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Perceptions of beauty
Title
Perceptions of beauty.
Creator
Metzner, Michael John., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description
Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder? Historically, philosophers, poets, artists, and scientists have striven to define and express one of the most complex words in the English language : beauty. In contemporary society we tend to casually ascribe the word beauty to many various objects,paintings, sounds, and ideas. Its meaning can adhere to a stone, to the oscillating waves of an ocean, to the nonorganic as to the organic. Perceptions of Beauty is a project the follows my journey as...
Show moreIs beauty really in the eye of the beholder? Historically, philosophers, poets, artists, and scientists have striven to define and express one of the most complex words in the English language : beauty. In contemporary society we tend to casually ascribe the word beauty to many various objects,paintings, sounds, and ideas. Its meaning can adhere to a stone, to the oscillating waves of an ocean, to the nonorganic as to the organic. Perceptions of Beauty is a project the follows my journey as an artist and how my perception of beauty has changed over the past four years. Using examples from select artists, philosophers, and scientific studies, I will contend that Beauty is not "in the eye of the beholder," but is a complex and formulated characteristic that inspires not only an emotional response, but evokes mechanisms that defy our understanding of ourselves.
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Date Issued
2012
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3359317
Subject Headings
Perception (Philosophy), Visual perception, Aesthetics, Psychological aspects, Art, Philosophy, Philosophy of nature
Format
Document (PDF)
Enduring relationship with the dead: The corpse, the feminine and popular culture
Title
Enduring relationship with the dead: The corpse, the feminine and popular culture.
Creator
Kelly, Suzanne M., Florida Atlantic University, Caputi, Jane
Abstract/Description
Feminist theory has long criticized the hierarchical and oppositional thinking responsible for creating the basis of what counts as real knowledge. In questioning how and why the experience of enduring relationship with the dead is not imagined as real, this dissertation will draw from this theoretical tradition. This analysis involves a paradigm shift in thinking about the nature of relationship---one that posits these kinds of experiences as something other than either a psychological...
Show moreFeminist theory has long criticized the hierarchical and oppositional thinking responsible for creating the basis of what counts as real knowledge. In questioning how and why the experience of enduring relationship with the dead is not imagined as real, this dissertation will draw from this theoretical tradition. This analysis involves a paradigm shift in thinking about the nature of relationship---one that posits these kinds of experiences as something other than either a psychological remedy to our grief or the requisite belief in the survival of the self. Feminist critiques of dualistic thinking become the cornerstone of Chapter One in order to get to the roots of how knowledge of enduring relationship with the dead gets denied. This chapter addresses the splitting responsible for the othering of death, the desire to flee it, and, by association, the desire to flee the body. This flight is predicated on a bounded and distinct subject who imagines it must separate itself from the material in order to survive. Imagining the body in this manner sets limits for making visible a relationship that endures with death. Dualistic thinking, the degradation of the body and the desire to flee it will also be the focus of Chapter Two as it looks at the dominant contemporary practices around what is done with the corpse. These practices work together to deny a dead body that matters and one important for legitimizing enduring relationship with the dead. While enduring relationship is made invisible through these hegemonic discourses and practices, there are, as I mentioned at the start, experiences that say otherwise. Chapter Three will suggest that the knowledge that comes with these experiences is one sometimes accepted and explored in popular culture. Popular culture may provide the reminder, but recognizing enduring relationship also relies on the willingness to bring to the fore the role, the value and the contribution of the corpse. The conclusion will offer some examples of what I call practices of proximity that recognize the corpse as central for the living.
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Date Issued
2006
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12216
Subject Headings
Loss (Psychology), Feminist theory, Women--Death--Social aspects, Perception (Philosophy), Philosophy of nature
Format
Document (PDF)
Reclaiming Wonder
Title
Reclaiming Wonder.
Creator
Barreneche, Ingrid M., Broderick, Amy S., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Visual Arts and Art History
Abstract/Description
I believe art can offer an antidote to our numbness and rekindle a sense of childlike wonder. Reclaiming Wonder is an installation in which I aim to explore the possibility of evoking the curiosity of childhood in the viewer’s mind and transporting him or her into a dreamlike atmosphere to wander about in wonder through the use of the senses of sight, touch, and hearing.
Date Issued
2017
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004863, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004863
Subject Headings
Semiotics and literature., Wonder in children., Philosophy of nature., Nature study., Discourse analysis., Symbolism in literature., Spiritual life.
Format
Document (PDF)
ecocritical and metaphorical analysis of "Cereus Blooms at Night"
Title
An ecocritical and metaphorical analysis of "Cereus Blooms at Night".
Creator
Kaleel, Rhonda A., Florida Atlantic University, Furman, Andrew
Abstract/Description
Nature is an important symbol in Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo. The metaphorical comparisons are interlaced within the colonial usurpation which fuels the novel into becoming an ecocritical statement, because without the health of the environment, both human and non-human species alike decay and die because of colonial encroachment. Shani Mootoo illustrates the ecological clash between the wetlands and the tropics through an intricate narrative involving people who are dominated by...
Show moreNature is an important symbol in Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo. The metaphorical comparisons are interlaced within the colonial usurpation which fuels the novel into becoming an ecocritical statement, because without the health of the environment, both human and non-human species alike decay and die because of colonial encroachment. Shani Mootoo illustrates the ecological clash between the wetlands and the tropics through an intricate narrative involving people who are dominated by their environments and cultures, or lack thereof, which create great chasms to overcome. Through critical nature symbols such as the town of Paradise versus the wetlands, the cereus plant, the bugs, the birds, and the cat, important ecocritical connections can be made as to the survival of the characters and the island.
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Date Issued
2005
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13205
Subject Headings
Mootoo, Shani,--1957---Cereus blooms at night, Nature in literature, Philosophy of nature in literature, Ecocriticism, Ecology in literature, Literature and science--Caribbean Area
Format
Document (PDF)
Let them run wild
Title
Let them run wild: childhood, the nineteenth-century storyteller, and the ascent of the moon.
Creator
Czerny, Val., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
Drawing from literary criticism, ecological philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the wisdom of the female principle - or what Paula Gunn Allen perceives as "Her presence," the "power to make and relate"- this interdisciplinary study challenges dominant assumptions that habitually prevail in western cultural thinking. Let Them Run Wild investigates alternative, "buried" articulations which emerge in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century narratives that especially engage an audience of both...
Show moreDrawing from literary criticism, ecological philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the wisdom of the female principle - or what Paula Gunn Allen perceives as "Her presence," the "power to make and relate"- this interdisciplinary study challenges dominant assumptions that habitually prevail in western cultural thinking. Let Them Run Wild investigates alternative, "buried" articulations which emerge in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century narratives that especially engage an audience of both children and adult readers. Recognizing the fictions inherent in linear-driven thought, these articulations celebrate narrative moments where reason is complicated and reconjectured, where absence is affirmed as presence, and where tale-tellers disappear behind the messages they relate. By spotlighting legendary characters, Chapter One, "The Jowls of Legend," explains how "wild consciousness" resists legendary status. Chapters Two and Three discuss the interweaving journey of the wild arabesque in the Arabian Nights and untamed desire within Anne's transformative language in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Chapter Four, examining the death drive in Frank Norris's The Octopus, describes how it is reconceived in E. Nesbit's The Railway Children. Lastly, the Epilogue explores Juliana Ewing's "Lob Lie-By-the-Fire," tracing the manifestation of the female principle through its most wild activity - not hindered by gender - of service rendered through mystery and adventure. Wild consciousness advances through the collective identity of what Frederic Jameson has called the "political unconscious"and commissions older, better approximations of ideology through willing, spontaneous service., It acknowledges Homi K. Bhabha's articulation of "cultural hybridity," while, simultaneously, it directs such hybrid constructions of history, space, and negotiation outward toward a wild feminist critic Elaine Showalter has characterized as the "wild zone," customarily understood as a borderland space, is further reinterpreted as a borderless, expressive, timeless calling forth of receptive minds to engage in wildly compassionate, nonsensical acts and cunning, non-heroic feats in order to transform the inert, polemic systems that define our western collective mind. In short, this study refigures what Vandana Shiva identifies as cultural "patents on life," where "civilization" becomes small - a mere idea in a forest's deep heart.
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Date Issued
2009
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/209982
Subject Headings
Symbolism in literature, Ecofeminism and literature, Philosophy of nature in literature, Narrative (Rhetoric), Criticism and literature, Storytelling in literature
Format
Document (PDF)
Mind the Gap: Overcoming Dualities in Motor City, USA
Title
Mind the Gap: Overcoming Dualities in Motor City, USA.
Creator
Houser, Tai Lynden, Blakemore, Steven, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description
Contemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm, inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is...
Show moreContemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm, inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is because we have lost our connection to our environment. Examining novels and films set in Detroit, Michigan, as well as coming to terms with that city's history, will allow us to find places where clairvoyant messengers can commune with the environment and offer us an insight into ways of overcoming the radical "othering" ofduality. This project begins by examining the literary history of urban fiction in the United States and pointing to the tradition of duality and some of its surface problems. Then, the project begins to construct a history of Detroit that exposes the complex layers of duality that have informed the city's growth and ultimately led to the 1967 riots. Next, the argument suggests the importance of fiction and film in understanding modern dualities. The first fictive example, Maureen, from Joyce Carol Oates's novel them is an example of a potential clairvoyant. However, bound as she is to a postmodern existence, Maureen experiences her "other'' but fails to provide a didactic example of non-dualistic thinking. Ultimately, postmodernism and postmodern/post riot Detroit only mystify and compound the problems associated with modern dualities. Likewise, Jeffrey Eugenides transgendered hero/ine Calliope (Middlesex) experiences her natural "other" and allows us to call into question the traditional binaries we use to create our understandings of gender. Both characters retell their experience and re-present their bodies in an attempt to bridge dualities and overcome their "otherness." Finally, the dissertation finds a representation of contemporary Detroit, Eminem's 8 Mile, and argues that violence and shame are at the root of dualities and ultimately distract us from overcoming both fictional and real examples of the oppressive "othering" which results from a culture steeped in dualistic thinking.
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Date Issued
2008
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000984
Subject Headings
Detroit (Mich)--In literature, Detroit (Mich)--History--21st century--Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Postmodernism--Psychological aspects, Philosophy of nature
Format
Document (PDF)
A Prayer for the Earth: Discovering a New Cosmological Vision through a Reading of Linda Hogan's Power and Gregory Maguire's Wicked from an Ecofeminist, EarthCentered and Spiritual Perspective
Title
A Prayer for the Earth: Discovering a New Cosmological Vision through a Reading of Linda Hogan's Power and Gregory Maguire's Wicked from an Ecofeminist, EarthCentered and Spiritual Perspective.
Creator
McCabe, Casey Elizabeth, Caputi, Jane, Florida Atlantic University
Abstract/Description
Linda Hogan's Power and Gregory Maguire's Wicked are two works of literature that encompass a process of raising and transforming consciousness about humans' relationships with each other and with the Earth and elemental energies. Both can be considered prayers to and for the world. The goal of this thesis is to highlight and explore themes of spirituality, ecofeminism, environmental justice, anti-colonialism, indigenous philosophies regarding sense of place, human and animal rights, and...
Show moreLinda Hogan's Power and Gregory Maguire's Wicked are two works of literature that encompass a process of raising and transforming consciousness about humans' relationships with each other and with the Earth and elemental energies. Both can be considered prayers to and for the world. The goal of this thesis is to highlight and explore themes of spirituality, ecofeminism, environmental justice, anti-colonialism, indigenous philosophies regarding sense of place, human and animal rights, and feminist critical theories of race and gender through the artistic, creative and powerful writing of these authors. These works both reflect and participate in ongoing processes of political and spiritual change away from patriarchal, Eurocentric and imperial culture. By applying concepts including F. Marina Schauffler's "Ecological Conversion" and Gloria Anzaldua's "Mestiza Consciousness," I will show how the novels' characters, though very differently, encompass these transformations of consciousness.
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Date Issued
2008
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00000938
Subject Headings
Hogan, Linda,--1964---Power--Criticism and interpretation, Maguire, Gregory--Wicked--Criticism and interpretation, Ecofeminism, Human ecology in literature, Philosophy of nature, Ecology--Moral and ethical aspects
Format
Document (PDF)
Earth, water, and black bodies
Title
Earth, water, and black bodies: elements at work in Toni Morrison's literary landscape.
Creator
Anderson, Pauline P., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description
This project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved...
Show moreThis project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved connotes bondage because of its historical link to the Triangular Trade. However, considering Morrison's frequent mention of water and the fugitives' constant need to drink, I argue that ingesting water symbolizes a need for psychological freedom. All of the novels that I have analyzed emphasize the complex connections between African Americans and nature.
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Date Issued
2012
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3356892
Subject Headings
Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, African Americans in literature, African American philosophy, Human ecology in literature, Nature in literature, Ecocriticism
Format
Document (PDF)