Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, French and Italian

The avant-garde is an aesthetic movement that spanned the twentieth century. It is made up of writers and artists that rebelled against art and against society in a concerted effort to improve both, and their relationship to one another. Four avant-garde groups, the Futurists, the Surrealists, the Situationists, and the writers of the journal Tel Quel, significantly contributed to the avant-garde movement and provided perspective into whether that movement can exist in the twenty first century. The first Futurist Manifesto, published in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1909 by Philippo Tommaso Marinetti, instigated the avant-garde wave that would be taken up after the Great War by the Surrealists, whose first 1924 Manifeste du Surrealisme echoed the Futurist message of embracing modern life and change through art. The Surrealists, however, focused more on Marxism and psychoanalysis, developing ideas about life and art that combined these two ideologies in order to link the improvement of society with the unconscious individual experience. The Situationists, whose group formed in 1957, took up the themes of social revolution and freedom of the unconscious, developing a method for creating situations that were conducive to both of these things. The writers of the journal Tel Quel, who published from 1960-1982, claimed to be part of this literary history, and continued the discussions begun by the others, providing insight into how language and its structures, which paralleled those of society, needed to be changed in order to change society. This dissertation aims to define the twentieth century avant-garde and to inquire about its existence in the twenty-first century. The first chapter examines the socio-historic and philosophical context from which these groups emerged and against which they reacted. The second and third chapters analyze the themes of the city and politics in avant-garde works to demonstrate the aims and ambitions of the groups. The fourth chapte (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jean-François Fourny Phd (Advisor); Karlis Racevskis PhD (Committee Member); Judith Mayne PhD (Committee Member); Charles Klopp PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Creative Writing/Fiction

With[in]out is an artistic experimentation and liberation of hybrid stories that mirror thought processes and memory through an array of characters from an array of genres. Each piece utilizes form, genre, diction, white space, and style to best exhibit the inner worlds of characters on the page as well as the worlds the characters themselves inhabit. With[in]out creates a space for characters to go on a complex, internal journey involving difficult decisions, mental illness, trauma, isolation, and recovery. The collection asserts that memory is but a collage of images and sensory experiences and asks the reader to consider this tenet, as well as the stylistic choices within each piece, to gain a deeper understanding of how each character operates, to viscerally immerse oneself beyond prose conventions.

Committee: Lawrence Coates Ph. D. (Advisor); Abigail Cloud Ph. D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Environmental Philosophy; Ethics; Experiments; Families and Family Life; Individual and Family Studies; Language; Mental Health; Personal Relationships; Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Theatre and Film

For decades, theatre history textbooks and other influential studies on theatre history have positioned Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry's 1896 avant-garde “classic,” as the beginning or originator of the historical avant-garde and precursor to the playwrights considered as part of Martin Esslin's “Theatre of the Absurd.” Much of this reputation is built on inaccurate accounts of the premiere production, put down by those involved or in attendance, who had particular aims in reporting the event in the ways they did. Those accounts would end up being put to use as the base on which various scholars would establish the premiere of Ubu Roi as the ignition of the historical avant-garde. This dissertation is a poststructuralist historiographical study in which I analyze the various statements made, first by participants and witnesses to the premiere production, and then by scholars and critics who take those accounts as factual, that place Ubu Roi on a path to legitimization and inclusion in the Western canon. In my research, I examine initial accounts of the premiere production, early post mortem accounts of Jarry's life, the proliferation of the character Ubu in early twentieth century French society, French and English critical and biographical studies of Jarry and Ubu Roi, anthologies and edited collections of Ubu Roi, and reviews and other related materials of several key French revivals and over fifteen English-language revivals of the play. I mark the emergence of three specific strategies that grew out of tactics Jarry employed at the premiere. I demonstrate how the conflation of Jarry with his character Ubu, made possible by his extraordinary performance of self at the premiere, the notion of the production's innate ability to produce scandal, and the idea of Jarry's implementation of a “revolutionary” dramaturgy, are all used to make Ubu Roi the example par excellence of avant-garde drama. I unite these three strategies under the title “U-Effect” to describe the subjec (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jonathan Chambers Ph.D. (Advisor); Kara Joyner Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lesa Lockford Ph.D. (Committee Member); Scott Magelssen Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Music

In recent years, scholars have commenced to reevaluate the advent and origins of 20th-century artistic movements, with the repositioning of experimental artistic networks like Fluxus as a decentralized, transnational network of artists, a component as integral to Fluxus' identity as its interdisciplinarity. Despite such claims, many art historical and musicological inquiries remain focused upon the activities of Fluxus artists within historically conceived artistic “centers” in the United States and Western Europe, as opposed to a more holistic investigation of Fluxus' “transnational” aspect. Informed by archival and ethnographic research, and engaged with art historians, musicologists, and cultural anthropologists, this dissertation interrogates these dominant narratives through three interrelated, yet distinct case studies involving Icelandic and non-Icelandic artists: Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman's scandalous performance at Reykjavik's Theatre Lindarbær, the emergence of the Icelandic collective SUM, and Magnus Palsson's role in experimental arts pedagogy. Such an investigation is not only concerned with examining Iceland's (and the Nordic region more broadly) historical and socio-political position within this transnational milieu, but also the individuals who cultivated, embodied, and lived these cross-cultural exchanges, who have been relegated to the periphery of contemporary historiography.

Committee: Arved Ashby (Advisor); Ryan Skinner (Advisor); Richard Fletcher (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Music; Scandinavian Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Art/Art History

The CoBrA art movement (1948-1951) stands prominently among the few European avant-garde groups formed in the aftermath of World War II. Emphasizing international collaboration, rejecting the past, and embracing spontaneity and intuition, CoBrA artists created artworks expressing fundamental human creativity. Although the group was dominated by men, a small number of women were associated with CoBrA, two of whom continue to be the subject of debate within CoBrA scholarship to this day: the Danish painter Else Alfelt (1910-1974) and the Dutch sculptor Lotti van der Gaag (1923-1999), known as "Lotti." In contributing to this debate, I address the work and CoBrA membership status of Alfelt and Lotti by comparing their artworks to CoBrA's two main manifestoes, texts that together provide the clearest definition of the group's overall ideas and theories. Alfelt, while recognized as a full CoBrA member, created structured, geometric paintings, influenced by German Expressionism and traditional Japanese art; I thus argue that her work does not fit the group's formal aesthetic or philosophy. Conversely Lotti, who was never asked to join CoBrA, and was rejected from exhibiting with the group, produced sculptures with rough, intuitive, and childlike forms that clearly do fit CoBrA's ideas as presented in its two manifestoes. Examining Alfelt's and Lotti's individual roles within CoBrA through the feminist art theories of Linda Nochlin and Laura Mulvey, writings by scholars and art historians, and exhibitions and collections, I focus on individual and institutional influences, and patriarchal contexts that shaped these two artists' status in relation to CoBrA membership. In doing so, I also pose questions about who belongs in any art movement, and who gets to decide who belongs, and how all of this is defined complexly over time.

Committee: Katerina Ruedi Ray Dr. (Advisor); Mille Guldbeck MFA (Committee Member); Andrew Hershberger Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art History; European History; Gender Studies; Museums; Womens Studies

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Arts and Sciences: Romance Languages and Literatures

In this research, I analyze Federico Garcia Lorca's plays and its link with dance, beginning with the observation of the historical context of Spain during the first decades of the 20th century. In this context, I observe the Andalusian poet's friendship with people such as Gregorio and Maria Martinez-Sierra, Manuel de Falla, Antonia Merce La Argentina and Encarnacion Lopez Julvez La Argentinita, who connected new art expressions with popular Spanish traditions. That circumstance had a big influence in Garcia Lorca, who assimilated and stylized popular Andalusian culture in his poetry and in his theatre. The dramatist, who had a special sensibility and a deep knowledge of popular songs, dances and music of his native region, accomplished a special fusion between the literary and dancing aspects, connecting metaphoric, technical and rhythm aspects of the poetry language with the poetic and the interpretative aspects of the body. In his theatre it is possible to observe pantomimic, gesture, choreographic and dancing moments incorporated as scenic resources. However, the poet intuits that there are emotional elements that words cannot communicate but that can be interpreted and transmitted by the body, and that these messages in turn carry implicit socio-economic backgrounds, linked to sexuality and the expression or repression of the emotions. In this sense we can note that the Lorca's theater is also made to be danced, hence its particular malleability to be adapted by the language of dance. An example of this is in the version of the ballet by Antonio Gades, based on Lorca's Blood Wedding, filmed by Carlos Saura, which I analyze in this study as a paradigm of dance adaptation.

Committee: Andres Perez-Simon Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Maria Moreno Ph.D. (Committee Member); Armando Romero Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

Cartoons and modern art have been mutually defined by their engagement in representing and codifying experiences of modernity. Despite this, there has been little sustained work on the reciprocal connections between cartoons and modern art in the period prior to 1960. Cartoon Conceptualism traces these neglected connections, focusing on avant-garde art and cartoons produced in New York during the twentieth century, with an emphasis on how the discourses of modern art illuminate the conceptual nature of cartooning. Contrary to the idea of cartoons as straightforwardly communicative, my work demonstrates a way of looking at comic strips and periodical cartoons that emphasizes their hermetic density, and their reflexivity about that density—the ways that cartoons tend to explore their own processes of compression and repetition. Dada, Surrealism, and their inheritors are the most useful refractive lens by which to view cartoons because their conceptual strain of modernism emphasizes how treacherous representational pictures can be. Moreover, there are discontinuous points of direct formal exchange between conceptual artists and cartoonists, which I track through specific works in the 1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1970s, and 1980s. My first chapter explains the conceptual nature of cartooning from the mid-nineteenth century on, and shows the importance of caricature and single-panel cartooning to the New York Dada artists. I then explore the significance of Rube Goldberg's cartoons to Dada and Surrealism, and consider how Goldberg's cartoons establish a way of reading industrial capitalism's frustrations for contemplative pleasure. My second chapter focuses on George Herriman's Krazy Kat and its innovative reworking of comics page layout, which amounts to a form of visual syncopation. Syncopated design aids in Herriman's critique of fixed identity, making character and story contingent on shifting paths of reading. Moreover, it suggests a melancholic form for the comics page (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jared Gardner (Advisor); Elizabeth Hewitt (Committee Member); Thomas Davis (Committee Member); Ryan Friedman (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American History; American Literature; American Studies; Art History; Fine Arts; Literature; Mass Media

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, English

In Decolonizing Forms: Linguistic Practice, Experimentation, and U.S. Empire in Contemporary Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature, I examine Asian American and Pacific Islander experimental writings that address the United States' histories of militarization and neo/colonialism in Asia and Oceania. I argue that the authors' deployment and representation of linguistic practices form the crux of their experimentations, enact specific critiques of the U.S. imperium in its many permutations, and attend to ongoing decolonial efforts. The experimentations in the texts combat what I term American solipsism, or the inability of the American public discourse to recognize any nations, occupied spaces, or U.S. actions that cannot be absorbed into American exceptionalist reasoning; the works I analyze demand readers to re/acknowledge or re-conceptualize the United States' relationships with the Philippines, Korea, Guam, and Hawai`i. I argue that these authors are attending to the structures of imperialism that have shaped life and history for Asian/American and Pacific Islander populations and further that the shape of their experimentations reflect the shape of empire and the texts' and characters' decolonial practices. Specifically, I argue that linguistic experimentation is the tool by which the authors deploy a decolonial aesthetics precisely because the authors are highlighting the linguistic practices and policies of imperialism. I contribute to scholarship by addressing experimentation in genres beyond poetry; each chapter focuses on one main text with a different experimental narrative form: novel, novel with narrative poetry, lyrical poetry, and multi-genre composition. In Chapter 2, I argue that the neocolonial martial law state in Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters (1990) uses gossip as a tool of terror, reflecting Governor-General William Howard Taft's (1901-1904) documented uses of gossip to govern the Philippines, influencing Philippines leadership through (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Martin Ponce (Advisor) Subjects: American History; American Literature; American Studies; Asian American Studies; Bilingual Education; Comparative Literature; Ethnic Studies; History of Oceania; Literature; Literature of Oceania; Pacific Rim Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2015, Theatre

Throughout the United States toward the end of the twentieth century, popular theatre proliferated on the nation's stages and in other entertainment venues: concert halls, comedy clubs, Broadway stages, and more. One of the notable offerings was (and still remains) Blue Man Group, a vaudevillesque performance troupe that plays music, performs scenes, and creates a sense of community amongst the attendees. Though now enjoying enormous mainstream success, Blue Man Group was once a fringe, avant-garde theatre, creating politically charged performances on the streets of New York City for free to those in close proximity. This study examines Blue Man Group's history, from its beginnings through 2001, by looking at how it transitioned from its avant-garde roots into a popular theatre appearing on national television and in front of thousands of spectators each night. Following Mike Sell's assertion that the thorny term "avant-garde" art is "premised on the notion that the modern world--its institutions, its social relations, its art, its cuisines, its economies--is terminally out of joint" (2011, 7), this study seeks to demonstrate that Blue Man Group's first public performances, in the experimental theatre spaces and on the streets of New York City, emerged from a frustration with American culture. I argue that after opening a long-running production in New York, the organization took steps away from its avant-garde roots through questionable business practices and widespread expansion. In turn, I consider the group's recording and releasing an album, which in effect turned its live event into an unchanging experience. I contend that by 2001, Blue Man Group had turned its back on its avant-garde outlook, as is evidenced by its opening of a production in Las Vegas and its appearing in nationally televised commercials for a computer company. In so doing, Blue Man Group eschewed its avant-garde roots while expanding its brand, thereby becoming part of American popular c (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jonathan Chambers Ph.D. (Advisor); Lesa Lockford Ph.D. (Committee Member); Marcus Sherrell M.F.A. (Committee Member); Andrew M. Schocket Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: Theater; Theater History

MSARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2013, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

This thesis analyzes the historical development of a factory complex, which was first a site where electronic components were manufactured, into what is now known as Art Zone 798. Art Zone 798 is located in the northeastern part of the Da Shanzi District, a small part of the Chaoyang District in the capital city of Beijing. This thesis will discuss the First Five Year Plan implemented by the Chinese government in the period between 1953-1957. This plan resulted in alliances between the Chinese government and the Soviet Union as well as with East Germany, enabling the Chinese to build factories and increase their industrial output. Art Zone 798 was one of the complexes constructed during the First Five Year Plan; it was constructed by Chinese workers in the Bauhaus style, with the help of the then socialist Soviet Union. Moreover, this study focuses on exploring the influence of the European avant-garde in China, as well as how an old abandoned industrial factory became a site for a dynamic artistic district known as Art Zone 798. In addition, this thesis shows how the artists who occupy the studios in Art Zone 798 use their work to reflect and comment on contemporary social issues in China. Key words: 798 Art Zone, Avant-garde, Bauhaus Style buildings, contemporary social issues

Committee: Nnamdi Elleh Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Edson Cabalfin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Ming Tang M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

M.M., University of Cincinnati, 2012, College-Conservatory of Music: Composition

Perihelion is an example of post modern eclecticism in that within this singular piece, multiple genres come together to form a unified entity. Elements such as minimalism, post minimalism, post-rock, progressive rock, and avant-garde converge to form a whole. The exploration of the Moog electric guitar, an instrument which can sustain pitches infinitely, adds to the progressive rock feel of the piece, which is already constantly shifting from duple to triple meter, much like many progressive rock groups. The implementation of radios and television sets allots an experimental edge to this piece and verges on avant-gardism in it's approach to using noise-generating objects to project sound into a musical space otherwise dominated by traditional musical instruments. The main inspiration for this piece is the astronomical event of an actual perihelion, which is when, in the earth's orbit around the sun, there is the least amount of distance between the earth and the sun. This event is treated metaphorically within the piece and is represented through the music; the final zenith nearing the end of the piece represents the final apotheosis, and thereafter, the listener gradually drifts away from the point at which they were closest to the sun as they will ever get, then back into orbit, going farther away from the sun until the next annual occurrence of the perihelion.

Committee: Mara Helmuth DMA (Committee Chair); Mike Fiday PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2007, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Art History

In this study I consider the work of two major American graffiti artists: Jenny Holzer (b. 1945) and Swoon (b. 1977). I focus on Holzer's early poster and sticker campaigns, Truisms (1977-79), Inflammatory Essays (1979-82), and Survival (1983-85), which she offset-printed and posted during the heyday of New York City's graffiti movement (1966-1989), and Swoon's life size woodblock printed portraiture posted on the streets since 2001. I argue that Holzer's work merits consideration within the context of graffiti literature, and that Swoon, inherited Holzer's legacy thus making her part of graffiti's avant-garde movement. To accomplish this, I expand upon the definition of what constitutes graffiti, arguing that it is any kind of publicly posted unsanctioned writing. I trace a historical lineage of poster artists as graffiti artists, and provide a feminist reading of Holzer and Swoon's pre-street production process within the male-dominated movement.

Committee: Kimberly Paice (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Musical Arts, The Ohio State University, 2012, Music

Luis Humberto Salgado (1903-1977), a leading Ecuadorian composer of the twentieth century, favored an eclectic style of composition that highlights his affiliation with nationalist and avant-garde approaches; for this reason, the premise that various elements of his eclectic style may be found in his chamber music, in particular in his sonatas for string instruments, seemed practical as an initial effort for understanding these pieces. An existing description of Salgado's general style developed by musicologist Ketty Wong Cruz was used as the basis to confirm this proposition. Wong's description portrays Salgado's eclecticism and the inclusion, often in combination, of numerous compositional elements in his works. The examination of Salgado's string sonatas supports the conclusion that elements of Salgado's eclectic style transfer to these pieces, including the use of folk, twelve-tone, contrapuntal, neo-Classical, and neo-Romantic elements. These elements add to the appeal and value of these pieces. The extent and variety of Salgado's output, which encompasses most genres, was unsurpassed by his Ecuadorian predecessors and contemporaries. Although many of Salgado's works remain unpublished, the last decade has seen a renewed interest in the performance and scholarship of this output.

Committee: Kia-Hui Tan DMA (Committee Chair); Robert Gillespie PhD (Committee Member); Paul Robinson DMA (Committee Member); Mark Rudoff Prof. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, History of Art

The Chinese intellectuals of modern times attempted to rescue Chinese culture at three levels, namely, technology, system and discourse. This rescue campaign started from the Opium War of the 1840s and continued through the “Cultural Fever” of the 1980s. In the “Cultural Fever,” the Futurologist School attempted to save the culture by importing sciences and management, while the Chinese Culturalist School tried to revive Chinese culture through maintaining the essence of traditional culture. The School of Hermeneutics, however, believed that the critique of culture was essentially a critique of the value system as core of culture, or a critique of discourse. Launched in the 1980s, the Chinese avant-garde movement was an artistic incarnation of the concepts and thoughts embodied mainly by the School of Hermeneutics. Rational Painting, Current of Life and Anti-Art were the main schools comprising this new art movement. They claimed that the visual art revolution was an integral part of critique of culture because it tended to subvert the cultural tradition at discursive level. Wenda Gu was a representative of Chinese avant-garde of the 1980s. His career at home and abroad concentrated on the issue of culture. In the 1980s, Wenda Gu focused on the Chinese written language, a strategy of discursive critique, or in general, cultural critique. By deconstructing and reconstructing Chinese characters, Gu echoed the call of the School of Hermeneutics for a discursive revolution. When he moved abroad and settled in New York in 1988, Gu made the necessary adjustments though he kept the issue of culture in his thoughts. He explored materials as artistic means and as the object of cultural analysis. By focusing on the human body materials, this initiated a new stage of analysis of culture. Starting from this analysis, Gu expanded his viewpoint of the process of cultural confrontation to include the reconciliation on a global level. This led to the third stage, cultural synthesis (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Stephen Melville (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2011, Musicology

John Cage and Merce Cunningham's life-long collaboration is one of the richest performing arts partnerships of the twentieth century, one that led to radical new modes of expression in music and dance. This dissertation offers a comprehensive study of their first collaboration, Credo in Us (1942), a satiric dance-drama about a dysfunctional married couple set in the American West. Cunningham and Jean Erdman jointly created the choreography and Cunningham wrote a scenario and script inspired by James Joyce and French surrealist poetry. Conceived just weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Credo offers a window into a unique moment in American cultural history, when exiled European artists escaping Nazi persecution arrived in New York and engaged with their American counterparts. Cage was immersed in this thriving community of artists while living in Peggy Guggenheim's home, where he met the luminaries of the European avant-garde, including Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and Andre Breton. It is in this vibrant context that Cage creates his score for Credo, which is significant for two interrelated reasons. First, it embraces a collage aesthetic, juxtaposing a diverse range of musical styles and sounds, from folk music and jazz to phonograph samples, radio sounds, and “found” percussion noises. Second, Cage's incorporation of random elements in the score anticipates his later embrace of indeterminacy and chance procedures in the post-war period, a move that had profound implications in music, art, literature, dance, and theatre that resonate to this day. This study takes an interpretative approach that encompasses the interdisciplinary elements of Credo, as well as its historical and social context. Its focus is on the interrelationship between the dance, script and music and how the collaborative process informed Cage's embrace of a collage aesthetic. This illuminates the ways in which Cage's aesthetic engagement with the European avant-garde and collaborative work wit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mary Davis Dr. (Committee Chair); David Bernstein Dr. (Committee Member); Daniel Goldmark Dr. (Committee Member); Francesca Brittan Dr. (Committee Member); John Orlock Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Bowling Green State University, 2012, Contemporary Music

In 2006, Ge Gan-ru wrote a melodrama Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! for Margaret Leng Tan. This melodrama, unlike any of his former works and any of the pre-existing contemporary repertoire for vocalizing pianist, is written for a performer self-accompanied by a toy orchestra. Wrong is based on ancient Chinese poet Lu You's Phoenix Hairpin. This twelfth-century poem has as its subject the poet's own tragic relationship with his cousin Tang Wan. The first stanza ends with the word cuo repeated three times, which is the Chinese word for “wrong,” hence the title of the melodrama. The author's performance of Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! led to the commission of a sequel from Ge Gan-ru based on Tang Wan's reply to Lu You's poem. This companion piece, Hard, Hard, Hard!, uses a similar instrumentation: toy piano, toy harp, and toy glockenspiel, as well as other toys the author has collected. The document first takes a close look at the story of Lu You and Tang Wan, including a thorough analysis of their poems Phoenix Hairpin. The next two chapters contain biographical information about the composer Ge Gan-ru and about Margaret Leng Tan, the intended performer of Wrong. These two individuals contributed most of the source material for the document. Chapter Four presents a brief history of melodrama. The final two chapters focus on Ge Gan-ru's two melodramas. Chapter Five deals with the collaborative process of Ge Gan-ru and Margaret Leng Tan in creating Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!, and discusses the problems the author faced as a subsequent performer. In Chapter Six the author describes the genesis of Hard, Hard, Hard! and shares her experiences collaborating with the composer. These emotional melodramas challenge not only the listeners but also the performers themselves. By looking at the origins, inspirations, and the creative process of Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! and Hard, Hard, Hard!, this study aims to provide a cultural understanding of this unusual set of pieces by Ge Gan-ru and enhances both the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Robert Satterlee DMA (Advisor); Marilyn Shrude DM (Committee Member); Thomas Rosenkranz DMA (Committee Member); Michael Arrigo (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Literature; Asian Studies; Music; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2012, English

The Avant-Garde and the Everyday investigates two overdetermined terms in cultural theory: the avant-garde and the everyday. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate points of contact between the two ideas. Specifically, I hope to show that the avant-garde, in its mode of challenging and questioning authority and institutionalized discourses, is engaging in a complex project of reclaiming everyday life from corporatized mass-culture. To accomplish this goal, I situated my investigation of avant-gardeist practice in the site of New York rock band The Velvet Underground as a specific instantiation of the avant-garde. I analyzed the theories of Peter Burger's Theory of the Avant-Garde and located The Velvet Underground as a neo-avant-gardeist critique of the institutional culture of music. This was compared against Henri Lefebvre's Critique of Everyday Life and Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life as a way to explore the issues of the avant-gardeist critique. Other sites of inquiry included Joseph Branden's article “My Mind Split Open” and Victor Bokris' Up-Tight for information about the practice of The Velvet Underground as it was interpreted by the people who were involved at the time. I believe that I demonstrated that Peter Burger's theories of the avant-garde are too narrow; he locates the avant-garde in only two sources, both of them aesthetic. It is my contention that the avant-garde is much more broad and explicitly political in its aims.

Committee: Phil Dickinson PhD (Committee Chair); Robert Sloane PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Modern Literature; Performing Arts

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2012, Music Composition

Ex Nihilo is a piece for chamber orchestra that explores possibilities of timbre, texture and shifting orchestral color. The driving force behind the composition is the concept nihil ex nihilo,meaning “nothing can be created from nothing.” I apply this idea in Ex Nihilo by creating four distinct sections built on specific textures, timbres, rhythmic, and melodic ideas. Each section evolves over time and gradually introduces an element that becomes the driving force behind the each subsequent section (e.g. short background glissandi in one section become long glissandi in the foreground of the following section). The gradual evolution is achieved through additive and subtractive processes applied to pitch introduction and rhythmic structures in each section of the piece, essentially creating 4 expanding and/or contracting wedges. My goal with this piece was to also use the same processes and systems to create a very different textural idea for each section. In other words, the process used in section A is the same as in section D, but very different aural results are achieved. In this way, Ex Nihilo also represents a culmination of compositional techniques that I have obtained during my studies at Bowling Green State University.

Committee: Mikel Kuehn PhD (Advisor); Christopher Dietz DMA (Committee Member) Subjects: Music