Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 Mudlarking(2022) Rothrock, Caroline Haley; Mitchell, Emily; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mudlarking is a novel-in-progress about realities and fantasies of queerness in the 1960s. Its two young protagonists, who have immigrated to London from unstable homes in Ireland and Virginia, seek to craft a new home for themselves out of things discarded by larger society, in a place at the fringe of reality and myth. They are “mudlarks” in both a literal and metaphorical sense, picking through refuse along the River Thames for long-lost things that can be made to glitter. Danger comes in the form of the insistent press of respectable conformity, and comfort in fluid transformation, remaking, and crafting a sanctuary out of a once-haunted space. The novel draws from conventions of Irish and Welsh folklore, as well as invented mythology, to emphasize the possibility of impossible transformations.Mudlarking is accompanied by three earlier stories that have informed its construction and themes in various ways. In A Lonely Death, the narrator has a conversation with the long-dead corpse of a stranger, while The Cunning Doll situates a familiar fairy tale in the swamps of Louisiana, and posits that the heroine and the witch are more similar than either would like to believe. Pink Moment is an ode to the color pink in all its forms, but also to the ways that we use color and place to tell fantasies of our own lives. All of these narratives are concerned with the intersection between historical and fantastical landscapes, as well as the unlikely connections that inform our concept of belonging.Item Musicians and Commoners in Late Medieval London(2020) Polson, Simon; Haggh-Huglo, Barbara; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines music making in late medieval London (c.1300-c.1550) from the commoners’ perspective, and with this emphasis, does not discuss royal or monastic musical ensembles or music in aristocratic households, nor does it examine the music of St Paul’s Cathedral in detail. This shifts the focus from mensurally notated, pre-composed music towards monophony and extemporized polyphony which, unnotated, was realized in performance. These kinds of music more than any others were those made by medieval musicians and heard by commoners; through a study of archival documents and their printed editions, including account books, chronicles and other sources, the dissertation identifies the events at which musicians performed and commoners encountered music: civic and royal processions; the Midsummer Watches; processions of criminals with “rough music”; liturgical feast days, and at associated meals. It also locates the music of daily life in the streets and in many dozens of parish churches. The extant notated music from medieval London is mostly in chant books. No complete extant source of polyphony survives, but neither would such a source accurately represent a musical culture in which mensural polyphony and notated music itself were inaccessible to most. Used with methodological caution, documents from London reveal details where little notated music survives and describe or hint at the music that commoners knew. Also examined are two songs (“Sovereign Lord Welcome Ye Be,” “Row the bote Norman”) with surviving texts that may be original. A major appendix lists over 300 musicians who flourished in London in the period.Item Transforming Together: Reconsidering Adaptive Reuse(2013) Crenshaw, Emma Elizabeth; Noonan, Peter; Simon, Madlen; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the evolving and transforming relationship between building and community. It is a study of the past and present of a community and its architecture in order to propose an adaptive plan for a place that involves the adaptive reuse of a historic building. Utilizing theory related to vernacular architecture, critical regionalism and phenomenology, a framework for study is applied to a case study. Peckham, a district in South London in England, and one of its former industrial buildings, the Bussey Building, serves as the case-study. Peckham is home for a mixed "fringe" community that is in a process of transformation that is linked to the area's industrial past. In order to explore sustainability in a more holistic and human way, this thesis posits a question: Can architects design buildings to adapt to a continually changing situation, physically mapping the relationship between architecture and community over time?Item 'A world of trouble': Joseph Wright of Derby in Bath, 1775-1777(2009) Fox, Abram Jacob; Pressly, William; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Between November 1775 and June 1777, Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) spent two social `seasons' in the resort town of Bath. Shortly after returning from two years in Rome, Wright left Derby with his new wife and child in hopes of becoming the premier portrait painter in Bath, filling the void left by Thomas Gainsborough's departure the previous year. Rather than achieving success, Wright found himself ill-equipped for the complex social interactions of his new city and severely wanting for commissions. In light of Wright's professional failure in Bath, particularly contrasted with the artist's highly successful 1768-1771 Liverpool period, the Bath period has become a forgotten episode in critical literature on Wright. This thesis examines Wright's life during those two years, collecting for the first time all of his published Bath works and correspondence and exploring the dramatic effects of the experience on his career.