This thesis addresses the problem of the analysis of knowledge. The persistent failure of analyses of knowledge in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is used to motivate exploring alternative approaches to the analytical problem. In parallel to a similar development in…
This thesis is an analytical exploration of the influence of medieval theology on contemporary scholastic traditionalist polemics within Sunni Islam. Intra-Sunni sectarian polemics as an emerging area of study is relatively untouched as opposed to sectarian violence. A detailed …
Transcriptions have long been a companion to solo organ literature. Because of the instrument’s rich and diverse sound palette available to the organist’s discretion, organ transcriptions can generally offer an expressive and captivating recreation of the work at hand. The histo…
The idea of “cheap” is fascinating in its contradictions and misdirection. Cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap resources… “cheap” as a descriptor under neoliberal capitalism is always a signifier of a lie. Whether it be in stolen wages or environmental destruction, there are always…
Included here are a variety of reflections. Like the natural elements within my work, the narratives are cyclical rather than linear. They orbit out and then circle back to connected themes. A contour drawing is the most minimalist way to suggest form. However, by layering these…
Fabricated in unlimited series and sold at cost, the sculptures produced by Charlotte Posenenske between 1966 and 1967—modular wall reliefs, interactive cubic structures, and tubular geometric units whose installation requires collective decision making—were meant to confront bo…
This dissertation redefines the relationship among American poetry, history, and minimalist art in the 1960s and 70s, by exploring the vital resonance of seventeenth-century figures and forms within each of those fields. I return to William Carlos Williams’s, Charles Olson’s, an…
Material consumption has increased exponentially in recent decades, establishing most American consumers today as the most materially wealthy humans in history. But what is all of our stuff really buying us? Despite our material wealth, Americans suffer from many poverties and i…
This dissertation presents analyses of two compositions for cello by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks: Grāmata Čellam (1978), for solo cello, and Concerto No. 2, “Klātbūtne” (“Presence,” 2011–2012), for cello and string orchestra. It acquaints readers with defining elements of Vas…
Recent developments in linguistic theory carried out within the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995; Adger 2003;) provide a functional and concrete framework for an analysis of noun phrases in the Indonesian language, a Western-Malayo Polynesian sub-branch of the Austronesian langu…
This study investigates the licensing conditions on Negative Sensitive Items (NSIs) in Jordanian Arabic (JA). JA exhibits both types of NSIs that are discussed in the literature: Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) and Negative Concord Items (NCIs). Although these two sets of items s…
The new developments in syntactic theory under Minimalism reconsiders the relation between the language faculty and general cognitive systems whereby language acquisition is accomplished by the interaction of Chomsky (2005)'s three factors: (F1) a minimally specified UG (Genetic…
This study is mainly concerned with syntactic licensing. Within this context, two issues are addressed: predication and feature checking. As regards the latter, I argue that the present system is inadequate due to two reasons: first, there is redundancy regarding features of lex…
The closing decades of the twentieth century witnessed a resurgence of American opera, led in large part by the popular and critical success of minimalism. Based on repetitive musical structures, minimalism emerged out of the fervid artistic intermingling of mid twentieth-centur…
This dissertation probes the thorny intersection of religion, spirituality, and minimal art. One art theorist once wrote of the "crux of minimalism," suggesting that this American art movement, initiated in the 1960s, ushered in a great divide between art and religion. Few schol…