http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/hhpthesis/rss Recent eScholarship items from Humanities Honors Program Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:32:00 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/61h2838m Political instability and radical ideas flourished in the 1850s, the first decade of Californian statehood. As California sought to establish its institutions, the new state tested its limits amidst the nationwide sectional crisis. This project explores and contextualizes calls within the state for California to challenge the federal government by claiming direct ownership of the state’s vast public lands, an idea which chiefly flourished between 1849 and 1855. The federal government’s perceived mishandling of California’s administration, land claims, and land policy fueled local discontent, increasing support for state-level action. Supporters' diverse arguments and goals reflected many of the ideas held about California as a social and an administrative project. The state ownership movement reflects early attempts by Californian politicians to establish regional preeminence and autonomy during national debates over the power of the federal government. Ultimately, the movement... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/61h2838m Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Trytten, John https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6sw0w5kh This thesis examines how New Media, especially social media, has influenced contemporary cinematic aesthetics and narrative form in film and television. Through close analysis of three primary case studies—Bo Burnham: Inside, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and the ScreenLife film Searching, alongside a discussion of Beast Games and War of the Worlds as negative comparative examples—the project demonstrates the increasing ubiquity of New Media aesthetics in film and television.&nbsp; It first shows how social media’s visual language of authenticity and intimacy has reshaped performance-based media, particularly in comedy specials and reality television. It then analyzes how rapid-cut, highly stylized “retention editing” can be transformed into narratively meaningful hypermediacy. Finally, it considers ScreenLife films and their utilization of a digital mise-en-scène, examining how it can deepen intimacy and characterization, whilst also revealing the limits of the format when... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6sw0w5kh Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Bitetti, Bryce https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5bz3j28v The moral dissonance of accepting the violation of moral standards in pursuit of religious ends must be accepted as a premise of Israeli geopolitical affairs. However, the devices by which Israel continues to both physically and ideologically expand reveals a logic of domination that extends far beyond the mere realization of religious ideals. Zionism can be read as an attempt to overcome the chronic impotence and diasporic condition Friedrich Nietzsche associates with priestly ressentiment by transforming a historically persecuted people into a sovereign political power. However, the persistence of moral narratives grounded in existential victimhood suggests that state power does not automatically dissolve reactive value-structures. The case of Israel complicates Nietzsche’s master/slave morality dichotomy by demonstrating how modern nationalism can fuse sovereign force with priestly moral legitimation. Using Nietzsche’s Genealogy and some aphorisms from Beyond Good and Evil... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5bz3j28v Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Slater, Alyssa Isabella https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3jd1j0bj This paper evaluates the masculinist segment of the homosexual emancipation movement in early 20th-century Germany in relation to Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, broader German society, and the emerging National Socialist Party. In particular, this paper focuses on how certain masculinists, with varying relationships to the NSDAP, aimed to center homoerotic desire and homosocial bonding within their visions of Hellenistic revival – visions which were otherwise also taken up by the National Socialists. This research primarily examines the images and essays of the early gay publication Der Eigene ("The Self-Owner," or "The Unique One") in this context. Current scholarship on Der Eigene and the masculinists – though limited in comparison to the body of work on the portion of the gay movement associated with Hirschfeld – focuses on the rhetorical dimensions of the attempted reconciliations between masculinist visions of same-sex desire and often-fascist nationalisms.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3jd1j0bj Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Black, Julia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8m62221b Recent years have seen a renaissance in horror media. The revolution in horror has crossed mediums, touching film, television, and literature. The expansion and evolution of horror captures previously untold terrors. Marginalized stories are being told with the classic tenets of the genre, turning the traditional narratives on their heads and offering new perspectives. Horror serves as an ideal vessel for storytellers who wish to convey the unfairness and cruelty they face in a brutal form. The expansion of the genre into the mainstream has opened discussions of the value of “pop” horror versus the value of “artistic” or “elevated” horror. The distinction between the two has become a point of contention among old and new fans of the genre. The new artistic and avant garde approaches to the genre capture a key aspect of horror: “Much horror depends upon destabilising our sense of security, defamiliarising the familiar, and questioning what is seen as an everyday norm–of the body,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8m62221b Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Schoeff, Emily https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gn0874m The film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ <em>The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes</em> (2020) released in November of 2023, creating buzz among <em>The Hunger Games</em> fans, new and old. The novel and film detail the life of tyrannical dictator President Coriolanus Snow and his rise to power in Panem, a nation that rose from the ashes of North America after a series of natural disasters and political turmoil. <em>The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes</em> acts as a prequel to the events of <em>The Hunger Games</em> trilogy, and it demonstrates the development of the Hunger Games as a central part of everyday life in Panem. The novel begins in the Capitol, where Snow and other elite citizens reside, are planning the 10th annual Hunger Games. However, this year is special, students of the Academy, like Snow, are expected to participate in the Games as mentors for the selected District tributes; this is an event that will change the course of Panem and the Games forever. A total of 24... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gn0874m Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Magee, Jordan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7pw3t9cj The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has become the most popular film franchise in the world, setting box office records that are unlikely to ever be beaten. Due to the ongoing nature of the MCU, the superhero franchise has left an irreversible mark on society due to its transmedia storytelling abilities. Research has shown that the MCU’s depictions of race, gender, violence, and morality reveal something about the real world in terms of the social constructs that govern people’s way of life. Although the characters and events in the MCU are nothing more than speculative fiction, the influence these films have had on society couldn’t be any more real. In recent years, the MCU has seen a decline in popularity and Marvel Studios has made various efforts to reignite the excitement surrounding superhero culture. However, Marvel’s studio crisis may reveal something about the world that at first glance many might not recognize as a direct correlation between the societal issues today... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7pw3t9cj Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Vuong, Jordan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7jx5v0fj <p>While there’s significant and well-deserved coverage of electronic music’s older female pioneers, there isn’t yet sufficient academic or professional energy devoted to understanding the achievements of young women working today.</p><p>Starting in 2012, USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has since reported that 2023 was the year with the highest recorded percentage of female producers at 6.5%.1 This is still a remarkably low, disappointing amount. For that reason (and more), I’m excited to highlight three important female producers working today who, despite not reaching arbitrary standards of musical success (charting, for instance), have indeed managed to cultivate a formidable discography, release critically-acclaimed or well-received albums, establish themselves in a burgeoning music industry, have achieved name recognition, have signed to reputable recording labels, and regularly perform their music on tour.</p><p>I’m specifically focusing on three young female producers... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7jx5v0fj Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Hammett, Mia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/61c4t66k <p>“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must, each of us, recognize our responsibility to seek those words out. To read them, and share them, and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.” - Audre Lorde, Cancer Journals</p><p>I don't remember how he trained me; it was so subtle over many weeks, months. Was it the first time I recall "letting go" something that he had done, which felt so completely wrong? I don't know. It could have even started well before my awareness had time to catch up. Exes, friends, society, my mother, my father, from the moment I was born, was I trained? I do recall the times which I had said something I knew I shouldn't have; the characteristics of his rage had become familiar very quickly. I easily remember not objecting when I wanted to. I know that the build-up to a punch, kick, push, or slap is so much worse than the pain they illicit.</p><p>He trained me to anticipate anger, even while new angers were being built. He told... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/61c4t66k Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Richards, Dee https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qh3s3ds <p>This thesis is an exploration of the video game Disco Elysium, analyzed through some of the most popular and well-known Modernist works with the goal of proving that Disco Elysium is, at its core, a Modernist work. The incorporation of other Modernist pieces to arrive at this conclusion is mainly to examine reoccurring themes and ideas, some as broad as “obliteration” and others as specific as “identifying with a taxidermy bird after being dissatisfied with the course of one’s life”. In deciding how to structure the analysis, the works of the most prolific Modernist authors were selected with respect to their relationship to Disco Elysium’s core player skills. T. S. Eliot was selected to represent “Intellect”, T. E. Hulme for “Psyche”, and W. B. Yeats for “Physique”. The last skill, “Motorics” was not represented by a specific author but rather acts as a collection of final ideas and themes that help to show Disco Elysium as Modernist in its entirety, not just in select scenes... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qh3s3ds Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Anders, Tim https://escholarship.org/uc/item/55d86905 It is undeniable that folklore has been a crucial aspect of human expression and connection for thousands of years. The nineteenth century saw interest in folkloric stories bloom thanks to the work of folklorists like the Brothers Grimm and fairy tale writers like Hans Christian Andersen. With these minds came widespread recognition of the literary fairy tale genre. Since then, fairy tales have skyrocketed in pop cultural prominence. Taking into account the fairy tale genre’s pervasiveness in storytelling, this thesis examines how the computer role-playing game (CRPG) series, Baldur’s Gate, utilizes this genre in an attempt to create a set of adult fairy tales for their players. In three separate chapters, this thesis will connect the Baldur’s Gate games to fairy tales in a way that exemplifies the latter’s influence on the former. The first chapter will focus on the “leaving home” plot arc as it is presented in the first Baldur’s Gate game from 1998, and we will examine how this... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/55d86905 Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Lowe, Emma Leigh https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4d33456z <p>This thesis examines the vicissitudes of masculinity as it presents across three late-Victorian novels in order to unpack the anxieties produced by the shift of power from aristocratic to professional communities and the tensions this shift produced between and within those communities. The various models of masculinity on display in the examined works of Gothic literature operate on ideas that came into play during the period surrounding sexuality and gender structures. Furthermore, each work takes on a particular perspective on masculinity as it works on the physical body and how that body interacts with others of its kind. The common themes of mutation, metamorphosis, and bodily decay or degeneration stand in relief to the ideal of masculinity they implicitly reference, which points toward the focal point of power relations between men and the world they inhabit as well as between each other.</p><p>Chapter One examines the world of the Victorian professional man as it exists... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4d33456z Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Mombeini, Tristan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1pj6x1s0 <p>Shakespeare: the greatest mind in English literature, the worst for the classroom. He’s been our pop culture for centuries, but it’s a struggle teaching his work.</p><p>I remember being a freshman in high school reading Romeo and Juliet. I’ve been captivated by Shakespeare’s vivid language and ideas since. As much as I loved the story, and Shakespeare, I knew my classmates were frustrated with it and didn’t like it.</p><p>As a fourth-year college student, I still think about my experience with Shakespeare in freshman year. My teacher summarized scenes and had us (the students) read the text out loud. Everyone was confused and our teacher’s succinct summaries were not enough for us to grasp his language. Although I was animated as we read the play, I couldn’t understand it.</p><p>I’ve realized that simply summarizing the happenings of a Shakespeare play is not useful because it’s the same as reading an online book summary in lieu of reading the entire book. Hence, teachers must... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1pj6x1s0 Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Rosenow, Jessica https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0v04d7d9 This thesis explores the ways in which the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges used devices, principles, and strategies that today we would call deconstructionist, to write poetry that could transcend the communicative limits of language, which according to the author himself, it is not an effective tool to truly represent what is real. To accomplish this task, we first frame our work in the context of Derrida’s Deconstructionism, specifically in the area of literary criticism, defining what it means to take a deconstructive approach to critical theory. We then introduce Borges and his ideas, situating him within the sphere of deconstructionist theory as a sort of precursor (a word that we want to use carefully here, as we will be arguing for something different from a precursor). Next, we present the hard data obtained from an experiment involving thirty-two participants, analyzing the interpretations our volunteers gave to verses and poems by Borges, and we use the significant... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0v04d7d9 Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 De Palma, Federico M. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qs5m0zg Derivative fiction is a genre of fiction that involves writing or reading about or within the worlds of previously established works. People often do not realize it, but many works of classic literature are, in their own ways, derivative fiction of other stories entirely. Dante’s Inferno is a derivative work based on The Bible, for example, but in addition to that, much of Arthurian legend—including all of Sir Lancelot’s legends, and the existence of Sir Lancelot in the first place—comes from derivative works, sometimes even from other countries such as France (which is where Sir Lancelot’s stories all come from). Even Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is based on an Italian play called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, but while the original play framed the deaths of the main characters as caused by their not listening to their parents, Shakespeare changed the ending and other parts of the story to focus on tragic love (Spencer et al.). Even nowadays, derivative works are... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qs5m0zg Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Mosher, Sean https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gk2k3pm Whipped Cream is a two Act ballet performed by the American Ballet Theatre, with choreography by Alexei Ratmansky and sets and costumes designed by pop-surrealist, Mark Ryden. The story follows the protagonist, The Boy, after he overindulges on whipped cream following his First Communion. As a result, he has a series of dreams that become progressively more bizarre as The Boy descends into a fantasy world. The emphasis on subconscious combined with the 1920s Viennese setting of Whipped Cream immediately recalls Sigmund Freud and his Dream Theory. By using Freud’s Dream Theory as a point of departure, the paper argues that the main ‘want’ of The Boy lies in a craving for control and a need to escape the confines of reality in favor of a fantastical world. He conjures up an alternative life for himself, a future in which he has power and resources otherwise unavailable to him. Buffered by Mark Ryden’s grotesquely cute set, props, and costumes, and reinforced by the cuteness theories... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gk2k3pm Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Gunderson, Anabelle Natividad https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2pr6q3rm In this thesis I argue that the influx of female writers of sensationalized Victorian supernatural fiction overlap with the female mediums and participants of the supernaturalist movement, for the ultimate dissemination of the separate spheres ideology, thorough transgressive boundary crossing, ultimately seeking to bolster women’s entrance into the professional sphere, ushering in the “New Woman.” Both movements converge to undermine the Victorian female condition and respective ideals of femininity and womanhood (True Womanhood, Real Womanhood, Public Womanhood, and New Womanhood) through periodicals, short stories, Spiritualist forums, and the séance, women became the catalysts for the “New Woman” of the twentieth century. Thus, the dead become the medium for silenced and oppressed women, a means through which they can transgress social boundaries. Through these figures of transgression, women were able to highlight the failings of various societal institutions and common narratives... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2pr6q3rm Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Scott, Trinity https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gs4d8kp This thesis explores resistance work in Nazi-occupied France and Vichy France during World War II. The research uses paramilitary acts of resistance as a foil to political resistance, intelligence gathering and evasive resistance, and the home front as a site of resistance to spotlight women’s contributions to the French resistance. By exploring several types of resistance work and women’s participation (or lack thereof) in various resistance organizations, this thesis seeks to not only establish the extent of women’s participation in the French resistance but also explore their challenge to the established gender roles within the resistance. This thesis explores the extent of women’s resistance activities across World War II France through internal organizations, such as the French Communist Party and the French Resistance, and external organizations like the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA), British Special Operatives Executive’s F (French) Section (SOE),... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gs4d8kp Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Amidon, Lily https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74x7m9wv The primary purpose of this thesis is to reveal both the inner and outer workings of apologies and forgiveness, verbal gestures typically viewed broadly in the context of relational repair. I intend to enlighten the reader with examples that substantiate the more complex processes involved in apologizing and forgiving. All too often are the valuable constituents and products of verbal interactions overlooked during their exchange. It is through my exhaustive presentation of apologies and forgiveness that I hope to ignite a greater appreciation for conventional utterances and their bases. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74x7m9wv Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Egecioglu, Alisa https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vv9018v Abstract:&nbsp; White womanhood as a social ontological category has evolved as racial and gender power dynamics have evolved throughout US history. I build on research about White womanhood’s relationship to racism in feminist and antifeminist movements to discuss the use of racism as a strategy to navigate racial and gender power dynamics. I first evaluated Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Catharine Beecher. These women were contemporaries on opposite sides of the suffrage movement. Stanton was a prominent feminist leader in favor of women’s suffrage, and Beecher was a prominent antifeminist leader opposed to women’s suffrage. Both White women utilized segregationist racist statements to make their ideas more receptive to the White men in power over the US government. I then evaluated Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly. Friedan and Schlafly were contemporaries on opposite sides of the second-wave feminist movement. Friedan helped launch the movement, and Schlafly worked to dismantle... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vv9018v Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Moradi, Sara C . https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3xr6542k Thirty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and while most former and current communist states have integrated themselves into the global economy, North Korea is still largely, and fiercely, resistant to it. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, with millions living without electricity and suffering from malnutrition. It is also one of the most repressive regimes in contemporary times, with hundreds of thousands imprisoned and tortured without probable cause, compelled to perform forced labor in a vast network of concentration camps. Typically, widespread destitution and oppression inspire liberal reforms or democratic revolutions, but neither have happened in North Korea. This raises the question of how the regime has maintained internal control so effectively for so long. One explanation for its survival is the pervasive security apparatus, but mass surveillance and state-sanctioned violence cannot be the exclusive explanations. One of the key... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3xr6542k Thu, 2 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Vu, Sean https://escholarship.org/uc/item/95d534b0 Although vampire lore has existed in various communities, countries, and times, the stereotypical creature that makes us cover our necks or, perhaps, feel a longing desire to be bitten, originates in the Victorian era. Examining texts from the eighteenth into the twenty-first centuries, I argue that vampire literature reveals and challenges the throughline of Victorian patriarchal binary in western society. Often, the authors of these stories, Bram Stoker among them, placed the vampire in a simple binary of good and evil, using the monster to prove patriarchy's morality and validity. As the typical demonic character, the vampire has maintained elements that Victorianism imbued it with--such as piercing fangs, fear of the light, association with the devil, and sexual promiscuity. And, although stories like Stephenie Meyer’s <em>Twilight</em> (2005) transform the vampire from evil monster to romantic lover, these characteristics remain. Ironically, however, despite the best efforts... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/95d534b0 Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Wood, Grace https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25b8n6b3 This thesis examines the ways NPR failed to serve marginalized communities by analyzing the history and creation of the National Public Radio network. NPR was created on the founding mission statement that promised to represent the diversity of America and to provide programming that would supplement a lack of representation or opportunities on American airwaves, such as adult education programs. This mission statement was to also uphold the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) requirement of serving the public interest in order to justify NPR’s programming being on air. However, using the research study, Audience 88, conducted by NPR’s lead Research Analyst, David Giovannoni. NPR’s main audience was revealed to be educated, middle to upper class, older White people. This thesis asks the question, how did a radio network built with a focus on inclusivity fail to capture and serve a diverse audience? https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25b8n6b3 Fri, 4 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Ostrowski, Mackenzie https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gw1d97n Over the last two decades, Dungeons &amp; Dragons, a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), transformed from a niche subculture to a mainstream aspect of popular culture. Tabletop gamers now utilize new media to create “actual play” experiences, in which a group of people play TTRPGs for an audience. In traditional tabletop, Dennis Waskul and Matt Lust propose that role-playing engenders three unique roles within one person, that of the person, the player, and the persona. In this thesis, I propose that actual play TTRPGs necessitate the addition of a fourth role: the performer. Because of the nature of live television and theatre, both the actors and the audience experience the effects of this fourth role, in recorded actual play and live actual play. I will explore how the division of self into four tangible roles reveals in and out of game identity negotiation. Through a case study of one of the most popular actual play shows, Critical Role, this thesis aims to uncover the ways... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gw1d97n Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Burton, Adrianna https://escholarship.org/uc/item/26x04707 Comfort women were sex slaves forcibly taken and used by the Japanese imperial army during WW2. These women were often poor and uneducated. These women were taken from many places across Asia, however, I specifically will focus on Korean comfort women. Comfort women were women who were used as sex slaves by the Japanese army. This is where the controversy starts. Japan refuses to state they were sex slaves but rather prostitutes. This is the controversy when engaging in discussion about comfort women. I am studying why it is considered a controversy versus a tragedy. Other works focus on the tragedy of comfort women, why it happened or what allowed it to happen. However, it does not focus on why on an international-scale we allowed people and a whole nation, Japan, to deny that these women were sex slaves. Finding translations, government documents, and first hand testimonies were important in understanding the reason why this tragedy is posed as a controversy. After researching,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/26x04707 Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Allbritten, Tatiana https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5597w7gq Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin from 1924 to 1953, censorship notoriously became a central aspect of Soviet society.&nbsp; As citizens were rewarded for exposing any possible opposition to the government’s policies, no sector was left unmarked by what scholars now call the “Great Purge.”&nbsp; While music was not an obvious victim of this movement, the Soviet music scene nonetheless found itself at the forefront of government criticism and reform.&nbsp; In this thesis, I conduct case-studies of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and his Fifth Symphony, as well as Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky film soundtrack and his cantata Zdravitsa.&nbsp; Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District brought its composer, and Soviet music as a whole, to the disapproving eye of Soviet censorship policy, while Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony saved him from further consequences.&nbsp; Alexander Nevsky and Zdravitsa played instrumental roles in Prokofiev’s reintegration into Soviet... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5597w7gq Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Wong, Danica https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4f38n80x Reality Television is often regarded as a mirror to society; a feedback loop of media sustained by and produced for its audience. In just two decades, it has transformed the television industry by establishing not only a unique production culture but by also participating in culture production. Through its purported depiction of “reality,” it has been able to serve as a rich site for studying social, political, economic, and cultural trends. Further, where secrecy is a vibrant part of this entertainment sector, the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) has flourished. While a plethora of works study the television industry, the rising popularity of the genre, and the crucial role NDAs played leading up to the #MeToo movement, there is a lack of academic discourse surrounding a synthesis of Reality Television and NDAs in the present era. My thesis seeks to remedy this gap by analyzing the industry’s harmful labor practices paired with its use of NDAs in an increasingly digital... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4f38n80x Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Karakas, Alexis https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3cn0c88x American television, as a mass medium of storytelling, often gets scrutiny over its content, facing industry standards, censorship, and audience pushback. While sex and obscenity have been intensely studied, TV violence has had most scholarship aimed at the effects of viewing violence. This study is focused in a different direction, seeking to analyze the evolving presentation of violence on American airwaves. TV violence is composed of two parts: The first is the graphic portrayal of violence through fights, gunshots, and death. The second is the role violence serves within TV narratives, which has morphed from acts of justice and self-defense to plotlines intertwining moral indifference with pointless killing and righteous vengeance. Three case studies utilizing close reading and image analysis of various shows are used to analyze both aspects of TV violence. The first case study centers on Bonanza, a TV western that presents violence within strict moral boundaries. The second... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3cn0c88x Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Ta, Hubert https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3383j111 Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) published his major novel, <em>Things Fall Apart</em> (1958), in postcolonial Nigeria. In it he presents a colonial narrative using English as its primary mode of communication. However, his use of native Igbo words and the world they invoke problematizes a eurocentric assumption of the totality and universality of a given language, in this case, English. He employs acts of translation and introduces hybrid languages in order to engender dialogue that subverts the dominance of any one language and the world that it creates for its speakers. In a parallel fashion, this thesis uses two different theoretical approaches that have not typically been placed in dialogue with each other — postcolonial theory and hermeneutics — to view and interpret the nuances present in Achebe’s text that neither could illuminate on its own. This dialogical approach reveals insufficiencies in the independent theories and allows them to mutually supplement each other. Together... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3383j111 Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Taylor, Meghan Elizabeth https://escholarship.org/uc/item/21t8c1p5 In the words of Gertrude Stein: "Composition is the difference." Tender Buttons, her poetry collection published in 1914, is one of the most compositionally daring and misunderstood works within the modernist canon. Stein's composition brings into existence a way of seeing words: she forms her own use of language, both interpreting the rules of grammar and showing clear linguistic choices. In Tender Buttons, the word becomes the microcosm for larger philosophical issues embedded within language: identity, the body, being and knowing, and power. My thesis will closely observe how Stein's poems lend themselves to productive dialogs and/or cross fertilization with the linguistic theories of 20th century language philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, and Valentin Voloshinov. In placing Stein in conversation with these philosophers, I hope to draw Stein in closer proximity to popular language theory and introduce new lenses to help perceive her work. More... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/21t8c1p5 Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Higbee, Erika https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qf1t4z3 Identity is depths beyond what human beings perceive when they look into a mirror-- rather, it is the rich history of time, people, environment, and matters of the heart that afflict and influence them from their earliest memories to their present moment. This collection of poetry, composed of three sections representative of significant periods of one's personhood, is meant to explore the nuances and complications of one's being both a product of their experiences and carrier of memories from those experiences. The first section is composed of poetry concerned with identity formation in the early memories of childhood, with familial influence rooted at its core. The second section is focused on the movement from innocence of childhood to the infatuations, love, and heartbreak that come with young adulthood. The third section is comprised of poetry that looks introspectively at the former two in order to inform an identity that does not abandon those experiences, but builds independently... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qf1t4z3 Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Bullard, Jessica Caitlin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0kb7d98w In an age when everyday life demands less and less of the human body, it often feels as if we are growing further divorced from our nature as moving creatures. As the gym becomes the only sphere of life in which real physical exertion is experienced, our understanding and performance of exercise grows all the more distant—we get in and out of the gym as quickly as possible, using machines that isolate the muscles and limit the body’s movement. Our blood, sweat, and labor are transformed into numbers, cold steel, and increments of time. In this thesis I call upon the wisdom of both ancient and nascent strength communities to offer a perspective on exercise that is more human but does not lose sight of the importance of empirical data and quantitative values. In doing so, I give a brief account of the evolutionary histories of two not-so-typical exercise implements—the Atlas Stone and gada—as well as the myths and peoples to which they are tethered by history, legend, and science.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0kb7d98w Wed, 3 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Burdette, Javier https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ns0181n <p>This study is an exploration of mixed race narratives in postmodern literature, specifically in its iterations of Blasianness. In exploring the literary representation of Blasian individuals, this research does not seek to impose a concrete definition on what it means to exist at the intersection of Blackness and Asianness. Rather, it implores the implications of representing Black/Asian mixedness as it has manifested thus far via literary fiction.</p><p>Because of the newness of its presence in the popular imagination, we have yet to form a developed vocabulary for thinking about multiraciality as it pertains to Blasianness; a central goal of this study is to extend us towards remedying that epistemological shortcoming. Adding to the burgeoning field of Critical Mixed Race Studies, this paper dissects the limits and possibilities of Blasian representation by interrogating modernity, racialization, and what critical mixed race studies theorist Michele Elam calls the anti-Bildungsroman—an... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8ns0181n Mon, 1 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Jones, Jalen https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dh4n13q <p>In 1860, Walt Whitman released what he called the “new American Bible.” This claim scandalized American readers of the day though, since then, much more than the small circle of intellectuals has recognized its importance. The 1860 edition of <em>Leaves of Grass</em> was also the first edition (of seven) in which he claimed to inaugurate a new religion. The centerpiece of this new religion was the mystical experience in which poet and reader embarked together. Through printed text, poet and reader, individual and cosmos, citizen and the democratic would unify. Or, at least, the poet would lead the reader through a mystical journey that may or may not have a destination. The character of this journey changes, like <em>Leaves of Grass</em> itself, from edition to edition. This thesis traces the unstable and multifaceted character of this mysticism with a special emphasis on its blossoming as a mysticism of death.</p><p>In doing so, it will hopefully complicate an often overlooked... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dh4n13q Mon, 8 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Howe, Ryan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7vr5s7qq The mechanization of labor and its effects on the body are central concerns in Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick. In Call Me Ishmael Charles Olson provides an historical context for the status of whaling in the mid-19th century. Olson insists that critics have not placed enough emphasis on whaling’s influence on the American economy, and reminds us that, “whaling expanded at a time when agriculture not industry was the base of labor” (18). Despite agriculture’s prominence, Olson understands whaling as industrially innovative, and so reads the “whale ship as factory” (23). Correspondingly, industrial transformation requires the transformation of the laboring body. Thomas Carlyle’s prescient essay “Signs of the Times” (1829) explores how mechanization extends beyond the factory, converting man and his social relations into mechanisms designed to maximize value production. On the basis of these two claims, my project will explore how whaling transforms not simply the laboring... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7vr5s7qq Thu, 3 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Heinsen, Rachael J. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6q42s2q8 <p>On September 11th , 2001, men working for the extremist group, Al-Qaeda, hijacked commercial airplanes and targeted several United States federal buildings: The Pentagon, The White House, and the World Trade Center in New York City. This caused an uproar within the US state and civil society, along with a mass-media coverage on the “terrorist” attacks; this event also resulted in an outbreak of hate-crimes towards Muslims, and those who were believed to be Muslim. The Muslim body was somehow identifiable. A set of religious beliefs turned into an indicator of appearance, and it was the way that the United States utilized biopolitical tactics to marginalize and control this new racial “other.” It is tactics such as Special Registration, among others like preemptive strike that were implemented by the Bush administration that exacerbate the discourse surrounding Muslims as “terrorists.” The term becomes racialized, and the identity of the Muslim becomes intertwined within its... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6q42s2q8 Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Mousa, Zeina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5451v7g8 Religious history is often preserved by the winners of ideological debates. The twenty-seven books composing the New Testament canon were selected by prevailing players in the battle for ideological supremacy within the early Christian movement and the emerging Catholic Church. The struggle culminated with an accepted definition of orthodoxy and a tradition of apostolic succession for legitimizing religious texts. The Gospel of Mary is an early Christian text deemed unorthodox by the men who shaped the nascent Catholic church, was excluded from the canon, and was subsequently erased from the history of Christianity along with most narratives that demonstrated women’s contributions to the early Christian movement. My thesis explores the intricacies of early canon formation within the context of the controversy surrounding women’s participation in authoritative roles within early Christianity and how the Gospel of Mary was labeled as an unorthodox text due to its pro-feminine narrative.... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5451v7g8 Tue, 13 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Topete, Therasa