Visual Studies Commons^™

Women, Blood, And Dreams: Gender, Dream Spaces, And Monstrosities In A Nightmare On Elm Street And Bloodborne, Amber Appleby

Theses and Dissertations from 2018

Video games exploded in popularity in the 80s and have been a staple in many people’s lives since. Because video games are popular and different, critics tend to ignore them beyond simple analysis like the sexist portrayal of women. Video games, like films, can be read and analyzed using different methods of theory. This is evident in the similarities in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and FromSoftware’s Bloodborne. Both media feature overtly gendered imagery and spaces, the monstrousness of women, the blurring of dreams and reality, and Gothic elements that tie them together. Though Bloodborne also manages to …

Screening Religiosity In Contemporary Polish Films. The Role Of Religious Motifs In Visual Communication., Mariola Marczak

Journal of Religion & Film

In the paper the Polish contemporary cinema has been explored as a vehicle through which films can reflect and communicate social issues, such as religiosity of Polish society, the character of it, the ways of expression and values promoted by it. The main components of modern Polish religiosity are shown as they are exhibited in film works perceived as part of modern visual culture. The examination also comprises most frequently and typically tools used for communicating or revealing the transcendent sphere in the contemporary Polish films, such as Christ-figures - including apocryphal ones and parables. They are considered as a …

Rhetoric In Film: Three Explorations Of Influence In Documentaries And Digital Stories, Emily Knapp

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis is made up of three distinct articles, two written with the intention of publication while the third consists of a digital story and subsequent reflection on the process of creation. The first article serves to answer the question “Do documentary films inspire activism?” by analyzing data gained after surveying 266 members of the James Madison University community. The results suggest that viewers are moved to emotion when witnessing struggle but that they are moved to action when said action directly impacts their own life. The second article is a rhetorical analysis of the 2013 documentary film Blackfish. …

說不出的痛 : 家暴兒童的內心世界, Suk Mun, Sophia Law

Research Expression through Art : Visual Studies Faculty

自2012年開始，作者專注研究藝術作為圖像語言的本質，以及如何利用藝術創作介入保護家庭及兒童服務，促進家暴兒童受害者的自我表達，為他們在不利的成長環境之中，提供一處或是僅有的安全空間和渠道，讓他們長期被抑壓的情緒得以適當的宣洩，作為導向他們健康成長的開步。

多年來，作者與相關服務單位的社工和專業的藝術治療師，為家暴兒童受害者特別設計連串的藝術創作計劃，所有完成的計劃都是各方專業共同積極參與的成果。最短的計劃為時半年，大多數是一年的計劃，嚴重的個案會個別跟進至年半或更長。

由2012至今，多項完成的計劃已服務超過六十位受家暴創傷的兒童，當中不少的創傷是經年累月的。本書摘錄了這些孩子的作品，當中展現了驚恐、悲傷、憤怒、迷惘和歉疚等，反映的是他們內心那紛亂不安的世界。他們當中承受的創傷或有相同，但每幅圖像都有其獨特的複雜性，非一個孩子能夠用說話和文字說得清楚的。

本書收錄的每一幅圖畫都是一種圖像書寫（image writing）。圖像書寫不需依賴兒童那尚待開發和學習的語言能力。正因如此，這些作品讓我們看見家暴兒童受害者內心那說不出的痛。

Fake Or Visual Trickery? Understanding The Quantitative Visual Rhetoric In The News, Rohit Mehta, Lynette Deaun Guzmán

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In online and video/television spaces, news media discourses incorporate multimodal design as a discursive move capable of steering meaning toward desirable implications. Around the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, while polarized news outlets made their positionality on the candidates obvious, more neutral or central news outlets revealed their preferences through subtle multimodal design choices. One of these design choices is using a quantitative visual rhetoric: persuasive multimodal moves that draw on quantification through visual, spatial, and textual manipulation—involving the choice of data representation, visual images, and illustrations, (im)balance between numeric and alphabetic texts, and general quantitative narrative. This quantitative visual rhetoric …

In Another Person’S Skin: Adaptations Of To Kill A Mockingbird And The Characterization Of Scout Finch, Eric A. Pitz

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Diasporadical: In Ryan Coogler's 'Black Panther,' Family Secrets, Cultural Alienation And Black Love, Terri P. Bowles

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This is a review of the film Black Panther (2018) by Ryan Coogler, which traces the arc of the comic book hero as he faces an unanticipated challenge to his power by a man who threatens not just his throne but also the future of his nation. The review explores the ways in which the legacy of slavery and colonialism inform the distinct political and philosophical ideologies of the two main characters, and how inequality drives political thought.

Reflections On The Significance Of Images In Genocide Studies: Some Methodological Considerations, Lior Zylberman, Vicente Sánchez-Biosca

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This is the editors' introduction to the special issue: "Images And Collective Violence: Function, Use And Memory."

Challenging Old And New Images Representing The Cambodian Genocide: The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh, 2013), Vicente Sánchez-Biosca

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article focuses on the images used over four decades to represent the Cambodian genocide in photography, cinema, visual arts and the media as the basis for analyzing the documentary-memoir directed by Rithy Panh, The Missing Picture. First, there is a paucity of images which depict, evoke or allude to the crimes perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979); second, scholars raise objections about whether any image can adequately depict a catastrophic event such as genocide. This article begins by categorizing the Cambodian genocide iconography according to the modality of the visual production. After briefly classifying this visual output in four …

Bonding Images: Photography And Film As Acts Of Perpetration, Christophe Busch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Historical and contemporary cases of collective violence show an incremental use of photography and film to capture and disseminate violent acts. Recording cruelty during conflict seems to be a highly ritualised practice that urges the question what communicative and psychological functions these acts have? Why and how does perpetrator photography shape a binding moral world that divides 'us' versus 'them'? These visualising acts are commonly seen as proof of power that desensitises the perpetrators and dehumanises the victims. This contribution focuses on the imagery of the Holocaust, looks into the functions that capturing and sharing cruelty has on the evolution …

“You Could See Rage”: Visual Testimony In Post-Genocide Guatemala, Lacey M. Schauwecker

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Since the Guatemalan genocide against Maya populations (1981-1983), domestic and international human rights groups have organized truth commissions, forensic exhumations, and legal cases. These efforts to secure justice have achieved minimal success, prompting a reconsideration of the relationship among narrative testimony, visual testimony, and institutional standards of truth. Engaging the ideas of visual studies scholar, Nicholas Mirzoeff, I argue for the political importance of testimony that is critical of such standards, including those enforced by human rights’ legal paradigm. Following Mirzoeff’s understandings of “visuality” and “countervisuality,” I analyze “visual testimony” as that which acknowledges the dynamic interplay between word and …

Pathos, Fall 2018, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Sadie Jordan

Mdocs Poster-Fall 2018, Course Offerings, Jesse Wakeman

MDOCS Publications

Fall 2018 Course Offerings:

Documentary Fundamentals:

• Documentary Storytelling
• Intro to Audio Documentary
• Documentary and Narrative Screenwriting

• Storytelling: Video
• Storytelling: Game Development
• Storytelling: Mapping

• The Artist Interview
• Festival Curation

Making It Pay To Be A Fan: The Political Economy Of Digital Sports Fandom And The Sports Media Industry, Andrew Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a series of case studies and sociological examinations of the role that the sports media industry and mediated sport fandom plays in the political economy of the Internet. The Internet has structurally changed the way that sport fans access sport and accelerated the processes through which the capitalist actors in the sports media industry have been able to subsume them. The three case studies examined in this dissertation are examples of how digital media technologies have both helped fans become more active producers and consumers of sports and made the sports media industry an integral and vanguard …

Wukongism: Monkey King, Kungfu/Jazz, And Asian/American Performance, Sissi Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Wukongism offers one of the first non-western epistemic frameworks to examine theatre and performance that traverse beyond the shifting taxonomies of national, cultural, racial boundaries, and in particular, Asian/American theatre and performance. Wukongism, or shapeshifter consciousness, is built on the narrative of Sun Wukong the Monkey King, a supernatural shapeshifting character from the 16^th century classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. Juxtaposing physical shapeshifting (plastic surgery and performing of the racialized face) with institutional shapeshifting (reinventing and eliminating invisible and hypervisible boundaries), this dissertation project posits Wukongism as a means to examine the varying, fluid, and precarious …

That's So Gay!: Queer Texts In The U.S., Jesse S. Rice-Evans, Andrea Stella

Open Educational Resources

Gender is facing an identity crisis: queer identities in the new era of gender and genre are subverting paradigms of communication and genre by working with language and narrative in new ways. Queer biography and autobiography mark an important turn in contemporary literature and poetics: the shift from a male-dominant gaze towards a kaleidoscopic perspective on queer embodiment, trans and non-binary narrative, and speculative writing about other worlds & possibilities, which offer us as readers new opportunities for storytelling and thinking about writing. These forms also make space for other identities traditionally excluded from mainstream cultural narrative spaces, and we’re …

That's So Gay!: Queer Texts In The U.S., Andréa Stella, Jesse Rice-Evans

Open Educational Resources

Gender is facing an identity crisis: queer identities in the new era of gender and genre are subverting paradigms of communication and genre by working with language and narrative in new ways. Queer biography and autobiography mark an important turn in contemporary literature and poetics: the shift from a male-dominant gaze towards a kaleidoscopic perspective on queer embodiment, trans and non-binary narrative, and speculative writing about other worlds & possibilities, which offer us as readers new opportunities for storytelling and thinking about writing. These forms also make space for other identities traditionally excluded from mainstream cultural narrative spaces, and we’re …

Illusions Of "Blackness" In Contemporary Visual Culture, Michaël Dorn

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

My thesis begins with a primer of the historical concept of “black(ness)” and the roots of its racialization. Intertwined throughout my discussion in Section I, I will highlight a few of my research findings and discuss some of the installation images that I created as I studied the work of contemporary artists who use lexical and literal figurative “blackness” in their work—in particular, the oeuvre of Kerry James Marshall as featured in his retrospective exhibition Mastry. My discourse unfolds with a brief etymological review of both the English word “black” and its precedent conceptual forms in Section II. Section …

Un/Dead Animal Art: Ethical Encounters Through Rogue Taxidermy Sculpture, Miranda Niittynen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Beginning in 2004, the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists began an art movement of taxidermied animal sculptures that challenged conventional forms of taxidermied objects massively produced and displayed on an international scale. In contrast to taxidermied ‘specimens’ found in museums, taxidermied ‘exotic’ wildlife decapitated and mounted on hunters' walls, or synthetic taxidermied heads bought in department stores, rogue taxidermy artists create unconventional sculptures that are arguably antithetical to the ideologies shaped by previous generations: realism, colonialism, masculinity. As a pop-surrealist art movement chiefly practiced among women artists, rogue taxidermy artists follow an ethical mandate to never kill animals for the …

The Revolution Of Plastic, Marine Brun-Franzetti

Theses and Dissertations

The Revolution Of Plastic is a fiction film about the overconsumption of plastic in our everyday lives. Leo, a ten year-old girl who loves dolphins, rebels against her father Mister Risso, the Manager of Detergents at Willy Supermarket.

Wocmes 2018: "I Am The Entertainer": Embodying Entertainment In Egyptian Film Posters (Slides), Robin Dougherty

Roberta L. Dougherty

No abstract provided.

Performing The Quality Of Imperceptible Interactions Between Individuals: A Technological Challenge Regarding The Collective, Marine Theunissen

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Contemporary technologies allow incredible possibilities of capturing individuals, but a problem arises when it comes to capturing a chorus, that is to say a "collective body" in motion. This proposal will address the problem of the sensitive capture of the quality of the interrelations between individuals, and of their refined interpretation through algorithms to "output” them in other forms. We will address two questions on the subject: how to capture the relations between individuals within a collective? How to create a circular-causal loop, whose artistic material (the digital data) is the interrelations of a collective, without engendering redundancy in their …

Review Of Chris Ware: Conversations, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Review Of Pioneering Cartoonists Of Color, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Sharing Identity: Indexing Cultural Perspectives Through Writing Responses To Graphic Novels, Alex Romagnoli

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Indexing identity through writing responses among ELL students in response to a graphic novel helps provide insight into how writing responses represent people and how graphic novels can aid in that process of self-discovery through their inherent multimodalities. This study takes looks at four students in an ELL class at an urban high school in southern Pennsylvania as they responded in writing to a portion of Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (2006). All of the participants took events from the portion of the graphic novel provided to them and indexed their urban, cultural perspectives through their …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Stranded At Sea: Photographic Representations Of The Rohingya In The 2015 Bay Of Bengal Crisis, Jenny Yeung, Caroline Lenette

The Qualitative Report

Visual representations can contribute to shaping how the general public perceives and engages with issues of forced migration. In 2015, thousands of Rohingya became stranded in the Bay of Bengal when smugglers abandoned them on unseaworthy boats and regional governments refused their disembarkation. Their ordeal made headlines across the globe and photographs documenting the crisis were widely disseminated. This paper applies visual-social semiotics to four of these photographs from an Agence France-Presse public exhibition. Our analysis suggests that the features in the photographs transcend the conventional “threat versus victim” dualism that typically characterizes such representations, to capture both the suffering …

Murmur/Murmuro, Paola M. Di Tolla

Theses and Dissertations

By using repetition or misplacing intonations and accents, etc. one can imitate the slipperiness of spoken language. However, it is the accidental slippage that I find most revealing and exciting because it allows for two conversations to exist in one. Once spoken language is transcribed as text, it is put through another filter and the risk of [accidental] slippage increases by a different measure. Fingers don’t keep up or autocorrect insists on taking matters into its own hands.

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Literarische Filmsimulation: Heinrich Eduard Jacobs Medienphilosophische Filmästhetik In "Blut Und Zelluloid", Paula Vosse

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heinrich Eduard Jacob´s novel Blut und Zelluloid was published in 1929 and therefore mostly reviewed as a critical artwork regarding European film-propaganda before the outbreak of the Second World War. This thesis provides the interested scholar with a different approach: It discusses Jacob´s media-philosophical method to simulate the upcoming medium film in literature. With his implicitly and explicitly organized systems of diverse media, he circumvents constraints of the Paragone-discourse and offers a well-balanced literary construction.

Jacob´s method is compared with Pinthus´ Kinobuch and Pirandello´s Shoot!, while Simmel and Benjamin provide the thesis with a fundament to support Jacob´s theoretical approach. …