Thesis (M.A.)--Texas Woman's University, 1978. / Title from t.p. (viewed Feb. 16, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-82). Also available in microform.

Water scarcity in the west has created a long history of conflict. When Utah was settled, laws were instituted (both officially and otherwise) that allowed water users to use streams and springs in efficient ways without causing harm to other users. The Provo River Decree is a physical example of local water law that has been in place for almost a hundred years. While many changes have arisen in its area of jurisdiction, it is still drawn upon to determine water rights. Ambiguity, rigidity, and overall changes to use patterns have limited the application of the decree to present situations. The current application of the Provo River Decree is therefore insufficient within the context of prior appropriation to deal with the fluid and changing nature of water use in the area. Additional research should be done to determine whether the system of prior appropriation in Utah is flexible enough to allow for changing use and human-controlled watercourses. This research should include an economic analysis on the impacts of free water right exchange on relative benefit of water rights as well as an analysis of the past and present impacts of external agencies on water use.

Susan Friedman's recent theory of planetary modernisms, from her book Planetary Modernisms: Provocations on Modernity Across Time, holds that modernism as a distinguishable period, and modernity, as the characteristics of said period, can take place at any point in time and in any place that is experiencing rupture and upheaval. Planetary modernisms studies de-colonizes and de-centralizes traditional modernism and opens it up to logical and important new horizons. It encompasses not only literary output, but all forms of cultural production, including theatre and film. I use this theory to identify and compare two unique moments of modernism which until now have been neglected by modernism studies. Friedman suggests that the side-by-side comparison or "collage" of two disparate instances of modernism throughout history elucidates each respective moment and creates additional meaning.I examine on one hand the "gold digger" showgirl musical film subgenre of the early 1930s, a product of the intense social upheaval of the Great Depression, in which aspiring actresses desperate for jobs are forced to come to illicit agreements with the rich male producers of the shows. I juxtapose this with the #MeToo movement of the 2010s, wherein women speak out en masse against men who have exploited their influence over them to sexually harass them. Both center around women uniting in physical and/or online spaces to work against the abuse committed against them within the entertainment industry. In each case, men have wealth and power on one hand, while on the other hand women in need of jobs have little or no power. This power imbalance creates an environment in which predatory sexual behavior thrives. Furthermore, both time periods, past and present, are marked by rapid social and economic change, which serves both to exacerbate these power imbalances as well as accelerate the need for women to defend themselves despite possible retribution. The pressures of each period vary as do the potential outlets for women to voice their concerns and seek relief. I highlight the effects of women's solidarity in resistance to harassment and abuse and note how far society has yet to go when women today pushing for fairness and change continue to face intense opposition which at times belittles, disregards, and fights back against them.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

My dissertation examines mass movement and dancing choruses as forms that proliferated across national, political, and artistic boundaries during the interwar period. Bringing together diverse professional and amateur dance practices such as German movement choirs, American and Soviet pageantry, Busby Berkeley films, and early Martha Graham, I analyze how concepts of unity, precision, and futurity operated within the shared mass movement aesthetics but divergent politics of the United States, Germany, and Soviet Russia. While these forms have been examined by dance scholars as individual phenomena or in their national settings, there has been no full-length comparative study that encompasses this range of forms of dance and national and political ideologies. I argue that form does not predetermine a politics; rather, forms gain political significance through use and interpretation by artists and spectators with political and ideological perspectives—sometimes overt, sometimes implicit. Furthermore, the relationship among the individuals within a group and whether and how they relate to a leader is indicative of how the group participates in politics. I examine the development of German movement choirs and their association with political movements in Weimar and Nazi Germany; I pay special attention to the leftist movement choir activity of Martin Gleisner and Jenny Gertz, figures not well-known in English-language scholarship. I compare Soviet mass spectacles and American leftist dance, both of which were influenced by the Pageantry Movement, and argue that the artists’ political relation to the state impacted what kinds of futurity they could imagine. To argue that the precision chorus line was a site that produced and contested ideals of American womanhood, I bring together the Radio City Rockettes, the chorus in the all-Black film Harlem is Heaven (1932), and Busby Berkeley’s Dames (1934). Finally, I analyze Martha Graham’s all-female 1930s company alongside her political work Chronicle (1936) to discover connections between the company’s social visions and how the choreographed work implicated spectators in a collective future. My project contributes to the dance historical field by bringing together a broad range of artistic and cultural phenomena that are more often found within their national or genre boundaries. By connecting these sites of inquiry through archival research and analysis of textual and visual materials, I show that the political identity of a mass or chorus develops from the particular way that the individuals within the group relate to one another, to any leader present or imagined, and to the constituted outside of the group. In making these arguments, I seek to make dance history part of a larger social history of aesthetics and politics.