Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Art Education

This dissertation examines the idea that the identity of Indian artist educators and consequently Indian art education is an assemblage of socio-cultural and ideological experience and influence, and of disciplinary transgressions into pedagogical borderlands. The primary source for the concept of assemblage as employed in this study is the writing of Deleuze and Guattari. I identify and analyze three assemblages of identity, namely: a) postcolonial self-consciousness, b) disciplinary organization, and c) social organization, to consider how art education might be approached ‘other'wise in theory and practice. This analysis is based on narratives of learning, teaching and ideology that emerge in engaging composite voices of urban Indian art educators on their practice, with articulations of policy and curriculum voices. I employ a conceptual framework of ontological hybridity that folds Indian Vedanta philosophy onto concepts of Deleuze and Guattari, such as assemblage, rhizome, and space. I do so in context of developments in curriculum and pedagogy in art education on disciplinary and social levels. I place my dissertation within the discourse of postcolonial globalization theory, exploring the concept of ambivalence in relation to identity. I employ a methodology located in the borderlands of narrative inquiry and grounded theory.

Committee: Kevin Tavin PhD (Advisor); Sydney Walker PhD (Committee Member); Christine Ballengee-Morris PhD (Committee Member); Deborah Smith-Shank PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education Philosophy; Multicultural Education; Pedagogy; South Asian Studies; Teacher Education

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2007, Religion

This thesis provides an intellectual biography of the Perennialist philosopher and Sufi Shaykh Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998). I have argued that Schuon's message is best understood as an autonomous path of knowledge (jnana-marga), ritually based on Islam but centered on the Religio Perennis. I have also compared and contrasted it to certain metaphysical doctrines and contemplative disciplines of the Hindu monastic traditions (Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, Samkhya-yoga, Kashmiri Shaivism, etc…) and certain Gnostic schools of Sufism (wahdat al-wujud, Shadhili ritual practice, etc…), to none of which can it be reduced in the last instance.

Committee: Elizabeth Wilson (Advisor) Subjects: Religion, Philosophy of

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2005, Mass Communication

Popular films sometimes feature female characters who confront the limitations of individual subjectivity in Western cultures. This thesis reviews and synthesizes a few of the competing interpretations of Lacanian psychoanalysis and reinterprets some of his work by noting its overlap with the nondualistic metaphysical traditions that he refers to in it. These reinterpretations provide a way to understand both Lacan and these popular films more clearly and completely. The thesis concludes with an application of this theoretical synthesis to two popular films: Thelma & Louise and The Piano. Both films depict female characters struggling with the limitations of individual subjectivity, the feeling of lack, and the relationship of these issues to gender in their cultures. Ultimately, The Piano more successfully conveys the situation of a symbol-using human who identifies as a woman, though neither film can yet portray a happy ending for such a person.

Committee: Lisa McLaughlin (Advisor) Subjects: