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 Instituting Violence: Spaces of Exception in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century American Fiction(2017) Slaughter, Nicholas Allen; Wyatt, David; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the War on Terror’s onset, American studies have popularized philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s argument in the treatises Homo Sacer (1995) and State of Exception (2003) that modern governments have come to operate in a permanent state of emergency. Agamben terms this phenomenon a “state of exception” in which law may be set aside at any time. Critics have productively applied this theory to post-9/11 U.S. government actions like surveillance programs, torture, and military interventions. Scholarship treats the Guantanamo detention center as the epitome of a localized, perpetual suspension of legal and ethical norms. Yet insufficient attention has been paid to other spaces of a similarly exceptional nature throughout American history. In “Instituting Violence,” I examine twentieth- and twenty-first century fictional representations of institutionalized sites home to unregulated violence while also engaging in current critical conversations about political and economic violence. Preceding Agamben’s political theory, much American literature depicts this exceptionalism across a wide array of sites. I explore four categories of spaces of exception represented across a range of genres, considering their interconnections and histories. In each text, a space that appears to operate as an exception to American legal and moral norms proves to reveal the normal but obscured relationships of power between the privileged and exploited. In addition to how these texts explore longer histories of such violent spaces, I consider how American writers self-reflexively examine the efficacy of their art for meaningfully engaging audiences in ethical discourses about history and justice.Item Tree of Life for Orchestra(2004-12-14) Chung, Jiwoong; Moss, Lawrence K; Wilson, Mark; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The idea for this piece came from the Bible. In John 12:24 we read: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (KJV) Paradoxically, a single seed must die to produce many seeds. A small seed can become a big tree, and by dying it has the potential to become many trees (i.e. when planted it can germinate as a tree which in turn can produce many seeds) So we must die to live, and dying is not the ending point of life but the beginning of another, and to those who believe, equally real life. This second life is fruitful enough to produce many other seeds, which means many other new lives. Some trees are very big, some very small; some produce edible fruits, some only flowers and microscopic seeds - but all develop according to inherent features which are not dependant on size or quantity of seed. All come from a single small seed. The overall structure of the piece, Tree of Life for Orchestra, is based on the progression of the life of a tree. My intention is to describe the stages as the tree grows. This is accomplished through the use of transformations of harmonies, rhythmic figures, and specific orchestral tone colors. The piece consists of the seven parts: Andante, Poco piu Mosso (mm. 24), Allegretto (mm. 40), Energico (mm. 57), Molto Energico (mm. 81), Allegro non tanto (mm.98), and, finally, Grazioso (mm.116). Five pitch series and five chords (for each instrument) can be considered as the basic tone and structural material for the piece. These were obtained using the Golden Section. This is a theory of proportions often found in Nature - from pine cones to tree branching. My approach was as follows: first I decided the normal orchestral range of each instrument used in the piece and then measured the number of half steps from the lowest to the highest pitch of each instrument's normal orchestral range. I then applied the Golden Section to this range (multiplying the number of steps by the Golden Section number .618). The number thus obtained was subjected to the same process to find the next higher pitches.