American Studies Commons^™

Myriad Mirrors: Doppelgangers And Doubling In The Vampire Diaries, Kimberley Mcmahon-Coleman

Kimberley McMahon-Coleman

Mirroring is of fundamental importance in Gothic literature and filmic texts generally, and is a prevalent trope in the CW network teen drama, The Vampire Diaries. The television series is itself a “doubling” in that it is an adaptation of a series of novels by L.J. Smith, creating a situation wherein the same central characters inhabit the parallel townships of the novels’ Fells Church and television’s Mystic Falls, and thus have histories which are, at times, contradictory. The television version also explicitly explores the concept of the doppelganger, and thus the idea of reflection, even as it manipulates the historical …

The Politics Media Equation:Exposing Two Faces Of Old Nexus Through Study Of General Elections,Wikileaks And Radia Tapes, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The important identity of a responsible media is playing an unbiased role in reporting a matter without giving unnecessary hype to attract the attention of the gullible public with the object of making money and money only.After reporting properly the media can educate the public to form their own opinion in the matters of public interest. Throughout the centuries, the world has never existed without information and communication, hence the inexhaustible essence of mass media. The government has the power to either make or reject whatever that will exist within its environment. It also determines how free the mass media …

Digital Collection Evaluation: Review Of A Digital Newspaper Collection Held By The Library Of Congress, The University Of Florida Library, And The University Of North Texas Library, James Gross

James Gross

Drexel University, Info 653, Assignment #3, Digital Collection Evaluation. Brief review of three repositories, each one housing a unique digital Newspaper Collection. Repositories reviewed include: The Library of Congress, Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers; The University of Florida Digital Collections, Florida Digital Newspaper Library; and The University of North Texas Library, Portal to Texas History, Texas Digital Newspaper Program.

Phoebe Snow: Odd, Rare And Sublime, Vincent L. Stephens

Vincent L Stephens

A draft from my work-in-progress essay collection on post-war American popular singing "Sound Love." The essay argues that Phoebe Snow is unique among her generation of singer-songwriters as she is more notable as an interpreter than as a writer. Her synthesis of elements from blues, jazz, pop, gospel and R&B defy category as does her artistry.

Pynchon In Popular Magazines, John K. Young

John K. Young

Any devoted Pynchon reader knows that “The Secret Integration” originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and that portions of The Crying of Lot 49 were first serialized in Esquire and Cavalier. But few readers stop to ask what it meant for Pynchon, already a reclusive figure, to publish in these popular magazines during the mid-1960s, or how we might understand these texts today after taking into account their original sites of publication. “The Secret Integration” in the Post or the excerpt of Lot 49 in Esquire produce different meanings in these different contexts, meanings that disappear when reading the …

Exploring The Problem We All Live With: The Motivation And Ambition Behind Norman Rockwell’S Civil Rights Depictions, Kelly Richman

Kelly Richman

Using Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With (1964) a Civil Rights-era depiction of the integration of black and white students in 1960, I argue that Rockwell chose to portray Civil Rights themes in order to make an altruistic plea for equality. To demonstrate my claim, I have researched academic sources, journal articles that explore Rockwell’s views and painterly approach to race, and documents of important political events of the Civil Rights Movement. Through this research, I use textual evidence to conclude that Norman Rockwell was genuinely committed to promoting Civil Rights in his work.

“Ahead Of The Lawmen”: Law And Morality In Disney Animated Films 1960–1998, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

This article examines the relationship between law and morality in a selection of animated Disney movies released between 1960 and 1998. The authors analyze all of the fully-animated, G-rated movies that grossed $100 million or more (adjusted for inflation) which shaped the childhood of lawyers practicing today. We find that the predominant representation of the relationship between law and morality is that they are at odds. Law most often is portrayed as having no relationship to morality or, even worse, as an obstacle to justice. These findings have implications for theories of law and morality, justice, and ethics. These findings …

Federal Prohibition Of Medical Marijuana In Pain Management: Undue, Unimportant, And Irrational, Michael L. Timm Jr.

Michael L. Timm Jr.

This paper provides a review of the historical right of the people of the United States to seek, and use, alternative medicinal treatment options in the realm of managing both the pain and symptoms associated with a variety of illnesses. The focus then turns to the right involved: a patient’s ability to employ medical marijuana instead of a commonly prescribed narcotic or mass-market non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesic (NSAIA) drug to manage pain and increase quality of life under the advice and consent of a treating physician. No one article has argued that there is a fundamental, important, or at least recognizable …

Romancing The Fan-Girl: Early Film Fan Magazines And American Girls’ Longing For Stardom., Diana Anselmo-Sequeira

Diana Anselmo-Sequeira

Looking at “Beauty and Brains,” the first nationwide beauty competition issued by a film fan magazine (Photoplay Magazine) and a producing company (World Film Co.), this paper explores how early American cinema was shaped by female adolescence. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall first described the “budding girl” as psychologically impermanent, malleable, and lacking self-awareness. A decade later, as the film industry became organized under an institutionalized star system, the figure of the growing girl linchpined the cult of the individual movie star.

I argue that, throughout the 1910s, adolescent girls were not only some of the best paid …

Romancing The Fan-Girl: Early Film Fan Magazines And American Girls’ Longing For Stardom., Diana Anselmo-Sequeira

Diana Anselmo-Sequeira

No abstract provided.

Rahna Mckey Carusi Cv, Rahna M. Carusi

Rahna M Carusi

No abstract provided.

Media Studies Professor Authors Book On Television Program, The O.C., Lori Bindig

Lori Bindig

In The O.C.: A Critical Understanding (Lexington Books, 2012), Bindig analyzes the cultural legacy of the popular series that ran on the FOX broadcast network from 2003 to 2007.

Bodies Of Debt: Interrogating The Costs Of Technological Progress, Scientific Advancement, And Social Conquests Through Dystopian Literature, Melissa R. Ames

Melissa A. Ames

This essay discusses the successes and challenges of teaching a particular cross-curricular course that focused on controversial issues appearing in scientific research and dystopian literature. The course studied narratives that wrestle with ethical concerns surrounding “progress” (societal achievements, technological advancement, scientific discoveries, and so forth). Contemporary debates and specific issues addressed throughout this course included cloning, stem cell research, black market organ transplants, human trafficking, surveillance technology, euthanasia, and capital punishment. In alignment with research concerning best practices in teaching social responsibility topics, this course was centered on a set of inquiry questions that stretched across all units, texts, and …

Jim Crow In The Soviet Union, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.

A Useful Resource For Tracing Immigrants Who Entered The Us Through Ellis Island, James Gross

James Gross

Brief summary of a useful online search engine for locating relatives within the Ellis Island, Port of NY, online passenger list database. It is the Steve Morse search engine, called the “Ellis Island Gold Form".

Becoming More Adept At Using Some Resources From The Family Search Website, James Gross

James Gross

Brief discussion of the Knowles Collection. Maintained by a member of the LDS. It is a collection of six databases containing donated Jewish genealogical records.

Choosing The Correct Genealogy Software, James Gross

James Gross

Brief discussion of three genealogy programs, Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree, and Rootsmagic, which are all gedcom enabled. All three are listed as being endorsed by and compatible with (Familysearch.org).

Family Gay: Relief Theory Applied To Instances Of Same-Sex Attraction In Family Guy, Natasha A. Magness

Natasha A Magness

No abstract provided.

Inventing The Egghead: The Battle Over Brainpower In American Culture, Aaron Lecklider

Aaron S. Lecklider

Throughout the twentieth century, pop songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels in the United States represented intelligence alternately as empowering or threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, cultural historian Aaron Lecklider offers a sharp, entertaining narrative of these sources to reveal how Americans who were not part of the traditional intellectual class negotiated the complicated politics of intelligence within an accelerating mass culture. Central to the book is the concept of brainpower—a term used by Lecklider to capture the ways in which journalists, writers, artists, and others invoked intelligence to embolden the majority of Americans who did not have access …

Time Cover Reflection, Hank J. Goldenberg

Hank J Goldenberg

A reflection on the media

Birth Of The American Zombie, Samantha Bloodworth

Samantha Murillo

This paper explains the concept of the "American zombie" as it is known in popular culture today and traces how it became the concept it is in American culture today.