This Professional Report explores the effects of Tiffany&Co’s online advertising strategy on brand perception in Italy and United States. The study starts with an analysis of the concept of luxury and the opinion that scholars have on how luxury value and brand equity should be communicated. Brand perception, its influence on consumers, and the role of Internet are also analyzed. The last part includes a detailed analysis of the findings for Italian and American consumers aged 18-25 and the variables that influence Tiffany&Co’s perceptions. The study concludes with recommendations to reinforce brand equity and perceptions via online advertisements. / text

Autour de 1900 à Paris, une génération de jeunes artistes, influencés par certains courants artistiques comme le néo-Gothique ou le Symbolisme, ont une même conception de l’art. Henri Bellery-Desfontaines (1867-1909) fait partie de cette génération d'artistes qui débutent leur carrière en tant que peintre, généralement comme peintre décorateur, mais qui s'intéressent rapidement aux arts décoratifs, attirés par la notion d’un art total. Il débute tout d’abord dans l'atelier personnel de Pierre-Victor Galland qui lui apprend la décoration, puis en 1890 dans celui de Jean-Paul Laurens à l'Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts à Paris. Après une commande de l'hôpital de la Charité où se lie d'amitié avec des médecins qui le suivront toute sa vie, Bellery-Desfontaines illustre des revues artistiques et des ouvrages littéraires. Mais l’artiste se montre davantage intéressé par les arts décoratifs que par la peinture. Il commence à réaliser des tapis, puis quelques meubles. Peu à peu, grâce à de riches commanditaires, Bellery-Desfontaines réalise des ensembles de décoration intérieure de plus en plus ambitieux, préoccupé par la notion d'un art total, mais sans jamais délaisser ni la peinture, ni l'illustration. A la fin de sa vie, il s'investit davantage dans le renouveau des arts décoratifs caractéristique de cette époque. Il laisse derrière lui une vaste production artistique, importante et hétéroclite, mais fort mal connue. Bellery-Desfontaines est un artiste complet, idéaliste, qui a l’ambition d’appliquer l’art au quotidien. Il meurt subitement à l’âge de 42 ans, trop jeune pour pouvoir asseoir une notoriété et une véritable carrière, laissant de nombreux projets inachevés. / In Paris around 1900, a generation of young artists, influenced by a variety of currents, such as Gothic Revival or Symbolism, shared a similar artistic outlook. Henri Bellery-Desfontaines (1867-1909) was part of that generation of artists who began their careers as painters, often aiming for careers in mural painting, and quickly showed an interest in the decorative arts, seduced by the idea of a total art. He started in Pierre-Victor Galland’s workshop, where he learned decoration; then in 1890, he entered Jean-Pierre Laurens’ one at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. At the same time, he started decorating the staff room at the Hôpital de la Charité where he befriended a group of young doctors who would subsequently follow his entire career. Then, he illustrated artistic magazines and somes books. But his artistic preferences gradually shifted from painting to the decorative arts. He started designing carpets and a few pieces of furniture. Then, with the support of a few wealthy patrons, Bellery-Desfontaines began designing increasingly ambitious complete interiors, focus on the notion of total art. Towards the end of his life he took a more active part in the debate over the decorative arts, which was a hallmark of the period. His vast artistic legacy is both influential and eclectic, yet remains little known. Bellery-Desfontaines was a complete artist, as were many of the artists at the time. An idealist, whose ambition was to make art for every day life, he died abruptly at the age of forty two, far too young to complete his career and achieve fame, for many of his project remained unfinished.

This thesis represents an investigative critique of ethics in mass media representation of trans people. It advances its respective set of ethics regarding trans representation by critically examining how contemporary capitalist media produces a more "sanitized" trans representation that fails to reflect the material living conditions of the immense majority of trans people underneath the regime of capitalism. This study also advocates a black feminist-positive transfeminism that critiques the assimilationist trans narratives reproduced across mass media and social media. This thesis thereby constitutes a case study of trans representation in media. It specifically implements critical discourse analysis and comparative case studies as its research methods, with critical media studies as its methodological discipline. This approach critically engages with the material in unison with trans studies, transfeminism, and media studies theoretical frameworks. This study thereby builds on and contributes to the research field of transgender media studies. Core findings in this thesis involve that neoliberal media integrates a preoccupation with predominantly white, "passing," and indifferent trans women who firmly rejects critical self-reflection. That is, a media fixation with trans women who essentially "blend in" among cisgender people as if these women allegedly represent the "exemplary" trans people distinguished from "undesirables." This thesis discerns this capitalist arrangement as a prejudiced groundwork that ultimately engenders conflict rather than cooperation between the academic labor of Black feminism and transfeminism.

The aim of this research is to present an important but forgotten Tiffany interior, that of All Saints Episcopal Church, and focuses on the source for the Saunders memorial window, Christ Resurrection. After portraying the Saunders Family and the context of the window and church interior as an important part of Richmond’s history, this thesis sets up a number of inquiries regarding Christ Resurrection. What are the literary sources; what are the formal sources, from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century; and what is the meaning of the composition? This thesis utilizes an art historical method of archival, connoisseurial, and iconological research. The analysis of the third chapter illustrates that Frederick Wilson’s composition of Christ Resurrection does not follow any one of the Evangelists. Rather it comes from an extensive pictorial tradition from Resurrection scenes of the 14th century leading into the 17th.

This dissertation examines localization of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Himalayan community technology centers of Nepal. Specifically, I examine strategies and practices that local knowledge-workers utilize in order to localize educational content for the disparate needs, interests, and ability-levels of learners in rural villages. This study draws on insights from non-formal education (NFE) stakeholders in Nepal, including government, UN, international and national NGOs, local knowledge-workers, and learners from different villages. I specifically focus on a sample of seven technology centers to better understand how localization is defined, designed, and executed at a ground level. I illuminate obstacles knowledge-workers face while localizing content and strategies to overcome such barriers. I conclude by offering key principles to support theory development related to OER localization. This study is anchored in hermeneutic inquiry and is augmented by interpretive phenomenological analysis and quasi-ethnographic research methods. This qualitative study employed interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and artifact reviews to identify patterns of localization practices and themes related to localization of critical content in Himalayan community technology centers of Nepal. This dissertation provides valuable evidence not only why localization matters (a statement that has been hypothesized for the past decade); but also provides proof of how localization is executed and concrete ways that localization could be improved in order for OER to reap efficacious learning gains for more rural people in developing countries and in other rural communities across the globe. The full text of this dissertation may be downloaded for free from http://etd.byu.edu/

This dissertation presents a holistic framework for approaching fantastic school stories: that is, narratives which feature the protagonist’s education in magic. This three-part framework attends to the ways in which the fantastic school story subgenre draws upon the characteristics and possibilities of the school story genre, fantastic literature, and representations of education – in which a hidden curriculum is always inherently present – to create unique opportunities for representing and foregrounding issues and structures within educational institutions and the relationship between education and power. Employing this lens allows for a more nuanced and complex consideration of the impact of fantastic elements in these narratives, examining the ways in which such elements exaggerate, embody, or enforce underlying ideologies and norms and offer encouragement to readers to interrogate these aspects of the text and the mundane educational experiences they encounter. This framework is then used to analyse representative texts in the subgenre and explicate the hidden curriculum of each: ideologies of immutable gender and identity in Jane Yolen’s Wizard’s Hall; the use of testing as a gatekeeping measure to reinforce Pureblood supremacy in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series; the prerequisite of economic capital to access education, undermining the myth of post-secondary studies as social mobility, in Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles; the violence of imperial educational institutions in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy; and the vocational habitus of witchcraft, including gendered divisions and expectations of personal sacrifice, on the Discworld in Terry Pratchett’s “Tiffany Aching” quintet. This framework and these illustrative analyses, by explicating the structures underlying the protagonists’ education and the ways in which they are thereby limited, participate in the projects of developing an emancipatory approach to children’s literature and in consciousness-raising regarding hidden curricula in education. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Texts in the fantastic school story subgenre – that is, narratives about a young person learning how to use magic, often at a school – are a valuable opportunity to explore the relationship between power and education. Here, I present a three-part approach for reading these texts which looks at how these narratives combine elements of the school story genre, fantasy literature, and representations of education to create a unique format. This unique format makes it easier for readers to see underlying structures and issues in education by making familiar elements feel unfamiliar through the addition of magic. I then use this three-part approach to analyse fantastic school stories by Lev Grossman, Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, J.K. Rowling, and Jane Yolen. Reading the texts through this lens brings forward issues related to education like gate-keeping, socioeconomic status, imperialism, and gendered norms and divisions.

This thesis investigates the influence of the Tiffany Studios in ecclesiastical stained glass windows of Indianapolis, Indiana. The Tiffany Studios was a leading stained glass manufacturer at the turn of the century and popularized the use of opalescent glass in stained glass commissions. The following study will briefly look at the history of stained glass, discuss the life of Louis Comfort Tiffany, characterize the work of the Tiffany Studios, and evaluate the ecclesiastical stained glass windows located in Center Township commissioned between 1880-1930. The evidence contained within the stained glass summaries suggests that Tiffany Studios did influence the commission of stained glass windows in Indianapolis during the period under review. / Department of Architecture