Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Art

My art materialized my grief, but it did not heal it. “Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it, and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.” – Louise Bourgeois, 1982,

Committee: George Rush (Advisor); Laura Lisbon (Committee Member); Kris Paulsen (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, African-American and African Studies

This dissertation lays the ontological and epistemological groundwork for an Africanist and diasporic orientation to contemporary theatrical dance performance. It develops a theoretical lexicon with which to understand and analyze such dance along with Africana embodied creative practices. Evidence is drawn from ethnographic engagements with contemporary Africana dancers, close readings of key works in Africana and Dance Studies, as well as the author's own praxis, experiences and insights as an artist-scholar. The thesis is also a work of scholarly criticism, mobilizing Africanist and Africana theories and concepts, emphasizing the cosmological and spiritual orientations of transnational African studies, to critique the hegemony of a historical Western discourse about the body that desacralizes its substance, rationalizes its expression, and racializes its exterior. In this manner, this dissertation advocates for an embodied approach to Africana Studies and demonstrates possible methodological approaches for such an

Committee: Ryan Skinner (Advisor) Subjects: Aesthetics; African American Studies; African Studies; Art Education; Black Studies; Comparative; Dance; Education Philosophy; Epistemology; Performing Arts; Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

This is a feminist project that investigates the performative practices of contemporary female Colombian artists. It was guided by a main research question: Is there a particular kind of strength that comes from their specific situation as contemporary Colombian female artists? As such, this dissertation relies on fieldwork and critical theory in order to elucidate how such diverse individuals perform multiple art practices and what they do in and with their art practices. Two dozen women opened their doors, provided their time for video taped conversation and gave their archival material for the realization of this project. The main hypothesis this dissertation worked with relates to the existence of a possible double work or doubling of the work a woman artist executes in the need to undo what has been culturally assigned in order to then create her own images, ideas and concepts about being a woman in her society. Within the undoing and the doing, a liminal space allows the artists to realize how the cultural ideas of feminine essences evidence a conceptual void. Once the artistic work uncovers these supposed essences as false expectations, the strength that emanates from the vantage point of un-definition becomes the source of unbound creativity that produces artwork of political significance. The themes that emerged during fieldwork and writing show that in the same way these artists become others; multiplying possibilities of being while in their practices, they are able to influence their surroundings in minute, effective ways. Otherness is a central theme that has aided the understanding of the work these women realize. An important theoretical source is the seminal work of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, even though in five chapters the artistic work of nine artists are thoroughly discussed through multiple theories that traverse the text. Some of the theorists that have aided the present text are: Gloria Anzaldua, Rosi Braidoti, Judith Butler, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Marina Peterson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Vladimiri Marchenkov Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennie Klein Ph.D. (Committee Member); Louis-George Schwartz Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Art Criticism; Art History; Cultural Anthropology; Dance; Fine Arts; Gender Studies; Latin American Studies; Literature; Performing Arts; Philosophy; Theater

BA, Oberlin College, 2012, English

This project follows the strangely consistent fascination in modern and contemporary poetry with vessel objects. From Wallace Stevens' "jar [placed] in Tennessee," to "That vase" of Philip Larkin or James Merrill's "clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on," even so far back in literary history as the shapely "Grecian Urn" of John Keats' famous ode among numerous others, the genre is teeming with vessels. I argue that these kinds of objects open up distinctive possibilities for poetic exploration because of the unique way that they engage with space. Consequently, by using these objects as metaphors, poets are able to reflect upon the nuanced relationship between poetry and a non-poetic reality on the one hand, and between an interior subjective life and an external objective world on the other. My analysis reflects the spatial trajectory of this 'object-metaphor' itself, examining the three main topographical components that constitute all vessels: 1) the vessel's contained interior space, 2) the realm surrounding or exterior to the object, and 3) its creatively constructed surface which functions as the physical boundary between the other two spaces.

Committee: DeSales Harrison (Advisor) Subjects: Language; Literature; Modern Literature; Philosophy