Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2021, Environmental Studies

As an English and Environmental Studies double major, I merged my passions for writing and ecology into a two-part creative thesis manuscript. During the summer of 2020, I interviewed three female environmental writers about their insights into the publishing world and what they perceived to be a woman's place in American conservation literature. I detail and analyze these women's personal perspectives, each of whom addressed the different impacts of sexism and ageism on their careers. This qualitative analysis then serves as a critical introduction to my creative work, in which I intertwine climate science with personal memoir to create a collection of four nonfiction essays. Each essay combines my attachment to the outdoors and our ailing planet with reflections on corporeal boundaries and emotional resilience as a woman today, experiencing and surviving the seasons of a pandemic.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Comparative Studies

My dissertation, "Appalachian Anthropocene: Conflict and Subject Formation in a Sacrifice Zone" diagrams the dominant forces of historical subject formation to see how they shape contemporary responses to extraction-based development and environmental crises. My first chapter examines the new challenges posed by the Anthropocene and neoliberalism in Appalachia, and outlines the general analytical framework of material, conceptual, and affective systems used throughout the dissertation. In Chapter Two I show the violent rearrangement of these three systems as integral to dominant forms of subjectivity and resistance. I then present an overview of these forms of subjectivity before assembling a theory of oppositional subjectivity drawing from Marxism, decolonial, continental, and black philosophy, and queer theory. Chapter Three traces the boundary-making practices of settler colonialism as they shaped the settler-subject in Appalachia. I examine how dominant forces of subjectification emerged under colonialism, the harmful effects that persist, and their impact on contemporary responses to the land-use conflicts surrounding resource extraction and to environmental disasters like the 2014 Charleston Water Crisis. I conclude this chapter by arguing for a renewed attention to residues of settler colonialism in collective political responses to the context of the neoliberal Anthropocene. Chapter Four examines the unifying forces of white supremacy, nationalism, and capitalism as they shaped the citizen-subject over the two centuries following the War of Independence. In this chapter I examine the geopolitical production of the national territory of the United States and socio-political production of the national subject of the American Citizen. I then present oppositional responses to dominant American subjectivity in the writing of the militant Appalachian preacher and poet Don West. I show how he helps us to understand these discourses and more importantly, help (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation uncovers how, why, and where the modern pet dog originated. The average dog's transition from a working animal to a nonworking companion in the nineteenth-century United Kingdom constituted the dog's most radical alteration of purpose since their initial domestication prior to the establishment of agricultural civilization. This dissertation contends that the modern family dog originated during the long-nineteenth century (1780-1920) primarily in Victorian Britain—the initial nation altered by the interlocking forces of industrialization and urbanization. These processes provided the necessary cultural and material preconditions to reconceptualize this traditional working animal as a nonworking companion. These phenomena also provided the necessary infrastructure to manufacture commodities—from biscuits to soap—that became necessary to maintain dogs. Family dogs altered domestic and urban environments, individual and collective habits, local and global economic markets, and traditional human and canine behaviors. British pet culture surged beyond national boundaries to become the global norm governing appropriate human-dog interaction. Fundamental English practices—such as leash laws—remain normal today alongside British breeds that garner worldwide favor. Despite their integral presence in modern Western culture, however, there remains no holistic—nor interdisciplinary—narrative explaining how the typical dog transformed from a working animal to a nonworking companion. In this sense, this project rectifies this pronounced historiographical absence and knowledge gap for the broader dog-owning public. Answering this question necessitates adopting an interdisciplinary perspective entangling humans and nonhumans since Britons were not solely responsible for creating pet dogs. Rather, dogs actively shaped this process. Understanding dogs in their own right—their cognitive, sensory, and physical capabilities—hinges on including insights from animal s (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Germanic Languages and Literatures

Defining the word human may seem like a simple task. The cultural history of the word human is anything but simple, however. “Human” is not simply an alternate word for an individual of the species Homo sapiens. Rather, the word human, like the word animal, has been applied, culturally and historically, to different extents to individuals of the species Homo sapiens depending on factors like race, gender, ethnicity, disability, social class, and bodily conformity. In the West, human has been used to signify a masculine, able-bodied ideal that is set apart from all other animals (including many Homo sapiens) to the detriment of both human and nonhuman animals. Unpacking the cultural meanings of the word human is essential if we are to understand the ways it has been used to sort and oppress humans and animals alike. In this project, I examine what it means to be human in contemporary German literature and how the cultural meanings of “human” and “nonhuman” are tied up with gendered cultural notions of ability and disability. I analyze three novels: Die Mansarde by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer published in 1969, Der Mensch erscheint im Holozan by Swiss author Max Frisch published in 1979, and Etuden im Schnee by Japanese-German author Yoko Tawada in 2014. In my analysis of Die Mansarde, I elucidate the ways that human status and belonging for a woman in the mid-twentieth Century in Austria are inevitably tied up with her ability to listen, empathize, and serve. My analysis of Der Mensch erscheint im Holozan highlights the harmful effects of a Western masculine able-bodied human norm for an elderly man with dementia and draws attention to the agency and abilities of other living and nonliving beings within the story. And finally, my analysis of Etuden im Schnee demonstrates the fluid and culturally determined nature of the category of human by focusing on EIS's supplantation of the traditional human subject with three, active, differently abled polar bears in n (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, English

Origin Stories traces the emergence and political potential of a slow aesthetic in contemporary transnational cinemas of the hemispheric Americas in the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Starting from the vantage point of the global South, this dissertation examines five major filmmakers associated with slowness: Lucrecia Martel (Argentina), Alfonso Cuaron (Hollywood/Mexico), Natalia Almada (US/Mexico), Kelly Reichardt (US), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand). Slowness in cinema has popularly and academically been theorized from an aesthetic or national perspective since Matthew Flanagan first coined the term “slow cinema.” However, to theorize slowness as a global aesthetic flattens the political textures of cinemas that arise from marginalized markets with their own film histories. The recent steady growth in international co-production, as well as historical movement of film within and between markets, also indicate that national definitions are increasingly inapplicable to transnational cinemas. Latin American cinema is an example of historical and current transnational production as films circulate between nations in the home market and internationally on the film festival circuit, as well as cultivating a unique character outside Hollywood's cultural dominance. Looking at slow cinema from its geopolitical context reveals the critique of current and past global systems that contribute to iniquity including the erasure of Black and Indigenous peoples from Latinx histories and identities, entrenched racial hierarchies of coloniality, and how these structures inflect and reflect attitudes toward the natural world. Expanding the hemispheric Americas to the Asia Pacific, another site of conquest and US imperial ideation, experimental film translates the personal to the political in an intimate portraiture of human and natural ecologies. Bringing together cinema studies, decolonial, and Indigenous studies approaches, this dissertation charts the intersect (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Dance Studies

This dissertation centers sensuous movement-based performance and practice as particularly powerful modes of activism toward sustainability and multi-species justice in the early decades of the 21st century. Proposing a model of “sensuous ecological activism,” the author elucidates the sensual components of feminist philosopher and biologist Donna Haraway's (2016) concept of the Chthulucene, articulating how sensuous movement performance and practice interpellate Chthonic subjectivities. The dissertation explores the possibilities and limits of performances of vulnerability, experiences of interconnection, practices of sensitization, and embodied practices of radical inclusion as forms of activism in the context of contemporary neoliberal capitalism and competitive individualism. Two theatrical dance works and two communities of practice from India and the US are considered in relationship to neoliberal shifts in global economic policy that began in the late 1970s. The author analyzes the dance work The Dammed (2013) by the Darpana Academy for Performing Arts in Ahmedabad, India, in relationship to the Narmada Bachao Andolan—or, the Movement to Save the Narmada River—on which it was based, as well as to India's history of modern dance, nationalism, and women's movements. She discusses How to Lose a Mountain (2012) by the Dance Exchange in Washington, DC, alongside the anti-mountaintop removal movement in Appalachia to which the work speaks, and in relationship to the Dance Exchange's “Moving Field Guides,” the choreographic and community-based education methods created and utilized in the piece's creation, as modes of sensuous ecological activist performance and pedagogy. The primary somatic practices of the transnational contact improvisation community and the interconnected transnational Burning Man community, contact improvisation (CI) and ecstatic dance, are studied as practices of pilgrimage and nomadic subjectivization, which the author argues foster Chthoni (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2016, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

This dissertation investigates how functional music, utilitarian commercial music composed to create moods, shapes environmental imaginaries in late twentieth- and early twenty-first century America. In particular, the study considers how functional music operates in specific media contexts to facilitate sonic identifications with the natural world that imbricate nature with modalities of contemporary capitalism. As humandriven changes to the planet have ushered in the Anthropocene, an investigation of the relationships between musical sound, moods, and environments will draw out the feelings and imaginaries of the era. In doing so, this study amplifies these attenuated sounds, aiming to open the conversation to new ways of listening in an age of increasing environmental fragility.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

In 2019, The Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was voted onto the city charter of Toledo, Ohio. The charter amendment made it possible for citizens of the city of Toledo to sue polluters on behalf of the Lake, effectively giving Lake Erie more standing in court closer to that of legal personhood. A year later, LEBOR was deemed unenforceable by Judge Jack Zouhary, who critiqued it as vague and reaching too far beyond the jurisdiction of Toledo. This dissertation starts from those two critiques, analyzing how LEBOR fell short in 1. specifically connecting to the thousands of years of landscape practices and relations Indigenous residents had developed in the time before the region was colonized and 2. understanding the Lake as a place with a dynamic set of naturecultural relations with deep ties to the watershed and landscape within the jurisdiction of Toledo. This analysis uses theories from spatial rhetoric, placemaking, naturecultural critique, Indigenous scholarship, and postcolonial studies focused on the U.S. to understand why these shortcomings occurred and how future activist composers can possibly benefit from avoiding them. At the center of the analysis is an oral history composed using only the words of the activists in order to ground the work in their more immediate context. The dissertation concludes by evaluating how my analysis of LEBOR can be applied to teaching writing in and outside of the classroom and to scientific research projects that may otherwise be falling short in their connection with the public connected to the knowledge they gather and the organisms and entities they research.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

This research seeks to establish an understanding of Appalachian women and their experiences of environmental justice through an arts-based analysis of their poetry. I ask two research questions that inquire how Appalachian express their experiences of EJ through poetry, as well how Appalachian women associate and relate gender to environmental injustices through their poetry. To investigate this process, I perform a poetry-based analysis of ten different poems by Appalachian women. Ultimately, I find that Appalachian women engage themes of empathy, othering, and gender to portray their connections to, relationships with, and understandings of environmental justice. This research is important because it addresses intersectional themes of both geography and environmental justice, however in new ways. Ultimately, this research portrays Appalachian women's use of poetry as an expression of their experiences with environmental justice, and as such, provides a different method and outlook from which to view environmental justice issues.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Environmental Studies

Spring Break Sisters is a professional project led by Ohio University undergraduate students to provide a Spring Break Camp to Athens County girls aged 11-14. The inaugural camp ran from March 11th-15th, 2024, at ARTS/West. The camp themes were community, self-care, and empowerment. During the week, ten people participated in an educational nature walk, guest speakers, nature poetry, and the creation of 2 community-themed murals, now on display in the Athens Community Center. The camp was possible through a partnership with Athens, Arts, Parks, and Recreation and by a $5,000 experiential education award from the Center for Advising, Career, and Experiential Learning.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Environmental Studies

Given the precarious state of the planet, countries have approached environmental protection uniquely by codifying environmental rights in their constitutions. Using the theoretical concept of legal consciousness, this manuscript investigates how Colombia, Ecuador, and the United States address the environment in their respective constitutions. I find that in the U.S., individual states establish environmental provisions, while Colombia and Ecuador take a more explicit approach enshrining environmental rights in their national constitutions. More specifically, Colombia frames environmental protection as a duty of the state, while Ecuador views it as necessity, in that the environment has inherent rights. The decision to include or exclude environmental provisions in constitutions presents possibilities for future legal work on environmental rights.

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2023, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

As stream restoration is performed, riparian vegetation should be considered during any required construction. Since riparian inputs affect the carbon budget and the biogeochemistry of aquatic ecosystems, it is critical that carbon dynamics are examined when replanting is necessary. Floodplain reconstruction was implemented within the Robinson Fork catchment in Western Pennsylvania requiring widespread replanting. With future restoration to occur at Ryerson Station State Park and growth in stream and wetland restoration, it is imperative to ensure that the constructed riparian zones meet the restoration targets. This study asks if floodplain reconnection restoration including change in riparian vegetation impacts the amount of total organic carbon available in water and sediment. I measured aquatic total organic carbon alongside carbon sources, such as woody debris, leaf litter, and riparian vegetation, to analyze this relationship. With streams in Ryerson Station State Park representing a pre-restoration or unrestored condition, this thesis compares the the effects of the construction on carbon in the ecosystem. Statistical analysis showed that, when compared to total organic carbon, woody debris, leaf litter accumulation, soil organic matter and area weighted mean coefficient of conservatism were found not statistically different between restored and unrestored conditions, however the change in soil organic matter and area weighted mean coefficient of conservatism calculated from vegetation analysis were found to be statistically different between restoration statuses. It can be concluded from this study that after floodplain reconnection restoration as implemented in Robinson Fork, the replanted riparian vegetation does not differently affect the aquatic total organic carbon at Ryerson Station State Park and Robinson Fork.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, Environmental Studies

The contemporary age suffers from a state of cynicism and inertia in light of climate change and seemingly inescapable global capitalism. This project departs from the theory and creative work of William Morris, a 19th century artist, designer, and revolutionary socialist, in conceiving of a socialist aestheticism—an aestheticism that acknowledges the creative labor behind art-making and the imaginative limitations of creating "true art" under capitalism. This is done through an analysis of Morris's involvement with the socialist periodical "The Commonweal" and his subseqeunt creative, utopian project the Kelmscott Press. The value of utopianism and creative labor is then applied to the state of contemporary art and the climate change crisis. Finally, there is a reflection on "Realized Utopias," an art exhibition I created on the subjects of this discussion through a creative praxis process.

Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2023, Economics

This thesis evaluates the impact recycling policy incentives have in motivating circular economy transitions using a three-agent model of waste generation and disposal. The model of consumer sorting reveals that educated, environmentally concerned citizens may unwittingly contribute to recycling contamination through a phenomenon known as "aspirational recycling."

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2022, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

As a social change discipline, social marketing has demonstrated its effectiveness in addressing many types of wicked problems. However, despite its utility in environmental contexts, it is neither well known nor widespread in its uptake in these settings. This study's purpose is to reveal opportunities to drive the adoption, implementation, and diffusion (“institutionalization”) of social marketing within the domains of environmental sustainability and natural resource conservation. This research considers the use of social marketing as an innovative practice within a diffusion of innovations framework and uses a systems lens to examine early adopter social marketing professionals and the institutional contexts in which they operate. It employs an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research design within a two-phased inquiry consisting of three independent but interconnected studies. The dataset includes 90 qualitative interviews and two quantitative surveys. The first phase of this research examined 1) challenges and opportunities facing the discipline, and 2) status and trends within social marketing formal academic training. Findings from this phase included a thematic analysis of challenges related to institutionalization that centered the conceptualization of the discipline alongside the importance of key aspects of organizational culture and the critical role of formal education and professional development opportunities. Recommendations were developed to address these challenges broadly as well as increase social marketing academic programming. The second phase consisted of a case study of environmental social marketing within the Pacific Northwest United States. Findings revealed several aspects of organizational culture and practice that can be considered success factors driving social marketing implementation, particularly the diffusion concepts of observability, relative advantage, adaptation and reinvention, and innovation champions. This study also i (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2022, Journalism

Spread Out! is a podcast about the pandemic, the national parks and people's place in nature. Weaving together interviews with National Park Service employees and other experts, extensive research and the author's personal experience, each episode illustrates how visitors have both impacted and been impacted by national parks throughout the course of the pandemic. The four-part series visits parks from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Grand Canyon to Denali National Park, including an entire episode about the newest national park: New River Gorge. Outdoor recreation increased substantially during the initial stages of the pandemic and overall park service visitation has been growing consistently since 2016. Spread Out! discusses why these changes matter and how we can take better care of the parks – while squeezing in more than a few fun facts and stories along the way.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Environment and Natural Resources

What happens after low-income neighborhoods achieve environmental victories? Historically, low-income people of color live near environmental hazards. Dominant narratives on brownfield redevelopment, the redevelopment of abandoned industrial sites, highlight increased property value as a positive economic development outcome for homeowners and reduced urban blight in the neighborhood. However, economically disadvantaged residents living close to redeveloped brownfield sites struggle to afford higher rents as their neighborhoods become more desirable to young professionals and the middle class after redevelopment. As scholars and activists aim to achieve environmental justice, it is important to address the racial, economic, and health implications of brownfield redevelopment. Environmental justice literature has focused on the siting of noxious industrial facilities and their relationship to the location of low-income communities and communities of color (UCC 1987; Bryant & Mohai 1992; GAO 1993; Bullard et. al. 2007; Taylor,2013). While this body of literature has grown over recent decades, it has not yet thoroughly explored the distribution of brownfield redevelopment. To this end, this dissertation contributes to the discipline through three empirical papers. The first paper examines the unintended consequences associated with brownfield redevelopment in the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago using the following qualitative methods: autoethnography, archival research, and semi-structured interviews with residents. The second paper uses Census and EPA Brownfield data from 1990-2017 to examine the national trends of brownfield redevelopment and gentrification in the U.S. using quantitative descriptives and paired t-tests. The third paper a multilevel liner regression analysis that examines the relationship between brownfield redevelopment and race / ethnicity in the U.S. All three papers demonstrate significant evidence of brownfield redevelopment and gentrif (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2020, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

The depletion of natural resources as a byproduct of widespread, global economic growth has urged several entrepreneurs to think about the environment when starting or conducting business. However, several entrepreneurs and smaller-sized firms struggle with implementing environmentally conscious business practices, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which represent more than 95% of all private sector firms, and are, thus, worth studying in the context of environmental impacts. This research uses survey methods to assess and better comprehend the key drivers and barriers of green business practices by SMEs in the State of Ohio specifically. Results from this study show that a majority of the respondents reported that they have implemented green practices within their business. The two main drivers for engaging in those practices are internal motivations and the opportunity to obtain a better public image. However, respondents also mentioned a lack of capital as the central barrier to implementing green business practices. These results can be used by government and business actors, especially in Ohio, as a benchmark to consider better strategies for implementing green business techniques. Overall, this work helps to better discern best practices and ways to develop more prosperous SMEs without undermining the quality of the environment.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, American Culture Studies

Focusing on the lived experiences of media producers, this study provides one of the first global and industry-level analyses of the wildlife film industry and represents the first phenomenological and hermeneutic approach to wildlife filmmaking. The author draws on 13 in-depth interviews with a diverse group of freelance wildlife cinematographers, producers, directors, editors, researchers, writers, and narrators in addition to autobiographies and other accounts from professional wildlife filmmakers. Using systematic qualitative analysis of interview texts, the author examines the production of wildlife film from a critical interdisciplinary perspective and answers the following research questions. How are media representations of Nature shaped and conditioned by media forms and conditions production? How does the production ecology of wildlife filmmaking shape the content of specific wildlife films? What are the dominant interests of the wildlife film industry? How do wildlife filmmakers represent themselves and their work in an era of environmental crisis? Finally, how do wildlife filmmakers form communities of shared practices, languages, and cultural understandings of the world? Kennedy ultimately argues that the concept of the production of Nature dovetails with a production studies approach and provides a useful framework for evaluating the symbolic power of media institutions in shaping environmental discourse and cultural understandings of Nature. There is, in fact, nothing natural about the processes by which audiences learn about or understand the concepts of `Nature' and `environment' and studying cultural understandings of nature necessarily involves studying of consciousness and the objects of direct experience in the phenomenological tradition Although, the author demonstrates that the wildlife film industry is the ideal object of study for assessing the widening gap between mass-market Nature imagery and real social and environmental chang (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2019, Theatre and Film

In the years following the Great Recession (2007-2009), Detroit has seen an increase in financial investments of which have varied effects for residents across the city; so much so, that many Detroiters are claiming there are two Detroits: “Detroit” and “New Detroit.” “New Detroit” is an small area that has experienced a huge influx of residential and commercial investment. They feature new and/or remodeled housing and commercial services like grocery stores, coffee shops, and new restaurants. These areas are populated with mostly white residents. In “Detroit,” there is a large concentration of divested areas in the city. There is very little remodeled or new housing. There are little to no services like grocery stores or shopping areas. These areas are populated by an overwhelming majority of Black residents. It would appear on the surface that many Black Detroiters who reside in “Detroit” would feel outraged. Yet, in my findings, the Black Detroiters that I spoke with understood that in order to have any chance of basic necessities like safe neighborhoods and financial investment in local infrastructure and public schools, Detroit needs white people. They see more than anyone the complicated entanglements of Black Detroit performativity within racial social spaces that tie them to divested physical places in the city. The field of performance studies offers researchers a myriad of ways to elucidate how Black identity is co-constituted in racial social and physical spaces with varied effects on how Black Detroiters see themselves. In the field of human and social geography, and environmental psychology, the connection among place attachment and racial social spaces offer additional opportunities to see the symbolic and material ways that racism is embedded in the spatiality of social life. In this study, I found that racial social space as materiality can help researchers epistemologically understand how racism permeates and affects the ways in which Black D (open full item for complete abstract)