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Performance, Representation, Reception, And The Lost Cause: Re-Framing The History Of Confederate Monuments Through Embodied Assemblies, Joshua Adam Rutherford

Theses and Dissertations

Discussion of Confederate monuments has been invigorated in academic, social, and political debates during the twenty-first century. As these monuments became entangled with police brutality following the George Floyd protests, scholars have tried to understand how this history connects with the systemic injustices faced by black Americans. Because financial inequities limited the ability of black Americans to erect monuments and photograph demonstrations during Reconstruction the archive is riddled with gaps in representation, which I close by following Diana Taylor’s suggestion that we turn to the “repertoire” of performance. My thesis turns away the monuments themselves by investigating the forms of …

Milwaukee's Unequally Gendered Commemorative Street Names (1920-2021), Ayodeji Oladipo Obayomi

Theses and Dissertations

Urban commemorative spaces have consistently shown vast gender disparities through the domination of men at the expense of women; this is evident in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This thesis employed an archival research method to locate useful primary materials from the City of Milwaukee (which included the Common Council Proceedings) and from other sources. In addition, I employed a geographical information system to visualize gender disparity and also express the spatial distribution of the identified commemorative streets. The study argues (among other ideas) that commemorative street naming is problematically gendered.

Of the 233 commemorative street names given between 1920 and 2021 in …

Agency Of Mexican/Tejano Union Recruits During The United States Civil War: An Archival Case Study Of Private Pedro Garcia, Andy Najera

Theses and Dissertations

During the United States Civil War, a Mexican national, Pedro Garcia, and hundreds of others like him came to Brownsville, Texas, looking for ways to strengthen their positions by joining the Union army. Eventually, the Mexican/Tejano recruits deserted in droves while the Union forces executed Pedro Garcia. The purpose of this research is to provide insight into the cultural clash of worldviews between the United States Union army and Rio Grande Borderlanders. This research will also provide awareness of the various methods the Mexican/Tejano used to create agency. This study uses a mixed methodology, such as Border theory as described …

Eagle Eye Vs. Gear Jammer, Jessica Danielle Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Where similarities in class struggle have historically operated as a unifying force globally, the American crafted mythos isolates the individual and dehumanizes those that do not fall within the parameters of the cowboy archetype. The national protagonist is turned into a class traitor and an extension of government power.

A Culture Of Control: Progressive Era Eugenics In South Carolina As A Continuation Of Created White Supremacy, Hannah Nicole Patton

Theses and Dissertations

This work examines the evolution of eugenic ideology in South Carolina during the Progressive Era by following relevant discussions published in The State newspaper. Between 1891 and 1939, The State newspaper provided a platform for discussions about eugenic ideology to be disseminated to the general public. Through eugenics the white portion of the South Carolina population saw a way to retain white supremacy and create better progeny. An examination of The State reveals a network of discussions that reached across South Carolina, the United States, as well as Western Europe. The existence of newspaper articles illustrates cultural integration in the …

Foxy Ladies And Badass Super Agents: Legacies Of 1970s Blaxploitation Spy And Detective Heroines, Carlie Nicole Todd

Theses and Dissertations

The presentation of Black femininity in Blaxploitation spy and detective films like Cleopatra Jones (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Get Christie Love! (1974) – depicting powerful, independent, and multidimensional characters – was a sharp departure from the derogatory images of African American women in film prior. These films also included some of the first Black spy and detective film heroines – Foxy Brown, Cleo Jones, and Christie Love – that portrayed a “serious” female detective or government agent as the main protagonist and center of the film’s action. These Blaxploitation heroines were unique in how their characters departed from prior …

“The Once And Future Audubon:” The History Of The Audubon Ballroom And The Movement To Save It, William Maclane Hull

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the history of the Save the Audubon Movement – an activist movement in the 1980s and early 1990s protesting Columbia University’s plan to demolish the Audubon Ballroom and replace it with a modern biomedical research complex. The Audubon Ballroom is best known for being the site of Malcolm X’s assassination and was a major landmark to New York Hispanic and African Americans. It takes a cultural history lens, giving special attention on the emerging hip-hop culture that became the primary voice of protest in New York City in the 1970s through the 90s. This paper begins with …

Media Combat: The Great War And The Transformation Of American Culture, Andrew Steed Walgren

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the role of professional musicians, stage performers, civilian entertainment organizations, and the federal government in the formation of a nationalized, wartime cultural apparatus during the United States' involvement in the First World War (1917-1919). This process was contested, fragmented, and incomplete, but it laid the foundational groundwork for federal cultural initiatives and programs during the 1930s and 1940s. In many ways, the war forever altered the relationship between American citizens and the federal government. Specifically, this project examines two major cultural arenas – music and theater – by looking at the institutions and actors that transformed them. …

Joshua Gordon’S Witchcraft Book And The Transformation Of The Upcountry Of South Carolina, E. Zoie Horecny

Theses and Dissertations

The life of Joshua Gordon and his intellectual product, Witchcraft Book (1784) gives access to the backcountry of South Carolina. Witchcraft Book is exemplary of syncretism in the Atlantic world, influenced by multiple European traditions, understandings of science in the early modern world, indigenous knowledge, and life in North America. After serving in the American Revolution, Gordon transitioned from a small farmer to a slaveholder. He was a part of political and economic processes that unified the backcountry with low country elites in defense of slavery. As a prominent figure in his community and church, he solidified his legacy for …

Shaping A Queer South: The Evolution Of Activism From 1960-2000, A. Kamau Pope

Theses and Dissertations

Queer activism dismantles and challenges normativity in spaces that criminalize, oppress, and perpetuate violence towards queer folks. Using Cathy Cohen’s model of radical queer politics, this thesis examines the South as a place that has been shaped over time by queer activism. Beginning with 1960 and the founding of SNCC sets the tone of how the South is non-normative and queer in the context of the United States, yet still a perpetrator of white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia. With a sole focus on the region of the U.S. South, this paper diverges from the narrative of urban queer movements, and …

“It Seemed Like Reaching For The Moon:” Southside Virginia’S Civil Rights Struggle Against The Virginia Way, 1951-1964, Emily A. Martin Cochran

Theses and Dissertations

During the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and in the historiography, Virginia held a racially moderate reputation. Scholarship on civil rights in Virginia typically credits racial moderation with implementing integration in the state while avoiding major violence and protest. In Southside Virginia, the rural south-central area of the state dominated by tobacco and textile mills with a substantial black population, two towns became the sites of significant civil rights activity. Both Farmville and Danville had direct-action movements spearheaded by local African American students and activists, but these movements drew limited national attention despite extreme reaction and …

Enslaved Rebellion And Abolitionist Imperialism In Britain’S Atlantic World, 1807-1884, Lewis Eliot

Theses and Dissertations

In 1807, the British Empire ended its legal involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. The relationship between slavery and imperialism had defined British American imperialism for the preceding three centuries and the end of legal British transatlantic slave trading dramatically altered the Empire’s connection to human bondage. As a result, new debates about slavery dominated the first three decades of the nineteenth century. At the same time, enslaved Africans in Britain’s West Indian colonies perpetually resisted their enslavement and in so doing forcefully inserted themselves into metropolitan abolitionist discourse. Upon the ending of British slavery in 1834, imperial officials used …

“We Are Going To Be Reckoned With”: The South Carolina Udc And The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room And Museum, 1986-2000, Caitlin Cutrona

Theses and Dissertations

From 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy actively negotiated influence for its organization at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum (SCCRRM) as an important museum stakeholder. While 1986 marked a low point for UDC authority over the museum, from 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina UDC sought to salvage and protect is influence at the SCCRRM and ultimately reclaim its authority over the museum. The South Carolina Daughters did this through a variety of means and methods, including employing Dotsy Boineau, a UDC member and SCCRRM employee, as an instrument …

The Robber Barons Of Show Business: Traveling Amusements And The Development Of The American Entertainment Industry, 1870- 1920, Madeline Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, traveling amusements such as circuses, minstrel shows and Wild West shows were the most popular forms of entertainment in the United States. This study argues that advancements in transportation and technology inspired managers of traveling amusement companies to create new business models that transformed popular entertainment from informal, local productions into modern commercial spectacles. These amusement companies were capitalist enterprises, significant not just in the cultural arena but also in the growth of American business. These amusement companies traveled nationwide on the newly expanded railroad system, sporting elaborate sets and props and …

Religion, Senses, And Remembrance: Brooklyn’S Sumter Club In Postbellum Charleston, S.C., Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

Civil War historians are slowly coming to realize the need to explicitly analyze the senses of those who lived in, and survived, the Civil War era. Although vision has reigned as the “supreme” sense, the nonvisual senses, with the help of historians of the senses, are becoming just as important to Civil War research. However, scholars are still unraveling the lived experiences of Civil War Era Americans and the perceptions and meanings these Americans gave to those experiences, with Northerners receiving comparatively little attention. To understand the world of antebellum and Civil War Americans, we should take them at their …

Praying Soldiers: Experiencing Religion As A Revolutionary War Soldier Fighting For Independence, Roberto Oscar Flores De Apodaca

Theses and Dissertations

While enduring the hardships of battle, many Revolutionary War soldiers recorded more about their personal religious lives than perhaps any other single topic. They especially enjoyed cataloging events they ascribed to divine intervention, listing their daily religious routines, and commenting on first time encounters with religious others. New and extreme circumstances tested the religious preconceptions of those who enlisted in ways that they had rarely encountered in civilian life. Their religion took on new importance for them as soldiers relied on it both as an interpretive lens and as a source of stability amid a chaotic war. My dissertation examines …

Ordinary Power: Frontier Sentimentalism And Cultural Perceptions Of Gender In The Nineteenth-Century West, Erin Elizabeth Hastings

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will examine nineteenth-century women and their primary role in the cultural formation of frontier sentimentalism. White, middle class women primarily moved west with their husbands and families, initially to the Midwest in the early nineteenth century, and were continuing to settle in the Great Plains and further west by the end of the century. The first generation of women who migrated west were the pioneers of frontier sentimentalism, but it prevailed in successive generations of westering women. This thesis will argue that in the formation of their own form of sentimentalism, nineteenth-century women were at the heart of …

“Natural Ties For Patriotic Purposes": The Committee On Public Information, Americanization, And Swedish-American Transnationalism, Race L. Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

The Committee on Public Information (CPI) was the official propaganda agency of the United States during the First World War, seeking to homogenize American public opinion and spread American ideals across the globe. Through a case study of Edwin Björkman’s work among Swedish Americans, this thesis illuminates how the CPI approached its work among immigrants, engaging questions of Americanization and transnationalism. Through an analysis of the John Ericsson League of Patriotic Service and the Scandinavian Bureau—both its domestic and foreign operations—this thesis argues that Edwin Björkman and the CPI promoted cultural pluralism rather than assimilation to a dominant Anglo-American culture. …

Reimagining Move: Revolutionary Black Humanism And The 1985 Bombing, Joseph E. Cranston

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the extremist group, MOVE and its founder Vincent Leaphart (a.k.a John Africa) in the context of Revolutionary Black humanism, rather than simply a footnote in the tragic events of May 13, 1985. it explores MOVE's predecessors in the Black Panther movement, including The Black Panther Party and how these organizations and individuals might have influenced MOVE and their aims. In addition, ample examination is given to the role that systemic police brutality and racism, specifically within the Philadelphia Police department and city government played in the decisions that MOVE made as they attempted to create a community …

The Basha's Tools? Imagining Alternative Justice Futures In Egypt, Farah Ghazal

Theses and Dissertations

The dominant approach to addressing violence against women in Egypt today is carceral, or relying on the punitive instruments of the state to achieve justice (most visibly represented by the prison and police). While carceral responses are perhaps unsurprisingly advocated by state feminism, they are also promoted by what would typically be described as anti-state actors. This paradoxical entanglement takes place during what I identify as the 'carceral moment', a period marked by the intensification of political and social repression and during which incarceration appears more readily available as a solution to remedy perceived problems of governance. I argue that, …

Morkovcha [Korean Carrot Salad], Lidiya A. Kan

Theses and Dissertations

Morkovcha, Korean Carrot Salad is a short documentary that tells a story of ethnic Koreans from Russia and the post-Soviet territories making their new home in New York City. The history of the diaspora is told through conversations with my mother, personal stories, fragmented memories, and my family photo archive. This very personal film is my attempt to revisit the 160-year history of the Russian Korean diaspora and to record and preserve our unique fusion of cultures in the melting pot that is the United States. Its purpose is to help to process and accept the tragic past of my …

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …

The National Interest And The Roots Of American-Saudi Diplomacy, Oliver B. Wiegel

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the beginnings of diplomacy between the United States and Saudi Arabia during the interwar years and World War II. It explores how national interest was decided upon, how oil companies affected American foreign policy, and the American government’s strategic interest in Saudi oil reserves.

Us, Abundantly: From Africa To The Americas, Karisma Jay

Theses and Dissertations

"Us, AbunDantly," a Live theatrical dance performance and film, delves into the African Diaspora and its influences. An artistic and academic project built upon the amplification of Black excellence and Black pride, this paper contextualizes a work within the oral histories and contemporary dance studies of a powerfully ancestral community.

"Unite The Left": Contextualizing Bukharin's Abc Of Communism And Berkman's Abc Of Anarchism, David Hayter

Theses and Dissertations

In 1919, Nikolai Bukharin, the leading theoretician of the Bolshevik Party, published a manual entitled The ABC of Communism meant to put the governing ideology of the newly formed Soviet State into eminently readable terms. Alexander Berkman, a Russian Anarchist who strongly supported the October Revolution, became disillusioned with the new regime in 1921 and left the country. He later published his own tract entitled The ABC of Anarchism. This thesis pits these two theoretical works against each other as historical documents embodying the nature of leftist polemics that has characterized the movement since the dissolution of the First …

Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin

Theses and Dissertations

The name of my project is: Yolkkh, The Story of My People. With this project I present a series of scarves each one bearing an illustrated scene in order to tell a story – my story and the story of the Noxci people. Noxci are the people who are referred to as “Chechens” by Russians and are generally known by that title. As a Muslim, I have witnessed the way Western media tend to dehumanize my community. In order to contrast this dehumanizing process, I thought that telling the story of my family would help reverse Islamophobic tendencies and raise …

"With The Commodity In The Hand": A Practical Investigation Of The Intersection Of Material Culture With Performance Theory, Katharine M. Given

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the intersection of performance theory and material culture through the practices of garment reconstruction. In chapter 1, I examine key theorists in the fields of material culture and performance studies and articulate the connections between the two fields. In chapter 2, Using practice as research, I recount the experience of building reproduction garments from the eighteenth century using historically appropriate tools and methods, as well as the experience of wearing those garments. Finally, in Chapter 3, I walk through a possible historical examination of my encounter with these reconstructed garments, and consider the way in which feminine …

The Birth Of Exceptionalism: American Newspaper Coverage In The Revolutionary Era, Benjamin R. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores American exceptionalism through the lens of American newspapers during the Revolutionary era. As American newspapers covered the revolutions in France, Haiti, and Latin America, unique narratives developed around controversial leaders like Thomas Paine, Toussaint Louverture, and Simón Bolívar. Although at first newspapers covered the events in France and Latin America with glee, their coverage gradually began to change over time, increasingly finding flaws large and small in revolutions other than their own—chaos and violence in France and Haiti, and failures in the realization of republicanism in Latin America. If Americans initially believed their revolution was responsible for …

"Savage And Bloody Footsteps Through The Valley" : The Wyoming Massacre In The American Imagination, William R. Tharp

Theses and Dissertations

Along the banks of the Susquehanna River in early July 1778, a force of about 600 Loyalist and Native American raiders won a lopsided victory against 400 overwhelmed Patriot militiamen and regulars in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. While not well-known today, this battle—the Battle of Wyoming—had profound effects on the Revolutionary War and American culture and politics. Quite familiar to early Americans, this battle’s remembrance influenced the formation of national identity and informed Americans’ perceptions of their past and present over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From the beginning, however, Americans’ understanding of what occurred in …