Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Transversal Storytelling | Wintersession 2026 Syllabus, Patrick Buhr, Movement Lab

Course Materials

What does "story" mean? How can stories help us understand what appears profoundly different from us? How might seemingly unrelated elements converge in poetic resonance?

A “transversal line” cuts across worlds — moving through unexpected spaces, ideas, people, and moments. In this course, we explore how such crossings can inspire new forms of expanded storytelling and technique, looking at vivid examples from animation, film, coding, and performance. The students will choose contrasting elements (stories / characters / places) from their personal experience and together explore artistic ways of creating meaningful transitions and intersections.

The class will culminate in the development …

Transversal Movement Framework, Patrick Buhr, Movement Lab

Personal Work

"Every type of art can be understood as performance, and every performance involves movement. Every movement has a mover, and every mover relies on something through which to move…." – Patrick Buhr

Hierarchy And Ideology Antagonism: Artificial Intelligence In Ridley Scott's Alien, Grace Anastasia Pula

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines the objectively threatening structure of artificial intelligence (AI) in the narrative plot of Alien and how it exerts control over the humans. Using a structuralist approach with Louis Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), I will examine the character relationships and how an android, Ash, enforces a patriarchal, hierarchical system. Drawing on Mark Coeckelbergh’s AI Ethics and Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society, I will outline broader fears that technology will surpass human intellect and serve a destructive function within an oppressive system. Analyzing two examples of AI characters, the film showcases capitalist ambitions through technological identities and their …

Rodcon, Flier, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

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Saturday April 11, 2026
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Rodcon, Program, 2026, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

RodCon Documents

Contents:

--- Welcome to RodCon
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The Absent Monster: Personal And Cultural Fears Through Kiyoshi Kurosawa’S Pulse, Gracie J. Huras

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Eurovision As A Platform For Cultural Diplomacy In Times Of Conflict, Lucy Meza

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how states utilize the Eurovision Song Contest as a platform for soft power, focusing on the conditions under which cultural performance translates into reputational gains. Drawing on Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, Biasioli’s theory of songwashing, Zamorano’s typology of cultural diplomacy, Anholt’s competitive identity framework, and Feklyunina’s analysis of identity and narrative, it argues that Eurovision’s effectiveness as a soft power platform is fundamentally contingent on the alignment between a state’s cultural narrative and dominant international perceptions of its legitimacy. Through a qualitative comparative case study approach, the thesis examines two nations whose Eurovision participation during …

Nonesuch Road, Allie Goolrick

Screenwriting and Film Studies Theses (MA/MFA)

Ambitious TV news producer Lex is killing the game at work but on the brink of failing when it comes to parenting her 6-year-old son, Sawyer. Her life in a high-pressure newsroom—defined by urgency, metrics, and relentless tragedy—has made her forget what is really important in her real life.

A bad call that puts her son directly in the path of some serious gun violence forces her to take a professional break and retreat to her family’s farm in Virginia to regroup. There, she reconnects with her no-nonsense Aunt Mel and a cast of characters from the past and is …

Do The Oscars Move Markets? Best Picture Recognition And Public Equity Responses, Avi Dayani

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines when culturally salient events become financially material by testing whether Academy Awards recognition is reflected in public equity markets. The central question is whether Best Picture nomination announcements and wins generate abnormal returns or abnormal trading activity for the publicly traded parent firms linked to nominated films, and whether those responses depend on the firm’s exposure to filmed entertainment. I study Best Picture nominees from 2000 through 2024, map each film to the public parent of its primary distributor, and construct a firm-by-Oscar-year sample of 119 observations. Using an event-study framework, I calculate abnormal returns as firm …

Procedural Rhetoric And Prosociality: How Game Mechanics Shape Altruistic Decision-Making, Elijah Emory-Muhammad

CMC Senior Theses

This study investigates how different prosocial video game designs influence subsequent altruistic behavior, specifically comparing interactive narratives with procedural rhetoric. While prior research demonstrates that prosocial games can prime helpful behaviors, less is known about the underlying mechanical structures driving these effects. Fifteen participants engaged with either an Interactive Narrative Game (ING) or a Procedural Rhetoric Game (PRG) before completing a resource allocation task (Dictator Game). Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the two conditions in promoting sacrificial altruism or satisfying basic psychological needs. Instead, participants across both groups demonstrated a strong adherence to an equality-seeking norm, consistently choosing …

Structures Of Fantasy In Terry Gilliam's 'Time Bandits', Sean Fash

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

Terry Gilliam’s use of fantasy genre conventions in his filmography is obvious in presence, but elusive in understanding.  Time Bandits, as an early entry into this filmography, simultaneously seems to mock and embody these genre conventions.  This paper seeks to find a way to understand Time Bandits on a structural level through existing frameworks in fantasy criticism and to see what deeper meanings the film holds behind its silly, fantastical presentation.  These structural templates of analysis are John Clute’s “full fantasy model” from his Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Farah Mendlesohn’s “portal quest fantasy” from her Rhetorics of Fantasy.  By deconstructing …

Selling Ideals: Sexualization In Teen Girl Magazines, 2007-2017, Megan Coogan

Honors Theses - Providence Campus

Magazines are made to sell more than just a product; they sell lifestyles and ideals. Teen girl magazines target adolescents starting as young as twelve years old, but is the content in its pages appropriate and identifiable for that demographic? This study investigated how levels of perceived sexualization changed between 2007, 2012, and 2017, in Seventeen and Teen Vogue magazines. A decrease in perceived sexualization was expected across the ten-year period of time. This window of time reflects the last ten years of publication for both magazines. Research was conducted by creating and utilizing a grading system for non-explicit sexualized …

Film For Jeanette, Brice Goldberg

Theses and Dissertations

Film for Jeanette is an experimental documentary concerning grief, memory, and what remains of those who have left this physical plane. The film paints the portrait of my late sister, Jeanette Lee Goldberg, who died in a car accident when she was 19. What begins as a memorial becomes a celebration of her life and an exploration into the complexities of her character that led to her death. Jeanette’s story is told through interviews with family members, while the visuals, created with various alternative 16mm film techniques, depict my own journey through the filmmaking process. I was only 3 when …

Community Resilience Drives Change, Andrew Thomas Solt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The opioid crisis has impacted many Americans. From 1999 to 2023, approximately 800,000 people have died due to opioid overdose (CDC, 2025). What began as overprescriptions of painkillers has quickly evolved into a complex social health issue that is now further worsened by stronger synthetic drugs like fentanyl. Fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (synthetic opioids that are very similar chemically to fentanyl) are often found in illegal drug supplies and in counterfeit pills (CDC, 2025). Thus, individuals who might have been initially overprescribed painkillers might now be pushed towards illegally produced drugs that are significantly more potent than what they were …

Visual Semiotics And Cultural Hybridity In Orión, El Atlante: Negotiating Global Comic Codes And Mexican Identity, Jaime Cruz-Ortiz

The Coastal Review

This article examines the 1980s Mexican comic series Orión, el Atlante through the lens of visual semiotics and cultural hybridity, drawing on Roland Barthes’s theory of polysemy and Néstor García Canclini’s concept of hybridization. While Mexican historietas have long been understudied, Orión offers a compelling case for understanding how Latin American comics negotiate global superhero tropes and local cultural imaginaries. The analysis foregrounds the historieta’s layered visual codes and narrative strategies, revealing how its retrofuturistic Atlantis blends Greco-Roman aesthetics, advanced technology, and indigenous symbolism to construct a mythic space that evokes both precolonial grandeur and modern aspiration. Orión’s characterization—rooted …

The Importance Of College Radio As An Experiential Learning Opportunity For Students, John Boggess

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As society evolves, journalism does too, and many universities are experiencing a significant shift from traditional outlets such as radio to more modern, digital platforms. College radio is a common resource of journalism schools to practice and develop professional skills, but with budget cuts and a lack of continued support from the university, it can be presumed that college campuses might be trying to phase it out. While radio may not be the most booming outlet in the world of journalism today, college radio still possesses the opportunity for students to gain the proper skills for the professional world that …

America’S Spectacle: The Business Of Female Beauty In Professional Cheerleading, Marlene Adelman

Capstone Showcase

The National Football League (NFL) is built on values that also represent the deep rooted patriarchal structures within the country it exists in. The NFL is more than a game; it’s a mirror of America’s powerful subjugation of its women. Using one of the most recognizable cheerleading teams, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, this thesis aims to illustrate how gender is constructed and commodified in professional sports media, which reinforces the male gaze, furthers racial and gender inequalities, and contributes to women’s mental health and body image issues. This paper uses several theories, including male gaze, gender, and intersectionality, along with …

Visual Aids And Numeracy In Healthcare: Leveraging The Drawing Effect, Zephyr J. Markley

Capstone Showcase

Healthcare decisions often require patients to interpret numerical risk information under stress, yet many struggle with low numeracy, which can distort comprehension and undermine informed consent. Well-designed visual aids can improve diagnostic inference, calibrate confidence, and support better choices, especially for patients with limited numeracy, but their impact depends on whether users can actually interpret the format accurately. Drawing may further enhance these tools by adding a tactile, generative layer that engages visual, semantic, and motoric processing while helping patients organize information into concrete models.

Passive visual aids appear useful but limited because they often position patients as observers rather …

The Split Child: Fragmented Temporalities And Selves In Post-Francoist Horror Cinema, Harper A. Denniston

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis interrogates the prolific figure of the spectral child in post-dictatorial horror cinema in Spain. During the renaissance wave of the horror boom (a period between the late 1990s and early 2000s that experienced a surge in horror films), narratives of haunting often presented the ghost in child form, blending childhood and horror. This thesis examines the spectral child as depicted in the seminal horror films The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and The Orphanage (2007). First, I establish the historical context behind these films, exploring the traumatic history of children during the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship, Spain’s cultural …

Slay Her: The Rhetoric Of Violation In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Lea N. Wright

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research draws on feminist theory and monster theory to perform a close rhetorical analysis of incidents in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy) where female characters are violated physically, psychologically, and/or sexually. Buffy is one of the most-analyzed television shows of all time, with a particular emphasis on the show’s engagement with feminism; however, the issue of violation has received little scholarly investigation despite multiple instances of it within the show. Through examining the rhetorical elements (such as dialogue, camerawork, body language, and character response) that surround incidents of violation, this research reveals that Buffy …

The Ethereal Being That Is Me, And Maybe You, Hwiy Chang

Theses and Dissertations

The Ethereal Being That Is Me, and Maybe You is a 23-minute video collection of short stories accompanied by an installation at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. This thesis explores the work’s creation as a visual and narrative meditation on self-transformation, drawing from personal experiences in therapy and philosophical texts including Carl Jung’s concept of the unconscious. The paper examines how each story represents a distinct stage of transformation—from recognizing patterns to confronting setbacks to reshaping internal dialogue—and how watercolor’s fluid, unpredictable nature serves as a visual metaphor for the process of change. The installation component …

In-Between Echoes, Jiayi Liang

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore memory, diaspora, labor, and intergenerational trauma through constructed photography and experimental film. Informed by Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, I examine how identity is shaped through displacement, cultural negotiation, and inherited memory. Drawing from my relationship with my grandmother and my experience as a Chinese woman living in diaspora, I consider labor as both survival and care, tracing how domestic gestures and emotional structures continue across generations. Through collage, reconstruction, and animation, I rework fragments of family archives, colonial landscape imagery, and personal photographs to address grief, racialized perception, belonging, and the …

Horror Film And Soviet Identity: The Specter Of Soviet Imperialism, Alex Dyatkevich

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The thesis looks at how Soviet imperialism–the extension of Soviet Russia’s power over the other Soviet republics—is reinforced and used as a source of terror in Soviet horror film. I argue that while Soviet Russian horror movies from the creation of the USSR in 1922 to the end of Brezhnev’s Era of Stagnation in the mid 80s reinforce an imperialist Soviet identity, the horror movies released by non-Russian Soviet republics after the increase in freedom of expression during perestroika position imposed imperial Soviet identity as a source of terror.

The first chapter examines how USSR-era horror cinema was used as …

Life In Laughter: Comedy’S Impact On Student Health And Success, Julia Weinstein

Honors Undergraduate Theses

College students face rising rates of anxiety, depression, and stress, highlighting the need for accessible, stigma-free wellness interventions. While comedy is often seen as entertainment, research indicates laughter produces measurable psychological and physiological benefits, including reduced cortisol and increased endorphins. Life in Laughter, a creative-research hybrid project, investigates how live and digital comedy experiences affect college students’ mood, stress, and sense of belonging. Using mixed methods, data were collected through anonymous audience surveys, app-based reflections via JoyScroll, and interviews, supplemented by a mini-documentary. Findings suggest humor functions as both an emotional regulation tool and a means of fostering …

To Print A Remake: An Analysis Of Hollywood Remakes And Their Cultural Value, Connor F. Seaton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In recent years, audiences and movie critics have expressed concern that Hollywood’s growing reliance on remakes, sequels, franchises, and similar adaptations has led to a broader worry that originality is fading from modern cinema and that the industry is instead focused on using adaptations to maximize profits. Although adaptation is often seen as a commercially driven framework for reproducing existing intellectual property in a new media format, this thesis argues that it should be recognized as an autonomous cultural category with its own artistic, historical, and social significance and merit. By analyzing adaptation scholarship and reviewing its complex historical development, …

Performing Brazilian Identity: The Cultural Politics Of Carmen Miranda, Nicole M. Pineiro Serrano

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This honors undergraduate thesis examines how Carmen Miranda’s performances shaped Brazilian national identity in both Brazilian cinema and Hollywood in the mid-twentieth century. Through film analysis, historical research, and cultural theory, the study examines Miranda’s public persona and the symbolic significance of the Baiana costume, with respect to Brazil’s Estado Novo regime, and Hollywood’s own depictions of Latin America. Overall, it argues that Miranda’s image functioned as a site of cultural negotiation, where Brazilian cultural expression met Hollywood’s exoticizing portrayals, but the encounter did not always stay as a fixed stereotype. The study also examines the tensions between authenticity, commodification, …

The Confidence-Man Goes To The Moving Panorama: Herman Melville’S Confidence Narrator And United States Imperialism, Bradley J. Lee

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis argues that Herman Melville fashioned his novel The Confidence-Man; His Masquerade (1857) after the moving panorama, a popular entertainment technology contemporary with the novel. More specifically, the thesis argues that the novel recalls Banvard’s Mississippi Panorama (1846). Using Jay Leyda’s The Melville Log and John Hanners’ record of Banvard’s performances, I establish beyond reasonable doubt the possibility that Melville saw this painting, or, at the very least, was aware of it, its content, and its social position. Tracing the novel’s engagement with this panorama reveals what seems at first to be its imperialist, Manifest Destinarian undertones. The novel’s …

The Phone Eats First: Reconfiguring Cultural Capital And Performing Taste On Tiktok’S #Torontoeats, Annie M. Willick

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigates how TikTok reconfigures cultural capital through the visual commodification and performative display of Toronto’s food culture using the hashtag “#TorontoEats”. Through a digital ethnographic multimodal critical discourse analysis, my research considers Bourdieu’s (1984) definition of cultural capital as the guiding definition of distinction, status, and personal taste. This analysis considers how cultural capital manifests through algorithmic engagement, adherence to platform norms, and TikTok’s multimodal format that blends video, sound, text, and gesture to entice audiences. Findings suggest that mundane food practices and activities are transformed into conspicuous commodities on TikTok, where creators position themselves as tastemakers and …

Science Fiction Cinema And The Technological Sublime: Spectacle And The Infinite From Early Cinema To Digital, David Jackson Dr.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation examines how science fiction cinema constructs and reimagines the technological sublime in the twentieth century: the experience of awe, terror, and admiration provoked by human-made power and scale. Drawing on the philosophical foundations of the sublime in Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant and extending through Leo Marx’s and David E. Nye’s theorization of the technological sublime, I propose an aesthetic mode in which representation inflected with affect translates technological spectacle into examinations of humanity’s role and agency in the face of overwhelming technologized worlds and in some cases, even the universe itself.

Through three distinct historical periods …

Hot Topic Of The Cold War: Analyzing The Bomb In American Media During The Late Twentieth Century, Ryan Lambert

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores nuclear war–related media (i.e., media involving “the Bomb”) from the late twentieth century, beginning in the early 1950s and ending in the late 1990s, although media from the 2000s and beyond are briefly touched on. Unlike other studies of nuclear war narratives, this analysis intends to explore this media through a rhetorical framework of an “eroding” society, and the “erosion” concepts of the 50s–70s paved the way for cumulative “erosion” storylines in the 80s (the height of the Cold War), and then “restoration” storylines in the 90s (after the end of the Cold War). This framework is …