This research projects deals with the question of whether the paintings of artists who have committed suicide is reflective of their mental states both in terms of content and form. It specifically attempts to answer whether the deterioration in mental state from a time of bette…
Situated at the crossroads of literary studies, ecocriticism and political theory, Active Enchantments explores a strain of thought within American literature that understands life in all of its forms to be generated not by self-determined identities, but by interconnectedness a…
“Se cerca, se dice,” the climactic aria from Metastasio’s heroic opera L’Olimpiade (1733), was a centerpiece of galant musical culture. Adored by critics for its affective immediacy and treasured by star castrati for its union of tender lyricism with virtuosic flair, “Se cerca” …
This dissertation studies four texts: the Exeter Book, the collected poems of Baudri of Bourgueil, the Historia Vie Hierosolimitane of Gilo of Paris, and the anonymous eleventh-century Vita Ædwardi Regis. It examines and seeks to define a specific feature of these texts, which t…
When analyzing Béla Bartók's "Harvest Song" and "Enumerating Song," the music theoretic community has mainly focused on the piece's form. Exotic scales, and the piece's untraditional tonal centers, neglecting to mention the implied constraints in the music that show up as bounda…
The field of Germanic studies has recently witnessed a renascent interest in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s natural scientific work, above all his ‘morphology’ or study of natural formations. Upon returning from his Italian journey, Goethe developed an ensemble of epistemic practi…
Since the institutionalization of Asian American Studies in the 1960s and 1970s, the definition of “Asian American” has been under constant revision in response to changes in immigration policies and, consequently, to shifts in class, ethnic, sexuality, and gender demographics. …
Introduction. Artworks and their modalities of egress -- Aer, Aurae, Venti: Warburg's aerial forms and historical milieus -- Luftraum: Riegl's vitalist mesology of form -- Saturated forms: Rilke's and Rodin's sculpture of environment -- The "Kinesphere" and the body's other spat…
"What is form in modern art? How could a work of art achieve its organic life in a world increasingly dominated by mechanism, by new technology? In this new book, Brandon Taylor proposes that biology and the life sciences themselves supplied many of the analogies and metaphors b…
"We frequently use hypotheticals in our arguments with the common sense assertion that they are a logical form. "If I pass my exams then I will be able to continue my studies. I passed my exams therefore I will be continuing my studies". The conclusion of such an argument is cle…