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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Subject: search.filters.subject.cultural landscape

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    LANDSCAPES AND TRADITIONS OF MARATHONING IN THE USA, 2000-2008
    (2012) Park, Krista Marie; Struna, Nancy L; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation concludes that the symbiotic relationship between two competing cultural traditions of marathoning, Corrival and Pageant, simultaneous creates and eliminates barriers to marathoning participation. Using John Caughey's strategies for studying cultural traditions and Pierre Bourdieu's concept of capital to differentiate between and describe two different approaches to training for and participating in marathons among runners in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area (BWMA). Drawing on participant observation, interviews of runners in the BWMA, and an exploration of the geography of running in the BWMA, contextualized by discourse analysis of three prominent marathon training guides and the covers of the two most influential running magazines, this dissertation also explores the strategies individuals' use to overcome actual and potential obstacles to marathon participation, such as parenting or restrictive work schedules.
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    SCOTTS RUN MINERS' WALK: A COMMUNITY OF CURATORS OF THE COAL HISTORY IN SCOTTS RUN, WEST VIRGINIA
    (2012) Wilfong, Kiley; Bennett, Ralph D.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    West Virginia's coal mining history is long and rich, with many cultures intersecting with the industry. As coal mining shrank from the industry it used to be, poor families were left in the once-prosperous coal towns, unable to afford to move to find better jobs. The natural landscape had yielded to the industry, and the remnants of mining remain, evocative relics of an earlier era. As the coal companies moved on, these towns and landscapes were left at a loss for how to move forward. This thesis investigates ways to revitalize an abandoned landscape and to engage people in their cultural history. Reading the remnants and fragments of industry, and the landscape as clearings, seams and runs, it proposes architectural interventions in six places on the site that are connected by various path types meant to encourage visitors to experience the culture and history of coal mining in West Virginia.
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    Using a Socio-Cultural Framework to Evaluate Farmland Preservation Policy Success in Maryland
    (2009) Russo, Richard Anthony; Geores, Martha E; Geography; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The intent of Maryland's farmland preservation policy has remained constant over the past three decades -- to preserve productive farmland and woodland for the continued production of food and fiber for all of Maryland's citizens. Therefore, thirty years after this statutory goal was made, how effective have Maryland's farmland preservation programs been in reaching this goal? This study addresses the absence of cultural and social analysis in the evaluation of farmland preservation program success in Maryland's metropolitan counties. In utilizing a socio-cultural framework of analysis, this study shows that farmland preservation policies (in their drafting, implementation, and evaluation) are a cultural process, the outcomes of which create and sustain a particular social space and cultural landscape. Theories on the social production of space and landscape are relevant to the task of farmland preservation and agricultural economic development in metropolitan areas. The failure of farmland preservation policy in Maryland has, in part, been the failure to take culture seriously. Quantitative indicators show that Maryland's state farmland preservation program has achieved moderate success in securing a productive agricultural land base over its first three decades, but has not been successful in preserving farming as a viable "way of life," has not stopped the erosion in the value of agricultural sales, and has not reversed the marketplace alienation between producers and consumers in the state.
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    Cities of History: Preservation and Interpretation in the Design Process
    (2004-05-18) Hurtt, Eric Benjamin; Wortham, Brooke D; Architecture
    This thesis proposes the use of memory and interpretation in the preservation, urban design, and physical definition of a community. The study area is Southwest Washington D.C. The thesis will explore questions of preservation and intervention: How might theories of preservation shape the urban form of a neighborhood? How are narrative potential, historic significance and existing fabric mediated? What is the symbolic importance of memory and its architectural use? Southwest was an integral part of L'Enfant's plan for Washington. Currently it is severed physically and psychically from the rest of the city. The dominant symbolic importance of the Mall and post-McMillan Commission Federal Core development strategies de-emphasized the significance of the Rivers and the physical relationship between the Mall and Southwest. Urban renewal strategies of the 1950's destroyed most of the urban fabric south of the Mall, layering an essentially suburban street typology over the existing grid pattern. Although partially offset by an architectural Modernism unique in Washington D.C., the resultant system of disconnected streets and poorly defined open space provide no sense of center, little relation to the rest of the city, and no relation to the larger landscape. An intention of this project is the exploration of the significance of site and its evolving role in shaping the city. Design should encourage a dialogue between memory and the present. L'Enfant's plan for Washington is reinterpreted as establishing vital relationships between the natural and the urbanized, the symbolic and the mundane, the federal city and the metropolitan city.