Renaissance poet George Herbert is known as an innovator in poetic style and construction, but conservative or traditional in his content and subjects. This research explores an alternative interpretation that argues instead that his poems are actually radical innovations in structure that express and reveal the substance – function reflecting form. Herbert’s poems “Paradise” and “Easter Wings”, demonstrate this subversive and subtle, even subliminal, messaging. This methodology reveals his revolutionary attitude toward both poetic structures and content. By embedding alternative readings and perspectives into his poems, Herbert simultaneously explored the malleability of interpretations of both form and content, while subtly subverting and redefining traditional interpretations of his topics. Style and textual shapes are his tools for melding the cyclical elements of his topical inspiration with the outward appearance of the pieces. When read “in the round,” these poems reveal Herbert viewing cycles in life and text through slightly different perspectives and elements, creating duality and continuity. Both forwards and backwards, the content and form echo the other, as the circular readability contributes to and reflects the cyclical nature of the topic and content of the two poems. In this way, Herbert radically experimented in redefining the boundaries between form and focus.

On November 1, 1871, the first Italian performance of an opera written by Richard Wagner was presented at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. Despite nearly forty years of resistance to the works of the revolutionary German composer, this performance of Lohengrin marked a watershed in the integration of foreign influences into the unstable musical culture of post-Risorgimento Italy. While a distinct disdain for Wagner and Wagnerism continued to permeate Italian society, dividing critics and musicians, the influence of Wagnerism on Italian composers is evident as the nineteenth century draws to a close. While scholars such as Julian Budden have argued that Wagnerism in Italian opera is most strongly heard in the operas of i veristi such as Giacomo Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, I maintain that even Giuseppe Verdi, a man who can too easily be classified as anti-Wagnerian, begins to show evidence of Wagnerism in his compositions during this period. In examining the associations of his librettist, Arrigo Boito, with gli scapigliati, and his influences on Verdi himself, I intend to discuss the effect of Wagnerism on Verdi’s compositional style and to demonstrate the influence of Wagnerism in his opera Otello.

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was published in 1894 and included the short story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Since its original publication, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi has been published outside of this collection, with its adaptations mainly targeting children. Through textual studies, my research is employing an examination of the text through the application of an anthropological lens. I focus on comparing the original text to a 2006 "Easy Reader Classic" edition of the text as well as the 1975 Chuck Jones animated film adaptation. These two adaptations dramatically alter the presence of the themes of family, religion, and violence. The alteration of these themes prompt further exploration into their significance. This in depth analysis frames my research and allow a shifting of focus from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to its audience. Any discussion of audience tends to start with categorization, but I wish to prove that this approach can be dangerous, especially for scholars. By concentrating on the categorization of the audience, one loses sight of what the audience intends to do with the text. The audience's relationship with a text is defined by their intent, or more explicitly, how they utilize the text. When literature is identified as for children and subsequently adapted, how is it changing the audience's relationship with that text? Through these adaptations of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, I plan to investigate how drastically audience intent is altered through adaptation of the original version. Researching the loss of themes as well as the simplification of Kipling's text will allow me to extrapolate the affects of these changes on the audience's intent.

Examining three of Booker prize winner Ian McEwan’s novels Atonement, At Chesil Beach and Saturday provides a passage into his exploration of changing attitudes and viewpoints regarding female sexuality during the later 20th and early 21st century. Utilizing the genre of historical fiction, McEwan explores the various sociological and cultural influences such as improving neonatal care, contraceptives and improved birth control options that severed the previously inescapable link between sexuality and motherhood. Additionally, the rise of women in higher education and sectors of the workforce beginning in the 1930s onwards contributed to the autonomy and, as these novels indicate, increasing sexual freedom of women. Each novel explores the 1930s, 1950s and 2000s respectively as critical turning points in British culture. In the 1935 pre-WWII setting of Atonement, the prevalence of women in college and independent professions challenge gender norms. Against this backdrop, McEwan examines reciprocal sexual desire against victimization and societal attitudes towards women as equally desirous individuals. At Chesil Beach explores the physical relationship of a newly married couple during the 1950s and the emergence of clinical contraceptives. Finally, Saturday examines the attitudes of a mother and daughter in a post-sexual revolution setting and explores issues of generational differences as well as the link between sexuality and victimization still present in a contemporary time period. Ultimately, critically examining the attitudes and historical contexts of each novel against other scholarly work provides a literary interpretation of the evolution of attitudes regarding female sexuality, and sub issues of autonomy, consensual desire, the role of women and victimization, spanning from a pre-WWII era to contemporary society. 

My research examines the ways that the traditional conception of Foucault’s panopticon takes on new meaning in the music video "No Matter What You Do" by Benny Banassi. "No Matter What You Do" allows for the panopticon to be reconceptualized, as no stable locus of power can be located. This new power dynamic allows the objects of the male gaze to both reclaim power and deconstruct a seemingly stable power structure that is reified and sustained through the male gaze. I examine gendered expectations within the video and explore the ways static gender binaries and heteronormativity can be disrupted. I contend that Banassi's video shows a new power dynamic that has yet to be explored via the panopticon, as it creates several unstable loci of power. Characters denied power in the music video’s prison-like setting are able to work within the power structure to dismantle it.

Ghanaian Concert Parties are live theater showcases that travel around to different cities in Ghana. Actors, dancers and musicians express their talent to audiences for many hours engaging with members by poking fun at spectators and by playing popular music. They are inspired by events in an actor’s everyday life or events in society. The stories showcase the natural and the supernatural worlds, infusing stories with commentary on Christianity and indigenous religions. Upon my research, I found some ambiguities surrounding the research of Ghanaian Concert Parties.  The transformation of Ghanaian Concert Parties presents various research questions: Why did this form originally designed for upper class become a lower class art form? What changes have taken place in the art form when the socioeconomics of the audience changed? My research examines five articles: “Comic Play in Ghana” written by K.N. Bame, “Comic Opera in Ghana” and “Ghanaian Christianity and Popular Entertainment: Full Circle” both written by E.J. Collins, “The Political Relevance of Ghanaian Highlife Songs since 1957” written by Kofi E. Agovi, and “Concert Parties: Paintings and Performance” written by Michelle Gilbert. These articles are from five different decades from the 1960s to the 21st century. I chose these articles because they detail changes on the scholarly perspective of Ghanaian Concert Parties. I used the historiographical method to compare and contrast their portrayals and how they have changed over time. The research is significant because it creates a historiographical model for further study on postcolonial African art forms.