American Studies Commons^™

Fekety, Steve (Fa 1311), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 1311. Student folk studies project titled “Basket Making,” about the traditional basket making process in Wax, Grayson County, Kentucky. Project includes sheets with a brief description of each traditional practice, illustration, material, tool, and/or photo.

Unsettling Indian Health Services: Secularism, Modern Medicine, & The Reproduction Of The U.S. Settler State Through The 1954 Transfer Act, Jillian Elizabeth Grisel

American Studies ETDs

This thesis takes up the role of secularism in modern medicine as a political doctrine that works in service of settler colonialism. I argue the Declaration of Human Rights and the World Health Organization (WHO) globally institutionalized secular ideologies in the post-World War II environment. This thesis links how this global reordering came to inform U.S. health policy by examining how government officials and medical experts drew from the WHO and framed infectious diseases as a security issue to impose a biomedical order in Indian country. By contextualizing modern medicine within a settler political economy and secular political doctrine, I …

Sadewasser, Judith K. "Judi" (Fa 1308), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 1308. Student folk studies project titled “The Folkways of Walter D. Logsdon: Basketmaker,” which includes an interview with Walter Logsdon about the traditional basket making process in Edmonson County, Kentucky. Project includes interview transcriptions along with sheets with a brief description of each traditional practice, tool, and photo.

How A Psychopathic Serial Killer Becomes An American Favorite: An Analysis Of Dexter Morgan, Joanna Dunn

Augsburg Honors Review

In a society where the selling of serial killers' personal items is a profitable business and killers are the focus of many facets of entertainment such as biopics, crime novels, films, and the television network TruTV it is not surprising that a series about a killer debuting in 2006 would be the highest rated premiere of its home network Showtime, or that its viewership would increase by 84% between the pilot and season one finale. The series Dexter does, after all, follow the everyday routine of a serial killer, even giving the audience a glimpse into his innermost thoughts. However, …

Stuff White People Like...To Keep: Re-Appropriation And Whiteness In America, Trevor Schmitt

Augsburg Honors Review

This paper evaluates the effect of Whiteness on the re-appropriation of cultural traditions through the blog Stuff White People Like. It is the contention of this research that the dominant racial identity in U.S. culture appropriate cultural traditions to re-enforce its cultural control. The manner in which this process occurs is evaluated through the two separate cultural traditions of Yoga and Natural Medicine as highlight by the blog. The resulting conclusion of this research finds that Whiteness erases marginalized cultural tradition meanings through popular culture and consumerism in order to apply new meanings which are more accessible to the dominant …

Cartographies Of Precarity: The Cultural Politics Of Filipina And Mexican Migrant Domestic Workers, Maria Eugenia Lopez-Garcia

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the cultural politics of migrant domestic work in the 2000s within popular culture, mass media, contemporary art, and grassroots national organizing. While scholars and activists have identified that migrant domestic workers are the hidden backbone of the U.S. economy, dominant cultural and social narratives reinforce the racialized and gendered logics of capitalism that work to devalue domestic work as informal, disposable and precarious. It was not until after the struggle of domestic workers achieved recognition through the ratification of the International Labor Office of Convention 189 in July 2011 that this labor sector gained more intense media …

More Than A Fiesta: Cinco De Mayo Celebrations And The Transboundary Link In Ambos Nogales, Kristen S. Valencia

American Studies ETDs

In a contemporary context, the United States-Mexico border raises concerns regarding undocumented migration, drug and human trafficking, and cartel or gang violence. While these are material realities that come, at times, with grave consequences and outcomes, they are not the only characteristics or facets of the border region. The intention of the border is to delineate and separate, however, this ignores the stationary communities along the territorial demarcation which interact with and demonstrate the fluidity of life at the line. Transboundariness, as defined by Lawrence A. Herzog, provides the framework with which to examine cross-boundary connections that result from economic …

Black Men Who Betray Their Race: 20th Century Literary Representations Of The Black Male Race Traitor, Gregory Coleman

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation, Black Men Who Betray Their Race, gathers a literary archive in order to identify and introduce the “race traitor” as a heretofore unrecognized yet important trope within 20^th century African-American Literature. In addition to coping with the burden of racism, African Americans have had to put considerable energy toward negotiating the possibility of being perceived as race traitors by others within the African American community. This study tracks the possibilities and perils of black group identity in literary representations of black men, neither privileging opposition to the white world, nor celebrating black unity beyond it. Focusing …

Interpreting Access: A History Of Accessibility And Disability Representations In The National Park Service, Perri Meldon

Masters Theses

This thesis illustrates the accomplishments and challenges of enhancing accessibility across the national parks, at the same time that great need to diversify the parks and their interpretation of American disability history remains. Chapters describe the administrative history of the NPS Accessibility Program (1979-present), exploring the decisions from both within and outside the federal agency, to break physical and programmatic barriers to make parks more inclusive for people with sensory, physical, and cognitive disabilities; and provide a case study of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site (HOFR) in New York. The case study describes the creation of …

Movie Review: Toy Story 4, Tom Clark

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"There’s no question that whatever emerged from the animators would be good, but could it be great? Did it need to be made, or should the time and talent have been devoted to a new project, a new story?"

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Toy Story 4 from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-toy-story-4/

Urban Landscape In Mcewan's Narrative Representation Of Berlin, Barbara J. Puschmann-Nalenz

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Urban Landscape in McEwan's Narrative Representation of Berlin," Barbara J. Puschmann-Nalenz discusses the image of Berlin created in Ian McEwanﹸs novel The Innocent (1990) and the chapter titled "Berlin" in Black Dogs (1992). It starts from the hypothetical statement that while British literary fiction set in Berlin is rare after 1970 the genres of spy and detective novel, where crime and violence take center stage, shape the image of the city in highbrow narratives as well. The perspectivization of the cityscape, including its monuments, through the protagonists fundamentally influences its image. In The Innocent the limited view …

The Disenchantment Of History And The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Postmodernity, Alberto Castelli

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Magic Realism brings fantastic events into the frame of the narration. Yet it cannot quite be defined. At the very start of the process of definition, there is a question: Magic Realism is a mode of narration, or rather a post-colonial movement rising sociological issues alternative to the logic of power? The paper parallels and juxtaposes Latin American Magic Realism and the literary experience of Chinese literary Avant-garde in the 80s, similar apocalyptic thematic, but different narrative structures. Relating to the fictional universe of Can Xue and Yu Hua, the aim is to illuminate an exclusive mode to narrate history: …

Okonkwo’S Reincarnation: A Comparison Of Achebe’S Things Fall Apart And No Longer At Ease, Mary J. N. Okolie, Ginikachi C. Uzoma

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Abstract: The reincarnation myth is a global concept, founded basically in religion and tradition. It was especially vibrant in the ancient times in places like Egypt, Greece, and in continents like Asia and Africa, which possess varying understandings of the myth. In Igbo tradition, for example, it is believed that reincarnation occurs within a family. And that some of the marks of reincarnation are usually the possession of the birthmark or certain other physical features and the exhibition of character and behavioral traits of a deceased person by a living member of his/her immediate or extended family. Thus, reincarnation entails …

Anna May Wong: Chinese-American Actress, Katherine Anielak

Undergraduate Research Journal

The United States’ film industry has an extensive and rich history that also offers insight into the development of American culture. However, the history of Hollywood includes many cases of discrimination, racism, and the use of stereotypes within roles. Films reflect societal constructs and beliefs, including stereotypes that European Americans had against non-white immigrants and citizens. Asian-Americans especially suffered from stereotypes and discrimination within the United States in the early 20th Century. Such stereotypes and racism appeared in both the films produced in Hollywood, and within Hollywood and the film industry itself. Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American film actress, …

Amjambo Africa! (July 2019), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Racial Inequality.....................Page 7

Welcome Table ......................Page 9

Art in Exodus ..........................Page 9

Alliance Française.................Page 13

July 2019, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Maine-ly Jewish Storytelling Festival; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Global And Radical Homesickness: Rewriting Identities In The Airport Narratives Of Pico Iyer And Sir Alfred Mehran, Sean Scanlan

Publications and Research

This article explores the personal narratives of two displaced travelers, Pico Iyer and Sir Alfred Mehran. Their memoirs, The Global Soul (2000) and The Terminal Man (2004), provide evidence that anxieties associated with global mobility are heightened due to a loss of community anchors and social orientation points. My reconceptualization of homesickness provides a powerful expression for these losses and uncertainties. In particular, the collision between past memories and present identity tests, especially as these tests occur in global airports, can produce global homesickness or a more destabilizing feeling: radical homesickness. Iyer’s class, national affiliation, and passport allow him to …

The Sad Kitchen And Song Of Neon: Two Novellas, John Paul King

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Sad Kitchen, a work of magical realism, tells the story of a saintly woman named Helen. She opens an underground kitchen where people who feel guilty can come to be comforted and nurtured in the middle of the night. The story is, at its heart, a reflection on forgiveness. Song of Neon, also of the magical realist genre, is an existential work about a nurse named Avery and her husband, an owl house maker, named Saul. Their town, Milliard, is under a trance. Avery and Saul struggle with their respective identities in the quiet, vacuum the town has become.

Re-Visioning Ralph Ellison’S Invisible Man For A Class Of Urban Immigrant Youth, Camille Goodison

Publications and Research

In this essay, I will explore Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic novel, Invisible Man, as a text that has contemporary and relatable themes for a modern-day classroom of mostly urban youth. This essay is also a personal journey into how Ellison’s inventive approaches to form helped create a work that lends itself to contemporary reimagining. It asks the question, can Ellison’s interest in creating a living Afro-American literary tradition rooted in the lore of the ‘peasant’ or common folk have contemporary applications? How does Ellison’s belief that everyday folk expression has value hold up for today’s readers? I try to …

The Anatomy Of Patriotism: The Commodification Of American Gender Roles And The Female Body In World War Ii Print Media, Adison Beals

Voces Novae

During World War II, the United States turned to the female gender roles that underpinned American society and commodified them in print media to sell the war effort and female participation in it, resulting in the appearance of hands, lips, and legs in propaganda, makeup advertisements, and pinup images. This phenomenon reflects how physical presentation indicates social anxieties and American constructions of gender, as well as how the female body is imbued with cultural symbolism.