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Final Master's Portfolio, Hammed Oluwadare Adejare

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains four related essays concerned with issues of race and migration in literary creations of diasporic African writers and film texts by African American film producers. The first essay offers a general exploration of contemporary African diasporic writings and the pervading Afropolitan politics of home and belonging. The next essay in the collection provides a theoretical grounding for this writing genre, tracing the connections between the theory, Afropolitanism, and earlier modes of theorizing global race relations such as postcolonialism and cosmopolitanism. The third essay explores the application of these theories to Teju Cole’s diasporic novel, Open City, explicating …

Literacy 4 Brown Girls An Explorative Study Centered On The Identity And Literacy Of African-American Girls, Jendayi Mbalia

Theses and Dissertations

The academic needs of African-American girls too often are not linked to their intersecting identities. These interlocked identities often go unseen, thus are rarely addressed in K-12 schools. Specifically, their identities are neglected in some of their English Language Arts classrooms through the sole use of hegemonic literary practices. Literacy 4 Brown Girls was implemented at Midwest School for twelve weeks. The overall purpose of this case study was to explore the ways in which a literacy collaborative, designed with the identities of African-American girls in mind, could impact the identity construction and literacy skill growth of twelve, African-American girls …

The Anonymous Web In Adichie’S Americanah, Michelle Jude Gibeault

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adichie’s Americanah is a novel that elevates anonymous blogging into black cultural performance. The novel follows a young Nigerian, Ifemelu, who arrives in the United States on a student visa and depicts her stressful confrontation with racism in post-slavery America. Through beginning a blog, Ifemelu voices her experiences as a black woman and immigrant in ways that renew the concerns of James Baldwin, an author whom she studies closely. Like Baldwin, her style blends humor and techniques of persuasion that trace to traditional oral folklore. Ifemelu’s success rests partly on Adichie’s construction of her as a character of good ethos, …

“People Come And Go But We Don’T See Anything”: How Might Social Research Contribute To Social Change?, Nathan Andrews, Sylvia Bawa

The Qualitative Report

In different fields of study, scholars interested in making a positive difference in the lives of their research communities insist on engaging policy makers and activists in their work. Paulo Freire, one of the most widely known public intellectuals, asserts that praxis enables critical thought, awareness and collaborative action for emancipation for oppressed groups. Within this framework, our contribution aims to provoke thinking on the need for accountability to research subjects in development research through an emphasis on producing policy-focused and change-driven, as opposed to purely theoretically oriented, knowledge. The overarching argument is that research should, in fact, be conscious …

Moving Forward, Living Backward, Or Just Standing Still?: Newspaper Theatre, Critical Race Theory, And Commemorating The Wade-Braden Trial In Louisville, Kentucky, Amy Steiger

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This essay, with a link to the full group-devised script of "Moving Forward, Living Backward, or Just Standing Still?" describes how graduate students entering an MFA acting program devised a performance inspired by the WPA’s Living Newspapers and Boal’s Newspaper Theatre to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Wade-Braden housing case in Louisville, KY. Drawing on critical race theory, I argue that the process, together with the script itself, offers an example of several ways performance can be used to remember and re-imagine a community’s racial history and future. It commemorated the trial itself, creating a public reminder of Louisville’s …

Full Issue - Jgi V. 14, N. 2

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Full issue of Journal of Global Initiatives volume 14, number 2.

Panoptic Vision: Disjuncture, Transgressions, And Imagination In Laila Marrakchi’S Film Rock The Casbah, Touria Khannous

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This article focuses on Laila Marrakchi’s film Rock the Casbah (2013), which reflects the exchange between global and local cultural and sociopolitical ideologies of a new Morocco. The film highlights the contradictions of globalization as it occurs through disjuncture. Arjun Appadurai’s theory of the world in motion and “a world of flows” provides a relevant framework for this analysis. The article uses Appadurai’s notion of “disjuncture” as a theoretical framework to discuss the dynamics and interrelationships involved in the protagonist’s movement between Western mediascapes as a filmstar and her Moroccan family’s local context. Appadurai’s conceptualization of globalization is crucial for …

The Year Of Morocco: An Introduction, Daniel Paracka

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Marking the 35th anniversary of Kennesaw State University’s award-winning Annual Country Study Program, the 2018-19 academic year focused on Morocco and consisted of 22 distinct educational events, with over 1,700 people in attendance. It also featured an interdisciplinary team-taught Year of Morocco (YoM) course that included a study abroad experience to Morocco (March 28-April 7, 2019), an academic conference on “Gender, Identity, and Youth Empowerment in Morocco” (March 15-16, 2019), and this dedicated special issue of the Journal of Global Initiatives. Most events were organized through six different College Spotlights titled: The Taste of Morocco; Experiencing Moroccan Visual Arts; …

Reggaeir@ Sou Eu: Race, Nation And The Politics Of Identity In Roots Reggae Culture In Sao Luis Do Maranhao, Brazil, Gloria Angebelle Yawson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the performative space of roots reggae music and dance performancescape in São Luis do Maranhão, Brazil. It examines the ways in which Caribbean sounds are employed by Afro-Maranhese to create performative spaces that contest representations of blackness in Brazil. In this examination, I address how Afro-Maranheses engage in the process of transformation by appropriating Caribbean Sounds in the performative spaces of blackness. The dissertation also examines the ways in which these performative spaces, as spaces of struggle are objects of legal forms of surveillance, discipline and punishments that are targeted by the policia militar (military police) because …

A Black African Teacher’S Experiences In America: Examining The Lived Experiences Of A Black African Teacher Working In A Midwestern Public School, Valentine Malumbila

Dissertations

Using sociocultural theoretical approach, intersectionality of race, Critical Race Theory, and Bakhtin’s authoritative and persuasive discourse as a theoretical framework, this study explores the various diversities that I encountered as a Black African working and living in America. The diversity that I, like many other Black African immigrants in America, suffer results from culture shock due to lack of culture capital to comprehend and make sense of my surroundings. The lack of culture capital left me exposed to me some degrees of ethnic profiling, isolation and loneliness, and grieving due to loss of family and things that mattered the most …

Reconsidering Diasporic Literature: "Homeland" And "Otherness" In The Lost Daughter Of Happiness, Qijun Zhou

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the transformation of “homeland” and “otherness” as well as the relationship between each other in The Lost Daughter of Happiness （扶桑 Fusang). I begin by exploring how the migration of Chinese to the United States is depicted as an endless trajectory in the story through a historical engagement and a dialogue between two generations. From there, I plan to point out that the story complicates the meaning of diaspora as it can not only represent a spatial dislocation, but also a temporal dislocation. Thus, I argue that it destabilizes the conventional ideology which refers “homeland” to a …

Book Review: Bricktop’S Paris: African American Women In Paris Between The Two World Wars, Angela Tate

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Rhodes Fallen: Student Activism In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Amanda Castro, Angela Tate

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Graduate Course Catalog (Florida International University). [2019-2020], Florida International University

FIU Course Catalogs

This catalog contains a description of the various policies, graduate programs, degree requirements, and course offerings at Florida International University during the 2019-2020 academic year.

University Of Windsor Undergraduate Calendar 2019 Fall, University Of Windsor

University of Windsor Undergraduate Calendars

No abstract provided.

Aast 141h.01: Black - From Africa To Hip=Hop, Tobin Miller Shearer

University of Montana Course Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Southtalks Series Mines Interdisciplinary Nature Of Southern Studies, Rebecca Lauck Cleary

University of Mississippi News

Multiculturalism and social justice topic of first lecture Sept. 4

Interpreting Global Statistics On Resettlement Of Refugees Through The Lens Of Critical Race Theory: A Consideration Of Canada, Aituaje Aizenobie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis critically explores global statistics on resettlement of refugees through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT). There has been substantial research focused on various aspects of the resettlement process and ancillary procedures; yielding insight into different aspects of the demographics of resettled refugees to various third countries. The current research is however lacking an important element relating to the racial demographics of resettled refugees. It is the intention of this research to address this gap. This research uses doctrinal legal research methodology in analyzing the historical and current trends inherent in the global resettlement process. It also analyzes …

Fiu Digital Commons Annual Report, Fy 2018-2019, Jill V. Krefft

FIU Digital Collections Center Annual Reports

The Digital Commons Annual Report is a document that interested parties may use as a means of monitoring the yearly progress of Florida International University Libraries’ institutional repository. The report includes download and page hit statistics for all collections held in FIU Digital Commons.

Where Blackness And Cape Verdeanness Intersect: Reflections On A Monoracial And Multiethnic Reality In The United States, Callie Watkins Liu

Journal of Cape Verdean Studies

As a Black American and fourth generation Cape Verdean American growing up in the United States, I’ve found that race and ethnicity are frequently conflated in ways that obscure my social reality and identity or put two integrated parts of myself into opposition with each other. In examining my own ethno-racial experience, I use critical race studies and identity construction to disentangle the structural concepts of race and ethnicity and build a frame work for understanding my own integrated existence within the United States. My personal trajectory is situated within the current and historical sociostructural context of Diaspora, White Supremacy …

Overlapping Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature As A Global Assemblage, Wai-Chew Sim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Overlappinig Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature as a Global Assemblage,” Wai-Chew Sim offers a globalist vision or understanding of Chinese literary studies/Sinophone studies. Deploying the notion of scriptworld (Damrosch), he examines how the Chinese, English, and Malay-language scriptworlds interact in the Southeast Asian context. He traces the rhizomatic connections between Joo Ming Chia’s Exile or Pursuit, a Singapore Sinophone text that explores multiple belongings, and two novels: M. L. Mohamed’s Confrontation (originally published as Batas Langit), and T.H. Kwee’s The Rose of Cikembang (originally published as Bunga Roos dari Cikembang). Tracing the sinophonicity of the latter …

Okonkwo’S Reincarnation: A Comparison Of Achebe’S Things Fall Apart And No Longer At Ease, Mary J. N. Okolie, Ginikachi C. Uzoma

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Abstract: The reincarnation myth is a global concept, founded basically in religion and tradition. It was especially vibrant in the ancient times in places like Egypt, Greece, and in continents like Asia and Africa, which possess varying understandings of the myth. In Igbo tradition, for example, it is believed that reincarnation occurs within a family. And that some of the marks of reincarnation are usually the possession of the birthmark or certain other physical features and the exhibition of character and behavioral traits of a deceased person by a living member of his/her immediate or extended family. Thus, reincarnation entails …

Performing Arts: Dance, Music And Theatre, Saint Mary's College Of California

Undergraduate Course Catalog

No abstract provided.

Laja’B’Kanal Yet’ Ko’ Q’In, The Lasting Dances Of Our Fiestas: Music Embodiment As A Collective Memory Of The Maya Diaspora, Juan G. Francisco Cristobal

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the music embodiment and collective memory of the Maya Diaspora, focusing on the Maya Q’anjob’al communities in the United States

Expatriate Encounters And Colonial Legacies: Discursive Constructions Of Indian-Ness In Malaysian Ict Workplace, Vandana Saxena

Asia-Pacific Social Science Review

This paper examines the constructions of “Indian-ness” in Malaysia and the way these constructions shape the interactions between Indian expatriate professionals and the local Malaysian workforce in the ICT sector. The paper uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the “texts” on Indians and Indian-ness produced in interviews with the professionals—both Indians and Malaysians—in the ICT sector, a sector driven by the transnational workforce. The analysis will be structured along three questions: What defines and categorizes Indian-ness in Malaysia and how are these constructions of Indian-ness a product of the socio-political ideologies borne out of Malaysia’s colonial legacy? How do …

Commemorative Bodies: (Un)Making Racial Order And Cuban White Supremacy In Little Havana's Heritage District, Corinna Jeanne Moebius

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation unearths memory- and place-making practices, processes and “racializing regimes of representation” in Little Havana’s heritage district, now a major tourism destination in Miami, Florida. It draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and consultations of various archives that span decades back to the 1960s and trace the origins of the district in plans for a “Latin Quarter.”

My analyses borrow from and combine various bodies of scholarly work to examine and deconstruct the use of always multi-vocal “commemorative bodies” for the production of racial narratives that are embedded in--and give shape to--acts of memorialization and commemoration.

By examining the …

Critical Race Theory In Education: Analyzing African American Students’ Experience With Epistemological Racism And Eurocentric Curriculum, Sana Bell

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This literature review presents an analysis of race ideology within U.S. society and schools in order to understand how such ideologies are transmitted to African American students through Eurocentric curricula and thus can perpetuate racism. Recognizing that American curricula originates from social control elements and that schools are institutions responsible for preparing students for the world they live in (Apple, 2004; Apple & King, 1983; Giroux, 2001; and Giroux & Penna, 1979); I focus on African American students’ experience with a Eurocentric curriculum and how this curriculum influences their social identity and ability to successfully navigate society. Essentially, the literature …

Teaching Animals In The Post-Anthropocene: Zoopedagogy As A Challenge To Logocentrism, Anastassiya Andrianova

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay examines a theory and practice of zoopedagogy that encourages exploring non-logocentric mode(l)s of communication while promoting environmentalism, critical thinking, and empathy.

Oer From The Ground Up: Building A Faculty Development-Based Oer Initiative, Elizabeth Mckeigue, Roopika Risam, Gail Rankin

Northeast Regional OER Summit

In fall of 2018, a cross-campus team of academic professionals at Salem State University, a regional comprehensive institution in Massachusetts, launched a strategic and programmatic OER and textbook affordability initiative. In this session, the team (comprised of a faculty member and the heads of the library and of academic technology) will discuss how they have taken an innovative approach to building an OER initiative through coordinated and intensional faculty development. They will examine how integrating multiple types of faculty development activities have kickstarted OER adoption and creation on campus by meeting faculty at their experience level (beginner to advanced) and …

Living The Manito Trail: Maintaining Self, Community, And Culture, Trisha Venisa Martinez

American Studies ETDs

Living the Manito Trail: Maintaining Self, Community, and Culture is an ethnographic interdisciplinary study that draws upon the voices of Manitos, or Hispanic New Mexicans, and experiences of migration from Northern New Mexico into Wyoming from late 19th century to the present. This project exemplifies how consciousness or a heightened sense of awareness derives from the value system of querencia or how one establishes a sense of self and community through place. I argue the cultural landscape of a person’s place of origin injects a set of values and distinct qualities that create a strong sense of identity, enable community, …