Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Did Emmett Till Die In Vain? Organized Labor Says No!”: The United Packinghouse Workers And Civil Rights Unionism In The Mid-1950s, Matthew Nichter

Faculty Publications

Emmett Till’s mangled face is seared into our collective memory, a tragic epitome of the brutal violence that upheld white supremacy in the Jim Crow South. But Till's murder was more than just a tragedy: it also inspired an outpouring of determined protest, in which labor unions played a prominent role. The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) campaigned energetically on behalf of Emmett Till, from the stockyards of Chicago to the sugar refineries of Louisiana. Packinghouse workers petitioned, marched, and rallied to demand justice; the UPWA organized the first mass meeting addressed by Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley; and an …

Colonized Loyalty: Asian American Anti-Blackness And Complicity, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstad argues that solidarity between and within communities of color remains our only chance to fight against the brutal and insidious forces of racism, white supremacy and racial capitalism.

Strangers In The Village: James Baldwin, Teju Cole, And Glenn Ligon, Monika Gehlawat

Faculty Publications

This essay uses Edward Said’s theory of affiliation to consider the relationship between James Baldwin and contemporary artists Teju Cole and Glenn Ligon, both of whom explicitly engage with their predecessor’s writing in their own work. Specifically, Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the Village” (1953) serves a through-line for this discussion, as it is invoked in Cole’s essay “Black Body” and Ligon’s visual series, also titled Stranger in the Village. In juxtaposing these three artists, I argue that they express the dialectical energy of affiliation by articulating ongoing concerns of race relations in America while distinguishing themselves from Baldwin in terms …

The Mixed Reception Of The Hamilton Premiere In Puerto Rico, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders about the challenges of premiering the famed Broadway musical, Hamilton, during a time of political discord in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico.

The Search For Microbial Martian Life And American Buddhist Ethics, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default nonharm toward potential living beings, default nonharm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default nonharm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative …

The Hidden History Of 'Oklahoma!', Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner explains that contemporary reinterpretations of the classic American musical Oklahoma! may be getting back to its root: it's based on a play by a gay Cherokee man.

[Review Of] Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

[Review of] Cuba - Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity. By Tanya L. Saunders . Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. 390. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.

The Book That Made Me: A Girl, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this installment of The Book That Made Me, a series from Public Books reflecting on the books that have changed our lives, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reflects on the freedom he received—to become a whole other person, in a whole other place—from an unexpected source.

Sing A New Song To The City: Ambient Rhetoric And Urban Hymns, Adam J. Copeland

Faculty Publications

Hymns are a key component of how Christians express their faith. But many of these hymns do represent the rhythms and sensibilities of an older and largely agrarian world. Using the concept of “ambient rhetoric,” Adam Copeland suggests that it is time for other hymns that represent the ethos of daily life in an increasingly urbanized world, hymns that will speak to the realities of urban culture.

Lin-Manuel Meets Moana, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in Public Books, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders whether a Disney musical and a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical want the same thing.

Harry Potter And Hamilton From The Stage To The Page, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in Public Books, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner offers commentary on the two best-selling plays on record, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Hamilton. Specifically, Pollack-Pelzner examines how the Anglo-American world’s favorite orphans play at home, adopted, as it were, from the stage to the page.

"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy": College Newspaper Reporting Of U.S. Entry Into Wwii, Jill Crane, Marcella Lesher

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Usc South Campus: A Last Look At Modernism, Lydia M. Brandt, Paul Haynes, Andrew Nester, Robert Wertz, Ana Gibson, Margaret Mcelveen, John Benton, Adam Bradway, Hatara Tyson, Caley Pennington, Carly Simendinger

Faculty Publications

This is a class project from ARTH 542: American Architecture taught at the University of South Carolina by Lydia Mattice Brandt in Spring 2016.

With more Americans attending college than ever before; urban renewal; racial integration; the expansion of coeducation; and the architecture community’s advocacy for holistic relationship between planning, architecture, and landscape architecture, the American college campus developed rapidly and dramatically in the mid twentieth century. Using the University of South Carolina’s Columbia Campus as a case study, this project explores the history of American architecture in the mid-twentieth century.

Arts: Fiction And Fiction Writers: The Americas, Rachel Norman

Faculty Publications

This essay by Rachel Norman, which originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, discusses contemporary Muslim fiction published in the United States with a particular focus on three novels: Mojha Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Laila Halaby's Once in a Promised Land, and Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home.

Sports Fandom: Worthless Idol And Wonderful Thing, Rolf A. Jacobson

Faculty Publications

When thinking about the spectacle of sports fandom in light of the Bible, two assertions immediately come to mind. First, sports have become—for much of North American or Western society—an idol. Second, sports have also co-opted many aspects of the life of faith. These two immediate perspectives are so obvious that one is left to wonder whether there is anything more to say about sports in light of the Bible. Maybe there is.

Woody Guthrie, America's Merry Prankster, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

A “merry prankster” is a colorful person, real or legendary, who pokes fun at authority and the rich, powerful, and arrogant. The merry prankster appears small and powerless, but manages to outwit his opponents, often summing up the situation with witty one-liners — signal examples from medieval history and folklore are Mullah Nasreddin and Till Eugenspiel. In many ways, Woody Guthrie is an American merry prankster. Small in stature but large of intelligence, he used his wits, musical creativity, and people skills to defend the poor against the rich and powerful. He consistently made enemies of the privileged and those …

The Plymouth Lutheran Cemetery, Lindina Township, Juneau County, Wisconsin;, Lawrence Onsager

Faculty Publications

Cemeteries have been called outdoor museums, cultural artifacts, and written and visual records of communities. I am attempting to produce a geographically local biographical or cultural landscape study. In some cases cemeteries are the only identifiable remains of a community. The Plymouth Cemetery records that I have enhanced are just a part of the rich history of the Suldal Norwegian American Community in Juneau County, Wisconsin. It was estimated in 1908 that there were about 1,200 Norwegians from Suldal and about 500 from Upper Telemark in the settlement. Suldal is a rural district in Rogaland County in western Norway. Originally, …

The Limits Of Violence: People And Property In Edward Abbey's "Monkeywrenching" Novels, David Thomas Sumner

Faculty Publications

This paper explores Edward Abbey’s fiction asking what kind of ethical imperative his monkeywrenching novels offer. While advocating the destruction of property in defense of wilderness, The Monkey Wrench Gang draws a clear ethical distinction between the destruction of property in defense of wilderness and the harming of people. Yet the sequel, Hayduke Lives!, blurs this ethical line when a security guard is killed during the novel’s final eco-sabotage scene. After exploring several possible textual explanations for this apparent change and then interviewing several of Abbey’s close friends regarding this issue, the author concludes that the shift does not …

Hilda Mueller: The Queen Of Speed, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Hilda Mueller: The Queen of Speed concerns the life of Hilda Mueller Wuepper, a life-long resident of Bay City, Michigan who who won many races and set several world records from 1929-1933 within the sport of hydroplane racing.

Sundance Film Festival / Computer Generated Imagery / Video Game Industry / Battlestar Galactica / Pageants / Stereophonic Sound, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), have been on American popular culture. Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond. Included here are six sidebars that reveal some of the more fascinating contribution Mormons have made to American popular culture.

Profiles Of Selected Mormon Actors, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

“Profiles of Selected Mormon Actors” provides brief profiles of over 80 Mormon actors and actresses, including some biographical information and career highlights. This chapter appears in the first volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.

Profiles Of Selected Mormon Athletes In Professional Sports, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

“Profiles of Selected Mormon Athletes in Professional Sports” provides profiles with career highlights of over 200 Mormon athletes in professional sports, including baseball, basketball, bodybuilding, boxing, football, golf, hockey, racing, running, volleyball, and wrestling. This chapter appears in the second volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.

"Thrown On Their Own Resources": Collaboration As Survival In Imitation Of Life, Kristi Branham

Faculty Publications

The article presents an analysis of the film adaptation of "Imitation of Life," a 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst. It states that the repetition of the story across the first half of the twentieth century shows its resonance for U.S. audiences. It mentions that the woman question and the race question are brought together in the passing story in both the 1934 and 1959 film versions of the novel.

Florida: The Mediated State, Julian C. Chambliss, Denise K. Cummings

Faculty Publications

"The Mediated State" addresses the perceived and the real experience linked to Florida and demonstrates the state acts as a bellwether for understanding postwar America in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Examining historical shifts linked to perceptions of the state, Chambliss and Cummings argue contemporary observers, like their historical antecedents, look to Florida to glean some greater understanding of the broader national experience.

Reasonable Conversions: Susanna Rowan's Mentoria And Conversion Narratives For Young Readers, Karen Roggenkamp

Faculty Publications

Though not well known, Rowson's Mentoria-a curious conglomeration of thematically-related pieces from multiple genres, including the essay, epistolary novel, conduct book, and fairy tale-offers particularly fertile ground for thinking about the nexus between eighteenth-century didactic books and earlier works for young readers.2 At the heart of Mentoria is a series of letters describing girls who yield, with dire and frequently deadly consequences, to the passionate pleas of male suitors.3 Fallen women populate Rowson's world, and scholars have traditionally read Mentoria within the familiar bounds of the eighteenth-century seduction novel.4 However, Rowson's creation transforms the older tradition of didactic, child-centered conversion …

A Flag Is Flipped And A Nation Flaps: The Politics And Patriotism Of The First International World Series, Todd J. Wiebe

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lakewood Farm: The Private Zoo That The Public Loved, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Lakewood Farm: The Private Zoo That the Public Loved is an article concerning the private zoo in Holland, Michigan, that was owned by Chicago coal merchant George Fulmer Getz and helped form the Illionois based Brookfiekd Zoo and John Ball Zoo of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

God, Civil Society, And Congregations As Public Moral Companions, Gary M. Simpson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Location And Landscape In Literary Americanisms: H. L. Davis And F. Scott Fitzgerald, David T. Sumner

Faculty Publications

Well into the twentieth century, western American literature was still dismissed as regional or was boxed in by the genre expectations of pulp Westerns. This chapter focuses less on the causes of an eastern dismissal of western literature and more on what is unique about western literature, including how it reflects the larger western experience. Sumner looks at the particular Americanisms evident in the letters of the American West, using two short stories to make his argument: H. L. Davis’s Open Winter and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited.

Review Of From Colony To Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.