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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Scarico: It’S Only A Movie, Most Of The Time, Thomas Nelson Dec 2022

Scarico: It’S Only A Movie, Most Of The Time, Thomas Nelson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exploitation cinema is a domain of motion picture content catering to a viewership interested in imagery that is more provocative than what mainstream audiences desire to see. These types of films are typically considered lowbrow entertainment and have been made in every era, albeit in a limited capacity proportional to the niche audience demand for them. Some time periods see a rise in exploitation film productions in response to a growing demand for such content from a larger share of the broader cinematic audience. This relationship indicates that period-specific cultural factors can cause mainstream audience members to seek out more …


Election Day — Documentary, John Thomas Tarpley Jul 2020

Election Day — Documentary, John Thomas Tarpley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Election Day is a three-channel documentary chronicling the places, personalities, and tone of Little Rock, Arkansas, during its titular midterm Election Day in November 2018. Throughout the course of the day, the film branches across the city, capturing mini-narratives, bits of conversation, and tableau of civic activity in the public sphere. It is less concerned with the quantitative facts of the day as it is with conveying the transitory social expressions and moods of a modern, southern city on a uniquely American day. This project represents my continued documentary interest in creating inclusive, contemporary local portraits and counter-historical chronicles of …


Reactions To Gulf War I And Gulf War Ii In American And Iraqi Cinema And Theatre: The Quest For A Global Utopia, Tajaddin Salahaddin Noori May 2020

Reactions To Gulf War I And Gulf War Ii In American And Iraqi Cinema And Theatre: The Quest For A Global Utopia, Tajaddin Salahaddin Noori

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many American and Iraqi cultural reactions to Gulf War I and Gulf War II, including the texts selected for this story, expressed the dystopian consequences of these wars. However, this study focuses on exploring the utopian dimensions of the selected texts and investigates how these texts attempt to reconcile both sides of the conflict and produce visions toward a global utopia. Significantly, this study represents the visions toward a global utopia as a series of visions toward oneness. That is, oneness of human beings over otherness, oneness of different nation states under one global community, and oneness of cultural productions’ …


Intersectionality In Jane Eyre And Its Adaptations, Laurel Loh May 2015

Intersectionality In Jane Eyre And Its Adaptations, Laurel Loh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the almost 170 years since Jane Eyre was published, there have been numerous adaptations in many different mediums and genres, such as plays, films, musicals, graphic novels, spin-off novels, and parodies. The novel has been read in many different critical traditions: liberal humanist, historicist, feminist, and postcolonial approaches dealing with topics such as the problem of female authorship and consciousness. In addition, it has been read in terms of an ideological struggle based on race, class, and gender; xenophobia and imperialism; female labor politics; and genre issues, to just name a few. As literary critics have explored numerous themes …


Monsters In Common: Identity And Community In Postapocalyptic Science Fiction After 9/11, Jeremy J. Burns Dec 2014

Monsters In Common: Identity And Community In Postapocalyptic Science Fiction After 9/11, Jeremy J. Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the aftermath 11 September, 2001, postapocalyptic science fiction has offered a way to make sense of the events of that day, as well as the years of social, cultural and political upheaval that have followed. In many ways, 9/11 began immediately to take on apocalyptic significance in the American national narrative, seemingly marking the end of one period and the beginning of another, entirely different one. To think of 9/11 as a kind of apocalyptic break with the past, however, does not tell the whole story. Moreover, such thinking denies key historical linkages between the American response to 9/11 …


Happily Ever After Take Two: Rewriting Femininity In Hybridization Fairy Tale Films, Megan Estelle Troutman May 2012

Happily Ever After Take Two: Rewriting Femininity In Hybridization Fairy Tale Films, Megan Estelle Troutman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The tradition of fairy tales has evolved drastically over the past five hundred years. At the beginning of the 20th century, fairy tale cartoons became widely popular as an independent medium, as well as introductions to larger films. In 1937, Walt Disney started the tradition of fairy tale cinema with the release of Snow White. Since that time, Disney has released and re-released eleven princess fairy tale films. Critics and parents alike ridicule Disney for its depictions of women as submissive and subservient. Recent films have used fairy tale tropes, without referring to a specific classic tale, in order to …