MFA, Kent State University, 2023, College of the Arts / School of Art

The transactional interplay between “Blackness” and “whiteness” is a dysfunctional melody that sets the tone for America's inner workings. This is particularly true for those who fit the description of a Magical Body. A Magical Body as defined by sociologist; Tressie Mcmillian Cottom are "bodies that society does not mind holding up to take the shots for other people. Magical bodies are bodies that have negative things done to them so other people can be conformable. Magical bodies are seen as self-generating, and as not requiring any investment from the state or from other people.” It is in the mundane that the members of my family represented in this body of work are consistently confronted with the reality of what it means to be a Magical Body. More importantly, it is in the mundane that my family has continued to live, love, and celebrate our existence. The body of work titled Magical bodies is an exploration of the lack of representation of Black people figures in art historical canon. This work focuses on making space for Black figures to counter act the notion of erasure in the canon.

Committee: Janice Garcia (Advisor); Eli Kessler (Committee Member); Davin Banks (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; African History; African Studies; American History; Art Criticism; Art History; Black History; Ethics; Fine Arts; Personality; Spirituality

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation examines early Christian literary hierarchies and categories, beginning in the pre-Christian context of the Hellenistic world and ending in the early Middle Ages. While scholars have long studied the formation of the biblical canon and the development of ancillary classes of text, such as the so-called “apocrypha,” many accounts of this history struggle to evince how these intellectual and institutional categories changed over time, which tends to obscure early Christian intellectual nuance and circumspection. This project improves our understanding by rooting early Christian evaluation of sacred (or potentially sacred) literature in the literary criticism of the classical world. It finds that, over the course of centuries, early Christianity generally moved away from the question of textual authenticity to the question of theological authority. In many cases, this movement corresponded to the maturation of the institutional episcopacy, particularly in the post-Constantinian era. Consequently, while Hellenistic literary criticism had once provided the chief template for Christians to evaluate books, hierarchies of text became increasingly institutionalized and supposed to have been settled by earlier authorities. By the sixth century, some Christian commentators forgot the meaning of the older categories altogether.

Committee: Kristina Sessa (Advisor) Subjects: Biblical Studies; Classical Studies; History; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Spanish and Portuguese

A constructed practice of homage has historically omitted women's legacies and granted nearly exclusive support for the ten male poets considered the originators of the avant-garde artistic group known as the Generation of 1927. Only recently have the modern women writers known as “las Sinsombrero” been incorporated into the homage traditions of the Generation of 1927, though an existing corpus of written, performed, and recorded homages has long been available in Spanish archives and libraries. However, the materials of homages have not yet been critically analyzed for how they reveal the gendered, classed, and sexualized ways that the literary history of the generation has been constructed. This project interrogates literary canon formation through the study of homage to make women visible within the formative spaces of early twentieth-century artistic production in Spain. The Generation of 1927 offers a special case study in the ways homages serve as mythmaking projects that center androcentric prestige formations such as anthologies. However, as a reconceptualized concept, homage can also provide lifemaking opportunities for scholars and writers of all genders and genres, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 3 in my analysis of the “Academy of Witches” gatherings of en dehors garde women. This project examines how writers like Vicente Aleixandre, Carmen Conde, and Amanda Junquera moved between their public-facing literary careers and the lifemaking impulses of cohabitation and queer futures in their shared home, Velintonia. I provide textual and cultural analyses of poetic tributes, newspaper clippings, gatherings at Velintonia, Elena Fortun's "Oculto sendero", and Amanda Junquera's "Un hueco en la luz" to interrogate the gendered dynamics of literary canon formation in homages to the Generation of 1927. Drawing on feminist critiques of the literary canon, queer theory, archival studies, memory studies, and cultural heritage studies, the present work proposes alte (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rebecca Haidt (Advisor); Jeffrey Zamostny (Committee Member); Dionisio Viscarri (Committee Member); Eugenia Romero (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; Foreign Language; Gender Studies; Modern Literature; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History

“Made for America” examines how Japanese consumer goods entered the post-World War II American market and how they have expanded the scope of U.S.-Japanese relations. In the immediate postwar period, the United States designated Japan as the centerpiece of its Cold War strategy in Asia and sought build an export-centric Japanese economy. Doing so required improving the quality of Japanese products, invoking the cooperation of transpacific networks of government officials, businessmen, and experts to transfer American technical and management knowledge into Japan. The Japanese camera and automobile industries successfully broke into the American market by establishing programs to guarantee the technical legitimacy of their products and engaging with American consumers through market research and advertising. In the process, Japan's consumer goods adapted to American consumers' needs and helped shape American perceptions of postwar Japan as a modern, technologically advanced ally. However, by the 1970s these Japanese exported goods became emblems of American industrial struggle in an era characterized by energy crises, environmental regulations, and economic stagflation. Some Americans responded with calls to enact trade restrictions to limit Japanese imports. Others, in cooperation with the Japanese government and businesses, sought to adapt Japanese management and manufacturing methods into American contexts. These efforts reflect how Japan's postwar consumer good exports created new avenues of engagement that expanded the scope of U.S.-Japanese relations.

Committee: Jennifer Siegel (Advisor); Christopher Otter (Committee Member); Philip Brown (Committee Member); Raymond Parrott (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Asian Studies; Automotive Materials; Business Administration; Economic History; History; Industrial Engineering; International Relations; Pacific Rim Studies

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2020, Theological Studies

The focus of my thesis is on the indissolubility of sacramental marriage in light of Pope Francis' changes to canon law in his motu proprios, Amoris Laetitia, and the 2014 and 2015 Synod on the Family. I proceed through a close reading of the primary texts related to marriage, namely, the midterm and final reports on the Synod of the Family and Pope Francis' Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, Mitis et Misericors Iesus, and Amoris Laetitia. In addition to these primary texts, my study draws on relevant, scholarly works on Francis and his initiatives. Each of the primary texts provide unique developments to the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church and ought to be understood in light of the predominant themes of Francis' papacy, particularly mercy and accompaniment. I will present these ecclesial developments as consistent with and advancing the spirit of the traditions of the Catholic Church. I will also argue that these primary sources serve as a way to move past polarization and find common ground in terms of the different understandings of marriage today. The paper begins with an investigation of the history of the indissolubility of marriage in order to understand how this concept has evolved and where there may be room for further development. I then briefly discuss the Synod on the Family and its documents, and this provides the context for understanding the foundation on which Amoris Laetitia was developed. Next, the changes Pope Francis made to the annulment process through the motu proprios are analyzed to determine how they contribute to the way the Church cares for people in "irregular" situations. In doing so, I hope to shed more light on the subject of canon law as inherently related to theology and pastoral care. My thesis also seeks to understand why and how the Catholic Church can reconcile the statement that "divorce is an evil and the increasing number of divorces is very troubling" with the streamlined changes made by Francis (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Johnston (Advisor); Jana Bennet (Committee Member); Dennis Doyle (Committee Member) Subjects: Canon Law; Religion; Religious History; Theology

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop a deeper understanding of how 15–16-year-old students created meaning and critically evaluated canonical works through various methods, including a final multimodal project. A case study approach was used to investigate the following questions: how does teaching the students to use critical lenses help students develop their critical literacy skills; how does assigning student-made multimodal/film projects of canonical literature help students connect with canonical texts (including how they evaluate, reflect on, and understand the characters); and how does assigning student-made multimodal/film projects help students develop their critical literacy skills in general (including, perhaps, their understanding of social criticism in canonical works)? By focusing on these questions, this study hoped to uncover how students' critical interpretations of canonical works could be broadened to help them understand critical social theory in their world, too. For this study, nine 15–16-year-old participants' experiences in a Sophomore English classroom were studied. Multiple data sources were collected: journal entries, observations, film projects, film artifacts, and interviews. The results of the study revealed that students were motivated to read and evaluate canonical texts with critical lenses. Moreover, the students were motivated to take their knowledge of critical literacy to create their own self-directed films of canonical works. The implications for future research and future instructional practices make this a viable option for teachers to incorporate into their classrooms to increase motivation and engagement with canonical works.

Committee: William Kist (Committee Chair); Alexa Sandmann (Committee Member); Sara Newman (Committee Member) Subjects: Curriculum Development; Education; Literacy; Literature; Secondary Education

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Arts and Sciences: Romance Languages and Literatures

My dissertation, entitled “Literary Memory and Lexicalization of the Early Modern Spanish Canon: Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Fuenteovejuna in the Language of Hispanic Journalism (1975-2017),” is a cultural studies interdisciplinary project that deals with the fields of literature, linguistics, and journalism. It analyzes the way Spanish-speaking journalists from Spain and Latin America use literary terms derived from the Spanish Golden Age works "Don Quixote of La Mancha" (1605), by Miguel de Cervantes, "Fuente Ovejuna" (1613), by Felix Lope de Vega, and "The Trickster of Seville" (1630), generally attributed to Tirso de Molina, to describe present day reality in Spain and Latin America. My dissertation analyzes which of the readings offered by literary criticism of those three canonical Spanish Golden Age works and their main protagonists are more common in Hispanic journalism nowadays. It also studies the process of lexicalization of literary terms derived from those works and analyzes several prestigious and well-known Spanish dictionaries to find out when each of those words were incorporated into the Spanish language and how their spelling and meaning have evolved through the centuries. My research uses Memory Studies and Reception Theory to show that by referring to the above-mentioned literary works, journalists are layering an interpretation/meaning onto those works (or reinscribing them) and continuing the process of passing the memory of each of those Golden Age texts, characters, myths and symbols on to yet another generation. My dissertation argues that journalism is an important site of memory and that journalists play an essential role in the dissemination, maintenance, reinterpretation, and actualization of the cultural and literary memory of those Spanish Golden Age literary works. In addition, it shows that journalism plays an important role in the lexicalization of concepts, terms, and expressions derived from those three canonical works. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carlos Gutiérrez Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Maria-Paz Moreno Ph.D. (Committee Member); Andrés Pérez-Simón Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2015, Music Composition

One: Prelude and Partial Postlude is a five-minute piece for orchestra. The instrumentation consists of three flutes, three oboes, three Bb-clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three C trumpets, three trombones, tuba, 2 percussionists (tam-tam and bass drum), harp, piano, twelve first violins, ten second violins, eight violas, seven celli, and six double basses. Informed by observations of musical perception and psychology, the piece features textures that simultaneously draw attention to the multiplicity of individual players and to the orchestra as one massive whole. The dense layering of sound constantly changes the listener's perception of background, middle ground, and foreground material. One consists of four sections that articulate a continuous process. A mensuration canon builds sixteen simultaneous iterations of the subject while steadily increasing in tempo. The canon creates individual meters on the smallest temporal scale and a constantly expanding polymeter on the largest scale. The harmonic language of the piece ranges from to atonality to polytonality and is the direct result of harmonic relationships between canonic iterations. The canon subject consists of three voices, each based on the octatonic scale. Together, the voices encompass all twelve transpositions of the major triad and are carefully constructed so that the circle of perfect fourths emerges from their combination. The inspiration for the piece came from a sudden awareness of plentiful existence.

Committee: Mikel Kuehn (Advisor); Marilyn Shrude (Committee Member) Subjects: Music; Performing Arts

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2009, English

Mark Edmundson takes a pragmatic approach to literature and argues that we should readin order to alter our Final Narratives, the fundamental ways we conceptualize the world. I apply this argument to how we construct canons, including classroom syllabi. Specifically, I claim that as the classroom environment is essential to our literary education, we need to read in a pragmatic manner in the classroom, not least of all because doing so is capable of improving our lives and the lives around us. Taking this understanding of a literary education, I then run Don DeLillo's Underworld and Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis through this machinery. The result is that we are able to produce viable, significant arguments for both authors', but more importantly King's, canonization. This result is contrary to the canonical views of thinkers such as Mark Edmundson and Harold Bloom who believe that we ought not to engage King in the classroom. By conceptualizing reading, and specifically canonization, as a pragmatic process, we are able to articulate why Stephen King might be a significant part of our literary education.

Committee: J. Fitzpatrick Smith PhD (Advisor); D. Scot Hinson PhD (Committee Member); Heather Wright PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, French and Italian

This dissertation focuses on the interrelationships between the French colonial school and the social milieu where it has been implanted, as well as on the alliances that have been woven between that school and the authors that it has educated. The analysis of Albert Camus's short story « L'Hote » [“The Guest”] serves as a matrix for this study, and a dialogical relationship has been established throughout between the first chapter and subsequent chapters. The chapter on Mouloud Feraoun and Mohammed Dib highlights the efforts of these autochthonous Algerians to reposition the Algerian milieu, underrepresented by Camus, by giving it a prominent place in their works, to the point where it becomes a school in its own rights that can compete with and supplement the all pervasive French school in Le Fils du Pauvre and La Grande Maison. The third chapter concerns itself with Subsaharan Africa and features Camara Laye's L'Enfant Noir and Cheikh Hamidou Kane's L'Aventure Ambigue. Both novels illustrate cases of marginalization of indigenous cultures by the colonizer's school, which is a normalization of the majority by the minority. The final chapter is also about the rehabilitation of the local culture which saved the young protagonist, Jose, from destructive marginalization by the French school in Joseph Zobel's La Rue Cases-Negres, rooted in a Negritude vein. As for Chamoiseau, to the Western “betonisation” imposed on the Creole culture, he opposes the powerful creativeness of “creolisation” through artistic experimentation of Creole language, thus subverting the French canon and the colonial school. In sum, the six novels analyzed in this study legitimate Camus as a visionary: the Francophone works examined all share the strong desire for a cultural balancing at the Center.

Committee: Danielle Marx-Scouras (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, African

Doctor of Musical Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Music

Social forces shape the musical canon and the relation of the work of women composers to that male-dominated canon. Felix Mendelsssohn is a major figure in classical music, while Fanny is most likely known as his sister and not as a composer in her own right. In my study I will adress the injustice of the past, and argue for the inclusion of Fanny Mendelssohn's music in the traditional concert repertoire. Fanny's story is emblematic, and her situation can help illuminate the fate of other nineteenth-century women composers. Her story is a story of a woman with talent, with merit, who had been given the chance to try her wings, but not the chance to fly. There are two main issues here: why did her music, and that of many other nineteenth-century women composers, never become part of the canon; and how might that neglect be remedied, if it should in fact be remedied? These questions cannot be addressed without looking closely at the music, and without discussing larger social problems and analogies. The former issue broaches the social forces that prevented Fanny from becoming a professional musician, the powers that shape tradition, the notion of universal value, and the notion of difference. The latter issue brings up questions about assimilation, segregation, and acculturation. The core part of the document is a comparative analysis of the Piano Trios in D minor by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. The purpose of this comparison is to show that there is no intrinsically musical justification for the neglect of Fanny's composition. The two trios have enough similarities and analogies to show that her work fits securely into the tradition of the piano trio genre, while the subtle differences in dealing with musical details are witnesses to Fanny's unique, distinct musical language, which is generally speaking more spontaneous than that of Felix. Fanny's music is the music of a composer in her own right.

Committee: Steven Glaser (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, English (Arts and Sciences)

Kelley Evans's dissertation consists of a collection of personal essays, which foreground the experience of the body. In four sections – Sensation, Chaos/Control, Movement, Inward/Outward--she considers her body and the bodies of loved ones in states both elevated and debased, in social space and in the mind. In her critical introduction, “Canon(icle) for the Personal Essay,” Evans proposes a reflexive and constantly reinvented personal essay canon as a corrective for the hegemony of memoir in the field of creative nonfiction. Examining texts by Eliza Haywood, Margaret Fuller, Jamaica Kincaid, and Etel Adnan, Evans seeks to add diverse voices to the canon and to add innovative techniques to discussions of craft.

Committee: Joan C. Connor (Committee Chair); David Lazar (Committee Member); Dinty W. Moore (Committee Member); Jose Delgado-Costa (Committee Member); Janis Butler Holm (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2010, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Dana Gioia's controversial book Can Poetry Matter? challenges poets to write in traditional forms to expand poetry's readership beyond the “subculture” of the university. In response to Gioia's position, my thesis considers the mind-numbing trends in today's entertainment and places importance on innovation to suggest that there is potential danger in Gioia's call to conform. If the artists of a society mold their work like a commodity to be consumed by the masses, this lack of originality could stint creative progress and hinder, rather than encourage, readers' interests. Gioia's position is currently a reference point for contemporary debates about poetry and society. My position offers a new suggestion to general readers: put forth individual effort and pursue professional instruction to learn how to read poetry in order to acquire a broader appreciation for the ways poetic form enriches communication. Furthermore, what is classified as difficult poetry depends upon the canon of a culture. Writers should not be required to reach a set audience or limit their innovation.

Committee: Michael Dumanis PhD (Committee Chair); Adam Sonstegard PhD (Committee Member); John Gerlach PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Art Education; English literature; Fine Arts; Higher Education; Language Arts; Literacy; Literature; Secondary Education

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, English/Literature

My thesis, Canonicity and Medieval Heresy: Ideological Rifts and their Potentialities, addresses the way that medieval monasteries produced and protected canonical knowledge. The medieval church deployed monastic libraries to shape and conform the spread of knowledge selectively as shown within the pages of Umberto Eco's the Name of the Rose. Monastic hermeticism and esoterism also enabled the production of many religious writings that became canonical medieval texts. The religious writings of John Lydgate, whose literary texts focused mainly on the lives of saints and historical figures, illustrate one example of the way that Christian canonicity was perpetuated and disseminated. In this thesis I establish how the canon is created and in turn how it creates its own heresies. Next, I reflect on the way that John Lydgate's monastic writings about saints were written with a cultural bias used to sway the readers into a particular mindset about different historical and saintly figures. Finally, Eco's The Name of the Rose will be used as a meta-fictional and meta-historical example of the Church's imprisonment of knowledge during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Eco's text not only illustrates and explicates medieval monastic library history, but also shows the way that a hermetic approach to canonical knowledge produces the category of heresy. The firm assertions of the dogmatic hegemonic canon of the church find their “other” in heresy. If the two remain opposed, conflict ensues; however, if they find an intellectual union through the dialectical procedure, then synthesis creates a new way of viewing what becomes the “law of literature” embodied by the early formations of the literary canon. If the state of conflict remains within the scene of dialogue, then we do not arrive at a dialectical engagement. Rather, one assertion becomes foundational and the other is reactionary; both see themselves as ways of achieving truth.

Committee: Erin Labbie Dr. (Advisor); Kristine Bair Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature