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Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Constructing The Panama Canal: A Brief History, Ian E. Phillips May 2021

Constructing The Panama Canal: A Brief History, Ian E. Phillips

The Downtown Review

Seeking to commemorate the construction of the Panama Canal, an engineering marvel widely considered a contender for the eighth wonder of the world, this article attempts to retell the story of the Canal's construction by synthesizing a narrative centered on the Canal under French and American leadership, worker segregation, and labor conditions at the Isthmus.


Marxist Ideology In Alice Chilress’S Like One Of The Family, Elizabeth Elliott May 2019

Marxist Ideology In Alice Chilress’S Like One Of The Family, Elizabeth Elliott

The Downtown Review

This paper explores Alice Childress work Like One of the Family, a collection of short stories originally published as a column the newspaper Freedom, and how Childress uses the highly personable work to advocate for socialist ideology and exhibit how socialism could positively affect the black working class, particularly domestic workers. Through her work, Childress humanizes the domestic worker, a group that was often not only disenfranchised by whites but also prohibited from labor organizing with other African-Americans. She engages with Marx’s ideology in an understandable and personal way: by utilizing the African-American oral tradition. This exposed her audience to …


She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo May 2017

She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo

The Downtown Review

Mae West, an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, used her fame on stage, in films, and on the radio to offer social commentary on relationships between men and women in society. Her irreverent style of addressing issues of female sexuality and power certainly caught peoples attention and made them think about these issues in new ways. At the same time, her racy delivery made her a target of stage, film, and radio censorship. She refused to be silenced and continually pushed against restrictions to deliver he message of empowerment in her trademark provocative manner.


Reacting To The Past Handout: The Liberator, Issue 1, Isabel Alberto May 2017

Reacting To The Past Handout: The Liberator, Issue 1, Isabel Alberto

The Downtown Review

No abstract provided.


Not So Revisionary: The Regressive Treatment Of Gender In Alan Moore's Watchmen, Anna C. Marshall May 2017

Not So Revisionary: The Regressive Treatment Of Gender In Alan Moore's Watchmen, Anna C. Marshall

The Downtown Review

While Alan Moore’s comic book Watchmen is often hailed as a revisionary text for introducing flawed superheroes and political anxiety to the genre, it is also remarkably regressive in its treatment of gender. Some critics do argue that women are given a newfound voice in Watchmen, but this interpretation neglects to examine character Laurie Jupiter adequately, or the ways in which other female characters' appearance and dialogue are limited and/or based on their sexuality and relationships with male characters. Watchmen's main female characters, mother and daughter Sally and Laurie Jupiter, lack autonomy and their identities are completely intertwined …


Graverobber, Individualized Chorus: The Greek Chorus Reinterpreted In Repo! The Genetic Opera, Grace Markulin Jan 2016

Graverobber, Individualized Chorus: The Greek Chorus Reinterpreted In Repo! The Genetic Opera, Grace Markulin

The Downtown Review

The rock opera film Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) provides its audience with details regarding the film’s setting and perspectives on the morality of the film’s plot through the character Graverobber, whose sung dialogue expresses this information. Graverobber’s penchant for scene-setting and moralizing within the film classifies the character as a Greek chorus according to the parameters of the Greek chorus in antiquity and modern interpretations of the chorus in twentieth-century musical theater, but the character’s visual distinctiveness, preexisting relationship with an established character, and prominent use of solo vocal lines throughout his sung dialogue demonstrates a degree of individuation …


Appropriating Balance: Reversing The Imbalance For Indigenous Women Through Spirituality, Candra Krisch Dec 2015

Appropriating Balance: Reversing The Imbalance For Indigenous Women Through Spirituality, Candra Krisch

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.


The Monster Of Wall Street, Michael A. Stanley May 2015

The Monster Of Wall Street, Michael A. Stanley

The Downtown Review

The scathing social satire that is Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho uses a unique stream-of consciousness narrative that draws the reader into the text by way of a fascination with the narrator. Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and powerful Wall Street elite who divides his time between giving fashion advice and frequenting New York’s trendiest restaurants and clubs, also happens to be a delusional psychotic and ostensibly a serial killer. Shifting between a narrative that sounds like a schizophrenic’s journal of descent into madness and occasionally addressing the reader directly, Ellis has created a voice for the main character that is …


Neglecting The Subjects Of The Drag Performance In White Chicks, Hannah Sylvester Jan 2015

Neglecting The Subjects Of The Drag Performance In White Chicks, Hannah Sylvester

The Downtown Review

As a temporary transvestite film, White Chicks tackles racial issues as well as gender issues and performance. While the statements made on behalf of racial issues are strong, the statements concerning gender are much weaker. The paper will give a summary of the film followed by a description of it as a temporary transvestite film alongside other films within the genre. Issues concerning gender roles--specifically the concept of femininity--are addressed within the film, but are never challenged or changed. Indeed, society's heterosexual hegemony are upheld within this film as they are in similar films in the genre. Homosexual instances in …


The City Is Full Of Bugs, Michael Stanley Jan 2015

The City Is Full Of Bugs, Michael Stanley

The Downtown Review

This essay explores the use of symbolism and metaphor in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, focusing on a particular scene inside Mary Rambo’s apartment in the middle of the novel. The use of symbolism in the novel is extensive, and many objects and characters serve as metaphors for social classes and groups, and often these representations also function as direct satire for various political groups, folkways, and the expectations or prejudices of the time period in which the novel is set. The objects and events that take place in Mary Rambo’s apartment go beyond symbolism to include a forecast of …