Browsing by Subject "Fantasy"
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Item Animus, Anima, and Shadow: Gender Role Representation in Fantasy Films of the Third Wave Feminist Era(2012-01-10) Lopez, Caroline; Olson, Beth; Haun, Martha; Verheyen, ClaremarieResearch on representation of gender in 20th century media suggests that traditional attitudes towards gender, which call for aggressive, dominant male behavior and passive, submissive female behavior, have been propagated through negative framing of characters who challenge those attitudes. Traditional attitudes have been especially prominent in fantasy tales, though some research suggests that contemporary (third-wave feminist era) fantasy does support alternative views. A quantitative study of fantasy films of the era reveals that characters who challenged tradition were still more likely to be framed negatively than those who did not. Qualitative analysis was then used to determine the reasons for, and the significance of this continued correlation.Item Effects of fantasy and fantasy proneness on learning and engagement in a 3D educational game(2015-05) Lee, Jaejin; Liu, Min, Ed. D.; Resta, Paul; Riegle-Crumb , Catherine; French, Karen; Toprac, PaulFantasies are defined as byproducts of human imagination and mental activities to internalize unusual external objective stimulus. In the literature, utilization of fantasy in educational settings promoted intellectual and emotional improvements. However, the research implications from these fantasy research studies are mostly limited to traditional game design and classroom teaching. There are two research purposes in this study. The first is to examine how different types of fantasy and student fantasy proneness influence science learning, factual information acquisition, and game engagement in a 3D educational game environment called “Alien Rescue.” To accomplish this purpose, this research investigated the effects of fantasy type and fantasy proneness on science learning, factual information of alien characters, and game engagement. The second purpose of this study is to investigate student’s perception of the varying types of fantasy. To accomplish the second purpose of the study, this research inquired how student identified each type of fantasy and related his or her past experience to the embodied characteristics in alien characters. The participants of the study were 103 students who used Alien Rescue in four classes as their science curriculum for 10 days. The students in two classes were assigned to a treatment group using models with portrayal fantasy and the students in two classes were assigned to the other treatment group using models with creative fantasy. Employing mixed methods, this study analyzed both quantitative and qualitative data such as surveys and student interviews. The results in the quantitative part of the study showed that portrayal fantasy was effective for science learning, alien information acquisition, and game engagement. Specifically, the students who used portrayal fantasy models showed higher improvement of science knowledge and scored better on both alien information acquisition and game engagement. High fantasy proneness group also showed better game engagement. The finding with qualitative data showed that the students pointed out eight elements in identifying 3D fantasy objects, and those elements were relevant to the design elements that the researcher included in the 3D modeling procedure. The students also showed a perception pattern that they understood 3D game characters based upon previous experience regardless of fantasy type. The findings suggested that portrayal fantasy was effective in enhancing content learning, factual information acquisition, and engagement in educational games because the familiarity of the fantasy elements makes the identification of the fantasy characters easier and faster. However, too deep involvement in fantasy resulted in ineffective and inefficient learning outcomes. The findings also suggested that eight components of 3D models were essential elements in identifying fantasy game characters by learners as well as designing the 3D characters by game designers.Item Introducing school bands to the non-march works of John Philip Sousa: Contemporary performance edition and conductor's guide for the fantasy When My Dreams Come True(2006-05) Maher, Donna; Stoune, Michael; Gelber, Bill; Casadonte Jr., Dominick J.; Killian, Janice; Hobbs, Wayne C.The purpose of this study is to make a modern edition of John Philip Sousa's 1929 fantasy for band When My Dreams Come True. A supplementary part of the project will be to provide a conductor's/teacher's guide designed to help make the music more accessible for high school bands. Sousa wrote music in many different genres. While most school musicians and teachers are familiar with a few of his 135 marches, very few are acquainted with his works in other varieties, such as suites, overtures, descriptive music, incidental music, humoresques, and fantasies. In The Works of John Philip Sousa, Paul Bierley states that the fantasies "represent a minor art form which is typically American and distinctively Sousa's. For these reasons, they are among his most important works." (133) Only two fantasies are available in modern edition for bands to play. This project aims to provide a Sousa fantasy for the school band literature.Item Lofty : a culminating cinematic experiment(2013-05) Smith, Patrick William, active 2013; Raval, P. J. (Paul James)The following report is an in depth, step-by-step analysis of the processes and experiments undertaken during the creation of the thesis film, "Lofty," written, directed, photographed, scored, and edited by Patrick William Smith. From inception to mastering the finished film, this report serves to highlight the filmmaker's rationale behind attempts at various experimental methods of pre-production, production, and post-production on the film.Item Making sense of it all : mapping the current to the past(2010-05) Dennis, John Lawrence, 1973-; MacNeilage, Peter F.; Davis, Barbara; Gerrig, Richard J.; Pennebaker, James W.; Wooley, Jacqueline D.What are the representational differences between situations that do and do not map well onto previous experiences? This research offers some answers to this question by having participants compare two narratives that were either reality or fantasy-based. Fantasy-based narratives, with their deviations from reality, were considered similar to situations that do not map well onto previous experience. The concept of systematicity, where high-order relations constrain low-order relations was used to describe such situations (Bowdle & Gentner, 1997). Compared to a reality-based narrative, extra processing is required to maintain a systematic representation of a fantasy-based narrative. One can reduce the amount of processing needed by grounding that fantasy-based narrative in a reality-based or another fantasy-based narrative. Comparative judgments were used to measure processing differences. In three studies, participants read two narratives and then performed a series of comparative judgments derived from retrospective duration judgment (Block, 1992), event-structure perception (Zacks & Tversky, 2001), and structure-mapping theory (Gentner, 1983) research. For example, one of the comparative judgments adopted from structure-mapping theory was the rating of directional similarity, or the similarity rating of the second-read narrative relative to the first-read narrative. Directional similarity was proposed to increase as the amount of processing associated with maintaining a systematic representation of the first and second-read narrative decreased. For Studies 1A-E, the directional similarity was higher for the RealityFirst condition (reality read first) than the FantasyFirst condition (fantasy read first). These results are interpreted as indicated that the increase in directional similarity for the RealityFirst conditions was due to structure lending from the first-read reality-based narrative and that the decrease in directional similarity for the FantasyFirst conditions was due to representational disruption from the first-read fantasy-based narrative. Results also indicated that comparing two reality-based narratives (Studies 2A-B) was similar to comparing two fantasy-based narratives (Studies 3A-B) for the directional similarity and directional duration judgments, but differed for the listing of commonalities and differences and the segmentation of the narrative event structure. According to the systematicity principle (Gentner, 1989), people prefer mappings between two representations that form coherent and highly interconnected structures. The results from Studies 1A-E demonstrate a clear directional preference for the RealityFirst conditions. The results, therefore, indicate that it was more difficult to utilize the inherent structure of the narratives for the FantasyFirst conditions then the RealityFirst conditions. Comparing the results across the final set of studies, the increase in segmentation and increase in word count for the commonalities and differences were clear indications that participants still had difficulties in utilizing the structure of the narratives when both narratives being compared were fantasy-based (Studies 3A-B). In operationalizing systematicity with fantasy and reality-based narratives, I have been able to extend our understanding of how structure-lending can occur between these two narrative types. The results, therefore, extend our understanding of the structural alignment approach to narrative comparisons. But, since this research also involves the theoretical integration of the structure alignment approach (directional similarity and listing of commonalities and differences) with theories of time estimation (directional duration), event structure representation (segmentation), the basic findings herein should be applicable to comparisons ranging from auditory narrative structures to simple lexical units (e.g., unicorns vs. horses) to visual depicted objects (e.g., aliens vs. humans), even if the current set of studies described in this article involved only the comparison of written narrative structure.Item Mechanisms for overcoming reality status biases(2009-05) Tullos, Sara Ansley; Woolley, Jacqueline D.Children use many cues to differentiate reality from fantasy, including context, testimony from others, and physical evidence in the world around them. However, due to individual differences, some children hold strong reality status biases that interfere with their ability to infer reality status from these cues correctly. This research identified two general cognitive skills, inhibitory control and a metacognitive understanding of certainty, which serve as mechanisms for overcoming biases to infer reality status. In general, children with a high interest in fantastical play and older children with poorer developed inhibitory control skills are more likely to display a reality status bias. Additionally, children with reality status biases are more likely to overcome them to infer reality status correctly when they have a better metacognitive understanding of certainty and better developed inhibitory control. This research informs both the fantasy/reality literature and the scientific reasoning literature in demonstrating how biases can affect children's judgments.Item Prophets in the margins : fantastic, feminist religion in contemporary American telefantasy(2011-05) Howell, Charlotte Elizabeth; Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962-; Kackman, MichaelIn this thesis, I will examine the connected representations of religion and gender in the context of contemporary American telefantasy (a term for science fiction, fantasy, and horror television genres) programs that include characters who experience fantastic visions that can be explained as originating from either divine or medically materialist origins. The fantastic mode, facilitated by telefantasy’s non-verisimilitudinous genre, presents these visions in a liminal space in which religious and gender representations can potentially subvert or challenge patriarchal and hegemonic representational norms. I analyze Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi 2003-2009), Eli Stone (ABC 2008-2009), and Wonderfalls (FOX 2004) for their formal presentation of visions, representations of visionary characters, and the religious representations that form the context for the visions and visionaries. I focus on visionary characters that are directly implicated by the television text as being potential prophets: Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica, Eli Stone on Eli Stone, and Jaye Tyler on Wonderfalls. Though each visionary character explores the possibility of subverting patriarchal religious norms, Roslin, Baltar, and Stone’s prophetic roles ultimately privilege patriarchal readings of their narratives, but Jaye, by avoiding the language-symbol systems of traditional religions, maintains the fantastic liminal space and thus the potential for subversion, even if it is only a possibility in the narrative. This thesis seeks to contribute to the scholarship of religious representations in fictional television, with a special emphasis on telefantasy.Item The subprime object of ideology(2010-05) McDonald, Robert Olen, 1986-; Cloud, Dana L.; Gunn, JoshuaThis investigation combines contemporary Marxian political economy with Lacanian psychoanalysis to understand the discourse of finance capitalism, and to understand the dialectical seeds of the industry’s eventual destruction that were inherent within the hegemonic commodities of the era. These commodities, which include derivatives, futures, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps and subprime mortgage loans, were ideological and communicative as well as profitable, and thus do a double duty under finance capitalism’s dominance. Lacan’s concepts of metaphor, fantasy, the quilting point, and the master signifier are extended in order to understand how subjects come to know themselves and their world through the terms given to them by capital. In addition, the rhetorical interventions of two chief ideologists for finance capitalism in the 1990s, Thomas Friedman and Alan Greenspan, are interrogated as exemplifications of the fantastical nature of late capitalism.Item The relationship between parental behavior and children's pretend play(Texas Tech University, 1981-08) Bass, Sharon HydeNot availableItem The unicorn stays in the picture : deconstructing the "chosen one" myth in the young adult fantasy film(2009-08) Miles, Scott Gordon; Lewis, Richard M., M.F.A.; Dietz, StevenThis report covers the process of developing, writing and revising the original screenplay "Magic for Losers." When famous child wizard Daphne Grimsby is abducted by villainous foes, her loser brother Darwin must reluctantly venture into a magical world to save her. The script relies heavily on the concepts and ideas evoked from the Hero's Journey model of storytelling. I have also structured this report on the same model, as in its own way, completing a feature length screenplay is fraught with with the same trails and tribulations.Item Yours truly : Fireworks and its psychosexual passage(2016-05) Edwards, Thomas Pearson; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Flaherty, GeorgeIn his 1947 film, Fireworks, young Kenneth Anger – both director and star actor – enacts a sexual rite of passage, using film techniques, theoretical methods, and visual tropes that descend from the avant-garde—favoring especially Surrealism and its penchant for psychoanalysis. Through the popularization of psychoanalysis in the United States and the influx of European avant-garde culture in Los Angeles in the 1940s, this thesis explores how Anger used these channels of influence to characterize his own fantastic sexual coming of age. The thesis reads select shots from the film to propose moments where form, Anger’s acting, and composition create meaning specific to an avant-garde, Surrealist context. In doing so, the paper identifies Anger’s filmic and ideological influences, allowing a historically and socially positioned viewing of Fireworks. Finally, the thesis addresses the implications of the growing trend in the 1940s for filmmakers and actors to exhibit their intimate, often sexual dreams and fantasies in the form of avant-garde, psychoanalytic work. The project’s supporting research includes mainly primary source material from little magazines, relevant avant-garde works preceding Anger’s film, film theory and criticism by Parker Tyler, and psychoanalytic texts by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.