This study examines Jane Austen’s realistic interpretations of eighteenth-century English society with a particular focus on representing women’s oppressions in Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. Austen, in these three novels, criticizes several issues related to women’s status in English society and focuses on how men and women should be treated equally. In the novels, she argues that English society creates social order, women’s oppressiveness, and gender inequality through arbitrary social norms and traditions. This paper mainly focuses on two areas that restrict women’s roles in their society: the marriage plot and the educational system. Austen’s purpose of presenting these issues is to voice women’s rights and improve their conditions. She also offers her readers unusual descriptions of female characters in order to correct the stereotypical images of women during the period. Finally, this paper aims to show Austen’s success in redefining women’s status and change the misconceptions of women in British society.

In her 2005 essay "From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,"artist Andrea Fraser declares that institutional critique is dead and she accordingly callsfor an institution of critique engaged in a practice of self-criticism. This thesis considersthe similarity of the institution of critique to museologist Eilean Hooper-Greenhill'sconceptualization of the post-museum to determine how the institution of critique and the post-museum might inform one another in their current nascent stages.This thesis analyzes publications about institutional critique, essays theorizing the post-museum, and publications that contain theoretical discourses central to realizing an institution of critique and post-museum, none of which consider the institution of critique in relation to the post-museum. This thesis uses these publications to examine the development of the institution of critique and the post-museum in order to demonstrate how one example of the institution of critique serves as a model for the post-museum.

The Wake Forest University Art Collection consists of nearly 1300 works of art of various media dating from the fifteenth century to today that are divided into nine distinct collections. Assessing the current state of the Collection, this thesis project evaluates the art historical significance of the Collection using select museum quality works of art and then proceeds with a discussion of collections management, including the topics of acquisition, accession, and risk management. Environmental conditions in Collection facilities are measured against widely accepted museum standards. Use of the Collection as an educational resource by the University and surrounding community is compromised by a variety of factors, including issues of accessibility and security. General recommendations to improve the current state of the Collection include adapting collections management policies and procedures to standard museum practices and the creation of a permanent museum space and staff.

...martin acoustic guitar, green lizard lamp, steinway grand piano, eames plywood lounge chair, Mercedes benz 300sl gullwing, sony headphones, colgate soft bristle toothbrush, audiovox boombox, raleigh five gear bicycle, terra cotta garden pot, green and blue plaid flannel shirt, eames hang it all, radiograph drafting pen, dark green quilted water proof hat, red wool crocheted scarf, tony hawk skateboard, red flat shoes, black suede gloves...these are a few of our favorite things...

In an industrial hallway, the pipes and garage doors are echoed with a soft, yet plastic skin.Intense filtered sunlight streams through a sheath of fuchsia--we walk beneath it and it washes our faces with color.A monochromatic corridor is transformed by unexpected passages of turquoise, red, and pink. A demure sheetrock wall becomes ethereal and gentle, luring us behind to only find ourselves.The works are celebratory and act as a landscape, tombstone rubbing, line drawing, and uberquilt--all wrapped into one.

Damn Near Perfect is the first section of the second draft of a novel. It is a romance and a coming-of-age story, about an conservatively raised young man, Reese McEwan. On a Mardi Gras visit to Louisiana, Reese falls in love with Noel Guillory, a bisexual poet finishing her last year at Louisiana State University. Reese also dreams of becoming a woodworker, and wants to serve as an apprentice at his family's furniture workshop; his parents oppose this wish and his relationship with Noel. From an affluent, Protestant background, Reese is a senior at Hampden-Sydney College, one of the last all male colleges in the U.S. He has been raised to take for granted his culture's very traditional, conservative values, and at the opening of the book has met with nothing to dispute these ideas. During the course of the novel, Reese abandons his education and traditional lifestyle. Because of his fascination with Noel and how she lives her life, he tries to become a part of her world, to his and her cost, and possibly to their benefit. Most of the novel is set in Baton Rouge, where Noel is finishing school at LSU, and where Reese goes to pursue her. The year is 1992. This first section is one hundred and four pages long, and covers the time from the beginning of Reese's visit to Louisiana, to when he goes back to school in Virginia. The second section, of about fifty pages or less, will cover his time back at college; until he decides to abandon his pursuit of a college degree and move to Baton Rouge permanently, in order to be with Noel and pursue a new career in woodworking. The final section, about one hundred pages in length, will cover Reese's attempts to build a relationship with Noel, and his frustrations with her much more liberal view of what a dating relationship should be.Damn Near Perfect explores how we decide who we will to grow up to be; what kind of relationship we want, what kind of person makes us happy, and what kind of person, in turn, we can make happy. It is about staking our claims to fulfillment - in love, work, and family, and about what our claims sometimes cost us.

Until the 1960s there was more interest in Josef Albers as an artist. Albers' successful teaching career began in 1923 at the Bauhaus where he was eventually placed in charge of the whole elementary course. Albers' American educational career centered around Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Yale University where he was chairman of the Department of Design.This paper, in effect, will deal with Albers as an artist, teacher, and theorist. Albers as an artist will be explored by a study of Homage to the Square, the series from which much of Albers' present fame is derived. Albers' color theory is contained in his writing, Interaction of Color, a book dedicated to his students which records his method of teaching color. It is the purpose of this paper to show Albers' theory and his paintings, Homage to the Square, exemplify many principles of perception: the realization that color experience is a subjective, inward experience, the Gestalt notions on "good" forms, and the awareness that our knowledge is of the perception of things -- not of things themselves. In order to pursue such a course of study, it will be necessary to investigate other color theories, theories of perception, Albers' work and evaluations of his works.

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ARTISTBy Matthew Dale Gamble, Master's of Fine ArtA research statement submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master's of Fine Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.Virginia Commonwealth University, 2005Committee Chair: Ruth Bolduan, Associate Professor Painting and PrintmakingIn this paper I start at the very beginning in my life and introduce the reader to my earliest surroundings, the structure of my family life and the dynamic of the individuals involved. I write about the major points of my youth and continue into adulthood, concluding the first chapter with how I came to be here. I than go into my artistic development, major role models, color theory, writings of interest, and my personal theory on art making. I finish the essay with my personal habits and outlook on my future.

The impulse to resolve and interpret messages drives creativity and understanding. As graphic designers, we may try to communicate familiar ideas in an unfamiliar way - unfamiliar, but unique, memorable, and engaging. By utilizing the theory and practice of psychology and the cognitive processes involved in assigning influence, importance, recognition and associations with signifiers in the mind, we can strengthen visual communication. Theoretical and applied psychological techniques and models will provide the basis for an exploration and development of new methodologies and tools that will enhance the creative process for graphic designers.

BEHIND THE FIRE LINEA thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, 2004. Major Director: Jim Long, Department Chair. Behind the Line of Fire is a documentary of the professional lives of a group of firefighters. Inspired by the events of September 11th, it has been an ongoing journey for me as I continue to interact with an photograph these individuals doing the job that they live for. My goal for this project has been to work within the guidelines of a documentary, a genre that has a rich, diverse, and defined history. I did not want to show scenes in which firefighters were depicted in typically iconographic scenarios. I have not made any images to date representing exploding structures with firefighters risking life and limb fighting the fire, nor have I shown the firefighters performing heroic acts such as rescuing a child or an animal. I believe the imagery I have created presents firefighters in a different light. These are men and women working. There are no hidden meanings or agendas involved. The photos are to be taken at face value as images of people whose lives revolve around what they do.