Journal Article
16 March 2026
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Featured Content
- Journal Article16 March 2026
No Pulse, Only Breath: Understanding the Creative Rhythms of Tyler Kline
The creative life and artistic philosophy of composer, audio engineer, and radio host Tyler Kline unfolds at the intersection of structure and surrender, sound and silence, motion and stillness. His work integrates composing, engineering, and curatorial listening into a unified practice shaped by patience, attention, and trust. Influenced in part by the concept of wabi-sabi, Kline embraces imperfection and impermanence, allowing breath, resonance, and performer agency to guide musical form rather than strict pulse or metrical control. This approach finds clear expression in his piano work TATTOO, which eliminates traditional pulse orientation and asks performers to measure time through listening and embodied awareness. Grounded in intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and openness to experience, Kline’s practice prioritizes authenticity over innovation and presence over spectacle. His music invites listeners into a slower, more attentive mode of engagement, valuing intimacy, sincerity, and the quiet rhythms of lived experience.
Current Articles
- Journal Article16 March 2026
The Creation and Performance of Eulogy
In completion of my senior project for my theatre arts degree at the University of Minnesota Morris, I wrote, composed, and directed Eulogy, performing with myself as Mark, Olivia Emmrich as Amelia, Savana Hauck as the Reverend, and Jennie Odello as the pianist. The following will explore my artistic process: highlighting how I chose my topic, my playwriting and composing process, collaborating with my colleagues, our rehearsal process, the performance, and my reflection on my project. - Journal Article16 March 2026
How Laws and Systems Contributed to the Masking and Expansion of the Verdingkinder System and Targeted Jenisch People
Did Switzerland have slavery? What did it look like? These were the questions that led me investigate the history of “Verdingkinder,” or contract children, who were placed as indentured laborers primarily on Swiss farms from 1850 to 1950. As I dug deeper, I discovered a more targeted campaign within this broader system: the “Kinder der Landstrasse” (Children of the Road) program, which ran from 1926 to 1973 and specifically removed children of the Jenisch ethnic community from their families. This discovery raised a critical question that has driven my research: How did legal frameworks and institutional systems in Switzerland facilitate both the concealment and expansion of the Verdingkinder practice, and why did the Verdingkinder system, among its other goals, particularly target Jenisch children? I argue it lies in the intersection of cultural difference and state-enforced assimilation. The systematic removal of Jenisch children was not simply about poverty relief or child welfare rather, it was about forcing a mobile, culturally different minority to conform to Swiss ideals of settlement. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Handwritten Histories: Exploring Identity Through Personal Correspondence
This project examines handwritten correspondence as a site of gendered and sexual self-discovery, intimacy, and historical continuity. Developed for HIST 2708W - Gender, Women, and Sexuality in Modern Europe - , it centers on a collection of contemporary “snail mail” letters written in response to reflective prompts about participants’ lived experiences of gender and sexuality. These personal narratives are presented in a physical, scrapbook-style format that emphasizes slowness, care, and trust as methodological and ethical practices. By placing these contemporary letters in dialogue with historical examples of correspondence—including an 1882 letter sent to German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, the intimate exchanges between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and the love letters of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas—this project traces how individuals across time have used writing to articulate identity, desire, and belonging in contexts shaped by social constraint,. The project highlights recurring themes such as fluidity, recognition, vulnerability, and the ongoing process of becoming oneself through written language. Ultimately, this work argues that letter writing functions as both archive and refuge: a space where private feeling becomes shared history, and where marginalized identities can be named, explored, and affirmed. Through tactile, deliberate correspondence, the project reveals a quiet but powerful continuity in how people write themselves into being—across borders, generations, and shifting landscapes. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Craft, Love, and Loathing: Anthropology of Hair Art in the Twenty-First Century
When hair is cut off and used in art, many people find it disgusting, but when attached, hair is seen as beautiful. Over time, these ideas have changed; in the Victorian Era, people had more tolerance and appreciation for different types of hair art, such as sculptures and accessories. In order to analyze these changes and why hair is seen as repulsive, we must look at theories of disgust and abjection. In addition, we must look at the history of bodily art and the connections it had to death and mourning. The understanding and recognition of abject mediums such as hair art leads to an increased understanding of different art forms and their historical context. Alongside this essay, I simultaneously constructed a hair wreath of my own, as a way to learn and interpret hair art through practice and embodiment. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Lighting Design for Terminator: The Musical by Breanna Beitz
This paper discusses the lighting design for a production of Terminator: the Musical at the University of Minnesota Morris. The directorial concept revolved around the idea of camp: big sound, flashy lights, big spectacle. Camp refers to an aesthetic style that embraces exaggeration, playfulness, irony, and theatricality. It often celebrates things that are considered 'over the top' — artificial, sentimental, or deliberately tacky — but does so with affection, humor, and self-awareness. Leaning into the concept of it being 'so bad it is good,' is how the director envisioned Terminator: The Musical to be. To this end, my approach for the show was to play up the more serious parts of the script with lighting based in realism to further juxtapose the realism with the more saturated and stylistic lighting with the songs, even if such a moment is in the middle of one like with the song 'There’s No Time To Explain.' Otherwise, I tried my best to make the lights as wacky and fun as possible in accordance with the director’s concept: lighting should lean into the camp. I’m thinking of vaporwave colors — neon pinks, blues, and purples. Concert lighting can work too. I’m all for saturation and shadow.'" - Journal Article16 March 2026
When Women Weep: The Gendered Politics of Lamenting and Death in Early Irish Literature
Early Irish literature of the ninth through thirteenth centuries encodes gendered assumptions about women’s emotion through narratives in which grief, sorrow, and shame repeatedly lead to female death. Focusing on the thirteenth-century hagiographic text Tales of the Elders of Ireland, feminist standpoint theory is applied to reveal how male-dominated authorship shapes literary portrayals of women as emotionally excessive, dependent on men, and narratively expendable once those men are lost. Situated within the cultural tradition of female lamentation or caoineadh, these portrayals show how women’s ritual roles as mourners were mythologized and reworked into literary mechanisms that reinforce patriarchal authority. Within this tradition, women’s grief is repeatedly framed as fatal and morally corrective, functioning as a narrative punishment that upholds patriarchal expectations. As a counterpoint to this dominant pattern, the ninth-century poem “The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare” is introduced as an example of a nuanced and authentic representation of female lamentation, in which grief is interior, reflective, and survivable rather than excessive and male-dependent. Ultimately female mourning and lamentation are vital practices in Ireland, but as this paper discusses, were misconstrued by the male view as feminine weakness rather than recognized as meaningful and communal expressions of loss. - Journal Article16 March 2026
No Pulse, Only Breath: Understanding the Creative Rhythms of Tyler Kline
The creative life and artistic philosophy of composer, audio engineer, and radio host Tyler Kline unfolds at the intersection of structure and surrender, sound and silence, motion and stillness. His work integrates composing, engineering, and curatorial listening into a unified practice shaped by patience, attention, and trust. Influenced in part by the concept of wabi-sabi, Kline embraces imperfection and impermanence, allowing breath, resonance, and performer agency to guide musical form rather than strict pulse or metrical control. This approach finds clear expression in his piano work TATTOO, which eliminates traditional pulse orientation and asks performers to measure time through listening and embodied awareness. Grounded in intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and openness to experience, Kline’s practice prioritizes authenticity over innovation and presence over spectacle. His music invites listeners into a slower, more attentive mode of engagement, valuing intimacy, sincerity, and the quiet rhythms of lived experience. - Journal Article16 March 2026
History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Often Rhymes: Comparing the Messaging of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump
With the growing divide between the left and right, many on the left have raised alarms that Donald Trump is a fascist. My research paper compares Donald Trump’s messaging to Adolf Hitler’s messaging to find any similarities between the two in order to determine if Trumpism is a precursor to fascism. This study begins by looking at previous scholars’ research into whether or not Trumpism is a precursor to fascism and then I proceed to draw on primary sources such as speeches, Mein Kampf, and Trump’s TruthSocial posts, particularly those related to immigration and minorities, attacks on and suppression of the press, and attacks on political opponents. The analysis of primary sources concludes that while Trumpism is not a direct copy of fascism in Nazi Germany, many of the messaging strategies of the two leaders are similar. Trumpism is a precursor to fascism, but a new, distinct kind of fascism that is unique to the United States of America in the 21st-century.
Most Popular Articles
- Journal Article16 March 2026
The Creation and Performance of Eulogy
In completion of my senior project for my theatre arts degree at the University of Minnesota Morris, I wrote, composed, and directed Eulogy, performing with myself as Mark, Olivia Emmrich as Amelia, Savana Hauck as the Reverend, and Jennie Odello as the pianist. The following will explore my artistic process: highlighting how I chose my topic, my playwriting and composing process, collaborating with my colleagues, our rehearsal process, the performance, and my reflection on my project. - Journal Article16 March 2026
How Laws and Systems Contributed to the Masking and Expansion of the Verdingkinder System and Targeted Jenisch People
Did Switzerland have slavery? What did it look like? These were the questions that led me investigate the history of “Verdingkinder,” or contract children, who were placed as indentured laborers primarily on Swiss farms from 1850 to 1950. As I dug deeper, I discovered a more targeted campaign within this broader system: the “Kinder der Landstrasse” (Children of the Road) program, which ran from 1926 to 1973 and specifically removed children of the Jenisch ethnic community from their families. This discovery raised a critical question that has driven my research: How did legal frameworks and institutional systems in Switzerland facilitate both the concealment and expansion of the Verdingkinder practice, and why did the Verdingkinder system, among its other goals, particularly target Jenisch children? I argue it lies in the intersection of cultural difference and state-enforced assimilation. The systematic removal of Jenisch children was not simply about poverty relief or child welfare rather, it was about forcing a mobile, culturally different minority to conform to Swiss ideals of settlement. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Handwritten Histories: Exploring Identity Through Personal Correspondence
This project examines handwritten correspondence as a site of gendered and sexual self-discovery, intimacy, and historical continuity. Developed for HIST 2708W - Gender, Women, and Sexuality in Modern Europe - , it centers on a collection of contemporary “snail mail” letters written in response to reflective prompts about participants’ lived experiences of gender and sexuality. These personal narratives are presented in a physical, scrapbook-style format that emphasizes slowness, care, and trust as methodological and ethical practices. By placing these contemporary letters in dialogue with historical examples of correspondence—including an 1882 letter sent to German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, the intimate exchanges between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and the love letters of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas—this project traces how individuals across time have used writing to articulate identity, desire, and belonging in contexts shaped by social constraint,. The project highlights recurring themes such as fluidity, recognition, vulnerability, and the ongoing process of becoming oneself through written language. Ultimately, this work argues that letter writing functions as both archive and refuge: a space where private feeling becomes shared history, and where marginalized identities can be named, explored, and affirmed. Through tactile, deliberate correspondence, the project reveals a quiet but powerful continuity in how people write themselves into being—across borders, generations, and shifting landscapes. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Craft, Love, and Loathing: Anthropology of Hair Art in the Twenty-First Century
When hair is cut off and used in art, many people find it disgusting, but when attached, hair is seen as beautiful. Over time, these ideas have changed; in the Victorian Era, people had more tolerance and appreciation for different types of hair art, such as sculptures and accessories. In order to analyze these changes and why hair is seen as repulsive, we must look at theories of disgust and abjection. In addition, we must look at the history of bodily art and the connections it had to death and mourning. The understanding and recognition of abject mediums such as hair art leads to an increased understanding of different art forms and their historical context. Alongside this essay, I simultaneously constructed a hair wreath of my own, as a way to learn and interpret hair art through practice and embodiment. - Journal Article16 March 2026
Lighting Design for Terminator: The Musical by Breanna Beitz
This paper discusses the lighting design for a production of Terminator: the Musical at the University of Minnesota Morris. The directorial concept revolved around the idea of camp: big sound, flashy lights, big spectacle. Camp refers to an aesthetic style that embraces exaggeration, playfulness, irony, and theatricality. It often celebrates things that are considered 'over the top' — artificial, sentimental, or deliberately tacky — but does so with affection, humor, and self-awareness. Leaning into the concept of it being 'so bad it is good,' is how the director envisioned Terminator: The Musical to be. To this end, my approach for the show was to play up the more serious parts of the script with lighting based in realism to further juxtapose the realism with the more saturated and stylistic lighting with the songs, even if such a moment is in the middle of one like with the song 'There’s No Time To Explain.' Otherwise, I tried my best to make the lights as wacky and fun as possible in accordance with the director’s concept: lighting should lean into the camp. I’m thinking of vaporwave colors — neon pinks, blues, and purples. Concert lighting can work too. I’m all for saturation and shadow.'" - Journal Article16 March 2026
When Women Weep: The Gendered Politics of Lamenting and Death in Early Irish Literature
Early Irish literature of the ninth through thirteenth centuries encodes gendered assumptions about women’s emotion through narratives in which grief, sorrow, and shame repeatedly lead to female death. Focusing on the thirteenth-century hagiographic text Tales of the Elders of Ireland, feminist standpoint theory is applied to reveal how male-dominated authorship shapes literary portrayals of women as emotionally excessive, dependent on men, and narratively expendable once those men are lost. Situated within the cultural tradition of female lamentation or caoineadh, these portrayals show how women’s ritual roles as mourners were mythologized and reworked into literary mechanisms that reinforce patriarchal authority. Within this tradition, women’s grief is repeatedly framed as fatal and morally corrective, functioning as a narrative punishment that upholds patriarchal expectations. As a counterpoint to this dominant pattern, the ninth-century poem “The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare” is introduced as an example of a nuanced and authentic representation of female lamentation, in which grief is interior, reflective, and survivable rather than excessive and male-dependent. Ultimately female mourning and lamentation are vital practices in Ireland, but as this paper discusses, were misconstrued by the male view as feminine weakness rather than recognized as meaningful and communal expressions of loss.