. Perhaps / Charlie Parker -- [41:44]. The river / King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard -- [47:18]. Minor swing / Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli -- …

Concert Recording 2017-11-30a, Kaitlyn Craven, Tomoko Kashiwagi, Jordan Alimena, Joshua Fleener, Lyndon Meyer, Elizabeth Perry, Michael Warrick, Evan Backster, C. Ryan Tapp, Tim Pardue, Jawad Almandri-Lage, Hakim Almandri

Concert Recordings & Programs

[00:00]. Sérénade aux étoiles / Cécile Chaminade -- [03:57]. Five pieces in folk style, op. 102 / Robert Schumann -- [10:06]. Reflective mood / Sammy Nestico -- [14:53]. Syrinx / Claude Debussy -- [17:30]. Duet mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern, WoO 32 / L.V. Beethoven -- [28:36]. Old wine in new bottles. I. The wraggle taggle Gypsies ; II. The three ravens ; III. Begone, dull care ; IV. Early one morning / Gordon Jacob.

"Can You Hail Me Now?": Brand, Identity, And Althusserian Ideological Interpellation, Jenna Lo Castro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A surge in the role of branding within marketing practices has influenced an

industry transformation. A review of recent literature suggests that brand and the branding process have become integral in sustaining and amplifying organizations. This has been particularly influenced by Integrated Marketing Communication’s (IMC) espousal of being a consumer-driven process. As such, this project seeks to explore the current state of branding practices through the vision of French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser. Althusser’s philosophy inspects the human capacity to exercise autonomous decision-making and highlights the influence of social structures upon individuals. Through the Althusserian constructs of ideology and interpellation, …

L’Intégration De L’Immigré Africain Francophone Aux Etats-Unis Et En France : Opportunités Et Défis, Lily Calaycay

Honors Theses

Durant ces dernières années, l’immigration a considérablement augmenté dans plusieurs parties du monde, et par conséquent, l’intégration des immigrants dans la société est devenue un sujet largement discuté. Un immigré, selon la définition du Haut Conseil à l’intégration en 1991, est une personne résidant dans un pays qui est née dans un pays étranger (« Population immigrée » 96). Les mouvements migratoires africains ont une longue histoire, marquée par l’exploitation et la colonisation européenne du continent. L’histoire de l’immigration africaine est unique parmi les mouvements migratoires à cause des conditions qui ont accompagné un système brutal d’exploitation. La présence des …

Old Fields And New Fields: Ceramics And The Expanded Field Of Sculpture, Robert J. Lewis-Nash

Honors Papers

Part One of this research considers the relationship of ceramics to sculpture through the lens of art vs. craft criticism. Utilizing Rosalind Krauss' concept of the expanded field of sculpture as a focal point, this research examines contradictions in Krauss' argument for the exclusion of ceramic media from the mantle of sculpture, as well as current responses to this exclusion as it exists today. The responses considered aim to argue for ceramics' place in the expanded field, and to question the need for further criticism on this issue, suggesting there are more relevant questions facing the field of ceramics than …

The 1973 Oil Embargo And Us-Saudi Relations: An Episode In New Imperialism, Nathaniel David Sher

Honors Papers

This thesis examines the impact of the 1973 oil embargo on US-Saudi relations. It asks how and why the US and Saudi Arabia remained long-term allies after a five-month period of economic warfare. Most prior research focuses on the factors that influenced the embargo's implementation, failing to fully explain its resolution. This thesis explores the latter issue by appealing to US government memos, OAPEC meeting transcripts, and US-Saudi telegrams. It argues that, after five months of rhetorical and material distance, the US and KSA realigned over symbiotic trade dynamics-- “arms for oil"--and mutual opposition to communism. This subject remains important …

I Am The Luchadora: Countering Exotification Through Printed Installation, Margaret Landa Middleton

Honors Papers

In this body of work I use printmaking to look critically at the commercial consumption of Mexican culture in popular media, using my own experience as a mixed Mexican-American as a lens. I consider how my experience of cultural identity, family history, and assimilation has complicated my interaction with Mexican culture within the United States. My work questions how cultural identity is reduced to stereotypes, employing the reproducibility of print to mimic the proliferation of simplified and exotified portrayals of Mexican-Americans in popular culture. I attempt to contradict this assumed cultural experience by producing work that asserts my own. By …

Crafting Wendla Bergmann In Spring Awakening, Amy R. Weintraub

Honors Papers

This paper explores one actor's approach to the role of Wendla Bergmann in Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening. It will address issues of text analysis, staging, character development, vocal performance, and mental health.

Fearless Foreign Women: Exploring Tamar And Ruth As Characters Within A Post-Exilic Debate On Intermarriage, Rachel Sacks

Honors Papers

This paper examines the influence of Genesis 38 on the Book of Ruth. Both texts feature women—Tamar in Genesis 38 and Ruth in the Book of Ruth—whose extraordinary actions result in the preservation of King David’s descendants. While the Book of Ruth draws on many received traditions, its use of Genesis 38 has been underappreciated and not fully understood. To explore this, I identify similarities in the stories, as well as the likely political purpose and historical context of each text. I analyze the ancient practice of retelling biblical stories, and argue that evidence points to the Book of Ruth …

"The Fountain Pen And The Typewriter": The Rise Of The Homophile Press In The 1950s And 1960s, Elizabeth A. Coretto

Honors Papers

In this thesis, the author examines the role that queer-published periodicals played in the homophile era of American queer activism, roughly 1950-mid 1960s. The author argues that these periodicals operated at the intersection of identity creation, community formation, and activism. The queer press operated as a forum in which queer people could discuss what it meant to be homosexual, bisexual, lesbian, etc., and solidify an understanding of what queerness entails, leading to a more concrete definition of queerness. The creation of a queer identity based on a shared history and experiences allowed for the rise of a community based around …

Vegetarianism In Historical And Contemporary China: Tracking Transitions In Discourse Through Rhetorical Idioms Of Entitlement And Endangerment, Brendan Nuse

Honors Papers

This thesis examines changes between historical and contemporary iterations of Chinese vegetarianism discourse. Vegetarian discourse can be divided into two categories: entitlement (which focuses primarily on animals’ entitlement to life) and endangerment (which focuses on meat as a contaminating agent). This project attempts to determine how Chinese vegetarianism fits into this framework. It uses interviews with Chinese international students at Oberlin College, analysis of Chinese vegetarian blogs, and academic work by Chinese and non-Chinese academics to better understand the state of vegetarianism today as compared to the past. This study found that, while Chinese vegetarianism has historically been grounded in …

Symphonies Of Horror: Musical Experimentation In Howard Shore's Work With David Cronenberg, Vikram A. Shankar

Honors Papers

With a career spanning almost forty years, Canadian composer Howard Shore has become one of the most respected and sought after film composers working in the industry today. Much of his work, in particular his scores for the Lord of the Rings films, have received much academic attention, his longstanding working relationship with Canadian horror filmmaker David Cronenberg, however, has not yet benefited from such academic inquiry. Using the films The Brood, Videodrome, The Fly, and Naked Lunch as case studies, this thesis examines the way that Shore uses the arena of Cronenberg’s films as a laboratory for personal musical …

Finding Music’S Words: Moses Und Aron And Viennese Jewish Modernism, Maurice E. Cohn

Honors Papers

This thesis attempts to understand Schoenberg and his opera Moses und Aron as important participants within the philosophical debates of their time, but also to understand that participation as necessarily musical—his music is analogous to, rather than representative of, the surrounding philosophy of his era. The first chapter addresses the broader relevant trends in Jewish philosophy, coming to focus specifically on parallels between Schoenberg and the philosopher Franz Rosenzsweig. It does not attempt to understand Schoenberg as a Jewish philosopher per se. Rather, it explores the ways in which the problems facing Jewish philosophers of Schoenberg’s generation—namely, debates about the …

Sound And Silence In The Forge: Work, Space, And Communication In Early Cistercian Monasticism, Jacob Bradley Roosa

Honors Papers

This research considers the place of artisans and manual labor, specifically blacksmiths and metalworking, within Cistercian monasticism in 12th and 13th century Europe. Stressing the dual importance of daily prayer and manual labor in strict silence, the Cistercian order of monks sought to reform traditional monastic practices they saw as excessive and far removed from their guiding set of regulations, the Rule of St. Benedict. Their growing numbers in the 12th century led them to establish a second class of monks, known as lay brothers, who provided the majority of each monasteries’ manual labor and who were largely prevented from …

The Life And Times Of Transgenics, Hugh Lacey

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.