This thesis is a critical analysis and creative commentary providing research and insight into my 150-minute multimedia exhibition, "Femininity: Ownership and Power," that premiered October 23, 2021. All of my research, composition, and collaboration efforts seek to recontextualize the semiotics of ‘femininity' through ownership and empowerment from varying intersections and identities. The titles of the eight works composed and premiered as part of the exhibition include: a beautiful reckoning; Dust; Moirai; Gaia; Portrait of the American Woman; Shared, In Balanced Contrast; At My Intersection; and I See You. Also included was #pinkcode, an exhibit that features a fuschia graphic user interface for an interactive modulation synthesis application built in Csound designed to bring femininity into computer music spaces. The musical compositions vary in instrumentation including flute, alto flute, voice, guitar, viola, harp, cajon, vibraphone, live electronics, and fixed media. They also vary in medium including live performance, virtual reality video, music video, audio-reactive TouchDesigner video, immersive text projections, light show, and live dance. Feminist texts by women poets and authors recited by women personally connected to me are also included in the fabric of the musical fixed media of multiple pieces in the thesis exhibition. Collaborators of artistic media including film, digital art, music, and dance include Eboni Johnson, Hannah Ottinger, Cami Holman, Miranda Zapata, and Elijah J. Thomas.

Thesis (M.Mus.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Arts, 2013.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Communication Arts. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Susan Talburt, committee chair; Kathryn McClymond, Layli Phillips, committee members. Electronic text (145 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed May 16, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-131).

This thesis explores the way music is characterized, used, or accounted for in recent (post-1968) French thought, focusing in particular on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Alain Badiou. In spite of the differences in their philosophical-theoretical positions, all of these writers invoke music - both directly and indirectly - to negotiate their relationship to ontological, political, ethical and aesthetic concerns, particularly in terms of how it relates to the (im)possibility of a subject, the condition of truth, and the role of philosophical thought itself. The thesis situates these texts in a longer genealogy of musico-philosophical interactions and also brings them into dialogue with recent musicological approaches, thus showing how an inherited idea of what music 'is' is often assumed rather than critically re-evaluated. In short, by tracing the musical-transcendental baggage of an inherited metaphysical conception of music - one which often understands music in close relation to the feminine, (sexual) excess, and the beyond of language and/or the symbolic - the thesis shows that though music is instrumentalized by progressive thinkers as a way of shifting theoretical/philosophical paradigms, it nonetheless does so in a way that has a strong sense of continuity with previous thinking on music. Secondly, the thesis highlights the way in which music in its metaphysical-ontological guise is often conceived as synonymous with Western high art classical music (which is itself constructed as absolute and transcendent, and ontologically independent of its means of (re)production or context) whilst non-literate, popular, folk and world musics - on the occasions that they are considered and not simply ignored or denigrated - are notably considered almost exclusively in terms of their social-cultural or technological contexts. Finally, the thesis demonstrates that much of this takes place through a simultaneous instrumentalization of gender as an organisational category for philosophy, and one which all too often has the consequence of sending women - along with music - to the beyond of pre-, inter-, or post-signification.

No description available.

An individual's identity development involves the intersection of several factors, including race, class, gender, and sexuality. Historically, enslaved women's identities were sexually, culturally, and politically framed on the plantations through the lens of white male hegemony. The double jeopardy of being African American and female in a white patriarchal society has generated a legacy of struggle to resist the images constructed such as Matriarch, Aunt Jemima/Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel to name a few. The resistance legacy of African American women like Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church-Terrell, has expanded into the musical sphere of popular culture. Blues artists such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith expressed their resistance to oppression and repression aesthetically. Through musical expression, African American women performers have formulated a space where they can protest the hegemonic paradigms of sexual and racial inferiority. In contemporary popular culture this musical space is in Hip Hop. Contemporary African American women rap artists are continuing the struggle to overcome the characterizations and undertake the monumental task of demystifying the racist and sexist ideologies framing their identity. This thesis examines the ways that African American women convey the challenges they face both within the Hip Hop micro-culture and as African American women struggling in a white patriarchal macroculture. In addition, African American women rap artists' employment of rap music as a medium to develop their own identities, whether negative or positive by "Black feminist" or "womanist'' standards is also explored. This study includes a survey of student attitudes toward these issues.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine to what extent representations of double jeopardy and the stereotypical images of African American females: Mammy, Matriarch, Sapphire, and Strong Black Woman emerge in the blues lyrics of Alberta Hunter, Gertrude "Ma" Rainy, Memphis Minnie, and Victoria Spivey, using the theoretical framework of Black feminist rhetorical critique. The findings in this research entail several meanings regarding the lives of African American women during the 1920s and 1930s. Representations of racism, sexism, and classism also appear in the theme of relationships with various subthemes. The focus of this study is to explore the evolution of Black music and examine the role women have played in both the development and advancement of the blues genre. Additionally, the study will explore various concepts of cultural identity development in order to establish the process of how identity is constructed and negotiated in African Americans specifically African American women.

No description available.

In this thesis, I explore the careers and songs of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds—two African American female composers who were part of the Chicago Renaissance. Price and Bonds were members of extensive, often informal, networks of Black women that fostered creativity and forged paths to success for Black female musicians during this era. Building on the work of Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, I contend that these efforts reflect Black feminist principles of Black women working together to create supportive environments, uplift one another, and foster resistance. I further argue that Black women's agency enabled the careers of Price and Bonds and that elements of Black feminism are not only present in their professional relationships, but also in their songs. Initially, I discuss how the background of the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances and racial uplift ideology shaped these women's artistic environment. I then examine how Bonds and Price incorporated, updated, and expanded versions of these ideals in their music and careers. Drawing on the scholarship of Rae Linda Brown, Angela Davis, and Tammy L. Kernodle, I analyze Price's "Song to the Dark Virgin," "Sympathy," and "Don't You Tell Me No" and Bonds's "Dream Variation," "Note on Commercial Theater," and "No Good Man" through a Black feminist lens. I contend that although Price and Bonds depicted harsh realities of Black women's experiences, they also celebrated Black women's resistance in spite of intersectional oppression. Ultimately, analyzing Black feminism in these composer's careers and songs opens a path for further exploration of how Black women's agency can facilitate activism through art.