Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item FROM HARM TO HOPE: REIMAGINING AN ABANDONED ASYLUM AS A SPACE OF REFLECTION, REJUVENATION, AND REJOICE(2023) Reise, Matthew; Sullivan, Jack; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Crownsville State Hospital opened in 1913 as the first and only mental institution in the state of Maryland to serve the Black community. After 91 years of operation rife with neglect, abuse, exploitation, and other acts of inhumanity, the hospital closed and has laid virtually abandoned since. In this thesis, I will propose ways of reactivating Crownsville’s historic campus through acknowledging the property’s horrific past, by providing support and amenities to the region’s most vulnerable individuals, and by creating space to celebrate the identity of communities who were historically persecuted on the grounds. I will explore the Crownsville campus through the lens of a cultural landscape, and attempt to balance the preservation of existing assets with the development of new community features.Item ACTS OF QUEER RESILIENCE: TRAUMA AS IDENTITY AND AGENCY IN LGBTQ POLITICAL ASYLUM(2022) Perez, Christopher J; Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution is the impetus for asylum seekers to flee their home countries and seek protection elsewhere. Much of the scholarly literature and published legal cases correlate persecution with trauma and approach traumatic events of asylum seekers as always living with barriers or as a “victim.” Additionally, while there is extensive research and scholarly work on LGBTQ immigrants, there is little work specifically on LGBTQ asylum seekers, which suggests these stories matter and have value but often go unheard. Whose stories are told, heard, and valued with immigrants, and specifically asylum seekers? And, what are the risks or advantages of telling stories? For asylum seekers, making a credible case of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution places their trauma in an exchange of capital that advances neoliberal governmentality in the U.S. The nation-state benefits when resourceful “victims” of persecution ask for protection. Neoliberal governmentality can be traced to Michel Foucault’s notion of “biopower” where the body is viewed as a laboring machine, disciplining the body to optimize its capabilities and extort its forces. Biopower is literally having power over other bodies in “an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations.” Although neoliberal governmentality is a necessary component in discussions of political asylum, its reductionist aim leaves little room for agency for asylum seekers or those with asylum status. How might political asylees use their identities and trauma to subvert neoliberal governmentality? I argue that LGBTQ asylum seekers use their own tactics and techniques in an “art” of self-determination or what I call queer resilience to navigate and negotiate systems and structures of power. While there is no doubt that trauma exists for asylum seekers, using trauma to categorize asylum seekers as lacking, weak, defective, or even victims is a reductionist approach in understanding asylum seekers’ identities and agency. Trauma is operational in how one negotiates structures and systems of power, different spaces, building networks, and obtaining resources. Trauma offers both a useful entry into the legal aspects of political asylum processes and also advances discussions of subjectivity and epistemology. Using narrative analysis, grounded theory, poststructuralist theory, and queer theory, this dissertation unpacks the creative agency of LGBTQ asylum seekers as they make sense of their lives, form their identities, navigate spaces, and negotiate systems of power to “queer” political asylum processes. More specifically, using interviews and examining published cases and other published archival materials, this dissertation details the story of a gay man from a Latin American country who successfully gained asylum in the U.S. and how his asylum process, his trauma, and his racial, gendered, and sexual identities contributed to his agency, which subverts political asylum and offers new ways to consider the operation of biopower, governmentality, and self-determination.Item Seeking Asylum: Race, Memory, and the American Landscape(2019) Tai, Daniela; Eisenbach, Ronit; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The stories and places we choose to preserve tell us who we are as a people. What does it say about ourselves when the stories that are associated with a particular place are ones that we wish to keep in the dark? As we look towards the future of preservation it has become clear that our perception of what is “significant” has shifted. Modern preservation has expanded to include tangible and intangible landscapes, environmental conservation, and more voices at the table. This thesis explores how to use preservation, storytelling, and sustainable practices to respond to places of difficult history and reclaim that space, while using Crownsville State Hospital as a model. The racial and systemic trauma experienced at the formerly racially segregated mental health facility permeated the campus grounds; not only does the community need to heal, the land does too.