Esta tesis se propone analizar las estrategias textuales que Sabina Berman emplea en su drama Águila o sol para subvertir la noción modernista de la historia como una verdad única y mostrar que, como ejemplifica la historiografía de la conquista de México, en la historia hay una pluralidad de voces a las que el poder ha negado el derecho a participar en el discurso histórico. Además, empleando el Imperio azteca y los hechos de la Conquista como una metáfora del México de los ochenta, esta tesis se propone mostrar cuáles son las causas y soluciones que Sabina Berman propone a la crisis ociopolítica a la que el país ha llegado después de más de cincuenta años de gobierno del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to determine if beauty was important to elementary age children when exploring and making aesthetic judgements about works of art and to determine the criteria elementary students used in judging beauty in works of art. This study also explored beauty as a concept that could be used as an organizing idea for designing a thematic unit with the purpose of introducing elementary students to postmodern art and issues. One hundred and sixty first grade and fourth grade students looked at 20 pairs of art reproductions and picked the artwork they considered the most beautiful. The criteria elementary students use for determining beauty in artworks was found to be color, realism, subject matter and physical appearance of the subject of the work of art.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-216).

This case study examines the new media presentation system in Alby public library. The aim is to explore if the contemporary Zeitgeist, wich according to the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, could be described as liquid modernity, has affected how the system was formed. The purpose is to find out how that would affect users and staff of public libaries of the contemporary. Interviews were conducted with the library staff, and plans and documents concerning the media presentation system was examined. The empirical part of this thesis starts with a study of the process that resulted in the new presentation system while the second part examines the system as such. I discovered that both the media presentation system, and the process which preceded it, contained aspects that could be traced to liquid modernity. However, I also found lingering signs of solid modernity, wich is the term Bauman uses to denote the modern era. The media presentation system could thus be described as a combination of solid and liquid modernity. I argued that the new media arrangment is a compromise with several disadvantages for both users and the library staff. The interplay between solid and liquid modernity in the contemporary public library results in a divergent situation for users and staff. On the one hand, it gives more freedom to use the library according to their own ideas. However, old structures, such as classification systems, sets limits for this development.

Revised version of the author's thesis--Stanford University. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 558-569).

Thesis (M.A. Screen and Media Studies)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-179)

Thesis (D. Min.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 558-569).

Abstract This essay is about identity and the self in Thomas Pynchon's critically acclaimed masterpiece The Crying of Lot 49. Through a combination of postmodern philosophy and close reading, it examines instances of postmodernist representations of identity in the novel. The essay argues that Pynchon is dismantling the idea of a unified self and instead argues for and presents a postmodern take on identity in its place. Questions asked by the essay are: in what ways does Pynchon criticize the idea of a unified self? What alternatives to this notion does Pynchon present? The essay is split into six chapters, an introductory section followed by a background on Thomas Pynchon and the novel. This is followed by an in-depth look into postmodernism, and Ludwig Wittgenstein's importance for it, as well as the basic concepts of his philosophy. This is followed by the main analysis in which a myriad of segments and quotations from the novel are looked at. Lastly, this is followed by a summarizing conclusion. The essay assumes a postmodernist approach of not being a definitive answer; rather it is one voice among many in the community of Pynchon interpreters. The conclusion shows that the examples given in the analysis present a range of answers as to how Pynchon dismantles the self, and what alternatives he presents in its wake. Pynchon explores the Cartesian ego, Lacanian other, Freudian ego and postmodernist alternatives in the novel, and presents in postmodern fashion, a multitude of answers as to how he dismantles the idea of a unified self in the novel.

One significant feature of this dissertation is an alternative reading of an eminent thinker of the Enlightenment such as Kant, specifically in the arena of art theory and art history. In so doing, one cannot claim that contemporary theory is free of past shortcomings that characterize the assumptions of the Enlightenment; neither should we forget that the past contains the seeds for future theoretical and practical directions. The focus of this dissertation is to elucidate how Kant's conception of fine art can be reinterpreted in such a way that it can be perceived as both Modernist and Postmodernist. Initially, I state the position of Kant in terms of a Formalist understanding of art. This focus on the form of an artwork coheres with certain basic Modernist tenets. Kant's aesthetics is shown to converge with that of the Modernist art critic, Clement Greenberg. Based on this Modernist reading of Kant, I analyze the paintings of Newman and Hoffman, who are both Abstract Expressionists. Thereafter, I question Kantian and Modernist aesthetics with the use of Postmodern theories. The Formalist work of Abstract Expressionism is critiqued first from the perspective of Pop art strategies and then by using the philosophical stance of Conceptual art. Lastly, Kant is reinterpreted in the light of Postmodern theories, such as the linguistic turn, the sublime and the metaphorical nature of art. In exploring the overlapping of Kant's aesthetics with Postmodernism, the boundaries between Modernism and Postmodernism become somewhat blurred. In this way, Newman is reevaluated in such a way as to eschew a purely Formalist critique and to offer a critical perspective closer to a Postmodern viewpoint. / Art History, Visual Arts & Music / (M.A. (Art History))