Theory and Criticism Commons^™

Tel Jezreel's Medieval Crusader Cemetery: A Case Study In Contemporary Burial Practices And Necroviolence Against Infants And Children., Autumn Koehling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 1990s excavation of the archaeological site of Tel Jezreel in the modern nation state of Israel yielded the remains of fifty infants and children, associated with the contemporary Medieval Crusader Church. The Church, built by Knight’s Templar from the Frankish Kingdom served the occupants of Tel Jezreel from the 11^th to the 13^th century and introduced Western Christian burial practices to the local Syriac-Palestinian Christian inhabitants. Burial practices from the surrounding region of the Levant and beyond, into Crusader European cultures, show different forms of burial treatment for infants and children that can be used to understand …

Origin Stories., Danielle Deeley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an investigation into the Peruvian pre-Columbian collection at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The Speed Art Museum acquired this collection in 1934 and it has largely remained unresearched for nearly a century after acquisition into the museum’s collection. This investigation is not an attempt to make broad characterizations of pre-Columbian ceramics. Nor is its goal to fill in all the gaps of the collection’s history. Instead, this thesis follows the evidence the collection presents: the physical attributes of the ceramics, the donor’s history, U.S. history, and information from the collection file provided by the Speed …

The Impersonation Artist: A Novel With Critical Afterword: Displacement And Dissent In Fiction And Art., Flora K. Schildknecht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of a creative project, The Impersonation Artist: A Novel, and a critical afterword, “Displacement and Dissent in Fiction and Art.” On a narrative level, The Impersonation Artist engages the question of how, and if, participatory art can reveal and intervene in oppressive conditions. The novel employs a stylistic methodology in which the use of multiple narrators and narrative fragmentation formally gestures toward the complex dilemma of how artists might intervene in contemporary problems in the face of conflicting ideologies and ever increasing precarity. The novel follows three characters: an environmental activist; a young man veering towards …

The Well-Tempered Android: Philosophical Posthumanism In Science Fiction Cinema., Cody Gault

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines philosophical posthumanism as a means for critical analysis of the interaction between humans and nonhuman androids in select science fiction cinematic universes. The interaction is analyzed through several facets, notably the interactions between humans and nonhuman androids, particularly as interactions between the human and nonhuman are often sites of violence. Chapter one is an introduction. Chapter two describes the development of philosophical posthumanism from humanism, also including an analysis of philosophical posthumanism, and how it can be used as a critical lens. Chapter three begins an analysis of science fiction cinema by examining the Blade Runner films …

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

Letting The Days Go By: An Investigation Into The Artistic And Functional Nature Of Calendars., Elise Alexandra Blankenship

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Calendars have been widely ignored as cultural objects in a contemporary context. Because of this lack of consideration, analyzing a calendar as a work of art is theoretically interesting. This thesis uses the theory of Kitsch, philosophies concerning art in the home, and the theory of relational aesthetics to express the impact that calendars can have when considered works of art. This thesis also discovers the forgotten provenance of block print calendars from the University of Louisville’s extensive print collection. This thesis attempts to coerce the viewer to consider the calendars in their homes as works of art.

Women Of Pop., Jourdan Cunningham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hegemonic values that were represented in 1960s mass media were heavily reinforced by the Pop Art movement. Male Pop artists have often been viewed as genius, while the women were pushed aside to reside within the margins of the Pop canon. This thesis emphasizes the work of four female artists who participated in the Pop Art movement and were largely overlooked throughout Pop’s discourse. By analyzing their “popness” and Feminist viewpoints, it allows for the imbalance that has resulted from women Pop artists neglect throughout Pop’s discourse to be readdressed. In the Introduction I analyze the background of the …

An Exploration Of Provenance And Ownership History And The Critique Of Curatorial Practice., Sacra J. Fallen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the art world, the artwork is under evaluation to determine its worth from its historic value to its monetary value. One of the primary strategies used to evaluate the artwork is the work's provenance which can be broken down into the work's collector history and the authenticity of its authorship. The first question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its historic value? The second question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its monetary value? These questions will be supported by two case studies …

An Uncertain Line: Making Art About Photographs Of American War And Violence., Cassidy Meurer

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Photography’s power in capturing a moment in history is indisputable, but inevitably flawed. Assumptions of objectivity and truth are made that do not count for the bias of the photographer, or the bias of the viewer. These assumptions do not explain the warped effect of freezing life at a fraction of a second. Information is left outside the frame; stories are fragmented in their retelling. Certain historical photographs have become iconic over time. My interest lies in images of American battle, violence, and trauma; those that have political and propagandic weight. Coded, controversial, and inherently emotional, these photographs have become …

Trace., Kcj Szwedzinski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trace utilizes autoethnography to investigate aspects of Judaism to discover how one decides what to embrace, embody, or deny from inherited legacies. Autoethnography attempts to combine quantitative and qualitative data in order to systematically analyze and describe personal experience. The artist acting as Ba’alei Kushiah, or question bearer, uses Talmudic philosophy as a methodology and approach to art making. This research is self-referential; using Jewish thought to ask questions about Judaism. Judaism, often existing in an in between place with outward characteristics that reflect regional influences, facilitates a dialogue about whether there are relative or absolute delineations within and between …

The Disjointed Moment : Marking, Mapping, And Making The Real In William Eggleston's Election Eve (1976)., Joel Darland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the photographic book Election Eve (1976) produced by photographer William Eggleston. Eggleston’s photographs represent a complex network of connections between material objects and the potential truth of depiction. The often-nondescript locations that Eggleston photographed in Sumter County, GA in October 1976 appear specific at the outset, but quickly lose their adherence to the supposed realities that they depict. Since his first major exhibition in the mid 1970s, Eggleston’s photographs have presented difficulty because they from often-disparate material sources. Despite of the complexity of Eggleston’s engagement with both art and non-art photography, scholarship continues describe Eggleston’s “snapshot aesthetic” …

Let's Keep In Touch : Conversations About Access And Tactility., Whitney E. B. Mashburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let’s Keep in Touch: Conversations about Tactility, a project collaboratively organized by social practice artist Carmen Papalia and curator Whitney Mashburn, presents conversations between Papalia and artists selected by Mashburn, in regard to tactile access of the chosen artists’ works. The project aims to challenge visual biases in museum engagement, through dialogue with living artists.

Carmen Papalia takes social practice in a new direction as he applies it to the topic of accessibility. Using the tool of conversation, he creates strategic infrastructural activism and prompts exploration of non-visual perception.

In this thesis, Papalia’s work will be examined and discussed …

The Queer Child And Haut Bourgeois Domesticity : Berthe Morisot And Mary Cassatt., Jessica Cresseveur

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1970s, feminist art historians have extensively treated Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. In particular, focusing on class-bound womanhood and domesticity, Griselda Pollock, Linda Nochlin, and Anne Higonnet have provided compelling psychoanalytic, Marxist, and semiotic analyses, seemingly exhausting all potentials for any further historical exploration of these artists. Yet, to date, investigations into the significance of the queer (deviations from normative sociocultural codes of gender identity, sexuality, and reproduction) in the works of Cassatt and Morisot have not been conducted. In this dissertation, queer theory complements the existing scholarship that has focused on the significance of women as mothers …

Iconoclastic Fervor : Sally Hazelet Drummond, Abstract Expressionism And Curatorial Practice., Hillary Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sally Hazelet Drummond is an iconoclastic artist situated within the revolutionary movement of Abstract Expressionism. Drummond is the first female to graduate from the Hite Art Institute, earning a master’s in painting in 1952. During her study at the University of Louisville she explored Abstract Expressionism. In 1953 Drummond joined the Tanager Gallery, one of the Tenth Street artists’ co-ops. In the midst of Willem De Kooning, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko, Drummond refined her work into a simplified, contemplative style that she continued to develop over the course of her life. Drummond described Abstract Expressionism as a kind of …