College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item MAINTENANCE ART FOR OTHER POSSIBLE WORLDS: Rehearsing a Pedagogy of Care(2023) Peskin, Eva; Lothian, Alexis; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)MAINTENANCE ART FOR OTHER POSSIBLE WORLDS: Rehearsing a Pedagogy of Care brings together stories, moves and activations for approaching access and difference as preconditions for belonging. Both a text and an enactment, the project offers a framework for interdependent creative practice and care-oriented collaboration, doing multiple things at once: it demonstrates an ethic and technique of play-based learning, offers a story about maintenance as the work it takes to keep caring together, and embraces lunacy as a method for creative resistance. Drawing on Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ premise that attention to maintenance can pause the perpetual motion machine of capitalist consumption/production and Ruth Wilson Gilmore's insistence that freedom is a place we make together in the present, the dissertation stages a confrontation of the multiple trainings that have formed my ethical, aesthetic, and relational processes of learning – both within and beyond the academy, both amateurish and professional – in order to lean into the fissures and ruptures one might ignore that the other can see. This inquiry takes shape in a spiral geography of four repeating moves, a conceptual fractal which gives rise to the action of the work: Unsettling, Dwell, Meanwhile, Sensuousness. The project rehearses this repertoire of moves as a means to center consent, access, self-determination, deep listening, and joy – necessities for the creativity required to undo/step away from/dismantle the many intersecting projects of empire which conspire unendingly against life itself, and to collectively transform into a culture of care.Item Pink Survival Porn and its Malcontents: Visual Breast Cancer Narratives in Contemporary American Media(2020) Flanigan, Lauren Nicole; Walter, Christina; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The biggest problem with American depictions of breast cancer survivors in contemporary media is that they’re too pink, i.e. they represent the cheerful image of a white, heteronormative, cis-gendered woman of upper-to-middle-class means who easily overcomes her disease. Such patient depictions in photographic portraits, graphic novels, and television (ad campaigns or fictional episodes) suggest that only women who adhere to white feminine gender codes and sexual aesthetics can achieve survival. Meanwhile, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and poor patients disproportionately die from breast cancer due to inaccessible or unequal care related to their lack of media representation as bodies that matter. Their truths are glossed over in the fantasy of what I call survival porn, which coopts and genericizes individual cancer experiences into a pink consumer kumbaya that benefits corporations rather than their disease-ridden constituents. This dissertation therefore examines the historical origins of pink ribbon culture, feminist health movements, and their visual entanglement with optimistic, white media metanarratives to determine why and how certain “survivors” become indoctrinated into sheroic narratives of overcoming the disease while “others” are written out of the picture altogether. Successful survivors are shown self-fashioning their personas in accordance with white, heteronormative standards of femininity judged appropriated by patriarchal medicine and cosmetic magnates. Counternarratives focusing on gender-bending these disease expectations, however, begin to chip away at the veneer of aesthetic survival, rescripting illness identities to be more inclusive of those on the fringes, for example: men, lesbians, and women of color; individuals whose inclusion within survival narratives help uncover causal determinants of breast cancer, like environmental toxins. My analysis of these personal, more plural narratives create space in the dominant, pink visual discourse for non-white and gender-fluid folx who likewise deserve to live a considered life, as defined by Audre Lorde in her Cancer Journals. Whether living with or meeting their ends from breast cancer, my academic inquiry into survival ultimately calls for an ethic of pragmatic optimism and authentic corporeal representation to allow patients with various diseases and disabilities, regardless of age, class, gender, race, or sexual orientation, to ensure greater health equity and quality of care in the United States.Item New Womanhood and the Bauhaus: The Avant-Garde Photography of Lucia Moholy(2019) Chamberlain-Stoltzfus, Eleanor Janet; Mansbach, Steven; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the years 1922–1928, Lucia Moholy operated as an independent photographer at the Bauhaus School in Germany, capturing images of students’ and masters’ art objects, inventively recording the defining architectural elements of the school, and pursuing her own experiments in portraits and photograms. Immersed in the dynamic, radical environment of the Bauhaus, Moholy explored the potential for modernist representative photography. From images capturing the avant-garde building designs of the Bauhaus to portraits sensitively exploring the phenomenon of the New Woman, Moholy’s oeuvre demonstrates her innovative engagement with contemporary artistic and cultural concerns. This dissertation seeks to reclaim Moholy’s place as the foundational figure for photography at the Bauhaus and argues for the radicality and unrestrained modernity of her artistic output. Given the continued effacement of Lucia Moholy’s significant contribution to German modernism, this dissertation serves as a historiographical correction. Asserting Moholy’s central importance to the development of a photographic discipline at the Bauhaus, I demonstrate her impact as a pioneering female professional photographer in a field dominated by men. Moholy’s portraits and architectural photographs serve as testament to her unique experience of the Bauhaus and celebrate both the institution’s and her own modernity, and the free lifestyle each advanced. For younger female photographers who would matriculate at the Bauhaus, Moholy served as a powerful exemplar for considering the world through a multivalent female perspective, unrestricted by the domineering masculinity of the Bauhaus. In reconsidering Moholy’s oeuvre, I also situate her contextually within the German avant-garde and consider the individual interpretations of New Womanhood by Moholy and her contemporaries. Moholy’s photographs possess a rich multiplicity of meaning, revealing layers upon layers. They are simultaneously experimental portraits of people and buildings, grounded in Weimar avant-garde expression, and memorializations that build a concrete history and contribute to the Weimar cultural archive. Arguing for Moholy’s innovation, her engagement with avant-garde trends in 1920s Europe, and her creation of a representational modernism, this dissertation interrupts the canon of Modernist scholarship and prompts a rethinking of Lucia Moholy’s contribution to photographic experimentation at the Bauhaus.Item A VISUAL CONSISTENCY: Lighting Design of Zaubernacht & Mahagonny Songspiel in a discussion of Style and Aesthetics(2019) Brusberg, Christopher Todd; Kachman, Misha; MacDevitt, Brian; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the use of the lighting design and process for Maryland Opera Studio’s double bill of Zaubernacht and Mahagonny Songspiel to better define Style and Aesthetics as they relate to a designer's Visual Identity. This thesis contains the following: concept, research images collected to visually communicate design ideas to the production team; notes on the discussion and evolution of the style and design concept; technical drawings used to translate the designer's intent into a real-world execution of the design, and production photos of the double bill. These production elements will then be used in conjunction with scholarly research to engage in a conversation about a designer’s visual identity.Item Novels and Their Instances: A Metaphysical Exploration(2017) Aliev, Alexey; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What is the ontological status of novels? Are they inscriptions (i.e., concrete texts typically written or printed on something or displayed on the screen of some electronic device)? Sets of inscriptions? Mental representations of some semantic content? Structures of meanings? Syntactic sequences? Or something else? Furthermore, what is the ontological status of instances of a novel (i.e., entities that manifest all the primary properties that must be experienced to fully appreciate this novel)? Are they readings (i.e., sequences of sounds generated as a result of reading aloud)? Inscriptions? Both readings and inscriptions? Or some other entities? My goal in this dissertation is to answer these questions. The dissertation is structured as follows. In Part 1, I provide some terminological clarifications that must be made before addressing the issues concerning the ontological status of novels and their instances. In particular, in Chapter 1 ("Defining 'a Novel'"), I define "a novel," and in Chapter 2 ("Defining 'an Instance of an Artwork'"), I define "an instance of an artwork." Part 2 is aimed at clarifying the ontological status of instances of novels. I begin, in Chapter 3 ("Against Inscriptions as Instances of Novels"), by arguing against the most widely endorsed ontology of instances of novels–the ontology according to which the paradigmatic, or most typical, entities that serve as such instances are inscriptions. Next, in Chapter 4 ("An Ontology of Instances of Novels"), I put forward and defend an alternative ontology–the one according to which instances of novels are readings and mereological sums of readings and graphic elements. Finally, in Chapter 5 ("The Novel as a Performing Art"), I examine a peculiar consequence of the foregoing ontology–that the novel is a performing art. The purpose of Part 3 is to clarify the ontological status of novels. I begin, in Chapter 6 ("What a Novel Is Not"), with a critical overview of the most promising existing ontologies of novels, arguing that none of these ontologies stands up completely to criticism. Then, in Chapter 7 ("An Ontology of Novels"), I expound and defend a new ontology of novels. According to this ontology, novels are a peculiar kind of concreta–namely, concrete types composed of certain sonic, semantic, syntactic, contextualist, and visual elements.Item Why Fiction Matters(2015) Holliday, John-Gregory Bass; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I explore five features that bear upon literary value and what is involved in appreciating those features. In the introduction, I motivate the project, examine the notion of literary value itself, and sketch the major arguments of the dissertation. In chapter one, I argue that the sonic qualities of a work of fictional literature are always relevant to the literary value of the work. In chapter two, I develop a working account of rhythm in literature and argue that sufficiently appreciating rhythm when reading a work of literature requires performative interpretation. In chapter three, I argue that truth is sometimes relevant to the literary value of fiction. In chapter four, I argue that literature has the capacity to cultivate moral expertise in the intuitive judgment of particular moral cases and that such capacity contributes to literary value. Finally, in chapter five, I argue that fictional literature can provide a reader with the resources for an intimate emotional connection with the author and that a work’s ability to afford such an experience is a literary merit. The larger goal of the dissertation is to make a positive contribution to the discussion of literature’s value, particularly as it concerns prose fiction.Item Politics as Unusual: Washington, DC Hardcore Punk 1979-1983 and the Politics of Sound(2015) Maskell, Shayna; Struna, Nancy; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the creative and influential years between 1979 and 1983, hardcore punk was not only born -- a mutated sonic stepchild of rock n' roll, British and American punk -- but also evolved into a uncompromising and resounding paradigm of and for DC youth. Through the revelatory music of DC hardcore bands like Bad Brains, Teen Idles, Minor Threat, State of Alert, Government Issue and Faith a new formulation of sound, and a new articulation of youth, arose: one that was angry, loud, fast, and minimalistic. With a total of only ten albums between all five bands in a mere five years, DC hardcore cemented a small yet significant subculture and scene. This project considers two major components of this music: aesthetics and the social politics that stem from those aesthetics. By examining the way music communicates -- facets like timbre, melody, rhythm, pitch, volume and dissonance -- while simultaneously incorporating an analysis of hardcore's social context -- including the history of music's cultural canons, as well as the specific socioeconomic, racial and gendered milieu in which music is generated, communicated and responded to --this dissertation attempts to understand how hardcore punk conveys messages of social and cultural politics, expressly representations of race, class and gender. In doing so, this project looks at how DC hardcore (re)contextualizes and (re)imagines the social and political meanings created by and from sound.Item The Novelty Search of Prior Art Requires a Lawyer(2013) Earnhart, Mark Leslie; Sham, Foon V; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: THE NOVELTY SEARCH OF PRIOR ART REQUIRES A LAWYER Mark Earnhart, Masters of Fine Art, 2013 Thesis Directed By: Professor Foon Sham Department of Art "Things are complicated" is a very true statement in which the vagueness is fitting, the utterance reprehensible and the implications impossible. But, things are complicated. They are not simply objects, although they might take the form; they might have mass and volume, substance and presence. But the object is tied to the act of perception, the thing is not; the thing can exist in no physical way but still maintain presence. What happens when encountering a thing? Does one rely on the tools of perception solely? Or is there something immeasurable in combination with what is present? Encountering a thing requires an ability to make connections, relate personally and internalize the situation. If the thing is known we put to work a relation of familiarity and if unknown the mechanism required for retrieval becomes infinitely complex.Item The Experience of Fiction(2013) Picciuto, Elizabeth Rose; Carruthers, Peter; Levinson, Jerrold; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation focuses on some of the philosophical puzzles that are associated with the experience of engaging in fictions. Some of these puzzles are longstanding in the philosophical tradition, viz., the paradox of fiction, the paradox of tragedy, and the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. Another has received surprisingly little philosophical attention: the puzzle of why we engage with fictions at all. I argue against what I will call the Simple Story of fictional engagement. Previous discussions have (to greater or lesser degrees) described engaging in fictions as a matter of entertaining the events described at a fictional world. In the Simple Story, the content of the fiction is decisively determinative of our motivations to engage in fiction and responses to fictions. That is not, however, our experience of fiction. I de-emphasize the role of the content of the fiction in our motivations and responses to fictions. Too little attention has been paid to the role of factors extrinsic to the fiction in explaining the nature of our experiences of and responses to fictions. In general, I stress that the role of the content of the fiction as determinative of our responses is far less important than has been assumed. Some aestheticians have long been interested in psychological data and I am, too. Many, however, are wary of in evolutionary psychology. They are rightfully worried that to explain the beauty of Anna Karenina in terms of hunting on the savannah would be to miss something deep. There is, however, a useful role for evolutionary psychology to play in explaining why we might have motivations and emotional responses to fictions. I explore this idea.Item Environmental Human Rights, Natural Law Theory, and Nature's Aesthetic Value(2011) Stevens, Christopher William; Levinson, Jerrold; Morris, Christopher; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I argue that nature ought to be preserved because its existence is required for a particularly significant constituent of human well-being, a constituent so significant that the means to it -- provision of and ready access to indigenous and ecologically sound nature -- are worthy of being secured by legal right. The constituent is a complex cognitively-grounded and perceptually-induced emotive experience best characterized as an aesthetic one. In the current policy and social climate this characterization will to most policymakers and concerned citizens hardly convey its significance for either well-being or the preservationist cause. Hence the need for its presentation and defense. This view of the justification of environmental preservation is different from those common in the environmental ethics literature and in environmental policy. It includes neither an appeal to nature's purported intrinsic value nor an appeal to provisioning, regulating, or supporting ecosystem services such as clean air and water, climate control, and biomass production, though these are secured secondarily if indigenous and ecologically sound nature is primarily secured as a means to the experience. The dissertation consists of eight self-contained but interrelated chapters in which I argue for the following: interest/instrumental theory of rights; neo-sentimentalist buck-passing account of nature's value; merging of the scientific-cognitivist conception of the appropriate aesthetic experience of nature with a wonder-based account; the consistency of J. S. Mill's harm principle with the principle of utility in the context of Mill's qualitative hedonism; expansion of the philosophical aesthetician's self-understanding of his task to include the public policy-relevant aspects of his discipline in terms of the contribution that appropriate, merited aesthetic experience can make to well-being; neo-sentimentalist buck-passing account of aesthetic experience and aesthetic value.