Matching Items (857)
Description
This Master's thesis locates four works by William Dyce inspired by Dante Alighieri's Commedia: Francesca da Rimini (1837), Design for the Reverse of the Turner Medal (1858), Beatrice (1859), and Dante and Beatrice (date unknown) in the context of their literary, artistic and personal influences. It will be shown that, far from assimilating the poet to a pantheon of important worthies, Dyce found in Dante contradictions and challenges to his Victorian, Anglican way of thinking. In this thesis these contradictions and challenges are explicated in each of the four works.
ContributorsTiffany, Kristopher (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Gully, Anthony (Committee member) / Codell, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study examines transnational connections between art as advertising and the tourism industry. The development of railroads, and later airlines, played a crucial role in the growth of travel. Art posters supported this expansion. By the mid-twentieth century, art posters gained wide acceptance for encouraging leisure travel. Posters and paintings were constructed by artists to visualize destinations, underscoring the social status and modern convenience of tourism. This thesis describes how advertising, as an aspect of popular visual culture, offered compelling parallels to stylistic developments in modern art.
ContributorsO'Dowd, Sarah (Author) / Sweeney, J Gray (Thesis advisor) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Western landscape photography helped to create an imaginative perception of a new nation for Americans. Early nineteenth-century photographers captured a vision of uncharted terrain that metaphorically fulfilled a two-fold illusion: an untouched Eden and a land ready and waiting for white settlement. The sublime and picturesque experiences of the West provided artists a concept that could be capitalized upon by employing various forms of manipulation. In the twentieth-century, the role of landscape photography evolved as did the advancement of the West. Images of wilderness became art and photographers chose to view the western landscape differently. Some focused more sharply and critically on the relationship between the land and the people who lived on it. The influential exhibition in 1975, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape presented work that showed a landscape altered, marked by power lines, houses, and fences. The West as Eden no longer existed. Today, photographers continue to examine, image, and experience western land anew. In this thesis I examine the relationship of contemporary landscape photography and the role of the West, guided by an analysis that traces the history of American ideologies and attitudes toward natural land. The artists I have chosen recognize landscape not as scenery but as the spaces and systems people inhabit, and use manipulative strategies that emphasize an artificial character of the West. Their work elicits antecedent mythologies, pictorial models, and American ideologies that continue to perpetuate internationally.
ContributorsHerden, Nicole (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis advisor) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Klett, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis discusses the significance of the casta naming process depicted in pinturas de casta or casta paintings created in eighteenth-century colonial New Spain. These paintings depicted family units, each member named by a racial label designated by the sistema de castas, the Imperial Spanish code of law associated with these paintings. In the genre, the labeled subjects were hierarchically ordered by racial lineage with pure Spanish genealogies ranked highest and all other racial categories following on a sliding scale of racial subjectivity. This study focuses on casta paintings' label coyote, which referred to colonial subjects of mestizo and indigenous heritage. Policies of the casta system, when matched with casta paintings' animal label created a framing of indigenous colonial subjectivity; those labeled coyote were visually positioned as one of the lowest members of the casta and of questionable quality as humans, given their comparison to wild canines. Beyond the general discussion of racial hegemony at work in these paintings this thesis exploration individually questions the meaning of the casta label coyote by analyzing how the colonial namer and the named colonial subject related to this word and title. Deep-seated beliefs about the undomesticated canine were at work in the imaginations of both the Imperial Spanish namer and the named colonial subject, evidenced in European/Spanish renderings of wolves and indigenous art depicting coyotes in Mesoamerica. To uncover the imaginations that informed the creation and reception of the coyote label this study examines the visual development of wolf as a symbol of wildness, evil, and racial impurity used to hail the human Other in both peninsular and New Spanish colonial arts. Additionally, images of coyotes will be considered from the position of the colonial named, vis à vis indigenous arts and beliefs that coyote acted as a sacred symbol of power through centuries of human development in the Mesoamerican world. Varied understandings of coyote were at work in the New Spanish colony, evidenced in eighteenth-century paintings of mestizo artist Miguel Cabrera. Analysis of his paintings of the La Divina Pastora and of his casta painting De mestizo y india nace coyote reveal the instability of coyote as symbol and human label amid the mestizaje mechanisms of New Spain.
ContributorsDashnaw, Mary (Author) / Malagamba, Amelia (Thesis advisor) / Schleif, Corine (Committee member) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Ancient Mediterranean cultures incorporated equine iconography into their artistic repertoires, demonstrating the horse's importance not only as a beast of burden and war, but also as a visual symbol of wealth and prestige. Interaction between man and horse appears in clay as early as the third millennium BC, along with the early development of ancient Near Eastern cultures. Tactical evolution in Near Eastern warfare, particularly the eclipse of chariot forces by the rise of cavalry, coincided with the emergence of equestrian terracotta figurines and facilitated the popularity of horse and rider imagery. Cyprus' many city-kingdoms have yielded a vast, coroplastic corpus in both votive and mortuary contexts, including figurines of equestrian type. These terracottas are an important contribution to the understanding of ancient Cypriote cultures, cities and their coroplastic oeuvre.
While many studies of excavated terracottas include horse and rider figurines, only a limited number of these publications dedicate adequate analysis and interpretation. Ancient Marion is one of the Cypriote city-kingdoms producing a number of equestrian terracottas that are in need of further examination. By focusing on the unpublished horse and rider figurines from Marion, this paper will add to the conversation of Cyprus' inclusion of equestrian iconography in coroplastic production. Through thorough analysis of the horse and rider terracottas, specifically their plastic and stylistic components, this thesis establishes typologies, makes visual comparisons and demonstrates Marion's awareness of an equine vogue both in contemporary Cyprus and abroad. The horse and rider figurines of Marion are an important contribution to the better understanding of the city-kingdom and exemplify the inclusion of equestrian imagery within the context of ancient societies.
While many studies of excavated terracottas include horse and rider figurines, only a limited number of these publications dedicate adequate analysis and interpretation. Ancient Marion is one of the Cypriote city-kingdoms producing a number of equestrian terracottas that are in need of further examination. By focusing on the unpublished horse and rider figurines from Marion, this paper will add to the conversation of Cyprus' inclusion of equestrian iconography in coroplastic production. Through thorough analysis of the horse and rider terracottas, specifically their plastic and stylistic components, this thesis establishes typologies, makes visual comparisons and demonstrates Marion's awareness of an equine vogue both in contemporary Cyprus and abroad. The horse and rider figurines of Marion are an important contribution to the better understanding of the city-kingdom and exemplify the inclusion of equestrian imagery within the context of ancient societies.
ContributorsWalter, Chelsea (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Sweeney, Gray (Committee member) / Baldasso, Renzo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
From inception, the earliest museums in Europe were a haven for artifacts, many of which represented world cultures within its walls. The tradition of encyclopedic collecting characterized European museums and U.S. institutions modeled themselves after this example. In the 20th century, defining cultural property, in the form of excavated objects, became a priority for many nations and resulted in the scrutiny of ancient artifacts, in particular. This led to the establishment of international protocols which sought to protect items during times of both peace and war. Despite international legislation, the trade of illicit antiquities continued. A major advocate for repatriation, the nation of Italy aggressively sought return of many objects from antiquity and recently approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art regarding several items whose provenance was suspect. Ultimately the conflict was resolved through The Metropolitan Museum of Art-Republic of Italy Agreement of February 21, 2006, which transferred the title of six antiquities to Italy in return for long term loans of equivalent objects to the museum. The landmark agreement represents a mutually profitable resolution to a situation potentially plaguing thousands of institutions worldwide. The implications of replication of the agreement can potentially change how museums, nations and the public understand concepts of ownership and may reduce the role of permanent collections in favor of sharing, rather than possessing, world heritage.
ContributorsFeller, Andrea (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Sweeney, J. Gray (Committee member) / Sealy Lineberry, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Matilda of Canossa (1046 to 1115), the Great Countess of Tuscany, was a noblewoman, a warrior, and a papal supporter who later generations adapted to satisfy a variety of cultural and ideological interests. Matilda's life as a ruler was amplified over the following five hundred years in an avalanche of words and images that served many purposes. This thesis considers the art produced during her lifetime in the context of disputes over papal authority, as well as art produced about Matilda subsequently. The study includes a discussion of her appearance in Dante's Comedy; her importance to Florentine artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo Buonarroti in the 16th century; and concludes with the significance of the elaborate tomb sculpted for her reburial by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in St. Peter's Cathedral. An examination of Matilda through these shifting representations from the 12th to the 17th century enables an understanding of how and why she became an impressive symbol in the visual arts. Finally, the study examines the process through which a strong, powerful woman was transformed from an historical person to a legend. Matilda's remarkable life and myth is still relevant to art historical, religious and cultural studies because of the pervasiveness of her influence a millennium after her death.
ContributorsSmith, Rachel (Author) / Sweeney, J. Gray (Thesis advisor) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Vitullo, Juliann (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
For as long as humans have been working, they have been looking for ways to get that work done better, faster, and more efficient. Over the course of human history, mankind has created innumerable spectacular inventions, all with the goal of making the economy and daily life more efficient. Today, innovations and technological advancements are happening at a pace like never seen before, and technology like automation and artificial intelligence are poised to once again fundamentally alter the way people live and work in society. Whether society is prepared or not, robots are coming to replace human labor, and they are coming fast. In many areas artificial intelligence has disrupted entire industries of the economy. As people continue to make advancements in artificial intelligence, more industries will be disturbed, more jobs will be lost, and entirely new industries and professions will be created in their wake. The future of the economy and society will be determined by how humans adapt to the rapid innovations that are taking place every single day. In this paper I will examine the extent to which automation will take the place of human labor in the future, project the potential effect of automation to future unemployment, and what individuals and society will need to do to adapt to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology. I will also look at the history of automation in the economy. For centuries humans have been advancing technology to make their everyday work more productive and efficient, and for centuries this has forced humans to adapt to the modern technology through things like training and education. The thesis will additionally examine the ways in which the U.S. education system will have to adapt to meet the demands of the advancing economy, and how job retraining programs must be modernized to prepare workers for the changing economy.
ContributorsCunningham, Reed P. (Author) / DeSerpa, Allan (Thesis director) / Haglin, Brett (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Social-emotional learning (SEL) methods are beginning to receive global attention in primary school education, yet the dominant emphasis on implementing these curricula is in high-income, urbanized areas. Consequently, the unique features of developing and integrating such methods in middle- or low-income rural areas are unclear. Past studies suggest that students exposed to SEL programs show an increase in academic performance, improved ability to cope with stress, and better attitudes about themselves, others, and school, but these curricula are designed with an urban focus. The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs-based analysis to investigate components specific to a SEL curriculum contextualized to rural primary schools. A promising organization committed to rural educational development is Barefoot College, located in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. In partnership with Barefoot, we designed an ethnographic study to identify and describe what teachers and school leaders consider the highest needs related to their students' social and emotional education. To do so, we interviewed 14 teachers and school leaders individually or in a focus group to explore their present understanding of “social-emotional learning” and the perception of their students’ social and emotional intelligence. Analysis of this data uncovered common themes among classroom behaviors and prevalent opportunities to address social and emotional well-being among students. These themes translated into the three overarching topics and eight sub-topics explored throughout the curriculum, and these opportunities guided the creation of the 21 modules within it. Through a design-based research methodology, we developed a 40-hour curriculum by implementing its various modules within seven Barefoot classrooms alongside continuous reiteration based on teacher feedback and participant observation. Through this process, we found that student engagement increased during contextualized SEL lessons as opposed to traditional methods. In addition, we found that teachers and students preferred and performed better with an activities-based approach. These findings suggest that rural educators must employ particular teaching strategies when addressing SEL, including localized content and an experiential-learning approach. Teachers reported that as their approach to SEL shifted, they began to unlock the potential to build self-aware, globally-minded students. This study concludes that social and emotional education cannot be treated in a generalized manner, as curriculum development is central to the teaching-learning process.
ContributorsBucker, Delaney Sue (Author) / Carrese, Susan (Thesis director) / Barab, Sasha (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Construction is a defining characteristic of geometry classes. In a traditional classroom, teachers and students use physical tools (i.e. a compass and straight-edge) in their constructions. However, with modern technology, construction is possible through the use of digital applications such as GeoGebra and Geometer’s SketchPad.
Many other studies have researched the benefits of digital manipulatives and digital environments through student completion of tasks and testing. This study intends to research students’ use of the digital tools and manipulatives, along with the students’ interactions with the digital environment. To this end, I conducted exploratory teaching experiments with two calculus I students.
In the exploratory teaching experiments, students were introduced to a GeoGebra application developed by Fischer (2019), which includes instructional videos and corresponding quizzes, as well as exercises and interactive notepads, where students could use digital tools to construct line segments and circles (corresponding to the physical straight-edge and compass). The application built up the students’ foundational knowledge, culminating in the construction and verbal proof of Euclid’s Elements, Proposition 1 (Euclid, 1733).
The central findings of this thesis are the students’ interactions with the digital environment, with observed changes in their conceptions of radii and circles, and in their use of tools. The students were observed to have conceptions of radii as a process, a geometric shape, and a geometric object. I observed the students’ conceptions of a circle change from a geometric shape to a geometric object, and with that change, observed the students’ use of tools change from a measuring focus to a property focus.
I report a summary of the students’ work and classify their reasoning and actions into the above categories, and an analysis of how the digital environment impacts the students’ conceptions. I also briefly discuss the impact of the findings on pedagogy and future research.
Many other studies have researched the benefits of digital manipulatives and digital environments through student completion of tasks and testing. This study intends to research students’ use of the digital tools and manipulatives, along with the students’ interactions with the digital environment. To this end, I conducted exploratory teaching experiments with two calculus I students.
In the exploratory teaching experiments, students were introduced to a GeoGebra application developed by Fischer (2019), which includes instructional videos and corresponding quizzes, as well as exercises and interactive notepads, where students could use digital tools to construct line segments and circles (corresponding to the physical straight-edge and compass). The application built up the students’ foundational knowledge, culminating in the construction and verbal proof of Euclid’s Elements, Proposition 1 (Euclid, 1733).
The central findings of this thesis are the students’ interactions with the digital environment, with observed changes in their conceptions of radii and circles, and in their use of tools. The students were observed to have conceptions of radii as a process, a geometric shape, and a geometric object. I observed the students’ conceptions of a circle change from a geometric shape to a geometric object, and with that change, observed the students’ use of tools change from a measuring focus to a property focus.
I report a summary of the students’ work and classify their reasoning and actions into the above categories, and an analysis of how the digital environment impacts the students’ conceptions. I also briefly discuss the impact of the findings on pedagogy and future research.
ContributorsSakauye, Noelle Marie (Author) / Roh, Kyeong Hah (Thesis director) / Zandieh, Michelle (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05