http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/66 Sat, 23 May 2026 10:50:43 GMT 2026-05-23T10:50:43Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6796 Title: Viva Loisaida : art and contested space in the Nuyorican Lower East Side, 1978-1988 Authors: Hoyos-Twomey, Alexander Abstract: In the wake of New York City’s devastating fiscal crisis of 1975, the cycle of demolition and rebuilding that had typified the urban development of Manhattan came to a grinding halt. In poor neighbourhoods like the Lower East Side, with high numbers of residents of colour, derelict buildings proliferated as landlords abandoned their properties and municipal authorities cut services, leaving behind a crumbling and depopulated urban environment. At the time, the neighbourhood was home to a large Puerto Rican community, also known as Nuyoricans, who had long contested racialised and classed discrimination in housing, education, and employment. Embracing a turbulent but potential-filled reprise in capitalist urbanisation’s endless expansion, in the late 1970s, residents, artists, and activists in the Nuyorican enclaves of Loisaida and Pueblo Nuevo transformed derelict spaces into community gardens, cultural venues, and other sites for artmaking, social reproduction, and community organising, where new forms of collective life were imagined and instituted. In this thesis, I trace collective struggles to preserve and extend these practices and spaces in the 1980s, as the Lower East Side, bolstered by New York’s economic resurgence, became the site of a new art movement—the East Village scene—and rampant property speculation, both of which threatened to displace existing residents culturally and physically. Utilising a mixed methods approach that incorporates archival research, oral history, and digital research, and draws on art history, critical urbanism, and social theory, this thesis analyses projects that brought together different neighbourhood constituencies to critique and resist gentrification-led displacement. I argue that foregrounding Nuyorican art and activism offers vital perspectives on the conflicting social, cultural, political, and economic forces that reshaped the Lower East Side in the 1980s, the uneven ways in which these contested narratives have been remembered, and the archival practices that can facilitate their recognition in the present. Description: Ph. D. Thesis. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6796 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6776 Title: Surviving whiteness : a documentary-practice led exploration of a black PhD student experience in a predominantly white University Authors: Langdon, Herbert "Natural" Abstract: This creative-practice PhD uses documentary filmmaking to capture the journey of a Black male student from the USA undertaking a PhD at a predominantly white university in the UK. The creative practice output, a 70 min film called "Surviving Whiteness", employs mobile filmmaking to adopt an autoethnographic approach intertwining personal histories, lived experience, and sociopolitical analysis to illuminate systemic challenges for people of colour in academia, including tokenism, racism, and mental health issues. By humanizing these themes, the film, "Surviving Whiteness", aims to stimulate a critical dialogue in advocating for systemic change and greater equity within educational institutions. "Surviving Whiteness" captures the filmmaker's journey as a Black PhD student, with specific focus on accumulated personal experiences, including the challenges of relocating to a new country, the impact of COVID-19 on my study, the loss of an aunt and sister, and my own breast cancer diagnosis. The inclusion of these experiences underscores the intersection of stress, mental health, and physical illness within a systemically racially biased academic environment. My creative practice research contributes to discussions surrounding the role of autoethnography and mobile filmmaking as innovative tools for storytelling and social justice advocacy. Crucially, it highlights the empowering potential of autoethnographic filmmaking for marginalized communities to reclaim their narratives and remain resilient within oppressive systems. Keywords: Documentary, Autoethnography, Racism, Whiteness, Ethics, Blackness Description: Ph. D. Thesis. Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6776 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6760 Title: The Influence of Hindustani classical music on Indian cinema : a rasa-raga tala approach Authors: Shah, Punit Jaipal Abstract: This thesis seeks to identify and appreciate the lasting influence of two pioneering notions from the Indian sub-continent’s cultural memory and history – rasa theory and Hindustani classical music – on Indian cinema’s music making traditions. Rasa theory is an important contribution from the ancient Indian Sanskrit drama compendium, the Nāṭyaśāstra, whose rudimentary precepts have provided a template for the workings of nearly all major fine art forms in the sub-continent. North Indian or Hindustani classical music is known to be rasacentred, as, without emotional expression, its effectiveness is negligible and creates no counter-emotional responses in the audience. Both rasa and Hindustani classical music have informed Indian cinema such that a majority of film songs are based on some rāga and tāla, and each song or piece of background music score corresponds to a particular emotion. The thesis argues that in an Indian talkie film there is little or no rasa manifestation without the rāga-tāla or melodic/rhythmic intervention. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides the essential background, history and theory to ancient Indian aesthetics, the system of North Indian classical music and Indian cinema. Part 2 leads to further detailed analyses and case studies based on selected works of music directors, including Madan Mohan, Roshan, Naushad and Rahul Dev Burman. This part also examines in detail two rasa-centred films: Jalsaghar (1958) by Satyajit Ray and Devdas (2002) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. While there is academic research that views Indian cinema more generally through the lens of rasa, there is no evidence of scholarly work which specifically explores the influence of rasa-rāgatāla on Indian cinema. This thesis addresses that gap and fills it with relevant analyses. The thesis not only demonstrates how to appreciate Indian cinema and associated expressive acting, diegetic and non-diegetic musical compositions, dances and melodramatic narratives using the rasa theory and Hindustani classical music; it also analyses in detail, what lies behind the formation of various situational film songs: particular rāgas and tālas implemented, specific melodic and rhythmic combinations used. It also scrutinises the impact on spectators with respect to manifestation of rasa-bhāva experiences, where rasa, the essence, signifies a fundamental mental state, and bhāva, the state of mind, is understood to be feeling, emotion or mood. 2 My conclusions argue that while western models of film criticism have been in favour of realism, this is not relevant here because the generic codes and conventions of Bollywood are non-realist. Instead of a bias towards a predominantly rational and realism-oriented medium of film criticism, a rasa-rāga-tāla-based analysis draws the focus of critical attention back to emotion-infused music and its various possible methods of expressive enunciation. Simultaneously rasa theory’s capacity for understanding the art of abhinaya (acting) in conjunction with Hindustani classical music in the context of the culture – of its makers, various characters, and their performances – proves to be an invaluable asset for analysing and re-thinking apparently stereotypical, stylised performances of Hindi cinema. Overall, this research work covers relevant aspects of Hindustani classical music, Hindi film/music studies, the ancient rasa theory, Sanskrit studies, Indian philosophy, anthropology and culture, thus making it a cross-disciplinary venture. Description: PhD Thesis Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6760 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6748 Title: Fruit of the vine : investigating improvised musical composition as a contradictory tool to un/cover occluded knowledge Authors: Soper, Adam Lawrence Abstract: This project comprises of an archive of liturgically produced recorded improvisations, accompanied by creative esoteric and profane reflections. The archive is hosted on a website (www.fruitotvine.com) where each improvisation can be experienced in a random order. Each performance took place in line with the phases of the moon, with around two performances being undertaken every month. These recorded performances were undertaken solo and in collaboration with others, as well as in various locations from the domestic, to the academic, to the professional, to outdoor rural and urban environments. Each performance, and the project as a whole, is concerned with concepts of change, searching, and the hidden. It is rooted in a belief that there is an ineffable presence of something beyond human consciousness and experience, the threshold of which can almost be outlined in improvised practices, yet it can never be traversed, and this something cannot ever be known or understood. As such, this work is additionally concerned with the striving for impossibilities. The reflections that make up the body of this thesis are structured by the random selection of the website, and cover the banalities of how individual performances were undertaken – what technique or instruments were employed; who the collaborators were; what the location was – as well as dealing with philosophical or occultic topics being explored at the time of recording the works, and creative interpretations of what the sounds present in the music could be perceived to mean. Description: PhD Thesis Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6748 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z