Visual Studies Commons^™

Performance Of Illustrations And Images As Language In Sarnath Banerjee’S All Quiet In Vikaspuri, Akanksha Barthwal Ms

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Sarnath Banerjee’s All Quiet in Vikaspuri, fictionalizes but at the same time addresses water wars and political ideologies in the city of Delhi. By the means of eco-critical approach in the name of Vi-kas (development) Banerjee discuss the acts of slow violence subverted on nature in the name of progress (vikas). Through text/ images the author depicts chaos and challenges for the readers in more direct and obscene ways. The current paper attempts to look at Banerjee’s illustrations and images as new form of language emerged in modern Indian literature with the possibly that illustrations have more effect on …

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 …

Auxiliary Damage, Aiyi Cheng

Masters Theses

AuxiliarY DamagE asks what happens to pain when it is moved outside the body and given material form. Pain is not treated here as an image to be represented, but as something processed through repetition, pressure, exposure, and care. It is handled. Washed. Arranged. Pulled out. Swallowed back in.

Hair became the material that allowed this question to stay unstable. While attached to the body, it is intimate and ordinary. Once detached, it becomes residue, evidence, discomfort, value, and loss. In the studio, I washed collected hair, untangled it, threaded it through metal, placed it near flame, held it in …

Until The Ground Breaks, Annie Hu

Masters Theses

Until the Ground Breaks explores the complex relationship between personal memory, embodied experience, and internalized "archival logic." By examining long-term cross-cultural diasporic experiences and the shifting dynamics of family narratives—including the sensory experiences and fading memory of a grandmother, a father's correspondence that acts as a textual record of emotional logic, and the continuous revision of family history—this thesis dissects the psychological tremors that occur when the illusion of a singular, stable memory archive collapses. This research rejects the view of memory as a static container of truth, revealing it instead as a dynamic, unstable, and constantly rewritten living system. …

Caladrius: Creating A Playable Game Via A Multimedia Experience, Isabelle Morgan Brookshire

Whittier Scholars Program

Caladrius: Creating a Playable Game via a Multimedia Experience hones in on making an experience through different forms of media to represent a game. If this project was fully funded and done, it would be a video game on Steam with an art exhibition, small poetry book, and novel accompanied with it. It would even have a show, a soundtrack, and merch. But at this level, it was to make an experience for my audience that they could experience whether or not they enjoyed video games as a concept. I wanted them to enjoy 'playing' within a physical exhibition and …

The Weight Of The Unknown: Xenophobia In Lucía Puenzo’S Xxy, Daylen Motamed

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This project examines how Lucía Puenzo’s film titled XXY critiques societal responses to unique identities (specifically intersex as an example), asking how xenophobia and normative gender expectations shape the marginalization of bodies that exist outside the binary. Situating the film within scholarship on queer adolescence and intersex representation, the analysis of this poster will argue that XXY exposes how institutions such as medicine and family reinforce harmful notions of “normalization.”

Drawing on close textual analysis of key scenes and engagement with critical sources, including Guillermo Olivera’s work on space and visibility and testimonies from intersex individuals, this study investigates how …

Pathos, Winter 2026, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

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

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Entre La Sombra Y El Lienzo: Clea Dessendre Como Modelo De Personaje Secundario Complejo, Lydia Huijbregts Jaen, Antonio Horno López

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

Introducción: Este artículo analiza a Clea Dessendre en Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, explorando su versión real y la pintada en el lienzo, y su impacto en la narrativa del juego. Metodología: Se aplicó un análisis narrativo, psicológico y ludológico, integrando teorías de duelo (Kübler-Ross), socialización (Baumrind) y comunicación (DiSC) vinculadas con la jugabilidad. Resultados: Clea-Real encarna disciplina y perfeccionismo; Clea-Pintada, una proyección maternal. El gameplay conecta su psicología con la experiencia del jugador. Discusión: Las identidades paralelas muestran cómo traumas y expectativas moldean personajes complejos. Conclusiones: Clea evidencia cómo la narrativa y la mecánica se fusionan para crear …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Pathos, Fall 2025, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

The Uses Of Dramaturgical Research In Cinematic Storytelling, Asset Design, And Adaptation In Animation, Delaney L. Walker

All Theses

“The Black Hair” is a creative project that explores the convergence of cinematic adaptation, dramaturgical research, and animation design in retelling a traditional Japanese short folktale from the Heian Era. Rooted in the practice of theatrical dramaturgy, this thesis advocates for a research-driven creative pipeline by developing a culturally respectful and historically grounded approach to developing cinematic storyboards. By thoroughly examining the chronicles of history and the sociocultural context, the project seeks to foster deeper cultural appreciation while reintroducing a lesser-known narrative to modern audiences through a visual medium. The project draws stylistic and narrative inspiration from iconic Japanese filmmakers …

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

The Navel Of The Dream, Ella C. Baum

Masters Theses

The images in The Navel of the Dream evoke a state of groundlessness. In this body of work, photographs act as thresholds between what is seen and what is felt, between daydreams and nightmares, and memories and myths. The camera is used as a means to engage with feelings of loss, and reenact the mythos of childhood, as well as the deep waters of the subconscious.

Created in Southern Sweden between 2022 and 2025, these photographs investigate the fallow winter landscape, the liminal space of deep, dark Scandinavian nights and the transformative qualities of ice, snow and …

A House With No Walls Where Persimmons Grow In The Garden: Photography As A Collaborative Feminist Practice And Using Archives To Reframe The Present, Jada Wheeler

University Honors Theses

A House With No Walls is an investigation of the idea of chosen family, as it exists apart from the influence of any institution. It alludes to the home as a place that exists within space shared with the people we choose as family and within our own free bodies. This project investigates the collaborative potential of photography, and uses it as a tool in creating a feminist representation of family. All the photographs were made with close friends, in an unplanned and spontaneous manner, to document intimate moments of our everyday lives.

Where Persimmons Grow In The Garden is …

Forever Tree, Alyse A. Petersen

Healy Poetry Prize

No abstract provided.

Pathos, Spring 2025, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

You Get That From Me, Robyn Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

You Get That From Me is a mixed-media, collage-based film that integrates personal portraits, allegorical maps, and digital collages with spoken narration to craft a stylistic memoir of a pivotal period in my life: the transition from childhood to motherhood.

Pathos, Winter 2025, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

Post Opera, Suzy Lykins

Theses and Dissertations

Post Opera is a spell and work of embodied research which explores medicalization, desire, labor, and belief. Through methods of performance, sound, text and installation, I facilitate encounters of trans-femininity, spiritual power and connectivity. An opening wound, a set of psychic scalpels, sutures and bandages prepare this text for your consumption, take care to digest her well.

Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition: Unpacking Gender Roles In Social Media Performances Of "The Good Life", Lauren Mar

Scripps Senior Theses

What do JD Vance, tradwife influencers, and the “sprinkle sprinkle” movement have in common? They all have something to do with the increasing popularity of an apparent return to traditional gender roles. This thesis is an intersectional investigation of women’s gender roles in relation to class and race as they appear in different performances of “the good life” on social media. Through a series of personal essays, this thesis explores how these media examples represent a deeper political unhappiness with present conditions. This thesis takes the time to unpack the different sides of discourse surrounding each subject, and counters the …

Ways Of Decoloniality By The Painted Lady: Avatar: The Last Airbender’S Katara Demonstrates How To Revive A Community In Ecological Distress Brought By The Colonial Expansion Of The Fire Nation, Jose Santos P. Ardivilla

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In the third episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Book 3: The Book Of Fire, the “Gaang” consisting of Avatar Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Katara chanced upon a fishing village on stilts,ravaged by the pollution of its waterways. The pollution comes from the industrial activity of the Colonial Masters’ Fire Nation which greatly affected the village. This animation is from Nickelodeon, a channel geared for children’s entertainment, thus implicates humorous asides in what purports to be a serious epicurean reclaiming of a lost balance through indigenous visual culture, solidarity, media studies, and ecocriticism. Katara disguises herself as …

Pathos, Fall 2024, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

Queerform/Ing, Matthew Solon-Lee Weimer

Art Theses and Dissertations

My artwork is situated within and around vessels and the Queer Homoerotic World and explores sexuality as a Demisexual within them. This is accomplished through the two processes of my creation, Minivague and Queerform/ing: balancing sexual tension and explicit expression, while subverting traditional norms and stereotypes with queerness to distance oneself from stereotypical Gay Art. Altering/emphasizing makes the artwork more romantic, lighter, whimsical, softer, and tender than the figure/s and the situations actually are. The process is also emphasizing what one sees or wants to be seen. The Pink Boy becomes a celebration of intimacy of any form. I discuss …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

The Fuller The Bucket Is, The Harder It Is To Fly, Jacob Littlejohn

Theses and Dissertations

My abstract paintings are informed by the momentary sublime rooted in the vastness of the natural world. Based on imagined and real landscapes, the work evokes minutia and phenomena that affect our perceptions of reality, and signifies a longing to reconnect with the natural world.

Developing And Sustaining A Graphic Scholarship Collection For Academic Libraries, Stewart Brower, Toni Hoberecht, Zane Ratcliffe, Bethie Seay

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

In early 2021, the Schusterman Library at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa satellite campus took a new step towards building a culture of interest by creating the Graphic Scholarship Collection. This new endeavor is a curated collection of graphic novels, primarily non-fiction, aligned with the academic programs on campus, as well as promoting University initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion. A new organizational structure for the collection materials and their circulation metrics will be examined in detail. There will also be consideration of the challenges of selection and acquisition by a mixed team of selectors, some of whom have no experience …

Reflections Of “Use Of Comics In Social Studies Education” Course: The Opinion And Experiences Of Teachers, Genç Osman İlhan, Maide Şin

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

It is well known that a quality teacher education is necessary for qualified education. Teachers must be well-trained in multiple areas and have an open-minded structure. They must develop strategies based on the lesson and students, which needs effective material development and use. The materials to be used could be prepared by others and can be incorporated into the classroom setting or teachers could design and present them to students, which is essential for the quality of instruction. When a teacher creates and effectively employs instructional materials, his/her self-confidence will increase and teaching will be enriched and made easier. Comics …

Becoming George Lucas: From Avant-Garde, Auteur, Independent Artist To Studio Executive, Ryan Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Because of the unprecedented popularity of Star Wars, George Lucas, the creator of the multi-media franchise, is one of the most well-known filmmakers in history. What makes Lucas’s relationship with Star Wars unique is that because the franchise has continually been exploited rather than left as a single unchanging, static text, its artistic value, along with Lucas’s legacy, is in constant flux and is often misunderstood. In other words, depending on Star Wars’s position in the public zeitgeist at a given time, Lucas is either revered, detested, or considered incompetent as a filmmaker. While there is no denying …