PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2023, College-Conservatory of Music: Music (Musicology)

In the late nineteenth century, the flow of people, material, and ideas between Europe and the United States brought many values and practices from one culture to another, contributing to various ideas surrounding the articulation of U.S. national identity. Through the convergence of the international prominence of Shakespeare, the transatlantic discourse of musical style and taste, and the unique perspectives of Shakespeare and music embodied in five contemporary Hamlet compositions, this dissertation tells novel and significant stories about the intercultural dynamics at play in the efforts to articulate a distinct U.S. national cultural identity in the late nineteenth century. Each case study of Hamlet music employs the methodology of cultural transfer to parse the exchange of aesthetics and patterns of musical thought operating through each composition and performance as they participate in broader trends of defining U.S. national identity. The first two case studies feature New York performances of programmatic Hamlet music: Theodore Thomas's 1873 world premiere of Franz Liszt's symphonic poem, Hamlet, and Frank Van der Stucken's 1887 American Festival featuring a performance of Edward MacDowell's symphonic poem, Hamlet. Ophelia. Zwei Gedichte fur grosses Orchester, in the festival's first concert. The next case study turns to opera, examining the 1884 performance of Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet by Henry Abbey's Metropolitan Opera company in Cincinnati's Fourth Opera Festival. The final two case studies explore incidental music accompanying theatrical settings of Hamlet and their concert hall adaptations manifesting as overtures and orchestral suites: Walter Damrosch's 1891 performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Hamlet overture at the New York Symphony Society's inaugural concert at Music Hall (present-day Carnegie Hall) and George Henschel's 1892 performance of his own Suite from the Music to Shakespeare's “Hamlet” with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jonathan Kregor Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Douglas Shadle Ph.D. (Committee Member); Stephen Meyer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Shelina Brown Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

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

This study focuses on race, sexuality, and gender in relation to the reading and performance of Shakespearean drama. Taking an intersectional approach, I bring to bear a wide range of theoretical and critical approaches, including scholarship across the fields of affect and queer theory and critical race, performance, and transgender studies in order to explore contemporary failures to account for difference in the reading, editing, and performing of Shakespeare's plays. In the first chapter I argue that the often-overlooked multiple dimensions of the affect generated by the performance of female actors, what I call affective complexity, in plays such as "Measure for Measure," "Titus Andronicus," and "Othello" is valuable and in fact frequently central to an audience's reception of a play. In the second chapter I argue for a more inclusive view of sexuality in "Romeo and Juliet" through an interrogation of the editorial emendations in several contemporary editions, each of which assume heteronormative readings of the play that ignore its queer performance history. In my third chapter I argue that the underlying antiblack dialectic embedded in "Othello" necessitates its careful reading through the lens provided by critical race theory in order to understand the way the play frames itself as a conversation about the ontological status of Black humanity. The fourth chapter explores readings of "Hamlet" and "Twelfth Night" through the lens of transgender rage, a perspective that makes clear that the rage expressed by characters such as Shylock, Hamlet, and Malvolio are the result of the failure of their “disguises”: the denial of their characters to express their chosen gender presentation. Finally, the conclusion discusses the benefits and challenges of my own attempts as a director to experiment with nontraditional casting within performances of Shakespeare's plays by exploring the potentiality within them for nonbinary and transgender presence.

Committee: Ana Puga (Advisor); Shannon Winnubst (Committee Member); Jennifer Higginbotham (Committee Member); William Worthen (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Black Studies; British and Irish Literature; Comparative Literature; Film Studies; Fine Arts; Gender Studies; History; Literature; Pedagogy; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies; Womens Studies

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

This research also demonstrated the potential for using recent spatial-analytical methodologies to assess the impact of insurgency and counterinsurgency doctrines employed in the conflict. GIS techniques allows one to compile and geo-reference different historical datasets which can be then used by statistical methods such as point pattern analysis and GWR to ascertain the level of success of these operations with respect to the control of the hamlet population.

Committee: James Tyner (Committee Chair) Subjects: Geographic Information Science

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2016, English/Literature

The arts and the sciences have coexisted for centuries, yet there have been few instances in modern academic history in which scientists and literary scholars worked together side by side, influencing each other's research and benefitting from their varying approaches and ideas. This work examines the beneficial effects that may result from a discourse between those two cultures in order to help promote a better understanding of the importance of interdisciplinarity. I chose quantum theory as a representative of the sciences and Lacan's psychoanalysis as a representative of the arts to demonstrate that a shared metalinguistic coding system can provide the basis for successful communication. Therefore, the first part of this thesis explains the two theories without using jargon or mathematical formulae to make them more accessible to a broader audience. In the next part, I analyze two Shakespearean plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet, through the scope of these theories, utilizing both their similarities and their differences. Working from the perspective of a literary scholar, my final claim is that literature can be used as an analogy to better understand both quantum theory and psychoanalysis, while at the same time, these two theories can help us understand and discover new meaning in literary works. This demonstrates that no discipline is superior to the other, and that bridging the communicational gap between them in order to combine multiple approaches and their different viewpoints will have beneficial results for both cultures, opening up an entire new spectrum of ideas and theories.

Committee: Erin Labbie Dr. (Advisor); Bill Albertini Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2014, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Infinite Jest has been viewed by champions of its cause as a solution to the defeatist irony of postmodernism and by critics as a postmodern gag in which the reader falls victim to intellectual “jest.” Exploring the text's initial affiliations with Hamlet is a fundamental move toward stabilizing Infinite Jest's status as a sincere and authentic representation of American life at the turn of the twenty-first century. The shattered nature of reality and the “stinking thinking” inherent in addiction are depicted through the narrative structure, in which the time is literally “out of joint,” and the “antic disposition” of various characters who are evocative of both the melancholic and heroic sides of the play's lead. Hamlet operates as a primary textual constraint in which the matrix of plot, device, methodology, and motif intersect and envision one of the Western world's most recognizable stories transposed on 1990s America. Infinite Jest is a closed system in which geometry and literature converge by way of a customized Oulipo method that uses constraint as an improvisatory means to inhabit the space where things “fragment into beauty” (Infinite Jest 81): the glory of infinity.

Committee: James J. Marino PhD (Advisor); Adam T, Sonstegard PhD (Committee Member); F. Jeff Karem PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Ethics; Language Arts; Philosophy; Spirituality; Theater Studies; Therapy

BA, Oberlin College, 1975, English

The purpose of this essay will be to suggest a reading of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello which I don't believe has received sufficient attention. The interpretation I will present is not meant to be suggested as the only valid reading of the plays, but as a reading which should be considered along with many other valid readings, in attempts to gain insight into these three major tragedies, and to understand their points of similarity.

Committee: Robert Pierce (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2014, English

In this paper I explore Shakespeare's Hamlet, particularly the ways in which Hamlet and the rest of the Danish court investigate modes of existential authenticity and inauthenticity. Although critics tend to disconnect Hamlet from the rest of the cast, I contend that they all equally struggle to mend the chasm between a meaningless or purposeful life by way of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. In Shakespeare's Existentialism, Charlotte Keys asserts that Shakespeare attempts to remedy this by compelling Hamlet—as well as the rest of the court—“... to sever [his] identity, [his] socially constructed self, from [his] subjectivity, [and his] internal relationship with [his] immediate and intuitive sense of self” (Keys 8). This severance may amend everyone's existential problem resulting from the search to find their authentic selves. However, I contend that the members of the Danish court—although some briefly demonstrate their awareness of their own inauthenticity—fall short of self-truth and all ultimately fall prey to their own designs. However, Hamlet represents a more complete journey for authenticity. While attempting to unmask the inauthentic people who surround him, Hamlet gradually grasps that his perceptions do not represent universal or objective facts; he grapples with the notion that he imparts meaning to his world, and that this dynamism of what his world represents not only to him, but to the whole of the Danish court, renders him mad, nullifying his philosophy and understanding of his world that was once so concrete. In the end, Hamlet possibly realizes that his meaning in life—as he suspected all along—is in his death.

Committee: Matthew Wikander (Advisor) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Literature; Neurosciences; Psychology; Theater

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2014, English

Abstract Paradise Lost and Hamlet are preoccupied with the performance of the self. These works contain deceptive characters, each obsessed with the performance of their ambitions. Milton and Shakespeare are interested in exploring how performance affects an individual consumed by thwarted ambition. Milton and Shakespeare scholars state that the works are allusions to performance. These works are similar because Satan and Hamlet are consumed by thwarted ambition. I argue that these characters perform their ambitions. Their acts reveal that they use carefully crafted performances of the self, as they strive to portray a particular role to fulfill their goals. However, Satan and Hamlet play different roles. Satan acts like a king, performing his desire to defeat the Son by asserting himself as a powerful leader. Hamlet acts like a fool, concealing his ambitious plan of revenge using his antic disposition. The roles Satan and Hamlet play conflict with their sense of self. Satan is not a powerful leader, but an individual consumed by thwarted ambition. Hamlet purposely conceals his sanity using his antic disposition. I provide a close reading of three scenes that analyzes Satan and Hamlet's ambitious acts. Abdiel's confrontation of Satan is similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's questioning of Hamlet. Abdiel challenges Satan's argument by performing his dutiful obedience to God. In turn, his act exposes Satan's ambitious disposition. Hamlet reveals Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's motives as they spy. Further complicating this argument, Satan's performance shifts when he is alone on Mt. Niphates. Satan drops his act, revealing his deep despair. I assert that my reading of these scenes reveals the carefully crafted performances of the self Satan and Hamlet use as they perform their ambitions.

Committee: Andrew Mattison (Advisor); Melissa Gregory (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1994, Psychology

Committee: Sarah Boysen (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Anthropology

This study examines the causes and effects of agricultural change in a lowland Khon Muang hamlet in Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. Lucien Hanks' classic study of agricultural change in the Central Plain of Thailand drew upon agricultural economist Ester Boserup's emphasis on population growth to explain farmers' intensification of irrigated rice fields. This study applies Hanks' model to a northern Thai multi-cropping hamlet in an intermontaine valley, which overcame annual rice deficits two decades ago due to the introduction of high-yielding rice varieties by a Royal Thai Government-U.S. Agency for International Development project. Rice yields have nearly tripled, providing food security for the hamlet. Meantime, farmers have expanded to cash-cropping in harvested rice paddies and to ecologically vulnerable hills where they grow seed maize under contract to the Thai multinational agroindustrial firm, Charoen Pokaphand Group. This study found that 76 percent of the hamlet's agricultural land area was in hill crops, or five times the amount of ground in rice paddies. Continuous hill production can pose potential problems for watershed functioning and the ecological stability of the highland area. In addition to the development intervention, an extensive road system is an impetus for change by linking farmers to middlemen and outside markets. The study concludes that Boserup's population thesis is too reductionistic because the changes in this hamlet occurred while population stabilized. Hanks' overall model provides some insight because its holism takes into account state interventions in terms of infrastructure improvements and the effects of globalization. This study conforms that environmental deterioration is not necessarily the result of poverty or low-producing agricultural systems, but it can be due to a state-promoted “development dynamic,” as asserted by geographer Philip Hirsch. This study also contributes to our understanding of north (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chung-min Chen (Advisor); Robert Agunga (Other); Richard Moore (Other); Amy Zaharlick (Other) Subjects: Anthropology, Cultural

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, English (Arts and Sciences)

This study explores the premise that the dramatic tension of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear is realized through their respective protagonists' struggle with conflicting philosophies. Though Shakespeare borrowed most of his plot structures, I will maintain that his creation and development of subsidiary characters within these plot constraints allows for an amplification of the main characters' struggle with philosophical dilemmas. Horatio, Iago, and the Fool will play their parts as foils and alter-egos to accentuate philosophical disquietudes, specifically the kind of Pyrrhonian skepticism manifest by Michel de Montaigne as contrasted with a Cartesian-like isolated essentialism. I will maintain that Montaigne's relativistic "decentring" is a harbinger of cultural materialism as distinct from Descartes' idealism, and that the adoption of, and interplay between, these respective philosophical attitudes reflects a struggle for a sense of self which significantly defines the dramatic shape of the tragedies. My analysis shall most distinctly foreground the connection between disguise, rhetoric, and dissembling and the skeptical ethos of Shakespeare's time. I shall argue that this skepticism entailed the cordoning off of theological matters with concurrent attention to worldly affairs moving toward pragmatism. When the heavenly cannot be known, it is the phenomenal that counts. I will argue that Hamlet will eschew his early isolation and hew to a Montaignian sense of self, developed from a prototype exemplified by his friend Horatio. This identification is partially predicated on his attitude toward Gertrude and Ophelia. I will suggest that though Othello's "friend" Iago is false, he is every bit as influential as Horatio is for Hamlet. Shakespeare's creation of Iago allowed him to test the limits of doubt by presenting a demi-devil in advance of Descartes' "evil genius," and Othello's attachment to Iago, with his concurrent estrangement from Desdemona, is solidified (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Samuel Crowl PhD (Committee Chair); Andrew Escobedo PhD (Committee Member); Mark Halliday PhD (Committee Member); William Condee PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: English literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2009, English/Literature

In this thesis, I examine six adaptations of the narrative known primarily through William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark to answer how so many versions of the same story can successfully exist at the same time. I use a homology proposed by Gary Bortolotti and Linda Hutcheon that explains there is a similar process behind cultural and biological adaptation. Drawing from the connection between literary adaptations and evolution developed by Bortolotti and Hutcheon, I argue there is also a connection between variation among literary adaptations of the same story and variation among species of the same organism. I determine that multiple adaptations of the same story can productively coexist during the same cultural moment if they vary enough to lessen the competition between them for an audience.

Committee: Stephannie Gearhart PhD (Advisor); Kimberly Coates PHD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; English literature; Literature

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, English/Literature

In this thesis, I expand upon Linda Hutcheon's use of the terms knowing and unknowing audiences that she briefly outlines in her book A Theory of Adaptation. Hutcheon suggests that when experiencing an adaptation, one may be a knowing audience member, someone that knows the adapted work, or an unknowing audience member, someone who is not familiar with an adapted work. Hutcheon proposes the terms knowing and unknowing audiences as a way to reorient adaptation studies to consider the experience and the knowledge of the audience members. This model runs contrary to orthodox adaptation theory or fidelity criticism, wherein the value of an adaptation is determined by its closeness to an original. Theoretical discussions that rely upon studying the closeness of an adaptation to an original text do not provide insight into the text but simply re-establish a hierarchy for an original. Thus, Hutcheon's use of the terms knowing and unknowing audiences is valuable because these terms provide new language to reinvigorate the field. Thus Hutcheon's new language presents a step toward redefining the theory and producing scholarship that explores audience literacy or literacies.

Committee: Stephannie Gearhart (Committee Chair); Kimberly Coates (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature