Sacred stones, or huacas, at the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu integrated human ritual with the surrounding landscape. I argue that huacas defined the relationship between nature and ritual practice by forcing an esoteric choreography which involved specific postures of the participant in order to visually orient humans to significant natural features of the surrounding environment. Inca stonemasons refined the natural form of the huacas so that they mimic the contours of prominent landscape features such as mountain peaks. This dissertation documents 122 huacas at Machu Picchu using maps of the site to record the exact location of each stone. Every huacas is described in detail, including notation of the specific cardinal orientation; lines of sight established by reference points to prominent landscape features; and the specific posture required to view these lines of sight. The extensive number of huacas at Machu Picchu suggests a highly ritualistic city in which stones and caves were almost certainly considered metaphysical conduits between humans and the divine.

How is nature conceived today, a generation into the environmental movement? Many contemporary artists grapple with how to reconcile our inheritance of both a precarious natural world and the culture that created it. My work investigates the subtle intricacies of our relationship with nature. I use photography to develop a way of seeing that points to the often-unnoticed nature in front of us. In particular, my work recognizes and re-imagines nature's deep connections in the context of our ecologically changed world.

Infusion is a gallery hotel that seeks to promote and encourage interaction between the local people of the community and traveling guests. More than just a hotel for rest and relaxation, Infusion will display a public gallery making art the universal language for their guests and the locals.

Since long before her death, and up to our present day, critics, scholars and readers have considered the body of work by Virginia Woolf in the reflection of a gloomy light. This wide opinion, if not directly caused, is at least enhanced by her numerous negative and even traumatic life experiences. Very little attention has been paid, or focus put, even by the most thorough and astute Woolf scholars, on another aspect of Woolf’s life and of her work. This thesis reveals another side of Woolf not only as a funny and entertaining woman, but as a sufficiently masterful manipulator of her craft to have used her fiction writing talent as an enhancement of her nonfiction works, and which included humor in the process.

The 1585 Relación Geográfica Map of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala gives scholars a rare glimpse of sixteenth- century southern Guatemala. The map displays the use of Spanish, Nahua, and Maya perspectives. The coexistence of indigenous Nahua versus Spanish or European iconographies and narratives is a theme constantly explored in the studies of the Relaciones Geográficas maps. However, the opposition of two different indigenous narratives and iconographies, as well as Spanish, is not. This project examines the convergences and conflicts among these narratives and iconographies as evidenced on the map and in the accompanying text. The individual discussion of each narrative is followed by a critical discussion to provide theoretical and authorial contexts for the map. In effect, this study complicates the view of sixteenth-century Mesoamerican Relaciones Geográficas maps.

This thesis explores the burgeoning musical commerce industry in Williamsburg, Virginia between approximately 1716 to 1775. It especially focuses on the gentrification of this industry and the ways in which elite Virginians made use of music to establish themselves as inheritors of British culture and musical entertainment. A diversity of musical businesses appeared in Williamsburg during the eighteenth century, including instrument sellers, music and dancing teachers, and two theaters utilized by theatrical troupes, to name a few. Drawing on evidence from the Virginia Gazette, as well as journals, letters, playhouse reports, and account books, the thesis concludes that music provided an important means for the formation of an elite colonial identity in a time and place heavily influenced by an American consumer revolution and a desire for refinement.

Integrating new-media nonfiction into secondary-level English provides an efficient and effective resource in teaching modern literacy, which requires an understanding of the participatory element of communication today. Messages can be consumed and created among multimodalities and multimedia. The form and interactivity of a publication can affect its interpretation. Technology extends students' publishing capabilities and their reach to a bounty of discourse communities.This thesis, which is available in conventional hard copy and electronic forms, explores the definitions of New Media and modern literacy, how teachers can adopt the use of New Media nonfiction, and the resources needed to do so. A case study stands as a practical example. The Participatory Element Cone measures a publication's interactivity and sensory stimulation. The thesis is broken into modules, rather than chapters, so that the reader can choose to follow it linearly or to use the paper more as a manual and enter it at any point.

This thesis focuses on space, the in-between-ness that exists amidst mental and physical experience. Pith explains personal attachments and rooting systems. The thesis continues with Blessing, narrating love then loss, and finishes with a recipe for making a tomato sandwich. Blessing is followed by Materialize, a collective view of cyclical learning and meandering paths. Finally, the paper concludes with a quirky Women and Swarovski encrusted skulls, which matter-of-factly lists artists (all of whom happen to be women) whose works I find particularly compelling; and also notes on general trends in art I find interesting in a much less obvious manner. The artwork in Lucidity attempts to manifest an ephemeral, mental space with clarity, light, and shades of white. Both the artwork and the written component have been heavily influenced by my own affirmations of elation, loss, and contentment.

A young man growing up in an alternate-history America becomes embroiled in revolution.

My thesis addresses the role of the assistant director within the realm of today's American theatre. I determine who the assistant director is in today's theatre, what qualities they need to possess, and how a director can use an assistant director most effectively. To come to these conclusions, I analyze my experiences as an assistant director and a director over the last four years, as well as conduct interviews with directors and assistant directors currently working in professional and academic.