DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2006, College-Conservatory of Music : Conducting, Choral Emphasis

Gay and lesbian choruses in the United States have actively commissioned new works since they first came into existence. From miniatures to major works, the resultant compositions have come from emerging composers, as well those who are world-renowned. This document was written for the purpose of illuminating three significant works commissioned by American Gay Men's Choruses: Of Rage and Remembrance by John Corigliano, Night Passage by Robert Moran, and Eos by David Conte. Chapter One contains a brief history of the gay choral movement, including the choruses in the United States that banded together to form the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, and a preface to the following chapters. Chapters Two through Four examine the three works. Each of these chapters serves as a guide to the specific composition from the conductor's perspective, with the intent of providing a resource to conductors considering performing the works. The intent of this document is to assist conductors in their discovery of the salient points of the music: information about the commissioning, performance forces, textual sources, overall structure, compositional techniques and performance issues. Also included is an appendix that includes libretti and transcript of the author's interview with Robert Moran.

Committee: Dr. John Leman (Advisor) Subjects: Music

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2007, Arts and Sciences : Communication

Electronic activism runs the gamut from interest cultivation, revenue generation, information dissemination, and membership generation to more disruptive "electronic civil disobedience." Examples of the latter include the Yes Men, who have use “parody-ware” to further their message, and Electronic Disturbance Theater's use of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and form floods that draw attention and publicity. This study conducted an ethnographic rhetorical analysis of three social movement groups, The Yes Men, RTMark and Electronic Disturbance Theater, that actively utilize the Internet as their main vehicle of agitation. As these groups are not accounted for in classical and organizationally focused theories of social movements, Gerlach's (2001) SPIN theory and Costanza-Chock's (2003) repertoire of electronic contention were applied to the selected groups. It was found that all groups could be considered SPINs and were found to utilize one or more mode of contention as outline by Costanza-Chock.

Committee: Dr. Stephen Depoe (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Sociology

“Girth & Mirth: Ethnography of a Social Club for Big Gay Men and Their Admirers” documents performances at Girth & Mirth group events and examines how participants use allusion and campy-queer behavior to reconfigure and reclaim their body images. Girth & Mirth started as a national social movement organization in the 1970s in response to weight discrimination in the gay community and provides a social network for big gay men and their relatively few supportive others. This work explores how big gay men experience size as a marginalizing status and how they seek dignity and respect in spite of their marginal position. Gay men, as a subaltern group, have their own hierarchy, and this work questions whether the social consequences of failure to be height-weight proportionate should be so high in the gay community. To explore how big gay men manage concepts of shame and pride, I use interviews with and participant observation of members of Girth & Mirth at charity fundraisers, weekend retreats, pride parades, cafe klatches, restaurants, and potlucks. Sociological research provides a lens to understand the role of social organizations in effecting change and reformulating identities. This study builds on the work of Erving Goffman (1963), who examined how stigmatized individuals manage their identities against medicalized or pathologized social categories. Folklore performance research of Mikhail Bakhtin (1968) and others also provides a model for understanding the club's special events as carnival, which involves rituals of inversion, exaggeration, and camp. This study provides examples of how performance can be used as a resignifying strategy that acknowledges but resists stigma. In reaction to being treated as a single undifferentiated mass, big gay men engage in performances of reconfiguring the shame of their fat stigma by distinguishing among different kinds of fat “selves.” This study analyzes the political potential found in the group's positive and fun-lovin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Townsand Price-Spratlen PhD (Committee Chair); Amy Shuman PhD (Committee Member); Steve Lopez PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Folklore; Gender; Organizational Behavior; Social Psychology; Social Research; Sociology; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2009, Sociology

This thesis is an ethnographic case study of an independent men's group in a small mid-western city which claims no affiliation with any organized faction of the men's movement. It is groups such as this that I contend make up the grass-roots of the men's movement. The intent of my research was to understand why White, middle-aged, middle-class, heterosexual men (or middlers) seek the homosocial support of a men's group. I approach this question in two ways. First, I describe what benefits the men hope to gain through their participation in the group. Secondly, I explain how the setting of the men's group provides these benefits. I also examine whether, and in what ways these men are resisting or reinforcing the patriarchal structure that affords them the privileged status they enjoy as a result of their ascribed status characteristics. Data for this study includes field notes from fifteen months of participant observation in conjunction with face-to-face interviews with the eight men who comprise the “core” group members. Analysis of the data reveals that these men seek a time and place in which to periodically relieve themselves of the burdens of the self-presentation that accompanies hegemonic masculinity. The men's group provides a place where the men feel emotionally safe in presenting what they consider to be their “true selves” by normalizing activities such as self-disclosure iv and emotional expression, and through strict adherence to mutual promises of confidentiality. The increased intimacy that results from these practices creates a sense of gendered community that minimizes gender role conflict and dissonance in gendered social identity while increasing social self esteem through mutual support of men's personal masculinity. In short, group participation helps men feel good about being men and perhaps remedies (in part) the isolation men feel in the larger world. However, the men's apparent inability to feel safe engaging in these practices outside of t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kathy Feltey PhD (Advisor) Subjects: Social Psychology; Sociology