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 Decolonizing Museums and Imagining the Future of Postcolonial Culture in Francophone North & West Africa(2024) Maguire, Caroline Angle; Landau, Paul; Wien, Peter; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is a history of the processes of decolonizing and democratizing museums in Francophone Africa between 1950 and 1980. As early as the 1850s, French scholars and imperial authorities founded ethnographic, archaeological, and fine arts museums in their African colonies, which kept artifacts in valorized spaces reserved for elite European audiences while presenting typified representations of African populations. During and after decolonization, a generation of African curators, scholars, artists, and government officials were left to grapple with the colonial legacies of these museums, and to recontextualize them to better reflect postcolonial cultural politics. Contemporary museum professionals – particularly in Western museums whose collections were assembled through colonial violence – have been engaged in debates about tactics to “decolonize the museum” for the past 10 years. This dissertation argues that strategies leveraged by African museographers half a century ago to transform colonial museums should be considered early, progressive attempts to decolonize the museum. While in some circumstances, these strategies are clearly earlier iterations of contemporary efforts to decolonize collections and exhibitions, other practices highlighted in this dissertation in fact challenge the twenty-first century understanding of what it means to “decolonize the museum.” This dissertation also challenges the perception of the museum as a solely Western institution by highlighting African contributions to museographical programming and exhibition. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates that despite their colonial legacies, these museums played a critical role in the elucidation of post-independence national culture in Senegal, Tunisia, and Algeria. To make these arguments, I focus on several specific examples: the Musée Théodore Monod d’Art Africain de l’IFAN in Dakar, the Musée du Bardo in Tunis, and the Musée National des Beaux-Arts in Algiers. Through research in institutional, ministerial, and national archives, site visits and oral history interviews, I analyze how each museum created and represented colonial knowledge during the imperial period. Later, I outline how African curators and museum administrators renovated exhibition spaces to counteract ethnographic narratives, designed education programs to democratize elite spaces, and shared knowledge with other African museum practitioners to decrease reliance on European museological concepts and standards.Item SETTING THE TRANSPACIFIC KITCHEN TABLE: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF FOOD IN THE KOREAN AMERICAN DIASPORA(2024) Kim, Jung Min; Forson, Psyche W; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Setting the Transpacific Kitchen Table: The Cultural Politics of Food in the Korean American Diaspora” is a material culture analysis of key dishes and ingredients of the Korean American diaspora. The study begins in South Korea following the Armistice on July 27, 1953 and follows the movement of Korean people, foods, and ideas to the United States in the decades after the war to the present day with a specific focus on three dishes: Budae jjigae (Army Base Stew), kimchi (traditional fermented vegetable), and rice. This dissertation unpacks the recipes and some of the meanings of these dishes to understand and contextualize their importance in Korean and Korean American foodways historically and into the present moment. Central to this project is the material “afterlife” of these ingredients and dishes- some introduced by foreign powers, while others are the most Korean of dishes- the lingering impact on how Korean and Korean Americans create place and meaning from these dishes. How do these dishes come to be? How do they come together to become symbolic of the Korean diasporic experience? In answering these questions, I hope to document and interrogate the range of emotional, cultural, and material responses that budae jjigae, kimchi, and rice have engendered from artists, chefs, mothers, and everyday Koreans and Korean Americans. With the increase in visibility and popularity of Korean foods in the American food lexicon, the aim of this study is to help historicize and contextualize this rise through exploring the complex relationship between Korea and the United States through foodways. In doing so it will interrogate and analyze the “entanglements” of transpacific power and political economies through foodways to understand the dialectic between state power and community resilience and resistance.Item OBJECT SOUNDS: CONNECTING MUSIC EDUCATION AND MUSEUM EDUCATION AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE(2024) Folk, Christian Michael; Giebelhausen, Robin; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), part of the Smithsonian Institution (SI) complex in Washington, D.C., is the only SI museum with a permanent music exhibition, titled Musical Crossroads. This exhibit traces significant figures and developments in African American musical cultures, demonstrating “how African American music provided a voice for liberty, justice, and social change” (NMAAHC, 2016). In this document, comprised of three interrelated studies, I navigated the connections between music education and museum education in this unique space. In the first study, I relayed the narratives of performing arts curator Dr. Dwandalyn Reece and her team on the development of Musical Crossroads. For the second study, I surveyed current NMAAHC visitors to determine the efficacy of the Musical Crossroads exhibit. Finally, in the third study, I described the experiences of three music teachers who use SI’s online platform, Smithsonian Learning Lab (SLL), to teach lessons on African American musical cultures using objects found in Musical Crossroads. In the final chapter, I traced the throughline of these studies and provide implications for future connections between music education and museum education pedagogies. The first study, a narrative inquiry, traced the development of Musical Crossroads from the perspectives of three key figures in the exhibit’s history: Dr. Dwandalyn Reece, former curator of music and performing arts; Dr. Kevin Strait, a former curatorial assistant for the exhibition; and Ms. Hannah Grantham, a current curatorial and research assistant for NMAAHC. These narratives are bound by temporality, sociality, and place, highlighting the crux of music and museum education in the development of Musical Crossroads. I identified several common themes through their stories, including: (a) the educational, professional, and musical backgrounds of participants; (b) the themes and objectives of Musical Crossroads; (c) the curation and collaboration process; (d) tensions in the development process; and (e) the role of education in Musical Crossroads. Although three distinct experiences were present throughout, I funneled the three perspectives into one cohesive narrative. In the second study, I distributed surveys to Musical Crossroads visitors (n = 422) over several months to examine if visitors meet the experiential and educational goals set by NMAAHC staff. The survey contained questions on visitors’ overall experience in the exhibit, what genres they experienced, what elements of the exhibit they interacted with, if they learned about various themes of African American musical cultures, and several demographic items. Results of the survey showed that Musical Crossroads visitors generally had a positive experience in the exhibit, had varied levels of interaction with exhibit elements, and are learning about key themes of African American musical cultures developed by NMAAHC staff. In the conclusion of this study, I discussed implications based on various survey items, including visitor demographics, exhibit interactive spaces, musical genres, and exhibit themes. For the final study, I conducted a multiple case study of music teachers’ perceptions and implementations of the Smithsonian Learning Lab (SLL) program. SLL is an online platform that provides users access to millions of museum artifacts, specimens, recordings, and other materials from all museums across the SI ecosystem, including NMAAHC. I tasked three music teachers with using SLL to conduct two lessons that included African American musical cultures. Each participant approached these lessons differently based on their varied classrooms and comfort with the SLL program. I identified several findings, including the varied impressions of SLL from the teachers, how they incorporated SLL based on various specialties and grade levels taught, and how they perceived and practiced culturally relevant pedagogy and object-based learning using SLL. Along with these findings, I discussed how music teachers may utilize SLL in the future and possible improvements to SLL. I conclude this dissertation with an overview of the three studies, their connections to each other, and their relevance in music and museum education. Additionally, I discuss how this dissertation uniquely contributes to the music and museum education literature. Finally, I provide a reflection on this specific project and how music and museum educators can influence each other in future projects and research.Item Nature and Power: The Game Sill Lifes of Jan Weenix (1641-1719)(2023) Altizer, Kathleen Joanna; Wheelock, Arthur K; Colontuono, Anthony; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Dutch artist Jan Weenix (1641-1719) was the most successful game painter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Specializing in large-scale still lifes that foregrounded naturalistically depicted game arranged before ornate garden views, these innovative images were highly sought after by wealthy merchants, Dutch nobles, and German princes alike. Despite the renown of Weenix’s art in his own time and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these paintings have never been the focus of in-depth critical analysis. Scholarship on Weenix has mostly concentrated on his early Italianate landscapes and his wall panels, while interpretations of his game paintings have almost exclusively focused on their place within the long tradition of dead animal painting in Northern art, beginning with sixteenth-century Flemish market scenes. This dissertation departs from this approach by arguing that Weenix’s game paintings are best understood within the dramatic cultural shifts and political upheavals of William III’s stadholderate (1672-1702). It was during this period that Weenix first specialized in game paintings. At this time, estate ownership, hunting, and garden design were becoming newly significant performances of authority, wealth, and power, both among members of the wealthy merchant patriciate and at William III’s court. Tracing Weenix’s evolution as a game painter alongside the cultural-political history of Dutch hunting practices and gardens, I explore the nuanced ways in which Weenix’s art drew from a myriad of contemporary visual sources to stylistically and conceptually promote his patrons’ belonging to a community of pan-European elites. I show how merchant collectors sought out Weenix’s game paintings as representations of estate ownership, which had become an increasingly significant marker of inherited wealth and dynastic privilege among the merchant class. In the same period, hunting and garden art became invested with new political meanings as Stadtholder William III made hunting a centerpiece of Dutch court life for the first time, while his courtiers developed magnificent gardens to celebrate his military achievements. I prove that Weenix’s art directly refers to these activities and spaces, enabling those inside and outside the court to adopt the imagery of political power to promote their own status. Combining a sustained visual analysis of Weenix’s game paintings with an in-depth study of his patronage, I demonstrate how Weenix’s art reflected and furthered the aspirations of his patrons, and consequently participated in the construction of elite social identities. I conclude that, through Weenix’s art, collectors claimed the right to to exercise control over nature, identifying themselves with pan-European nobility and ultimately illustrating their participation in the establishment of cultural and political hegemony over their domains.Item IN SEARCH OF A THEME: ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURES FOR THE MODERN VIOLIN RECITAL(2022) Ducreay, Phillip Alexander; Stern, James O; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)It is the purpose of this dissertation, at its core, to ask and explore a central question: Can a successful and diverse recital program be curated not based on a pre-set historical or theoretical theme but rather on some type of narrative arc that runs throughout the program? By exploring how these programs work I hope to find hidden connections which both tie these pieces together and justify my programming in the order I have chosen. The curation I have proposed aims to change the way audiences consume and engage with music by connecting them with new works and a well-ordered musical experience. Inspired by the flexibility of nineteenth and twentieth century programs, modern programs can be crafted with a narrative approach in mind. Just as a composition can express an idea or feeling, the order and narrative of a program can be crafted to do the same in the manner I have put forth. The first recital described in this dissertation was performed in Gildenhorn Hall at the Clarice Smith Center on April 14th 2021 at 5pm with the pianist Alexei Ulitin. The second recital was performed in Ulrich Hall in the Tawes building at UMD on December 9th 2021 with the pianist Leili Asanbekova. The recording submitted as part of this dissertation is of the second recital program, recorded in Nashville, TN at Laura Turner Hall in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center on Oct. 13th and 26th with pianist, Megan Gale.Item "Forging an Identity": The Representation of Women in Jewish Museums(2014) Rabinowitz, Rachel Shayna; Zakim, Eric; Jewish Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Museums reflect the way a society looks at the past, but upon closer examination this reflection is bidirectional; museums are shaped by our current social norms and culture as much as built on our past. From their inception, museums have refined the public's understanding of the world around them. Through an analysis of six Jewish museums and their portrayal of Jewish women, it will become clear how museums are a reflection of society.Item Archival Body/Archival Space: Queer Remains of the Chicano Art Movement, Los Angeles, 1969-2009(2011) Hernandez, Robert Lyle; Corbin Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary queer archive methodology I term "archival body/archival space," which recovers, interprets, and assesses the alternative archives and preservation practices of homosexual men in the Chicano Art Movement, the cultural arm of the Mexican American civil rights struggle in the U.S. Without access to systemic modes of preservation, these men generated other archival practices to resist their erasure, omission, and obscurity. The study conducts a series of archive excavations mining "archival bodies" of homosexual artists from buried and unseen "archival spaces," such as: domestic interiors, home furnishings, barrio neighborhoods, and museum installations. This allows us to reconstruct the artist archive and, thus, challenge how we see, know, and comprehend "Chicano art" as an aesthetic and cultural category. As such, I evidence the critical role of sexual difference within this visual vocabulary and illuminate networks of homosexual Chicano artists taking place in gay bars, alternative art spaces, salons, and barrios throughout East Los Angeles. My queer archive study model consists of five interpretative strategies: sexual agency of Chicano art, queer archival afterlife, containers of desire, archival chiaroscuro, and archive elicitation. I posit that by speaking through these artifact formations, the "archival body" performs the allegorical bones and flesh of the artist, an artifactual surrogacy articulated through things. My methodological innovation has direct bearing on how sexual difference shapes the material record and the places from which these "queer remains" are kept, sheltered, and displayed. These heritage purveyors questioned what constitutes an archive and a record, challenging the biased assumption that sexuality was insignificant to the Chicano Art Movement and leaving no material trace. The structure of my dissertation presents five archive recovery projects, including: Robert "Cyclona" Legorreta, Joey Terrill, Mundo Meza, Teddy Sandoval, and VIVA: Lesbian and Gay Latino Artists of Los Angeles. The restoration of these artists also reveals the profound symbiosis between this circle of artists, Chicano avant-gardism, and the burgeoning gay and lesbian liberation movement in Los Angeles. My findings rupture the persistent heterosexual vision of this period and reveals a parallel visual lineage, one which dared to picture sexual difference in the epicenter of Chicano art production.