Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Politics Of Being A Lover: In Art, (Space) And Kink, Rabeeha Adnan

Theses and Dissertations

Politics of being a lover: in art, (space) and kink explores my relationship with my practice through observations and stories that draw parallels with romance and kink. Narrated as love affairs turned into complex commitment, it shuffles through logics of structural power, control, and communication in the context of praxis and art institutions.

Exposing The Camera: The Pedagogical Possibilities Of Critical Camera-Based Arts Curriculum, Oscar Keyes

Theses and Dissertations

Cameras are a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives, especially in schools, found in students’ smartphones and state-of-the-art surveillance systems. This research project emerged from an iterative redesign process of a Photography for Art Education course, structured around the camera’s dual nature as a tool for creative expression and social control. While cameras have long been used to address social issues through documentary techniques; this critical eye can be turned onto the apparatus itself. This study drew heavily upon the historical work of Allan Sekula (1986), who observed how easier access to cameras resulted in both democratization (for the People) …

Double Jointed: Gendered Flexibility And The Overextended Self, Grace A. Bromley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores compulsory domesticity and the impulse to overextend oneself, both pressures often associated with the construct of femininity. Through diving into my personal history, which includes growing up in a three-generational home of women, I explore mimesis as it functions in both the replication of identity and in terms of pictorial representation; specifically I address its relationship to gender, manifestation within the body, and the search for subjectivity through the process of making and thinking. In various forms of material explorations, I play with ideas of malleability, mimicry and “embedded” behaviors that are passed down and embodied in …

May Your Flight Be Smooth, The Wind Calm, The Cloud Safe, And The Sky Blue!, Kai Chuang

Theses and Dissertations

They were born in a port city, on an island. In their eyes, many things seemed like the water. Fluid, compound, and ambiguous. Those things shift shapes with their containers, blending with elements from various sources, carrying multiple meanings, images and interpretations.

The sea is deep and endless, similar to stories, quests and dreams.

The coastline is a constant dialogue among the land, the ocean, the wind, organisms, physics, the past, randomness, and chance…When they think about boundaries, they recall the coastline.

The Merit Of Adaptation: An Exploration Of Adaptation In Regard To Sophocles’ Theban Plays And The Role Of Antigone Within The Story, Hogan T. Holt

Theses and Dissertations

The creation of an adaptation is extremely challenging and time-consuming, but with the right tools and inspiration, that task of creation can be eased. By looking at three different adaptations of the Theban plays, the goal of creating a new adaptation of this series of plays can be achieved. At the same time, this adaptation can achieve a goal of highlighting an important character from the original set of plays, Antigone, and give her a role that elevates her to the main protagonist across all three plays, thus allowing the Theban plays to become a more feminine piece that works …

Particl Plant Medicine, Tommye Dean

Theses and Dissertations

In an era marked by a growing recognition of mental health as a critical component of overall well-being, unconventional approaches to therapeutic interventions have gained prominence. One such intervention coincides with the importance of setting the intersection of psychedelic therapy and interior design, creating a synergistic environment for emotional healing and self-discovery. This thesis ventures to delve into the uncharted territory where the realms of altered states of consciousness and thoughtful spatial design converge, seeking to discover the profound impact this collaboration may have on the therapeutic and design landscape.

Side Effects, Shannon R. Kurzyniec

Theses and Dissertations

Through the exploration of the personal and social impacts of prescription medications on the human condition, I have discovered that the side effects of prescription medications on myself and others are much greater than I had ever anticipated. The deeper I dig into my subconscious, the further back I find that the impact was created. Most of us are taught at a young age to take medicine when we don’t feel well. Stomach ache, headache, sore throat, fever, even the imaginary boo boo is given a pill to cure. As we age we begin to reach for pills due to …

Notes Toward A Personal Afrofuturism, Jalen T. Adams

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is penned by a young adult who is generally confused about a lot of things regarding life, but has one singular focus that is perhaps larger than life—trying to find the bridge between a future already lived, and a past yet to happen. These are his findings so far.

Zaytouna: Rooted Histories In Uprooted Memories, Naima M. Almajdobah

Theses and Dissertations

Palestinians, whether living under occupation or—like myself—in the diaspora, experience a complex journey of displacement and dispossession stemming from the Nakba of 1948. This reality shapes our collective identity, rooted in our connection to our homeland.

Zaytouna explores an under-researched topic: the relationship between the olive tree and uprooted Palestinians. It reveals a rich tapestry of narratives that encompass the quintessential and everlasting relationship between a land and its people. The resulting interactive archival installation consists of two parts: audio recordings from Palestinians in the diaspora, which capture their memories and voices; and visuals, which represent the storytellers’ places of …

Tchu Tcha Tcha: The Transformative Role Of Funk, Adriane De Souza

Theses and Dissertations

Cultural disconnection and homesickness are part of expatriate life. My research investigates the transformative power of Brazilian funk, which, for me, evokes restorative memories of home and life in Rio de Janeiro.

Originating in North America, funk made an exciting leap and found a new home in Brazil, particularly in Rio de Janeiro. Over time, it has become firmly established and thoroughly Brazilianized, infused with local instruments and influences, leading to the emergence of a new genre of music known as Brazilian funk.

Transplanted again, to Qatar, this work celebrates the migration of funk through a combination of still images, …

Capiz Reborn: Preserving And Enhancing Traditional Philippine Shellcraft, Destarte A. Prieto

Theses and Dissertations

The capiz shell is a thin, translucent exoskeleton of a mollusk found in the Philippine Sea. Traditionally, capiz shells were made into window panes and home decor, used so widely they became an iconic part of Philippine identity. Today, the influx of cheap, mass-produced merchandise threatens the capiz shell industry. To encourage renewed interest and sustainable revival of this long-standing industry, my research demonstrates new possibilities for the capiz shell.

In reconstituting cast-off bits and shell trimmings to form a new capiz biomaterial, my work is informed by the three traditional techniques used by Philippine capiz artisans—sewing, welding and bonding. …

Call For Me When You Get There: I'Ll Be Among The Crows, Jessica O. Tifase

Theses and Dissertations

I've always been intrigued by the ways in which the notion of flight has been used to describe the movement of Black people, both literally and figuratively. In many instances, flight performs as a double entendre, embodying multiple meanings: to escape or to transcend. The fluidity of its definition prompts a reflection I’ve been wrestling with as I move through the world: Are Black people in a perpetual state of flight?

In my thesis exhibition, Call for Me When You Get There, I use the precarious state of flight as a means to explore the complicated choreography necessary for navigating …

Fear Of God: Exploring Transformative Potential, Misunderstanding, Systemic Challenges, And The Future., Jermaine Ollivierre

Theses and Dissertations

This personal journey is a testament to the transformative power of play within my practice. It is a love story between me and the institution, sparked by my fervor for communal creativity in a graduate school environment. Through creative endeavors like public art installations and silent artist talks, I confront racial dynamics and institutional reluctance to engage with complex issues like Black Lives Matter. My personal experiences of alienation are woven into the broader themes of community building, communication, and systemic change. I navigate the complexities of group mentality and exclusion by deliberately using unconventional forms of expression, such as …

Latina Voice In Dialogue With Literacy, Xiaodi Zhou

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This study follows the literacy experiences of four Latina middle schoolers as they read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and compose home language narratives in their heritage voices. Both their vibrant ethnic cultures and other intersecting rays of identities are analyzed in the vein of their literate identities. Through analysis of their writing and speech, the girls present hybridized identities on the border between cultures and languages. Their position and identities in the social world of middle school are discussed and how transactions with literacy can dialogically influence those identities to enact critically conscious pedagogy.

Southern Khanates Of Azerbaijan In The Documents Of The Russian State Military Historical Archive, Rovshan Mammedlı

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Starting from the beginning of the 19th century, Azerbaijan became the battlefield of two great powers, Russia and the Qajar Empire. After 30 years of intermittent war, the territory of Azerbaijan was occupied and divided by these two states. The Russo-Iranian war also resulted in the division of the historical territory of Azerbaijan into two parts. As the result, the concepts of North and South Azerbaijan were created. Since 1828, eleven Azerbaijani khanates located in the south of the Aras River fell under Qajar rule. However, in spite of this, in the 80 years of their existence, these khanates implemented …

Review Of Policing Empires: Militarization, Race, And The Imperial Boomerang In Britain And The Us, Jonathon J. Booth

Publications

No abstract provided.

Sieving Silence: The Communal Question And The Archive Of Indian Constitutional History, Kanika Gauba

National Law School Journal

This paper shows how the archive of Indian constitutional history limits access to constitutional disagreement. It attempts an alternative framing of the issue of political safeguards for religious minorities (‘the communal question’) as a triangle of disagreement among the Sikhs, the Anglo‑Indians, and Sardar Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel. However, the task is complicated by the silence in the official archives on all three actors. If, as critical historians argue, silence is the very condition of the archive and the writing of history, this paper argues that the historian must ‘sieve’ the inevitably silent archives of Indian constitutional history for perturbations, follow …

Neoliberal Shifts And Strategies Of Religious Adaptation In Post-War Sri Lanka, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Neoliberal shifts have brought about a centring of market logics, and a new focus on the individual as consumer. Some religious groups are better able to adapt to these shifts than others, which reveals the changing role of religion in people’s daily lives. This paper explores how the adaptive strategies of religious groups in response to neoliberalisation can trigger a reimagination of the role and value of religion in/to society. I illustrate these ideas through a comparative exploration of how Buddhist elites and evangelical Christians engage with theology, tradition, and the market in Sri Lanka. Whilst Buddhist elites struggle to …

“Fly Buddha To Mars”: The Co-Production Between Religiosity And Science & Technology At Longquan Monastery, Beijing, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article attempts at a re-theorization towards the symbiosis and co-production of religion, modern science and technology, inspired by theoretical thinking within geographies of religion and science and technology studies (STS). Recent scholarship on the geographies of religion has made substantive advancements in discerning the convergence of religion and secular modernity. However, science and technology (S&T), as an essential condition and driving force of secular modernity, remain peripheral to this ongoing theoretical agenda, yet to be fully incorporated into the analytical framework about the co-constitution of religion and secular modernity, arguably because of the entrench divide between the rationalism of …

An Integrated Theory Of Happiness: The Yang Zhu Chapter Of The Liezi, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the integrated approach to theorizing happiness in the Yang Zhu chapter of the book associated with the Daoist master Liezi. While ancient critics famously denounced Yang Zhu as an amoral, pleasure-seeking hedonist, I argue the Yang Zhu chapter offers an individually rational but socially non-conformist approach to well-being of considerable relevance to contemporary scholarship on happiness. Not only does the chapter offer an intriguing and counter-intuitive argument about what constitutes and causes well-being, but its philosophical implications address a large number of inescapably foundational conceptual questions that can serve as metrics for evaluating theories of happiness in …

Positioning Paperback Books As Americana: Cultural And Historical Impacts Of The Wadle Pocket Book Collection, Jake Volk

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The first book in the form of a codex was bound around 300 BCE, but the earliest material used to record writing appeared around 3000 BCE. From these documents recording proto-writing of human history, people have sought to analyze and preserve writing, which continues as a contemporary work of scholars across multiple disciplines to form the field of the history of the book. As the book changed physical form from illuminated manuscripts on vellum to cheaply produced, paperback books, which appeared in the early 1800s, historians have documented these changes; however, more analysis is needed to categorize and interpret how …

Haunting Euramerican Memories: Rhetorical Haunting And The Diffuse Memory Of The Dakota 38+2, Noel Keil

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Leadership And Emergent Faith Communities In Canada: A Phenomenological Study, Anne Anderson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study is to explore how participants within emergent faith communities in Canada experience leadership. Through a phenomenological approach, members from five emergent faith communities across Canada have been interviewed in a semi-structured format. Emerging themes of transformational leadership, community along with belonging, and possible future areas of research will be discussed.

The Wilderness Which Never Was: A History Of The Białowieża Forest 1850–1947, Rafal Stolarz

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Located on both sides of the Polish-Belarusian border in north-eastern Poland, the Białowieża forest is the largest remaining remnant of the vast primeval forest that once covered most of Europe. It is also home to Europe’s biggest land animal—the European bison. Over the past century Polish governments, as well as modern-day Polish and European environmental groups, have promoted the forest as the “last European wilderness.” Even today, the public regularly protests and decries news of human encroachment on the forest. Yet in reality, the Białowieża forest has been exploited and studied by humans for centuries, making it one of the …

Dancing Around And Through Harm: Examining The Lived Experiences Of Women Of Colour With Gender-Based Violence In The Toronto & Kitchener-Waterloo Latin Dance Communities, Lexi Salt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Given the systemic nature of gender-based violence in Canada, as well as the increasing popularity of Latin dance, it is important to better understand the particular and culturally-specific ways gender-based violence manifests itself within the Latin dance community. This research study examines the lived experiences of women of colour with gender-based violence in the Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo Latin dance communities. Two groups of participants took part in semi-structured interviews: 14 women of colour dancers, and six “Power Players”, leaders in the Latin dance community who are in a position of power (e.g., instructors, organizers, DJs). The data was analyzed using …

Mapping With The Land: Co-Developing A Cumulative Impact Monitoring And Land Stewardship Framework With Sambaa K’E First Nation, Northwest Territories, Canada, Michael S. Mcphee

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Across the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, Indigenous populations are striving to achieve effective environmental protection, whilst navigating complex methods, policies, and research relationships within co-management contexts. This thesis seeks to identify how differing cultural systems, environmental change, and fractured partnerships may be unified to align with the needs of the Sambaa K’e First Nation (SKFN), a remote Dehcho Dene community. Indigenous methodologies guided co-development of research questions with SKFN leadership which yielded objectives a) develop a GIS-based method to manage, organize and mobilize cultural and environmental data; b) develop a new stewardship monitoring procedure so that users can apply the …

Troglodyke's Delight: A Deep Listening Of Pauline Olivero's Troglodyte's Delight, Calum Robertson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Pauline Oliveros, renowned lesbian composer, left a legacy of experimental music and groundbreaking ideas about music and sound, both as maker and listener. She is best known for her concept of Deep Listening, the active engagement of listening to sound and being open to all possibilities, being receptive to the resonant currents emanating from the sounds, to go beyond hearing and to listen, to Deeply Listen, to the sounds, to experience fully those sounds. Deep Listening was inspired by an experience Oliveros had in a cistern in 1988, where beneath the earth she truly experienced listening and the sounds present …

Making The Pluriverse Visible: World-Making On The Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, Lauren Judge

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation argues that visual artists who live and work on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula, in Ontario, Canada, are co-creating artworks with non-humans, which is evidence of more-than-human world-making. Such co-creative experiences are the result of, and catalysts for the kinds of enchantment our human worlds need to form meaningful and holistic connections with non-humans, effectively creating a more inclusive pluriverse. After reviewing interdisciplinary literature in posthuman studies, creative geography, arts-based practices, environmental humanities, Indigenous knowledges, and political ontology, I designed my research to include a combination of qualitative methodologies and methods, including autoethnography and research-creation, to investigate fourteen visual …

Shifting Blame And Gendered Differences: A News Media Study Of The Characterization Of Police Sexual Violence, Brittany Nieman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis offers a critical analysis of media representations of police sexual violence cases in Canada. This paper looks to fill the gap on media representations of police sexual violence cases and to contribute to long standing literature on gendered issues in policing. Symbolic interactionism, framing theory, and critical feminist ideologies make up the theoretical background for this work. Using Altheide and Schneiders (2012) Qualitative Document Analysis Process, a media analysis was conducted on 104 Canadian news articles revolving around police sexual violence cases occurring on Canadian policing services. This study primarily revealed a dichotomy in representations of the complainant …

“Are We Truly Disruptors?” A Thematic Analysis Of Two Canadian Teachers Disrupting The Status Quo In Their Classrooms, V Pereira

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This critical qualitative study looked to better understand the education system as an oppressive force, as well as highlight the strategies current Canadian teachers use to resist racism and colonialism in their classrooms. Using an inductive thematic analysis framework, my data sample consisted of 9 episodes from the podcast series The Chey and Pav Show: Teachers Talking Teaching featuring Toronto-based educators Chey Cheney and Pav (Pawan) Wander. The analysis identified two overarching themes pertaining to Pedagogy and Subject Content. The findings indicated that the educators have undergone a personal journey of social justice learning consisting of reflectivity and accountability, which …