Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Spanish and Portuguese

This dissertation addresses the question of how we should approach the study of identity to advance the emancipatory goals in Latin American and Latinx studies. In answering this question, I aim to shed light on the debate about identity and its intricate connections with culture, language, and power—core themes in the humanities and social sciences. This dissertation intervenes in this debate both at the metatheoretical level—aiming to rethink the philosophical presuppositions that guide our theorizing, determine our questions, problems, values, and goals—and at the theoretical level—aiming to restructure the analytic concepts we use in our thinking. Chapter 1 critically engages with Nestor Garcia Canclini's "Culturas Hibridas", where he argues that “hybridity,” rather than “identity,” should be used to study cultural forms. By identifying the critical ontological, epistemic, linguistic, and axiological questions that any research paradigm must address, I aim to characterize both modern and postmodern paradigms and identify their potential problems. Specifically, I critique the postmodern paradigm's descriptivist view of language and metaphysics of chaos. I propose a pragmatist research paradigm that highlights the normative functions of discourse of identity, arguing that terms like “identity,” “hybridity,” and “authenticity” are better understood as linguistic devices used to negotiate cultural practices. Chapter 2 shifts focus to Latinx studies, examining Gloria Anzaldua's notion of “new mestiza consciousness.” This chapter aims to assess the theoretical and political adequacy of mestizaje, clarify the challenge of essentialism for emancipatory research, examine the influence of postmodern values on Latinx research, and showcase the philosophical advantages of a pragmatist approach combined with Systemic Functional Linguistics. I trace the emergence of Latinx studies and the importance of emancipatory values. By critically evaluating mestizaje, essentialism a (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ignacio Corona (Advisor); Fernando Unzueta (Committee Member); Paloma Martinez-Cruz (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethnic Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Popular Culture

Folklore may be transmitted and diffused through many forms of media, adding to pre-established meanings and interpretations. This may be accomplished through the reinterpretation of mythological or legendary figures or stories in popular media, such as video games, novels, or cinema. Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) such as Dungeons & Dragons are often built on a foundation of mythology and folklore, which players use as inspiration to craft their own shared stories and experiences, allowing for endless reinterpretations and transmission of those interpretations. Through forms of subtle performative acts, players may experience different resistances to the narratives of dominant society. These resistances present themselves in different ways but may come as an active choice by the players or because of underlying shifts in framework or perspective. Medusa has become a symbol of feminine rage and resistance against Patriarchal institutions, which has been reflected in the developing resources of TTRPG material. This allows players to engage with that resistance on personal scales through performance in a safe, imaginative space. The types and styles of games that players engage with are varied, but many have correlations with other forms of media. These cross-media genres bring their own motifs and underlying frameworks into the TTRPG medium. Inspired by Dark Souls, the Soulslike subgenre provides a series of rules heavily, and subtly, influenced by European Christian motifs reinterpreted through a Japanese framework in a form of hybridization. The genre conventions that have been translated into TTRPG mechanics allow players to explore these hybridizations which themselves act as a resistance against globalization in a type of cross-pollination of cultural elements. Recent additions to the TTRPG library are also showing a shift in the outlook on accessibility and respectability of the player-base. Older TTRPGs often succumb to Orientalist and insensitive approa (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristen Rudisill Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Becca Cragin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jeremy Wallach Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Sociology

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Creative Writing

The Frailty of Fruit is a young adult post-apocalyptic thriller, set in a far future subterranean farming community. The novel follows protagonist Qari Hofler, a reluctant tomato farmer, who must develop a hybrid tomato to earn her family's stewardship or be banished to the Deep Dark. Her 33rd great-grandfather's tomato strain cured violence. But because their cultural understanding of violence didn't include sexual violence, Qari develops an asexually reproductive strain with the naive hope of curing gender. Little does she know, she's not the only one with the seeds of that idea. Told in intertwining narratives, a second protagonist Iona also must race against time to beat Qari at her own hybrid game. But once the two of them find each other, with the help of a humanoid sexbot-turned-scientist named Misty, Qari and Iona realize that finding a place where they could grow together was the point all along. Told in the dystopian tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Frailty of Fruit draws upon themes of reproductive justice, hegemony, posthumanism, and the subaltern. Written in a traditional narrative structure, the novel invents an accessible story with textured social imaginings. It posits a poetic truth that utopias will always become dystopias, that will then become utopias, and so on. Like nature, human social conditions have birth and death cycles. In this way, the novel employs contemporary feminist methodologies which utilize post-structural theories to challenge the notions of stable concepts. The ground, literally and conceptually, is always shifting.

Committee: Reema Rajbanshi Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lawrence Coates Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Literature; Modern Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, French and Italian

Concepts such as race, ethnicity and cultural origin, have always been foundational in representations of cultural identities in African Literature. While these cultural concepts enabled early African writers, among whom the Negritude generation, to express transcultural articulations of racial identity, the later generations, some of whom can be identified as Migritude writers, have been presented as transnational writers whose individual experiences with migration dominate their representations of cultural identity in Africa and the Black Diasporas. Rather than framing race, ethnicity and cultural origin as essentialist and divisive cultural constructs, the prominence of mobility in contemporary African literature enables a transcultural conception of African identities. This conception of Africanness is based on a transnational understanding of race, ethnicity and origin as markers of cultural heterogeneity in the contemporary representation of African identities and encourages the preservation of cultural particularities in the Global black diaspora. Through a comparative textual analysis of four case studies from Francophone and Anglophone contexts, this dissertation questions discourses of cultural sameness and revisits the representation of the concept of Africanness in contemporary African literature. While I contend that– Alain Mabanckou's Bleu Blanc Rouge (1998), Daniel Biyaoula's l'Impasse (1996), Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007) and NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names (2013) – capture the African immigrant experience, I argue that the mobility of their black protagonists conveys a transcultural conception of Africanness. This representation of Africanness, theorized in twentieth century Negritude discourse, probes heterogenous descriptions of hybridity and shows how cultural difference contributes to transnational cultural productions between Africa and its Black diasporas. Thus, race, ethnicity and origin are fundament (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lucille Toth (Committee Co-Chair); Adeleke Adeeko (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: African Studies

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Art

This thesis provides context about my artwork American Made. American Made is composed of mix-media prints and objects focusing on recontextualizing written language, consumer goods, and national emblems from India and the U.S. Using my own cultural experiences as a case study, my method mixes prose with Hom K. Bhabha's theory of hybridity. As a result, I interpret my artwork as artifacts from my past, simultaneously as philosophical toys for my future.

Committee: Michael Mercil (Advisor); Richard Harned (Advisor); Deborah Scott A (Committee Member); Alison Crocetta (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Asian Studies; Bilingual Education; Cultural Anthropology; Fine Arts; Foreign Language; Language Arts; Linguistics; Modern Language

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Arts and Sciences: Romance Languages and Literatures

Central Americans in Movement: A Diasporic Revival of Poesia Comprometida is an interdisciplinary investigation that analyzes the sociopolitically engaged poetry of Cynthia Guardado (1985), Alexandra Lytton Regalado (1972), Ilka Oliva Corado (1979), and Javier Zamora (1990), four emerging authors of Central American descent of the U.S. diaspora. Considering their diverse diasporic conditions, this investigation employs theories of diaspora and hybridity to better understand how their differing diasporic conditions impact their sociopolitically engaged poetry. On a similar front, this investigation also compares the themes and styles of their poetry with a sampling of poesia comprometida authored by Central American poets, spanning between the 1940s and 1980s. My hypothesis is that the collective of contemporary writers of the Central American diaspora to the United States are reviving poesia comprometida in a manner that is affected by notions, concepts, and theories of diaspora and hybridity in relation to each author's diasporic conditions and experiences. The representative authors used for the literary comparison made in this investigation are Claribel Alegria (1924-2018), Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020), Roque Dalton (1935-1975 ), Jorge Debravo (1938-1975), Pompeyo del Valle (1928-2018), and Otto Raul Gonzalez (1921-2007), six widely published and researched poetas comprometidos.

Committee: Jorge Espinoza Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Maria-Paz Moreno Ph.D. (Committee Member); Nicasio Urbina Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Latin American Literature

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Contemporary Music

In this document I examine Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre's ballet Rhythmetron, adding to the scholarly literature available on the contributions of Latin American composers to the percussion ensemble repertoire. Using archival, ethnographic, and text-based analyses, I inquire into the genres, instruments, and performance practices of the piece, as well as its critical reception. This history reveals that the colonial relationship with black sound has continuously been re-inscribed in Brazilian cultural artifacts, and that institutional biases are upheld when determining what constitutes Art music. Through its inclusion of the Afro-Brazilian genres of samba and maracatu, Rhythmetron invites us to consider the hierarchies of valuation that govern what constitutes Brazilian popular music, art music, and ballet, revealing racialized power dynamics. I utilize postcolonial theories of hybridity to demonstrate that Rhythmetron dialogues with the Dance Theatre of Harlem's intent to reimagine and break racial expectations in the realm of classical ballet. This research reveals that what is guarded in our cultural memories is power-laden, and shows that more inclusive canonization practices can challenge existing narratives and create new ones.

Committee: Daniel Piccolo DMA (Advisor); Irina Stakhanova PhD (Other); Sidra Lawrence PhD (Committee Member); Marilyn Shrude D.M. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music; Performing Arts

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Anthropology

The Roman Empire sustained one of the longest and largest ruling powers in history, from the first century BC to the fourth century AD, through imperial programs of political and cultural assimilation. Prior to post-colonial reevaluations of historical colonization and imperialism, the Roman process of cultural integration (Romanization) was lauded as unidirectionally constructive and civilizing for the indigenous populations. Recent studies, however, have demonstrated that indigenous populations in culturally- and politically-reconstituted regions of the early Roman Empire experienced diminished access to resources and, consequently, poorer physiological health relative to pre-Roman occupation populations. This research tests the hypothesis that Roman rule had similar detrimental effects on an indigenous community in the eastern Empire. I test the hypothesis via a bioarchaeological study of violence, physiological health, and dietary resource allocation. Critically applying a theoretical framework of structural violence to the analysis of skeletal remains from the Roman (AD 130-270) cemetery at Oymaagac, Turkey, this study investigates how Roman imperial rule impacted locally and regionally the indigenous populations of the Pontus. Because the indigenous populations of northern Anatolia assimilated to Roman imperial rule with little political and social restructuring, it is predicted that, relative to Western indigenous populations, limited or weak evidence of structural violence existed among this rural community. Operational variables of violence—traumatic lesions (fractures), diet (carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss, calculus, abscesses, and stable carbon and nitrogen ratios), childhood growth perturbations (linear enamel hypoplasias), non-specific infection (periosteal new bone and periodontal disease), and physical activity (osteoarthritis, rotator cuff disease, and intervertebral disc disease)—utilized in bioarchaeological studies are contextualized with (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clark Larsen (Advisor); Mark Hubbe (Committee Member); Laurie Reitsema (Committee Member); Sam Stout (Committee Member) Subjects: Ancient Civilizations; Ancient History; Archaeology; Classical Studies; Epidemiology; Human Remains; Middle Eastern History; Pathology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2016, Arts and Sciences: English and Comparative Literature

“`Moments of Clarity' and Sounds of Resistance: Veiled Literary Subversions and De-Colonial Dialectics in the Art of Jay Z and Kanye West” employs rap music as an object of inquiry into the question of contemporary manifestations of anti-Black oppression, demonstrating the ways in which the art of rappers Jay Z and Kanye West in particular, covertly elucidates the conditions and discursive and ideological mechanisms of power that make possible the exploitation, repression, and destruction of Black bodies in America. In the first two chapters, I argue that this illuminative potential is, in part, what attributes to the political utility of mainstream rap music. My first goal is therefore to make apparent mainstream rap music's rightful place in Black liberation politics given its ability to unveil the functionality of age-old Eurocentric, white supremacist paradigms, such as rendering Black bodies incorrigibly animal, denying Black bodies access to subjectivity, or negating Black ontology. These ideologies give rise to exclusionary monolithic constructions of what it means to be human, pathological constructions of “blackness,” Black masculinity especially, and subsequently, the arbitrary conferral of power (to both state apparatuses and individuals racially coded as “superior”), which manifests in the form of systematic and institutional racism, and ultimately, Black male disembodiment. The final chapter of the dissertation underscores how the subversive capacity of the art form also owes to its sites of covert contestation of oppressive forces. Through Kanye West's art, my explications reveal the clandestine presence of colonial mimicry and hybridity. These de-colonial strategies undermine discursive constructions of “blackness” that emanate from what I term the "white supremacist-colonial monster." In short, visual and lyrical narratives of Jay Z's and Kanye West's art covertly illuminate how ideology justifies hegemony, given that epistemological inac (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sharon Dean P.H.A. (Committee Chair); Myriam Chancy Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sharon Lynette Jones Ph.D. (Committee Member); Earl Wright Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2015, French, Italian, and Classical Studies

This thesis, composed in French, explores the use of bourgeois urban space in two novels of Emile Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart. Specifically, by situating these works in the context of Zola's moralistic naturalism, this paper examines the ways that the author uses literary techniques to effect an imbrication of the spatial and the social, and analyses how these instances of hybridity take on critical weight. While the main focus of this study is on the attention given to descriptions of space and to characters' interactions with it, Zola's use of rhetorical strategies, including but not limited to metaphor and metonymy, also undergoes close inspection. In addition to current scholarship on Zola, the theoretical framework developed in this thesis comprises seminal works on the philosophy of space, most notably Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia. Having elucidated the the methods by which Zola simultaneously depicts and critiques the socio-spatial evolutions of the Second Empire, the conclusion illustrates the contemporaneity of his assessments of urban space.

Committee: Jonathan Strauss (Advisor); Elisabeth Hodges (Committee Member); Anna Klosowska (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; European Studies; Gender Studies; Labor Economics; Modern History; Modern Literature; Philosophy; Rhetoric; Science History; Social Structure; Urban Planning

BA, Oberlin College, 2015, English

This paper examines The Book of Salt as a subaltern project. Binh, the protagonist of the novel, is a figure whose story has been recovered from the margins of history. The first part of the paper examines the oppressive conditions that marginalize him and how he negotiates and subverts those conditions. The second part explores the limits of such subaltern subversion and representation. Through such an examination, I raise critical questions about representing the subaltern subject in the fields of literature and Asian American studies. How can we represent the subaltern, when we cannot represent the subaltern? How do we hear their voice, when the subaltern cannot speak? These paradoxical dilemmas need not preclude Asian American studies scholars from exploring subaltern narratives. Rather, hybrid narratives such as The Book of Salt, when accompanied by a critical examination of their limits, are essential to subverting official narratives and decolonizing the fields of literature and historiography.

Committee: Harrod Suarez Professor (Advisor) Subjects: American Literature; Asian American Studies

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Contemporary Music

Francois Rosse (b. 1945) is a Bordeaux-based improvising pianist and prolific composer who has received relatively little scholarly attention. He has written over one hundred works involving the saxophone, and in many cases, featuring the saxophone, yet his music is not widely studied or performed in North America. This document draws attention to Rosse's music for saxophone by tracing the application of hybridity, orality, and primitivism in Bear's Trio, Nishi Asakusa, and Orients, his Japanese-influenced chamber pieces with saxophone. These concepts are presented within relevant discourses, as prominent features of Western art music history and saxophone repertory, and as philosophically motivated practices that form the core of Rosse's approach to music-making and composition. An overview of relevant Japanese cultural elements, such as history, art forms, aesthetics, and spirituality, provides the necessary groundwork for identifying the manifestations of Japanese influence in Bear's Trio, Nishi Asakusa, and Orients. By surveying Rosse's incorporation of Japanese tradition and spirituality through the tripartite theoretical lens of hybridity, orality, and primitivism, this document offers a valid and useful schema for experiencing and interpreting his music.

Committee: John Sampen (Advisor); Conor Nelson (Committee Member); Marcus Zagorski (Committee Member); Donald Callen (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2014, Leadership and Change

A wiser socio-economic system, by design and not by chance, may well benefit from a series of design principles drawn from the well of wisdom. This dissertation focused on a refined set of eight components of wisdom through research designed to explore if, how, and when they are invoked by a group of experts participating in a futures discussion about organizations in their field of practice, American higher education. The aim was to explore a set of wisdom-centered design principles (denoted as Wise By Design [WBD]) for social innovation, specifically in the design of organizations that would thrive in the future. After four rounds of engagement with a panel of experts with approximately 500 years of accumulated experience in the field, six conclusions were reached: a) an organization could be seen as wise; if leadership, management, and innovation practices are augmented by wisdom; b) the use of design principles based on wisdom and futures inquiry could help organizations develop wise processes; c) wise people develop the ability to take an objectivized balanced perspective when confronted with situations, decisions, or requests for advice; d) wisdom could be described as a multi-channel sense-and-respond adaptive system with the higher purpose of flourishing of self and others; e) interoperability and dual hybridity, both administrative and academic, could enable institutions of higher education to thrive in the future; and f) this field of research could lead into a discussion on the value of exploring artificial wisdom. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at Ohiolink ETD Center, http://etd.ohiolink.edu and AURA http://aura.antioch.edu/

Committee: Alan Guskin Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jon Wergin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Laurien Alexandre Ph.D. (Committee Member); R. Eugene Rice Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2014, Organizational Behavior

This dissertation is comprised of three studies, each of which investigates the relationship between collaborative processes and subversive outcomes. The motivating idea of these studies is that significant, transformative change does not only result from conflict and contention. Indeed, collaboration between different social actors – while perhaps superficially conciliatory or moderate – may even be more subversive and disruptive than its contentious counterpart. Study 1 explores this idea in the context of an economic development and sustainability effort in an American `rust belt' city, generating propositions of the collaborative processes that social actors use to advance disruptive change. Study 2, a review of the modern environmental movement, catalogs the collaborative tactics used by environmental movement organizations, conceptualizing a `repertoire of collaboration' by which movements provide instead of disrupt resources, normative sanction, and cognitive frames. Study 3 then quantitatively tests the relationship between collaboration and breakthrough environmental technology innovation using a large set of patent and firm data, showing that collaboration between inventors produces more breakthrough innovations. These studies illuminate collaboratively subversive tactics for social actors, and challenge the contentious assumptions prevalent in social theory.

Committee: David Cooperrider Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ron Fry Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Paul Stephens Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jorge Rivera Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Social Structure; Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Communication Studies

This dissertation is a critical ethnography of the Roma ethnic minority in post-communist Romania within the socio-economic and political context of the country's post-accession to the European Union. The focus broadly is on the identity negotiation of the Roma minority in Romanian urban space. To this end, I explore Roma communicative practices in capital city of Bucharest. I examine the urban intercultural contact zones that represent Roma-non Roma relations and interactions. I draw on the productive "travelling" postcolonial theories and translate them into an examination of the Roma minority in Romanian physical space. My ethnography is informed by postcolonial theoretical frameworks that challenge the seemingly dichotomous colonizer/colonized relation. I look at discursive practices among Roma individuals suggesting alternative epistemes to allow for a nuanced understanding of the Roma-non Roma encounter. My methods include in-depth interviews, participant observation, and direct observation. The personal narratives of the 35 participants involved in this study emphasize a range of identity negotiation patterns. These reveal in turn complex, interrelated configurations of internalized oppression, passing, and hybridity that make possible both resistance and conformity to the dominant cultural production of the Gypsy Other. This research is an attempt to produce a constructive impact on policy and practice and therefore addresses the urgent need for critical, responsible inquiry that explores the diversity of Romani experience.

Committee: Radhika Gajjala Dr. (Committee Chair); Lara Martin Lengel Dr. (Committee Member); Lynda Dixon Dr. (Committee Member); Karen Kakas Dr. (Other) Subjects: Communication

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2011, College-Conservatory of Music: Voice

Japanese composer Minoru Miki (b. 1930) uses his music as a vehicle to promote cross-cultural awareness and world peace, while displaying a self-proclaimed preoccupation with ethnic mixture, which he calls konketsu. This document intends to be a performance guide to Miki's Sohmon III: for Soprano, Marimba and Piano (1988). The first chapter provides an introduction to the composer and his work. It also introduces methods of intercultural and artistic borrowing in the Japanese arts, and it defines the four basic principles of Japanese aesthetics. The second chapter focuses on the interpretation and pronunciation of Sohmon III's song text. The first part of Chapter 2 introduces and analyzes source poetry taken from the Man'yoshu, giving special consideration to topics of intercultural and artistic borrowing, as well as identifying and explaining the use of Japanese poetic devises, such as makurakotoba and kakekotoba [epithets and homonyms]. The remainder of Chapter 2 provides general rules of Japanese diction, focusing on their application in Sohmon III. The third chapter provides musical examples of influence from traditional Japanese music upon Sohmon III. Similarities arise between the formal structure of Sohmon III and that of the instrumental ensemble genre of gagaku. The vocal and instrumental parts of Sohmon III also show influence from jiuta and nagauta traditional song styles, as well as from the folk song styles of warabeuta and shoka. The latter portion of Chapter 3 discusses Miki's compositional desire for konketsu and compares it with the terms “synthesis” and “fusion,” which have appeared in contemporary musicological studies of cultural hybridity. Additional materials include three appendices: Appendix A: An IPA Transcription of Sohmon III, Appendix B: A Glossary of Japanese Terms, and Appendix C: A Compilation of Miki's Vocal Works.

Committee: Jeongwon Joe PhD (Committee Chair); William McGraw MM (Committee Member); Barbara Paver MM (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Art History

My research analyzes the complexity of a hybrid style used in the paintings of the Hidden Christians of the Ikitsuki Island during Japan's anti-Christian era (ca. 1640-1873). Approximately one hundred years after the Jesuit's introduction of Christianity to Japan in 1549, the Japanese government issued numerous bans on Christianity followed by a series of persecutions and deportations. Some devotees resisted the government decrees and chose to disguise themselves as non-Christians to survive. Known today as Hidden Christians, these people continued to practice their faith while altering their religious expressions. Often thought of as a symbol of defeat and compliance to the government, the paintings of Hidden Christians of the Ikitsuki Island diverged from the conventional Christian images created by the missionary studios established in Japan and incorporated some of the local visual elements and symbolisms. This thesis applies the postcolonial theory of mimicry to shed light on the elements of resistance and subversion found in the Hidden Christian icons. In addition, it examines the Jesuits' missionary approaches and the use of their Spiritual Exercises in Japan to demonstrate the Ikitsuki Hidden Christians' ability to appropriate their faith through their unique visual expression within the context of their reality.

Committee: Mikiko Hirayama PhD (Committee Chair); Kristi Ann Nelson PhD (Committee Member); Robert Wicks (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

This thesis explores the potential of architecture to increase connectivity between two socio-economically disparate communities in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The socially active, but economically neglected neighborhood surrounding Grant Park is physically separated from the urban revitalization project and resulting economic and cultural activities on Vine Street to the west and Main Street to the south. Street configurations in the neighborhood and four lanes of busy vehicular traffic on Liberty Street separate the two areas. A wall of empty warehouse buildings flanks Grant Park on the southwest side, severing visual connection between the two areas, and blocking potential traffic flows along a number of city blocks. The physical properties of the site reinforce socio-economic borders between the two areas.The goal is to outline an urban design methodology and propose a system for architectural intervention that can unify and re-enliven a community currently separated along racial and socio-economic lines. Applying urban design strategies to the scale of architecture, two disconnected communities will become physically, economically, and visually linked, promoting social and economic engagement between them. This intervention includes an urban design scheme and an architectural intervention intersecting a block of unused warehouse buildings between Grant Park and Vine Street. Increasing pedestrian flows, encouraging eddies of activity, and creating new physical corridors in and out of this location will encourage better economic and social flows between Grant Park and the rest of Over The Rhine. This design scheme will celebrate and anchor the existing social construct, while supporting the neighborhood's activity with increased access to services and goods. Gradually adding small programmatic changes will allow for slow, organic growth of the community and exchange with the surrounding areas, without threatening to displace the current inhabitants by rapidly incr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rebecca Williamson PhD (Committee Chair); George Thomas Bible MCivEng (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Architecture; Design; Urban Planning

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

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Spanish and Portuguese

The Kaqchikel Maya inhabit the fractured and dissonant society of contemporary Guatemala: increasing religious plurality, economic and ethnic inequality, drug-related violence and the legacy of military violence and discrimination. The Mayas face ongoing lack of recognition and voicelessness in a society that values them only insofar as their culture can be appropriated for a growing tourism industry. The Kaqchikels respond to this environment by using their spirituality to generate legitimacy. Mayan spirituality with its pre-Columbian episteme, when viewed in this social context, becomes a means by which the Kaqchikels articulate their agency. Both Mayas and foreign tourists regard the knowledge communicated through spirituality as one of the great achievements of the ancient Mayas. The contemporary Mayan populations consider this knowledge to be inherited, as they expertly wield its tools in a manner that sometimes, in their assessment, even supersedes the abilities of Western knowledge. This indexical past and relevant present make spirituality a salient practice for the contemporary Kaqchikels to utilize as they seek to redefine the relationship between their group and the state, as well as vis-a-vis foreign influences brought about by increasing tourism. This research posits that contemporary Kaqchikels utilize spirituality as a means to resist continued domination and the lingering effects of colonialism. For these reasons, although the revitalization of Kaqchikel spiritual practices is not generally discussed in the pan-Maya cultural movement, it should be understood as a parallel initiative to rearticulate constructions of Mayan culture. I analyze Kaqchikel ceremonial practices that seek to reclaim, rearticulate, and (re)traditionalize ancient Mayan episteme. Moreover, I examine how the trickster Rilaj Mam challenges models of religious syncretism, instead helping the Kaqchikels to process what is felt as hybrid in their social world. Finally, the Kaqchikel (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Maureen Ahern (Advisor); Ulises Juan Zevallos Aguilar (Committee Co-Chair); Dorothy Noyes (Committee Member); Fernando Unzueta (Committee Member) Subjects: Folklore; Latin American Studies