Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1960. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [164]-166).

The dissertation presents a cultural analysis of contemporary art collecting and art production with an illustration of patterns that overlap in collecting and art production practices in contemporary art. The illustrated visual network shows how institutions, local context, social strategies and prestige overlap in their influences on art production as a cause for collecting contemporary art. Economic exchange, reputation, a perception of time, and the personal and emotional understanding of objects and material are four patterns that illustrate reasons for collecting contemporary art in conclusion. This analysis is based on a visualisation of the structured field data that was generated in a participatory field study in the New York art world, consisting of semi-structured interviews between 2013 – 2015. Limitations in usability and interface design, and the need for a sufficient visualisation tool for qualitative data analysis, drew the focus of this study to the development of a new data visualisation software. After a peer-reviewed process, the software Entity Mapper was selected for use in this thesis to visually analyse the collected and structured data. The analysis takes location, size, hierarchy and movement of the structured data in the visual map into consideration for concluding theoretical statements.

Since the 1930s Lucha Libre Mexicana, Mexican wrestling, has evolved as a manifestation of popular culture combining spectacle, sport, theatre and ritual. Lucha Libre Mexicana, an event based performance using the mask, connects and reconnects to myth, stories, and ritual that societies, in this case the Mexican, need in order to find meaning within daily events and the contradictions and questions that confront every individual. This research analyses the cultural meanings of Lucha Libre Mexicana from the point of view of a diasporic artist and contextualizes knowledge to determine artistic practice. Identity and the construction of identity are explored throughout this thesis. The various aspects of Lucha Libre Mexicana such as the masks, the holds, the wrestlers themselves, and the performative nature of the spectacle, serve as referents to make connections to the artist’s own culture and the idea of constructed Mexicanness. This study includes a number of practice-based inquiries that are the result of the analysis and reflection on Lucha Libre and diasporic Mexicanness. The study reveals the manner by which creative processes including thinking in materials enable the artist scholar to acquire knowledge and thematic understanding. This thesis demonstrates how the traditional icons of the Mexican luchador and his mask acquire an even stronger iconic and symbolic value, emblematic of justice, outside the Lucha Libre ring. The study contributes to the field of cultural studies by adding to the understanding of the historical timeline of the development of Lucha Libre Mexicana. A large body of original work developed from the investigations and analyses of the subjects and issues discussed.

This thesis is a practice-based investigation into the articulation of pain beyond representation in contemporary art practice today – in particular the art created under the shadow of violence – conducted by prolonged actions that strive against this concept of a representational logic. Exploring the contemporary Colombian conflict as my case study, the aim of my work is to ask if it is possible to move past the existing logics of representation through a form of making, that when confronted by the distressing sensations of conflict shatters its existing logics. My visual practice is concerned with actions that embody the performative dynamics of movement, in which reality itself gets inscribed into the created images, by retaining a trace of the context that surrounds and affects what is rendered too painful to be articulated and exists silently beyond description in the work. In Colombia, trauma has clearly become culturally transitive; it affects society as a whole through the recurring accumulation of events and the generational transmission of unprocessed histories, obstructing cultural digestion. As such, this practice-based research is situated within complex relations of contemporary culture, social forces, and past and present historical events. At present, under circumstances of constant sociopolitical conflict, this thesis argues that art must register but cannot hope to master what must be approached and confronted through prompting change by poignancy as opposed to puncture. Thus, this thesis proposes a new practical and theoretical interpretation for art practice that engages with this problematic: the reality of extreme pain, which may be forgotten by being remembered through persistent gestural actions of healing as erasure, which draw on affective levels capable of shifting subjectively a caring understanding and an elaboration of such pain. My contribution to the field of art practice is primarily offered through my practical work, which here presents a passage to beyond through the Matrixial sphere and its healing notions of art; the objective being to form a link between remembering and forgetting by engaging acts of endurance, in which I use making as a reaction performed with-in or against the accumulated memory that exists as an active and present-negative force inside the reality of conflict and war. In and through my work I attempt an utterance, which is complicated, censored and interrupted by trauma, yet always striving to find ways to transform its ever-building burdens.

In many respects, the popular 1960's television series, The Fugitive perfectly captured the swelling disillusionment with authority, alienation, and discontent that soon encompassed American society. This historical/critical study provides a broad overview of the economic, social, and political climate that surrounded the creation of The Fugitive. The primary focus of this study is the analysis of five discursive topics (individualism, marriage, justice & authority, professionalism, science and technology) within selected episodes and to show how they relate to broader cultural debates which occurred at that time. Finally, this study argues that The Fugitive is a part of a television adventure subgenre which we may classify as the contemporary "wanderer-hero" narrative and traces its evolution through selected television series from the last three decades.

This is a collection of fiction that draws on the author’s own experiences as a western foreigner in America, while also taking inspiration from many different art forms and their depictions of American life, as experienced by outsiders. The themes of this collection center around the discord and disparity prevalent between British and American life. The other key theme in this collection is how violence seems to be simmering, always near at hand, in a country like America. In this way, many of the stories allude to a kind of violence taken to be something unique to American society, which often goes unrealized or unacted upon, or sometimes unravels accordingly. The thesis project itself considers how these stories could only take place in America today, and how the aforementioned cultural discord, or disharmony, connects the narratives with a shared feeling of cultural commentary about the country as a whole. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1996. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

It is the purpose of this study to discover and define certain hindrances to the functioning of democracy in American society.