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American Popular Culture Commons

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Full-Text Articles in American Popular Culture

When Language Fails: A Critical Analysis Essay Of Kathryn Stockett’S The Help:, Evan Mccreary Feb 2024

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.


Unraveling Ethos: The Commodification Of Ethical Clothing, Oliva Hanson Apr 2019

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 …


Apocalypse & Affect: Political Passivity In Film And Television Representations Of Nuclear Holocaust, W W. Rooks May 2016

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 May 2015

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 …


Mining The Meaning Of Collective Memory And Imagination: The Construction Of Identity In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Courtney Hooper May 2006

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 …