American Studies Commons^™

Placemaking And Placewashing In Manhattan's Chinatown: Capitalist Vs. Community Interests, Mary Chu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the late 1890s, there have been internal and external placemakers in Manhattan’s Chinatown. They take the form of city government, real estate developers, and community organizations vying for space, and seeking to define what this neighborhood should be, for whom it should serve, and how it should look. Sometimes these would-be placemakers operate with neoliberal goals and overt orientalist and/or racist views. They push those narratives through via media representations and as a tactic to attract tourism, but with little regard for how it affects the community. In this work, I examine connections between historic ideas of placemaking and …

The Four Seasons: Integrating The Big Four Sports, Joseph S. Brody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After World War II, even though many African Americans served their country, policies of segregation were rampant throughout the United States of America. The aim of this Capstone is two-fold. First, to shed light on the men who followed the path of Jackie Robinson and give them their due. The most appropriate way to convey my research of these four athletes was by putting them all in the same fictional setting and discussing their trials and tribulations that made them the men they were in their day. Second, I want to highlight the many things I found in my research …

Shut Up And Dribble: The Political Contradictions Of Black Masculinity In Sports, Isaiah Rogers

Master's Theses

"Shut Up and Dribble: The Political Contradictions of Black Masculinity in Sports" is a comprehensive analysis of literature and case studies that explore the regulation and representation of the black masculine body within sports. This thesis investigates three primary themes—sport, protest, and black masculinity—and seeks to uncover the evolution of various black masculine figures and their endeavors toward racial inclusivity. By analyzing sports literature, this work examines the experiences of five significant black athletes, including Jack Johnson, Ron Artest, and Colin Kaepernick, to illustrate how sports environments police the black body. Additionally, this thesis emphasizes two archetypes of black masculinity: …

Mixed Feelings: The Emotional Appeals Of Zitkala-Ša’S American Indian Stories, Kayla Joan Baur

Publications and Research

Zitkala-Ša (Lakota: Zitkála-Šá, meaning Red Bird) was among the first to write about the experiences of Native American children in the U.S. Indian boarding school program to an English-speaking audience. As a writer and political activist, Zitkala-Ša uses emotional appeals and cultural ideas she learned through her white education to expose the very boarding school institutions that taught her. In American Indian Studies (1921), Zitkala-Ša critiques the violence that the Indian boarding school system inflicts on young Native Americans. She presents these critiques through emotional appeals that take two forms: one, a more traditional sentimental appeal associated with middle-class white …

The Black Press And Late Imperial Russia, Benjamin Pierce

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

For centuries, western observers had looked to Russia and seen a place fundamentally different from their home countries. In their accounts, Russia was distinctly oppressive, a state characterized by tyranny, barbarism, and Mongolian influence. But these accounts were faulty. They were written by merchants, diplomats, and explorers, wealthy white men who had never experienced the kind of repression they witnessed in Russia. When Black Americans looked to Russia, however, they saw a place fundamentally similar to the United States. Both countries were large, multiethnic empires driven by territorial acquisition and fueled by forced labor. By tracing the coverage of Russia …

Book Review: Something In The Water: A History Of Music In Macon, Georgia, 1823-1980, Timothy Cole Hale

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

“Beating Back The Past”: The Psychological Justifications Of Violence In Toni Morrison’S Fiction, Catherine Buhse

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the traumatic experiences that consume characters’ lives and, in the absence of psychological healing efforts, manifest into violent actions in Toni Morrison’s three novels The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Beloved. I focus on the gendered experience of the female characters Pecola, Sula, Eva, and Sethe, except for the male character, Cholly in The Bluest Eye. Focusing on Morrison’s humanization of violent characters and her sharing of their full life stories, I establish the characters’ internal justifications for their violence to challenge the accepted depiction of all criminals as evil. The three chapters follow the manifestation of trauma …

Writing, Performance, Resistance: Examining Feminist Ideology And Theory In Theatre Since The Second Wave, Olivia Cross

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to identify and analyze how feminist theatre is informed by theory and activism in its resistance against white, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemony offstage through onstage representation. By identifying three consistent themes of gender & sexuality, race, and trauma and the methods used to effectively convey them to an audience, feminist theatre displays how advocacy takes unique forms to uproot the status quo. Furthermore, this research highlights how theatre is a viable and rich outlet for feminist intellectual history, displaying its versatility as a frame of analysis.

Lessons On Racism: The Senior Prom At The Elks Club, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Gut-Brain Axis On Alzheimer’S Disease, Elissa Wakim

Best Integrated Writing

Elissa’s review for the Graduate Biomedical Review focuses on the links between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain; the gut-brain axis and the development of Alzheimer’s disease. As a student in the Microbiology and Immunology Masters Program Elissa was particularly interested in the gut microbiota and their connection to neurodegenerative disease. She tidily reviewed the literature and wrote a fascinating and compelling piece of work.

Best Integrated Writing 2024 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University. This is the first issue after a 5 year hiatus.

Gender And Orality In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Nessa Ordukhani

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This essay explores the intersection of postmodernism and multiculturalism in Toni Morrison's novel, Song of Solomon. It delves into the destabilization of historical metanarratives by postmodernism through the theories of Jean-François Lyotard, which challenges the notion of a singular truth and questions who constructs popular historical narratives. The essay discusses the role of the victors, particularly white males, in shaping history and the process of legitimation through which historical facts are determined. It examines how Morrison's novel offers an alternative history that highlights African American perspectives and challenges the dominant white narrative. Additionally, the essay explores the tension between multiculturalism …

Ix Jornadas Internacionales De Textiles Precolombinos Y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference On Pre-Columbian And Amerindian Textiles [Volumen Completo / Complete Volume]

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Comité Científico – Scientific Committee : Lena Bjerregaard, Arabel Fernández, Carolina Orsini, Ann Peters, Victòria Solanilla / Secretaría Científica – Scientific Secretary : Federica Villa

Milan, 19-22 octubre de 2022: Textiles arqueológicos de los Andes centrales – Archaeological textiles from the Central Andes / Textiles arqueológicos de los Andes sur - Archaeological textiles from the Southern Andes / Iconografía y simbolismo - Iconography and Symbolism / Estudios de colecciones - Collection Studies/ Conservación – Conservation / Textiles etnográficos - Ethnographic Textiles

Marina Pugliese / Carolina Orsini / Federica Villa / Daniela Biermann / Amy Oakland / Lizbeth Pariona, Carlos Rengifo …

When Language Fails: A Critical Analysis Essay Of Kathryn Stockett’S The Help:, Evan Mccreary

Black Album Mixtape

A critical analysis essay of Kathryn Stockett's New York Times Bestselling book, The Help, and it's subsequent film adaptation, and how in recent years, particularly following the murder of George Floyd, the story has been used as a classroom tool for teaching students about racism and its effects. Written by a Black student in a primarily white school community, this essay was written as an antithesis to the ideology that the book and movie exceed their intended intentions of being a beneficial teaching tool to youth.

Cinema And Ritual: Decolonial Feminist Approaches To Image-Making In The Americas And The Caribbean, Natalie M. Erazo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis project is composed of an open-access syllabus hosted on a CUNY commons site, as well as a paper that examines various films and texts responding to the theme of cinema and ritual. Referenced films will focus on ritual as a decolonial feminist methodological framework, rooted primarily in Afro-descended and Indigenous cosmovisions within Latin America and the Caribbean. From a dance ritual spell warding off U.S. imperialism in present-day Puerto Rico, to a poetic visual eulogy for murdered women in rural Mexico, to a community prayer to Yemaya bringing relief for water scarcity in Cuba to a cautionary tale …

Rafael Cortijo’S Space Music: Sounds Of Caribbean Blackness, Marissel Hernandez-Romero

Third Stone

Black Puerto Rican musician Rafael Cortijo (1928-1982) is a key feature in Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American music. He is one of the few musicians celebrated internationally for his skills as a percussionist, orchestra leader, and composer. Despite this, his music is often described as as ‘noise’, or at least that was my memory growing up in a predominantly white community in Puerto Rico. This article proposes and theorizes the existence of a Hispanic Caribbean Space Music emerging at the same time of the Afrofuturist movement and to which Rafael Cortijo makes a great contribution. By doing this, I …

The Black American Revolution: The American Revolution As Experienced By African Americans, Amy Kurian

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper focuses on how the American Revolution mobilized the enslaved and free black population in a way that constitutes a "Black American Revolution." In particular, the enslaved population engaged in multiple efforts for freedom, ranging from fighting in the Revolutionary War to writing petitions to state legislatures. First, I present how the "slavery metaphor" propagated by white Loyalists indicates the inherent differences in how the white and black populations experienced the Revolution. There is an overall discussion of the various methods the enslaved used in their attempts to gain freedom: military service, slave petitions, freedom suits, and escape. I …

Death, Dreaming, And Diaspora: Achieving Orientation Through Afro-Spirituality, Liz Johnston, Jaime Elizabeth Johnston

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Enslavement, colonization, and the systems that uphold racial injustice were and still are a series of new, unfathomable, and challenging experiences that prompt individuals within the diaspora to seek orientation. How does a human cope with centuries of attempts at the systematic destruction of their humanity, culture, and identity? How can they reclaim that identity, especially when so much of it seems lost? I address these questions by utilizing texts from the expansive body of work regarding ethnographic-historical-religious studies on Afro-spiritual practices to better analyze instances in literature in the ongoing practice of diasporic orientation. In this project, I argue …

Double Consciousness, Mirrors, And The Children Within Them: A Conceptual Reading Of W. E. B. Du Bois's "As The Crow Flies", Adeline Navarro

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This research essay argues that W. E. B. Du Bois’s Crow from his magazine column “As the Crow Flies” is a figurative device for double consciousness and examines how aspects of double consciousness are present in the frequent motifs of dialectic doubleness in the column. Drawing from scholar Rudine Sims Bishop, this essay explores how the Crow functions as a mirror that children can use to realize their own double consciousness and thus see themselves. This insight into Du Bois’s news column provides a further understanding of the significance of accessible, multicultural children’s literature.

Women, Animals, Food: Planetary Perspectives On The Non-(Hu)Man, Samu/Elle Striewski

Comparative Woman

The paper comparatively reads Mahasweta Devi’s Pterodactyl, Pirtha, and Puran Sahay (1995) and Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (2009) to trace the ways in which both novels show the complex intertwinement of the climate crisis with gender, class, race, subalternity, anthropocentrism, and veganism. Bringing together Gayatri C. Spivak’s notion of “planetarity” with ecofeminist philosophy and literary criticism, the article proposes a planetary ecogender reading of the two texts and their representation of the non-man, non-human, and non-subject. Building up further on Jacques Derrida’s critique of carno-phallogocentrism, the pedagogy of a relational ethics of “nurturing” is hence presented …

Portada E Información Editorial / Frontmatter And Editorial Information

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Covers - Cubiertas; Contents - Contenido; Programme – Programa; Asociaciones Sponsors; Words from Director – Palabras de la directora ▪ Marina Pugliese; Preface – Prólogo ▪ Carolina Orsini, Federica Villa ; Photos from the workshop - Fotos del taller; Links to recorded sessions online @ Youtube - Enlaces a sesiones grabadas en línea @ Youtube

Estrategias Posibles Para La Protección De Las Memorias Y Patrimonios Textiles De La Región Huasteca De México, Claudia Rocha Valverde

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

México es un país que cuenta con importantes saberes históricos que han implicado el uso, intercambio y confección de sistemas indumentarios de poderoso valor simbólico y estético relacionado a cosmovisiones indígenas. Este tipo de saberes colectivos guardan una serie de conocimientos tecnológicos, además de complejos repertorios figurativos entre otros. Más allá de su compleja riqueza estética, los textiles tradicionales implican procesos de vida en los que las agentes primordiales han sido las mujeres a lo largo de la historia. En los últimos tres años de manera sistemática en México se han exhibido casos de plagio de elementos textiles que evidencian …

Túnicas Masculinas A Fines Del Horizonte Medio En La Costa Sur Central Del Perú, No Uno Sino Varios Estilos, Rommel Angeles Falcón

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Las excavaciones arqueológicas en Huaca Malena (valle bajo de Asia), en la costa sur central del Perú, han permitido recuperar una importante cantidad de textiles procedentes de tumbas y de contextos secundarios de fines del período Horizonte Medio (Siglos VIII-XI d.C.). Destaca la variedad de túnicas o uncus que permiten visualizar la vestimenta masculina de la época y conocer aspectos de su tecnología, iconografía y de las relaciones inter-regionales que se dieron durante el estado wari.

Archaeological excavations at Huaca Malena (lower Asia valley), on the south central coast of Peru, have allowed the recovery of a significant amount of …

Textiles De La Cultura Nasca Del Proyecto Arqueológico Nasca-Palpa Al Sur Del Perú, Daniela Biermann

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Los textiles excavados por el proyecto arqueológico Nasca-Palpa en el Departamento de Ica provienen de dos asentamientos y un sitio sagrado cerca de la ciudad moderna de Palpa. En base a los datos arqueológicos se clasifican los textiles en varios rasgos de la cultura Nasca (200 aC – 650 d.C.): Los asentamientos fueron habitados permanentemente durante un largo período y, además, periódicamente, fueron utilizados como cementerios. Los hallazgos textiles son de tumbas de diferentes periodos, formas y sectores de los asentamientos. Paralelamente se trata por primera vez de textiles de capas compactas de áreas habitadas y además de todas las …

Knot Anomalies On Inka Khipus: Revising Locke’S Knot Typology, Sabine Hyland

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

In 2007, in the IV Actas de las Jornadas Internacionales sobre Textiles Precolombinos, Kylie Quave noted the existence of various structural anomalies in khipus presumed to date to the Late Horizon. These anomalies included the use of non-cotton vegetal fibres, the inclusion of single red strings, subsidiary cords that are plied through rather than half hitched, and the placement of long knots and figure-8 knots “in a way that precludes a numerical reading”. Since Quave’s article, there has been little examination of such anomalies, nor have scholars known whether such anomalies were to be found in khipus that had …

Estudio De Un Grupo De Chuspas De La Huaca Malena, Lourdes Chocano Mena

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

El presente trabajo es la investigación de un grupo de chuspas provenientes del cementerio de la Huaca Malena. El objetivo fue analizar técnicamente aspectos de su elaboración e iconografía descubriendo así las características comunes que compartían, como los rasgos diferentes entre ellas. A simple vista este conjunto de chuspas puede parecer muy heterogéneo, sin embargo, existen algunos elementos que se comparten transversalmente, por ejemplo: la fibra, los colores y el ligamento textil, sin embargo, hay otros elementos diferentes creando sub tipos dentro del conjunto, por ejemplo: la forma, las dimensiones, la rotación de las urdimbres y los acabados. El proceso …

Equivalencias Entre La Indumentaria De Mesoamérica Y De La Zona Andina, Victòria Solanilla Demestre

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Al igual que en Jornadas anteriores presenté signos comunes en los textiles, mi interés sigue siendo buscar paralelismos y/o significados parecidos o iguales entre las dos principales zonas culturales de América precolombina: Mesoamérica y la Zona Andina, ya que creo firmemente que hubo contactos entre ellas. En esta ocasión trataré el tema de las equivalencias en las indumentarias, que creo necesitará igualmente diferenciarlas fuentes de información, como hice en anteriores ocasiones. En Mesoamérica, es preceptiva la consulta de las fuentes escritas; y en este caso las dibujadas, pues serán las principales. Además, recurriremos al estudio de las figurillas de arcilla …

Festones En Pequeñas Vestimentas De Enterratorios De Altura (Capacocha), Verónica Cereceda Bianchi

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

Los festones son bordados exteriores que se incorporan en prendas ya terminadas en un telar. En el presente texto intentamos un análisis de este tipo de terminaciones que circundaba las vestimentas de pequeñas estatuitas en esos importantes rituales de sacrificios infantiles que son las capacocha. Por la cantidad de reglas que implicaba su elaboración, tanto en lo que se refiere a su ubicación como en la sintaxis de su organización cromática, es posible considerarlos como verdaderos códigos que cumplían sus mensajes de comunicación y sus posibles poderes rituales, a partir de angostas listas de diferentes colores, sin necesidad de utilizar …

Las Tapicerías Del Sitio Topater En El Contexto De Los Textiles Del Formativo Medio (500 A.C.-100 D.C.) En Atacama, Soledad Hoces De La Guardia Chellew, Ana María T. Rojas Zepeda

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

El presente trabajo expone un conjunto excepcional de piezas en técnica de tapicería encontrados en el cementerio de Topater, cercano al rio Loa, ubicado en el desierto de Atacama, Norte de Chile. Estos tejidos, objeto de investigaciones previas (Agüero 2000; Cases 2000; Sinclaire 2001), en conjunto con los anillados y los textiles con afelpados de mecha, constituyen la base de caracterización técnica del sitio. Las nuevas condiciones de almacenaje y reciente procesamiento de este material han permitido abarcar la totalidad de los textiles en tapicería, profundizando un estudio técnico estructural y de sistemas de representación asociados para desde allí replantear …

Proceso De Retejido, Por Medio De Cordeles De Papel Japonés, En Una Bolsa Procedente De La Cueva De La Candelaria, Torreón, Coahuila, México, Miriam Elizabeth Castro Rodríguez, Gloria Martha Sánchez Valenzuela, Orlando Martínez Zapata

IX Jornadas Internacionales de Textiles Precolombinos y Amerindianos / 9th International Conference on Pre-Columbian and Amerindian Textiles, Museo delle Culture, Milan, 2022.

La Cueva de la Candelaria, es una cueva mortuoria fechada entre el 1100 y 1300 d.C. (Aveleyra 2010) dónde se depositaron los cuerpos de grupos de cazadores recolectores junto con los bienes que les habían pertenecido en vida. Gracias a sus condiciones de cueva seca se lograron conservar y rescatar una gran variedad de artefactos elaborados con fibras semiduras de agavaceas como son los objetos de cordelería (redes, bolsas, cuerdas). Debido al deterioro natural de las fibras y los generados durante el contexto de enterramiento como son los lixiviados de los cuerpos, desarrollo de microorganismos, acciones de insectos y animales …