Matching Items (19)
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- All Subjects: Creative Project
- Creators: School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Description
Memory Wipe is a 22 minute, video art piece that utilizes home movie footage filmed on VHS and 8mm, as well as television and cartoon ephemera, to explore the way in which personal memory is constructed and altered through the process of recording and viewing. Three recent events in my life inspired work: the discovery of a box containing my favorite childhood media, the revelation that I am the last male of my family, and the impending sale of my family's farmland. My mother never used a video camera, insisting that her childhood was lost in footage filmed but never watched. It should also be noted that not once do I appear in this piece; therefore, I decided to extract myself from the narrative. Rather than simply guide the audience along with anecdotes from my life, I instead invite viewers to draw their own meanings and create their own nostalgias from the piece. Originally, Memory Wipe was to be accompanied by live narration, but all things considered, I thought I would let it speak for itself. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E42a6Koma4
ContributorsMcDougall, Clayton Ross (Author) / Magenta, Muriel (Thesis director) / Brye, Anne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
There are no words for the trauma of death when it strikes unexpectedly. What to say when a mother dies in childbirth? When a father figure contracts an unknown disease for no apparent cause? When a beloved pet, long mourned, may still be alive and hidden by estranged family? Generations may pass, and children may grow up, but the pain leaves marks that echo across time and the other borders we construct between our past and present. We may find strength on solitude, or prayer, or the words of a song written by someone else. In these four stories, spanning almost half a century, the marks of death and attempts to soothe or hide them are everywhere. Children on the cusp of adulthood grapple with the lives and the lies of their parents. Musicians examine the relationship of their music to the world. Legends and myths lurk in the shadows, tempting with false hope and rationalizing the unexplainable.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
ContributorsCohen, Michael Lawrence (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Pearson, Dustin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Link to website project: http://cacoope6.wix.com/tolerancemuseum The East Valley Jewish Community Center is working to build a Holocaust & Tolerance Museum adjacent to their community center campus in Chandler. As a sophomore in college I was introduced to the EVJCC and this project when I saw two Holocaust survivors who lived through Sobibor death camp speak at an EVJCC event. After that, I looked for more information online, only to find none. A series of conversations with Steve Tepper of the EVJCC later, we decided on a project - a website that would be easy for him to maintain after I passed it over when my thesis was complete. I spent a little over a year gathering materials for this project and familiarizing myself with the people and projects involved. In addition to my own original materials, I used a collection of materials I was given access to by Steve Tepper, including filmed interviews with survivors, a documentary, news stories and more. I attended events, took my own photos, talked with Holocaust survivors and learned more about the museum itself, which will be a museum not only to commemorate the Holocaust but genocide and persecution around the globe. When it came time to make the website, I chose Wix as the medium because it was something I could make to the EVJCC's standards and specifications with my own original touches and flair, and something they could easily take over and update after I pass it along. The final product is a beginning website to help them get started with their online presence as a museum.
ContributorsCooper, Clarissa Aileen (Author) / Dodge, Nancie (Thesis director) / Kiefer, Michael (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Link to documentary: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxFCDFfMBwpoNVdybDZOaGhaUWc/view?usp=sharing For my thesis project, I decided to do a documentary on Special Olympic Athletes in Arizona. These individuals have always inspired me because they have faced many challenges and yet they still go through life with a smile on their face. I believe they all deserve recognition for what they have accomplished during the games and outside of them. I wanted to give them this recognition. In my documentary, I interviewed five athletes, three of which are siblings. The first athlete I interviewed was Jesse McGirl, who is a star track and field athlete. In his part of the video, I talk about his strategy as well as his involvement in the games. I also talk about him being a Global Messenger and how he travels the world in order to spread the message of the Special Olympics. The next athlete was David Fromh, who started competing in the games in 1978. In his section, I talk to him about his relationships with his coaches and teammates as well as the strategy he uses while running. He is one of the most positive athletes out there, and I really emphasize on his positivity. The last set of interviews I did was with the Meagan, Emily, and Quincy Jones, three siblings who all suffer from intellectual disabilities. David and Gena Jones adopted them when they were young and their story is a true inspiration. The family is the main focus of my documentary, so they have three parts: Early Life, Special Olympics, and Future. The Early Life focuses on how David and Gena raised their kids and their high school life. The Special Olympics section focuses on their success at the games and the Future section is about the siblings' interests outside of the games. Along with my athlete stories, I have an introduction and conclusion as well as a brief history section describing the founding of the Special Olympics. I had a great time making this project, and I am very fortunate to be able to tell such inspirational stories.
ContributorsEurich, Danielle Nikole (Author) / Dunn, Heather (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?" \u2014 Albert Camus Making a decision between committing suicide or continuing about the monotony of a life void of meaning can be surprisingly difficult to make when all human logic entices us to do the former. In fact, doing the latter seems definitively humanely impossible. In my art series "The Absurd Man", I visually analyze a variety of human reactions to absurdism, drawing from absurdist texts as well as personal experiences to force upon the viewer, recognition of the discomforting reality of human frailty.
ContributorsTa, Trang Thuy (Author) / Pessler, Anthony (Thesis director) / Obuck, John (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
K-2SO: A Science Fiction Novel consists of three separate narratives all connected by one singular event: the choice to save a life. Told in three parts, each narrative explores the story of a different character in a different time, both before the end of the world and after. Dubbed “The Fracture” by the characters of the novel, the repercussions of this cataclysmic event are felt throughout each narrative, but it is not the focus of their stories. The characters and their connections to one another, how each one influences the lives of others, and the choices they make in an effort to rebuild that which they’ve lost and hold onto that which they love, is the heart of the novel, and the titular character, a robot born into a strange new world, is the thread that binds them all together.
ContributorsLind, Alex Thomas (Author) / Irish, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
DescriptionA collection of chronological, interconnected short stories following the lives and changes of a family throughout the 20th century, connected through the generations by unifying objects carried in from story to story.
ContributorsGilboa, Inbal (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Soares, Rebecca (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
There has been a recent push for queer fiction, especially in the young adult genre, whose focus is gay and lesbian relationships. This growth is much needed in terms of visibility and the furthering of acceptance, but there are still subjects within the LGBTQ+ community that need to be addressed, including bisexual, asexual, and non-binary erasure. There are many people who claim that these identities do not exist, are labels used as a stepping stone on one's journey to discovering that they are homosexual, or are invented excuses for overtly promiscuous or prudish behavior. The existence of negative stereotypes, particularly those of non-binary individuals, is largely due to a lack of visibility and respectful representation within media and popular culture. However, there is still a dearth of non-binary content in popular literature outside of young adult fiction. Can You See Me? aims to fill the gap in bisexual, asexual, and non-binary representation in adult literature. Each of the four stories that make up this collection deals with an aspect of gender and/or sexuality that has been erased, ignored, or denied visibility in American popular culture. The first story, "We'll Grow Lemon Trees," examines bisexual erasure through the lens of sociolinguistics. A bisexual Romanian woman emigrates to Los Angeles in 1989 and must navigate a new culture, learn new languages, and try to move on from her past life under a dictatorship where speaking up could mean imprisonment or death. The second story "Up, Down, All Around," is about a young genderqueer child and their parents dealing with microaggressions, examining gender norms, and exploring personal identity through imaginary scenarios, each involving an encounter with an unknown entity and a colander. The third story, "Aces High," follows two asexual characters from the day they're born to when they are 28 years old, as they find themselves in pop culture. The two endure identity crises, gender discrimination, erasure, individual obsessions, and prejudice as they learn to accept themselves and embrace who they are. In the fourth and final story, "Mile Marker 72," a gay Mexican man must hide in plain sight as he deals with the death of his partner and coming out to his best friend, whose brother is his partner's murderer.
ContributorsOchser, Jordyn M. (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Free, Melissa (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Liminal Space is a pen-and-paper roleplaying game designed to facilitate performative, personalized, and critical exploration of identity, value and truth dissensus; contemporary social, technological, political, and environmental issues; and modes of relating to socio-technical change, instability, and uncertainty. Pen-and-paper roleplaying games emerge from a 40-year history as an entertainment medium, but in recent decades have displayed the ability to personally speak to more "serious" issues. Mechanically, they combine elements of classroom or public-engagement, pedagogic, roleplaying exercises with benefits or participatory scenario construction, allowing players to immerse themselves in bespoke situations reflecting their personal interests, anxieties, and pedagogic aims and to reflexively and critically engage with contested truths or social disruptions in a safe space. Formal studies of roleplaying games are sparse, and I, the author, hope that Liminal Space can draw more study to a unique communication, entertainments, and performance medium and to the unique communities that surround it.
ContributorsNelson, John Paul (Author) / Bennett, Michael (Thesis director) / Keeler, Lauren (Committee member) / School for the Future of Innovation in Society (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Bodies, Sex, & Identity: Discovering Your Sexual Self is a sex education book for children ages 10 and up. This creative project is a response to the significant issues with modern sex education and the lack of resources for parents of preteens who want their children to receive accurate, inclusive, and socially responsible information about gender and sexuality. Bodies, Sex, & Identity is a pleasure-focused, sex-positive book, meant to supplement the information children receive about puberty and sex in school, on the Internet, and from other books and educational materials. The book features frequent references to sexual identity and urges its audience to reflect on how they experience their own bodies, gender, and sexuality. It contains discussion of power imbalances, stereotypes, and stigma, and it includes populations that are typically underrepresented or altogether excluded from sex education materials (specifically, intersex people, people of color, fat people, queer people, gender non-conforming people, disabled people, and asexual people). My purpose in creating Bodies, Sex, & Identity was to celebrate diversity, "fill in the gaps," and paint a more comprehensive, inclusive, and accurate picture of human sexuality.
ContributorsAndros, Natalie Rose (Author) / Katsulis, Yasmina (Thesis director) / McGibbney, Michelle (Committee member) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05