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 FALL MFA DANCE THESIS CONCERT 2023: AN IMMERSIVE WORLD(2024) Jn.Baptiste, Shartoya Rochelle; Kachman, Misha; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis seeks to describe the scenic design process for The Fall MFA Dance Thesis Concert (FMFA) choreographed by Javier Padilla and Gerson Lanza at the University of Maryland - College Park, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies through research, documentation, photographs, and other design materials. Some of the following materials included in this thesis were used as tools to convey the scenic design to the choreographers and the production team: research images, sketches, photographs of the 1⁄4" scale white and colour models, a complete drafting packet, paint elevations, a properties list, and book. Photographs from the production and a written reflection on the design process are also included.Item The New Old Deal: Colonial Social Welfare and Puerto Rican Poverty During the Great Depression, 1928-1941(2024) Brahms, Darien P.; Woods, Colleen; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The New Old Deal: Colonial Social Welfare and Puerto Rican Poverty During the Great Depression, 1928-1941 Abstract In 1941, at the end of the Great Depression, continental observers noted that Puerto Rico's urban shantytowns were expanding despite the US government's efforts to alleviate poverty through New Deal programs such as low-income housing and slum eradication initiatives. Their consensus was that working-class Puerto Ricans had it far worse than many poor Americans—including African Americans in the Jim Crow South. And yet, over the course of the 1930s, policymakers in Washington, D.C. came to conclude that a large portion of the Puerto Rican population were deserving, “white” American citizens. One would expect that, as they became increasingly categorized as “white” in the national census, federal aid to Puerto Rico would have followed the same patterns of racialized welfare that historians have associated with the New Deal. Why then were so many islanders moving to city squatters’ settlements while the white, continental working class benefitted from New Deal housing and employment initiatives? This conundrum prompted the following exploration of how Puerto Ricans' access to New Deal labor legislation, jobs creation and housing programs influenced the reinforcement of the island’s class structure, entrenched poverty, and the dramatic growth of its urban shantytowns. This dissertation considers how an analysis of island squatters’ settlements and housing programs for the island’s homeless can contribute to our understanding of how the Great Depression unfolded in a U.S. colonial territory as well as the race and class-based exclusions of New Deal aid programs. It also reveals that some U.S. officials did attempt to increase federal aid to the island during the 1930s. However, in addition to a relative lack of funding from D.C., local resistance to the New Deal fomented by insular politicians sympathetic to the colonial sugar industry prevented any meaningful aid from reaching the pockets of the island’s working classes for the bulk of the decade. And finally, this dissertation explores how exclusion from federal programs led to popular unrest that threatened to destabilize colonial rule and eventually caused a political sea change in Puerto Rico beginning in the late 1930s. This work will add to a growing body of transnational literature addressing New Deal scholarship which overlooks Puerto Rico as a topic of analysis. Including the colony in discussions about the discriminatory policies that reinforced the spatial isolation and poverty of mainland minorities will provide a new perspective on the ways power was maintained in America during an era of socioeconomic crisis. The following research also responds to works that privilege Puerto Rico's rural class struggles and agricultural capitalism while obscuring their effects on the island’s urban areas. Rural unemployment fueled migrations that swelled Puerto Rico's shantytowns, which became key sites for policy implementation battles between local and federal authorities. Such factors call for an analytical focus that includes the island's cities more fully. This approach will provide a holistic look at the interplay between the island's rural and urban regions and the mainland during the 1930s while broadening our understanding of class and racial dynamics during the American depression.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 The Resilient Island - Revitalizing a Broken Home(2022) Peña, Alexander Bradley; Hu, Ming; Tilghman, James; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Disaster struck Puerto Rico on September 6th, 2017, when Hurricane Irma, a category 5 hurricane, breached the islands. Communities had no time to recover as Hurricane Maria, an even bigger threat, reached land not more than two weeks later. These two disasters happening in quick succession led to a devastating death toll of 2,975 people and caused a total of $90 billion in damages. This had been the most devastating disaster to hit in over 100 years. The people of Puerto Rico are still recovering to this day and are trying to find solutions to creating community resiliency. This thesis will focus primarily on what makes a community resilient and how to apply this to other Caribbean nations. Not all Caribbean islands face the same challenges and each one has its own identity. To assume that all islands are the same would be irrational. Additionally, this thesis will look at how a community can shift from being unconventional to very functional. Throughout the recent years, there has been a shift in design and function toward creating communities that are more sustainable, durable, and resilient. While this shift can occur easily in more modern societies, those that lack the resources to do so will continue to struggle unless proper support can be given.Item Cinema and Architecture: Designing for the Puerto Rico International Film Festival(2011) Fuentes-Figueroa, Merian Lorie; Quiros, Luis D; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Reality and Fiction collide, opposites interact and the local film culture is enhanced with the design of a home for the Puerto Rico International Film Festival. PRIFF is an opportunity to create a formal destination for individuals passionate about film and to establish the basis for a Puerto Rican film culture in a setting where users will interact and exchange ideas while they experience the shift between reality and fiction expressed in the architecture. The project is a hybrid idea that combines Cinemas, Cultural Center and Production Studios. It is a cultural hub that seats at the heart of a new master plan for an undeveloped site at the shore of the San Juan Bay.Item RETHINKING THE SCHOOL: A NEW MODEL FOR SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO(2010) Sanchez, Ramon Eduardo; Williams, Isaac S; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)More than a century ago school buildings started to change from a home-like building to a more industrial type. In order to standardize the learning process, a classroom layout that promotes only one type of learning activity while ignoring the compound nature of learning has been created. This layout has promoted a school model that not only repeatedly disregards the building, the site, and the community but also resembles a prison. For decades, research has discouraged use of the "traditional" classroom as the only space for learning yet most school buildings have not responded to that change. In different countries, experimentation with the school building and classroom architecture responds to the necessities of the students. What should be the next step in designing pedagogical environments? In the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the public school system has reasonable numbers of students in the classrooms. Although the Department of Education philosophy has started to define some progressive pedagogical ideas, there is no strong articulation of the role of the school building to achieve these. This means that the problem might lie in the architecture of the building rather than overcrowded schools. The goal of this thesis is to produce a model that creates a learning environment that responds to the different natures of the students so that they can become active participants in their education and, eventually, a generation of critical thinkers for the country.Item An Artisans' Marketplace in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico(2005-06-27) Ferrer-Rodriguez, Roberto; Du Puy, Karl F.G.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In San Juan, Puerto Rico, artisans work and sometimes live as nomads. The lack of permanent places to exhibit and sometimes produce their work makes them highly dependent on tourism agencies and private companies to provide them with places and opportunities to sell their work. The existing site is located on the south border of Plaza Mayor in Old San Juan and occupied by a department store at ground level with office and retail spaces in the upper floors. The objective of this thesis is to design a permanent artisans' marketplace with residences on this site. It proposes to bring the production and sale of this art into the heart of this historic and culturally important city. It aims to explore the insertion of a contemporary building in a historic context without copying the forms of the past while preserving the character and scale of the space.