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The Restoration Of Religious Freedom: Joseph Smith’S Evolving Understanding Of The United States Constitution, 1830-1844, Mitch Nelson Jan 2023

The Restoration Of Religious Freedom: Joseph Smith’S Evolving Understanding Of The United States Constitution, 1830-1844, Mitch Nelson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

As the founder of the most persecuted denomination of the nineteenth century in the United States, Joseph Smith desperately yearned for religious freedom. I argue that Joseph Smith understood religious freedom as a theological doctrine given by God to help individuals, communities, and nations discover how to balance order and diversity. Rather than being a product of democratic government, he viewed religious freedom as the necessary foundation for a just government and society. Therefore, maintaining religious freedom would preserve the governing system, not the other way around. For Joseph, religious freedom was incrementally discovered in a process of identity formation …


Topographies And Counter-Topographies Of Social Reproduction At People’S Park, Sarah Weaver Jan 2023

Topographies And Counter-Topographies Of Social Reproduction At People’S Park, Sarah Weaver

Scripps Senior Theses

Created at a key moment in New Left political rebellion and organizing in 1969, the mythic People’s Park still stands today between Dwight and Haste St. in Berkeley as open multi-use green space made of and for community development on lawful University of California Regent property. Despite repeated attempts by UC to take back the land, the insurgent space continues to pull defense from various parts of the local community, students and not, have accessed forms of self-determined social reproduction and created material critiques of UC as a vehicle for capital. For 54 years, the park was maintained significance as …


“I Don’T Want To Cook”: Reconfiguring The Domestic Space In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Rida Leonard Jan 2023

“I Don’T Want To Cook”: Reconfiguring The Domestic Space In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Rida Leonard

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In the scholarship that considers ways in which the concept of domesticity features in the lives of black and white women in history, there is less discussion of how these women’s unique challenges led them to alter the traditional domestic space. This dissertation first assesses a range of nineteenth-century American newspapers to understand the prevalent social milieu and then closely analyzes select literary texts of the time, to argue that the distinct racial circumstances that framed black and white women’s struggles enabled them to reform the domestic space as needed. Analysis of the nineteenth century press reveals that while white …


Militarized Foodways: The Connection Between The Militarization Of American SāMoa And Chronic Health Conditions Experienced By Sāmoans In The U.S., Marina Aina Jan 2023

Militarized Foodways: The Connection Between The Militarization Of American SāMoa And Chronic Health Conditions Experienced By Sāmoans In The U.S., Marina Aina

Pomona Senior Theses

American militarism and imperialism in Oceania led to the partitioning of Sāmoa, transforming Eastern Sāmoa into an unincorporated American territory, one that persists to this day. Sāmoans living in the United States continue to face numerous chronic health illnesses to this day. Both of these statements are true, but how are they related to one another? This thesis proposes “militarized foodways” as a way to bridge the gap and understand how those two statements are connected to one another. Militarized foodways refers to how the cultural, social, and economic practices concerning production and consumption of food have taken a military …


The Making Of The Classic Period Of The Long Black Power Movement In Los Angeles, California, Sherwin Keith Rice Jan 2022

The Making Of The Classic Period Of The Long Black Power Movement In Los Angeles, California, Sherwin Keith Rice

CGU Theses & Dissertations

It is often believed that the Black Power Movement started after civil rights/black power activist Stokely Carmichael declared, “We want Black Power” in Greenwood, Mississippi on June 16, 1966 and ended in the 1970s. Similar to the Civil Rights Movement the Black Power Movement is often examined through a dominant narrative short movement view. Some scholars suggests that “Black Power” stood for a change in direction away from the nonviolent civil rights approach. But Black Power is an enigma and it means different things to different people. It is just one element of the Black Freedom Struggle. Black Power uses …


The Carceral Death Machine: Savagery, Contamination And Sacrifice In The Contemporary Prison, Timothy Malone Jan 2022

The Carceral Death Machine: Savagery, Contamination And Sacrifice In The Contemporary Prison, Timothy Malone

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation, I develop a convict epistemology that interweaves two elements: 1) a deep engagement with the works of particular philosophers and scholars investigating questions of punishment, violence, biopolitics and political philosophy 2) with some specific, publicly-reported incidents within California prisons in the late 20th and 21st centuries and my own detailed narration of events and the structural and quotidian dynamics of the prison yard as I experienced them as inmate #K73299 from 1997 to 2005. Diverging from Foucauldian theories of disciplinarity, I argue that under neoliberalism, the primary punishments that any inmate is subjected to within the carceral …


A Fearless Set Of Men, Spencer Gregory Pirnik Jan 2022

A Fearless Set Of Men, Spencer Gregory Pirnik

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Formed from the 9th Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent, the 47th USCI (United States Colored Infantry) was one of many African American Regiments which saw service in the U.S. Army in the Civil War and was a participant at the battles of Milken’s Bend, the Yazoo City Expedition, the Siege of Fort Blakely. With very little in the way of surviving accounts from the regiment’s Black enlistees This project seeks to examine the challenges this regiment, like so many other USCT (United States Colored Troops) regiments, faced in terms of manpower, leadership, equipment, and health, arguing that the despite these …


Dressing The Witch: Clothing, The Body, And Accusations Of Witchcraft In Puritan New England, Rachel Murrell Jan 2021

Dressing The Witch: Clothing, The Body, And Accusations Of Witchcraft In Puritan New England, Rachel Murrell

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Though this infamous period in American history has been examined numerous times, this paper aims to analyze the role in which “soft culture,” in particular dress and clothing, played in the search for witches amongst Salem women in 1692. Of necessity to this analysis is a thorough examination of early American material culture and the role in which early New Englanders interacted with newfound notions of materiality. This analysis examines two distinct points of contention at the crux of this cultural turn: the maintenance of and visual adherence to rigid social class standards through clothing and the visual interpretation of …


Remote Learning In The Era Of Covid-19: Accounting For Students' Personal Verve, Marissa Langley Jan 2021

Remote Learning In The Era Of Covid-19: Accounting For Students' Personal Verve, Marissa Langley

Scripps Senior Theses

This study focuses on accommodating remote academic lessons for students’ personal verve levels. Personal verve is defined as the ability to adapt to and concentrate in environments with high levels of stimulation. The sociocultural psychologists Boykin discerned higher verve levels in Black communities compared to White communities. Boykin found that many Black students tend to learn best in high verve conditions, which incorporate aspects of African American culture like group work, varied activities, movement and noise, as opposed to traditional low verve conditions which consist of sitting quietly at a desk during lectures. White students tend to have low personal …


Crawl Space: Driving Over The Anthropocene In A Jeep, Michael Pesses Jan 2020

Crawl Space: Driving Over The Anthropocene In A Jeep, Michael Pesses

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The automobile has long been directly and indirectly connected to human conceptions of nature, yet few studies linger with the act of driving as a practice that contributes to how nature is experienced. I argue that a more nuanced understanding of automobility is necessary for any scholars who study both social practices and environmental sustainability. Following the work of the human geographer Doreen Massey, I explore how relations between humans and non-humans, the social and the natural, ideology and practice work together to produce places specific to space and time. I also argue that American automobility is not simply transportation, …


Making Memory, Making Meaning: Memorial Museums And The Participatory Audience, Hillary Kirkham Jan 2020

Making Memory, Making Meaning: Memorial Museums And The Participatory Audience, Hillary Kirkham

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between memorial museums and visitors, reexamining the process of remembering traumatic events in United States history. My work examines this meaning-making dynamic in case studies of four memorial museums: The 9/11 Memorial Museum, The Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Manzanar National Historic Site, and Carthage Jail. By combining textual analysis of museums with data from visitor-produced materials such as guestbooks, letters, periodicals, and Instagram posts, I examine memorial museums' aims and rhetorical strategies while analyzing visitors' roles and contributions, illustrating how both guest and site collaborate to create memory and meaning. Drawing and …


(Re)Producing The Neoliberal Subject: Child-Rearing Advice Literature Following "The Great Risk Shift", Sophie Boczek Jan 2020

(Re)Producing The Neoliberal Subject: Child-Rearing Advice Literature Following "The Great Risk Shift", Sophie Boczek

Scripps Senior Theses

Following neoliberal restructuring in the 1980s, parenting advice literature experienced a significant growth in popularity. As the state largely transferred responsibility to individual citizens for economic survival, child-rearing discourse encouraged the cultivation of a subject who was best-suited for the contours of neoliberal life. This thesis explores the implications of this parenting rhetoric, as well as of the rise in popularity of parenting advice literature in neoliberal circumstances.


A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Sean Blacksher Jan 2019

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Sean Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In December of 2001, Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry (Def Poetry Jam) turned HBO viewers into audience members of a televised poetry reading, featuring spoken word and performance poetry. Over six seasons, actors, rappers, comedians, and the host, Mos Def, joined poets in a unique representation of counter-public open mic poetry readings and poetry slams. This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the …


A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher Jan 2019

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …


Postwar Culture Beneath The Pines: The Idyllwild School Of Music And The Arts, 1946-1962, Clark Adrian Noone Jan 2019

Postwar Culture Beneath The Pines: The Idyllwild School Of Music And The Arts, 1946-1962, Clark Adrian Noone

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA) was founded in 1946 by faculty of the University of Southern California. Located in Southern California's San Jacinto Mountain region, the school's leaders sought to create a therapeutic refuge for arts education which blended outdoor recreation, art and music workshops, and multicultural education. This thesis offers a critical analysis of ISOMATA's early growth and development by focusing on how the school's leaders tailored a liberal vision of arts education to the cultural and political mainstream of postwar Southern California.


Intimate Stranger, Strange Intimacy: Towards The (Sinthôm)Ethics Of Transference Love In Lacan’S Analyst’S Discourse, Jung-Hsien Lin Jan 2019

Intimate Stranger, Strange Intimacy: Towards The (Sinthôm)Ethics Of Transference Love In Lacan’S Analyst’S Discourse, Jung-Hsien Lin

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores one of the four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis, as suggested by Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), which is transference. Broadly defined, transference refers to the relationship between the analyst and the analysand transpiring during the analytic process. Although Sigmund Freud and Lacan have presented contrasting views with regards to the term, both of them share one common ground, that is, taking transference to be the aim of the psychoanalytic practices. Due to its theoretical divergences and convergences, debates about transference have focused on whether or not such an analytic aim is truly ethical. What complicates the discussion of ethics …


Sleight Of Hand: Gender, Performance, And (In)Sincerity In E. D. E. N. Southworth’S The Hidden Hand, Samantha Martin Jan 2019

Sleight Of Hand: Gender, Performance, And (In)Sincerity In E. D. E. N. Southworth’S The Hidden Hand, Samantha Martin

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the many cultural anxieties that existed during the nineteenth century in antebellum America centered on the dubious status of authenticity of one’s emotions, gender expression, or socioeconomic class. The fluctuating socioeconomic landscape of antebellum America destabilized the logic of categorization, rendering it an ineffectual means by which to evaluate others’ identities. In her novel The Hidden Hand, or, Capitola the Madcap, E. D. E. N. Southworth explores instead of censures the transformative properties of the self, specifically in terms of gender and class. Her interest in this lack of authenticity, or transparency regarding one’s self and intentions, …


The Icon Formation Of Ruby Bridges Within Hegemonic Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine Cashion Jan 2019

The Icon Formation Of Ruby Bridges Within Hegemonic Memory Of The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine Cashion

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1960, when Ruby Bridges was six-years-old, she desegregated the formerly all white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. This thesis traces her formation as a Civil Rights icon and how her icon narratives are influenced by, perpetuate, or challenge hegemonic memory of the Civil Rights Movement. The hegemonic narrative situates the Civil Rights Movement as a triumphant moment of the past, and is based upon the belief that it abolished institutionalized racism, leaving us in a world where lingering prejudice is the result of the failings of individuals. Analysis of narratives about Ruby Bridges by Norman Rockwell, …


An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher Jan 2018

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …


Fake News: Latinos, Representacion, Ciudadanizo Y Trump, Grace Thieme Jan 2018

Fake News: Latinos, Representacion, Ciudadanizo Y Trump, Grace Thieme

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis uses in-depth analysis of historical Los Angeles Times articles to trace the changing representations of the Latino community in the media. Focusing on themes of patriotism and citizenship, this thesis draws out the subtleties of syntax and semantics that silently influence public opinion. The Zoot Suit Riots and the Chicano Moratorium serve as the main historical backdrop, leading to a concluding exploration of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric surrounding immigration and the Latino community.


"The Best Bad Things": An Analytical History Of The Madams Of Gold Rush San Francisco, Sophie Breider Jan 2017

"The Best Bad Things": An Analytical History Of The Madams Of Gold Rush San Francisco, Sophie Breider

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the differences between the fictionalized madam of the American West and the historical madam are analyzed to understand how racial and gender hierarchies normalized themselves in the American West and disempowered women and people of color. This thesis uses Gold Rush San Francisco, and two madams, as a case study of this phenomenon.


Reader's Guide: A Foray Into Violence, Trauma And Masculinity In In Our Time, Sara-Rose Beatriz Bockian Jan 2017

Reader's Guide: A Foray Into Violence, Trauma And Masculinity In In Our Time, Sara-Rose Beatriz Bockian

CMC Senior Theses

Modernism has been called “a reaction to the carnage and disillusionment of the First World War and a search for a new mode of art that would rescue civilization from its state of crisis after the war” (Lewis, 109) Hemingway attempts this rescue by re-thinking aspects of the novel that were taken for granted in earlier periods, just as the conventions of modern life were taken for granted pre-WWI. Furthermore, his work tries to rectify the dissonance between a pre and post-war self through the exploration of social conventions relating to violence, trauma and masculinity.


Shakespeare And Black Masculinity In Antebellum America: Slave Revolts And Construction Of Revolutionary Blackness, Elisabeth Mayer Jan 2017

Shakespeare And Black Masculinity In Antebellum America: Slave Revolts And Construction Of Revolutionary Blackness, Elisabeth Mayer

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Shakespeare was used by Antebellum American writers to frame slave revolts as either criminal or revolutionary. By specifically addressing The Confessions of Nat Turner by Thomas R. Gray and "The Heroic Slave" by Frederick Douglass, this paper looks at the way invocations of Shakespeare framed depictions of black violence. At a moment when what it means to be American was questioned, American writers like Gray and Douglass turned to Shakespeare and the British roots of the English language in order to structure their respective arguments. In doing so, these texts illuminate how transatlantic identity still permeated …


How To Be A Good Neighbor: Christianity's Role In Enacting Non-Interventionist Policies In Latin America During The 1930s And 1940s, Joelle Leib Jan 2017

How To Be A Good Neighbor: Christianity's Role In Enacting Non-Interventionist Policies In Latin America During The 1930s And 1940s, Joelle Leib

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to demonstrate how Reverend and Professor Hubert Herring’s dedication to Congregationalism motivated him to advocate for the autonomy of Latin American nations through the pursuit of non-interventionist policies, an approach the U.S. government ultimately adopted when it best suited its interests during World War II.


Adapting Skazki: How American Authors Reinvent Russian Fairy Tales, Sarah Krasner Jan 2017

Adapting Skazki: How American Authors Reinvent Russian Fairy Tales, Sarah Krasner

Scripps Senior Theses

Adaptations of works have the potential to bring their subject matter to a new audience. This thesis explores the adaptation of Russian fairy tales into novels by authors Orson Scott Card and Joy Preble by looking at how they present Russian fairy tales, folkloric figures, and fairy tale structure to an American audience.


The Socio-Political And Economic Causes Of Natural Disasters, Nicole Southard Jan 2017

The Socio-Political And Economic Causes Of Natural Disasters, Nicole Southard

CMC Senior Theses

To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the …


A Vehicle Of Expression, Cristian Garcia Jan 2016

A Vehicle Of Expression, Cristian Garcia

CMC Senior Theses

This senior thesis studies the evolution and ideals of several populations in Los Angeles through the lens of car culture. The automobile is a symbol of expression and upon analyzing it, a great deal can be revealed about its owner. Los Angeles is home to the hot rodding, lowriding, and import tuning car movements. All three major car cultures were born from a marginalized youth population. The three movements shed light on the sentiments and assimilation process of the various ethnic communities that created the car culture. This essay will show how each movement not only influenced one another, but …


A Model For Empowerment: Lugenia Burns Hope’S Community Vision Through The Neighborhood Union, Madeleine Pierson Jan 2016

A Model For Empowerment: Lugenia Burns Hope’S Community Vision Through The Neighborhood Union, Madeleine Pierson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the work of reformer Lugenia Burns Hope and her community organization, the Neighborhood Union, as a case study to unpack scholarly characterizations of black elite uplift strategies during the early 20th century. The Neighborhood Union was established in 1908 in Atlanta by Hope and women from the community to build stronger neighborhoods and to combat the deleterious effects of the 1906 Race Riots and Jim Crow laws. Neighborhood Union settlement houses provided basic and extracurricular services, including kindergartens for working mothers, vocational classes, and lecture series. The organization’s exceptional, multi-class leadership structure enabled members of the …


Ecotones, Chas Schroeder Mar 2015

Ecotones, Chas Schroeder

CGU MFA Theses

My work explores the intersection of pastoral, urban and idiosyncratic visions. It may reveal the aesthetic and emotional possibilities inherent in the broad-ranging subjects I employ: game animals, advertising, colonialism, love, numerals, textiles, drugs, abstraction, competitive sports, displacement, architecture, gender-bending, civil-rights movements, transgressive literature, social media, indigenous peoples, graphic design, glamour, fashion, hip-hop, rock-n-roll, graffiti, cowboy, exhibitionism and other niche cultures in America. Pieces emerge intuitively via personal narrative and lodged memories as guides. The disjunctive compositions are a breed of contemporary formalism mated with abstraction.


This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land: An Analysis Of Presidential Immigration Rhetoric In The "Nation Of Immigrants", Hilary Slauson Jan 2015

This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land: An Analysis Of Presidential Immigration Rhetoric In The "Nation Of Immigrants", Hilary Slauson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the function and limitations of presidential immigration rhetoric, using Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as examples to show the development of rhetoric across their presidencies. Reagan and Clinton are theoretically ideologically juxtaposed, though examples found in their public speech on immigration politics show patterned language that contributed to harmful discourses, kept legislation ineffective, and promoted anti-immigration sentiment. Most persistent since Reagan’s response to the fourth and current wave of immigration to the U.S. was the description of the United States as a “nation of immigrants.” Reference to the “nation of immigrants” was often conflictingly coupled with …