Visual Studies Commons^™

Tolkien Fanzine Dataset, 1967-2017 [Bulk 1969-1979], Robinson Ensz, Gabriel Marotto, Aidan Oakey, Ivy Stanich, Ethan Thomas

Tolkien Resources

This dataset reveals the heretofore hidden contents of fan magazines (fanzines) related to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien that were created from 1969 through the publication of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion in 1977. It supplements the earlier Tolkien Fandom Review by S. Gary Hunnewell that discussed fanzines created through 1968. The dataset provides an item level index of the fanzines’ content and is intended to aid researchers in Fan Studies. It is accompanied by an inventory document that lists the fanzine titles and provides brief notes about some of them. Data was drawn from Marquette’s large holding of Tolkien fanzines, including …

Da Mosang Tarsier Series: Developing Digital Bullying Prevention Materials For Filipino Parents Of Grade School Students, Rudy M. Danganan Jr., Ann Christine V. Braga, Maria Kristina S. Alfonso, Romelito Manuel D.S. Clorina, Ma. Regina Hechanova

Children and Families

Bullying remains a significant public health and educational concern worldwide and is particularly prevalent in Philippine public schools, with Grade 7 students identified as a vulnerable group. Although the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 (Republic Act No. 10627) mandates school-based policies and procedures, persistent implementation gaps underscore the need to strengthen home–school partnerships and equip parents with practical, culturally grounded response strategies. This paper describes the development of the Da Mosang Tarsier Series, a set of digital psychoeducational comic strips designed for Filipino parents of Grade 7 students. Guided by a user-centered design (UCD) framework, the project began with a Generative …

Deepfakes As Crisis Triggers: Experimental Evidence On Response Strategy Effectiveness, Responsibility Attributions, And Sharing Intentions, Alicia Mason, Mariah Laman, Tanner Glenn, Treyton Meyers

Faculty Submissions

The term deepfake refers to falsified media content created using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to manipulate audio, video, or images. Deepfake news fabrications are designed to appear highly realistic, making it difficult for audiences to distinguish them from authentic content. Responding to deepfake-induced  reputational threats therefore presents a unique challenge for organizations. Despite the growing prevalence of deepfake technology, little experimental research has examined how different crisis communication strategies perform in mitigating the reputational and relational harm posed by deepfake-induced crises. Accordingly, this study seeks to (1) examine how exposure to deepfake news relates to public perceptions and affect toward …

Zine Open Assignment Guidelines For Mmp460, Anna Pinkas

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

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 …

How Integration Of Hollywood Techniques Benefits Filmmakers And Improves Viewership: Application Of Bong Joon Ho’S Work, Lucy Cronin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Bong Joon Ho utilizes techniques derived from Hollywood cinema to transcend borders globally, informing viewers about the socio-politics in South Korea while engaging them as well. Based on Film Scholar Andrew Higson’s theory that Hollywood is everywhere, I argue that by analyzing three of Bong Joon Ho’s films, Memories of Murder (2003), Mother (2009), and Parasite (2019), it is understood that through the language of imagery, South Korean socio-politics can be understood. Comprehensive literature reviews of the film's commentary on socio-political circumstances that reflect South Korea’s past or current struggles, and comparisons of the cinematography of critical scenes in the …

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 …

'Here's What Bali Can Do For You': Social Media's Impact On Travel Writing, Carlisle Avalon Jarnigan

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines how social media has initiated a shift in the genre of travel writing from educational cultural observation to a form of engagement-driven, monetized travel content creation. Historically, the genre has functioned as a descriptive genre dedicated to educating readers who would never get to see the destinations they read about modern travel writing and content creation use emotional persuasion to market travel experience as a product, redefining the genre. Using methods like geotagging, user-generated content (UGC), and emotionally charged storytelling approaches, travel creators no longer just describe locations but instead promise readers that if they visit, they …

Eurydice | Tigers Be Still: Technical Direction Between Two Studio Sets, Rory G. Galada Brownell

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis examines the technical direction processes for two studio productions, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl and Tigers Be Still by Kim Rosenstock, produced during the 2025–2026 season at the Nebraska Repertory Theatre. Through comparative analysis, this document explores how differing design styles—metaphorical and installation-based versus grounded realism—impact the planning, communication, and execution responsibilities of a technical director within a constrained academic production environment. Both productions operated within similar parameters, including limited budgets, student-based labor, and a shared performance space, allowing for a focused evaluation of process rather than resources. The Eurydice production emphasized abstract scenic elements, including large-scale string installations …

Digital Touchpoints: Investigating Contact Page Accessibility And Visual Authenticity Within Medical Tourism Health Websites, Alicia Mason, Elizabeth Spencer, Kristen Livingston, Treyton Meyers, Sakshi Bhati, Himika Akram

Faculty Submissions

This study examines two critical digital touchpoints on medical tourism provider (MTP) websites: (1) the accessibility of contact pages which often function as entry points for inquiries, scheduling, and pre-travel coordination, and (2) the authenticity of visual imagery used to shape expectations about care environments, personnel, and technological capacity. A sample of 105 MTPs across all six World Health Organization regions were analyzed using quantitative web accessibility testing and qualitative visual analysis. Results indicate pervasive accessibility errors on contact-page touchpoints and extensive reliance on inauthentic imagery to depict patients, providers, and medical technologies. Together, these practices may distort user expectations …

Generative Ai/Machine Learning In The Screen Production Classroom And The Implications For Tertiary Educators., James Thompson, Kereen Ely-Harper, Tom Young, Rachel Wilson, Nico Meissner

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This report explores how screen production educators in the ASPERA community are responding to the rapid integration of generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) in teaching and learning. Framed by Sean Cubitt’s (2020) notion of Common Intelligence, we investigate two guiding questions: How are students engaging with genAI tools in their productions, and what are the implications for educators? Methodologically, we engaged in qualitative professional dialogue with screen practice educators through three mechanisms during the 2024 ASPERA Conference: lightning provocations, an anonymous Mentimeter survey, and a facilitated roundtable discussion. These activities provided a collaborative forum for educators to share practice-based insights, reflect …

The Critique Repository Volume 1, Sandrine Schaefer, Egypt Anderson, Taylor Houston, Chris Mayer, Gabriella Seebode

Visual Arts

This workbook is for students, faculty, and practitioners of all kinds. It is designed to playfully and insightfully strengthen your skills in giving and receiving feedback. It’s also a call to action: to examine how our personal biases, cultural frameworks, and institutional structures shape the ways we respond to creative work. Throughout the pages that follow, you’ll find exercises intended to deepen your critique practice.

The Critique Repository: Volume 1 emerges from the collaborative work of students and faculty in the Patterns and Feedback: Trauma-Informed Critique research group through the Center for Collaborative Research, Edwards College of Humanities and Fine …

Space For New History: Stony Island Arts Bank, Seb Taylor

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

The Stony Island Arts Bank (SIAB) in Southside Chicago was designed and founded as a piece of art itself, with the organizational structure being a museum of Black cultural production. This article examines how the institution constructs an epistemology of Blackness through its archival practices, community programming, and spatial claims on the South Side. Founded by artist Theaster Gates through the Rebuild Foundation, the SIAB positions institutional design as an art medium, operating in productive tension with orthodox museum methods. The permanent collections—including the Johnson Publishing Company archives and Frankie Knuckles vinyl collection—function as epistemological records of Black self-documentation unmediated …

An Interview With An Instagram Archivist: @404mph Interviews @Onlystarleft, 404mph (On Instagram)

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

An Interview with an Instagram Archivist: @404MPH Interviews @ONLYSTARLEFT is a dialogue conducted entirely through iMessage, presented as both a publication and a designed artifact. Within this text exchange, the conversation navigates themes of digital preservation, authorship, and self-curation—examining how social media aesthetics transform personal experience into collective memory. @ONLYSTARLEFT reflects on the act of archiving not as static documentation but as a living, participatory practice shaped by the speed and impermanence of online culture. Formally, the project recognizes the iPhone as a cultural mediator—its interface shaping not only how we communicate, but how we perceive and construct value within …

From Altamont To Astroworld: An Analysis Of Management Issues In Large Scale Music Festivals, Jennifer Morriss

Honors College Theses

The most common problems in music festivals can largely be broken into two categories: risks to the individual and risks on a grand scale. It is the responsibility of event managers to consider how to best keep everyone safe and maintain proper organization. Risks to the individual are often things like substance use and abuse, harm reduction, and sexual assault or harassment. Meanwhile, broad risks tend to be issues of evacuation and emergency management, crowd safety, stampedes, and casualties or violence. It is crucial to reflect on prior common safety and security issues when setting out to produce a large …

Through The Glass Darkly: Cross-Cultural Collaboration And The Experimental Adaptation Of Shakespeare, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Through the Glass Darkly is an experimental Australian-Indonesian film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, employing fragmented narratives, hallucinatory imagery, and cross-cultural spiritual frameworks to explore violence, guilt, and moral corruption. The project emerged from a collaboration between Australian and Indonesian film professionals and educators. Drawing on trauma cinema aesthetics and Indonesian mystical traditions (Kebatinan, Rangda masks), the adaptation structures itself around five vignettes: prophecy, murder, hallucination, retribution, and washing. The filmmaker employs a "heuretic" research methodology, prioritizing exploration over interpretation, to create a hybrid cultural text that interrogates Western canonical literature through postcolonial perspectives while navigating censorship through international collaboration.

Reveltion Perth International Film Festival Academic Conference 2025, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

The Revelation International Film Festival conference invites vibrant discussions and debates, exploring creative practice and praxis, and the theoretical surrounds of contemporary cinematic and screen culture.

Revelation stands as Australia’s exclusive international film festival integrating academic discourse within its renowned screening program. Our mission extends beyond screens, sharing compelling discoveries with audiences across the country and beyond. Embracing a pivotal role in fostering film discourse and analysis, Revelation is a cornerstone in Australian cinematic dialogue.

Under the auspices of SAE University College Perth, the academic conference took place at the SAE campus 116-120 Roe St.  Northbridge, Perth, Western Australia.

The …

Medst 343w - Nonfiction Forms (8 Week Async Section), Ash Marinaccio

Open Educational Resources

In this course, we will explore how various forms of nonfiction storytelling represent reality and shape our understanding of the world. Over the semester, we will examine how “the real” is represented across different mediums, including theatre, film, photography, and literature. Through critical readings, case studies, creative exercises, and Brightspace discussions, we will examine the intricate interplay between truth, ethics, form, and authorship in documentary and nonfiction works.

The course is divided into five units. The first unit introduces foundational questions of ethics, authorship, and cultural responsibility in nonfiction storytelling. The following units focus on specific forms: documentary theatre, nonfiction …

Beyond The Meadow: Exploring The Violence And Dynamics Of Power In Watership Down Through Critical Animal Studies And Cinematographic Lens, Marwa Hussein Abdelfattah

Arts and Design

This paper aims to analyze the 2018 Netflix miniseries adaptation of Richard Adams's classic novel, Watership Down, using Critical Animal Studies and a Cinematographic lens. The analysis focuses on its visual storytelling through the camera angles, lighting, and character representation. Adams’ novel was adapted three times. The first two animated versions were horrifying to the extent that one of them was banned. The most recent version used Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) technology to be more friendly. The CGI version toned down explicit brutality while maintaining the novel's darker themes. Unlike the two previous versions, the CGI focused on inferred violence and …

Urinetown: A Lighting Designer’S Process, Caroline Nowak

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis describes the design and production process of the lighting design for the musical Urinetown, written by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, featuring music by Mark Hollmann, produced by The Nebraska Repertory Theatre in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Glenn Korff School of Music, performed in the Howell Theatre from April 25th, 2025, to May 3rd, 2025. Urinetown was directed by Ann Marie Pollard, with musical direction by Suna Gunther. The creative team included scenic designer Sariah Roberts, costume designer Breeanna Pierce, and lighting designer Caroline Nowak. The production team included technical director Ashley Faulkner and stage …

Fashion And Film: The Art Of Costume Design, Abigail C. Stalder

Senior Honors Theses

A costume designer’s job is to create wardrobes that fit the film’s aesthetic, context, and personality of each character. Costume designers take inspiration from trends, incorporating them into their work through their own creative process, inspiring fashion designers and trend-setters to implement the styles in new ways. Thus, producing an endless cycle — an ecosystem wherein both fashion and film thrive off each other, continuously evolving to create beauty on and off the screen. Aligning my creativity and knowledge of both fashion and film, I participated in the making of six student films, costuming over 30 named characters as well …

Forever Tree, Alyse A. Petersen

Healy Poetry Prize

No abstract provided.

How To Industry Plant Yourself, Ted Childish

Digital Laboratory: Publisher of Internet Journal

Ted Childish is an artist, creative mind, and cultural organizer working at the intersection of digital culture and contemporary creative economies. His practice spans from conceptual ideation to visual production and designed objects, all approached with a distinct material sensibility. How to Industry Plant Yourself is an analysis of the contemporary creative landscape, delivered in the format of a 'how-to' presentation — a familiar trope of the social media era. This work employs graphic design strategies akin to a pitch deck, symbolizing the increasingly transactional and performative environments in which creatives navigate their careers today.

Painting Stories And Filming Change, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Contributions to Books

Mithila Art has helped illuminate various aspects of the relationship between gendered Maithil social roles and Maithil women’s narratives in connection with a feminist participatory action research project conducted primarily in 2016-2017 in and around the northern Bihari town of Madhubani. While participatory action research philosophically and methodologically attends to process as much as product, Mithila Art played a role in the process and product of making a documentary film and in our capacity to understand and communicate with varied audiences about shifting Maithil gender norms. The research and filmic project provided insight into the complex relationship among the stories …

Collaborative Ai: Oer Materials For Exploring Ai As A Partner Rather Than A Tool, David Smith

Open Educational Resources

The Collaborative AI Open Educational Resource (OER) explores how artificial intelligence can act as a creative and analytical collaborator rather than a tool. Centered on the Balanced Blended Space (BBS) framework and the philosophy of the Center for Holistic Integration (CHI), the OER includes curriculum materials, theoretical models, and live research environments. It offers an interesting approach to blending physical, virtual, and conceptual spaces through shared human–AI agency and invites ongoing participation in interdisciplinary meta-projects.

What's The Art In Artificial Intelligence?, Emily Verla Bovino

Open Educational Resources

This workbook learns from Black and Indigenous artists working with Artificial Intelligence to confront issues of ethics and aesthetics in its technologies. It features guided learning activities with links to publicly available video lectures and online articles, and includes options for experiential learning through both a tutorial in Midjourney and a visit to the public art collection at York College in Jamaica, Queens. Featured artists include: American Artist, Rizvana Bradley, Beth Coleman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Suzanne Kite, Sondra Perry, Mimi Onuoha and Alisha B. Wormsley. Works by Martin Puryear and Maren Hassinger are explored in the Midjourney exercise.

About …

La Parole Comme Outil De Résistance Contre Les Tabous Oppressifs Des Femmes Marocaines : Une Étude Comparative De Paroles D’Honneur Et Hshouma, Roseline Adeleke

Students' Supported Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Creating An Ofrenda, Sara Hinojos

Open Educational Resources

You do not need to be Mexican to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). What you need however is a deep and thoughtful cultural understanding of the practice. This lesson plan teaches students what Dia de los Muertos is, the influence of colonialism (past and present), how mainstream media understands the celebration in the U.S., and how local communities honor the celebration. This approach is from a media studies perspective and a particular focus on art, specifically altar making or making an ofrenda. Writer, philosopher, tejana Gloria E. Anzaldúa details that altars are “‘the sanctuary of the …

Intro To Motion Graphics & Effects, Andrea E. Defelice

Open Educational Resources

Introduction to Motion Graphics & Effects MEDST 258 Section 1, 3 credits | Open Educational Resources (OERs) Faculty Fellowship Program 2024-2025 Online/Synchronous | Professor Andréa DeFelice

Links: Academic Commons: https://motiongraphicsfx.commons.gc.cuny.edu

OER-Calibrated COURSE DESCRIPTION: Get a project-based approach to the aesthetic and technical aspects of motion graphics and effects. This introductory course is designed to inform and inspire beginners, while utilizing OER and zero-cost materials. Students enrolled in this course are provided a free Adobe CC license and taught to use Adobe After Effects. Students are also taught how to be resourceful by searching out open license/free media online, by way …

Architectural Narrative: Exploring The Convergence Between Architecture And Film In Narrative Construction, Cynthia A. Carbajal

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This study explores the relationship between architecture and film, focusing on how both disciplines function as storytelling mediums through spatial and visual techniques. This research analyzes how both fields help shape experiences and the built environment. The methodology employed in this research consisted of analyzing selected films and specific architectural projects to assess the compositional techniques used within these works. The findings reveal a similarity in how architecture and film use cinematic and spatial design techniques to evoke an emotional response and heighten a narrative's depth, thereby enhancing the user’s experience. This study suggests a deeper understanding of this interlinking …