Cultural History Commons^™

Silent Subversions, Derek Dubois

Derek M Dubois

Explores the concept of spectatorship in relation to gender in the earliest period of film history in the United States known as the silent era. Argues that a new mode of spectatorship emerges for women during the 1920s, which employs to advantage the extra-diegetic components of spectacle in theater design, new customized genres for female filmgoers, fandom, and exotic male film stars, such as Rudolph Valentino. Focuses primarily on feminist film theory and on cultural studies as methodological models.

A Pacific Island Collection In Rhode Island, Terence Hays, Mary Conaway, Susan Yeaw

Terence Hays

Collections of artifacts and specimens from Pacific Island cultures are found throughout Rhode Island. The largest and most systematically collected is in the Museum of Natural History in Roger Williams Park, Providence. The items were acquired by Rhode Island citizens over about a 150 year period from the early 1800's to the 1950's. They are from the 3 culture areas of the Pacific: Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. All form of matter including wood, shell, fiber, bone and skin, ivory, pottery, stone, and human hair are part of the artifact assemblage. The specimens (not studied for this project) include birds, lava, …

White Snake, Black Snake Folk Narrative Meets Master Narrative In Qing Dynasty Sichuanese Cross-Stitch Medallions, Cory Willmott

Cory A. Willmott

The cross-stitch medallion in figure 1 was collected by my grandmother, Katherine Willmott, in the early 1920s when she was a missionary in Renshow, Sichuan Province, West China. Many years after I inherited it, I learned that it depicts a folk narrative called “White Snake; Black Snake” that was traditionally performed both on stage in the legitimate theaters and in Chinese shadow puppet dramas (Highbaugh n/d:6).

The story may be summarized as follows: There were two female snakes, White Snake and Black Snake, who were inseparable friends. They both changed into beautiful young women. White Snake got married and bore …

“Don't Call Me A Student-Athlete”: The Effect Of Identity Priming On Stereotype Threat For Academically Engaged African American College Athletes, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

Academically engaged African American college athletes are most susceptible to stereotype threat in the classroom when the context links their unique status as both scholar and athlete. After completing a measure of academic engagement, African American and White college athletes completed a test of verbal reasoning. To vary stereotype threat, they first indicated their status as a scholar-athlete, an athlete, or as a research participant on the cover page. Compared to the other groups, academically engaged African American college athletes performed poorly on the difficult test items when primed for their athletic identity, but they performed worse on both the …

The Paradox Of Gender Among West China Missionary Collectors, 1920-1950, Cory A. Willmott

Cory A. Willmott

During the turbulent years between the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 and the communist victory of 1949, a group of missionaries lived and worked in West China whose social gospel theologies led to unusual identification with Chinese. Among the regular social actors in their lives were itinerant “curio men” who, amidst the chaos of feuding warlords, gathered up the heirlooms of the deposed Manchurian aristocracy and offered these wares for sale on the quiet and orderly verandahs of the mansions inside the missionary compounds of West China Union University. Although missionary men and women often collected the same types of …