MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

This thesis critically analyzes installations of telepresence art since 1986 and argues that the phenomological experience of engagement in telepresence suggests a new state of subjectivity at the end of the twentieth century: the hyper-subject, an overlapping of self and multiple others. I place telepresence art firmly in the genealogy of Surrealism by comparing artworks to Hans Bellmer's infinitely recombinant doll, La Poupee. While Bellmer represented the physical anagram of the body through the doll, telepresence art produces psychic anagrams of participants in the virtual sphere. Installations of telepresence art by multiple artists are probed to critically engage the artistic design of each, including humanoid telerobots, screen-based telepresence, and human avatars, and to assess their efficacy in upholding telepresence as what Lombard and Ditton define as "the perceptual illusion of non-mediation." By integrating psychoanalysis, post-anthropocentric posthumanism, and feminist disability theory, I examine telepresence art as a platform for social change. This research contributes the first art historical application of the uncanny valley to telepresence artworks, the first comparison of telepresence art to Bellmer's La Poupee, and advocates for more art historical research on the hyper-subject as a new state of viewing and experiencing art in the twenty-first century.

Committee: Navjotika Kumar Ph.D. (Advisor); Gina Zavota Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Gustav Medicus Ph.D. (Committee Member); Fred Smith Ph.D. (Committee Member); Diane Scillia Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carol Salus Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The architecture of today has consistently followed the common treatise of aesthetics, a dogmatic pursuit of the comfortable, attractive, and beautiful for the masses. Thus, architecture has been most complicit in the concealment of undesirable aspects of our world. In doing so, we are left disassociated away from entire portions and aspects of our lives. This subconscious effort of deterrence therefore leaves us blinded to critical effects of social, political, and environmental issues that physically shape our world. It is the duty of architects to manifest theory in built form for society to begin to address the underlying issues that affect our lives. If left unresolved, we may fall from these forces that have been alienated away to our periphery vision and suffer estrangement to our conscience leaving us unable to interact with past or future memory. By employing the theory of the Uncanny, we may begin to reveal the grotesque and undesirable aspects of the world and address their implications. Contemporary and future technologies are continuously developing and cataloging our digital lives as a counterpart to our physical ones. The relatively new typology of the data center now serves a greater purpose and meaning in this dissociative world. Housing a digital duplicate of ourselves, it persists after our death, an impression of our memory that will live on even if we physically perish. By employing the Uncanny, we can begin to reveal the implications of the data center in the contemporary world, as a funerary monument integrated within our built environment rather than hidden away.

Committee: Elizabeth Riorden M.Arch. (Committee Chair); Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

This study explores embodied trauma as a site for philosophical inquiry using a transdisciplinary approach that blends fiction-based research, embodied inquiry and phenomenological perspectives. Philosophical themes such as second-seeing, the uncanny, and precognitive/impersonal experiences are considered in their relation to embodied trauma and its influence on our relations to place and others. This research intentionally interrupts current framings of trauma in arts education that rely on psychological approaches to consider arts-based, emergent methods of inquiry and their capacity to harness ambiguity, challenge dominant ideologies, and occupy spaces of tension. The project considers how fiction offers a second-seeing of embodied trauma that shifts and broadens the conversation on trauma in arts education to include the unthought and uncoded. Conceptualizing the turn to fiction as a method of inquiry, this project considers how fiction can obscure and expand disciplinary boundaries and the role of data in qualitative research. Fiction, phenomenology, and embodied inquiry are discussed as allies uniquely positioned to approach visceral human phenomena and expand the potential of arts-based research.

Committee: Jennifer Richardson PhD (Advisor); Richard Fletcher PhD (Committee Member); Jack Richardson PhD (Committee Member); Shari Savage PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2020, English

My dissertation focuses on the concept of the queer uncanny and its deployment within cinema. Historically, queerness has been aligned with the uncanny within narrative representation in order to demonize queers and reinforce the hegemony of heteronormativity. Narrative art contains the capacity to reappropriate such harmful representational traditions, however; and it is this capacity for reappropriation that I explore within my dissertation. Specifically, I examine how cinematic texts can recuperate the figure of the uncanny queer within anti-homophobic representational strategies. In the introduction, I examine the concept of queerness itself to elucidate what ties it might maintain to the psychoanalytic concept of the uncanny. Beyond merely representing the uncanny and abject underside of a sexual power binary within structurally homophobic societies, I contend, queerness persists as uncanny through its manifestation as the uncanny trace at the heart of all sexual subjectivity. That is, all sexuality can be seen as "queer" if it is recognized that heteronormative, socially sanctioned categories of sexual subjectivity are in fact artificial social constructions; at its most revolutionary and counterhegemonic, the queer uncanny retains within itself the possibility of that revelation. Following the introduction, I analyze how three different films reappropriate the queer uncanny for this counterhegemonic purpose by utilizing the queer uncanny as a representational strategy to expose queerness as the abject, uncanny trace at the heart of all subjectivity.

Committee: Madelyn Detloff Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Katie Johnson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Erin Edwards Ph.D. (Committee Member); Stefanie Dunning Ph.D. (Committee Member); Elisabeth Hodges Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Film Studies

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

This thesis studies the spatial uncanny in order to respond to the desire to exploit the intangible subconscious through architecture. Incentives in the surrounding world can evoke the repressed thoughts and feelings that consistently dwell in the psyche. The uncanny, the strange in the familiar, evokes these repressed forces and brings them to the forefront. In order to understand what constitutes this condition in places with heightening the sense of uncanny, the characters and components of the uncanny are explored through investigations in the theory and the precedents. In particular, this thesis seeks to leverage the thematic precedents to recognize the methods and operations of uncanny. It extends these methods of interpretation and extraction of the repressed forces in the space by focusing on spatial. The investigation goes further to look at the inherently present uncanny emotions in sites of ruins, The Thesis examines the ruins of Sutro Baths, on the northwest of San Francisco which is one of the most visited locations in the Bay area. In addition to containing the remnants of a historic bathhouse, this site also possesses unique landscape conditions. This thesis tries to recognize the condition of the site and accentuate the uncanny and dream-like emotions of this landscape by inserting new interventions on the site. By interrupting the existing elements, the design is intending to introduce a new disturbance to the existing site.

Committee: Aarati Kanekar Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The Familiar Stranged is a collection of four horror stories written in the vein of George Saunders, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson, Tananarive Due, and Brandon Massey. Focusing on the unconventional/unusual point of view and also voice, these stories follow unsuspecting characters—an artificial intelligence, dead writers who seek revenge, mannequins who come to life at night, and an imaginary “friend” who all reside in an upside down, familiar made strange, slightly off kilter world, bound and imprisoned by various circumstances. These stories are intended to feel episodic—paying homage to The Twilight Zone in tone and theme. There is a critical introduction followed by the text.

Committee: Imad Rahman MFA (Committee Chair); Mike Geither MFA (Committee Member); Adam Sonstegard Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Literature

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, Art

I am compelled by seemingly disparate images and observations: scar tissue, heavy blankets, capillary action, mending, the warmth and weight of our bodies. Through material investigations using primarily clay and fiber, my thoughts are manifested as sculpture. This labor-intensive process relies on endurance and care. In this document I contemplate my work formally and attempt to unravel the various impulses and experiences that drive me. It is about potential and the fertile ground between life and making.

Committee: Steven Thurston (Advisor); Carmel Buckley (Committee Member); Rebecca Harvey (Committee Member); Jeffrey Haase (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2017, English (Arts and Sciences)

The dissertation is comprised of two sections—a critical essay titled “The Uncanny Way: Old Stories Make New Meanings,” and a book manuscript titled Coral Covered Her Bones. In “The Uncanny Way: Old Stories Make New Meanings,” I argue that the Freudian uncanny in fairy tales and fairy tale retellings enhances their disruptive potential through the twinned sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity. Fairy tales, far from being either intrinsically conservative or progressive, are essentially ideological sponges, able to morph and change based upon the social and historical context, as well as the writer'sexigence for writing. The ability of fairy tales to flex and change while still remaining recognizable enables social commentary. No telling of a fairy tale is ever alone. A fairy tales is always at once homely and unhomely, familiar and strange. I contend that it is the uncanny nature of the fairy tale which makes it such an appealing and suitable tool for story tellers with conscious rhetorical motives, usually that of social critique. Coral Covered Her Bones consists of a series of loosely intertwined short stories. Those short stories re-envision old stories, ranging from classical mythology (such as the rape of Leda or beheading of Medusa), to fairy tales, to speculative fiction. Through my use of familiar stories told differently, I create a space of unease and surprises, one that asks the reader to question familiar narratives. My stories strive to give archetypal figures real bodies and emotional heft, rendering impersonal problems deeply personal.

Committee: Joan Connor (Committee Chair); Joseph McLaughlin (Committee Member); Patrick O'Keeffe (Committee Member); William Owens (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Gender Studies; Literature

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2017, Psychology

The uncanny valley is the tendency for highly humanlike, but non-human agents (e.g., robots, animated characters, dolls) to be perceived as creepy or unsettling, relative to their less humanlike counterparts. Recent research has pointed to mismatching signals of humanity as a possible explanation for the uncanny valley. The current work aimed to extend this hypothesis by investigating whether conflicting signals of humanity from face processing styles and featural cues can trigger negative affect. To this end, participants viewed faces that were morphed on a continuum from full dolls to full humans and indicated the extent to which these faces are unsettling. Critically, on half of the trials, faces were inverted to disrupt configural face processing, a processing style that involves viewing faces as a single Gestalt and is a cue for humanity. When faces were highly humanlike, they were experienced as less creepy than less humanlike faces, but when such targets were inverted, processing and featural signals did not disagree with one another, and some of the feelings of unease were alleviated.

Committee: Kurt Hugenberg PhD (Committee Chair); Heather Claypool PhD (Committee Member); Jonathan Kunstman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2016, English (Arts and Sciences)

Ten Impossible Things Before Daylight is a collection of essays which turn on experiences with the uncanny, including premonitions, visitations, bizarre coincidences, impactful dreams, and lucky charms. My essays seek to explore a side of the uncanny that is not horrific but instead, eerily invigorating. The lead-off essay “Goodnight Noises” is an uncanny elegy for friend that I knew since childhood who tragically developed severe schizophrenia. My essay is about making sense of his somewhat mysterious disappearance and death, by interpreting a dream that my wife had the same night that we found out about his passing. “Far and Wee” is the story of the unplanned rescue of a baby goat that my wife and I found in an ocean while on vacation. Our rescue of the goat led us to many moments of prescience regarding the birth of our firstborn son. The collection is a varied and confessional portrait of my evolving sense of the uncanny and its influence over the red letter days of my life. It also celebrates Cleveland, new love and old friends, and seeks to surmount and memorialize the loss of friends, a serious illness, and the zombie-like horrors of today, gun violence at home and a war in the middle-east that, unlike the soldiers fighting in it, seems impossible to kill. “Canary from a Coal Mine: Reorganizing a Sense of What is Possible in Uncanny Nonfiction is a critical introduction to the essay collection. In it I seek to establish some strategies for working with the uncanny, a concept frequently associated with fiction, in creative Nonfiction. My essays picks up Marjorie Sandor's notion of the uncanny as a genre-busting “viral strain” and uses it to examine the differences between the uncanny in fiction and in life. From there, it observes how those lived examples are represented by nonfiction authors, with the aim of re-enacting uncanny experiences in the minds of readers.

Committee: Eric LeMay (Committee Chair) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Comparative Literature; Composition; Film Studies; Literature

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Art

I am working at the border between what is familiar and unfamiliar, pitting peripheral vision against central vision, and domestic architecture against geometric space. I examine a childlike perspective of space where memory and sight blur together in a room to create a surreal experience. Childhood is a point in life where an understanding of the world is still in flux. With so many unknowns, perception of space could be more objective and authentic, but also more invented, as memory, misunderstanding, and architecture become intertwined in an attempt to understand something that is strangely familiar. My work has taken on the combined form of video and constructed rooms. The video begins a narrative, an emotion, or a document from the mind's eye, and exhales it into the space. The rooms create a schematic, physical structure for the body to contend with and hold the content of the video. The architectural spaces surrounding the videos facilitate looking, moving, and containment. Together video and room represent the formation of a memory of place as they blend real-time perception with imagined constructions. The abstract is cast into an empirical world.

Committee: Shane Mecklenburger (Advisor); George Rush (Committee Member); Suzanne Silver (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

Architecture is complicit in the ongoing subconscious effort to conceal the grotesque and undesirable aspects of our world. As a physical manifestation of theory, it is the responsibility of architecture to engage the social, political, and legal implications of estrangement and alienation. Employing the practice of strangemaking guided by spatial interpretations of David Lynch's films and the writings of Anthony Vidler, the unfamiliar can be drawn out of the familiar to elaborate a language of the uncanny. A built translation of the act of extracting repressed forces can expose them to scrutiny that expedites a larger dialogue about subdermal issues. A method for interpreting and extracting repressed forces will be established using excavation, doubling, dissolving, masking, and projection. The disassociative nature of these operations will inform architecture's role in psychological transformation. By applying this architectural language of the uncanny to the ubiquitous but volatile typology of the gas station, the apparently mundane character of Trenton, New Jersey will be called into question. In doing so, the definition of beauty can be amended to include that which challenges us to relish discomfort as a conduit of growth.

Committee: Aarati Kanekar Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Creative Writing/Fiction

This collection of stories explores a range of vengeful, disillusioned, grieving, and ambitious characters in adventurous and sometimes self-destructive pursuits of pleasure, passion, knowledge, wealth, art, order, and power. Some of the narratives inhabit an uncanny and uncertain borderland of psychological obsessions and supernatural disruptions. Many of these characters that pursue their desires or struggle with the misery of thwarted desires, travel on dark paths, but these are also quests towards identity, liberation, truth, and meaningful connection— even if the results are often sinister and disconcerting rather than heroic and redemptive.

Committee: Lawrence Coates Ph.D. (Advisor); Wendell Mayo Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

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

Madness as a Way of Life examines T.V. Reed's concept of politerature as a means to read fiction with a mind towards its utilization in social justice movements for the mentally ill. Through the lens of the Freudian uncanny, Johan Galtung's three-tiered systems of violence, and Gaston Bachelard's conception of spatiality, this dissertation examines four novels as case studies for a new way of reading the literature of madness. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House unveils the accusation of female madness that lay at the heart of a woman's dissatisfaction with domestic space in the 1950s, while Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island offers a more complicated illustration of both post-traumatic stress syndrome and post-partum depression. Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and Curtis White's America Magic Mountain challenge our socially-accepted dichotomy of reason and madness whereby their antagonists give up success in favor of isolation and illness. While these texts span chronology and geography, each can be read in a way that allows us to become more empathetic to the mentally ill and reduce stigma in order to effect change. This project begins with an introduction to several social justice movements for the mentally ill, as well as a summary of the movement over time. The case studies that follow illustrate how the uncanny and the spatial may effect the psyche and how forms of direct, structural, and cultural violence work together in order to create madness where it may not have existed at all or where it is considered a detriment when it is merely another way of living. The madhouses in the texts examined herein, and the novels from which they come, offer a way to teach us how to enact change on behalf of a community who still suffers from discrimination today.

Committee: Ellen Berry (Advisor); Francisco Cabanillas (Committee Member); Ellen Gorsevski (Committee Member); William Albertini (Committee Chair) Subjects: American Literature; American Studies; Architecture; Germanic Literature; Literature; Medical Ethics; Peace Studies; Psychology

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2011, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History

In this thesis I explore the use of “uncanny” architecture and space in the work of three contemporary artists: British sculptor Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963), German sculptor/photographer Thomas Demand (b. 1964), and American photographer Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962). I demonstrate how concerns with psychologically charged urban and domestic spaces associated with early and mid-twentieth-century modernist art and visual culture, often suggesting feelings of desolation, emptiness, or melancholy, resurface in contemporary art practice of the late twentieth-century and early twenty-first century. I investigate how contemporary artists deploy effects of the “uncanny” to evoke social and economic changes in urban, suburban and domestic landscapes, and their effects on those who inhabit or move through these spaces. My analysis of the uncanny in the work of these three artists, whose work has not been grouped together before, leads the way for a new examination and understanding of the context of the “uncanny” and “haunted space” in contemporary art. In the first chapter, “Minimalism and Haunted Architecture”, I explore the notion of the void in the post-minimalist sculptures of Whiteread. I examine Closet (1988), Ghost (1990), House (1993), and Embankment (2005) to demonstrate how they operate to embody negative space, a constant theme that shows the familiar imprint of wear and tear produced by inhabitants on objects that surround them. In the second chapter, “Appropriated and Haunted Memories”, I examine the role of the uncanny and anti-realist architectural spaces in the sculptures-turned-photographs of Demand. I examine Demand's photographs, Corridor (1995), Bathroom (1997), and Terrace (1998), to demonstrate the “haunted” and suburban spaces that Demand constructs in order to document the history and memory of domestic urban spaces in the late twentieth-century. In the third and final chapter, “Ordinary Cinematic Wonder”, I focus on the role of haunted space in the cine (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Morgan Thomas (Committee Chair); Jessica Flores MA (Committee Member); Kristi Ann Nelson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

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

The Appalachian Mountains are being systematically demolished, resulting in the homogenizing of the region's physical and architectural landscapes. This attempt at dominance has a detrimental effect on the history and longevity of the region's culture. This thesis offers a constructive response to the devastating effects of mountaintop removal. Appalachian land and culture are intimately connected, and by utilizing aspects of the culture and the unique site situation this thesis promotes the need for architectural specificity that acknowledges both our destructive history with the land and also our reliance on it. This project recognizes the reliance that Appalachians have on the natural resources that surround them, and their abhorrence of outsider influence. Sensitive awareness of the place ultimately helps in the attempt to translate the intangible qualities and dark poetics of the region into an architectural response. Five cultural themes are developed (history, ugliness, contrast, landscape, and narrative) which stimulate the use of the processes and remnants of the site to inform the design of a national historical park. The design fuses these contradictory cultural themes to create a tectonic architectural experience of heightened consciousness. An uncanny, sublime interaction with this horrific landscape, and an intimate engagement with the scars of the site, reveal the intrinsic bonds among all living things, and ultimately hope amidst the devastation.

Committee: John Hancock (Committee Chair); Vincent Sansalone (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Architecture

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2012, Art

My fellowship at The Ohio State University coincided with a marked shift in my work from abstraction to research-based artwork that reflects my ecological and political concerns. Through working with honeybees and investigating the issues surrounding nuclear power following the tsunami-induced collapse of Fukushima, I have expanded my practice to something that resonates more deeply with my moral imperative to communicate about urgent issues of concern. By employing references to the souvenir and the miniature, the abject and the uncanny, I have endeavored to make ideas and materiality meet by working with living systems, new technologies and socio-politically charged materials and imagery. In this paper, I will outline my attempt to give voice to my concerns about radiation contamination and Colony Collapse Disorder, while also addressing more abstracted formal issues via sculpture, collage, and photography.

Committee: Alison Crocetta (Advisor); Ann Hamilton (Committee Member); Ken Rinaldo (Committee Member); Amanda Gluibizzi (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, English

In this dissertation, I investigate American motion picture narratives from the 1990s in which detectives encounter the supernatural. These narratives did not originate during this decade, but there were a remarkable number of them compared to previous periods. I argue that the supernatural is often analogous to personal, national, or cultural trauma. I further suggest that a detective investigating the supernatural stands in for the psychoanalyst, who studies and treats this trauma. I then trace the origins of the supernatural detective in history, as well as in British and American popular fiction. To begin, I discuss Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999) as an example of a supernatural detective, who is himself traumatized but who also manages to solve the supernatural mystery in the eponymous village. That solution points to the obscured narrative of women's rights in the early-American republic. Next, I suggest that spaces can be traumatized like people. I introduce the concept of the chronotope of the traumatized space, which I then apply to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and its various film and television adaptations to argue that these influential haunted house tales have helped repress scientific research into the paranormal as a reputable field of inquiry and the paranormal researcher as an admirable calling. Next, the entire country of the United States is portrayed as a traumatized space in The X-Files, which presents its primary supernatural detective, Agent Fox Mulder, as an analyst of the state, exposing the national guilt concerning the treatment of Native Americans. Finally, I investigate several turn-of-the-millennium fake documentaries. I argue that in The Last Broadcast (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and the novel House of Leaves (2000), rational investigators are more likely to meet impossible moments than they are to meet supernatural entities. These impossible moments reflect a growing desensitization to the slippage (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jared Gardner (Advisor); James Phelan (Committee Member); Linda Mizejewski (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Motion Pictures

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2013, Arts and Sciences: Romance Languages and Literatures

Abstract This dissertation brings a new approach to Silvina Ocampo studies by using the theory of uncanny and fantastic fields. It has been a great contribution the theoretical foundations of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud The Uncanny and Irene Bessiere Le recit fantastique. The main book is titled Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion by Rosemary Jackson as it integrates the notions raised by Tzvetan Todorov and Irene Bessiere. Jackson's contribution has allowed me to clarify the definition of the fantastic and the uncanny to the development of this dissertation. I think the term paraxial deserves special mention because it reaffirms the fantastic not categorically defined within the real or unreal, but rather is considered as an ambiguity. Some short stories of the writer show signs of ambiguity, a characteristic of the fantastic, but this does not classify all her works within this category. I do not intend to place it within a literary genre because it's narrative is presented in influence of various literary forms. I proved, however, that it leans more toward the uncanny rather than other narrative categories. Silvina Ocampo is an Argentina writer who seduces readers with an approach contrary to convention. She is an author that captivates the reader with a literature reveals a discrepancy with logical forms and emphasizes the limits in borderless imagination. The literary record of Silvina Ocampo is a prolific one. Although her works include the theater, novels, poetry and essays she is best know for short stories. She is also a versatile writer where her narrative presents many directions and not a single literary form. I intend reconsider posture canonical criticism that categorically defined Silvina Ocampo's narrative within rioplatense fantasy literature without considering the analysis of the theory of the uncanny. Traditionally has been classified within the periodization of fantasy like Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges and Victoria Ocampo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Enrique Giordano Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Armando Romero Ph.D. (Committee Member); Nicasio Urbina Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Latin American Literature

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2012, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Many journal articles about autism spectrum disorders have been published. The definition of “high-functioning autism” used in these papers may need to be reconsidered, as a segment of the population may be more skilled than has been historically thought. A percentage of people on the autism spectrum work in a high-paying professional capacity, in industries such as computer technology and health care. Their intellectual capacities allow them to successfully perform the portions of their jobs that require deep technical knowledge. However, they struggle with the cognitive and social issues associated with the autism spectrum, such as: concrete thinking; literal information processing; contextual misunderstanding; and social misunderstandings. This qualitative study examines the issues encountered by high-functioning people on the autism spectrum who are in the top quartile of American wage earners. It also recounts the reaction of the participants to a major employment lawsuit filed by a knowledge worker with Asperger's. In addition, the subjects describe what they believe are the strengths that they bring to the workplace that they do not perceive in people who are not on the autism spectrum. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd.

Committee: Mark Russell Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Richard Coder Ph.D. (Committee Member); Alex Silverman J.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Developmental Psychology; Occupational Psychology; Psychology