This study investigates the values expressed and implemented through local cereal and cereal-related products such as bread and flour in the alpine region of Valle d’Aosta (north-west Italy), contributing to the existing body of literature on food values. It is based on anthropological fieldwork among people engaging with cereal both professionally and non-professionally (such as bakers, farmers, agronomists and other categories of people involved in the cereal sector) and on theories drawn from food and economic anthropology, anthropological theories of value and literature on social movements. This research aims at understanding the values that inform cereal-related practices in Valle d’Aosta and that precede the relationships its inhabitants generate around cereal. Such values are intended as moral standpoints from which people engaging with cereal organise their action and conceptualise their own understanding of their practices. Values of tradition, community and individual place identity, health, environmental and socio-economic values serve as spectacles through which to grasp the vision that people engaging with cereal in Valle d’Aosta have of society, of the role of the economy, of the relationship between the community and the individual. Ultimately, cereal-related practices, based on a particular conception of the economy which puts into question the neoliberal system, are represented as tools bridging past, present and future, as the past serves as a source of inspiration to bring about a better future and to materialise it into the present, through a deeply moral endeavour.

I investigate the depths of memory, the entanglement of personal recollections with communal knowledge (learned semantic information from media and society such as facts and social norms) and the changing perceptions of environments over time. Memories define us. Throughout life we are exposed to vast quantities of imagery through a variety of media and personal experiences. Over time our firsthand experiences and what we witness in film, print, photography, and the internet become indistinguishable in our memory. My work recreates consequential scenes from my past through technical drawings and blended imagery while exploring the possibilities provided by the interaction of common knowledge and the ambiguous nature of memory.

The Past and Pending is a feature-length documentary by Samuel Eliot Torres, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of Central Florida. The film focuses on a family torn apart by a major decision to migrate to the U.S. from Puerto Rico. The protagonist, Torres, is now trying to receive closure from the events by asking the questions he could not ask as a child, but feels compelled to ask as an adult. Filming with only one person in the crew allowed for an intimacy and spontaneity that is prized by entrepreneurial digital cinema makers. Without the financial and scheduling constraints of enlisting a large crew, the film was allowed to thrive with a spontaneous and ongoing shooting schedule, controlled entirely by one person.

In the last five years, the world has experienced unexpected tragic events and natural disasters. However, international tourism is expected to grow continually and tourists are therefore becoming more concerned with safety and security during their international travel. This dissertation investigated individuals' risk perception of vacationing at two scenario international destinations, Australia and Japan. While ten dimensions of perceived risk in international leisure travel were identified in the literature and one additional dimension of "Communication Risk" was proposed for this study, only seven dimensions were found in this study: "Health Risk," "Value Risk," "Psychological Risk," "Social Risk," "Terrorism Risk," "Equipment Risk," and "Communication Risk." The other four dimensions — "Financial Risk," "Time Risk," "Satisfaction Risk," and "Political Instability Risk" — were either merged into other dimensions or did not appear as an independent dimension in this study. The "Communication Risk" which was proposed in this study was found to be a valid dimension of perceived risk in vacationing at international destinations. The relationships of perceived risk to other factors were also examined. Individuals' characteristics of novelty seeking were negatively related to their risk perception, as were individuals' proficiency of the destination's native language. Those who have experience visiting the destination tended to perceive less risk in vacationing at the destination; the more familiarity/expertise with the destination, the less risk was perceived. When an individual perceived a higher level of risk towards a destination, s/he was less likely to vacation at the destination. Individuals were more likely to choose a packaged tour than independent travel when they had a higher level of risk perception towards vacationing at a particular international destination. / Ph. D.

The poems in Greg Williamson's 2008 sonnet sequence, A Most Marvelous Piece of Luck, all turn toward imagined experiences of death, skirting the line between life and death and illustrating the boundary that one crosses but cannot experience—the liminal, aporetic boundary that occurs at the moment of until (the word marking the turn of each sonnet in Williamson's collection). Throughout this sequence, Williamson also examines the idea of death and its implications for the writer, examining the problematized situation of life after death. In my own collection, Assemblage, I attempt to examine the liminal as well, looking at death in several poems, but also looking at the way one uses the past in understanding the present and the present in understanding the future.

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