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Neoliberal Darlings: The Commodification Of Grotesque Children In Contemporary Comics And Literature, Mark Heimermann
Neoliberal Darlings: The Commodification Of Grotesque Children In Contemporary Comics And Literature, Mark Heimermann
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation analyzes grotesque depictions of children in contemporary, speculative comics and literature: Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth, Ben Marcus’ The Flame Alphabet, and Richard Starkings’ Elephantmen. It argues that the grotesque in these texts embodies the tension between children as economic objects and children as social beings, as the protagonists’ nonhuman elements are used to justify their commodification. Because commodification metaphorically transforms people into hybrids, part human/part commodity, the grotesque, with its emphasis on hybrid forms and ontological destabilization, is uniquely suited for representing this tension. Concern over the transformation …
Discriminating Tastes: How Advertisements Taught Consumerism And Race To Gilded Age Youths, Jaclyn Schultz
Discriminating Tastes: How Advertisements Taught Consumerism And Race To Gilded Age Youths, Jaclyn Schultz
Theses and Dissertations
Commercial and social trends of the Gilded Age combined to give a unique and novel power to colorful advertising trade cards that were collected, exchanged, and preserved in scrapbooks by middle-class children living in the Northeast. These children were members of one of the earliest generations to grow up with mandatory co-educational schooling and to be part of a distinctive youth culture created through peer interactions. After 1876, advertising trade cards became ubiquitous and were a significant component of that peer culture. The cards were also innovative in that they were the first example of colored images to be made …