Augmented Virtual Reality: Playing Architect

This thesis sits at the intersection of identity and technology by considering what it means to assume the role of architect as the young black male. The public image of the architect is represented instead, by the white male figure and distributed in a narrative of individualist and ego. However, a critique of the ego through introspection and auto-biographical context gives alternative understanding to the social, cultural, racial and political discourse for the minority seeking autonomy. Framed in modern blackness, design in research becomes a process of appropriation where the architect can be challenged by notions of new softwares where platforms are built instead of foundations. Research that began largely about architecture and virtual reality - instead concludes with urgent questions involving the architect and the tools he interfaces - opening avenues for critical discourse on identity, autonomy, anonymity, and devices.

Augmented Virtual Reality: Playing Architect

This thesis sits at the intersection of identity and technology by considering what it means to assume the role of architect as the young black male. The public image of the architect is represented instead, by the white male figure and distributed in a narrative of individualist and ego. However, a critique of the ego through introspection and auto-biographical context gives alternative understanding to the social, cultural, racial and political discourse for the minority seeking autonomy. Framed in modern blackness, design in research becomes a process of appropriation where the architect can be challenged by notions of new softwares where platforms are built instead of foundations. Research that began largely about architecture and virtual reality - instead concludes with urgent questions involving the architect and the tools he interfaces - opening avenues for critical discourse on identity, autonomy, anonymity, and devices.

The 7th Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award Winning Essay

Popular music abounds in Afropean literature, yet to date scholars have primarily read novels’ musical elements through author biography. In this article, I focus narrowly on the rich musical peritexts and musico-literary intermediality of two novels by Insa Sané: Du plomb dans le crâne (2008) and Daddy est mort…: Retour à Sarcelles (2010). In addition to the abundant diegetic musical references, both novels also feature two structural musical layers. I argue that these three musical elements constitute critical sites through which the novels’ narratives, which center around young, black, male protagonists who seek to escape vicious circles of violence through recognition, emerge. Ultimately, these novels’ musical elements situate the narratives’ discussions of black masculinity within much broader conversations transpiring between French and African American communities, thereby providing a much larger cultural genealogy to supplement the characters’ fraught literal ones.

Two Decades of Ecstasy: Shifting Demographic Trends in Decedents using MDMA

Deaths with a toxicology finding of the party drug, 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), over the 20-year period from 2000-2019 in San Francisco are presented to identify shifting demographic trends. Of the 148 cases, 129 (87.2%) were male with mean and median ages of 30 and 28, respectively. The most common manner of death (MOD) in males was homicide (65 of 129) and accident (49 of 129). The most common MOD in females was accident (15 of 19). Regarding racial demographics, Black homicide deaths accounted for 59 of 67 (88.1%) of total homicides. The most prevalent cause of death for homicides was gunshot wounds (63 of 67, 94.0%). Homicide prevalence was high in the first decade of the study (53 of 88, 60.2%), sharply dropping off after 2011. White accidental deaths made up most of the accidental deaths (45 of 64, 70.3%). Since 2015, accidental deaths with MDMA began to rise (40 of 60, 66.7%), most with other coingestants. MDMA concentrations (median, mean ± SD) between homicide (290, 450 ± 490 ng/mL) and accidental (250, 680 ± 1120 ng/mL) deaths were similar. MDMA concentrations were elevated in central blood compared to peripheral blood from unmatched cases. MDMA was detected in a variety of decedents during the two decades, with primarily young Black male gunshot wound homicide victims in the first decade and primarily young White male accidental polydrug victims in the second decade. This study demonstrates that MDMA is no longer confined to a party setting, but can also be found in different socio-economic strata, including its association with violent homicidal deaths.

Scratching the surface of spectacle: Black hypermasculinity and the Television Talent Show

This study explores the construction of black hypermasculinity in television talent show competitions through the re-valuing of spectacle as an aesthetic experience. Drawing on a screendance analysis of eighteen duet, trio and group performances featured in ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) and Sky1’s Got To Dance (GTD) between 2008-2013, this study explores the circulation of black hypermasculinity and the potentiality for an alternate reading of spectacular displays of athleticism. Building upon Kristen Whissel’s concept of the emblematic nature of the special effect in cinema, the re-valuing of televised spectacles reveals themes regarding the black male experience in these competitions. Rather than dismissing these performances as commercial spectacles that recirculate notions of black hypermasculinity, these corporeal and televisual special effects instead highlight the thematic narrative of the reality television journey through themes of aspiration and transformation. Crews constructs images of superheroes, cartoons, animals and cyborgs, manipulated by camera angles and editing, that operate as both light entertainment and a reflection of the young black male experience in mediascope of reality television. The creation of spectacular and glossy images on screen therefore reveals the potentiality of a fluid gender and racialized representation.

The Libretto of the Opera

By following a young Black male through a day in his life, we see, through his eyes, the world he has been brought into. Using the framework of a libretto allows those who might otherwise not connect to the situation a vehicle with which to do so.