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The Mcgowan Trilogy (Plays), Seamus O'Scanlain

Publications and Research

The McGowan Trilogy is a psychological journey of violence, sorrow and love lost. Set in 1980s Ireland after the Brighton Bombing which targeted Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet it follows the exploits of Victor M. McGowan - a new breed of IRA enforcer - in love with puns, guns and the pogo. The Trilogy won awards for Best Actress, Best Director and Best Production in 2014 and played for 20 nights in New York. In 2015 it played in the UK at the Kino-Teatr, An Taibhdhearc, The Town hall Westport and The Town Hall Galway.

Organizing Against Discrimination: The Chinese Hand Laundrymen Historical Niche And Ethnic Solidarity In America, Johnny Thach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From the late 1800s to early 1900s, hand laundries developed into the first Chinese historical niche in America in conjunction with Chinese laundrymen's activism, community organization, and ethnic solidarity in response to the proliferation of anti-Chinese discriminatory ordinances and laws instigated by White laundries and government officials. Using primary sources and secondary historical examples, this thesis explores the formation of the niche through the collective actions of two Chinese laundrymen organizations: the Tung Hing Tong “("同心堂")” in California, and the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance in New York. This thesis demonstrates that not only were both organizations founded differently and for …

The Ecology Of School Readiness, Miriam Beth Tager

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative study applies a critical and constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmez, 2014) to a narrative inquiry of how White middle-class early childhood educators perceive or make assumptions when identifying school readiness in low-income Black children. The data collection included an online districtwide survey of kindergarten and first-grade teachers (n=24), interviews of five teacher participants, observations of five identified non-school ready low-income Black children and two focus groups (participating and interpretative). The findings revealed an ecology of school readiness, in which teachers felt that the increase in standards impacted their quick identifications of non-school ready children. These participants claim …

New York City Street Theater: Gender, Performance, And The Urban From Plessy To Brown, Erin Nicholson Gale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the ordinary, public performances of fictional female characters in novels set on the streets of Manhattan during the years of legal segregation in the United States. I examine a range of actions from bragging to racial passing, and I argue these ordinary performances are central to our ability to interpret race, gender, and class relations. I detect race, class, and gender-based impulses to segregate and exclude others that overlap with the motives guiding the national, legal edict to segregate people by race. These guiding inclinations, legible through the history of Manhattan's grid, zoning laws, and the city …

The Archdiocese Of New York: Transition From Urban Powerhouse To Suburban Institution, 1950-2000 A Case Study, Henry A. Sheinkopf

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From 1850-1950, the New York Archdiocese welcomed newly arriving Irish and Italian Catholics and forged a political block that influenced local, state and national politics with political leverage sufficient to influence the city's commercial sectors. This mobilization transformed the once penniless and discriminated-against Irish, and later Italians, by enabling the Archdiocese of New York, through the power of the vote, to promote its religious interests as its adherents rose to positions of political and economic power. The Archdiocese of New York became the owner of vast real estate, a provider of social and educational services, and an arbiter of morality …

"To Organize The Sovereign People": Political Mobilization In Pennsylvania, 1783-1808, David William Houpt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Political mobilization is the connective tissue between the people and their government. Whether through petitions, voting, parades or even riots, it is the tool political actors use to engage in the deliberative process. Scholars have explored a variety of facets of the political culture of the early American republic and have noted the importance of certain forms of political mobilization such as parades and fêtes. These studies have not, however, fully explained how elections emerged as the primary means for citizens to express their will and the boundaries of political expression changed accordingly. This dissertation explains the evolution of Americans' …

At Home In The Bronx: Children At The New York Catholic Protectory 1865-1938, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

The N.Y.C.-based New York Catholic Protectory was established in 1865 as the home of destitute or truant children. This article deals with such topics as the protectory's establishment, operation and management, education and industrial training, as well as societal factors leading to its changing mission and closing in the Bronx in 1938-- after serving the needs of over 140,000 boys and girls.

Neoliberal Dystopias: Postmodern Aesthetics And A Modern Ethic In Four Pairs Of Plays By Argentine And Irish Playwrights (1990-2003), Noelia Diaz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is an exploration of eight plays, four from Argentina, four from Ireland, comprehending the period between 1990 and 2003. Both countries share a strong tradition of national theatre that, from its beginnings, was closely intertwined with the development of the nation state. Theatre functions in Argentina and Ireland as a medium through which representations of what it means to be Irish or Argentine have been explored, questioned, and contested. It is the aim of this project to examine how the apparently non-political and ahistorical theater of the playwrights I will examine is indeed a response to a contextualized …

More Than Objects: Understanding Female Slaves In Barbados In The Early Modern Period, Phoebe Martine Downes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will focus on representations of African women in the British colony of Barbados in the early modern era, using travelers' accounts, planters' records and the writings of abolition-minded reformers. The topic is significant because most scholars have focused on British colonial life during the nineteenth century, examining the planter class or the region's colonial commodities.

The period from 1600 to 1700 was an era of beginnings in the British colonial world, with England establishing its first Caribbean colonies and experimenting with different economic strategies to gain wealth. This period was also significant due to the emergence of slavery …

Effecting Moral Change: Lessons From The First Emancipation, Howard Landis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The First Emancipation was a grassroots movement that resulted in slavery being mostly eliminated in the North by 1830. Without this movement, it is unlikely that slavery would have been banned in the United States by 1865. The First Emancipation is not only a fascinating but little known part of our nation's history, but can also be used as a case study to illustrate how firmly entrenched, but immoral practices can be changed over time. The First Emancipation began with four immigrants stating their opposition to slavery in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1688. At this time, slavery was well entrenched, and …

The Hunger For Justice, Donald Rielly

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Life Aquatic: Liquid Poetics And The Discourse Of Friendship In The Faerie Queene, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

From Michel de Montainge’s essay “Of Friendship” to Jacques Derrida’s rearticulation of the former in The Politics of Friendship, scholars both early modern and modern have sought ways to address the fluid co-mixture of bodies from which the discourse of friendship can and does emerge. More recently still, new materialist thinkers of ontology have begun to shift our attention to the ways both human and nonhuman bodies inter-animate in the making of political, interpersonal, and artistic life worlds. Together with these investigations, I argue that an aquacentric account of relation is necessary to think the subject of friendship …