American Studies Commons^™

Challenges Before Traditional Media In The Age Of Digital Media-How To Integrate It With Digital Media-The Way Ahead, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

You may have heard of digital media, but you may have no idea what it is and how it can help you out when it comes to marketing. It's definitely important that you get up to speed so you can use this to benefit your business. Basically digital media refers to any type of electronic media out there. Today media can be accessed in many ways, including with hand held devices like mobile phones, laptops, desktops, mp3 players, and more.Digital media must be stored in an electronic way, so there is a lot of digital content on the internet today, …

When Predator Becomes Prey: The Gendered Jargon Of Popular Culture, Melissa R. Ames

Melissa A. Ames

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century the vernacular of popular culture has been bombarded by sexualized terminology. Although these terms are often formed with humorous intent, their staying power and use as cultural descriptive categories is both intriguing and disturbing. Also troubling is the fact that the majority of these new terms, such as puma (a thirty-something female “dating” a younger male), cougar (a forty-plus female “dating” a younger male), and MILF (“mother I’d like to fuck”), are restricted to the female gender alone. This article analyzes the etymology of these terms, their use in popular culture (ranging …

Performance Review Of By Hands Unknown, Koritha Mitchell

Koritha Mitchell

Performance Review of BY HANDS UNKNOWN, theatrical presentation composed of 7 one-act lynching plays from the 1920s and 1930s.

Women & Language: Essays On Gendered Communication Across Media, Melissa R. Ames

Melissa A. Ames

The present volume of essays examines women's communication as it has evolved historically across multiple mediums. Part I explores how women became "gossip girls" and the important role of gossip in the perception and practice of female communication. Essays in Part II cover the convergence of oral and written communication in women's literature. Gendered performance in such arenas as salsa dance, Dr. Phil and the Internet is examined in Part III, and essays in Part IV discuss women's communication in the technology-rich 21st century. This excerpt features the introduction and one essay from the co-editor.

The Epistemology Of Ethnography: Method In Queer Anthropology, Margot D. Weiss

Margot Weiss

This essay explores methodological dilemmas in queer anthropology by reviewing three recent queer ethnographies: Mary Gray's Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America; Mark Padilla's Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic; and Gloria Wekker's The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora. The essay aims to illuminate the epistemology of queer studies more broadly by focusing on a key paradox of ethnographic method: the binary of theory and data that is simultaneously made and unmade in ethnographic research and writing. In a newly transnational queer studies, ethnography …

The Man In The Text: Desire, Masculinity, And The Development Of Poe's Detective Fiction, Peter J. Goodwin

Peter J Goodwin

This article finds the kernel of Poe's detective fiction in his investigations into the construction of "gentlemanliness" that he began at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. As precursors to Poe's tales of ratiocination, "The Man That Was Used Up" and "The Man of the Crowd" train the reader not to expect a satisfying conclusion to the mystery surrounding masculinity that the author has woven. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the homoerotic desire to apprehend an integral masculine subject ends in frustration bordering on the absurd. In thus undermining the American ideal of masculinity as unified, integral, impenetrable, and fraternal, Poe …

Techniques Of Pleasure: Bdsm And The Circuits Of Sexuality, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Bondage And Barbeques, Margot D. Weiss

Margot Weiss