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Full-Text Articles in American Studies
Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, And Consumption In The Antebellum American Novel, Laura Jean Schrock
Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, And Consumption In The Antebellum American Novel, Laura Jean Schrock
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human "nature," newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the "organic angel," a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at …
The Crescent And The Cross: Islamic Influence In Southern Culture, Jesse Wright
The Crescent And The Cross: Islamic Influence In Southern Culture, Jesse Wright
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
To a large degree, America has adopted African American culture as its own. One may hear and see African American influence in popular music, grammar, fashion and art, but rarely are the sources of these influences divined, in no small part to difficulties inherent in interdisciplinary studies. This thesis will examine the Islamic aesthetics in African American quilts. This work focuses on design and color elements and I trace Islamic influence from West Africa to the U.S. South by way of the slave trade. The original scholarship comes from in the Mississippi Delta, although this thesis also uses quilt books …