This research examines the musical, textual, and dramatic relationship between the princess Turandot and her love interest Prince Calaf in Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Turandot. Many scholars have written this opera off as a misogynistic drama where the main character, Turandot, is hard-hearted and cruel and is overpowered in the end not by love but merely by male sexual virulence in the form of a kiss. However, the nature of the relationship between the prince and the princess is far more complex. In fact, a case can be made that Turandot’s text and music present us with a strong character who is terrified of compromising her power by getting married. Furthermore this strength of character coupled with textual, musical, and historical evidence provides us with a strong case that the relationship between Turandot and Calaf is actually one of equality between the sexes. This analysis gives us insight into Turandot’s complex psychology, and shows that it was not Calaf’s kiss that causes Turandot to accept him as her husband, but the gift of his complete self to Turandot.

The goal of this paper is to uncover and define the extremity of the gender inequalities within art historiography, specifically pertaining to the Baroque era. Prevalent patterns of semantic gender biases were exposed in previous research I conducted concerning the historiography surrounding Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few female artists recognized within the Baroque period. The scholarship by Mary Gerrard presented in the late 1980s, claimed that Artemisia’s gender had everything to do with the influence of her work. R. Ward Bissell on the other hand, argued that it was the influence of the men in her life that determined her success. Artemisia’s work has had a polarizing effect on the scholarship surrounding her artwork. However, when the historiography pertaining to male artists, such as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, are uncovered, the linguistic choices made by historians consist of a more analytical tone with less gendered biases present. The difference within the semantic representation of female and male artists is significant in that it influences how their individual works are interpreted. This polarized gender delineation will be presented through a comparison of recent historiography, beginning in the 1980s to present day, surrounding self-portraits completed by Gentileschi and Caravaggio, both well recognized artists of the Baroque era. I will explore the differences within the gendered approach to the scholarship through a study of the language choices, as well as including brief visual analyses of each artwork.

This research explores the intersection of Shakespearean theatre and the Asian American body onstage for the purposes of developing new and innovative plays, theatrical performances, and social justice art. Rather than limit the scope of this intersection to the casting of colored actors in Shakespearean roles, this study examines how Shakespeare has affected the development of Western theatre and contributes to our overall understanding of American storytelling, mythology, and societies of color. By incorporating the various sectors of American ethnic identity into mainstream Western media and theatrical practices, I believe the United States will be better poised to tackle the ever-changing social, economic, and multi-racial landscape of the 21st Century.

 Joan Mitchell was profoundly influenced by the work of Vincent Van Gogh. In the late period of her career, she frequently revisited and referenced subject matter from the paintings of the avant-garde artist. In this analysis, I explore and establish the connections of these two painters on personal and identifying levels. Specifically, I discuss Mitchell’s associations to Vincent Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows (1890). As a response, in No Birds (1987) Mitchell relays the sentiment of Van Gogh’s painting and imports an analogous sense of feeling through aesthetic qualities and encoded signs. Using formal and semiotic approaches, I compare No Birds and Wheatfield with Crows in order to reveal that Mitchell’s response is more than direct copy or homage. Through these coded applications of line and color, Mitchell renegotiates Wheatfield from a landscape into a portrait. In No Birds, the layered reflections of both painters converge.

We compare two of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral paintings: In the Morning (1897) and In the Afternoon (1897). In these works, Monet paints not the cathedral, but the time of day. In the first instance, he highlights early morning dew and, in the second, hot afternoon sun. Using details, we examine how light in various atmospheric conditions change the perception of color. We use color contrast theory to explain how Monet responds to color constancy and plays with our perceptual expectations. Color contrast theory explains how through different atmospheric conditions the color of an object appears to change hues. To contrast Monet’s turn-of-the century impressionist works, we introduce Rothko’s Magenta, Black, Green on Orange (1950). Instead of color theory we discuss Rothko’s work in terms of Greenbergian formalism. In which Clement Greenberg says that Abstract Expressionist were striving for purity and autonomy in their compositions. Rothko takes all narrative references out of his work; rather than atmospheric conditions, he focuses on color relationships. We discuss how the magenta, black, and green vibrate in and out on his orange background. We argue that regardless of Rothko’s intensions, his abstractions cause different viewers to make their own interpretation and impose their own cultural expectations on color relationships.

“Ballet is a dying art” has become a repeated refrain by dance scholars over the last several decades. My research suggests that far from dying, ballet is thriving, but has experienced a shift both in the context and nature of performances with important implications for dancers. Preliminary findings from my research indicate a recent increase of ballet’s popularity in ways that encourage dangerous trends for dancers who, in new contexts of self-production, self-promotion, and commercialization, are taking ever greater risks. What was an art form and discipline is becoming reduced to a highly athleticized image. As dance scholarship often focuses primarily on the performance, I borrow from other disciplines to provide a line of inquiry that examines the emerging areas of production and consumption beyond traditional performances. To analyze this recent phenomena, I close-read case studies of the viral video of Sergei Polunin dancing to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” the popular 2010 movie Black Swan, the tv shows “Dance Moms” and “Breaking Pointe,” recent advertisements by Under Armour and Free People, and Instagram and Facebook profiles used for promotion of both professional and pre-professional dancers. I will use these findings to discuss implications for the future of ballet as an art form and how the shifts providing greater autonomy for individual dancers also encourage negative repercussions on their bodies and careers.

The ritualization of photographic capture, with the advent of camera phones, instagram, snapchat, and the like, is commonly regarded as a mere media device meant for mass consumption. The selfie, in keeping with the idea of kitsch, provides a new outlet for mass expression. Those without formal artistic training can use the media to participate in a culture dialogue. In this paper, I cast the selfie in a new light and in doing so illuminate the way in which we as a society have evolved away from high art and its aesthetic. Drawing on the writings of Jean Baudrillard, Clement Greenberg, and Stuart Ewen, I argue that the selfie is a new expressive medium, occupying the void between mass culture and social exchange. Selfies are picture-perfect in the idealized sense which is utterly lacking in the daily lives of most people. I argue that selfies are an affirmation of an ideal social identity that is in sharp contrast to everyday reality. They are thus a simulated self. Selfies illuminate the hollow nature of modern day life by depicting humanity as a smiling sunny void.

When I think of propaganda art, I always consider the Nazi Party’s use of social realism to propel their political message. I also think about the Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937 and how Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels ridiculed and destroyed German Expressionist abstract works of art. It came as a surprise to learn that during the Cold War, the Museum of Modern Art sent The New American Painting, an exhibition consisting of work by 17 different abstract expressionist artists to Europe. To propagandistically promote American values, the exhibition went on a yearlong tour visiting nearly every major European city, including Germany. My paper investigates how abstract art can be used as propaganda to communicate a nation’s political agenda. Through a comparison of Wassily Kandinsky’s Several Circles, displayed in the Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibition, with Adolph Gottlieb’s Burst, displayed in The New American Painting, I will concentrate on how similar forms found in each painting were used to communicate opposing political stances of totalitarianism and democracy.