American Studies Commons^™

Un Pensamiento Sin Fronteras, Catalina Simmonds Caldas

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

Reconocer en la formación de la (nuestra) identidad los aportes que las imágenes visuales han conferido a los distintos soportes mentales, es reconocer en este proceso el que en las lecturas que sobre las imágenes visuales se haga, las líneas conceptuales aprehendidas no son solo mecanismos y métodos, son también estructuras identitarias. La descripción de la significativa trayectoria académica que hacemos hoy, en este homenaje a la Dra. Solanilla, estaría incompleta en gran medida si no nos detenemos en que su aporte es ante todo una construcción humanística, y esta se traduce en un ir más allá de las fronteras …

Tejiendo Imágenes. Homenaje A Victòria Solanilla Demestre, Catalina Simmonds Caldas , Editora, Marina Valls I García , Editora

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

SUMARIO — Miquel-Àngel Sànchez i Fèrriz: El porqué de este homenaje a la Dra. Victòria Solanilla Demestre • Catalina Simmonds Caldas: Un pensamiento sin fronteras • Luz Adriana Alzate Gallego: «A lomo de piedra»: rescatando una gran colección lítica • Denise Y. Arnold: Los textiles andinos teñidos por amarras, el motivo del punto en el rombo y su patrón de difusión: Felinos, serpientes y el cultivo del maíz en un mundo en transformación • Luz Helena Ballestas Rincón: La diferencia entre ver y observar. La síntesis en la expresión gráfica precolombina. • Isabel Bargalló y Montserrat Bargalló: Moctezuma entre bambalinas …

Wahl. El Abanico En La Cultura Maya, Roberto Romero Sandoval

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

En este trabajo analizamos el uso, función y simbolismo del abanico entre los antiguos mayas. En principio, revisaremos las escenas palaciegas plasmadas en las vasijas estilo Códice del periodo Clásico Tardío, porque en ellas advertimos la presencia de personajes de la nobleza portando diversos tipos de abanicos. Entre ellos, destacan: gobernantes, mujeres de la nobleza, enanos, jefes militares, comerciantes y embajadores. En segundo lugar, realizaremos una tipología de los abanicos para descubrir de qué material estaban elaborados. Finalmente, indagaremos en las fuentes escritas y en los diccionarios, los nombres que se le otorgaban a la palabra “abanico”.

In this paper …

Las Huacas Moches Y Sus Relieves Pintados, Sarai Ramos Muñoz

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

En el siguiente artículo se lleva a cabo un estudio iconográfico e iconológico de la decoración pictórica, a modo de relieves y/o pintura mural, de cuatro huacas moches distintas, pero relacionadas entre ellas, situadas en el Valle de Moche y el Valle de Chicama. Para llevar a cabo la investigación, primero se hace una explicación general de la estructura arquitectónica de cada edificio y, después, de cada estancia. A continuación, se hace una descripción y un análisis de las pinturas encontradas en cada una de las huacas, centrándonos en la forma, la estructura, los motivos y los colores de cada …

La Cerámica Ecuatoriana Del Periodo Formativo. Las Culturas Valdivia, Machalilla Y Chorrera, José Luis Pano Gracia

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

Nos proponemos en este artículo hacer una reflexión sobre la cerámica que se produjo durante el periodo Formativo o Preclásico en el área andina septentrional (3500-500 a.C.). En especial, sobre las figuras de cerámica que se desarrollaron en las culturas del país que hoy denominamos Ecuador, principalmente las pertenecientes a los yacimientos de Valdivia, Machalilla y Chorrera. Asimismo, trataremos de establecer las oportunas comparaciones con las que se dieron en las tierras del antiguo México, como es el caso de las pretty ladies o mujeres bonitas que tan abundantemente salieron en las excavaciones del yacimiento de Tlatilco. Sin olvidarnos tampoco …

De Enredos, Tocados Y Telas: Algunos Apuntes De La Litoescultura Antropomorfa Teotihuacana Bajo La Óptica De Su Indumentaria, Annabel Villalonga

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

En la litoescultura antropomorfa teotihuacana la mayor parte de los ejemplares se presentan desnudos y asexuados. Al intentar definir el género, no contamos con muchos elementos, ya que los rasgos faciales inexpresivos y despersonalizados, así como los cuerpos anatómicamente poco diferenciados, no son atributos diagnósticos del género. La indumentaria es, para el caso de la escultura antropomorfa teotihuacana, un aspecto que contribuye a dilucidar el género de dichas esculturas. En este artículo proponemos una revisión de la indumentaria, los peinados y los tocados de las litoesculturas antropomofas teotihuacanas con el propósito de definir su grado de intervención en la asignación …

Re-Curation And Recognition: Addressing The Curation Crisis Through The Garnet Ghost Town, Jocelyn A. Palombo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As universities, federal curation facilities, public museums, and private collections struggle to create space on their shelves curators and archaeologists continuously evaluate what must continue to be stored and what needs to be deaccessioned. Utilizing a collection housed at the University of Montana I explore strategies for combating this issue. The collection originates from the Garnet Ghost Town and has been in the university’s care since its excavation. The objectives of this project are to obtain new information and incorporate innovative techniques to learn more about the collection itself and provide an updated analysis to one of Montana’s most complete …

Sconce Upon A Time: Evaluating Multimodal Methods Of Researching Period Lighting Technology, A Case Study Of Drayton Hall, Neale Elizabeth Grisham

All Theses

This thesis reviews several methods of researching light sources and lighting schemes from the “long eighteenth century,”[1] on a historical site. Despite the period’s cultural reliance on lighting as well as technological advancement in this era, there has yet to be published documentation on how to engage with evidence of lighting technology on historic sites for better understanding of the site’s relationship with lighting.

Using Drayton Hall in Charleston, South Carolina as a case study, this thesis outlines and demonstrates the process of five methods of investigating period lighting technology. These methods are: wall investigation, anchorage points comparison and …

The Ring Quarry Mining Complex: A Preliminary Archaeological Investigation Into Ancient Native American Sites In Northwestern New Jersey, Joseph D. Cusack

Theses and Dissertations

The Ring Quarry Mining Complex (RQMC) in northwestern New Jersey is an archaeological, Pre-Contact Native American mining and habitation complex. The RQMC was a primary source of tool stone in the Vernon Valley of New Jersey for thousands of years. Evidence of human occupation within the study area extends from the Paleoindian through the Contact Period. This study focuses on the ancient chert quarry and surrounding sites across a landscape making up a habitational complex.

Pioneers Of Evacuation, Pioneers Of Resettlement: The Photographic Archive Of The Japanese American Incarceration And The Settler Colonial Imaginary, Christina Hobbs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the photographic archive of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II produced by the US government, arguing that these images “restage” the evacuation, incarceration, and resettlement periods through a settler colonial “pioneer” mythology, thereby obscuring the precarity of Japanese Americans' racial positionality between “settler” and “native.”

"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …

Disorientations, Noah Greene-Lowe

MFA in Visual Art

The materials that make up the ordinary and mundane in the United States also reinforce and normalize a white spatial imaginary. Conventions of mapping, imaging of land and landscape, and elements of the built environment continue to orient us in a logic of space as property. In my sculptural work, I employ strategies of disorientation and creative repair, or reconstruction, to unsettle the spatial practices of whiteness and structures of power embedded in the mundane, the familiar, and the domestic. I consider the planned cohousing community where I grew up as an influence on my work, and my whiteness. By …

Preservation And Public History In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Walker Bray

Honors Theses

This paper is an exploration of the history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all Black community in the Mississippi Delta formed by freedmen in the wake of Reconstruction. This paper also discusses the ways in which Mound Bayou citizens are working to preserve their history and make it known to a wider audience. In particular, this work discusses the recently opened Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History and related efforts to restore and preserve historic structures in Mound Bayou. In addition, this work also seeks to explore ways in which the University of Mississippi can effectively supplement …

“Paint What You Hate”: Philip Guston’S Hooded Figures And The Postponement Of The Exhibition Philip Guston Now, Thomas Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the postponement of the Philip Guston Now exhibition, examining the justification for the postponement, the actions taken by the National Gallery of Art, and the effects of the postponement. My research examines the museum’s choice to cite social justice as the main context for understanding Philip Guston.

Achakali Chickasha Holbachi Italatalit Ithana: Continuation Of Chickasaw Design Practices, Lily Shore

Interior Design Undergraduate Honors Theses

The project aims to create an accessible tool to document, preserve, and honor Chickasaw design techniques by creating interactive 3D models replicating ancestral structures available through an online gallery. A virtual exhibition focuses on structures commonly found in a traditional Chickasaw village. The constructions represented include a traditional council house, summer house, winter house, and corn crib. Each is accompanied by contextual information, including a collection of historical photographs, information concerning use, and conventional architectural drawings such as plans, sections, and isometric views. In fruition, the project aims to function as a resource to commemorate the history of traditional Chickasaw …

An Analysis Of Charging Practices And Their Impact On Battery Degradation In North American Electric Vehicles Built Between 2010-2020, Douglas William Edward Ferrier

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electric vehicles (EVs) are emerging as a component of the global solution to combat climate change. However, in North America, particularly in the United States and Canada, the transition away from internal combustion engines (ICE) has been slow. North America faces unique challenges due to its geographical size and population in comparison to other continents. The good news is that EV adoption is increasing within North America. Along with increased EV adoption, governments and public companies are constructing charging infrastructure to support increased consumer EV purchases. Despite increased adoption, many future and current owners throughout North American society have concerns …

Rodcon, Flier, 2022, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Rodcon
Saturday April 9, 2022
10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Free and open to the public

Flier used in promotion of the event.

Hudson Yards: Hybrid Capital's New Home, Massimo D. Scoditti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the material and metaphysical aspects of the Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US History. With its roots in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the site is representative of neoliberal ideology. It is also one in which cultural production is central. This is in terms of the rationalization and mythos of the building of the space itself and the dreamworlds created to obscure the mechanisms of extraction and accumulation that make such a complex possible. The Hudson Yards is particularly interesting because, as Cindi Katz might suggest, topography lines connect it to transnational capital. And …

Rodcon, Program, 2022, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Contents:

--Welcome to RodCon
--Location
--Schedule
--What's That?
--Artists
--Food
--Sponsors
--Autographs

Fashioning The Flapper: Clothing As A Catalyst For Social Change In 1920s America, Julia Wolffe

Honors Program Theses

Fashion has been a catalyst for social change throughout human history. Fashion in 1920s America in particular reflects society's rapidly evolving attitudes towards gender and race. Beginning with how corsetry heavily restricted women for nearly four hundred years up until the twentieth century, this thesis explores how clothing has acted as a tool for societal progression following World War I and Women's Suffrage and during the Jazz Age and The Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, this thesis examines how the influence of jazz music and dance that originated from Black American communities led to the creation of the flapper evening dress. The …

Escaping Modesto: George Lucas, Film Auteur, And The Alteration Of Movie History, Krister Persson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This video essay analyzes the early filmography of George Lucas as a critique of auteur theory. Dissecting THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), and Star Wars (1977) based on their autobiographic qualities, this short documentary investigates the advantages and disadvantages of viewing a complicated cinematic work through the lens of an individual author. Analysis focuses on Lucasfilm founder George Lucas and his reputation for controversially altering his works through special edition re-releases, calling into question the sanctity of theatrical releases and the confines of a film auteur. Does a filmmaker, particularly one whose films are drawn from personal experience, have …

America’S Forgotten Laborers: The World Of Enslaved Craftsmen, Zack Dow

Emerging Writers

This article examines the underrepresented world of enslaved artisans in the American south. In the minds of many, enslaved Americans were confined to unskilled plantation labor. While such labor constituted a large part of the work of the enslaved, master craftspeople go unrecognized, perpetuating an imagine of unskilled, nominal workers that undermines the accomplishments of the millions of black artisans working at the time.

(Dis)Possessed Black Youth: How America's Architecture Challenges Coming Of Age In Twentieth And Twenty-First Century African American Women's Literature, Margaret Frymire Kelly

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation advances studies of Black childhood, particularly Black girlhood, by examining how African American women writers depict the troubled journey to adulthood in stories of segregation, immigration, and incarceration. I argue that authors of four representative literary works emphasize architectural structures as well as ancestral hauntings among which Black children grow up. Without examining the material structures, we cannot understand the strategies these haunted Black youth deploy to reach adulthood. Examining the architectural structures that the protagonists of Maud Martha (1953), Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959), Zami (1982), and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) grow up in and around, I demonstrate …

Cherokee Abstract Artist Leon Polk Smith: A Convergence Of Traditions, Danielle Montanino

Dissertations and Theses

This paper analyzes how Leon Polk Smith's Indigenous roots and upbringing in Indian Country had a significant impact on his artistic practice in a time of discrimination and segregation in the United States. Through examination contextualizing his work within the history and political events of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations it is revealed how Polk Smith developed a formal language that could navigate both worlds and be viewed through a pure abstraction lens or a lens embodying his Indigenous traditions. In addition to his Indigenous philosophies, Mesoamerican Inca Nation’s cultural motifs further ground Polk Smith’s Indigenous aesthetic, and avant-garde …

Colonial Prehistories Of Indigenous North America, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

One of the most common inquiries received by Filson Historical Society librarians concerns the myth of Prince Madoc and the Welsh Indians. Of the myth’s many versions, the one most familiar to Ohio Valley History readers goes like this: Madoc, a Welsh prince escaping an internecine conflict over political rule at home, supposedly sailed to North America in the twelfth century. His force either landed at the Falls of the Ohio or made it there after landing further south and being driven north by hostile locals, possibly Cherokee people. Madoc and his contingent intermixed with Indigenous populations, whose fair-haired, blue-eyed, …

Once Upon A Time/There Was A Story That Began: Novelty, Endings, And Chronotope In John Barth’S The Tidewater Tales, Zachary K. Gibson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of frame tales, genre blending, multi-voiced narration, and circular structure in John Barth’s 1987 novel, The Tidewater Tales. It tracks the isomorphy of Barth’s general aesthetic project, set forth in his essays, “The Literature of Exhaustion,” “The Literature of Replenishment,” and “Very Like an Elephant: Reality Versus Realism,” onto the theoretical aesthetics of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. Both Barth and Bakhtin praise the novel its omnivorous capability to accommodate, and juxtaposes conflicting genres against one another; they each see the novelist as an “arranger” or “orchestrator,” who reassembles pre-existing forms to make them …

Distribution Struggle: Assembling A Media History Of J. Brian’S Enterprises With Court Proceedings And Public Records, Finley Freibert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This article introduces the concept of “distribution struggle”—the panoply of cultural and industrial conflicts that must be traced and accounted for in distribution histories—to sequence a primary-sourced media history of J. Brian’s gay media enterprises. In tracing this history, primary sources are surprisingly accessible, and provide new insights into J. Brian’s industrial operations. By triangulating archival records with secondary accounts, this article provides a more nuanced cultural and industrial portrait of J. Brian. It argues that media industry historiography must frame historical narratives by accounting for the cultural and industrial struggles that culminated in the available archival sources, in this …

The U.S.–Mexican War: Visualizing Contested Spaces From Parlor To Battlefield, Erika Pazian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The U.S.-Mexican War[1] (1846-1848) was a watershed event that transformed the North American continent politically, socially, and ideologically. With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexico lost approximately half of its national territory in the north, and the United States acquired the modern states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming. Both nations were plagued by internal conflicts after the war, and each was plunged into civil war within fifteen years of its conclusion.

During this time of turmoil, Mexican and U.S. artists created and recreated myriad images …

"Never Forget": Embodied Absence And Extended Relations Of Care After 9/11, Sophie L. Riemenschneider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a reflection on how loss was articulated in the wake of 9/11. The terror attacks engendered a memorial style that sought to give shape to grief, acknowledging it without filling it in or erasing it. This new style, which I term embodied absence, exists across a range of mediums, from literature to architecture. It is such a potent memorial form because it also captures the traumatic process, which is prolonged, layered, and potentially open-ended. However, despite their ability to mirror the nature of trauma, instances of embodied absence never verbalize the attacks’ root trauma—the disconnect between our …

Mammy And Aunt Jemima: Keeping The Old South Alive In Popular Visual Culture, Angela G. Athnasios

Honors College Theses

Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century, American popular visual culture produced racist portrayals of Black Americans. Literature, illustrations, minstrelsy, film, and television are notorious for promoting such unflattering images. Each of these media typified African Americans as exaggerated caricatures with dark skin, bulging eyes, bright-red lips, and goofy smiles. The creators of these stereotypes project their racist beliefs into popular culture. This in turn heavily influences the way other races view people of African descent, as well as how Black people view themselves. From mammies, to Jezebels, to pickaninnies, and everything in between, the message ultimately conveyed in these …