Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Materializing The Interface: Personal Data Feeds Generative Art, Erin Livingston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Materializing the Interface: Personal Data Feeds Generative Art is a data-studio capstone project that reconstructs elements of desktop and mobile interfaces as handmade mixed-media artifacts, then digitizes them as an interactive website where generative text and images are fed by personal data flows. Twenty-one paper collage windows — built from cardstock, risograph-printed paper, and mixed media — were photographed, digitized, and activated using code to become the interactive surface of a desktop view driven by browser history. A corresponding mobile view renders a corpus of 500 Instagram advertisement screenshots through a risograph print aesthetic, fed by a hand-tagged emotion and …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

The Image Falls Apart, Alexa N. Curran

Masters Theses

The Image Falls Apart is a phenomenological account of my collision with Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent from the Cross (ca. 1435). In an ever-expanding landscape of visual stimuli, how do we make sense of images that are an encounter with the sacred? Of what use to a modern viewer is an altarpiece of the late medieval period that, in its miraculous rendering of each of its human figures, reflects the impending iconophobia of the Protestant Reformation? And what does falling have to do with it? With careful attention to the assembly of bodies in space, this multidisciplinary project, …

Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 19 No. 1, 2025, University Of San Francisco

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Articles

Think Pieces

Photo Essay

Book Reviews

The Myth Of The Italiani Brava Gente In Cinema Since 1945, Bradley P. Reimer

Honors Theses

The myth of the italiani brava gente has been intertwined with cinema since the end of the Second World War. This thesis aims to examine the ways in which these movies, from neorealist classics to disregarded comedies, are influenced by this myth.

By analyzing thirteen films of both Italian and American origin, clear trends begin to emerge between the socioeconomic state of Italy and the ways in which the myth is manifested on the silver screen. When Italy emerges from the war a rebuilding country, the films focus on the futility of war and the evil of Nazi Germany. During …

Between Authenticity And Exploitation: Rethinking The Intended Audience Of Sean Baker's Tangerine, Ava Brandt

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015) has generated genuinely divided responses among trans critics, and for good reason. This paper takes that division seriously, using two reviews published on Autostraddle within six weeks of each other to frame a central question: who is Tangerine actually for? Existing scholarship on trans cinema has tended to evaluate films on a spectrum from exploitative to affirming, but this paper argues that framework is insufficient for a film like Tangerine, which operates as both simultaneously. Through close reading of the film alongside its production history, paratexts, and reception, and drawing on Paige Macintosh's scholarship on trans …

Disney's Illusion Of Inclusion, Marissa Davis

All Theses

Walt Disney’s films were not simply entertainment, but a use of racial stereotypes as a profit strategy. Even scholarship that explores these tactics and critically analyzes his most problematic misrepresentations do not to consider the role of Walt Disney, as a man, in creating and promoting these narratives. These depictions, while somewhat in line with the culture when he first entered the business, failed to evolve as society changed. Rather, they were deliberate choices to attract white audiences and increase revenue.

Over time, these tropes became socially unacceptable, yet Disney maintained them for public consumption. While Disney and his company …

Adaptability From Tv & Film Into Theatre | The Subversion Inspiration In Celia’S Identity Versatility Throughout William Shakespeare’S As You Like It, Emani White

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the inspiration of adaptability skills, pivoting from television and film into theatre, and the potential of unconventional pathways as a catalyst for reconciling anti-traditionalism within the mediums. It offers insight into the obstacles, segues, and adversities faced during the journey of a former athlete turned television and film actor, and into a theatre actor. It illuminates agency as a subversive identity (the disguise), the sacrifice of status, and the need for an emotional anchor of resilience—acknowledging the systemic transitional barriers in performance, career, and education. The paper also discusses the understandings gained from my journey as an …

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

New Clubs: Taking Roots, Diorama, 1981

Documents

Article with photographs describing the 1981 introduction of four new campus organizations: Delta Sigma Theta, Ascending Voices, Fashion Forum, and the University of North Alabama Film Society. The article is derived from the Diorama, the student yearbook.

Rooted Transformations, Ricardo D. Moctezuma

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In my ventures through art I realized that I underwent an experience that was tailored to my process of release. As I struggled to share my emotions, I became distant and dissociated, I felt detached from others and even from myself. This process was something I visualized in my art from, the Tears, to Self Destruction, to the Release and onto the Garden. I’ve always felt myself in a state of Release, partly healed and partly damaged. All I knew was that the garden represented a new beginning for me, I just never knew what that Garden was. Time passes …

Productive Disruptions: An Equityoriented Framework For Civic Media Literacy In The Digital Era, Carlos Jimenez, Lynn Schofield Clark, Johnny Ramirez

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article introduces Productive Disruptions as a framework for civic media literacy that centers equity and social justice. Past scholarship has emphasized understanding media content and gaining competence in media production. To center equity as a structural concern beyond individual behaviors, we argue for media literacy interventions that support disrupting racism in content, production, and digital media distribution systems themselves. Drawing on an ethnographic case study with young people experiencing marginalization, we examine how youth productively disrupted instances of systemic racism via TikTok and Instagram. We identify three distinct modes of intervention: creating counter-narratives that disrupt racist discourses, subverting adult-led …

From Collection To Documentary: An Eventful Journey Of Developing And Managing The Wan-Go H.C. Weng Film Collection, Jim Cheng

Journal of East Asian Libraries

Experience, challenge, lesson, reward, and inspiration of developing and managing a special collection: Wan-go Weng Film Collection in a major research library.

The Sensationalizing Of Presidential Assassinations In Mass Media Throughout American History, Lindsay E. Smith

Undergraduate Theses

This project explores how mass media has shaped the public response to presidential assassinations across American history. By examining the deaths of Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963), we can trace how evolving media technologies – such as newspapers, yellow journalism, radio broadcasts, and live television coverage – have sensationalized violence, politicized tragedy, and transformed periods of national mourning into mass spectacles. The thesis analyzes reporting methods, narrative framing, and the news industry to show how each has influenced emotional response, political landscapes, and eventual presidential legacy. Ultimately, we find that …

Res Historica, Volume 5, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette Phd

Res Historica

The 2026 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, Julia Ackerman, Callyn Wright, Logan Davis, and John Hinton. Cover art by Mary Beth Lee.

Let's All Go To The Lobby: Examining The American Cold War Experience Through Film, Renaldo Gonzales Jr.

GLI MA in American History Student Works

The films of the American film industry produced and released during the Cold War are as varied as the complex events that occurred throughout the entirety of the conflict. These films can provide an understanding of how the feelings and attitudes of the American people shifted and evolved as the Cold War progressed. This work will examine a small sample of these films, focusing on one film from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. By providing critiques and reviews of the film from the time of its original release, information about the motives of the director of the films being …

2nd Place Contest Entry: "Destablizing U.S.-Japan Relations: Nikkatsu Film Noir As Postwar Social Critique", Thomas Graham Buchanan

Eric M. Scandrett Graduate Library Research Prize

This is Thomas Buchanan's submission for the 2026 Eric M. Scandrett Graduate Research Prize, which won second place. It contains their essay on using library resources, a summary of their research project on how a generation of Japanese filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s borrowed the formal strategies of Hollywood film noir to mount a critique of U.S. Cold War policy, and their bibliography.

Thomas is a student in the Master of Arts in Film & Media Studies program at Chapman University. Their faculty mentor is Dr. Emily Carman.

Thomas' thesis is the scholarship that emerged from the research discussed …

Stakhanov Lives Forever: How Art And Culture Outlasted Politics In The Communist World, Samuel Shewmake

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The Stakhanovite movement and its long term consequences has been heavily debated in the field of Soviet history for several decades. The dominant scholarly narrative is that the Stakhanovite movement and Stakhanovism were largely extinguished during the period following the buildup to the Second World War. Previous works have relied heavily on solely political analysis of the movement, presuming that its character was primarily state-driven with little social component. This paper analyzes the social and artistic legacy of the Stakhanovite movement through novel analysis of film, music, and art of the Stakhanovite period and following decades. Contrary to what has …

The Paradox Of Appropriation: A History Of Media Technology And Propaganda In Rwanda, 1900–1964, Claudia Brown

Journal of Global Catholicism

Scholars of the 1994 Rwandan genocide agree that media technology and propaganda played a role in mobilizing ordinary Rwandans in 1994 to commit genocide. Underappreciated in these inquiries is the history of the introduction of media technology and propaganda in Rwandan society by missionaries, technologies Rwandans later appropriated and applied to a pursuit of self-determination, but also in support of perpetrating genocide. A close examination of the social and political context of Rwanda’s colonial era and Catholic evangelism reveals a variety of motives for adopting propaganda as a strategy for evangelizing and rallying support for decolonization. This article casts light …

Hercules In Myth And Animation: Masculinity And Heroism, Noah Bautista

CAFE Symposium 2026

Disney's Hercules is a model man in today's society who combines the best aspects of both masculinity and femininity. In the myths, however, Hercules was much different and did not act as such a bridge between femininity and masculinity at the time. Through other scholarly works, the way that masculinity, heroism, and instrumentalization are presented and used is examined. Mythological Herakles is found to be a much more aggressive archetype of a man rather than Hercules, who is based upon strength in moderation and a more social society. Each fit into the ideals of the society they come from, perpetuating …

Sometimes I Picture You Dreaming: How American Female Directors Use Women-In-Prison Films As A Pathway For Public Education And Activism In The Era Of Mass Incarceration, Nicolette Natale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the role of female directors in creating media that showcases how prisons perpetuate sexism or gender-based violence. As mass incarceration began to take off in the 1970s, this paper begins with an analysis of Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971), which often served as the model for women-in-prison (WIP) exploitation films. While Hill perpetuated the white and male gaze in The Big Doll House, Stephanie Rothman subverts oppressive gazes in her WIP film, Terminal Island (1973), and demonstrates a concern with the historical gendered realities of prison – moving beyond representations of prison on the …

Russia’S Soft Power In Nahdlatul Ulama’S Art Exhibition Russia-Indonesia: Within The Framework Of Art, Nurul Rahmawati, Ahmad Fahrurodji

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study analyzes the construction of Russian cultural diplomacy in news media coverage of art exhibitions. Russia-Indonesia: Within the Framework of Art. The research uses the method Critical Discourse Analysis with Norman Fairclough's model and concept soft power Joseph Nye and the skeleton Taxonomy of Soft Power from Ohnesorge to map actor relations in cultural diplomacy practices. The results show that Russia utilizes art, religious symbols, and collaboration with Nusantara Utama Gallery and the involvement of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) artists as an instrument of soft power to build appeal and legitimacy among the Indonesian Muslim public through cross-media discourse …

Humanity Is Evolving Its Consciousness: The Role Of Archetypal Energies As Guides During An Unfolding Weeding Out And Alignment Process, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

Humanity is evolving its consciousness at individual and collective levels.  Given these seemingly tumultuous times, as of this writing (January 2026), to make such a statement may sound like a strange thing to say.  However, I suggest that if you are alive today and if you are reading these words, these are the very times for which you were born—to assist Humanity as it evolves its consciousness with your unique gifts, whatever they may be.  That is, this period of our individual and collective human being-ness may be characterized as an unfolding period of weeding out and alignment with the …

Adaptation Processes In Cross - Cultural Communication Within Chinese - Indonesian Workplace Settings: An Analysis Of The Tiktok Series "Day 1 Kerja Sama Orang China. ", Shi Jie, Amelia Burhan

International Review of Humanities Studies

In the background ofChina's deepening economic engagement with Indonesia under the Belt and Road Initiative, increasing numbers of Chinese workers have entered Indonesian industrial zones, creating a workplace environment characterized by intensive cross-cultural interaction. While previous studies on cross-cultural adaptation have primarily emphasized macro-level cultural barriers and language difficulties, this research shifts attention to the micro-level communicative practices through which cultural adaptation is negotiated in everyday collaboration. Drawing on Howard Giles' Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), this study conducts a qualitative analysis of TikTok videos depicting workplace interactions between Chinese and Indonesian workers particularly those labeled "Day 1 kerja sama orang …

Right-Wing French Media Coverage Of The Rassemblement National’S 2027 Presidential Candidates, Amelinda Sundari, Myrna Laksman-Huntley

International Review of Humanities Studies

The 2027 French presidential election has become a contest over political legitimacy, and the media play a key role in shaping candidates’ images. Within the right-wing camp, Rassemblement National (RN) presents two potential figures, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. Le Pen faces legal threats that could prevent her candidacy, while Bardella is projected as a successor to represent RN in the contest. Drawing on framing theory Pan & Kosicki (1993) and Critical Discourse Analysis Fairclough (1995), this qualitative study investigates right-wing French media preferences between these two candidates. The analysis examines three articles each from Le Figaro and Le …

Sahel Region In French Postcolonial Discourse: Macron's Production Of Space And Security Rhetoric, Azzahrah F. A Putri, Abellia Anggi Wardani Dr.

International Review of Humanities Studies

Between the Sahara Desert and the Sudanese Savannah, the Sahel region has become a contested geopolitical space. This study analyses how France is reconstructing its hegemony following its military withdrawal through the rhetoric of Emmanuel Macron (2021 and 2025). Using Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and the theory of spatial production (Lefebvre, 1974), this study examines how the discourses of “partnership” and “security” are employed to maintain French influence. Qualitative methods were applied to Macron's speeches, French media, and statements by former presidents of Sahel countries. The results show that France is redefining the Sahel as a ‘crisis zone’ requiring …

The Mediating Role Of Trust: How Cultural Factors Shape Consumer Acceptance Of Chinese Electric Vehicles In Jakarta, Indonesia, Suci Kuswardani, Ike Iswary Lawanda

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study examines the mediating role of consumer trust in the relationship between cultural factors and the purchase intention of Chinese Electric Vehicles (EVs) in Jakarta, Indonesia. While global EV adoption is often analyzed through techno-economic lenses, this research addresses a critical gap by investigating the under-explored socio-cultural dimensions that shape consumer behavior in emerging markets. Framed by an integrated theoretical approach combining Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and Reception Theory, the study explores how local cultural values such as collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and social status filter the acceptance of Chinese EV technology. A qualitative case study …

Songs Of Mahzani Of Woloan And Rukukan: From Ritual To Performance, Jeane Angela Manus, Priscila Fitriasih Fitriasih Limbong, Turita Indah Setyani, Muhammad Yoesoef

International Review of Humanities Studies

As one of oral traditions acknowledged in Woloan and Rurukan, Tomohon Minahasa, the songs of mahzani have long been sung in these two areas. As we understand that oral tradition would disappear from its community when it has lost its real function, this particular oral tradition has developed into staged performances. Songs of mahzani that had been practiced for generations as part of the mapalus traditions in the last decades has significantly decreased in line with the change of lifestyle of the people who practice it. Using qualitative method with an ethnographic approach, this article is to delve into the …

Sakdiyah Ma’Ruf’S Stand-Up Comedy: Humor And Social Critique In The Digital Age, Fitrizal Rahmadhian, Shuri Mariasih Gietty Tambunan

International Review of Humanities Studies

Stand-up comedy can challenge dominant discourses and dismantle stereotypes. This research focuses on an Indonesian female stand-up comedian, Sakdiyah Ma’ruf. Using textual analysis, the study investigates recorded performances available on YouTube between 2014 and 2025. Sakdiyah addresses critical social issues, including religious fundamentalism, terrorism, sexism, and gender-based violence. The study explores how she constructs her comedic persona through narratives of personal identity and social critique, and how she employs humor to negotiate sensitive topics while remaining acceptable to diverse audiences. Findings reveal that her themes remain consistent across performances, while her humor strategies, including structured narratives, deliberate word choices, and …