American Art and Architecture Commons^™

Defining ‘Un-Americanism’ In Culture And Art: The Dies Committee’S Investigation Of The Federal Theatre Project, Matthew G. Summers

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the House Un-American Activities Committee’s (HUAC) expansive definition of ‘Un-Americanism’ through the body’s 1938 investigation of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). The committee, then known as the Dies Committee after its chairman Martin Dies (D-TX), publicly presented the hearings as an attempt to root out communism in a deeply compromised government program. And indeed the FTP, an ambitious New Deal Program to provide work for unemployed professionals in the theatre, had an undoubtedly leftist bent. However, the hearings were consistently focused on the project's progressive stances on issues of race and gender, and effectively exposed the underlying …

Essential Caretaking For Artists With Disabilities: Exploring The Overlooked Histories Of Hazel Knapp And Grandma Moses, Bryan P. Martin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the intersection of disability studies and art history, addressing the underrepresentation of disability in scholarship, especially concerning medical sociology and caretaking. Focusing on two early-twentieth-century self-taught American artists, Hazel Knapp (1908–95), who fell into obscurity, and Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), best known as Grandma Moses, this is a comparative analysis of how disability influenced their artistic practices and shaped their divergent career outcomes. Knapp was born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, and fell into obscurity due to a lack of support for her condition, but experienced a promising start to her career that included patronage …

Satirical Dissent: The Subversive Messaging Of Ad Reinhardt’S 1946 And 1961 Art Comics How To Look At Modern Art In America, Julie A. Schumacher

Dissertations and Theses

Through a close analysis of Ad Reinhard's 1946 and 1961 art comics "How to Look at Modern Art in America,” examined in the context of their times, this paper will argue that Reinhardt’s idealist view and involvement with abstraction, as he saw it in its “purest” form, was intrinsically formed and shaped by his Marxist anticapitalistic perspectives in response to his concurrent time. When these works are examined through the lens of Reinhard’s socialist politics, a parallel narrative surfaces where “pictures artists” also signifies capitalism and its capacity to harmonize and contaminate.

The Real And The Digital: Female Agency And Resisting The Male Gaze In Lynn Hershman Leeson’S Works, Kelly Chou

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis focuses on three major feminist works by multimedia artist, Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941), that grapple with the construction and potential of female identity. Considering the works within the context of Laura Mulvey’s seminal text “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” this paper will attempt to elucidate how Hershman Leeson’s works have engaged with the male gaze and its social and cultural implications on female identity in visual spheres. This research demonstrates how Hershman Leeson’s efforts to understand the limitations and boundaries for women reflect the same phenomenons observed by Mulvey within “Visual Pleasure.” Rejecting this, Hershman Leeson also …

The Deprivatization Of Art: Dan Graham As An Art Worker, Jordana Cotilletta

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Building And Maintaining Plankhouses At Two Villages On The Southern Northwest Coast Of North America, Emily Evelyn Shepard

Dissertations and Theses

Plankhouses were functionally and symbolically integral to Northwest Coast societies, as much of economic and social life was predicated on these dwellings. This thesis investigates both plankhouse architecture and the production of these dwellings. Studying plankhouse construction and maintenance provides information regarding everyday labor, landscape use outside of villages, organization of complex tasks, and resource management.

This thesis investigates three plankhouse structures at two sites, Meier and Cathlapotle, in the Lower Columbia River Region of the southern Northwest Coast of North America. Methods consisted of digitizing over 1,100 architectural features, creating detailed maps of architectural features, and conducting statistical and …