A crypt is a haunted underground burial chamber where in the secret, something very important is kept (mostly dead bodies and "their" treasures). Certainly no <em>one </em>comes out of the crypt once they have entered. But precisely what secret is extracted, coaxed out of its tomb? As Jacque(s) Derrida suggests, there is always the promise of a return: that we are bursting with specters and have no ability to control them or prohibit their poignant, irreducible <em>interruptions. </em>They come and go as they please: "time is out of joint." Here the very idea of a return fractures all stable conceptions of temporality where temporal malfunctions are constitutive of our everyday experience; where time is a re-stitched tapestry. At the point of disjuncture, phantoms begin to speak, asking us to stay a while. Can we find a way to linger in the unkempt crevices? By inhabiting these entangled alcoves like the ruins of abandoned rooms we might begin to cope with our anxiety seeped in the technologized acceleration and collapse of spatio-temporal boundaries.

A crypt is a haunted underground burial chamber where in the secret, something very important is kept (mostly dead bodies and "their" treasures). Certainly no <em>one </em>comes out of the crypt once they have entered. But precisely what secret is extracted, coaxed out of its tomb? As Jacque(s) Derrida suggests, there is always the promise of a return: that we are bursting with specters and have no ability to control them or prohibit their poignant, irreducible <em>interruptions. </em>They come and go as they please: "time is out of joint." Here the very idea of a return fractures all stable conceptions of temporality where temporal malfunctions are constitutive of our everyday experience; where time is a re-stitched tapestry. At the point of disjuncture, phantoms begin to speak, asking us to stay a while. Can we find a way to linger in the unkempt crevices? By inhabiting these entangled alcoves like the ruins of abandoned rooms we might begin to cope with our anxiety seeped in the technologized acceleration and collapse of spatio-temporal boundaries.

This thesis explores the success of Beyoncé's self-titled album in relation to the idea of originality within music. As members of the public, we assume that what sets superstars apart from novice musicians is an element of originality. However, more often than not, it is the construction of an original image that leads to fame rather than original content itself. Why is it difficult to be original in music today? How is this image of originality constructed? At the end of the day, what is so unique about <em>Beyoncé? "</em>Beyoncé Decoded: Deconstructing Originality in the Contemporary Age" is an attempt to answer these questions and more that concern the phenomenon of superstars in 2016.

In <em>Tangled Memories</em>: <em>The Vietnam War, the Aids Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, </em>Marita Sturken discusses the shaping of cultural memory in the U.S. in the context of the Vietnam War and the AIDS epidemic. She writes that "cultural memory is a field of cultural negotiation through which different stories vie for a place in history." Sturken discusses how different agents, such as the State, filmmakers, television broadcast networks, etc., and their interactions with one another shape a cultural meaning. Each agent plays a role in shaping cultural memory by partaking in this, but some, such as the State, have more power than others to influence which narrative will dominate the cultural memory of that society. This reveals the political nature of cultural memory, for whoever has more power is able to control which narratives will become the dominant ones, and influence which narratives will be remembered more by a group/country. Taking Sturken's definition of cultural memory as my broader theoretical framework and applying it to the context of concerns regarding "comfort women" in South Korea, my thesis examines how different agents, specifically the government, the television networks/producer, the "comfort women" themselves, and the filmmaker Byun Young-joo participate as agents in the shaping of cultural memory regarding "comfort women" narratives, through the "field of cultural negotiations."

Within the last few decades, cyberpunk has burgeoned in various fields of art, literature, and cinema. "Techno-Orientalism," the depiction of the "orient" in a digitalized environment, has been a major theme in cyberpunk. In works like Neal Stephenson's <em>Snow Crash </em>(1992) and Ridley Scott's <em>Blade Runner </em>(1982), writers and filmmakers envision an Orientalized future society with a large population of Asians or/and economical dominance of Asia. Entering 21st century, Hollywood continues to take Asia and Asians as part of their envision of future. In these films and fictions, not only fetish for Asian elements, but also anxiety and fear towards the east, known as "yellow peril," is also shown. This thesis analyzes the "oriental" imagery depicted in Hollywood cinema, especially in the genre of Science Fiction. This thesis would examine contemporary sci-fi films and televisions including <em>Blade Runner </em>and the more recent <em>Battlestar Galactica </em>(2003-07), from different perspectives such as mise-en-scene and gender. My analyses of the oriental in these films are based on social and economical contexts. By doing so, the thesis attempts to find answers to several questions: How is the orient depicted in sci-fi films? What meanings does it indicate? Has the projection of the east in mass media changed? How does the present imagery rework or challenge Edward Said's notion of Orientalism? If the orient in "techno-space" is different from the past, how does "technology" and "digitalization" function in contemporary oriental imagery? Trying to find answers to these questions or raise more questions concerning techno-orientalism, this thesis attempts to raise awareness to cultural nuance embedded within.