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Creating Cowboys And “Playing Indian”: Football And White Supremacy From 1890-1980, Lily B. Denehy Jan 2022

Creating Cowboys And “Playing Indian”: Football And White Supremacy From 1890-1980, Lily B. Denehy

History Honors Projects

This honors thesis argues that football is a location of leisure which reinforces and (re)creates a comforting white male supremacist American empire through its use of imaginary frontiers, distortion of Native imagery and culture, and its development of mythic cowboy-heroes— which serve as escapes from ubiquitous national anxieties. I use textual and visual analysis of primary sources from the 1890s, 1920s, and 1970s to describe how football developed as a comforting space of leisure for white people in the face of national crises of masculinity, rights movements, and disillusionment with America’s empire.


Tales Of The Great Jewish Migration: Memory, Assimilation, And Unsettled Matrimony, Natasha Holtman Jan 2019

Tales Of The Great Jewish Migration: Memory, Assimilation, And Unsettled Matrimony, Natasha Holtman

History Honors Projects

Between 1880 and 1910, over a million Russian Jews left the Pale of Settlement for the United States in a life-altering wave of immigration. What changes did immigration bring about, and how? To answer these questions, I considered diverse voices of immigrants found in letters, memoirs and short stories, approaching each source as a new layer of interpretation. I found patterns in immigrants' aims, personal commitments and newcomer needs. These patterns affected individuals' decisions to change or preserve tradition. Particularly in the area of matrimony, immigrant partnerships were marked by restless uncertainty.


Agencies At War: Marshaling Places, Objects, And Sonorities In The Alta California Missions, Naomi R. Sussman Apr 2012

Agencies At War: Marshaling Places, Objects, And Sonorities In The Alta California Missions, Naomi R. Sussman

History Honors Projects

1769, Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra initiated the missionization of Alta California. To transform California into a Spanish territory, Franciscan missions evangelized indigenous peoples. While traditional Alta California mission histories emphasize either Franciscan abuses or saintliness, reifying Native American subordination, most contemporary scholarship accentuates mutual hybridization but minimizes colonial power dynamics. Through archival and secondary research, this thesis argues that spatial interplay expressed neither syncretization nor unadulterated domination, but instead competing agencies within a physical and social “contact zone.” In this Alta Californian “contact zone,” material and sonic culture reinforced the continuous struggle for authority in the missions.


A War Within World War Ii: Racialized Masculinity And Citizenship Of Japanese Americans And Korean Colonial Subjects, Jeffrey Yamashita May 2011

A War Within World War Ii: Racialized Masculinity And Citizenship Of Japanese Americans And Korean Colonial Subjects, Jeffrey Yamashita

History Honors Projects

Even though the Pacific Ocean stands as an aqueous wall between Japan and the United States, World War II exposed the shared relationship between these two nations in their utilization of racial minority populations for the war effort. I interrogate the intersections of gender identity, race, and citizenship of Japanese Americans and Korean colonial subjects in the Japanese Empire during World War II. Specifically, I compare Japanese Americans—soldiers of the segregated Japanese American100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team, draft resisters from Heart Mountain, and prisoners of war—with Korean colonial subjects—soldiers who fought for the Imperial Japanese Army— and hope …


To Die A Noble Death: Blood Sacrifice And The Legacy Of The Easter Rising And The Battle Of The Somme In Northern Ireland History, Anne L. Reeder Apr 2009

To Die A Noble Death: Blood Sacrifice And The Legacy Of The Easter Rising And The Battle Of The Somme In Northern Ireland History, Anne L. Reeder

History Honors Projects

In 1916, under the pressurized conditions of the Great War, two violent events transpired that altered the state of Anglo-Irish relations: the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme. These events were immediately transformed into examples of blood sacrifice for the two fundamentally opposed communities in Northern Ireland: Nationalists and Unionists. In 1969, Northern Ireland became embroiled in a civil war that lasted thirty years. The events of 1916 have been used to legitimize modern instances of violence. This paper argues, through the use of cultural texts, that such legitimization is the result of the creation of mythic histories.