Below is a selection of dissertations from the Film Studies program in Dodge College of Film and Media Arts that have been voluntarily included in Chapman University Digital Commons. Additional dissertations from years prior to 2019 are available through the Leatherby Libraries' print collection or in Proquest's Dissertations and Theses database.
Theses from 2023
Desire for Transformation: The Actualization of Self-identity Through Change In the Films Raw and Titane, Owen Bradford
The Rape-Revenge Genre in the Digital Age of Heightened Visibility: The Rise of Female Storytellers and Fourth-Wave Feminism, Marynell Dethero
The Audrey Hepburn Image: Stardom, Gendered Authorship, and Creative Agency, Livi Edmonson
How Donald Trump and the 2016 Presidential Election Eclipsed Frank Underwood’s Election in ‘House of Cards’, Charna Flam
The Disintegration of Marriage in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour (2015), Afra Nariman
What Are You Crying For?: Renegotiating White Masculine Hegemony through Melodramatic Excess in the 1990s Films of Tom Hanks, Bryce Thompson
“Let’s Do The Time Warp, Again!” The Rocky Horror Picture Show as Hysterical Theatre, Frances Wendorf
Theses from 2021
Obsessed With the Image: Vulgar Auteurism and Post-Cinematic Affect in the Late Films of Tony Scott, Ethan Cartwright
The Ben-Hur Franchise and the Rise of Blockbuster Hollywood, Michael Chian
Cinematic Palimpsests: Polysemy and In(ter)dependency in the Spectator Experience, Lyric Luedke
Beyond the Image: Marilyn Monroe, Shelley Winters, and The Method, Emily K. Oliver
Layer Cake: Post-Cinematic Aesthetics and the “Social Justice Impulse” in Kaneza Schaal's Jack &, Amber M. Power
Re-animating Post-Digital Cinema: [Animated] Fluidity and Hybrid Aesthetics in Tomm Moore’s Celtic Trilogy, Thomas James Schwaiger
Curation of the Video Art Exhibition in the Museum, Kamla Thurtle
Pennies from Heaven: Death and the Afterlife in World War II Fantasy Films, Elise Williamson
Theses from 2020
Unreal Reality: Post-socialist China's Massive Infrastructural Agenda in Jia Zhangke's "Three Gorges Films", Weiting Liu
Smell as Self-identity: Capitalist Ideology and Olfactory Imagination in Das Parfum’s Multimedia Storytelling, Xinrong Liu
Revitalizing Hollywood Stardom: Classical Star Power and Enduring Marketability at Warner Bros. in the Beginning of New Hollywood, Tham Singpatanakul
Bong Joon-Ho’s Transnational Challenge To Eurocentrism, Lisa - Marie Spaethen
Theses from 2019
Stardom, Spectacle, Show, and Salability: United Artists and the Founding of the Hollywood Blockbuster Model, Jessica Johnson
Iranian Cinema in Transition: Relative Truth and Morality in Asghar Farhadi’s Films, Mazyar Mahdavifar
AI Film Aesthetics: A Construction of a New Media Identity for AI Films, Priya Parikh
A Cauldron of Chaos and Cultivation: Rediscovering Disney Animation of the 1980s, Thomas Price
Inflicted Viewing: Examining Moral Masochism, Empathy, and the Frustration of Trauma Cinema, Kira Smith
Representative Biodiversity: The Ecosystem of Cartoon Network, Carl Suby
Bending Family Friendly into Fear: Nostalgia, Minstrelsy and Horror in Bendy and the Ink Machine, Isabelle Williams
Theses from 2014
The Criterion of Quality: A Paratextual Analysis of the Criterion Collection in the Age of Digital Distribution, Jonathan Charles Hyatt