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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Violent Or Non-Violent? What Difference Does It Make In 1960’S Civil Rights Activism And The State?, Jada A. Commodore Dec 2022

Violent Or Non-Violent? What Difference Does It Make In 1960’S Civil Rights Activism And The State?, Jada A. Commodore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this essay, I research the differences between violent and non-violent actors during the civil rights movement and how their methods changed their interactions with the state. For my case study, I chose two violent and two non-violent subjects, as well as two individuals, and two organizations. Those being Martin Luther King Jr. and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for my nonviolent actors, and Malcolm X and The Black Panther Party as my violent actors. I examine how their methods as individuals and groups changed the way they interacted with Police, The FBI, and the Federal Government such as presidents …


Coal, Land, And Ideology: Inventions Of Appalachia In The Mind Of The American Ruling Class, Zachary Harris May 2022

Coal, Land, And Ideology: Inventions Of Appalachia In The Mind Of The American Ruling Class, Zachary Harris

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appalachia, itself a difficult to resolutely define region, has undergone the economic forces of colonialism and industrializing capitalism which allow for an excellent case study to apply Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. No American region’s national conception is likely to have been as varied and often misrepresented as that of Appalachia. From the Revolutionary American State’s invention of early white settlers as the virtuous yeoman of the Republic to the modern perception of Appalachia as backwards, conservative, and drug-addled, shifting national economic conditions resulted in a constant invention of Appalachia in congruence. Whenever the people residing in Appalachia, whether Black, …


The Journey Of Unlearning: A Close Reading Of Civil War Pedagogy In Alabama And Virginia, Michaela Hill May 2022

The Journey Of Unlearning: A Close Reading Of Civil War Pedagogy In Alabama And Virginia, Michaela Hill

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is a close reading of Civil War pedagogy in Alabama and Virginia with special attention given to Black history during the Civil War era. Through an examination of Civil War history, it is evident that slavery was the main cause of the War. The development of the Lost Cause narrative, a reaction to Blacks gaining Civil Rights that aimed to prove the Confederate war effort was honorable, is still promoted in southern schools. Alabama and Virginia both provide state standards, outlines of the minimum required knowledge to be obtained on a given subject by the end of the …


From Necessity To Novelty: Historic Trades In Colonial Williamsburg, Cecelia Rose Eure May 2022

From Necessity To Novelty: Historic Trades In Colonial Williamsburg, Cecelia Rose Eure

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Colonial Williamsburg is a living history museum in Virginia that hosts a large program interpreting and preserving eighteenth-century craft methods. Using ethnographic research methods, this paper evaluates the value of the historic trades program as a means of preserving otherwise lost skills, producing knowledge, and engaging the public in history. I argue that historic trades interpretation connects with audiences more than traditional exhibits, particularly highlighting specialized interpretation, on-the-job discoveries, representation of identity groups, and the ability to utilize online video platforms. Additionally, I address the divide between modern consumption and production, and how visitors can find historic trades that were …


Divided We Stand: An Investigation Of America’S Dual Psyche And The Fbi’S War On Anti-Americanism, Laura Mills May 2022

Divided We Stand: An Investigation Of America’S Dual Psyche And The Fbi’S War On Anti-Americanism, Laura Mills

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In periods after war, the U.S. has a tendency to feel insecure amidst a changing world order. Reassuring narratives of American exceptionalism often emerge, as well as reactive vilification of the un-American “Other.” This thesis explores the split in American identity that occurs in times of heightened national insecurity, a division that awards labels of Americanism or deviant anti-Americanism to the broader citizenry. To explore the tie between security and identity, a case study approach is taken with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the FBI. From its establishment in 1908, the FBI carefully built itself under the expectation that …


Disappearing Smoke: Why Black Pitmasters Are Being Left Behind By Commercialization Within North Carolina Whole Hog Barbecue, Charlotte Lucas May 2022

Disappearing Smoke: Why Black Pitmasters Are Being Left Behind By Commercialization Within North Carolina Whole Hog Barbecue, Charlotte Lucas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In North Carolina, there is only one Eastern whole hog establishment left that is owned by black pitmasters. As a result of historical context, black pitmasters have been left behind by the recent trend of commercialization within North Carolina whole hog barbecue. This exclusion can be explained by examining the history of whole hog barbecue, the struggles black entrepreneurs face in the restaurant industry, and the role that the media has played in ignoring black pitmasters. Historical background dives into the history of the whole hog from the plantation era to the Civil Rights movement and beyond in North Carolina …


"But A Contraband Is A Free Man:" Civil War Literature And The Figure Of The "Contraband", Mary A. Kardos May 2022

"But A Contraband Is A Free Man:" Civil War Literature And The Figure Of The "Contraband", Mary A. Kardos

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores Civil War popular literature related to "contraband" individuals by Black and white authors. In May 1861, those who escaped from enslavement to Union territory were deemed "contrabands of war," a label placing them between freedom and property. This purgatorial category delayed freedom and depicts formerly enslaved persons as both intellectual and literal property of white America. Across various poems, essays, speeches, novels, illustrated envelopes, and sketches, Civil War authors debated the function of the “contrabands” within the American social order. Consequently, this thesis explores the patterns through which the uniquely transitory nature of the “contraband" allowed the …


Cultivation Through Excavation: Performing Community And Partnership In The Historic First Baptist Church Project, Eleanor S. Renshaw May 2022

Cultivation Through Excavation: Performing Community And Partnership In The Historic First Baptist Church Project, Eleanor S. Renshaw

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the relationships and partnerships developing around the First Baptist Church -- Nassau Street Archaeology Project in Colonial Williamsburg. Exploring the defining of "descendant community" and the contributions of tourists through the lens of Erving Goffman's stages and participant frameworks, this project looks at the past, present, and future of this project.


The Rails That Bind: America's Freedom Trains As Reflections Of Efforts To Form Cultural Consensus And Indicators Of The Weakness Of Cold War Memory, Daniel Speer May 2022

The Rails That Bind: America's Freedom Trains As Reflections Of Efforts To Form Cultural Consensus And Indicators Of The Weakness Of Cold War Memory, Daniel Speer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper assesses why two projects with the same name, concept and intent of forming cultural consensus, the Freedom Trains, took such different forms between the postwar "consensus" (1947-1963) and detente (1963-1979) phases of the Cold War. It argues that organizers Attorney General Tom C. Clark (1947), Ross Rowland (1975), and their corporate backers articulated histories based on perceived common values of limited rights (1947), cultural pluralism (1975) and consumption (both) that attempted unity, but resulted in silences. The reception to each train, and the organizers' responses to those reactions, showed the limitations of a unifying consensus, but varied between …


Stepping Into A Moment: A Historical Reconstruction Of Lord Dunmore's Portrait, Slade Nakoff May 2022

Stepping Into A Moment: A Historical Reconstruction Of Lord Dunmore's Portrait, Slade Nakoff

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study of material culture study has long been estranged from mainstream academic discourse often dismissed as the examination of pots and pans. Historians are beginning to realize that material culture and cultural reconstruction offer vital insights into the past. Building upon new developments, my project reconstructs the items painted by Joshua Reynolds in his famous painting of Lord Dunmore. This reconstruction allows for the efforts of unnamed tradesmen to be retraced, making a few people and their efforts which were lost to history known once again. By employing written documentation in tandem with extant artifacts, the project recreates every …


American Fears: H.P. Lovecraft And The Paranoid Style, Bailey Marvel May 2022

American Fears: H.P. Lovecraft And The Paranoid Style, Bailey Marvel

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Why is H.P. Lovecraft still relevant? That is the one the questions put forward by this thesis. Lovecraft is known for his creation of Lovecraftian horror, also known as cosmic horror. However, his bigoted view on race and class muddies this legacy. What this thesis seeks to explore is how Lovecraft’s work demonstrates the fears and anxieties central to the America psyche. The paranoid style can be found in American discourse throughout history but it can also be found in the works of Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft was a prejudiced and paranoid man, and his prejudices and paranoia are a major …


The Bodies Politic: Sex, History, And The Promise Of A Black Queer America, Jonathan Newby May 2022

The Bodies Politic: Sex, History, And The Promise Of A Black Queer America, Jonathan Newby

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This essay examines and critiques the ways in which Black, Queer, and Black Queer people's culture, politics, and lived experiences are experienced in the United States, historically and in the present day. The Bodies Politics calls for American history and culture to be reoriented to acknowledge and center the contributions of Black Queer people to the nation.


Paradoxical Toleration: Southern Antisemitism In The Nineteenth Century, Jason Blau May 2022

Paradoxical Toleration: Southern Antisemitism In The Nineteenth Century, Jason Blau

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores antisemitism in the nineteenth century South. It seeks to demonstrate the relative paucity of religious prejudice directed towards Jews by white southern gentiles until the late nineteenth century, despite the virulence of anti-black racism in white southern society at the time. This “paradox,” contrary to modern assumptions that disparate prejudices run together as has been documented by social psychologists, attracts attention. Historically, scholars made similar claims without much substantiation. Other researchers, such as Leonard Dinnerstein in “A Note on Southern Attitudes toward Jews,” challenged the possibility of southern Jewish acceptance relative to northern mores, pointing out an …


“A Sea Of White Faces”: How Courtroom Portraits Undermine Justice In Virginia, Lauren Miller Apr 2022

“A Sea Of White Faces”: How Courtroom Portraits Undermine Justice In Virginia, Lauren Miller

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The presence of Confederate symbols and other reminders of white institutional power in courtrooms introduces a risk that impermissible factors such as implicit bias, conscious prejudice, and sympathy for white supremacy will harm litigants’ rights. I compiled data for 210 of 328 courts (64%) in the Commonwealth and found that there are more than 617 portraits on display in Virginia courtrooms. At least 357 portraits depict white men, six depict Black men, fifteen depict white women, and twenty-eight depict people who served in the Confederacy, either in the government or the Confederate States Army (CSA). At least fourteen different courts …