<p> The primary purpose of my research is to visually represent what can be regarded as a traditional Chinese thinking system and artistic style. This is to gain a deeper understanding of typical problem-solving processes of the Chinese culture. Through this research, I intend to encourage a bridge of communication between American and other cultures. It is my intent to help analyze problem-solving traditions in Chinese culture, and present a narrative that dramatizes this. The goal of this thesis; therefore, is to give a path of connection and appreciation for those not familiar, to a deeper understanding of contextualized Chinese beliefs. My process is aimed at constructing an effective narrative that illustrates the way a society creates change, in order to reflect broader cultural exchange and communication. The inspiration to undertake this study came from my three years&rsquo; of living in Los Angeles. Being suddenly transplanted into American culture made me critically review my own cultural beliefs. I often experienced cases of &ldquo;misunderstandings&rdquo; or &ldquo;conflicts&rdquo;. I perceived issues that were often embedded in the different ways that various cultures viewed and dealt with similar problems. There were, of course, differences in problem solving strategies, alongside differences in aesthetics, and perception. Consequently, based on these observations, I began to analyze how contrasting viewpoints and strategies could be translated into an animated narrative, and I wondered how I could effectively achieve this. Through this process, I addressed problems or crisis within various types of political systems. Can the methodology one uses to solve a problem be seen as systematic of the process of their own culture, even though the end goals and difficulties faced may be similar throughout various cultures? To critically analyze this question, I combined narrative animation and graphic watercolor renderings that visually parallel my personal experience of what could be defined as exemplary of traditional Chinese thought. An animated film resulted from this process, along with further research aimed at stimulating the public to appreciate the underlying approaches in both traditional Chinese aesthetics and culture. With this research, I intend to stimulate positive connections and appreciation between all cultures&mdash;a sentiment that extends to having increased inter-cultural communication and exchanges. </p><p>

The Biblical Judith was written over 2,000 years ago and has become elemental material for artists and writers who struggle with male and female identity. Questions about how beauty has been defined, and who has defined it, as well as the subject of violence as gender-specific territory arise out of the intertextual study of the many re-workings of Judith and Holofernes' "romance."^ A rich array of Judith characters are developed by artists and writers that reveal cultural values about women. Judith as chaste widow is visually presented in the stone archivolt of the Chartres Cathedral and in Alfred Stevens Victorian painting. She is present in the literature by way of the Old English epic; through Christine de Pizan's allusion in The Book of the City of Ladies and Guillaume Salluste du Bartas' epic, La Judit (1574). Christina of Markyate's chaste sexuality is due to her reverence for Mary and Judith articulated in her twelfth century autobiography. In some of Chaucer's Canterbury tales, Judith, like Custance is upheld as the essence of virtue and purity, while in other tales, she appears suspect.^ In the tradition of the "woman worthy" or femme forte there is Donatello's statue (ca. 1456-60), Giorgione's sixteenth century painting, and a multitude of works by Botticelli, Mantegna and Cranach. But the strength of the artist and her figures are felt in Artemisia Gentileschi's five paintings of Judith and her cohort, Abra. In studying Artemisia I found myself standing with Mary Garrard, Artemisia, Judith and the Handmaid in a newly formed collage of strength. And soon Shelley Reed, a Cambridge artist, joined us with her revision of Hans Baldung's sixteenth century painting in which she again removes the head and leaves the figure of a woman defending her right to bodily integrity.^ Judith's sexual provocativeness is a favorite image in art as she becomes stereotyped as the femme fatale. Hans Baldung (1525), Saraceni (1615-20), Valentin de Boulogne (ca. 1626), Vouet (1621), Caravaggio (1598-99), Rubens (1630s), Correggio (1512-14), Vernet (1831) and Klimt (1901, 1909) present us with a riveting portfolio on this theme.^ Contemporary literature is saturated with the sexual nature of power provoked by Judith and Holofernes. Plays by Hebbel, Giraudoux and Barker provide Judith with a far from heroic finish. But Nicholas Mosley's Judith finds a way to survive with Holofernes: heads do not roll, they connect.^ Such deep and moving dialogs are formed between art and literature in the study of Judith that I hope the annotated bibliography of 480 works of literature, art and music included in the Appendix invites further study. ^

The problem this research addresses is that, regardless of training, educational background or social status, with or without work experience, most non- or limited-English speaking immigrants are forced to begin their American careers at the bottom of the occupational ladder. This study focuses on the comparison of the lives of English as a Second Language (ESL) students/warehouse workers before and after migration to try to ascertain whether these individuals have experienced upward or downward mobility. The approximately 80 participants in this study are workers in a garment distribution warehouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. The participants have been drawn from the worksite ESL classes offered during their lunch or dinner hours and extended one-half hour into work time donated by the company. A questionnaire was distributed to voluntary participants. The information gleaned was used to tabulate statistics and analyze hypotheses regarding the socio-economic transition of immigrants to the United States. As a result of this study, the following questions were addressed: (1) How do immigrants perceive the effects of immigration? (2) When immigrants come to the United States, do they feel their lives improve or worsen socioeconomically? (3) If studies prove that high-status immigrants become downwardly mobile upon entrance to the United States, does that imply that lower-status immigrants become upwardly mobile? (4) How do immigrants compare their lives in their native country to their lives in their new country? The objective of this study was to evaluate the ramifications of migration to the United States with respect to upward and downward mobility of higher- and lower-status immigrants. The population consisted of ESL students/warehouse workers from 13 different countries. This group of immigrants was chosen because, regardless of background, education, English language facility, experience, degree of literacy, or previous socioeconomic class, they were now all thrust together, doing the same job, earning the same salary, and on an equal footing here in the United States. Based on this premise, the researcher wanted to study their perceptions of life in the United States compared to their previous countries to see if, in their estimation, they had indeed bettered themselves or their lots in life by migrating to the United States, or whether their lives had taken a downward turn by coming here.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-18T21:31:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Estela Pereira Batista Barbero1.pdf: 3561079 bytes, checksum: 3cf28ca6766115c91ca134dbec455bb2 (MD5) Estela Pereira Batista Barbero2.pdf: 4110454 bytes, checksum: 1d36a57a4dfab3bc034ada3f3355bee4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-16 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / The indigenous arts in Brazil have always been an object of interest since the colonial period when the objects produced by the indians, and in some cases the indians themselves, were taken to the Cabinets of Curiosities in Europe, seen as exotic. In visual arts, indigenous culture was represented at first with surprise and value judgments, then with the scientific purpose that directed the missions coming to Brazil to catalog those who were believed to be doomed to extinction. And then we saw, from the nineteenth century, the indigenous exalted by the Indianism and later the inspiration on their art to contemporary and modernist aesthetics. All this search to understand the indigenous culture and art from an "outside" point of view, contributes to the efforts at reconciliation between western and indigenous cultures, but do not bring the need to understand the relations of indigenous art in its context. With cultural Anthropology who settled in Brazil in the twentieth century and the field work proposed by the Indian Ethnology, an area that would also give their first steps in this century, we passed to the "inside look" of indigenous culture, thanks to the knowledge the indigenous people offered to the anthropologists who set out to hear them. This research provides examples of these various moments of the relationship between indigenous and western cultures, showing an organization of bibliographic data that can guide a more fair perspective on the indigenous arts. / As artes indígenas no Brasil sempre foram objeto de interesse, desde o período colonial quando os objetos produzidos pelos índios, e em alguns casos eles próprios, eram levados para os Gabinetes de Curiosidades na Europa, vistos como exóticos. Nas artes visuais, a cultura indígena foi representada no início com estranhamento e julgamento de valores, depois com o propósito científico que direcionou as missões vindas ao Brasil para catalogar aqueles que, acreditava-se, estariam fadados à extinção. E então vimos, a partir do século XIX, o indígena exaltado pelo Indianismo e mais tarde sua arte inspirando a estética modernista e contemporânea. Toda essa busca por entender a cultura e arte indígenas com olhar de fora , contribui para uma tentativa de aproximação entre as culturas indígena e ocidental, mas não dão conta do aprofundamento necessário para se compreender as relações da arte indígena dentro do contexto indígena. Com a Antropologia cultural que se estabeleceu no Brasil a partir do século XX e os trabalhos de campo propostos pela Etnologia Indígena, área que também daria seus primeiros passos neste século, passamos ao olhar de dentro da cultura indígena, ensinamento oferecido pelos indígenas aos antropólogos que se propuseram a ouvi-los. Essa pesquisa traz exemplos desses diversos momentos das relações entre as culturas indígena e ocidental apresentando uma organização de dados bibliográficos capazes de orientar um olhar mais justo sobre as artes indígenas.