Thesis advisor: Suzanne Matson / “A Shout in the Street” is a poetry collection that seeks to explore the ways in which a lyric speaker determines their linguistic relationship to the world. The collection mediates between personal memory and external representations of beauty, searching for a connection, or at least an opening to constitute the self within. At the heart of this project is the speaker’s longing for that which cannot be named — a word, poem, or hand that lies just outside of reach. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: English.

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'I believe that works of landscape architecture are more than designed ecosystems, more than strategies for open-ended processes. They are cultural products with distinct forms and experiences that evoke attitudes and feelings through space, sequence and form.' 'Elizabeth Meyer The challenge that beauty is a superficial concern in landscape design has been examined by Elizabeth Meyer in her manifesto 'Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance'. It is a hopeful manifesto that aims to persuade people about the idea that beauty is an important element in sustainable design. For Meyer, beauty is a secret mechanism which alters consciousness, that involves a social and cultural awareness. The main implication of this mechanism is a transformation that happens to people as they experience beauty: they shift from an ego-centric to a bio-centric perspective, as Meyer explains: 'A beautiful landscape works on our psyche, affording the chance to ponder on a world outside ourselves. Through this experience, we are decentered, restored, renewed and reconnected to the biophysical world. The haptic, somatic experience of beauty can inculcate environmental values.' Combining Meyer's assertions with philosopher Arthur Danto's idea of finding beauty in unexpected places, to look anew at the urban landscape, can beauty be found in urban agriculture? The type of beauty Meyer describes is not that of appearance. It's the beauty of experience. Authors that Meyer cites are helpful to understand this definition of beauty. Wendy Steiner explains that 'Beauty is an unstable property because it is not a property at all. It is the name of a particular interaction between two beings, a 'self' and an 'Other': 'I find an Other beautiful'. This act of discovery has profound implications. [']' It is also a dynamic experience. In that sense, Steiner goes on to explain that there is a decentering that occurs when one experiences beauty: the person is taken out of an ego-centric perspective into a more bio-centric one. This thesis presents a four part examination. Part one consists of presenting the question 'Can beauty be found in urban agriculture?', by explaining how this question was motivated by the literature review of Meyer and other authors relevant to the understanding of beauty. It introduces the site of the farmers market as a place of discovery of beauty in everyday landscapes. There will also be a presentation of research in definitions of beauty and a literature review in everyday landscapes and urban agriculture. Part two explains the methodology used for this study, including the use of film as an important means of investigation, revealing aspects of landscape including narrations, movement, time, action, and storytelling, that contribute to an experience of beauty. Part three contains case studies of films. Part four revisits the site and the concept of beauty, explaining what was learned from the studies with film. The selected site for the investigation is the farmers market in downtown Blacksburg, VA. Farmers markets, community gardens and other urban everyday spaces that involved urban agriculture had been subjects of interest throughout my research. The farmers market is an ideal setting because it gathers many elements together, such as: the various types of local produce that the farmers are selling or sharing, local arts and crafts, food produced with local ingredients, music and performance presentations, the people, their families, pets and kids who are visiting the market, various possible interactions by being at the market. So many elements are gathered in the Farmers Market because of the relationship of the rural supporting the urban, and the urban supporting the rural. The town benefits from having access to produce from local farmers, while they benefit from the support of the community for their business. However, the landscape of the farmers market supports more than the rural-urban relationship: it is a community space, a place for many forms of exchange and encounters, one can find connections with animals and people, it has aspects of a park, and it also supports local artists and performers. Film became a central tool for this investigation to capture and document inherent aspects of the landscape of the farmer's market, interactions between people and those aspects, how the space performs and most importantly to reveal beauty. Beauty in the landscape involves action, narratives, attitude, feelings, images, sensory experiences, movement and time, all dynamic elements. At the farmer's market, all these combine in complex ways to constitute an experience of beauty. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The Western beauty standard revolves around three main attributes: thinness, youth, and whiteness. Combined, this ideal corresponds with privilege. Past studies have explored how racism and ageism are embedded in the beauty standard, but little work has explored how classism is included in the Western beauty standard. Utilizing the classical theoretical work of Bourdieu and Simmel, I explore the ways in which the Western beauty standard is dependent upon privilege and cultural capital. Using the methodology of a content analysis, the current study examines four women’s fashion and beauty magazines. I find that the both the language and the imagery used in the magazines allows for classism to be explicitly and implicitly displayed. I also explore the intersectionality of classism, racism, and ageism to develop a clearer understanding of how the three types of privilege are sustained within the beauty standard.

MyBao helps women to find eco-friendly alternatives for cosmetics, skin care and personal care products, while looking for sustainable solutions that contribute to the environment as well as their personal welfare. Our business will be a window for companies in the organic and natural care industry to reach out to a specific group of customers who share the same “green” vision. In addition, MyBao’s platform allows for customers’ data collection, which will provide companies with real-time information of trends and preferences. Through an online subscription service, women will receive a monthly “surprise” personal eco bag, which will contain curated travel-size organic and natural products that will match their preferences and needs, according to a personal survey completed at the moment of subscription. Full-size products will also be available in our website for customers to purchase, should they like the products they were sent in their monthly MyBao. Based on the information collected from the surveys, MyBao can provide partner companies with valuable real-time information of customers’ purchasing trends (big data). MyBao’s business model allows for different sources of revenue streams: (1) monthly subscription fees by users, (2) cut/percentage from the sales of full-size products, (3) advertising and product “featuring” option for our partner companies to prioritize their products in our website, (4) big data sale to our partner companies.

The overall purpose of this essay is to come to a deeper understanding about videos in the Youtube beauty community by using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. By answering the main questions of the essay which are; What quantitatively measurable components are there in the videos that can be seen as contributing factors leading to the fact that some generate more views that others?; Is there a set mold for success containing certain aspects that a video must have to stand out?; What correlations can be found between the two categories of analysis and how do these potential correlations affect the popularity of the video? and What effects do specific components on the level of popularity of the video?, we’ve been able to distinguish differences as well as similarities on both qualitative and quantitative levels. We have also seen that using the two methods together have enabled us to reach more profound results. The main result that we have found on a quantitative level is that there are obvious correlations between a high level of popularity and a good visual quality. What we have also concluded, on a qualitative level, is that it is not sufficient to simply provide this type of quality to reach a high level of popularity, the beauty guru also need a high level of commitment and a genuine desire to interact with the viewer in order to generate views. / Det övergripande syftet med uppsatsen är att genom såväl kvantitativ som kvalitativ innehållsanalys försöka skapa en djupare förståelse för vad det är i videor inom kategorin beauty community på Youtube som genererar visningar. Genom att besvara de frågeställningar som studien bottnar i; Vad finns det för kvantitativt mätbara komponenter i videorna som kan ses som bidragande faktorer till att vissa får fler visningarna än andra?; Finns det en mall för framgång där vissa komponenter måste ingå för att en video ska kunna sticka ut från mängden?; Vilka samband kan urskiljas mellan de två analyskategorierna och hur påverkar de eventuella sambanden populariteten? samt Hur kan specifika komponenter påverka populariteten?, har vi lyckats urskilja både skillnader och likheter på såväl kvantitativ som kvalitativ nivå. Vi har även sett att de två metoderna har kompletterat varandra väl och lett till ett mer djupgående resultat. Det övergripande resultat vi har kommit fram till på kvantitativ nivå är att det finns tydliga samband mellan popularitet och god visuell kvalitet i videorna. Vidare har vi även, på kvalitativ nivå, kunnat konstatera att det inte enbart är tillräckligt med denna typ av kvalitet utan det krävs att den är kombinerad med hög engagemangsnivå och en önskan att interagera med tittaren från beauty guruns sida för att videon ska generera visningar.

My research explores the tension between being and becoming modern and moral for British-born Muslim Pakistani women in Sheffield through an investigation into the judgements that surround beauty, beautification, and beauty work. Through ethnography I unpack the raced and classed regimes in which my interlocutors are embedded, arguing that global Islam and Asian are affiliations that are realised in relation to the English (White British) community. Through comparisons to White British women (referred to as ‘English’ amongst my informants), the young Pakistani women I met negotiate an understanding of themselves and others within a schema of British multiculturalism, in which English are the standard for which to aim. Over the last 10 years, the number of young, British-born Pakistani women in Sheffield who are establishing Ladies Only beauty salons and training as Asian Bridal Make-Up Artists has increased rapidly. These specialised services, catering for Muslim and Asian women respectively, appear at first glance to be conflictual with the notion of piety. In my thesis, I demonstrate how these two narratives overlap and are brought together by the idiom of ‘good intention’, a trope which centres on a discussion of self-esteem and female empowerment. In the everyday, beauty and beautification are judged through perceptions of ‘naturalness’ and ‘balance’, a narrative that gives way to one of beauty-as-effort during celebratory occasions. Whereas everyday beautification is directly linked to the superior beauty and beautification of White English women through discussions of ‘natural’ fair skin and good taste, I suggest that the perception of Asian beauty-as-effort is also compared to perceptions of White English beauty. Although Asian beauty-as-effort and transformation are considered superior to the mere improvement undertaken by White English women during celebratory occasions, forms of beautification thought of as Asian, are used as a measure of the ‘progression’ of the Pakistani community as a whole along a continuum on which the White English community is thought of as the furthest progressed. The popularity of beauty work amongst my informants is due to the perception that such work has high earning potential as well as offering job flexibility and the possibility of being one’s own boss. These positive attributes are troubled, however, by a perception of beauty work as being specifically related to Pakistani women, low-skilled, and potentially immoral. In my thesis, I explore how beauty workers negotiate the negative connotations of beauty work through contemplation of their Islamic faith, kinship relations, and the notion that beauty work is just a hobby or a stepping stone to ‘proper’ work within a graduate profession.

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published_or_final_version / Literary Studies / Master / Master of Arts