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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in American Studies

The Relevance Of Culture In Politics: The Application Of Cultural Studies Using The Strategic Culture Method, Elizabeth G. Wilson Dec 2014

The Relevance Of Culture In Politics: The Application Of Cultural Studies Using The Strategic Culture Method, Elizabeth G. Wilson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

American Studies scholars have long been aware that their interdisciplinary studies reach far beyond Americana. The fields of folklore, English, history, political science and anthropology have all been enveloped under the American Studies umbrella. Public perceptions tend to assume that scholars engaged in these fields are limited to work within academia.


Urban Pioneers: A Journey Through The Blurred Lines Of Authenticity Within Utah's Folk Music Revival, Jennifer J. Haertel May 2014

Urban Pioneers: A Journey Through The Blurred Lines Of Authenticity Within Utah's Folk Music Revival, Jennifer J. Haertel

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper has described the collection of oral histories as part of the Urban Pioneers research project started by folklorist Polly Stewart as a way to document the urban folk music revival in Utah during the 1950s-1960s. Additionally, this paper has detailed how the revival in Utah fit into context within the national movement, especially in terms of the search for authenticity by the majority of revivalists - including a thorough discussion of their own reexamination of experiences that led to an understanding that the authenticity they had been chasing had never existed to begin with.


Blackface Shakespeare: Racial And Gender Anxiety On The American Stage, Kristen Hutchings May 2014

Blackface Shakespeare: Racial And Gender Anxiety On The American Stage, Kristen Hutchings

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Early scholars of blackface minstrelsy have often over-simplified and rebuked nineteenth-century American Negro minstrel shows for their racially barbed gibes at African Americans. Though it recognizes minstrelsy’s blatant racism against the newly freed slaves of the 1860s, this study agrees with many modern scholars in recognizing deeper cultural themes Negro minstrels highlighted onstage during the years surrounding the Civil War. The study focuses specifically on the rich literary contribution of two afterpieces (the final act of the minstrel show) burlesquing Shakespeare’s Othello: Desdemonum and Othello; A Burlesque. Using the racist jargon as a tool, this study examines how …


The Infrastructure Of The Fur Trade In The American Southwest, 1821-1840, Hadyn B. Call May 2014

The Infrastructure Of The Fur Trade In The American Southwest, 1821-1840, Hadyn B. Call

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Careful study of the published history of the American Southwest reveals that historians have not provided a comprehensive analysis of the infrastructure that enabled the fur trade in the American Southwest to thrive. Analysis of that infrastructure unveils an amalgamation of blended characteristics derived from the French, British, and American systems along with characteristics derived from the Southwest’s own evolutionary development over time and space. This paper will detail and explain the shared characteristics of the Southwestern fur trade’s infrastructure, emphasizing the animals, people, depots, and supplies, during the era of the soft fur trade, which dealt primarily with beaver …


Individual Gains: A Personal History Of Learning, Writing, And Teaching, Nate Whipple May 2014

Individual Gains: A Personal History Of Learning, Writing, And Teaching, Nate Whipple

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This essay began as an attempt to understand my students. When I chose to write about the students in my writing classes, I was immersed in research for my thesis. The topic of my thesis at the time was higher education and reform in the United States. In general, voices from my research asserted, students in higher education are increasingly apathetic, lazy, negligent, and as a result are underachieving at a higher rate than ever before.