Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

This dissertation explores the role of African media in shaping Africa's image through both the analysis of newspapers over the course of the 2014 Ebola crisis and an exploration of African films. This methodology redeploys aspects of Africa's (in)visibility in global politics and discourse on representation in geopolitics. Placing African film and media organizations at the center of analysis in this study is vital, as they add diversity of voices to the conversation about Africa's image in the media. The dissertation looks at how Africa is framed as perpetually “in crisis.” Specifically, the research engages analysis of African film and media depictions under the premise of crises to advance Africa's visual culture and representation. I am interested in exploring how coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in The Inquirer, a major English newspaper in Liberia, compares with that in the New York Times coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Likewise, I explore how African cinema frames and represents crisis through three films – Xala (Ousmane Sembene, 1975); Pumzi (Wanuri Kahiu, 2009); and Les Saignantes (Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2005). I argue that African films speak to the possibility of positive anticipated outcomes ignored by western scholars, and, therefore, possess the agency to decolonize minds. For instance, Pumzi and Les Saignantes offer an outlook on Africa's challenges and possibilities through newly imagined futures. Precisely, the selected films first address Africa's crisis in relation to the political, economic, and environmental struggle as well as gender discourses and, second, offer a prescription of development and progress. How do African filmmakers and media personnel, through their various creative works, reconstruct Africa's global identity? Finally, I advance that this research gives voice to how Africa frames crisis. This dissertation interrogates an unbalanced global power structure that has been typically Eurocentric. Taking an opposing pos (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrea Frohne (Committee Chair); Erin Schlumpf (Committee Co-Chair); Steve Howard (Committee Member); Ghirmai Negash (Committee Member) Subjects: African History; African Literature; African Studies; Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Communication; Comparative Literature; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2006, Film (Fine Arts)

Mainstream news media organizations have adopted classical Hollywood narrative storytelling conventions in order to convey vital news information. In doing so, these organizations tell news stories in a way that paints political realities as causal agents, delicate international crises as sensational conflicts, and factual profiles of public figures as colorful characterizations. By establishing artificial narrative lines and unnecessarily antagonistic conflict, the press has at times become an unwitting agent of government policy and, in part, altered the course of international events. The classical Hollywood narrative is the storytelling model on which the American media based its coverage of United States foreign policy after September 11, 2001. The sensationalized coverage culminated in a cinematic presentation of events that led to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Since September 11, a narrative plot unfolded, the characters were defined, and the tension rose. The news media primed the audience as if the American people were watching a well-executed and often predictable Hollywood narrative. And though there was no evidence that proved Iraq had played a role in the September 11 attacks, by March of 2003 the war seemed inevitable and possessing of seemingly perfect narrative logic.

Committee: Adam Knee (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Art

Monsters are powerful symbols of transformative agency, heavily ingrained in Western culture. With transmutating creatures living rent-free in our collective imagination, I have to wonder: why is it taboo for queer people to transform? Tracing a historical line from biblical angels, Greek mythology, the gothic novel, and contemporary horror cinema, I create a framework for understanding monsters as revered, transformative figures in important texts throughout the centuries. Just as LGBTQ+ activists reclaimed `queer' as a radical identifier, I reclaim `monster' as an uncompromising symbol of bodily agency, engaging with Queer readings and critical media theory along the way. Using my MFA Thesis artwork God Made Me (And They Love Me), I weave my soft sculpture beasties through historical imagery, religious text, folklore, and media pieces depicting `monster' and `monstrosity'.

Committee: Amy Youngs (Advisor); Caitlin McGurk (Committee Member); Gina Osterloh (Committee Member); Scott Deb (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Fine Arts; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Mass Media

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Spanish and Portuguese

My dissertation, “Chile coliza: cuerpo, espacios discursivos y redes sociales en la literatura y el cine chileno contemporaneo de tematica LGBTQ” examines the intervention of queer bodies, language and visual images in urban and virtual spaces through LGBTQ-themed literature and film from post-dictatorship Chile (1990) to present day. My project intervenes in the political debate regarding gender and sexualities in Latin America, which has been propelled by the #Metoo and #NiUnaMenos movements and the sexual dissidence activism. Recent events, such as the debate on marriage equality in Chile in November 2017 or the passing of gender identity legislation in January 2018, show the current relevance of the debate around sexuality. Furthermore, members of the LGBTQ community in Chile have carried out different strategies in order to destabilize the heteropatriarchy and the neoliberal system that underpins it since its implementation in Chile during Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). On one hand, the diversidad sexual seeks to intervene within institutional power structures in order to achieve the same rights as their heterosexual fellow citizens. On the other hand, disidencia sexual advocates for a more confrontational tactic that implies the total collapse of the neoliberal system and the Eurocentric epistemology. Nonetheless, both collectivities have impacted contemporary Chilean literature and cinema. But, how and to what extent does LGBTQ literature and film create synergies with urban and online spaces in Chile? Which discourses do sexual diversity and sexual dissidence articulate to contrast heteronormative discourse on gender, sex, and sexuality? Drawing on hemispheric queer/gender and coloniality/decoloniality theories, I argue that the synergies between literature, film and social media have provided an opportunity for the LGBTQ community in Chile to consolidate a political position that contests heteronormativity by unapologetically visibilizing queer (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ana Del Sarto Dr. (Advisor); Laura Podalsky Dr. (Committee Member); Paloma Martinez-Cruz Dr. (Committee Member); Fernando Blanco Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies; Gender Studies; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2019, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

This dissertation is a historiographic intervention in the prevailing canon of experimental cinema, and more specifically the history of Iranian cinema. I utilize expanded cinema as an inclusive term that reconciles critical discourses about avant-garde and expanded art practice with experimental and underground film. By investigating the emergence and evolution of expanded cinema in Iran, I posit it as a counter-force to the patriarchal traditions of hierarchy and exclusion that dominate cinema and other cultural spheres in the Islamic Republic. Additionally, I argue that the subjective agency of contemporary Iranian artists, particularly women like Newsha Tavakolian (b. 1981) and Nastaran Safaei (b. 1984), has initiated a new feminist discourse that boldly tackles issues related to gender, identity, and body politics.

Committee: Erin Schlumpf (Advisor) Subjects: Film Studies; Fine Arts; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, History of Art

Nostalgic Media: Histories and Memories of Domestic Technology in the Moving Image investigates the history of four consumer technologies – slide projectors, Pixelvision toy cameras, home video, and video games – and their appropriation in experimental cinema and contemporary art. Considering the socio-cultural emergence of each technology alongside close analysis of films, videos, and gallery installations, I demonstrate how cinema artists harnessed these technologies' plural histories in their practice. Analyzing the work of numerous American experimental filmmakers and figures from the international art world, I argue that cinema artists have turned to ephemeral moving-image technologies as a part of what I call “nostalgic media.” Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon histories and theories of cinema studies, art history, psychoanalysis, and media archaeology, I contend that the practice of nostalgic media interweaves personal and cultural memory with technological history, displaying a longing for the past not yet experienced. In contrast to the postmodern condemnation of nostalgia as a sentimental and stereotypical return to the static, idyllic past, I illustrate how these artists use experimental cinematic forms to reveal nostalgia as a moving image, one that highlights how contingent memories of film and technology alter their form over the passage of time. Intervening in current debates concerning obsolescence and rapid technological development, my project embraces nostalgia as a time-based process that resists the determinism of technological progress and examines how artists intertwine the disappearing past into the fabric of an ever-changing, globalized present.

Committee: Kris Paulsen (Advisor); Erica Levin (Committee Member); Lisa Florman (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Film Studies

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2014, Theatre Arts-Arts Administration

Film making is expensive. It can be done cheaply, but to raise a film to the level of art it requires an amount of increased integrity. This can be achieved through better cameras, crew, actors, props, locations, editing, and special effects (SFX) – all things that cost money. Film making is possibly more expensive than any other art form, especially when considering that a film must not only be created, but also edited, printed, and distributed in order to reach its target audience. Without backing from a major studio, the task of fundraising for a film can be daunting, unless considering alternatives. This thesis explores and concisely presents ways in which film makers can borrow and adapt strategies from other art forms, as well as non-profit and for-profit business models, to create a diverse funding mix to finance independent films.

Committee: Kara Stewart Mrs. (Advisor); Durand Pope Mr. (Committee Member); Craig Joseph Mr. (Committee Member); Neil Sapienza Mr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Arts Management; Film Studies; Fine Arts; Theater Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2010, African-American and African Studies

The mass media industry as a hegemonic entity has played a vital role in displaying fallacious accounts of black life. Grounded in ideas from scholars like Richard Schechner, Patricia Ticineto, Joseph Roach and Sara Ahmed, this research is a critique of the ways in which memory, and its possible manifestations, plays in non-blacks' (specifically whites) interpretation, motivation, and perception of stereotypical visual portrayals of blackness. The focus will be on how the continuing phenomenon of stereotyping blackness in the 20th and 21st centuries is perpetuated in child-targeted feature-length animations with animal characters. I argue that the possible furtive and/or involuntary visual manifestations of “black identity” in animation have their sources in a white historical memory that clings to the desire to maintain whiteness. This work demonstrates how ideas of blackness in white memory were not solely constructed from the imaginations of producers of mainstream culture. Rather black stereotypes are the result of a combination of black protest against negative portrayals, blacks as accomplices in perpetuating their negative stereotypes, and whites' imagined ways of blackness. Following the work of Anna Everett and Robin Kelly and commentary from Bert Williams and George Walker, the perpetuation of whiteness through imagined black identities in media outlets does not take into account the ways in which blacks think of and present themselves within black communities, the ways blacks display their identity outside the constraints of white imagination, or how blacks openly or discreetly oppose stereotypical caricatures. However, the change in the portrayal of black people after the Civil Rights Movement (1945-1964) is the result of the powerful black collective voice influencing change in nefarious deceptions of African-Americans in media outlets. This change, according to Donald Bogle, Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, however, simply gave new faces to old ca (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Horace Newsum PhD (Committee Chair); Maurice Stevens PhD (Committee Member); Kenneth Goings PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Gender; Mass Media; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Motion Pictures; Philosophy; Social Structure; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2012, History

In 1934, the American film industry decided to undergo self-censorship in order to stifle the public and federal outcries for moral reform in films. The Production Code Administration, under the leadership of Joseph Breen, a Catholic layman, enforced the Motion Picture Production Code or Hays Code for over three decades. The Code was a set of rigid guidelines that covered a myriad of topics ranging from gangsters and violence to drug and alcohol abuse to relations between men and women on the silver screen. The metamorphous of the Code, that of gradual change towards disintegration, is most evident in subtle changes and eventual transformation of gender roles portrayed in film over the lifetime of the Code. Despite the attempts to enforce patriarchal and Christian views by establishing a rigid set of unchanging masculine and feminine behaviors, gender roles continued to evolve and visibly change, and American films recorded this process.

Committee: Mary Frederickson PhD (Advisor); Stephen Norris PhD (Committee Member); Nishani Frazier PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History