Cultural Studies Interdisciplinary Graduate Program: Theses
Recent Submissions
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Bien Orgullosx: Communicating Narratives of Pride from Youth in El Alto
El Alto is a young Bolivian city with a majority young population mainly formed by migrants of rural/indigenous origins. Historically, social research based on El Alto has focused on extracting pain narratives. Research ... -
Hays Gone By: The Proto-Feminism of Pre-Code Hollywood and the Films of Mae West
Pre-Code Hollywood has famously been described as an alternative universe of American cinema, as looser censorship restrictions allowed filmmakers to explore adult themes of violence and sexuality far more openly than would ... -
From The East And West Indies To The Mother Country: The House of Daljinder Kaur And Out Of Left Field
“From the East and West Indies to the Mother Country: The House of Daljinder Kaur and Out of Left Field” is a PhD research-creation project consisting of two outdoor installations and a written component. It takes as a ... -
One Bad Board Away from Bankruptcy: Housing Co-operatives, Self-Management, and the Landlord–Tenant Relationship
This thesis explores the development of the natural condition of co-operation into a large, apolitical movement and the effects of reshaping working-class people into co-operators. Semi- structured interviews, content ... -
The Order of Cybernetics: An Archaeology of User-Friendly Design
This dissertation evaluates the concept of user-friendliness not only as a preeminent philosophy of software design, but as an integral element of the metaphysics of software and the very conceptualization of both cybernetics ... -
How to Stay Connected in an ‘Offline’ Country? Stories of Cubans’ Internet Experience
Since 2013, Cuban authorities have taken significant steps towards the regularization of public Internet access in the Island. Before that date, policies regarding the Internet benefited specific sectors and limited the ... -
Queer Muslims: Identity & Sexuality in the Contemporary
This Ph.D. is an ethnographic-activist-based project. It first examines the genealogy of popular nationalist-statist and religious enforcements of postcolonial cisheteronormativity in Egypt through the examination of two ... -
Is Daoism Green? Engaging Daoist Responses to Environmental Challenges in China
This paper seeks to examine the role that Daoism is playing in environmental activism in China. It analyzes a variety of sources including academic literature, primary source material from Daoist groups and my own research ... -
Tracing Incense: The Affective Power of Objects
Incense has been an integral part of Chinese culture since before the introduction of Buddhism in the third century B.C.E. A rise in the popularity of Buddhist practice marked an increase in the importation, production, ... -
Post-Islamism Redefined: A Genealogy of Political Islam in Iran
Challenging the current academic conception of the term “post-Islamism,” this dissertation provides an alternative definition of the concept, having in mind the case of Iran. In contrast to Asef Bayat’s deployment of ... -
Unfinished Business: The New Wave of Women's Horror Cinema
My doctoral dissertation, “Unfinished Business: The New Wave of Women’s Horror Cinema,” responds to early considerations in feminist horror studies via the recent surge of horror films directed by women filmmakers for a ... -
Talking Plant
This doctoral research-creation project focuses on plants in the context of larger efforts by artists and scholars to denaturalize the anthropocentric and hierarchical ordering of species that objectify non-human life. ... -
“A New Race, Invincible and Vast”: An Exploration of the National Socialist Thingspiel Das Frankenburger Würfelspiel's Methods to Create Community
This project investigates the 1936 Berlin Olympics theatre production Das Frankenburger Würfelspiel, an example of the National Socialist theatre movement the Thingspiel. The goal is to explore the methods intended by Das ... -
Nation, Race, and the Cultural Political Economy of Art for Social Change Philanthropy in Canada
The arts are increasingly celebrated as a powerful mechanism for a philanthropic sector seeking to address some of society’s most pressing social and economic challenges. Over the past decade, “art for social change” [AFSC] ... -
Distinguishing Ritual from Theatre
This paper begins by analyzing Richard Schechner’s distinguishing features of ritual and theatrical performances, specifically regarding audience participation, audience belief, and intention of the performance to determine ... -
Ethics and Participation in Art: Reading the Migration Library and other methods
This dissertation portfolio provides a focused—albeit methodologically diverse—review of research ethics in the context of participatory art, including research-creation and social art practices. Focusing on a case of ... -
Gay By The Bay: Feeling Queer, Feeling Newfoundland
While growing up in rural Newfoundland, I often felt that my identities as a rural Newfoundlander and a queer person were in conflict. Inspired by my own experiences and those of my loved ones, I began this research with ... -
Borderline Cinema
The term ‘Borderline Cinema’ may sound strange at first, even for scholars and film aficionados. It may also sound like something unprecedented, modern, a result of the changes and re-adaptations in the film industry that ... -
Exhibiting Diplomacy: Art and International Cultural Relations in Canada
In this dissertation, I analyze Canadian cultural diplomacy through the international exhibition of art, with particular consideration for the various ways in which state institutions have utilized art as an expedient in ... -
Music Production and Cultural Entrepreneurship in today’s Havana: Elephants in the Room
Cultural production and entrepreneurship are two major components of today’s global economic system as well as important drivers of social development. Recently, Cuba has introduced substantial reforms to its socialist ...
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