Visual Studies Commons^™

Invincible: Legacy And Propaganda In Superhero Comics, Natalie R. Sheppard

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Captain America and Iron Man are both iconic American heroes, representing different American values. Captain America was created during the Golden Age of comics and represents a longing for the past, while Iron Man was created at the height of the Cold War and looks forward to a new America. This paper will first establish the historical and cultural relationship between comic books and propaganda, beginning with the first appearance of Superman. It will pay special attention to the similarities and differences of Captain America and Iron Man, focusing on their representation of American values over time, and discuss how …

What Adds Up To Being: The Work Of Tanna Burchinal, Tanna L. Burchinal

All Theses

My practice takes form around embodied experience. I affect signifiers of the human body within the ordered grid, the scientific text, and the logic of the machine, to highlight the interdependencies of physical bodies and those social constructs that produce and influence identity. We are a part of these constructs that both extend and limit; we are enacting and interacting with them. I do not aim to eradicate these structures of power (without them, our identities are in chaos). Instead, I point out the pitfalls of these constructs that are perceived as unchanging, by making interaction and experience integral to …

"The Falling Man" As Viewed In The Lens Of The "Public Sphere", Laura Reinacher

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Antigone Claimed, "I Am A Stranger": Democracy, Membership And Unauthorized Immigration, Andres Fabian Henao Castro

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation offers a new framework through which to theorize contemporary democratic practices by attending to the political agency of unauthorized immigrants. I argue that unauthorized immigrants themselves, by claiming their own ambiguous legal condition as a legitimate basis for public speech, are able to open up the boundaries of political membership and to render the foundations of democracy contingent, that is to say, they are able to reopen the question about who counts as a member of the demos. I develop this argument by way of a close reading of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone[1], which allows me to …

Signs Of Wildness: Codes Of The “Primitive” In Masculine Commodity Culture, Matthew P. Ferrari

Doctoral Dissertations

This project broadly examines articulations of the “primitive” emerging from various sites of popular cultural production, considering their operation within the wider “semioscape”– defined by Thurlow and Aiello (2007) as “the globalizing circulation of symbols, sign-systems, and meaning-making practices.” Taking my lead from Kurusawa (2002, 2004), Torgovnik (1991, 1998), Chow (1995), and Di Leonardo (1998), who have demonstrated the importance of the “primitive” as an interpretive discourse, I add to this body of thought by extending its scope into the realm of popular media and cultural production, examining cases within film, television, advertising, sports, and associated lifestyle commodities. I pose …

Heard Or Dreamed About, Priya Nadkarni

Masters Theses

ABSTRACT

HEARD OR DREAMED ABOUT

MAY 2014

PRIYA NADKARNI, B.F.A. RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

M.F.A. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Shona Macdonald

The [Ftaires!] To Remembrance: Language, Memory, And Visual Rhetoric In Chaucer's House Of Fame And Danielewski's House Of Leaves, Shannon Danae Kilgore

Honors Program Theses

Geoffrey Chaucer's dream poem The House of Fame explores virtual technologies of memory and reading, which are similar to the themes explored in Danielewski's House of Leaves. "[ftaires!]", apart from referencing the anecdotal (and humorous) misspelling of "stairs" in House of Leaves, is one such linguistically and visually informed phenomenon that speaks directly to how we think about, and give remembrance to, our own digital and textual culture. This paper posits that graphic design, illustrations, and other textual cues (such as the [ftaires!] mispelling in House of Leaves] have a subtle yet powerful psychological influence on our reading and …

Turning To See Otherwise, Jennifer L. Martin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis dossier, in combination with an exhibition at the McIntosh Gallery, considers whether an archival collection can generate an alternative narrative other than that which may already exist in the original film and photographic documents. Rather than represent a singular truth, I seek to articulate the transformative realities of collective memory by re-orienting the material for broader viewer identification. I have mined photographic and filmic materials from a personal family archive to focus fragments that specifically record the gesture of the turning face—the turning towards the observer. This “turn” then includes both the turn towards the initial film-maker embedded …

The Adversity Pop Culture Has Posed, Darel Joseph

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I am a collage artist working with multiple mediums such as paint, photography, video, audio, and performance. As a New Orleans’ native, I have a unique history that is unflattering, for my history echoes that of America’s historical misdeeds. I make sociopolitical art because I am of a historically oppressed people. I make art that celebrates my diverse culture that is a collage of Native American, African, and New Orleans’ French Creole.

Portrayals Of Women In Chen Hongshou’S Figure Paintings, Lai Na Wan

Theses & Dissertations

Chen Hongshou (1598/1599-1652), a famous artist of late Ming and early Qing China, was particularly well-known for his figure paintings, which exerted a noticeable influence on later generations and has been the subject most commonly discussed by scholars. Among Chen’s figure painting oeuvre, this study is especially concerned with his portrayals of women ranging between the 1630s and 1650s with an intention to explore what their representations, audience and function reveal about the artist. The existing monographs on Chen’s female figures is limited to only few case studies, from which the artist’s depictions of women have not been clearly sorted …

Transnational Conversations: The New Yorker And Canadian Short Story Writers, Nadine Fladd

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores The New Yorker magazine's role in shaping the Canadian short story, the contributions of Canadian authors to the magazine, and the aesthetic and ideological implications of transnational literary production. Using archival evidence, it explicates the publication histories of stories by Morley Callaghan, Mavis Gallant, and Alice Munro, as well as these authors' relationships with their editors at The New Yorker, in order to demonstrate some of the ways that Canadian literature emerged out of, as well as contributed to, North American transnational contexts. This project uses the work of textual studies scholars, and applies theories of …

Wobblies In Washington: The Radicalism And Downfall Of The Iww In The Northwest, Zachary A. Smith

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper is an examination of the radical philosophy and propaganda of the Industrial Workers of The World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, during the period of 1909-1919. in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on the State of Washington. In order to accomplish this, the paper examines several key Wobbly political cartoons, and explains the impact that their propaganda had on union organizing and labor movements in the Northwest. Additionally, The political atmosphere of the time period and the many clashes between the radical IWW and the mainstream American society of the time. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the way in …

Contemporary Jewish Female Artists: Critiquing Challenging And Dismantling The Patriarchal Construction Of Judaism, Cosette Shachnow

Honors Theses

The unfaltering Jewish legal system defined by the Torah (the ancient biblical text) articulates laws describing the manner in which worshippers should live and behave. Despite pivotal historical events affecting the Jewish community these laws have not changed with the passage of time. Many Jews interpret and incorporate some, or all, of teachings and laws into their daily lives. This thesis investigates art that reflects on the contemporary Jewish-American experience and identity as parallel to the second and third wave feminist movements. This thesis aims to reveal the manner in which contemporary female Jewish artists, specifically Hèlene Aylon, Yona Verwer, …

Not Dead At All, Martin Becerra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Not Dead At All is a nontraditional thesis, a creative product, the result of a combination of media production and social research. This paper is an attempt to explain the creative and production process behind the creation of an original media content, using the social research as a tool to increase the likeability of our characters and therefore increase the show’s chances of success.

Send In The Mouse: How American Politicians Used Walt Disney Productions To Safeguard The American Home Front In Wwii, Jordan M. Winters

History Undergraduate Theses

Despite the success of Disney’s first full length featured film Snow White in 1937[1], the animators’ strike of the late 1930s and the war in Europe cutting of international profits brought the Walt Disney Company was near bankruptcy by 1941. Walt Disney was faced with the possibility of closing down his studio. However, the entrance of the United States into WWII and the rising threat of the spread of Nazism became the saving grace to the Walt Disney Studio. This essay explores the collaborations between Disney, businessman and politician Nelson Rockefeller, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the …

The Evoluion Of Pacific War Cinema, Dylan J. Eldridge

History Undergraduate Theses

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7th 1942, the United States became involved in World War II. Over the last seventy years film makers have attempted to chronicle the events of this war. As society changed and grew so did the interpretations of the Pacific War. Today we are left with four distinct eras of Pacific War cinema.

Ar Physics: Transforming Physics Diagrammatic Representations On Paper Into Interactive Simulations., Yao Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A problem representation is a cognitive structure created by the solver in correspondence to the problem. Sketching representative diagrams in the domain of physics encourages a problem solving strategy that starts from 'envisionment' by which one internally simulates the physical events and predicts outcomes. Research studies also show that sketching representative diagrams improves learner's performance in solving physics problems. The pedagogic benefits of sketching representations on paper make this traditional learning strategy remain pivotal and worthwhile to be preserved and integrated into the current digital learning landscape. In this paper, I describe AR Physics, an Augmented Reality based application that …

Edward Steichen And Hollywood Glamour, Alisa Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

As a word, glamour is hard to define, but is instantly recognizable. Its association with Hollywood movie stars fully emerged in the 1930s in the close-up celebrity portraits by photographers like George Hurrell. The aesthetic properties in these images that help create glamour are characterized by the Modernist style, known for sharp focus, high contrast, seductive poses, and the close-up (tight framing). My essay will explore the origins of the visual aesthetics of glamour, arguing that their roots can be found in the still life photographs of the 1910s, produced by fine art photographers such as Edward Steichen. This essay …

Troika Of Fortune Tellers, Sophia D. Kalin

Scripps Senior Theses

This film is an oral history about the intergenerational relationship between three women: my grandmother, my mother, and I. Through our connection I explore the Russian traditions that my grandmother has cultivated and shared among the three of us, in particular, the tradition of fortune telling. I also explore my grandmother's struggle with dementia. Although her memory is fading, she can still remember the practice of reading fortunes and that tradition has preserved our bond and her legacy.

Malaria: The Story Of Struggle, Suffering, And Eradication, Stevey Willey

Honors Projects

Every year over two million men, women, and children around the world are affected by malaria, a disease that can easily be prevented with awareness, education, and support. In April 2014 I held a malaria event in which guests had the opportunity to witness the effects malaria has on people, not just physically, but emotionally and economically as well. The death rate has moved from one person every 30 seconds to one every 60 seconds since 2010. The improvement in the rate of deaths has resulted from the increase in awareness of this disease. It is my goal with this …

A Study Of The Aesthetics Of The Hong Kong Built Environment : Architectural Harmonisation Versus Urban Incivility, Kwok Wah Tung

Theses & Dissertations

The aim of the study is to evaluate the aesthetic qualities of the Hong Kong built environment. To this end, it adopts the framework of the philosophy of architecture in the analytic tradition as proposed by Roger Scruton in his classic The Aesthetics of Architecture, which was first published in 1979. Central to this framework is our aesthetic sense of appropriateness, which leads to a distinctive reading of architecture as an art of the ensemble. From this perspective, the chief architectural task is to establish right visual relations among the parts of a whole. Aesthetically, this results in the …

The Effects Of Alternate-Line Shading On Visual Search In Grid-Based Graphic Designs, Michael P. Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Objective: The goal of this research was to determine whether alternate-line shading (zebra-striping) of grid-based displays affects the strategy (i.e., “visual flow”) and efficiency of serial search. Background: Grids, matrices, and tables are commonly used to organize information. A number of design techniques and psychological principles are relevant to how viewers’ eyes can be guided through such visual works. One common technique for grids, “zebra-striping,” is intended to guide eyes through the design, or “create visual flow” by alternating shaded and unshaded rows or columns. Method: 13 participants completed a visual serial search task. The target was embedded in a …