Senior Thesis Showcase: Lexi Bateman & Reilly Johnson

The Reciprocal Nature of History, Culture, and Aesthetics and Garment Construction

Reilly Johnson is a graduating senior in Program II as well as a costume technician and designer. For her residency, she will be completing and showcasing her Program II capstone project, The Reciprocal Nature of History, Culture, and Aesthetics and Garment Construction. The primary goal of this project is to test a reciprocal analysis between (theory) traditional methodologies in art history and cultural anthropology and (praxis) the creation of historic garment reproductions as a form of primary research in material culture scholarship. Her project, at its core, is an investigation of the potential role of praxis in humanities-based research, something termed “processual research” in material culture studies. A secondary goal of her project includes an analysis of socially produced durability of certain clothing forms. Why has one form has persisted through surviving museum pieces or continued production in a modern context and others have not?

Living Invisible

Informed by a series of interviews with Duke students about their invisible chronic illnesses, Living Invisible attempts to understand how the visibility of an illness affects a person’s experience both of that illness, and of the world around them. How do they understand their own illnesses, and how do the people around them understand that which they cannot perceive or measure? How do these experiences change from illness to illness and person to person? In what ways can those living without chronic illness sympathize with the afflicted given the inherent lack of visible ailment? Finally, how does a college campus ease or exacerbate the experience of invisible illness?