ASRA Past Recipients
The Establishment of Technical Roles in Pittsburgh Theatre Production
Kristen West
About the project: Kristen has examined the history of technical theatre in Pittsburgh and its relationship to the profession of stage management.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Annmarie Duggan
Faculty Department: Theatre Arts
Librarian / Archivist: William Daw, Jeanann Haas
Deliverables: Poster
Cold War Politics and the Black Panther Party
Christie Scully
About the project: Christie’s project analyzed the international support of the Black Panther Party throughout the organization’s history.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Gretchen Bender
Faculty Department:
Librarian / Archivist: Jennifer Needham, Arif Jamal
Deliverables:
The Black Panther Newspaper: Examining the Work of Emory Douglas
Ahona (Raka) Sarkar
About the project: This semester, I have been examining the changes in Emory Douglas’ artistic production for The Black Panther Newspaper over time, and identifying how he used his art as a vehicle to promote the ideals of the party. My work will hopefully be put toward helping create a LibGuide for Hillman Special Collections, as well as creating a didactic activity for Dr. Bender’s World Art Class next semester.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Gretchen Bender
Faculty Department:
Librarian / Archivist: Jennifer Needham, Arif Jamal
Deliverables: Poster
The Transference of Agency from Religion to Children in England through Children’s Fantasy Literature
Kayla Rafkin
About the project: Kayla’s project focused on how children in fairy tales or fantasy literature have changed through the 19th to 21st centuries.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Lori Campbell
Faculty Department: English
Librarian / Archivist: Clare Withers, Jeanann Haas
Deliverables:
Dixmont State Hospital: The Rise and Decline of Moral Treatment in Psychiatry
Alina Quach
About the project: In the upswing of great social reform and rapid advancements in civilization in the early 19th century, there was an increased humanitarian awareness on the mistreatment of the mentally ill that would pave the way to a boom of psychiatric institutions, one of which was Dixmont State Hospital. However, the momentum of this movement would waver as the social perspectives of mental illness and its treatment changed towards the end of the 1800’s. This project sought to draw from the Dixmont annual record archives to investigate the hospital’s architecture and practices represent society’s belied in moral treatment to cure mental illness. In addition, Dixmont will serve as an example of an institution, amongst many at the time, that lost its original purpose of caring for mentally ill through moral treatment. The rapid influx of patients, especially those that were criminally insane, would force Dixmont to compromise moral treatment and send many patients back to prisons. This project ultimately uses the experiences of Dixmont to narrate the evolution of social perceptions of mental illness and its curability through the perspective of psychiatric hospital in the 19th century.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Robert Slammon
Faculty Department: Sociology
Librarian / Archivist: David Grinnell, Edward Galloway
Deliverables:
Rewriting the Fairytale: Princesses and the Power of Body Politics
Jennifer Orie
About the project: This project explores common female tropes in traditional fairytales. However, by relating the fairytale stories Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast to the modern dystopian fantasy novels The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and by Kiera Cass, we begin to discover how the definition of the princess has changed to invite female agency. Moreover, in extending further to include the Wonder Woman comic as an additional example of modern fairytale retelling, the role of princess shifts from objectified damsel to active heroine initiating progressive ideas.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Lori Campbell
Faculty Department: English
Librarian / Archivist: Clare Withers, Jennifer Needham
Deliverables: Poster
Mapping the Action: Pittsburgh's Social Movements as Found in the Archives
Claire Matway
About the project: Claire has studied Pittsburgh histories of political movements, activism, and social and economic geography and used GIS software to create maps and infographics that chart and analyze these histories.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Annette Vee
Faculty Department: English
Librarian / Archivist: David Grinnell, Edward Galloway
Deliverables:
All Power to the People:Creating the Artistic Culture of the Black Panther Party
Maureen Jones
About the project: Maureen has studied the artwork of the Black Panther newspapers to see how they reflect African and African American artistic and cultural practice and determine if they share any visual commonalities with other leftist publications during the time period.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Gretchen Bender
Faculty Department:
Librarian / Archivist: Jennifer Needham, Arif Jamal
Deliverables: Poster
The Hand We Are Dealt: a Poetic Guide to Playing Cards
Lucas Grasha
About the project: Lucas has studied the works titled, Die Tarocchi (Kristeller) and Les cartes àjour (Allemagne) to gain insight into playing card history and the historical and social value of the artwork of playing cards. He aims to write a book of poetry based upon his research.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Benjamin Miller
Faculty Department: English
Librarian / Archivist: James Cassaro, Marnie Hampton
Deliverables: Poster
Materiality as Method: Communicating Through Form in Artists’ Books
Caroline Fazzini
About the project: My project explores the relationship between the physical form of an object and meaning – particularly feminist narratives about materiality, gender and the body – and how both the artists’ books and periodicals address feminist issues, yet with the potential to reach and influence different intended audiences due to the mode and media that are used. Artists’ books are typically created in small editions and provide a relatively private and intimate viewing experience, whereas periodicals are intended for a wide public audience and are more publicly declarative. I examine the disparity that exists between these works’ projected audiences, which results in discrepancies in their materiality and content.
Year: 2017
Faculty Mentor: Gretchen Bender
Faculty Department:
Librarian / Archivist: Kate Joranson
Deliverables: Poster
