Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Digital Demonstrations: Examinations Of Protests And Politics In Cory Doctorow’S Young Adult Fiction, Jacob Brown

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Within this paper, I intend to examine the manner by which author and blogger Cory Doctorow utilizes complex themes of digital labor exploitation and intellectual property law within his young adult fiction in order to bring about positive social change, with particular attention paid to the 2008 novel Little Brother and its 2013 sequel Homeland, the 2010 novel For the Win, the 2012 novel Pirate Cinema, and 2014’s In Real Life, a graphic novel written by Doctorow and illustrated by Jen Wang. Throughout Doctorow’s realistic depictions of slightly-fictionalized versions of contemporary life and embellishments of near-future …

Emerging Feminist Voices On Media And Representation, Diana Depasquale, Cassie Tenorio, Alyssa Wells, Savannah Fulmer

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

The work featured in this panel is from students in WS2000, Introduction to Women's Studies. I created an assignment called "Choose Your Own Adventure." These projects include: an examination gender in film, and a revised version of the Bechdel Test, sexism and misogyny in gaming culture expressed through a series of comics, a painting on canvas using a variety of materials and techniques representing the control of women's reproductive rights and the damage done to female bodies by patriarchal language and rhetoric, and an analysis of womanism, scripture and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Each student engaged with issues related …

Another Country: When Your Nation Doesn’T Consider You To Be A Citizen, William B. Daniels Ii

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

I plan to show how the characters in Another Country uncover the inherently racist and homophobic requirements for citizenship in a nation. The novel Another Country by African American author James Baldwin (1924-1987) exposes the fallible nature of hetero-normative and racial ideals that narrowly define a model citizen of a nation-state. The queer interracial relationships in the novel, particularly between the main character Rufus and his lover Eric, transgress the boundaries of nation, race, and sexuality, thus revealing the illusionary nature of categorizations that are defined and applied by nation-state apparatuses in order to discriminate and maintain uniformity. In addition …

The Transnational Rhetoric In Cabeza De Vaca’S La Relacion, Bincy Abdul Samad

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Abstract on La Relacion by Cabeza de Vaca

Identity is an important concept in postcolonial literature, especially when one’s identity is achieved rather than inherent. It is interesting to pursue how Cabeza de Vaca, the protagonist of La Relacion undergoes a transformation from his initial identity as a Spanish colonizer to a transnational hybrid, the Spanish-American. Despite multiple critics’ argument that La Relacion is “a discourse of failure” that “subverts the established order,” my paper rereads the narrative as a transnationally successful rhetoric by incorporating multiculturalism and hybridity. Thus Cabeza de Vaca becomes a hero if we accept his story …

Postcolonial Disability In Mohesen Makhmalbaf’S Kandahar, Sukshma Vedere

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Kandahar (2001), an Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, details the journey of the protagonist, Nafas, to Kandahar to save her sister from committing suicide on the day of the solar eclipse. The film has gained recent attention by disability studies scholars for the representation of disability in Afghanistan; scholars have discussed the significance of prosthetics and international aid for the disabled in post-war zones of the Third World, but little has been said about disability as a postcolonial embodiment. I argue that Kandahar represents the postcolonial state as a disabled space both literally and metaphorically. It projects the veil …

Unicorns: Past, Present And In The Imagination, Jill A. Jablonski

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

In the last few thousand years, unicorn folklore has extensively evolved. In fact, the evolution of the mentioned above mythical creature has been so drastic, that the original unicorn lore of the Greek, Roman and early Christian people, would be unrecognizable to a modern day person. Consequently, to the historical figures (such as Julius Caesar and Ctesias) that contributed to the creation of the mythical creature, they would not recognize the unicorn as it is found in My Little Pony or any other pop culture sensation. To discover the cause of disconnect between the folkloric and pop culture unicorns, an …

The Perpetual Other: Native American Representation In Documentaries, Julia E. Largent

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

When an individual uses an Internet search engine to find images of Native Americans, the person will most likely find that most of the images are paintings of the Native American warrior or are older black and white portraits. After searching for other races, such as Asian American or African American, the search is more likely to come up with contemporary images of people playing sports, in school, or with their families. Why is there such a stark difference? Why are Native Americans so often thought about as only in the past? From the early days of books and portraits …

Popular Culture And Individual Empowerment In The Global World, Rama Alapati

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Popular culture studies are central to the study of Liberal Arts, which enhance the spirit of the academia. They help people to understand their own culture, appreciate it, and grow up as participating members of the community. The present study focuses attention to analyze popular culture in relation to the domains of governance and self-help literature. The study is significant because it helps understand the trajectory adopted for individual empowerment.

Existence of multicultural societies across the Globe is more in the present day as the world has become a global village. It can, therefore, be understood that popular culture studies …