This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
This doctoral thesis utilizes a material culture approach of lived religion to analyze everyday practices resulting from past social interactions and discourses that alter the relation of things and actors within structured categories of thought and action. The case study for this analysis is a genealogical investigation of the icon…
This doctoral thesis utilizes a material culture approach of lived religion to analyze everyday practices resulting from past social interactions and discourses that alter the relation of things and actors within structured categories of thought and action. The case study for this analysis is a genealogical investigation of the icon of Death that attracts both lived Catholic and Occultist practitioners within the shared self-identification of folk magic. La Santa Muerte is an icon of Death that recently emerged as a Mexican folk saint over the last two decades, but appears to be a historical outcome of medieval Western European material depictions of a Good Death. My thesis addresses the question, what social and historical processes led to the Occultist adoption of the Mexican folk saint La Santa Muerte? I conclude that a Romantic counter-ideology denying both empirical rationality and Christian normativity gathers a diverse assemblage of people to the icon of Death. My methods include iconology, historiography, ethnography, and iconographic fieldwork. The result is a genealogy that traces a deep history of practices and materiality from the ancient Mediterranean through medieval Western Europe and the colonization of Mexico until the present moment on social media. My fieldwork examines what La Santa Muerte signifies or embodies in Nezahualcóyotl (Mexico City), Puebla, Puebla, Mexico, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, and on social media. In my dissertation, I outline how lived Catholicism and Occultism converge within a gathering of religious practitioners who seek to subvert dominant social narratives that accuse them of deviancy.
Slavery is a significant factor to consider when studying Mexica society and its economy, including societal roles and gendered labor. Many scholars who explore slavery within this culture and state look at the topic from specific angles and focus on the post-conquest and colonial periods. Pre-Columbian slavery is mentioned only…
Slavery is a significant factor to consider when studying Mexica society and its economy, including societal roles and gendered labor. Many scholars who explore slavery within this culture and state look at the topic from specific angles and focus on the post-conquest and colonial periods. Pre-Columbian slavery is mentioned only briefly in the histories of the Mexica despite it being a key facet of their way of life. Questions of gender and class in relation to slavery are often missing from examinations of the topic. This project will, therefore, examine the process of enslavement, slave status and labor, and the written and visual evidence of enslaved individuals within Mexica society during the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. By specifically examining slavery within the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and the Mexica region, this thesis will argue that enslaved women played a much more significant role than enslaved men, and that slaves constituted a social class in pre-Columbian Mexica society.
