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 A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD TO RAISE A BROOD: TREE SPECIES DIVERSITY DECREASES PERIODICAL CICADA OVIPOSITION AND TREE RESPONSE(2023) Jayd, Kristin; Burghardt, Karin; Entomology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Natural systems contain diverse assemblages of plants, providing a matrix of potential hosts that herbivores must navigate. Insect-plant host choice patterns are crucial to understanding both herbivore outbreaks and the consequences of outbreaks for plant hosts. Here, I follow the 2021 Brood X periodical cicada mass emergence event in the BiodiversiTREE forest diversity experiment at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, MD, to uncover whether tree diversity influences cicada oviposition preferences or tree responses to oviposition (flagging), for 15 tree species grown in plots of single species or 12-species mixtures. While cicadas demonstrate clear tree species preferences, the diversity of the surrounding tree neighborhood plays at least as important a role in determining oviposition preference and tree flagging responses. Cicadas were threefold more likely to oviposit in trees grown in single species vs. mixed species plots. While overall, I find a concomitant decrease in tree flagging in diverse plots. I also document that species flag at different rates in response to the same oviposition scar density. Even when accounting for differential oviposition rates, surrounding tree diversity remains an essential additional predictor of tree flagging responses with trees in diverse plots less likely to flag at the same density of scars, suggesting a differential capacity of trees to tolerate damage when growing in single species plots. This study creates a richer understanding of the importance of tree context, specifically surrounding tree diversity, in shaping the ecological ramifications of a mass insect emergence event.Item Machinal: Resurrection; The Design and Redesign of the Sophie Treadwell Play for a Digital Medium(2021) Booth, Madison Ann; Huang, Helen Q; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this document is a description of the process of researching and developing the costume designs for the University of Maryland, College Park production of Machinal. This thesis contains the entire design and re-design process, from initial concepts for the stage production, to design development of the digital production. Also included are research plates, fitting photos, crafts development photos, and final production screenshots. Machinal was written by Sophie Treadwell in 1928 and is a recontextualization of the actual 1925 court case of Ruth Snyder. Machinal was produced at the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, February 20th and 28th, 2021, under the direction of Professor Brian MacDevitt. Costume Design by Madison Booth, Lighting Design by Jacob Hughes, Set Design by Rochele Mac, Media Design by Devin Kinch, Sound Design by Roc Lee, Choreography by Kendra Portier, and Dramaturgy by Lindsey Barr.Item Stylin' BlaQueer Feminisms: The Politics of Queer Black Women's Fashion Activism(2018) Blake, Donnesha Alexandra; Bolles, Augusta L; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Stylin’ BlaQueer Feminisms contributes to conversations about the political function of fashion by exploring the ways that queer Black women define activism with fashion and how their practices advance Black feminism. In this study, I aim to define fashion activism, to examine how queer Black women engage in fashion activism in digital and physical spaces, and to outline core themes in their fashion activism. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences prove that fashion is political by using fashion, style, and dress as vehicles to study subject formation, nonverbal communication, and activism. While there are studies about the political nature of fashion that center Black women of various gender and sexual identities, few examine how contemporary Black lesbian and queer women leverage fashion in digital media and cultural institutions to engage in resistance and knowledge production; much less have those studies connected their fashion activism to core themes in Black feminism. I employ mix methods to investigate the practices and performances in six fashion activist projects produced by queer Black women. These methods include visual and discourse analyses of the style blogs; She’s A Gent, A Dapper Chick, and She Does Him Fashion, and season one of the YouTube web series The Androgynous Model; event analyses of two public LGBTQ+ fashion shows Rainbow Fashion Week (RFW) and dapperQ Presents: iD; and interviews with the creators of RFW and The Androgynous Model. In performing a comparative analysis of these projects, I found that intention aside, the practices and performances in these projects signal Black feminist politics such as the centering of marginal identities, self-definition, using the body to signal and subvert controlling images, and coalition building between freedom-making struggles. I call this praxis, BlaQueer Style. Through their articulations of BlaQueer Style, Black lesbian and queer women illustrate that fashion activism is not only the work they do to subvert rigid gender and sexual codes in the existing fashion industry, but it is the labor marginalized communities undertake to leverage fashion, style, or dress to affirm their intersecting identities, build community, and resist oppressive structures in society.