Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, English/Literature

This thesis examines the way post-industrial capital manifests itself and attempts to define how it functions. Zizek's theorization of capital's fantasy dimension and its simultaneous role as the Lacanian Real is evaluated. Zizek's concept of the ideological fantasy is deemed helpful as it aids in explaining how capital perpetuates itself in a world that appears aware of its failures. His conceptualization of capital as the Real is considered to be counter-productive as it reduces the phenomenon in question to an impermeable abstraction that cannot be schematized or analyzed in any detail. In an effort to address this problem, Franco Berardi's notion of semio-capital is discussed. Berardi's work is determined to be a vital supplement to Zizek's analysis as it enables us to perceive the way in which capital functions as a master-signifier that operates according to the logic of recombination. The benefit of theorizing capital in this way is that it permits us to appreciate one of capital's chief antagonisms—the production of the experience of attentional disorders as a series of symptoms that are averse to capital's functioning and the simultaneous construction of Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder as a discursive regime aimed at policing these symptoms.

Committee: Erin Labbie (Advisor); Becca Cragin (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature; Philosophy

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Arts Policy and Administration

The arts' place in the university is changing in response to the demands of the creative economy. Universities will be responsible for producing creative human capital in their graduates. The 2004 American Assembly provided campus-based practitioners with new language to pursue these goals when it introduced the “Creative Campus” terminology. This comparative case study explores the value of this naming language during policy formulation and implementation of two Creative Campus projects. Qualitative interviews, document analysis, and autoethnography are used to assess the value of a common naming strategy. A critical framework that crosses semiotics and the policy cycle is used to analyze the data from each of the cases. The findings suggest that a symbolically isomorphic naming strategy can be very effective in formulating and implementing a Creative Campus program because the name label provides cultural entrepreneurs with a tool to contextualize their work, frame the issue on the institutional agenda, define their work in juxtaposition to a prototypical schema, and gain legitimacy, understanding, consensus, and control of resources. This thesis concludes by suggesting that the shared signifier also offers an opportunity for a more formalized network of Creative Campus practitioners to learn from and engage in the labeling contests that shape the sign.

Committee: Margaret J. Wyszomirski (Advisor); Wayne Lawson P. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Arts Management; Cultural Resources Management; Language; Linguistics; Public Policy; Rhetoric