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- Genre: Art--Psychological aspects.
- Genre: Creative nonfiction
- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
Art is a form of spiritual expression that is thriving in many Indigenous cultures. It can take many forms, meanings and have a multitude of emotional, mental, physical and spiritual effects on its creator as well as its audience. Amongst American Indians, art has been a method for maintaining holistic well-being intended to heal and cope with traumatic experiences. In this thesis, I examine the western societal and cultural influences that have led to the loss of cultural identity and examine approaches and practices that aim to re-establish a resilient connection to identity and well-being using art as a spiritual catalyst. Literary research and articles were reviewed related to the issue of art as a form of spiritual expression in Indigenous cultures. An autoethnography was conducted with the intent to record and reflect on the well-being of the researcher in relation to her artistic expression. Journaling and vlogging were used as research methods and painting, sketching, and beading was used as artistic methods. Over the course of six months, over 50 videos with 30 hours of raw footage were recorded; averaging 2 hours per day. The results are reflected in the researchers free-flowing and emotionally driven reflection of experiences that have driven her artwork. This thesis supports the establishment of art as a form of spiritual expression for transforming the current western focused health care paradigm to one that recognizes, values and employs Indigenous insight, methodologies, worldviews, culture and spirituality.
ContributorsRobbins, Marlena (Author) / Romero-Little, Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Marley, Tennille L (Committee member) / Meders, Jacob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This dissertation is both creative and scholarly, engaging in the technique of "narrative scholarship," an increasingly accepted technique within the field of ecocriticism. The project is framed by my experiences with Spanish and Latino actors as well as activists involved with the 15-M movement in and around Madrid. It takes a "material ecocritical" approach, which is to say that it treats minds, spirits and language as necessarily "bodied" entities, and creates an absolute union between beings and the matter that constructs them as well as their habitat. I apply the lens of Jesper Hoffmeyer's Biosemiotics, which claims that life is at its most essential levels a communicative process. In other words, I will explore how "all matter is 'storied' matter," as well as how the "semiosphere," which is an important concept in biosmiotics, signaling a semiotic environment that predicts and defines all biological bodies/life, the human, the plant and the animal as beings who are made of and involved in semiotic activity, can serve as a basis for union amongst all bodies and provide a model of cooperation rooted in "storytelling." My project aims to embody what Wendy Wheeler describes as ecocriticism's, "syntheses between the sciences and the humanities" It is my strong opinion that creative writing has the power to offer the general public insight into the reasons why new research in biosemiotics is so important to the work that activists are doing to raise awareness of how humans can live responsibly on the only planet that is our home. This will help readers of creative writing and cultural studies scholars understand why they ought to embrace science, especially in literary and cultural studies, as a path to better understanding of the role of the humanities in an increasingly scientifically oriented world.
ContributorsDay, Timothy (Author) / Adamson, Joni (Thesis advisor) / Gutkind, Lee (Committee member) / Flys-Junquera, Carmen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016