Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Theatre and Film

From the earliest performances of the act of cooking while gathered around a fire, humans have layered meaning onto the embodiment of cooking. The performance of self and community illustrate ways in which cooking has moved through generations and shaped roles and identities related to cooking. In this thesis, I examine the act of cooking as it expands from social performances to artful performances through the development of cooking in mediated spaces, specifically televised cooking shows ranging from early programs in the 1950s and 1960s to the Netflix series Chef's Table (2015-2017). Chapter One provides a foundation to the overarching argument by establishing cooking as a social performance as well as a performance of identity and community that spans domestic spaces. This leads into Chapter Two, where I discuss early cooking shows in the 1950s and 1960s and the legitimized identity of “chef” as opposed to the domestic, social performances of the home cook. Chapter Three explores the types of audiences involved in cooking shows and the effect of viewership preferences for the Food Network offerings, which encouraged more competitive and entertainment-based programs. Finally, Chapter Four provides an analysis of artful performances of cooking within Chef's Table through close readings that illuminate the spectacle, aesthetics, storytelling, innovative techniques, and the cinematic use of the camera. This analysis reveals that the act of cooking can be positioned as both social and artful performance, and suggests opportunities for further study of ways these areas can overlap within contemporary programs and media culture.

Committee: Cynthia Baron Ph.D. (Advisor); Lesa Lockford Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Public Affairs, Cleveland State University, 2014, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

As Maurice Merleau-Ponty pointed out, a work of art allows us to explore our sense for meaning in the world. It not only allows us to translate our perceptions, but it allows our perceptions to speak to us through what he called a “respiration in being” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). In this process of respiration, artists and artful public administrators alike are inspired by what they see, and expire that which is seen (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). This research suggests that what Merleau-Ponty described is an element of the aesthetic experience that enables a person to explore the world and what it means to be in it. After Dwight Waldo argued that all ways of knowing are value laden in the field of public administration, he left the field without a prescribed way to know, and this is a problem, given that public administrators are often required to act while in a crisis. If public administrators lack a form of inquiry to understand the world, then how are they to act? This dissertation asks whether administrators, in fact, base their administrative discretion on aesthetic judgment and what they find pleasing or displeasing, their taste (Kant, 2001), to discern what to do and which type of understanding to employ (Arendt, 1992; Hummel, 2006; Stivers, 2011). Through a set of phenomenological interviews the dissertation attempts to access, or pull on the understanding(s) of artists, artful administrators, and hybrids, to better understand administrative discretion by examining the aesthetic experience more deeply and hopefully contribute to how we think about the role of the expert in public administration.

Committee: Camilla Stivers Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Nicholas Zingale Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Zinke Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Philosophy; Public Administration