Representational Subversions and the Limits of Postcoloniality: Shahzia Sikander's Strategic Contemporaneity

Transnational artist Shahzia Sikander challenges the limitations of Edward Said's postcolonial emphasis on secular humanism by deploying the heterogeneous traditions of South Asian miniature painting while strategically drawing on tradition to critique contemporaneity. Through a palimpsest process of composition, Sikander reincorporates the unknown and silenced histories implicit in the tradition of miniature painting to create social imaginaries with motifs that draw on the diverse traditions of South Asian religions and aesthetics to create a subversive politics of remembering wherein alternative images of cosmopolitanism emerge. Through a sustained analysis, this dissertation demonstrates how these alternative traditions interrogate and critique the limitations of postcolonial theory. Particularly important to this critique are some recent approaches of Third World feminists that highlight the limitations of secular humanism implicit in much of postcolonial critique. Sikander's compositions mirror these approaches as her motifs of the feminine become an intervention into the spiritual emptiness and ethical confusions of contemporaneity. In effect, Sikander's work is an intervention, a warning, and a plea for the re-invention of positive alternatives as her images embody and facilitate a critical and daring consciousness that is necessary to both our social and spiritual well-being.

Clarity, Light, and Logic : Parallels between Olafur Eliasson’s The weather project and the Gothic Cathedral

This Master’s Research Paper investigates Olafur Eliasson’s The weather project as a case study for the dialogue between Gothic artistic principles and prominent elements of contemporary art. A product of a post-modern mindset, weakened historicity allows us to examine these connections anew; past, present, and future blur and artists (and viewers) have the whole of time from which to gain inspiration and meaning in works of art. I demonstrate similarities through theories on phenomenology; the spatiotemporal relationship between viewer and artwork; the convergence of art and science; and the communal, quasi-liminal experience of pilgrimage. I embrace Eliasson’s belief in the self-reflexive potential of art and the importance of the viewer’s own values, memories, and methods of seeing. This new interpretive layer will hopefully offer a richer experience for future participants of both Gothic cathedrals and environments produced by Studio Olafur Eliasson.

Internet Civil Liberties in the U.S. and the Protection of the Modern Terrorist

This capstone examines the civil liberties of the modern terrorist and explicates the right to freedom of speech for terrorist organizations and their use of the internet. Terrorist organizations use the internet to promote ideas, recruit members, organize the flow of information, and coordinate actions. During the war on terror the US Patriot Act became law allowing for U.S. government censorship and surveillance of internet traffic and many believe these acts are a threat to civil liberties. Terrorist organizations have the right to express their views, however unpopular, and censoring or restricting web sites diminishes civil liberties for all, which democracies and liberal societies are founded upon.

An Independent Art Movement: The Independent Artist, Community Television, and the Age of Information

The history of community television shows that it has been a home to activist and non-profit organizations that have created programs focused on freedom of speech. This project proposes that community television is also a place where artists can have freedom of artistic expression. The reflective paper reviews the creation of my film designed to inform and attract artists to community television. In it I critically reflect on the artistic, technical, artistic/technical, and production changes made throughout my journey from being a visual artist to becoming a video-artist. The reflective paper, along with the film, act as a wake-up call to artists who are unaware of community television and the advantages it has to offer them.

Slim Styles and the Brothers of the Light

Slim Styles and the Brothers of the Light consists of a short novella, intended to be part of a series, introduced by a narrative essay. The work is about the search for identity, the pursuit of happiness, and the struggle to maintain self assurance while finding a place in the world. The story follows the main character as he slowly learns the truth about an organization he joined looking for a sense of value and worth. With his back against the wall he has to return to the home he was taught to be ashamed of, face the friends he left behind, and apologize to the lover he took for granted. The manuscript is a work in progress.

The Lie That Tells the Truth: Creating Truth in Fiction and the Novel Delivering Hope

What makes fiction believable is the truth behind the words. This Capstone Project explores the ways in which authors put the truth on the page while simultaneously fabricating stories. The Reflective Paper examines writing techniques used to make the reader trust the story and the storyteller. The Creative Capstone is the result of applying these craft skills to Delivering Hope, a novel in progress about a critically ill baby bringing a dysfunctional family back together. The author relies on her personal experience of high- risk pregnancy and preterm birth to help create truth in her fiction.