UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 25

Holding the Center: How One Jewish Day School Negotiates Differences in a Pluralistic Community
(2010) Selis, Allen H.; Selden, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study centers on the experiences of students and religious study faculty in the high school division of "CDS," a successful Kindergarten through Twelfth grade Jewish day school that defines itself as a "community" institution. The school affirms a high-profile commitment to including "the widest spectrum of Jewish practice and belief" in its recruiting materials. While the student body comprises individuals who are diverse in their affiliations and beliefs, the school employs a religious studies faculty that overwhelmingly draws from the most theologically conservative subset of the larger community. Almost none of these instructors share the same orientation with respect to religious practice, beliefs or general cultural frames of reference as the students they educate. Nonetheless, the school's administrative leaders claim a high degree of success at creating an embracing community, where individual differences are honored and respected. The purpose of this study was to examine and critically evaluate this claim. By employing a range of classical ethnographic research strategies, including participant observation and individual interviews, this study explores the following question: How does a culturally heterogeneous group of religious studies faculty and students negotiate the challenge of communal participation in the high school division of one Jewish day school? While the results of field work were analyzed using a range of classical anthropological methods, this study makes special use of the communities of practice literature to create an interpretive schema for understanding the cultural life and experiences of this school community. Coding and analysis of field data suggest that a commitment to defer engagement around significant areas of ritual practice as well as the construction of a value system which reinforces the merits of coexistence create a loose framework for the notion of "community" at CDS. These findings expand an emerging literature on pluralism within Jewish institutions and suggest new interpretive tools for understanding the meaning of community within the growing field of pluralistic Jewish community day schools.
"What is a Black Man Without His Paranoia?" : Clinical Depression and the Politics of African American Anxieties Toward Emotional Vulnerability
(2009) Stewart, Tyrone Anthony; Parks, Sheri L; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In an interview after his departure from television and a rumored "breakdown," the comedian Dave Chappelle asked Oprah Winfrey, "What is a black man without his paranoia?" This question forms the crux of a dissertation which addresses African Americans' attitudes toward clinical depression, in general, and black men's anxieties toward emotional vulnerability, in specific. Using the concept of "paranoia" as an indicator of a healthy skepticism toward medical authority, this dissertation deconstructs the concept of depression as a discursive construct and moves it out of the bounds of science and into the precincts of cultural emotion theory. Opting for theory over science, this dissertation argues against the erasure of social and cultural narratives and explores how race and gender can inform our interpretation of depression. Using textual readings, historical comparison, and ethnography, this dissertation examines the politics involved in addressing the emotionality of black men. It is concerned with how definitions of blackness, manhood, crisis, worth, and belonging impact black men's understandings of emotional wellness and inform African Americans' attitudes toward the emotional performances of black men. Two popular books on African American's mental health (Black Rage by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs (1968) and Black Pain by Terri Williams (2008)) are examined within their respective historical and social contexts to track the changing cultural discourse on African Americans' mental health and the role of gender in understanding narratives of wellness. And concepts family, labor, and responsibility are explored as implicit elements in black men's attainment of manhood in a comparative examination of the Sanitation Workers Strike (1968) and the Million Man March (1995).
Amish Women, Business Sense: Old Order Women Entrepreneurs in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Tourist Marketplace
(2008) Graybill, Beth E.; Caughey, John L.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation is an examination of Amish businesswomen and gender roles in the tourist marketplace of Lancaster County, PA. Tourism in Lancaster is a $1.5 billion business; most tourists come because of the Amish and values associated with them. Recently, tourism has come to provide an important source of income for many Old Order Mennonite and Amish women, whose business enterprises cater primarily to a tourist market. Among the Amish, known for their separation from wider society, tourism now puts many women on the front lines in dealing with outsiders, a monumental shift historically. Thus, this ethnography of Amish businesswomen serves as a useful lens for examining Amish women's changing gender roles in Lancaster County today. Moreover, it fills a significant gap in the literature, as little has been written about Amish women, to date. Mine is a micro-study that examines tourism, entrepreneurship, and gender through the words of Amish women themselve, and my analysis of them. Using ethnography and life history I examine the lives of Old Order Amish and Mennonite women whose businesses range from quilt shops to greenhouses to serving meals in their homes. As I show, the ways in which these women handle their business, family, and community roles sometimes involves extensions of traditional roles and sometimes departures from them.
Defying Expectations: Associational Participation and Democratization in Poor Communities in Argentina
(2008-08-19) Sacouman, Natasha; Korzeniewicz, Roberto P.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Alexis de Tocqueville noted that the key to democracy is "knowledge of how to combine." This dissertation focuses on the following question: Can participation in associations facilitate democracy within the communities in which they exist even if such associations are not democratically organized - i.e., vertical, hierarchical organizations. To consider this question, this dissertation explores a poor community's transition from a sparse to a highly developed associational space, and examines the impact of this process of democratization on social relations at both the associational and the personal levels (between leaders, participants, and non-participants). Specifically, I compare three different associational settings in a barrio in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina -- i.e., a non-governmental organization, a religious network, and a political party network -- to assess whether democratization can occur with the construction and communication of symbolic meaning and objective practices by vertically structured, hierarchical organizations. I analyze the interplays between inclusion and exclusion; solidarity and generalized distrust; and inequality and protagonism. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates how the configuration of social relations serves to legitimate and reproduce civic life in poor communities. This dissertation is based upon extensive ethnographic observations in three different associations and the community itself, as well as upon qualitative interviews with community leaders, participants, nonparticipants, politicians and academics.
A Confluence of Streams: Music and Identity in Aotearoa/New Zealand
(2008-06-01) Anderson, Harold Atwood; Dueck, Jonathan; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation explores identity and musical performance in New Zealand. I investigate how music and performance play a part in the formation of persistent identities -- how momentary activities metamorphose into more fixed "traditional" practices, and how music impacts collective definition of group identity. I define "persistent identities" as those that continue despite changes in place, time and life stage. In musical performances, repertoires and canons, we witness the formation of "new" identities: mutations, exten¬sions, or adaptations of traditional identities in response to changing circumstances. I theorize connections between traditional and contemporary practices as expressions of functional or processual persistence. New Zealand's bicultural framework (formed between indigenous Māori and descendants of their European counterparts) forms an appropriate site for formation of new identities. The country comprises a manageable geographic area for application of a hybrid ethno¬graphic/social-historical method, and its political structure affords a high level of visi¬bility, empowerment, and "ownership," particularly for Pacific immigrants by allow¬ing them to retain a sense of "indigeneity." The situation is not as sanguine for other groups, including refugees and Asian migrants who also aspire to a common nationhood while retaining traditional identities. The extent to which groups succeed or fail is visible in their use of music to achieve a place in public discourse. Māori contemporary music and performance practices including Powhiri (ritual encoun¬ter), Haka (a dance form widely practiced by both Māori and non-Māori), and Taonga Pūoro (traditional instruments and practice, thought extinct but now the subject of a cultur¬ally contested recovery) stand out as sites where diverse groups participate and negotiate identities. I parse performances ethnographically by analyzing choice and usage of materials (idioms, genres, repertoires, etc.), and audience makeup, reception and interaction.
Go-Go Live: Washington, D.C.'s Cultural Information Network, Drumming the News, Knitting Communities, and Guarding a Black Public Sphere
(2007-11-14) Hopkinson, Natalie Adele; Newhagen, John E.; Steiner, Linda; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Through the frame of Habermas's theory of the public sphere, this study argues that go-go, Washington, D.C.'s funk-based live music genre, functions as a unique public sphere in the majority-black United States capital city also known as the "Chocolate City." Go-go is a powerful counter-discourse to hip-hop, another urban culture with origins in the 1970s post-industrial American landscape. Both hip-hop and go-go originally functioned as a news and cultural medium for geographically-specific African American communities, or what rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy described as a "black CNN." While hip-hop moved into the global mainstream of popular culture, the go-go community guarded the borders of its sphere from encroachment, commercialization, and cooptation from political, cultural, and economic forces. Live concerts employ centuries-old rituals, scripts, and codes in dance, music and clothing to deliver the news in a call-and-response with African-derived traditions. The study of go-go provides insights useful to both the music and news media industries under assault by the decentralization and democratization of production and fragmentation of audiences. This study demonstrates how through a network of roving independent entrepreneurs and storefront businesses, go-go has protected the sanctity of this sphere and continues to build community across several decades and a variety of media platforms. This study combines ethnography, life history research, ethnomusicology, and cultural geography to "read" the news go-go tells, stories, communities and people overlooked or misunderstood by corporate news media.
The Aesthetics of Motion in Musics for the Mevlana Celal ed-Din Rumi
(2007-06-04) Vicente, Victor Amaro; Provine, Robert C.; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation investigates the concept of motion as a fundamental aesthetic element in the devotional music, dance, and rituals performed in honor of the celebrated thirteenth-century Persian mystic poet and saint, the Mevlana Celal ed-Din Muhammad Rumi. The main focus of the study is threefold. First, it investigates the prevalence of the notion of movement in Islamic music and culture, specifically within the Sufi communities of Turkey, in order to arrive at a broader understanding of the relationship between music, aesthetics, and worldview. Secondly, it explores how musical performance functions as a form of devotion or religious worship by focusing on the musical repertories performed in honor of a single holy figure, the Mevlana Rumi. Finally, it provides an ethnographic account of contemporary developments in Sufi musical culture in Turkey and across the world by describing the recent activities of the Mevlana's devotees, which includes members of the Mevlevi Order of Islamic mystics as well as adherents of other Sufi brotherhoods and followers of so-called New Religions or New Age. The primary research for this study involved two short one-month field trips to Turkey and India in 2002 and 2003, respectively, and a longer one year expedition to Turkey in 2004 and 2005, which also included shorter stays in Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt. Additionally, the dissertation draws directly from critical theories advanced in the fields of ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, and ethnochoreology and focuses on the kinesthetic parameters of music, dance, trance, and ritual as well as on broader forms of socio-cultural movement including pilgrimage, cultural tourism, and globalization. These forms of movement are analyzed in four broad categories of music used in worship, including classical Mevlevi music, music of the zikr ceremony, popular musics, and non-Turkish musics.
"Alan Lomax's iPod?": Smithsonian Global Sound and Applied Ethnomusicology on the Internet
(2007-05-08) Font, David Octaviano; Dueck, Jonathan; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The phenomenon of digital music on the Internet marks a turning point in the way human beings make, listen to, and share music. Smithsonian Global Sound is, variously: 1) a digital music download service; 2) the central hub of a network of digital music archives; and 3) the Internet branch of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Like all things vital, Smithsonian Global Sound is also developing rapidly. This thesis synthesizes a brief history of the Smithsonian Global Sound project, explores some of the vital issues related to the project, and offers a series of observations and recommendations for the project's development. Tracing the roots of Smithsonian Global Sound back to early archival efforts by music scholars, Moses Asch's Folkways Records, the acquisition of the Folkways catalog by the Smithsonian, and the development and launch of Smithsonian Global Sound, the project is examined as a example of applied ethnomusicology on the Internet.
Just a Click Away from Home: Ecuadorian Migration, Nostalgia and New Technologies in Transnational Times
(2007-05-14) Mejia Estevez, Silvia; Harrison, Regina; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Focusing on three different narrations of migration from Ecuador to the United States, Spain and Italy, this documentary video and its study guide explore how new technologies such as the Internet, satellite communications, email, videoconferences, and cell phones have changed the experience of displacement. The two components of this dissertation propose that, due to the encounter with new technologies intent upon shrinking space and time, nostalgia is becoming digital -a quest for continuity of time and space through the simultaneity offered by digital media. Under these new circumstances, transnational businesses profit from nostalgic markets, whereas transnational families and organizations grapple with digital technologies to foment a "globalization of solidarity." As an aesthetic artefact, the project responds to the controversy within film theory regarding subjectivity and fiction storytelling procedures as defining features of documentary, a film genre traditionally marketed as objective and non-fictional. For this reason, the video is composed of what I call not three case studies but three stories of migration. The documentary starts out in Cuenca (Ecuador), where, speechless, Arturo and Mercedes see their children on the videoconferencing screen. It is their first "reunion" since the children left Ecuador and settled in New York City, eleven years ago. In another Ecuadorian city, Gloria -whose husband migrated from Quito to Madrid- promotes Internet access to rescue families torn apart by migration. Finally, we meet Carla, a journalist settled in Milan, who takes advantage of new technologies to report on the Ecuadorian community in Italy for readers far away. With a comparative and translocal approach -and theoretically based on Hall, Appadurai, Boym, Nichols and Portes among others-, this project explores multiple relationships with new technologies determined by gender, age, race, ethnicity, education, computer literacy, geographical situation, and socio-economic background. Through their differing and even contradictory discourses and practices, expressed and lived in geographical locations that coexist and overlap on the screen, the protagonists of this dissertation-documentary video show us to what extent they are inscribed in different places of enunciation that shape their experience of displacement and nostalgia in contrasting ways.
El Rocío: A Case Study of Music and Ritual in Andalucía
(2007-04-26) Poole, W. Gerard; Robertson, Carolina; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Music is central to the processional pilgrimage of El Rocío, which attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Andalusia, Spain, late each spring. The pilgrimage affords a unique view, in microcosm, of the relationships between music and ritual from both ritual-studies and ethnomusicological perspectives. Based on extensive fieldwork and other research, this dissertation explores the nexus of the Catholic ritual system in Andalusia, flamenco, and the specific music of El Rocío: the Sevillanas Rocieras. That nexus becomes clear through exploration of three particular features of the pilgrimage: (1) the devotional processions that generate a single, focused, collective emotion; (2) the Andalusian musical form called the palo; and (3) the informal musical gatherings called juergas, which take place nightly along the route. Analysis of structural and morphological relationships between ritual, music, and emotion yields surprising realizations about how these three elements come together as embodied aesthetics within a communitas to generate popular culture. Another important finding of this work is the necessity of placing, at the center of the inquiry, the religious experience—including the curious Andalusian phenomenon of the “chaotic” emotional procession and its role within the overall pilgrimage and ritual system. The dissertation concludes with two theoretical positions. The first addresses the process of “emotional structuring” and its role within the musical rituals of El Rocío and, by extension, Andalusia. The second advances a theory of ritual relations with potential application to ritual systems beyond Andalusia. The author presents both positions within an evolutionary framework based on the tenets of biomusicology, neurophenomenology, and Peircean semiotics.

UMD Theses and Dissertations

Browse

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results