Digital Commons Network^™

Creating Neighborhood In Postwar Buffalo, New York: Transformations Of The West Side, 1950-1980, Caitlin Boyle Moriarty

Theses and Dissertations

This project reconsiders post-World War II neighborhood change by examining how various groups in Buffalo, New York conceptualized, experienced and produced the West Side as a cultural and economic artifact between 1950 and 1980. This approach offers an alternative to conceptualizing neighborhoods as bounded, natural entities and it encourages narratives that complicate the prevailing metaphor of decline in rust belt cities by illuminating other components of postwar neighborhood change than population loss and economic disinvestment. This project uses neighborhood retail as a lens through which to examine how city planners, the West Side Business Men's Club, the Federation of Italian …

Constructing Loyalty, Citizenship, And Identity: A Rhetorical History Of The Japanese American Incarceration, Kaori Miyawaki

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reexamines loyalty, citizenship, and identity in the United States by closely reading historical materials about the Japanese American incarceration. The Japanese American incarceration is a unique and important historical event for studying citizenship and identity, since it was a moment in the U.S. history that citizens of the country were incarcerated by their government. This raises a larger question beyond the incarceration. What does it mean to be a loyal American citizen?

By closely analyzing texts generated by the U.S. government, the Japanese American community, and White American photographers, I identify multiple, conflicting meanings and implications behind the …

Where Did You Come From? The Effects Of Culture, Hometown Region, And Gender On The Perception, Endorsement, And Justification Of Aggression, Lindsay Hendricks

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine whether individual factors, including culture, hometown region, and gender, would affect the likelihood of a person perceiving and justifying an aggressive act. Previous literature explored the differences between distinctive cultural subtypes, hometown regions, and gender on the acceptance of expressing aggression. Hypotheses were established to examine the perception, justification, and endorsement of aggression in a northern setting with college-aged participants. Participants were asked to watch clips from six modern American movies. After each clip, participants answered seven questions based on their perceptions. Six univariate Analysis of Variances (ANOVAs) were conducted to …

The Highland Clearances And The Politics Of Memory, Daniel Guy Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the ways that the Highland Clearances of Scotland have entered into public consciousness through primary and secondary sources. My dissertation argues first that the Highland Clearances fall within the sphere of colonial intervention, and secondly that there exists a robust body of cultural production that reflects the postcolonial nature of the Highlands. This cultural production is the subject of my dissertation, which examines primary and secondary histories, historical novels, drama and public memorials that preserve and reconstruct the memory of the Clearances. The first chapter examines a number of primary and secondary histories of the Highland Clearances. …