College of Arts & Humanities
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1611
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item WHICH TEAM DO YOU PLAY FOR?: VISIBILITY AND QUEERING IN BRAZILIAN SOCCER(2019) Snyder, Cara Knaub; Tambe, Ashwini; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Brazilians designate their country “O País de Futebol” (The Country of Football) with a singular vigor. But from its earliest years, the sport has been defined along masculine lines; women in Brazil were actually banned from playing soccer for four decades (1940 - 1979). The exclusion of women, gay men, and trans athletes has come under considerable challenge in the past two decades. This dissertation traces how marginalized groups have claimed access to soccer, and what it means for processes of visibility, assimilation, and ultimately, queering the game itself. Combining ethnographic, archival, and visual methods, the project unfolds over three case studies focused on women, trans, and gay players, respectively. The first chapter presents a history of Brazilian women’s soccer: using media sources and interviews, it tracks tensions between women athletes’ demands to be seen and the gendered forms of disciplining that have accompanied their increased visibility. Such disciplining has contributed to the whitening and feminization of women’s soccer, as seen in the case of the Paulistana tournament, and to the subsequent migration of Brazil’s top athletes. These migrant players have since used their transnational networks to jockey for recognition and a more equitable distribution of resources. My second chapter offers an ethnography of Brazil’s first trans men’s soccer team, the Brazilian Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB, or Soccer Star Boys), to explore futebol as a site for combating invisibility and violence, creating transness, and queer worldmaking. Using a combination of focus groups, ethnographic observations, and interviews, I explore how team members theorize oppression, survive transphobia, and thrive. My third chapter analyzes the challenges facing the Brazilian BeesCats, a cis gay men’s soccer team, as they form the first Brazilian contingent to participate in the international Gay Games. Drawing from ethnographic data from the 2018 Paris Gay Games, I examine the ethnosexual frontiers of this international LGBT sporting event. Ultimately, I argue, the athletes described in this dissertation make claims on their national sport as part of deeper struggles for belonging. In the context of a culturally rightward turn in Brazil, they are also queering futebol and subverting gender ordering.Item The Science of Artistic Expression: Intersections of Piano Pedagogy and Human Neuromechanics(2019) Cunningham, Dion; Sloan, Rita; Shim, Jae; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation seeks to illuminate the ways in which the scientific field of neuromechanics can inform and improve piano performance and pedagogy resulting in heightened artistic expression. This work represents a beginning to a long-overdue conversation that needs to happen between various fields of study that intersect in the field of piano performance. Historically, despite over 300 years of treatises and methods, there has been little consensus on the best approaches to the pedagogy of piano performance. Additionally, there seems to be a demonstrable lack of understanding of the impact of physiology, biomechanics and proprioceptive awareness on the pianist as well as the ergonomic considerations of the piano itself. Students having technical or artistic shortcomings are often labeled as untalented without consideration for the efficacy of the pedagogical approaches to which they were exposed. Aspiring and famous pianists continue to accrue injuries. Furthermore, there is the noticeable lack of technological advancement of the instrument itself. In order to point to ways in which these concerns might be addressed in the future, this dissertation explored several significant areas: 1) historical pedagogy that focused on the development of piano technique, which showed not only the lack of consensus but the general lack of scientific authentication within the approaches of respected pedagogues; 2) scientific texts which focused on motor control in instrumental performance and other tasks, revealing the richness of resources potentially available to piano pedagogy; 3) the impacts of piano technology on piano playing, an area shown to be far-reaching in both the advancement of piano technique and injury prevention. Another part of the dissertation included several studies into the current experiences of pianists in the field. One study conveyed a significant gap in knowledge but also a desire for better understanding of and more improvement in piano-playing. Another study, a pilot, proposed a way to study the neuromechanical coordination of the fingers and wrists in piano-playing thereby showing a correlation between lateral wrist movement and individual finger strength, speed and control. Crucially, inquiry into linkages between proprioception and piano-playing showed a missing link which could be explored in the future.Item The Effect of Attentional Focus on Singing Voice Quality: Towards the Interdisciplinary Experimental Investigation of Singing Pedagogy(2016) Mentzel, Michael; Balthrop, Carmen; Hewitt, Michael P; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Instructional methods employed by teachers of singing are mostly drawn from personal experience, personal reflections, and methods encountered in their own voice training (Welch & Howard, 2005). Even in Academia, singing pedagogy is one of the few disciplines in which research of teaching/learning practice efficacy has not been established (Crocco, et al., 2016). This dissertation argues the reason for this deficit is a lack of operationalization of constructs in singing, which, to date has not been undertaken. The researcher addresses issues of paradigm, epistemology, and methodology to suggest an appropriate model of experimental research towards the assessment of teaching/learning practice efficacy. A study was conducted adapting attentional focus research methodologies to test the effect of attentional focus on singing voice quality in adult novice singers. Based on previous attentional focus studies, it was hypothesized that external focus conditions would result in superior singing voice quality than internal focus conditions. While the hypothesis was partially supported by the data, the researcher welcomed refinement of the suggested research model. It is hoped that new research methodologies will emerge to investigate singing phenomena, yielding data that may be used towards the development of evidence-based frameworks for singing training.Item LANDSCAPES AND TRADITIONS OF MARATHONING IN THE USA, 2000-2008(2012) Park, Krista Marie; Struna, Nancy L; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation concludes that the symbiotic relationship between two competing cultural traditions of marathoning, Corrival and Pageant, simultaneous creates and eliminates barriers to marathoning participation. Using John Caughey's strategies for studying cultural traditions and Pierre Bourdieu's concept of capital to differentiate between and describe two different approaches to training for and participating in marathons among runners in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area (BWMA). Drawing on participant observation, interviews of runners in the BWMA, and an exploration of the geography of running in the BWMA, contextualized by discourse analysis of three prominent marathon training guides and the covers of the two most influential running magazines, this dissertation also explores the strategies individuals' use to overcome actual and potential obstacles to marathon participation, such as parenting or restrictive work schedules.