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Item Porosity: the space between identities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2021) McKay, Laurel Brooke; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Gesine JanzenPorosity' investigates the abstraction of bodies as a way to free people from the visual constraints and societal markers of 'difference' or 'otherness', as tied to class, gender, sexuality and race, that are used to marginalize individuals in our society. I in no way want to remove people's individual experiences, however, these narrow and rigid categories of socially constructed identities support hierarchies that are based in capitalism and systemic oppression, which I think should ultimately be dismantled. Within my monoprints, I use this abstraction of human form to allow for endless possibilities of shifting identity and individual freedom of expression that is not defined by the labels constructed by others. This abstraction of human form also, allows the body to become a sight of resistance and defiance to controls or 'disciplines' placed upon one's existence through bio-political or state structures. I argue that these works of art will allow contemplation on the structures, expectations and invisible manipulations that are tied to how we form and embody our identities in society, while still imparting feeling and emotion as tethered to a shared human existence. I also, hope that they will represent the future possibilities of our fluid identities and a utopian universal that is a shared human experience.Item Spiral stairways : towards defining a romantic map of identity(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2004) Genito, Virginia Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Marvin D. L. LansverkThe purpose of this paper is to define, interpret, and account for elements of a “Romantic map of identity” as set forth by Plotinus and adapted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others in the Neoplatonic Romantic tradition. The methodology explores interrelationships between the map’s components by defining the terms: (1) “Romantic,” (2) “map,” and (3) “identity,” drawing on the Christian Neoplatonic tradition of the early British Romantics, the Romantic transcendentalists of New England, and the related terms and concepts developed by C. G. Jung. Romantic characteristics are organized into four cardinal points: (1) a focus on concepts and representation of the whole self, (2) a transcendent vision of the emanation and fall of the soul from its source, (3) a sense of the mission to facilitate the soul’s return through unity, and (4) an emphasis on the creative, self-expressive individual in his or her personal environment and historical context. To explore the meaning of “identity,” Plotinus’s and Coleridge’s versions of the stages of identity development are outlined and compared in detail. This method demonstrates how synthesizing the four essentials with the Romantic mapping process generates a worldview, articulated by Coleridge, that echoes the Plotinian schema of the origin and creation of consciousness. This includes the theory that self-consciousness develops in stages through the circular process of the descent from the Source (through emanation) and the return (through soul evolution) within a larger macrocosmic context. These stages of development are schematized as a hierarchy, or the Great Chain of Being, and a holarchy, or inherent analogies between inner and outer experience. This approach generates an identity-mapping model that combines hierarchical and holarchical patterns, accounting for various mapping processes in the Neoplatonic Romantic tradition. This model is egg-like with layers, the ovoid “sliced” into “horizontal” sections, which synthesizes the “flat” hierarchical ladder design with the concentric spheres of a holarchy. This paper concludes that mapping the Romantic scheme of identity is important and relevant today; for an individual can rise no higher than his or her self-conception, and a culture can evolve no further than its most enlightened and self-realized individuals.Item Indian Blood' or lifeblood? : an analysis of the racilization of native North American peoples(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2005) Ferguson, Laura Kathryn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Lisa AldredThe racialization of Native Americans has distorted their individual and collective identities. As a mechanism of Western imperialism, "race" has contributed to their dispossession, disintegration and deculturalization. Racialized oppression continues at federal and tribal levels through the usage of racial terminology and in blood quantum policies, leading to the fragmentation, marginalization, stigmatization and alienation of Native individuals. As such, race and blood quantum pose a threat to the survival of tribes. Tribes have within their means indigenous alternatives to race and blood quantum and will need to revitalize these indigenous practices and principles if they are to safeguard their survival as autonomous cultural and political entities.Item Understanding the dynamics and fragility of culture, and optimism of making culture(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2010) Tahiri, Adelina; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mike Everts; Ralph Johnson (co-chair)Albanians had established a meaningful/intimate relationship with their environment. They embracing natural features and created special places/architecture/artifacts that symbolized their roots, and were left by ages past. Natural features and architectural/cultural artifacts were the places that Communists targeted at for destruction. Over a century, Kosovo went through CULTURCIDE, URBICIDE, DOMICIDE and ended all up with GENOCIDE. All possible ways that Serbians used to destroy this culture, disconnect people from this place, were not as strong as the attachment to Albanian Homeland. It was this strong attachment to place that helped people recuperate and once again, start over... Domicide- Killing home, was the ultimate goal of communists. They used architecture strategies to disconnect Albanisns from place, erase memory. DOMICIDE was instigated by powerful elite that very critically planned the Destruction. Communist planners strategically ruined the river of the city "The spirit of the city", religious monuments and social nodes such as the bazaar. To address these issues, I plan to rebuild the Place, rebuild the culture and identity through architecture, and make the ultimate sacrifice of all heroes and victims of all the wars worthwhile. By putting the viewer in the place of witness, he/she would be able to better understand the fragility of the culture and history. The goal is to understand clearly the aims of the enemy and start getting more comfortable with the past historical events, and most importantly, the optimism for making culture. Again, through Architecture, I intend to bring back the essence of the culture and history of destructed places. I plan to integrate these important qualities/essences in our present social environment. I will create a prideful narrative of the past, incorporating multiple layers of memory and multiple layers of history of our city and the positive way that it can contribute in our social understanding and social importance. I will intend to re - Construct culture and place based on the essences of the studied/targeted artifacts. The ultimate goal is to see the optimism of people for making culture and being proud of it.Item Identity : pscyhological relationships between place and occupant informing Burmese refugee communal design(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2009) Gould, Shawn Patrick; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Christopher Livingston; Ralph Johnson (co-chair)Place is an active participant in determining who we are; it becomes part of one's identity. People use space as a vehicle in which individual and social experiences are carried out and remembered, ultimately shaping who one is. An attachment to place is formed. Place becomes vital to one's mental being and survival because it is a piece of a whole in how one defines herself/himself and his purpose. But what happens when place attachment is broken? The consequences can be severe. For example, Burmese refugees responding to political persecution, persistent poverty, and most recently the ramifications of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, were forced to abandon their homes and communities---- their place. They lost part of their identity. In doing so, the already dire situation they experienced grew more grievous. This continues today. Now these refugees congregate in camps along the Burmese/Thai border looking for relief. Only tactile issues (food, shelter, water) are addressed by relief agencies, not psychological issues, such as the part of their identity they have lost. Because of this oversight , their recovery and survival lay in jeopardy. This thesis will seek to demonstrate how architecture can ascribe to various design considerations that acknowledge the importance of fundamental place attachment between occupant and place. I will illustrate these considerations by creating a community for Burmese refugees that recognizes not only the physical but the psychological factors that are imperative to recovery, such as self, social, and place identity. Ultimately this exploration hopes to instill identity back into the refugees by applying a design strategy when developing the community that is informed by the interactions of the aforementioned psychological factors. These issues of identity are pertinent to design today, when increasingly, many people like the Burmese refugee are in situations that demand thought and action for their recovery and survival.Item Examining the relationship between preservice teachers' epistemological beliefs and conceptions of teacher identity within the boundaries of teacher education discourse communities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2009) Blair, Jennifer Johnson; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Bryce CarpenterA teacher's epistemological beliefs define the boundaries of his or her worldview and conceptualization of teacher identity. It is, therefore, essential that teacher educators support the development of sophisticated epistemological beliefs among preservice teachers. Prior studies have suggested that epistemic development may be hindered by emphasis placed on the performance of a socially constructed normative teacher identity within teacher preparation programs. This phenomenological study, which examines the relationship between preservice teachers' epistemological beliefs and their beliefs regarding normative teacher identity at different points in their teacher education program, aims to provide insight into how teacher preparation programs may better support the development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs among preservice teachers. Data was collected from 40 preservice teachers at Montana State University using a survey instrument created for this study and interpreted through a process of discourse analysis. The individual preservice teachers studied expressed epistemological beliefs and conceptions of teacher identity that were contradictory without ever acknowledging or attempting to explain these contradictions. This suggests that the participants may not have actually developed their own beliefs through a process of consideration or inquiry, but instead have received them during their time in the teacher preparation program. The results of this study suggest that interventions focused on reflection upon theory and practice will continue to be ineffective as long as the preservice teachers continue to reflect upon these ideas through the lens of undeveloped epistemological beliefs situated within the context of a received teacher identity.Item I'm so bored with the U.S. -and beyond : theorizing the emergence of postmodern slackers and global Generation X culture(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2008) Paliobagis, Ariana Jade; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettThe generation which came of age in the late 1970s through the 1980s has often been described as a cohort of slackers, lazy layabouts who shamelessly rejected the previous generation's passionate attempts at revolution. I argue instead, however, that Generation X, as Canadian writer Douglas Coupland termed it, is responsible for a revolution of its own, but its lack of resemblance to any previous social upheavals has caused it to be misunderstood by many. The failure of the youthful rebellions of the sixties and the shallow response to this of the eighties - selfish materialism - prompted this new generation to abandon both group movements and self-advancement; rather, many members of Generation X found that rejection of received ideas and identities - particularly those based in and created through traditional appreciations of and relations to time and place - allowed them to create identities and modes of living which are meaningful and viable in a global postmodern world, attitudes that take advantage of the fragmentation of identity experienced in the postmodern era rather than fighting the general lack of connection brought about by the cultural and economic realities of the period. Through passivity, inaction, acceptance of mediocrity and boredom, the preference for the individual over the community, and their ability to deftly negotiate the rapid increase in world consumer capitalist economies and global information and communication technologies, postmodern slackers have disassociated themselves from systems of any sort: religious, economic, political, familial, or cultural. As a result, these young men abandon the accepted de rigueur "accomplishments" of adulthood such as marriage, family, home, and career, instead opting to create identities, homes, families and careers out of a hodgepodge of cultural detritus, including both high and popular culture. They accept this fragmentation of identity as a matter of course rather than allow it to produce significant anxiety, as in previous generations, and as a result, are acutely prepared to thrive in the global postmodern era even as they redefine the meaning of success.Item Some One(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2008) Heaston, Paul Bradford; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sara MastIn the wake of the emergence of the photographic portrait over the last century, I aim to examine the current relationship between the painted portrait and photography; specifically, the use of the photograph as a tool that can inform and transform the investigation of identity in painting. While a great deal of my interest lies in translating the photographic image into paint, I am more interested in what the nature of my process can reveal about the people I know. I believe my intimacy with the sitter turns the process of transcribing a clinical and often unflattering photographic examination into a more challenging psychological exploration of my relationships with both the subject and the viewer. I force myself to make editorial choices to reconcile the impartial and detached information provided by the camera with what I already know about the sitter.