Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Communication Studies (Communication)

Almost seven decades following the Partition of British India in 1947, several digital projects and oral history archives originated across United States, United Kingdom, and the subcontinent focusing on collecting stories and memories of Partition witnesses and survivors. In this research project, using a critical rhetorical lens and qualitative interviewing, I analyze these projects to explore and elaborate upon digital archives, public memory, and the intricate relationship between the two. Based on the analysis, I foreground that the study of such burgeoning digital projects is critical to not only comprehend how these projects are collecting memories of the past but how the comprehension of the past is shaping our present. In essence, meanings of an important historical event such as Partition is being actively produced through such projects.

Committee: Devika Chawla (Committee Co-Chair); Risa Whitson (Committee Member); Benjamin Bates (Committee Member); Matthew deTar (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Communication; Rhetoric

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

The 1961 Campana de la Alfabetizacion (CLC) [Cuban Literacy Campaign] looms large in the Cuban historical imagination as a moment of transformation, sacrifice, and triumph. Yet, until recently, the unique aspects of the CLC that made it a national success were in danger of being forgotten, thus losing its potential as a model for future ways to mobilize a nation toward an important social goal. The primary objectives of this project were to: (1) expand the scope of the discourse to include a much larger range of lived experiences; (2) collect and preserve lived experiences as shared by the teachers themselves; (3) create a bilingual, digital, community archive, composed of oral interviews, participant ephemera, and survey data; and (4) facilitate access to this data for both public and private scholars. This research examined public history by applying a decolonizing lens to research tools that integrated oral interviews, surveys, short responses, artifact collection, and archival research. Prior research focused on a narrow segment of CLC participants, the urban youth who traveled into impoverished rural areas without running water, electricity, or beds to teach illiterate adults how to read. My approach builds on previous research to include a wider array of teachers who were equally effective in eradicating illiteracy in Cuba. I analyzed conflicting statistics regarding the CLC and provided an explanation of the discrepancies. This research employs decolonizing research methodologies by implementing a culturally responsive, reflexive approach to the research collection and collaboration. Alfabetizadores (teachers) helped shape the interview and survey questions and interviewed each other. Participants continue to assist in curating a digital collection of ephemera, survey data, and oral interviews that will be accessible to the public.

Committee: Alesia Maltz PhD (Committee Chair); Elizabeth McCann PhD (Committee Member); Catherine Murphy MS (Committee Member); Malinda Wade PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Caribbean Studies; Education; Environmental Studies; History; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Literacy

MFA, Kent State University, 0, College of Communication and Information / School of Visual Communication Design

Despite their breadth, digital archives often cannot account for the depth of context supplied by written historical narrative. In digital archives, artifacts exist in and of themselves, typically without a context connecting one artifact with another. How then might we visualize artifacts in digital archives as an aggregate account of design history rather than a sequence of separate pieces? How might we connect design artifacts without narrative context? This thesis investigates ways that history has been visualized in the past, as well as ways in which information design applies to digital design archives as data sets. Building on previous visual systems, this thesis proposes a visual taxonomy for digital design archives that provides a framework for thematic analysis.

Committee: Jessica Barness MFA (Advisor); Aoife Mooney MFA (Committee Member); Ken Visocky O'Grady MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, American Culture Studies

The migration flows that peaked during the 2015-2016 “refugee crisis” have had long-lasting effects to the countries of the European South. The latter have been deemed as border wardens of the European Union, filtering the “undesirables” who pose a threat to the European North, and by extension a proclaimed “Western way of life.” This project examines the living conditions of displaced persons and the systems of support in place for them in the European borderlands of Greece, with a case study of Crete. Starting from an archival ethnography and textual analysis of the “crisis” in an institutional archive, the ethnographic research focuses on the experiences of humanitarian workers and displaced persons on the island of Crete, where reception programs for asylum seekers and refugees run since 2017. Through in-depth ethnographic interviews with six (6) displaced persons and (24) humanitarian workers, the project analyzes the views, experiences, and strategies employed by humanitarian workers in protection and assistance programs for asylum seekers and refugees that dominate the Greek borderlands. Moreover, the focus on the constant categorization of beneficiaries by Greek and European authorities affects State policies and fieldwork daily, shaping the views of the displaced persons about themselves, their relationship to authorities, and the local community. The present research finds that in Greece the nature of services offered is temporary, without any policies for the future, even though participants acknowledge that migration flows towards Europe through Greece will only increase in the future.The lack of integration policies results in further reinforcing the role of Greece as a country-intermediary stop for displaced persons coming to Europe, offering few incentives for displaced persons to stay; in successful cases of integration, neighborhood communities have been critical in covering systemic deficiencies.

Committee: Susana Peña Dr. (Advisor); Erin Felicia Labbie Dr. (Other); Yiorgos Anagnostou Dr. (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Committee Member); Michaela Walsh Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Ethnic Studies; European Studies; Social Research; Social Work

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, English

I examine the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN), an open-access archives of personal stories about literacy. Examining the DALN's structure, implicit values, and contents, I argue that the DALN is both a queer and queering resource for composition studies, and may help expand understandings of literacy, expertise, and the relevancy of the personal and openness in composition classrooms and research. In this context, queerness is not about sexuality or gender but a heuristic: a way to critically question the traditional frameworks and epistemologies used to interpret and explore the world. My overarching research questions are: 1. What might the DALN (as a classroom and research resource) and queerness (as an epistemological and ontological concept) offer to the discipline of composition studies? 2. To what degree does the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives reflect and/or push against the epistemology and ontology of different conceptions of archives? 3. How have composition teacher-scholars positioned/used the personal, literacy narratives, and archives within composition scholarship, and how might they use the DALN to push against conventional approaches/understandings of archives and personal narratives in classrooms? 4. Does the queer nature of the DALN shape or manifest itself in teachers' perceptions of the DALN and how teachers use and discuss the DALN in their classrooms? If so, how and why, and if not, why? I argue that the DALN simultaneously embraces and resists dominant binary values (restriction/openness; academic/personal; expert-direction/self-direction) that shape the fields of archival and composition studies and may be used to queer and expand composition classrooms, providing richer understandings of archives, personal literacy narratives, and queerness. The DALN both reflects and resists archival values and practices originating in archival studies, queering understandings of what an archives can be, look like, an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Cynthia L. Selfe Ph.D (Advisor); Scott L. DeWitt D.A. (Committee Member); Beverly J. Moss Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Higher Education; Literacy; Pedagogy; Rhetoric; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Comparative Studies

"The Future of American Memory" focuses on media preservation in the United States since the 1930s. It works at the intersection of American studies, critical race studies, visual culture, and media archaeology to trace the historical emergence of the desire to preserve media permanently across three key moments in American history. Part I addresses the 1930s, when scientists carried out the first systematic studies on the causes of deterioration in paper and microfilm records. By the end of the decade, American corporations used knowledge from these studies to build the first two time capsules that aimed to preserve a permanent record of civilization's achievements. Part II addresses the 1950s, when Cold War paranoia about nuclear attacks led government agencies, banks, insurance companies, and other corporations to invest in secure, bombproof, underground storage for their records. Part III addresses the contemporary moment, from the mid-1990s to the present. My case study is the Bettmann Archive of historical photographs, preserved at the Corbis Film Preservation Facility in a securitized, refrigerated vault located 220 feet underground. Corbis, an image licensing company owned solely by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, refrigerates and digitizes the photographs in the Bettmann Archive in order to preserve them for 10,000 to 15,000 years. In my Epilogue, I discuss geographer/artist Trevor Paglen's project, The Last Pictures. Paglen micro-etched 100 images onto a silicon disc, then launched it into outer space on the communications satellite Echostar XVI, where it will orbit the earth, he claims, for several billion years. I conclude that a "preservation complex" has emerged in American culture since the 1930s. This complex is both institutional--a proliferating network of securitized, temperature-controlled spaces for preserving media--and psychic--the anxieties of corporate and state scientists, librarians, and archivists have to some degree become the anxieties of (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Barry Shank Ph.D. (Advisor); Ruby Tapia Ph.D. (Advisor); Kris Paulsen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Hugh Urban Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; American Studies; Ethnic Studies; Film Studies; History; Science History; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2010, American Culture Studies/Popular Culture

Acknowledging the unique ontological nature of sound recording, this project seeks to outline a framework for working with archival sources in popular music scholarship. The proposed theoretical lens combines influences from cultural studies, historical audience studies, and performance studies in order to encourage a broader appreciation of the popular music archive and the identity-making cultural practices surrounding the popular music archive. Such an endeavor requires the acknowledgement of three theoretical considerations: technology, performance, and tangibility. To illustrate the breadth of readings that this approach to the popular music archive can yield, each chapter uses source material from the Music Library and Sound Recordings Archives at Bowling Green State University. Chapter Two analyzes the contents of rock promotional materials and argues that these technologies of representation code rock music according to semiotic markers of masculinity, whiteness, and mythic America. Chapter Three argues that themes of inclusion and exclusion in punk fanzines work to unite individual, localized scenes into a translocal scene that transcends time and geographical boundaries through shared narratives and common values. Chapter Four examines the construction of audience identity through teen-oriented artist biographies and argues that such technologies of representation police (female) fan behavior through narratives of “proper” fandom. Chapter Five explores themes of physical separation and reunion through the American Top 40 Long Distance Dedication segment and argues that the format's affective qualities are inextricably bound to physical embodiment and common physical vulnerability. The project concludes with a revisiting of the concepts of tangibility, performance, and technology in the age of the digital archive through brief case studies of the iPod, the play count, and the ubiquity of Auto-Tune in contemporary popular music. Ultimately, the project mak (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Schurk (Committee Chair); Vivian Patraka (Committee Member); Donald McQuarie (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Gender; History; Mass Media; Music