Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, American Culture Studies

This dissertation reveals the commonality of public and active women who used creative trades to substantiate their lives in Virginia from 1716-1800. A creative tradeswoman, an existence identified by this scholarship, was an individual who used her musical, dancing, and singing abilities to incur wages. This study focuses on prominent creative tradeswomen such as Mrs. Sully and Mrs. Pick, a traveling musical duo; the singing actresses of the Hallam; Mary Stagg, assembly manager and contributor to the first theater in Williamsburg; Baroness Barbara deGraffenreit, who competed for Williamsburg's premier dancing manager position; and Mrs.Ann Neill, an enterprising music teacher. Despite times of subordination, these women showcased unique forms of creative agency such as acquiring widespread idolization or organizing traveling musical duos. Creative tradeswomen challenged the conventional oppositions between trade and gentry women, education and creative ability, submission and dominance, amateur and professional culture, public and private spaces. The histories of creative tradeswomen demonstrate the fluidity between these binaries while also remapping cultural and social identities as informed by power, subjectivity, trade, music, and dance. As a result, this dissertation illustrates creative tradeswomen as situated within paradoxical systems of power and subordination. The archives at the Rockefeller Library, Virginia Historical Society, New York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress supported the research. This dissertation utilizes a feminist historiography methodology, incorporating a consideration of cultural and social conditions that bring forward creative women’s untold histories. Interdisciplinary in nature, this study makes points of contact between women’s history, cultural history, and gender studies. Creative tradeswomen expands the research on women's labor while locating gender and class as major influencers informing a wom (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew M. Schocket Ph.D. (Advisor); Katherine L. Meizel Ph.D. (Other); Mary Natvig Ph.D. (Committee Member); Clayton F. Rosati Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Music; Performing Arts; Theater History; Womens Studies

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2023, College-Conservatory of Music: Theory

Women composers Varvara Gaigerova (1903-1944), Lucija Garuta (1907-1977), Zara Levina (1906-1976), and Stefania Turkevych (1898-1977) share striking similarities in compositional approach that set them apart from their contemporaries—both men and women—in the Soviet Union. My methodology combines the approaches of comparative literature scholar Joanna Kot and music theorist Ellie Hisama to create historically informed analyses which consider personal idioms and the connection between the composers' music and their identities. Each analysis connects musical elements—including significant deviations in formal structures, non-Russian language and source material, religious allusions, and the juxtaposition of twentieth-century compositional techniques with older musical styles—with research from other fields. The resulting readings highlight the ways, both similar and disparate, that these composers enacted musical rebellion. This study requires grappling with the complexity of sociopolitical climates. Throughout this study's focal time period—between the years 1915 and 1960—ideologies and political, cultural, and social actions were fluctuating frequently. The introduction and perpetuation of certain ideologies, cultural myths, and societal practices impacted the lives and works of Gaigerova, Garuta, Levina, and Turkevych in a variety of ways, such as through their education, their national identity, or their daily lives. Pervasive ideological changes that are pertinent to the analysis of their music include—but are not limited to—Marxism, the double burden, the doctrine of socialist realism, formalism, and feminism. Drawing from and building upon methodologies for music, literature, drama, and politics, this dissertation presents analyses highlighting how these elements emerge from attitudes toward rebellion, identity, feminism, and gender roles in Soviet, Ukrainian, and Baltic society.

Committee: Christopher Segall Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Cristina Losada Ph.D. (Committee Member); Shelina Brown Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, English

Drawing on Black feminist thought, queer theory, and queer of color critique, Touching History argues that Black women in the Post-Civil Rights era have employed diverse technologies in order to produce fictionalized narratives which counter the neoliberal imperative to forget the past. Black feminist and queer theorists have described the potential for artistic imaginings to address gaps in the historical record and Touching History follows this line of theory. Touching History examines an archive of Black women's cultural productions since the 1970s which includes novels, short stories, essays, experimental video film, digital music videos and visual albums. Reading across these diverse media and genres, this project considers how Black women have made use of the affordances of specific technologies in order to tell stories which may be fictional yet reveal “a kind of truth” about the embodied and affective experiences of the past. These mediated images and narratives serve as extensions of their bodies that push against static ideas of the Black female body. Whether it's the image in a film or video, or the digital avatar presented through social media, Touching History argues these representations are intimately linked to the corporeal presence of the Black female artist. Alongside technologies of the video camera and the digital camera, this project also considers other embodied technologies of expression including sadomasochism and the book and considers how these also provide a means for Black women to touch history. Examining the novels of Thulani Davis and Marci Blackman, the short fiction of Alice Walker, the experimental films of Cheryl Dunye, and music videos created by singers Erykah Badu and Beyonce, this project examines the expression of queer desires by Black women. In this project “queer” is not synonymous with gay and lesbian or same-sex desires, although it may at times be used to describe them. Queer desires in this project also include the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Martin Joseph Ponce PhD (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; Film Studies; Literature; Womens Studies

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2011, Music Ethnomusicology

This thesis focuses on sha'bi music, a style of popular music in the Arab world. More specifically, it discusses the role of women in sha'bi music, focusing on singers Nancy Ajram and Haifa Wehbe as examples of female pop singers. I take a feminist approach to understanding the lives, images, and legacies of two of the most influential female singers of the twentieth century, Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, and then I explore how these legacies have impacted the careers and societal expectations of Ajram and Wehbe. Several issues are explicated in the thesis, including the historic progression of popular music, the impacts of globalization and westernization, and the status of women as performers in the Arab world. The fan bases of the various female sha'bi singers are explored to examine why people are drawn to popular music, how youth cultures utilize music to define their generations, and why some people in the Arab world have problems with this music and/or with the singers: their lyrics, clothing, dancing bodies, and music videos. My ethnography on these issues among Arabs in Bowling Green, Ohio, reveals how members of the diaspora address the tensions of this music and the images of female performers. I posit that, while there are many thousands of sha'bi fans of such female performers as of Ajram and Wehbe, the many critical voices are comparing these women to the constructed images and legacies of the luminaries, Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, and rejecting the notions of globalization that are influencing the current generations in most Arab countries.

Committee: David Harnish (Advisor); Kara Attrep (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2008, American Culture Studies/Popular Culture

Icelandic pop star Bjork has spent her career breaking down boundaries, blurring lines, and complicating binaries between perceived opposites. Examining a variety of both primary and secondary sources, this study looks at the ways that Bjork challenges the binary constructions of "high" and "low" art, nature and technology, and feminism and traditional femininity, and also proposes that her uniquely postmodern approach to blurring boundaries can be a model for a better society in general. This study contends that Bjork serves as a symbol of what might be possible if humans stopped constructing boundaries between everything from musical styles to national borders, and as a model for how people can focus on their commonalities while still respecting the freedom of individual expression. This is particularly important in the United States of America, a place where despite its infinite potential for cultural pluralism and collaboration, there are as many (or more) divisions between people based upon race, class, gender, and religion as anywhere else in the world.

Committee: Kimberly Coates PhD (Committee Chair); Robert Sloane (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Mass Media; Music; Technology; Womens Studies

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2005, Music Ethnomusicology

Bessie Smith: an American Icon from Three Perspectives examines biographies, literary studies, and black feminist writings about the quintessential blueswoman of the 1920s American recording industry. Problems have arisen from each group of scholars interpreting Smith's contributions and importance to American culture differently, often at the expense of someone else's viewpoint. Historically, biographers tried to dispel myths in order to determine the true events of Smith's life, but dismissed the necessity of myth in shaping her legacy. Literary scholars analyzed Smith's lyrics for deeper social meanings and contributions to literature, but overlooked her role as a performer. Black feminists acknowledged Smith as a model for strong African-American womanhood among the urban working-class, but neglected her innovations as a musician. All of these perspectives contribute to our overall understanding of Smith, but possess fundamental flaws. I have examined nearly fifty years of Bessie Smith scholarship, considering the socio-cultural backgrounds, time periods, genders, and research limitations of scholars representing these various groups. Ultimately, their biases compromise our understanding of Smith. To address this problem, future researchers need to look beyond individual histories to understand the reasoning and research processes that created them.

Committee: Steven Cornelius (Advisor) Subjects:

MA, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

The erhu is a traditional Chinese bowed lute with a history of more than a thousand years. However, the art of erhu performance as people know today dates back to only the early twentieth century. Throughout its long history, men were the only performers of the instrument at the early stage. Political and social developments in China over the past century have shifted the gender associations of the instrument such that female erhu musicians far outnumber that of male musicians today. This thesis will examine circumstances related to public policy, the economy, transitions in traditional norms and educational systems in China that resulted in this shift of gender roles related to the erhu, changes of creation of erhu compositions, as well as the proliferation of erhu virtuosos and educators throughout the country over the past one hundred-plus years.

Committee: Andrew Shahriari (Advisor); Jennifer Johnstone (Committee Member); Janine Tiffe (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Music

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

Female figures are rarely prominent characters in classic literature, nor are they featured in history. Many of them are often remembered only in relation to their male counterparts. Such is not the case for subjects of three contemporary dramatic vocal works, each of which reimagines and engages with familiar female characters from history, literature, and myth. Three versions of Shakespeare's Ophelia manifest in Amy Beth Kirsten's chamber opera Ophelia Forever, three conceptions of the siren myth interact in Kate Soper's music theater piece Here Be Sirens, and five wives of Henry VIII take center stage in Libby Larsen's song cycle Try Me, Good King: The Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII. In this thesis, I investigate how contemporary composers portray and dramatically construct female characters through music and the voice. Although I am not using a specific feminist approach, the discussion itself is inherently feminist as it critiques the societal structures that surround these familiar women as well as the gendered roles they are expected to fulfill. Building on interviews I conducted with each of the composers, I engage in hermeneutic musical analysis by observing the conformation or refusal of operatic vocal conventions, studying text-music relationships, and interpreting the compositional voice of each composer. I argue these female characters are empowered because these pieces expose the sexism embedded in their past artistic and historical representations. I also suggest, however, that although all three of these pieces give voice only to women, they also demonstrate that the influence and reach of men is still very present. Nevertheless, in dramatizing these familiar figures in a musical setting, these composers attribute agency to females who have traditionally lacked voices of their own.

Committee: Eftychia Papanikolaou Ph.D. (Advisor); Ryan Ebright Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender Studies; History; Music