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

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Modernist literary movement was moving into what was arguably its peak, and authors we would now unquestioningly consider part of the Western literary canon were creating some of their greatest works. Coinciding with the more mainstream Modernist movement, there emerged a unique sub- genre of fiction on the pages of magazines with titles like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. While modernist writers; including Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and T.S. Elliot – among others – were achieving acclaim for their works; in the small corner of unique weird fiction there was one eccentric, bookish writer who rose above his own peers: Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I would argue that within the works of Lovecraft there are glimpses of modernism. Lovecraft was aware of and wrote with an understanding of the concerns of the more mainstream literature of the Modernists, and he situated his narratives and stories within a modernist framework that reflected this. Most importantly, it is the way in which Lovecraft used science and religion, and blended myth with material culture, that Lovecraft most reflects modernist leanings. It's important to make the distinction that he is not part and parcel a Modernist, but he was influenced by, interacted with, and showed modernist tendencies. There is a subtlety to the argument being made here in that Lovecraft was not Joyce, he was not Elliot, he was most definitely not Hemingway, and his fiction was by no means what we would consider traditionally modernist. In 2005 he received inclusion in the Library of America series and, although this isn't an indicator or guarantee of inclusion in a large canon, the argument that he in no way had a discourse, awareness, or did not contribute to what would be more properly termed `Modernist' warrants consideration when properly situating Lovecraft within early-twentieth century lite (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James Marino Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Adam Sonstegard Ph.D. (Committee Member); Julie Burrell Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Literature; Modern Literature

Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2022, English

Withering is a collection of seven stories rooted in an exploration of humanity's relationship with the natural world and with itself. Spanning geographies and time periods, these stories are connected in their primary impulse to reconsider passivity in the face of environmental degradation. Other prominent themes in the collection are dynamic social identities and the performative quality of those identities. The stories that comprise Withering are situated primarily in the eco-fabulist tradition, with other inspirations found in the New Weird movement and horror, as well as traditional realism. By blending genre, Withering seeks to decenter readers' understanding of reality. The uneasy and shifting reality through related but distinct genres serves to underscore themes of calamity and worlds that have been broken and reassembled in new ways. Withering challenges popular notions of crisis, environmental and otherwise, as being a purely distinct event, having a clear “before” and “after;” rather, my thesis considers crisis a degenerative process, much in the way a plant slowly withers away over time, leaf after leaf shriveling up and falling.

Committee: Joseph Bates (Committee Chair); Daisy Hernandez (Committee Member); Margaret Luongo (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Music (MM), Ohio University, 2021, Music Composition (Fine Arts)

Presence is a work for Pierrot Ensemble scored for flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion consisting of drum set and marimba. The title represents an unknown entity that is slowly consuming the fictional country of Amicea. The piece fits into a set of pieces using the Pierrot Ensemble and its subsets to tell parts of a multimedia story; other mediums include literature and visual art. This work opens and closes with a reprise of sorts like in musical theater. The main section is a slow build of a harmonic progression that becomes serial. As this is happening, each instrument tries to voice their own unique melodies, while being interrupting by others. These melodies are pentachords transposed depending on the given chord in the harmonic progression. The violin tries to bring them all together, but everything dissolves into chaos by the end.

Committee: Robert McClure (Advisor); Mark Phillips (Committee Member); Jennifer Smith (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Fine Arts; Music

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2014, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

H.P. Lovecraft, an early twentieth-century author of supernatural horror, was a materialist who believed that science had diminished the mysteries that previously existed in everyday life. To counteract this development, he felt that the arts could be a viable platform where reality, especially the dimensions of time and space, might be disrupted. His literary approach in achieving this effect was to introduce phenomena to the audience that were complex and vast in scope, potentially creating a sense of the sublime. Two particular elements that characterize such disruptive phenomena are repetition and symmetry. This dissertation considers Lovecraft's aesthetic theories and his larger body of work in order to establish a theoretical framework concerning disruption which can be applied to visual culture. As a self-described “visually minded” author, Lovecraft's literary approach bears a close relationship to visual culture, since he often appropriated existing artistic works and incorporated them through description within his literature. To further connect Lovecraft's literature and visual culture, this dissertation designates certain disruptive tropes within Lovecraft's oeuvre that may be found in later visual adaptations. Intersecting the dimensions of time and space with elements of repetition and symmetry, this analysis establishes four disruptive tropes: repetition in time (montage), symmetry in time (ideograms), repetition in space (polyocularity) and symmetry in space (non-Vitruvian architecture). The elements of repetition and symmetry work within each respective disruptive trope to undermine anthropocentric notions of time and space. In chapter 1, this analysis establishes the dynamic between first-person point of view, the “inside” and the “outside,” which characterizes the disruptive tropes discussed in subsequent chapters. In chapter 2, Lovecraft's short story “Pickman's Model” is analyzed to demonstrate how temporal repetition can result in (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Charles Buchanan Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jennie Klein Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vladimir Marchenkov Ph.D. (Committee Member); Michael Gillespie Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Film Studies; Literature