Arts and Humanities Commons^™

How Do You Feel, Kaitlyn Alexis Guinyard

Theses and Dissertations

The following is an incomplete manuscript of the novel, How Do You Feel. Set in a post-dystopian future, a city-sized ship called Pilgrim sails toward the mysterious Blue Star. Onboard, society has divided itself, in which the lowest of them all, Leashed, are enslaved by Tuners. While many inhabitants dream of reaching land again, its enslaved people cannot dream, let alone feel. Among them, Elijah is one of the numbest. She obeys her Tuner and abides by the order of Pilgrim. However, her world changes once she’s touched by the Blue Star, and she discovers many horrors lurking in …

Diffracting The Christine: Documenting A Building Multiple, Charles Brian Dedrick Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

The recent mingling of rhetorical theory and new materialism provides the space to ask different kinds of questions about our built history. Simultaneously, a parallel disciplinary interest in qualitative rhetorical field methods provides a growing arsenal for researchers who are invested in ‘being there’ and making a difference in the world. Working at the intersections of rhetorical theory, documentary film studies, and historic preservation, this project engages the Christine building differently. I offer a methodological framework to bridge rhetorical new materialism and rhetorical field methods and create a heuristic based in documentary theory and practice. As an archival, performance ethnography, …

Whiteface, Briley D. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Whiteface is a strange, sad novel about a young Comanche man who passes as white in 19th century Galveston. It is inspired by my ancestors Quanah and Cynthia Ann Parker.

Nature As Culture: Ecofeminist Narratives Of Environmental And Colonial History, Sydney Leimbach

Theses and Dissertations

“Nature as Culture: Ecofeminist Narratives of Environmental and Colonial History” is a cross-cultural, comparative, feminist investigation of two films, The Nightingale and Wolfwalkers, and two books, The Giving Tree and The Overstory. The narratives are analyzed through a combination of ecofeminism and decolonial feminism, revealing the four narratives’ investment in the effects of colonization on the environment. The two chapters explore the association of women with nature, traditionally used as a subordinating position, instead as a condition of empathetic understanding with both the colonized and the environment. Further, these narratives use the association of women with nature as …

Learning To Spell, Alana Ines Perez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores homonymic variations of the word “spell,” sewing together the framework for the ways my poems think about bilingualism, magic, Caribbean poetics, migration between northern and southern terrain, the body and personal spirituality. This thesis also experiments with forms old and new, such as the sonnet, and what I am naming “little altar poems” and “fragmented episodes.” These three forms attempt to do the work of recuperating Caribbean narratives and epistemologies. The “estrella sonnet” sequence uses the premise of an abortion as a way to initiate a nuanced discussion around how white patriarchy defines choice, consequently disregarding the …

Sites Of Peace And Pain: The Black Grandmother Figure In Toni Morrison’S Beloved, Jazz, And Sula, Alexus Joannea Ray

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Toni Morrison captures the genuine lived unique experiences of Black grandmothers and their granddaughters throughout her novels and specifically in Beloved, Jazz, and Sula. My analysis takes a closer look at the complications behind Morrison’s grandmothers in order to demonstrate that, while she is strong, supportive, and family oriented, the Black grandmother figure can also be a person of peril. The main characters, Denver, Violet, and Sula must come to terms with the contradictions of strength and sacrifice that the novels insist are better left in the past. Drawing on Morrison scholarship and Black women’s …

Queer Mary: Queer Temporalities In Late Medieval And Early Modern Drama, Bradley James Peppers

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how the Virgin Mary’s presence in late medieval and early modern drama stages biblical events that distort temporal strictures, disrupting how a viewer would experience the past, present, and future. In this way, past events occur nonlinearly, foreign concepts become implicit, and eternal life no longer exists outside of time. Using queer theories of temporality and history, I explore how the Virgin Mary represents a figure of change, ambivalence, and ambiguity—an evolving symbol and image having no clearly defined referent—one who, at once, inhabits a queer temporality, history, subjectivity, and sexuality. I chart these ideas by closely …

Piratical Transportation: Highlighting Silences In Carolina’S Enslavement And Exportation Of Native Americans, Jordan Stenger

Theses and Dissertations

When Carolina colony was established, its early financial success was inherently bound to its enslavement and exportation of countless Indigenous people in the colonial pursuit of Native land, wealth, and enslaved labor. However, given the Indian slave trade was largely illegal in Carolina, how did colonists export Indigenous people? This study seeks to expand the land-locked historiography and explore how enslaved Indigenous people appear in the historical record across the Atlantic world. Utilizing term proximity as a methodological approach in reading historical records, and privileging Carolina’s black-market trade with pirates, I propose that the trade with pirates also included enslaved …

In Her Possession And Keeping Revolutionary War Widows And The Politics Of Family Archives, 1820–1850, Riley Kathryn Sutherland

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Revolutionary War widows deployed family archives as partisan tools to claim pensions. By reconsidering the relationship between women, family archives, and state building, it challenges established understandings of revolutionary women, nineteenth-century political economy, and memory.

Revolutionary War pension laws ignited fierce partisan debates. Since pensions would require Congress to impose tariffs and assemble a fiscal bureaucracy, they were generally supported by Whigs and contested by Democrats. Knowing that, women tailored their applications to their partisan audiences. Widows often appealed to Whigs by requesting welfare, citing their poverty. But when addressing Democrats, they framed the pensions they …

An Investigation Of The Galenic Influence On The Artistic Depiction Of Anatomical Concepts During The Renaissance, Fatima Amjad

Theses and Dissertations

The Renaissance era was a period marked by an intellectual and artistic resurgence in Europe, during which artists sought inspiration from Classical sources. This resulted in a move away from stylized medieval aesthetics and towards a renewed emphasis on accuracy and humanity in art. Renaissance artists developed art styles that emphasized perspective, proportion, and anatomy, creating more lifelike and naturalistic representations of the human figure and the natural world. The adoption of naturalism and individualism in the arts paired with the rediscovery and retranslation of ancient anatomical texts propelled artists and anatomists to deepen their understanding of the human body. …

From Derby Tracks To Surf Shacks: Reflections Of California’S Changing Cultural Landscape Through Artistic Renditions Of Recreation 1930s-1960s, David Walls

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to analyze works of art originating in the state of California during the 20^th century to better understand how sports and recreation were used as a subject matter to reflect upon the state’s changing cultural landscape. This changing landscape encompasses a wide range of social, cultural, economic, and political topics, however, the topics of race, migration, and economic strife are the most consistently reflected in the artistic production of this time and must be emphasized. Scholarship of art created within this region and timeframe has neglected the impact of recreational subject matter and …

“Speak For Yourself”: Ovidian Women And The Suppression Of Voice And Complaint In Metamorphoses And Heroides, Grayson Elizabeth Newman

Theses and Dissertations

Ovid’s portrayal and attitude towards women is one that is particularly puzzling and contradictory throughout his Metamorphoses and Heroides. Recent scholarship on Ovidian literature is only divided on whether or not Ovid’s intentions within these two works were to sympathize with the Roman woman’s experience or to reinforce the lack of female representation in Roman society; however, I argue that Ovid fails to achieve empathy for the Roman woman. In Heroides, these women are pining and tragic, often meeting some terrible fate shortly after being abandoned by their suitors and putting forth a complaint. Conversely, women in Metamorphoses …

Rhetorical New Materialism, Queers, And Cringe, Katherine Anne Schell

Theses and Dissertations

Cringe, the negative reflexive reaction we experience when we witness something embarrassing or awkward, has a bad reputation in the queer community. In online and physical queer spaces, there is a pervading belief that “cringe culture” must be antithetical to queerness, that no queer community could possibly achieve liberation until it has eradicated the threat of cringe. This thesis revises that cringe vs. queer positioning by reimagining cringe as its own rhythm of queerness and examining the productive aspects of cringe through engagement with thinkers like Karen Barad and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The thesis, formatted as a response to a …

How Do They Do It: A Narrative Of Disabled Public School Instrumental Ensemble Conductors And Their Positive Working Relationships With Their Administrators, Lia Alexandria Patterson Snead

Theses and Dissertations

As the leader of the instrumental ensemble, the conductor’s role is important on and off the stage. Public school conductors have especially demanding jobs because they must act as a conduit between composer and ensemble as well as handle all administrative duties pertaining to running a music program. Subsequently, this results in a heavier workload than the average teacher. The demanding workload can add to any preexisting issues for disabled ensemble conductors who struggle at work due to insufficient support from their administrators. The lack of strong administrative support for disabled or impaired faculty and staff may be due to …

Fourth-Grade And Fifth-Grade Cover-Band Classes: An Action-Research Project Inspired By Popular Music Education And Music Learning Theory, Julia Turner

Theses and Dissertations

I facilitated “Fourth-Grade and Fifth-Grade Cover-Band Classes,” a popular music education-, informal music learning-, and music learning theory-inspired action-research project. The purpose of this action-research project was to examine the facilitation and learning processes used by my students and me when engaged with those music learning approaches and theory. The guiding questions for this study included: 1) How do I use and adapt principles from modern band (2023), Green (2008; 2014), and Gordon (2012; 2013) to prepare my facilitation of a popular music project for my fourth-grade and fifth-grade students? and 2) How do my fourth-grade and fifth-grade students engage …

A Conductor’S Guide To Lucrecia Roces Kasilag’S Misang Pilipino (1965), Denise Ysabel Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Composer Lucrecia Roces Kasilag (1918-2008) is a National Artist for the Philippines and a UNESCO International Artist of the World. Though she has many more accolades and triumphs to note, both national and international, Kasilag is not well known outside of her native Philippines. One factor that obscures this composer from the world is that much of her work is unpublished, as are other historical Filipino composers’ works.

Kasilag composed her first Misang Pilipino in 1965 to commemorate the 400^th year of Christianization in the Philippines, but multiple editions of the work were written and used for different occasions. …

Planting Rhizomes: Roots And Rhizomes In Maryse Condé’S Traversée De La Mangrove And Calixthe Beyala’S Le Petit Prince De Belleville, Rume Kpadamrophe

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, migration has played a crucial role in the development of human civilization, with the transplantation of cultures from one region to another shaping identities worldwide. The African diaspora, beginning with the Atlantic Slave Trade, saw the forced transportation of around 12 million Africans across the ocean, resulting in the creation of creole identities in the Antilles. Literature has long reflected the experiences of migrants. In Maryse Condé's Traversée de la Mangrove and Calixthe Beyala's Le Petit Prince de Belleville, the complexity of Antillean and Afro-French identities is explored. This thesis delves into how Condé's work highlights the …

Adaptation And Art: An Examination Of The Costume Design Process In A Global Pandemic, Kyla Ann Little

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring experiences in the Costume Design and Technology Program at the University of South Carolina, this thesis entails the extensive journey from the first trepidatious costume rendering to fully designing costumes for a studio feature film that may be sold to Hallmark. Through a comprehensive curriculum that involved designing costumes for three realized productions, acquiring proficient skills in drawing, painting, digital rendering, patternmaking, and draping, I was able to finish off with an internship semester that encompassed five professional jobs in the industry. My odyssey highlights the ability to adapt to new challenges, including navigating the global pandemic as an …

A Comparative Analysis Of Samuel Barber’S Third Essay For Orchestra, Op. 47, David Abrams Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Samuel Barber (1910–1981) was an American composer who lived and worked during the twentieth-century. His list of works includes forty-eight published pieces that span virtually every major genre of western art music. One of Barber’s most unique contributions is the invention of a new orchestral genre: the essay for orchestra. Borrowing the term from literature, Barber is credited with composing the first musical essays. Today, musical essays are understood to be single-movement instrumental works that are non-programmatic in nature.

Barber composed three essays for orchestra during his lifetime. His First Essay, Op. 12, was composed in 1937; his Second …

A Holistic Approach For Neurodivergent Learners In The High School Choral Classroom, Peter Allen Haley

Theses and Dissertations

There is a wealth of literature in the fields of music education, music therapy, and psychology regarding neurodivergent people, but next to no pedagogical material relating to large-group practices, particularly within the choral rehearsal. Many, if not most high school choir directors will encounter neurodivergent students in their programs at some point and will likely not know which strategies effectively include their neurodivergent learners in their classrooms. This paper includes a survey of existing research and literature related to music education (particularly secondary choral music education) and Universal Design for Learning, and offers rehearsal techniques, classroom management strategies, and repertoire …

Lunatics, Liberals And Bloodthirsty Haters: The South In The 1972 Presidential Election, Thomas Clayton Strebeck

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the political campaigns of President Richard Nixon and Senator George McGovern in the Southeastern United States during the 1972 presidential election. Both candidates’ political careers up to the 1972 presidential election, which informed their actions and the actions of their campaigns, will also be analyzed to determine how these impacted their political decisions. Nixon’s career as Vice President, his comeback after his losses in 1960 and 1962, and his first term as President all taught lessons that culminated in a campaign that earned him one of the most dramatic landslides in American political history. Senator McGovern’s …

An Analysis Of Selected Vocal Works By George Walker, Ginger Sharnell Jones-Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

George Theophilus Walker (1922–2018), a prolific composer, pianist, and educator, was born on June 27, 1922, in Washington, D.C. He received degrees in music from Oberlin College, Curtis Institute of Music, and Eastman School of Music. His faculty appointments included Dillard University, Smith College, the University of Colorado, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and Rutgers University.

In 1998, Walker received a Letter of Distinction from the American Music Center for his significant contributions to the field of contemporary American music, and in 1999 he was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters. Perhaps most significantly, Walker holds …

A Pedagogical And Analytical Study Of The Carnatic Saxophone Performance Tradition Of Kadri Gopalnath, Caleb James Carpenter

Theses and Dissertations

Kadri Gopalnath is a musician who achieved an exceptional level of mastery in the Carnatic musical tradition of South India, and he accomplished this playing the saxophone, a uniquely Western instrument. He was the first person to fully integrate the saxophone to the Carnatic style and was held in high esteem as a classical Indian musician. This document examines the Carnatic tradition, Kadri Gopalnath’s life and work, and the modifications he made to the saxophone. Selected analyses of his performances are reviewed in the context of Carnatic pedagogy, and the significance of learning this tradition for the musicianship of a …

Anthropocene Composition: Teaching Terminal Generations In The Pre-Apocalyptic Classroom, John Michael Purfield

Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene is an era characterized by human alteration of the planet at deep geological levels and permeation of anthropogenic damage across all biomes. The primary crisis of this era is climate change, which is understood broadly as the anthropogenic disruption in weather patterns and global temperature averages caused by carbon emissions and other pollutants, as well as extractivism and terraforming (deforestation, monoculture farming, desertification and alterations of waterways, for example). Though popular media tends to frame climate change as a looming but always future problem, it is currently producing casualties, both human and nonhuman. The ongoing great extinction correlates …

Learning To Let Go: Becoming A More Collaborative And Compassionate Director, Catherine Joy Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines all the directorial projects I’ve had the pleasure of working on throughout my time at UofSC, both as an assistant and as a director. Because I am completing my MFA without the mentor I originally started this journey with, my path has not been linear but, instead, a series of stepping stones in all shapes and sizes, guided by different directors and unofficial mentors who have various styles and approaches to theatre. These projects have molded my directorial approach in different ways, and I have become a better collaborator and leader because of them. This thesis examines …

“All The Rights Of Native Cherokees”: The Appearance Of Black People In Cherokee Society, Ayanna Goines

Theses and Dissertations

The appearance of Blacks in Native spaces affected the very structure of Indigenous lives during the forced removal of Native groups in the 1830s to the emancipation of enslaved people in the 1860s contributing to the change from a “clan-based society to a society grounded in the modern concept of rule of law” as the need to control the actions of enslaved people called for the creation of laws. Tribal courts were also used to determine whether someone was recognized and adopted into the clan. Outside of government involvement, the status of enslaved Black people was reinforced by the social …

Humor In Western European Instrumental Music: How Humor Works, Its Usage Over Time, And Accessible Teaching Strategies, Hunter K. Thompson

Senior Theses

This research’s purpose was to examine the perception of humor, both generally and musically, and to provide an overview of how humor has been incorporated into Western European instrumental music from the Medieval Age to the 20th century. In order to evaluate this, the researcher conducted a listening survey to gauge how well college music majors perceive humor in instrumental music. The survey consisted of eleven total listening excerpts approved by the Music History faculty at the University of South Carolina School of Music. Nine excerpts were coded humorous, and two excerpts were coded non-humorous for control. There was a …

Moral Injury To Inform Analysis Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Amanda Julia Manea

Senior Theses

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that almost one out of ten veterans struggle with. Although the National Center for PTSD has made extensive progress in characterizing and developing new treatments for PTSD, most veterans still experience symptoms of PTSD following treatment. Novel avenues of investigation, such as developing algorithms to review electronic health record (EHR) data and better understanding moral injury, are being pursued to address the gap that still exists when it comes to treating veterans. Moral injury is the individual evaluation of exposure to a potentially morally injurious event (PMIE) and can lead to …

Bad Blood: Octavia E. Butler Takes A Bite Out Of Gender And Racial Stereotypes In Fledgling, Abigail Cole

Senior Theses

For contemporary audiences the word “vampire” typically conjures two figures: a Damon Salvatore-esque[1] man with devil may care eyes, dark hair and an equally dark past. Dripping with sex and charm, he struggles with an internal dilemma, his animalistic urge to kill constantly at war with his human morality. On the other hand, we have the sexy, scantily clad white female vampire who uses her feminine wiles and socially “perfect” body to prey upon poor, unsuspecting men, until she is eventually corralled into domestic submission, or killed. While this description fits the broader scale of what the vampiric figure …

A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush

Senior Theses

This project analyzes the stereotypical image of lawyers in popular culture, focusing on either overly demonic or unrealistically heroic. Both stereotypes that are common portrayals of attorneys in popular culture are unrealistic and deny society a true comprehension of the profession. Popular culture has molded the image of lawyers to the characteristics that sell, rather than focusing on a realistic portrayal. Therefore, popular culture creates a falsely dramatized image of attorneys to generate revenue, putting the reputation and future of the profession as risk. These stereotypes are exemplified in this project through a close literary analysis of lawyer characters from …