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Full-Text Articles in American Studies
Self-Effacement Of The "Author" To Circulate Texts : Strategies To Construct Authorship In Antebellum America, Rumi Takahashi
Self-Effacement Of The "Author" To Circulate Texts : Strategies To Construct Authorship In Antebellum America, Rumi Takahashi
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
From the post-Revolutionary days, American print materials and political institutions were interrelated with each other for the purpose of building a new nation. The democratic institutions composed of the president and a sovereign people marked the country's difference from European monarchy, while the book trade served as a means that would disseminate a moral image of an ideal citizen to endorse the national identity. Yet, as drastic changes of industry in the 1820s enabled more people to participate in the economic system, the sovereignty of people turned out to be potentially subversive power of the mob, which required the literary …
Queer Bodies And Queer Materials In Post-Wwii American Texts, William Joseph Whalen
Queer Bodies And Queer Materials In Post-Wwii American Texts, William Joseph Whalen
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
Although the primary subject of this dissertation is contemporary American literature and popular culture--individual chapters are devoted to careful studies of Octavia Butler's short story "Bloodchild," Cormack McCarthy's gothic novel Child of God, Chuck Palahniuk's epistolary novel Pygmy, and the track "It's Good" by hip-hop artist Lil Wayne featuring Drake and Jadakiss--I develop a reading of these contemporary texts that places them within much older and richer intellectual, spiritual, psychological, and even biological traditions. My primary focus is the human body, both literal and figurative, as the site of dynamic exchanges, movements, blockages, and productive potentialities. I argue that at …
Fordism & Modernist Forms : The Transformation Of Work And Style, William Jeffrey Casto
Fordism & Modernist Forms : The Transformation Of Work And Style, William Jeffrey Casto
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
Fordism and Modernist Forms argues that Fordism is an American manifestation of a global tendency towards concentration and rationalization that we know as "monopoly capitalism." Fordism, as part of the historical transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism, reshapes and reorganizes the structures of modern life - accentuating repetitive habits and efficient behavior, replacing craftsmanship with deskilled labor, and integrating consumer culture into identity formation. These socio-economic transformations obfuscate the actually existing structures that produce their uneven societies and the monotonies of modern, everyday "life" and, therefore, create an artistic crisis of representation as the individual increasingly relies on the prisms …
A Study Of The Native American Captivity Narrative, Meghan Daniele Madden
A Study Of The Native American Captivity Narrative, Meghan Daniele Madden
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
This thesis examines the genre of Native American captivity narratives and their evolution from their first appearance in the seventeenth century to their waning popularity in the nineteenth century. The thesis starts with the Puritan narrative as a device for spiritual elevation and pronouncement. As Calvinism begins to diminish and the American Revolution approaches, captivity narratives take a turn from anti-Jesuit propaganda to anti-Indian propaganda. Narratives were used not only to warn colonists and Americans of the savagery of Indians, but also to strengthen the separation between the English and Indian inhabitants of America. The anxiety of degenerating into savages …