Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, East Asian Studies

Martial arts in China has always had multiple meanings, depending on the context in which it was understood. This project seeks to evaluate what the different meanings of martial arts changed over the Qing period and how different people employed these understandings at different times and in different circumstances. By placing martial arts as the focal point of analysis, something rarely seen in academic scholarship, this project highlights how there the definition of martial arts has always been in flux and it is precisely that lack of definition that has made it useful. This project begins by focusing on establishing a historical overview of the circumstances during the Qing period within which martial arts developed. It also analyzes and defines both the important analytical and local terminology used in relation to discourse surrounding the martial arts. Chapter 1 looks at official documents and analyzes how the Qing court understood martial arts as a means of creating a political narrative and how the form of that narrative changed during the Qing, depending on the situations that required court intervention. Chapter 2 will analyze how Han martial artists employed their martial arts as a means of developing or preserving a sense of ethnic strength. Chapter 3 expands the discussion include how Han men and women reimagined their own gender identity using martial arts practice and discourse. Chapter 3 also highlights how literature written by Han women was able to use martial arts practice as a means of breaking down previous gender norms, while stories written by Manchu men used female martial artist character to push social agendas. This project will look at the changing meanings of martial arts in the Qing, laying the groundwork for future scholarship.

Committee: Ying Zhang (Advisor); Morgan Liu (Committee Member); Patricia Sieber (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Music Ethnomusicology

The Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira has become an increasingly popular sport in the United States. Capoeira performances consist of a back-and-forth exchange of movements between two players in conjunction with a musical ensemble to accompany the physical display. Since the introduction of capoeira in the United States in the 1970s, capoeira has become the focus of various social institutions. The objective of this thesis is to acknowledge and problematize the impact American culture has made on capoeira aesthetics. The methods for this thesis included research in the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, post-colonial theory, and transatlantic studies. Fieldwork was conducted to acquire first hand accounts of capoeira practitioners from the Michigan Center for Capoeira. Lastly, an analysis of the portrayal of capoeira in the media examines how capoeira is showcased to audiences in the United States. Historical accounts, academic discourse, capoeira practitioners, and popular culture reveal how American culture has received capoeira. My research has shown that capoeira culture is represented and interpreted by various groups, such as scholars, American capoeira academies, and the media. These different interpretations have resulted in the displacement, fragmentation, or misrepresentation of capoeira history in the context of American culture. I conclude that dominant social structures have inherently changed how capoeira is discussed in academia, practiced in American academies, and portrayed in the media. Dominant social structures in the United States favor product over process. For capoeira, valuing product over process means highlighting performance and devaluing various Afro-diasporic rituals and practices. My solution to avoid fragmentation and misinterpretation of capoeira culture is to reiterate the importance of the African diaspora to practicing capoeira students in the United States. Acknowled (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kara Attrep (Advisor); Megan Rancier (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Dance; Ethnic Studies; History; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Music; Music Education

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

"The Other Side of Fun" is a collection of creative non-fiction essays that examine the relationship between several cultural pastimes and our society as a whole. The thoughts, feelings, and observations made throughout these essays are reflections of my time spent working various jobs pertaining to some form of entertainment. "Mayflies" explores my time as a game-day security worker for the Cleveland Indians, examining the relationship between unionized labor and the lifestyle that encompasses it. "Spiders" chronicles my time spent as a Resident Assistant at Cleveland State, investigating the deep web and the potential dangers that technology can bring. "House Rules" details my experiences at the Jack Casino, exploring society's obsession with wealth. "Ghosts" looks at society's use of tradition, documenting an evening spent working as a bouncer at one of the busiest bars the night before Halloween. Last is "Cutting Weight", an essay that discusses the world of organized cage-fighting and the impact it has had on both our culture and my own life. These essays serve as a critique to the way our world operates; a collection of observations that look to challenge the reader's perception of our societal ideologies and values.

Committee: Ted Lardner Ph.D. (Advisor); Caryl Pagel MFA (Committee Member); Imad Rahman MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Journalism; Language Arts; Modern Literature; Sociology

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2017, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

The contributions martial arts training can make to mental health treatment have scarcely been explored by researchers in psychology. Practitioners of martial arts, such as karate, report that the training improves self-esteem, concentration, and emotional well-being. Several studies have provided empirical evidence in support of these anecdotal reports, but very few have utilized participants who have advanced training in martial arts to examine the emotional impact such training has across time. This study takes a phenomenological approach to studying the emotional effects training has had on master-level martial artists (fourth-degree black belt or higher) in the discipline of karate. Eight participants were interviewed to identify how karate has impacted their personal lives as well as the lives of the students they have trained. The themes identified verify that practicing martial arts increases self-esteem, emotional well-being, memory, prosocial behaviors, and humility. These expert participants also voiced that many of their students – who suffered with a range of emotional conditions – experienced similar benefits from even brief (three to six months) practice of their martial art. The eight karate masters interviewed all report that their martial arts training positively impacted their emotional lives and mental functioning, but empirical research is needed to verify and quantify the positive effects karate training can have on emotional health. This Dissertation is available in Open Access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu and OhioLink ETD Center, http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Daniel Schwartz Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Christopher Howard Psy.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Christine DiBlasio Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Clinical Psychology; Counseling Psychology; Psychology; Spirituality

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2011, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Buddhist imagery in The Woman Warrior can be interpreted as part of a Buddhist journey, a journey to observe and realize the nature of the self as mutable and indefinable; this concept of self becomes transcendent through the novel to the reader by a participatory process which calls for insight beyond the illusion created by the narrative itself. Through an exploration of Buddhist inspired images – silence, seated mediation, the concept of the self as observer, koan, martial arts, the role of suffering and even aspects of transmigration and time – the struggle or journey to define a self transcends the idea of cultural identity and linear narrative that adds to existing critical discussions of the text.

Committee: F. Jeff Karem PhD (Advisor); Jennifer Jeffers PhD (Committee Member); James Marino PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

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

In this project, I studied the music used in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events and connect it to greater themes and aspects of social study. By examining the events of the UFC and how music is used, I focused primarily on three issues that create a multi-layered understanding of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters and the cultivation of identity. First, I examined ideas of identity formation and cultivation. Since each fighter in UFC events enters his fight to a specific, and self-chosen, musical piece, different aspects of identity including race, political views, gender ideologies, and class are outwardly projected to fans and other fighters with the choice of entrance music. This type of musical representation of identity has been discussed (although not always in relation to sports) in works by past scholars (Kun, 2005; Hamera, 2005; Garrett, 2008; Burton, 2010; Mcleod, 2011). Second, after establishing a deeper sense of socio-cultural fighter identity through entrance music, this project examined ideas of nationalism within the UFC. Although traces of nationalism fall within the purview of entrance music and identity, the UFC aids in the nationalistic representations of their fighters by utilizing different tactics of marketing and fighter branding. Lastly, this project built upon the above-mentioned issues of identity and nationality to appropriately discuss aspects of how the UFC attempts to depict fighter character to create a “good vs. bad” marketable binary. Although the UFC and its fighters vehemently craft and cultivate a specific projection of who and what they are, the ultimate goal is to convince and sell these projections to UFC fans. And as a result, fights often mark a conflict of not only two fighters, but two contrasting identities as well. In conclusion, it is my hope that the project I propose here will add to the canon of studies involving music and spectacle, and introduces to music scholarship a previously unexplored area within the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Megan Rancier (Advisor); Kara Attrep (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies

This study investigated aikido, a martial art that emphasizes non-violent conflict resolution. After an extensive period of preliminary research including personal study of aikido and historiographical contextualization of aikido lore, fifteen aikido students and instructors were interviewed, and thirty-four students were observed during a total of sixty-four classes at two different aikido schools, each of which were led by female head instructors who taught a mixed-sex student body. Ethnographic data was analyzed from a multidisciplinary perspective that blends feminist cultural studies with decolonial and psychoanalytic theories. Connections between research participants' understandings of the concept of power and their approaches to conflict resolution are explored. Participants described power as: physically internal, the ability to be grounded and centered, the ability to direct and re-direct energy, the ability to maintain awareness of one's self and environment, and the ability to cultivate growth. Study participants' sense of generative power resonated interpersonally through participants' self-reported and observed conflict resolution strategies, which include: maintaining awareness of one's environment, adjusting one's posture through practices called centering and grounding, not fighting by turning (tenkan) and blending with one's "opponent" while entering (irimi) the conflict with measured assertiveness, and maintaining a capacity for a wide range of reactions (ukemi). Participants demonstrated an ability to think about and productively engage with large-scale social conflicts (such as gender violence) by relying on philosophically and kinesthetically sophisticated understandings of links between the personal and the political. This is because the movement practice aikido challenges colonial ways of knowing by functioning as an embodied meta-ideological deconstruction, one of several (r)evolutionary tactics discussed in decolonial feminist theory. This (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vikki Krane Ph.D. (Advisor); Ellen Berry Ph.D. (Committee Member); Marv Belzer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Don Callen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Christina Guenther Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; Alternative Dispute Resolution; American History; American Studies; Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Asian American Studies; Communication; Comparative; Cultural Anthropology; Dance; Education; Education Philosophy; Ethics; Ethnic Studies; Fine Arts; Folklore; Gender Studies; Kinesiology; Modern History; Multicultural Education; Peace Studies; Pedagogy; Performing Arts; Philosophy; Physical Education; Rhetoric; Sociolinguistics; Sports Management; Sustainability; Womens Studies; World History