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.
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Item Picturing Island Bodies Under US Imperialism(2022) Robinson-Tillenburg, Gabrielle; McEwen, Abigail; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the end of World War II, the US has maintained the naval occupation of Okinawa,a small island off the coast of Japan. Across the globe in Puerto Rico the US operated what was at one point the largest naval station in the world during World War II and through the Cold War until ceasing operations in 2001. Islanders in Vieques, Puerto Rico face alarming cancer rates, speculated as due to pollution from offshore explosives. Women of Okinawa experience recurrent acts of sexual violence at the hands of US servicemen. In both archipelagos, public protests against US occupation have disputed land ownership and environmental damages. Taking a transnational approach to the survival of US imperial violence, this paper examines how contemporary video artists, Okinawan Chikako Yamashiro, Puerto Rico-based duo Allora & Calzadilla, and Puerto Rican Beatriz Santiago Muñoz picture island bodies both human and geographic. In Seaweed Woman (2008) by Yamashiro, Under Discussion (2005) by Allora & Calzadilla, and Post-Military Cinema (2014) by Santiago Muñoz, liminality, as a space between life and death—a condition particular to colonized bodies, is pictured as an aesthetic and durational refusal of death and destruction to the island body. The condition of liminality is portrayed through visual and sonic engagements of hyperrealism, that is the confusion between the artists’ reproduced images/sounds with the real experiences of island bodies. In Post-Military Cinema, liminality is used by the artist to produce a repossession of the island body, and in all artworks, to picture resistance. Broadly, this comparative study challenges notions of “American Art” and reflects on how US imperial ideology enacts violence, but via the creation of binary oppositions creates liminal spaces from which the island body resists and survives.Item Staging an Empire: How Late Victorian Theatre Represents Public Perceptions of the British Empire(2019) Appleton, Nicholas Ryan; Raianu, Mircea; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: STAGING AN EMPIRE: HOW LATE VICTORIAN THEATRE REPRESENTS PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE Nicholas Appleton, Master of Arts, 2019 Thesis Directed By: Mircea Raianu PhD, Assistant Professor of History This thesis denotes the changing perception of the British empire among the general populace during the late Victorian period. By placing the plays of Dion Boucicault and Gilbert and Sullivan into the larger historical context, this thesis also comments on the larger historiographical debate about the influence of imperialism on popular culture between John MacKenzie and Bernard Porter.Item Sexism and Imperialism in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and Blitzstein's Regina: A Performance Study(2016) Eversole, Anthony Duke; Mabbs, Linda; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation project comprises three major operatic performances and an accompanying document; a performance study which surveys aspects of sexism and imperialism as represented in three operas written over the last three centuries by examining the implications of prejudice through research as well as through performances of the major roles found in the operas. Mr. Eversole performed the role of Sharpless in the 2014 Castleton Festival production of Madama Butterfly (music by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa), conducted by Bradley Moore. In 2015, Mr. Eversole sang the title role in four performances of Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni with the Maryland Opera Studio at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, conducted by Craig Kier. Also as part of the Maryland Opera Studio 2015-16 season, Mr. Eversole appeared as Oscar Hubbard in four performances of Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play, The Little Foxes. These performances were also conducted by Craig Kier. The accompanying research document discusses significant issues of cultural, geographical, and sexual hegemony as they relate to each opera. It examines the plots and characters of the operas from a postcolonial and feminist perspective, and takes a moral stance against imperialism, sexism, domestic abuse, and in general, the exploitation of women and of the colonized by the socially privileged and powerful. Recordings of all three operas can be accessed at the University of Maryland Hornbake Library. They are: Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (the role of Sharpless) July 20, 2014, Castleton Festival production, Bradley Moore, Conductor Castleton, Virginia Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni (title role) November 22nd, 2015, Maryland Opera Studio, Craig Kier, Conductor Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, UMD Marc Blitzstein’s Regina, (Oscar Hubbard) April 8th, 8016, Maryland Opera Studio, Craig Kier, Conductor Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, UMDItem The More Things Stay the Same: Colonization, Resistance, and the Fractured Sovereign State(2014) Clever, Molly; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Has the authority of the sovereign state system undergone a fundamental transformation in recent decades? This dissertation seeks to: 1) offer a critical examination of claims regarding the perceived fracture and erosion of sovereign state authority; 2) contribute to the task of building a theoretical framework to study the power and authority of the sovereign state system and its changes over time; 3) find evidence of patterns in how the nature of that power and authority changes over time and across different political organizations in the context of war. Theoretically, the characterization of the threat non-state combatants pose to the authority of the state system neglects relations of power between those who hold privilege within that system and those who are excluded from its benefits. Empirically, there has been an absence of systematic study of potential authoritative transformations that is both historically and geographically broad. This dissertation analyzes the language of justification for war - as expressions of political authority - used by political and military leaders from 1618-2008, employing a combination of fuzzy-sets qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with interpretive case analysis to determine the constellations of conditions which drive the use of justification for war. Findings indicate that non-state actors are not challenging the authoritative logic underlying the sovereign state system; rather, the use of sovereign rights logics of justification in asymmetrical conflicts indicates a desire to access the benefits and privileges of that system. When interpreted through a post-colonial and critical race lens, these claims appear as a challenge to exclusion that is largely rooted in a legacy of racialized colonial subjugation. Relations of power, embedded in a state system that developed through imperial conquest and colonial domination, drive the use of justification frames. Thus, low power actors may in fact threaten the stability of the sovereign state system, but not in the manner characterized by the fracture narrative. The threat is not to the authoritative logic of the system, but rather to the uneven distribution of the powers and privileges of that system that stems from a legacy of colonization, which produced lasting divisions in power.