American Studies Commons^™

Unraveling Ethos: The Commodification Of Ethical Clothing, Oliva Hanson

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

In the last decade there has been a noticeable attempt to subvert traditional modes of clothing production. The recent emergence of “ethical consumption” in the fashion industry is a case in point. This project argues that these new formations and practices around ethical consumption are mere appropriations of anti-corporate politics and sentiments for consumers in the West. Signification of ethical consumption through language and cultural capital give more value to individual articles of clothing and branded entities. This reformation of the clothing industry towards an ethical attitude is a rebranding tactic that avoids the source-issue altogether. Through advertising and normalization …

Everything I Know About Gender I Learned From A Little Golden Book!, Chandler Clifford

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This feminist cultural intervention examines the power children’s literature has in its ability to interpellate its readers and normalize dominant gendered identities for them. It draws on the work of feminist theorists, such as bell hooks, Judith Butler, and Sandra Bem to interrogate the politics of gender and sexuality in The Little Golden Book series and to examine how the latter has actively worked to create specific cisnormative gender identities for its readers. In this project, Chandler Clifford shows how children’s literature is used as an ideological tool to teach children how gender is performed in the outside world and …

Through The Looking Glass: The Perpetuation Of Homelessness Through Awareness Media, Ashley Lauren Knight

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

The definition of who the homelessness are has historically been defined by media. This project performs a genealogical analysis influenced by the work Foucault has done in Madness and Civilization to contextualize the way different forms of media through the years has constructed the homeless stereotype we live with today. By zeroing in on awareness media that is produced by independent documentarians, it becomes apparent the goal is not to educate on the systemic issue of homelessness, but more so to create an empathy-based connection between the subject and the viewer. This paper argues that an empathy-based production is not …

Looking At People Watching People- A Comparative Approach Of American And British Advertising, Kyle Heger

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Advertising reaches millions of audiences every day, yet some of the most impactful ads only appear once, while other advertisements thrive in a world where audiences are most receptive to what the campaign is feeding to the masses. Spaces like the Super Bowl, ads created for the wonders of television are the bridge between artificial realism and situational experiences that most people can relate or aspire to, but what if one person’s experience is leaning towards misrepresentation? In this paper, I’ll be using media studies to dissect American advertising, through its construction of non-profit advertising and responding to the form …

Collective Political Action And Activism On Twitter: The Merits And Limitations Of The Framing Tactics And Strategies Of The 2018 National Prison Strike, Philip Wasserburg

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

The success of any collective political action relies heavily on public opinion. The leaders of these actions use framing techniques to optimize the reach of their message and convince broader portions of the population to sympathize with their cause. Today, most political conversations and debates about pressing social issues takes on social media platforms such as Twitter, which could be conceptualized as a virtual public sphere, where different individuals meet and discuss political events and issues as equally empowered citizens and active members of society. However, in practice, some individuals remain unable to participate in these discourses and conversations. Philip …

Female Filmmakers In The 1920s, Paige Brunsen

Honors Library Research Award

2018/2019 2nd place award winner. This paper explores the idea that the 1920s filmmaking "was recognized as an opportunity for big business, and women were pushed into the shadows with unfortunate long-lasting consequences." 13 pages.

Boys, Balls, And The Blues: The Erasure Of Genderqueer Bodies, Austin Mcgrath

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

The goal of this essay is to re-explore the concept of gender in its relation to genderqueer and nonbinary identities. Before its examination of the gender reveal party, this essay examines male and female, masculine and feminine, and man and woman, carefully critiquing and distinguishing biological sex from gender expression and gender identity using a Queer theoretical framework to contextualize these distinctions in relation to queer identities. Through a modern contextualization, linguistic analysis, and a critical media examination of gender reveal images and footage, this essay acknowledges and analyzes the heteronormative structures that reinforce gender binaries. It challenges the deployment …

A Man Went Looking For America And Couldn't Find It Anywhere: The Wanderer In On The Road And Easy Rider, Taylor Camara

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This paper analyzes the archetype of the wanderer as a cultural phenomenon in 1960s America starting with Jack Kerouac's On the Road as an embodiment of the Beat Generation and ending with Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) as an embodiment of sixties counterculture. Through this progression, On the Road's projection of the wanderer is found within the hobohero as a dissident nomadic figure, and Easy Rider's as a cosmic cowboy- a countercultural twist on an American icon. By analyzing these figures, the contradictory nature between rebellion and tradition meet as hobo-hero and cosmic cowboy reject societal norms in the search …

Theories Of Anzaldua And Fanon: The Battle Of Algiers To Black Lives Matter, Maren Carey

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Cultural theorists have analyzed and exposed many elements of culture that were otherwise out of plain sight. Two theorists, Gloria E. Anzaldua and Franz Fanon, that have done exceptional work attempting to shatter the norms of how concepts such as decolonization, violence and activism could truly work to create progress. Fanon discusses concepts of black existentialism in the early 20th century. He explores how difficult it is, primarily for people of color, to express and develop an identity within the structures of inequality embedded globally through colonization. Anzaldua, on the other hand, does similar work but through micro-cultural changes that …

A Scripted Approach To Violent Crime Coverage: How News Media Strikes Fear And Racializes Political Discourse, Mackenzie Crosson

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project analyzes the consolidation of crime coverage on the Chicago Tribune's digital platform with the aim to question the formulaic tendencies of news media as an institution. Specifically, the study examines the production of violent crime coverage in urban news media as following a particular "crime script" which, through the script's reliance on racial imagery in the form of mug shots, proliferates toxic correlations between the concepts 'black' and 'criminal.' Paired with elements of a political economic analysis, the project argues that this temp lated production of crime news mixed with news corporations' pursuit of profit ultimately works to …

Hip-Hop And Poetry: Listen To The Words, Jordan Dingle

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Hip-hop is a subculture that has become a major part of popular culture and heavily affects contemporary music, clothing, and media. The subculture initially started as a way for the historically oppressed to voice themselves and have a dialogue for social dilemmas that were relevant to them. Maintaining this voice of authenticity will become more difficult the larger and more commercialized Hip-hop becomes, thus it is important to identify mediums that are being used to express authenticity through discussion of social dilemmas in Hip-hop culture. This project identifies poetry as a medium that is used to display authenticity in Hip-hop …

Misrepresenting Climate Change: Deconstructing New Media Discourse Through The Case Study Of Hurricane Irma, Amy Dickens

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project uses critical discourse analysis to understand the relationship between U.S. news media coverage on natural disasters like Hurricane Irma and the ideological implications of that coverage. More specifically, in news media discourse, personification of natural disasters alienates humans from their actions, many of which are actively aiding in the advancement of anthropogenic climate change. By taking an in-depth look at how various factors come into play, like the humans vs. nature binary, the polarization of American politics around climate change, and various news media framings, the essay demonstrates that the personification of Irma is both the result of …

Hip-Hop's Influence On Stripper Culture: The Era Of Cardi B'S, Taylor Bell

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Twenty years ago the terms 'stripper' or 'exotic dancer' would have made heads turn. However, today feminist politics traditional negative stimga on strip culture is being challenged by the presence of the jhip-hop industry within the strip club space. With the emergence of former stripper Cardi B as well as discussions in American politics around former port star Stormy Daniles, it's clear that the way society thinks and interacts with strip culture is evolving away from the stereotypical negative one. 39 pages.

Speaking Within Subalternity: A Critical Analysis Of Performance Artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena And The Use Of Strategic Essentialism, Paola Martell

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project investigates the work of performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Pefia through a postcolonial discourse. This project will be looking at three of the artist's pieces and proposes that though seen as an abstract or avant-garde performer, Gomez-Pefia's these pieces provide a platform for the oppressed who cannot speak for themselves due to hegemony - the subaltern. In the context of Gomez-Pefia's performance art, this theory provides a postcolonial discourse on notions such as hybridity, borders, transculturalism, and other elements of identities found in lafrontera. Ultimately, this project finds that though the subaltern cannot speak, it is through Gomez-Pefia's use of …

Nonbinary Identities And The Self: A Contemporary Analysis Of Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Gender Identity, And Existentialism, Emily "Soren" Hodshire

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Although there has been extensive discourse about gender and the performativity of gender from scholars, there is little room for the language and existence for Non-binary identities in the material world. Through a reading and discourse analysis informed by both queer theory and existentialism, this project demonstrates that the film, Hedwig and The Angry Inch (2001) goes beyond disrupting gender binaries to giving up on gender binaries altogether, postulating the existence of a creative identity beyond male and female. This film is used as a case study to analyze and deconstruct gender on screen and how people read gender non-conforming …

At Risk Youths: Schools, Juvenile Delinquency, And The Prison Industrial Complex, Ashantia M. Day

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Juvenile delinquency has been a social issue for many decades. While much research has studied the deviant behaviors of the adolescent, little focus has been placed on the degree to which the school environment plays on delinquent behavior. The purpose of this project is to use schools as the subject to contextualize the !ink bet\"Jeen racia!ized criminalization and the disproportionate rate at which black youths are in contact with the Juvenile Justice System. This work will apply labeling theory, theories of academic tracking/grouping, use of analytic autobiography, critical race theory and a Marxist critique of capitalism to investigate the significant …

Apocalypse & Affect: Political Passivity In Film And Television Representations Of Nuclear Holocaust, W W. Rooks

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Within the expanding canon of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic film and television, this project studies the subgenre that makes use of nuclear holocaust as a narrative device or setting in order to understand how, rather than engaging audiences with the dire off-screen politics that inform such films, it imposes a sense of political passivity on its characters. Similarly imparted is an assumption of that same sense for the audience. In this way, the framing of modern apocalyptic narratives meet an “affective limitation,” which is a concept steeped in the examination of media as a potential tool to motivate political action (Massumi …

Ruin Porn And Urban Representation In Photography: The Aesthetic And Politics Of Appropriation In "The Ruins Of Detroit", Elyse Remenapp

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project examines the politics of representation in The Ruins of Detroit, a book of photography by Yves Marchand and Romaine Meffre in order to understand Detroit as a privileged site of ruins photography, critically referred to as ruin porn. Examining the book as a representation of Detroit's decay reveals an implicit power dynamic which neglects Detroit's complex history and the lived experience of its residents. Paying particular attention to the dialectic of race and labor under capitalism, this project traces the urban history of Detroit in order to contextualize and reframe the state of ruin presented in the …

Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Using notions from fan blogs and fan theory, this project analyzes the inconsistencies surrounding the phenomenon of so-called fangirls in the Doctor Who and One Direction worlds. The term fangirl is usually defined as an irrational adolescent female who is only a fan of very specific types of entertainment because of factors that are perceived by other fans as superficial and irrelevant. In contemporary music and television fandom, these fangirls are often criticized and policed by other fans, many times disregarded as not ‘true’ fans. The project studies this distorted perception and how it leads to misconceptions about the wider …

A Divine Inequality: Contextualizing Gender And Authority In Contemporary Mormon Feminism, Taylee Robinson Pardi

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project traces the decline of authority for Mormon women coupled with the rise of defined gender roles within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in order to contextualize contemporary Mormon feminism. Using a radical feminist analysis, this project will explore how contemporary Mormon women relate to their early Mormon sisters and the ways in which the culture and doctrine of Mormonism often converge, lending itself to a unique feminist perspective. This project argues that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as currently practiced, is not just inherently patriarchal, but un-egalitarian, and that contemporary …

When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

There is media concern that books about eating disorders are harmful to young readers. However, there is little research on how readers interpret the content of novels and memoirs featuring characters with eating disorders. This project considers the thinspiration images used as motivation to lose weight on so-called pro-ana and pro-mia social networks for people with eating disorders, and draws parallels between thinspiration and images used on the covers of eating disorder books. This paper uses a Gramscian lens to dismantle media claims by analyzing the interactions between members of eating disorder social networks, showing that website users tum to …

Contesting The Marginalization Of Female Leadership In Sports: The Struggle For Equal Opportunities In Men's Collegiate And Professional Basketball, Caitlain Tinker

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This feminist critique interrogates the discourses and practices of gender discrimination in men's professional and collegiate sporting institutions in the United States. This study focuses on delineating and 'naming' the discriminatory ideologies that are (re)produced by dominant social and cultural institutions, revealing in the process how these practices (over)determine gender equality in the professional and collegiate sporting field. To this end, I perform a post-structuralist discourse analysis of what Louis Althusser calls the dominant 'ideological state apparatuses,' namely schools, the media and sporting institutions. I argue that these institutions coalesce to form a network of power that produces, reproduces, and …

As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project argues that American daytime soap operas, since the1970s, have adopted prevailing discursive ideas of queerness, re-articulated them, and introduced new discursive understandings of queerness into popular culture. Most often, these re-articulated representations reflect a heteronormalized model,owing to myriad historically-situated discourses related to human sexuality (e.g.,mental health, AIDS, and gender identity). This point is made through a broad examination of these shifting discourses, coupled with a direct analysis of salient queer characters and storylines that appeared concurrently within daytime serials. Building on Feminist and Media theory, this project includes Queer theory to frame a comprehensive historical-discursive understanding of queerness …

Paradox On The Playa: Uncovering The Contradictions Embedded In Burning Man, Shelby Anne Rothman

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project examines the contradictions embedded in the stated goals and organizational structure of Burning Man. Burning Man is something that is portrayed as positive in an alternative community; but in reality has its own hegemony and hierarchical bureaucracy. Through a discourse analysis and participant observation, this project shows that the ideologies of the culture are partially liberatory while most other aspects of Burning Man are hegemonic. The social contradictions of Burning Man are pointed out through employing theories of ideology, hegemony, place and space, heteronormativity, and subculture theory.

Watch What You Eat: From Self-Surveillance To Affective Eating, Constance Calice

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

How is it that Americans are so obsessed with nutrition and dieting and yet remain unhealthy? This project attempts to give a theoretically driven answer to this great paradox within the Western diet. Constance Calice analyzes the practice and rhetoric of dieting as a crystallization of a problematic relationship to food using a Foucauldian understanding of discipline. Using examples from the media, she illustrates the way in which outside forces effect our food choices and the power relationships formed in this exchange. To offer an alternative view to nutritionism she looks to the Local Food Movement and affect theory to …

Mining The Meaning Of Collective Memory And Imagination: The Construction Of Identity In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Courtney Hooper

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project illuminates the relationship between cultural resistance, cultural production, and cultural identity in the poetry of Puerto Ricans in New York (“Nuyoricans”). Through textual analysis, informal interviews, and participant observation conducted in the South Bronx, this project is interested in how the descriptions of the island as “home” are used to mediate a cultural or ethnic identity, particularly amongst a people who do not live there, or perhaps never have. While the construction of an ethnic identity and a conceptual homeland in a diasporic community has been studied in past research, the intention here is to elaborate upon the …

Filmmakers In Conversation, William Friedkin, Buck Henry, Melvin Van Peebles, Anthony Loeb

Conversation With

Several of these conversations were published in monograph form, available on this website. However, three conversations with William Friedkin, Buck Henry, and Melvin Van Peebles appear here for the first time in this 1982 publication.

Other conversations include John Cassavetes, Joan Tewkesbury, Steve Shagan, and Bill Butler. The publication was edited by Anthony Loeb, then chair of the Film Department, Columbia College Chicago. 135 pages.

Southern African Network Newsletter, Columbia College Chicago

Lisa Brock Collection

South Africa Network newsletter about the decision to disband SART as the goal of this organization was successfully met, and the change of name from SART to SAN, the Southern African Network, along with a list of its goals.

Stop The Apartheid Rugby Tour (Sart) Rally Flyer, Columbia College Chicago

Lisa Brock Collection

Announcement of a September 12 rally in Chicago against the South African rugby team playing a match in Chicago. Speakers at the rally include: Gus Savage, Danny Davis, Lew Myers, Dennis Brutus, Joan Elbert, and Harold Rogers.

Stop The Apartheid Rugby Tour (Sart)/Chicago, Lisa Brock

Lisa Brock Collection

Press release about the Springboks South African rugby team tour to New Zealand, that was met with a large social protest by HALT (Halt All Racists Tours) and calling for awareness and support for the Chicago protest rally against the South African team on September 12, 1981.