Undergraduate Humanities Forum
Mellon Research Fellows
2005-2006, Word & Image
Project
A Way of Seeing What Can Be Seen:"
Visual Perception in Avant Garde Cinema
Cristina
Alberto, College '06
Concentration: Cinema/Visual Studies
The eye-as-camera analogy is an accepted way
of explaining the act and experience of visual perception.
How artists exploit this process is directly related to
their attitude toward the dominant visual ideology—in
most cases, the Hollywood industry. A case in point is
the American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage. How
well do his films and manifestoes succeed in providing
the alternative, authentic visualization of perception
that his texts promote?
Project
Entheogenic Visions: The Sacred Union
of Word & Image
Brian
Anderson, College '07
Concentration: Biochemistry &
Biological Basis of Behavior
What can the psychedelic brew ayahuasca tell
us about the anthropology of consciousness? How does the
sacramental use of this drug affect a person’s cognition?
In the future, Brian hopes to develop psychoactive drugs
that will improve people’s quality of life.
Project
Vladimir Dimitrov and the Bulgarian
Madonna: Creed, Criticism, Propaganda
Valentina
Assenova, College & Wharton '08
Concentration: Fine Arts & Finance
Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov belonged to
a movement in the 20th century that defined national identity
in agrarian terms: the motherland and the common laborer
were one. Dimitrov’s signature painting, popularly
known as “The Bulgarian Madonna,” was to personify
Bulgaria’s bright Communist future. What does this
work, with its strong nationalistic overtones, reveal
about how we read and see art?
Project
The Contemporary Haggadot: Interrelations
Between Text and Iconography
Sarah
Breger, College '07
Concentration: History (Jewish)
Haggadah, the Jewish ritual text of prayers, stories,
sayings, and songs, is read on the first two nights of
Passover. What do the illustrations and other iconography
found in contemporary Haggadot reveal about the relation
between Israel and the Diaspora, the Holocaust, and women's
role in Judaism? How have new media, such as the Internet,
affected Haggadah iconography?
Project
The Curatorial Voice in Contemporary
Art
Lisa
Bubbers, College '06
Concentration: Visual Studies,
Art & Culture
Brochures, introduction text, and wall text inform the
exhibition viewer, just as the placement of the art sets
the pace and mood of the show. How does the curatorial
voice shape contemporary art? What does it mean to be
a curator today?
Project
Visual Arts in the Poetry of T.S.
Eliot
Janine
Catalano, College '06
Concentration: English, Art History
Poet T.S. Eliot is famous for his musical and literary
associations. Though less well known, he also had a unique
relationship to the visual art and artistic theories of
his time. What were they, and how might those associations
recast T.S. Eliot as a textual artist as well as poet?
Project
Made in the USA: Rewriting Images
of the Asian Fetish
Maggie
Chang, College '06
Concentration:
Visual Studies, Psychology
Media representations of Asian females
show them as subservient, exotic beings—the basis
behind the “Asian fetish.” Maggie
will explore the impact those stereotypes have had and
continue to have on Asian-American women by creating
artworks taking form as silk-screened rice paper scrolls
of a multi-media installation
Project
A Different Kind of Gallery: Artists'
Books as Exhibition Spaces
Rebekah
Flake, College '06
Concentration:
German Studies, Visual Studies
How have artists’ trends in the last 30 years
changed attitudes about the role of the book as a place
to exhibit artwork? What trends have led artists to
be more accepting of ‘text art,’ or art
produced in the form of books? New York art dealer Seth
Siegelaub and Printed Matter, Inc., are important sources
in this study of the evolution of artists’ texts
as art.
Project
CartoGraphica
Tara
Krueger, College '06
Concentration:
Urban Studies, History of Science
Maps have universal appeal: almost anyone regardless
of education, language, background, or interest can
recognize and read them. We trust maps to be correct.
But what happens when a map lies or bends the truth?
How far can computer-based mapping technologies expose
those distortions, and with what consequences?
Project
Architecture's Confrontation with
Postmodernity
Gerard
Leone, College '07
Concentration: Art History, Philosophy
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown are credited with
launching the postmodern movement in architecture. Yet
both have recently denied that they ever worked with,
advocated, or wanted to be labeled as anything “postmodern.”
How has this denial by two of contemporary architecture’s
titans affected the industry’s notions of what it
means to call something postmodern?
Project
Jonson and Spenser: English in Dialogue
with the Past
Ruth
McAdams, College '06
UHF Mellon Coordinating Research
Fellow
Concentration: English, German,
Music
Ben Jonson’s play Poetaster and Edmund
Spenser’s pastoral poems The Shepheardes Calender
are two English Renaissance texts acutely aware of and
concerned with their place in the literary canon. How
did these two legendary Renaissance writers conceive of
the classical Latin tradition and use it as a counterpoint
to their own understanding of the rapidly expanding English
literary works of their day?
Project
From the Odalisque to the Chador:
Representations of North African Women
Tara
Mendola, College '06
Concentration: Comparative Literature,
Literary Theory
At what points in certain historical junctures are one
culture’s representation of women (mis)translated
into another through word and image? For Middle Eastern
women, is there any symbolic value consistently attached
to the images and narratives about these women as they
are traded between cultures? How do male narratives relate
to the image that actual female writers in the mid-east
present?
Project
The Phallus: An Apotropaic Symbol
in Ancient Rome
Claudia
Moser, College '06
Concentration: Classical Studies,
Archaeology
The art and literature of the first-century A.D. Roman
world are replete with exaggerated images of the phallus.
Believed to protect against outside evil, images of the
phallus adorned frescoes, amulets, statues, etchings,
drinking cups, vases, and more. It was also discussed
in literature, satire, elegy, and poetry. What was the
public function of this most private symbol?
Project
Reducing the Round Table: Visual
and Textual Narrative Redaction in Medieval Arthurian
Romance
Jon
Passaro, College '06
Concentration: English, Philosophy
In composing Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory
combined elements from multiple Arthurian romances, significantly
editing his source material to cater to a 15th-century
audience. Similarly, many manuscripts containing these
source texts incorporate images that perform an editorial
function on the texts, helping readers to navigate through
these complex romances. In what ways do Malory and the
images in his source material perform similar editorial
functions?
Project
The Grotesque, Grinning Tyro in Wyndham
Lewis's Tarr
Lindsey
Schneider, College '06
Concentration: Women's Studies,
Communication
Wyndham Lewis wrote the novel Tarr while leading
the English avant-garde movement in the early 1900s. Within
Lewis’s novel, bodies whirl through the text freely
against an unstable rational environment. The machine
in Tarr generates a dismemberment of the body’s
gesturing machine until characters are reduced to a grotesque
grin. What does this grin—and the annihilating function
of laughter within the novel—mean?
Project
Epic Illustrations: Vergil's Aeneid
in the Vergilius Vaticanus
Kelly
Sloane, College '06
Concentration: Classics
The Vergilius Vaticanus is one of the oldest
and best preserved illuminated manuscripts of classical
literature. Produced in the early fifth century, it contains
Roman poet Vergil’s famed Aeneid, in which
words and images sometimes merge gracefully and at other
times diverge sharply. How did the scribes and artists
choose which scenes to depict? How do the images depart
from the poetry, and how do they conform?
Project
From Pictogram to Pinyin. . .And
Beyond
Wun
Ting Wendy Tai, College '08
Concentration: Fine Arts, Art
History
Rich in history and meaning, Chinese script has been closely
related to the visual arts since ancient times. A complicated
relationship exists between text and pictographic forms.
Political and cultural influences have created tensions
that contemporary Chinese artists are exploiting in politically
and culturally themed works. How is Chinese language a
medium for cultural and political commentary in Chinese
art today?
Project
Redux: Graphic Novels Detached from
Words
Connie
Yang, College '06
Concentration: Fine Arts
Why is graphic sequential storytelling (the graphic novel)
not seen as a valuate form of art and communication in
most of the western world? Connie is creating a series
of graphic novel illustrations, without words. Her artwork
will include a separate series of scripts will be written
out, all with different stories and themes, all intended
to elicit meaning that is personal to the ‘reader. |
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Undergraduate Fellows
Cristina Alberto
Brian Anderson
Valentina Assenova
Sarah Breger
Lisa Bubbers
Janine Catalano
Maggie Chang
Rebekah Flake
Tara Krueger
Gerard Leone
Ruth McAdams
Tara Mendola
Claudia Moser
Jon Passaro
Lindsey Schneider
Kelly Sloane
Wendy Tai
Connie Yang
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