African American Studies Commons^™

Manifesting The End Of Amerikkkan Theatre: Black Theatre’S Healing Power To Eradicate Anti-Blackness, R'Myni Watson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the potential of Black Theatre as a catalyst for healing anti-Blackness within American theatre. Acknowledging the limitations of systemic change, this study advocates for incremental shifts within communities to combat ingrained racial biases through narrative change and theatrical exploration. Grounded in the theory of Black Theatre's energy force, Nommo, the study proposes the framework of Acknowledge, Dismantle, Re-Educate to address and eradicate anti-Blackness. Through directing the production of Blood at the Root, incorporating Black Theatre methodologies atop eurocentric foundations, this research documents the healing experienced by participants and audiences. Key findings reveal increased community engagement, support, awareness, …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

For What Is A Man?: Towards Languaging Contemporary Dance In A Black, Queer, Male-Presenting Body, Thomas Ford

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines Queering Blackness: Solo on a Theme of Reconciliation, a performance event that invokes movement, spoken text, projections and sound to explore the mechanisms of identity. Engaging performance, Black, queer and dance studies, the paper contextualizes cultural identity markers, towards an understanding of what it means to be Black, queer and male-assigned in Black spaces.

The Black Performer's Toolbox: A Critical Authoethnography, Laura D. Oliver

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Blackness shines bright like the moon and beams outside of identity parameters that are limiting in Western society to determine its communicative function inside and outside systems of power. When Blackness intersects with performance, various ways to construct identity are highlighted to expand our understanding of theory and methods that emphasize difference and culture. This research project aims to reimagine Blackness as a performance methodology to explore the performer’s livelihood onstage and constructions of race that impact identity offstage. Additionally, this project is built from a specific method created from the continuous use of expressive work that reflects societal challenges …

Ua68/17/1 Wku Dance: Creating | Thinking | Artists, Wku Theatre & Dance

WKU Archives Records

Newsletter by and about the WKU Dance Program. Articles:

• Dance on the Hill
• Potter College of Arts & Letters Collaborations
• Guest Speakers: Naila Ansari, Shyama Iyer, Jill Flanders
• Guest Artists: Tyler Gilstrap
• WinterDance
• Last Chance to Dance
• National Dance Education Organization

Homage To Eleanora: A Musical Journey Through The Billie Holiday Songbook, Keith A. Dames

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Billie Holiday was a singer, songwriter, vocalist, bandleader and composer in the fields of music, black culture and more specifically the genre of jazz. The primary focus of this study is Billie Holiday’s discography, music, and compositions as treated in relation to the black culture of production. This study will explore a secondary content analysis of Billie Holiday’s music, musicianship, musicality and compositional skills within the American jazz mainstream, broader jazz audience and world at large. This project will take an analytical look at the structure and form of the compositions of Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday is credited with composing …

'My Name Is Peaches': Black Women's Affect In The Blues Biomyth, Taylor C. Scott

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For this project, I am interested in the study of nuanced self-representations of Black rage that appear within African American literary traditions, specifically the blues aesthetic, wherein artists narrativize a wide spectrum of intelligent and specific emotion--not just melancholy. Blues narratives in which Black people self-represent are in direct opposition to flattened narratives of certain affective modes such as anger as a useless, backwards, pathologized, and flat feeling that appear within dominant U.S. and global iconographies. What I see in the blues aesthetic is the capacity for a multichromatic approach to studying rage and Black authorship in America. By using …

Healing Through Mother Earth, Taylor A. Russell

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis deals with mental health, with a focus on Black women. Historically, Black women are often so compromised, being constant caregivers and helping everyone else, that they forget to help themselves, not having the time and financial means to do so. If we go back in the time of slavery, many Black women were taking care of slave owners' children and suckling the white women’s babies instead of their own. By the time they got home and after diligently caring for other people’s children they were focused on their own children, who they had been away from for hours …

Getting Back: The Chiffons’ Sonic Reclamation, Hilarie Ashton

Publications and Research

Sixties girl group the Chiffons are famous for their soaring 1964 hit “He’s So Fine,” a song in turn remembered almost as often for its plagiarism by George Harrison than in its own right. Much of the rest of their catalogue, including the tremendous “I Have a Boyfriend,” gets shunted into historical and critical gaps that paint rock music history as controlled by men. In this article, I examine the Chiffons in their own right, reframing a story of well-worn sonic theft to center on the group it obscured, through and alongside interpretative contradictions, assumptions, and historical lacunae. I show …

Black Codes Re-Envisioned: The Dred Scott Majority Opinion As An Antiblack Performative Speech Act., Tiffany Dillard-Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a discursive analysis of the decision in the Dred Scott v Sandford, 1857 case written by Chief Justice Roger Taney. It begins with an overview of the literature on performative speech acts, focusing on the aspects of performatives that relate to Louis Miron and Jonathan Xavier Inda’s thesis that race is a performative speech act. Breaking from their use of race as the analytic, this analysis is situated within a black/nonblack paradigm. This provides a framework that focuses on the unique ways in which the discourse of the text enacts, accumulates and renders blackness fungible. The …

Aloof: Black Divas Of Refusal, Kwame K. Ocran

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Aloof: Black Divas of Refusal” studies performers Lena Horne and Billie Holiday as the progenitors of a new tradition of authentic representation of Black female interiority in the entertainment arts. As interiority denotes the wide-ranging amalgamation of human expression, these divas equipped themselves with a sense of refusal and aloofness to strategically posture themselves in conditions that suited their personal predilections best and considered their status as representatives of the Black community. Lena Horne’s evolution as an aloof diva successfully saw the singer and actress escape classist thought of racial uplift to the full embracing of the totality of Black …

Dancing Through Time: A Biographical Look On The Evolution Of Tap Dance, Jaimie Cranford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A uniquely American art form, tap dance has often been misrepresented and under-appreciated when positioned alongside other dance forms. This is largely due to the form’s racialized history, which builds upon contributions from African-American culture. Unlike other dance forms, which stem from white European traditions, tap dance evolved out of a necessity for cultural preservation as enslaved Africans adapted to life in America. As tap dance evolved, its association with slave culture led to it not being taken seriously; if anything, tap dancers were viewed simply as “entertainers” – certainly not as artists. Using a biographical lens, this work looks …

“Beychella:” Beyoncé’S Homecoming To A Futuristic Queer Utopian, Jolie V. Brownell

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance and 2019 Homecoming film set the stage for a radical Black queer reimagining. Yet, how can Beyoncé—who is straight—be located within a queer critique? In this paper, I argue that through a radical and political expansion of queer, the creative deployment of dis/identification, and the unapologetic expression of the erotic, Beyoncé performs an embodiment of queer of color critique. These creative gestures within “Beychella” invite viewers into a queer futuristic utopian and provide new creative modes to politically inhabit, resist, and reimagine interlocking systems of oppression.

Keywords: Beyoncé, queer, dis/identification, erotic, QoCC, …

Sonic Femininity: The Ronettes' Transgressive Gender Performance, Hilarie Ashton

Publications and Research

Iconic sixties girl group the Ronettes are frequently (and justly) celebrated for anchoring the Wall of Sound and inspiring the Beatles, but in their own right, they transgressed social, gendered expectations in revolutionary ways. Framed by a notion I call the sonic feminine, a recuperative theoretical space for the revolutionarily transgressive work of female and femme artists, I argue that the Ronettes, and lead singer Ronnie Spector in particular, enacted a kind of cultural rebellion: they crafted their images to made-up heights that tease the boundaries of drag across the spaces of the stage, the recording studio, the bathroom, and …

Recalling The (Afro)Future: Collective Memory And The Construction Of Subversive Meanings In Janelle Monáe’S Metropolis-Suites, Anders Liljedahl

Third Stone

Focusing on the intersection of collective memory, technology, and African American popular music, this paper use aspects of the sonic narratives in Janelle Monáe’s Metropolis-Suites I–V to introduce core concepts of Afrofuturism. The paper challenges the positioning of collective memory as being exterior to the sphere of individual cognitive memory. By inhabiting past, present, and future at once, Afrofuturism is able to critically revisit collective memory not only as a social framework but also as actual individual memory. Afrofuturist discourse questions the status of the human being by examining African Americans as always already robotic, and posits African American …

Social Power Of Jazz Festivals, Olga Bekenshtein

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Jazz festivals occur in all parts of the world, small cities and metropolises, urban and rural landscapes, stadiums, churches, streets, and abandoned factories. Being a part of the entertainment industry, they have the potential to impact social change. Jazz festivals help us reconsider notions of identity and community, and their communal experience has the potential to undermine dominant social norms. The industry of jazz festivals is based on Black music and has a history of positive and negative social outcomes. Evaluating festivals through the symbolic meaning of music provides an optic into how festivals marginalize and exploit African American cultural …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Corporeal Archives Of Hiv/Aids: The Performance Of Relation, Jaime Shearn Coan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Corporeal Archives of HIV/AIDS: The Performance of Relation, explores how choreographers and theater artists in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City used time and space to involve their audiences experientially in the project of grieving and rebuilding in the midst of the temporal chaos of mass death and illness (crisis time). Refusing to portray HIV/AIDS as a discrete or singular phenomenon, these artists revealed how it intersected with every aspect of life, including artistic practice, thereby delinking their bodies from a singular association with pathology and death. Undertaking extensive archival research on the work …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

Love And Revolution: Queer Freedom, Tragedy, Belonging, And Decolonization, 1944 To 1970, Velina Manolova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines literary works by U.S. writers Lillian Smith, Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry written in the early part of the postwar period referred to as the “Protest Era” (1944-1970). Analyzing a major work by each author—Strange Fruit (1944), The Member of the Wedding (1946), Giovanni’s Room (1956), and Les Blancs (1970)—this project proposes that Smith, McCullers, Baldwin, and Hansberry were not only early theorists of intersectionality but also witnesses to the deeply problematic entanglements of subjectivities formed by differential privilege, which the author calls intersubjectivity or love. Through frameworks of queerness, racialization, performance/performativity, tragedy, and …

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Black: :Body: :Gesture: From Puppetry To Performance & Design, Gabrielle Civil, Kelly Walters

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

In this visual document, Gabrielle Civil and Kelly Walters distill and recreate key aspects of their live dialogue on African-American puppetry, black performance art, material and digital design. What are examples of African American living objects in the 21st century? What does it mean to animate objects when, as a people, we were once considered to be living objects ourselves? Drawing on their own practice, these artists engaged these questions, activated audience discussion, and transformed the results into a new source text for further activation.

Black W(H)Ole Theories, Roobi Starla Gaskins

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Artist Statement

I make work that attempts to liberate the body beyond the confines that society has prescribed to it. I am interested in the manifestations of the internal human; illuminating the internal voice that is often silenced, persuaded, and deemed as illegitimate, despite the fact that it might be the most true. As a mixed Afro Latina woman, my own identity and existence as a visible body is constantly at the mercy of those who I surround myself with, where my external ambiguity falls a victim to constant mislabeling. As a result, the fluidity of my appearance in racial …

Strange Fruit: Black Female Body Politics In Contemporary American Culture, Eleanor Kipping

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was an organized effort by and for Black American populations to receive equal treatment by law. Its legacy has much reason to be celebrated: not only for its accomplishments and successes in unifying the Black community but also in bringing issues of segregation, violence, and racial discrimination to the forefront of the public’s attention. The decade was a pivotal point in contemporary race relations, and served as an apex in attempts to bridge America’s past and what America is striving to become. Today however, the social and political climate …

"I'S Not So Wicked As I Use To Was:" The Interplay Of Race And Dignity In Nineteenth-Century American Drama And Blackface Minstrelsy, Sam Volosky

HON499 projects

Blackface was an extremely popular and pervasive performance type unique to nineteenth century American performance. For years, the black characters of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Octoroon were played by white actors in blackface makeup whereas mixed-raced characters were presented as white. These two plays, each having played a role in affecting public opinion toward slavery, do not stand out from the tradition of blackface minstrelsy and, subsequently, take part in subjugating black entertainers in the realm of theatre as well as society. The playwrights borrowed conventions of contemporary theatrical performance in order to cater to the tastes of their …

Radical Black Drama-As-Theory: The Black Feminist Dramatic On The Protracted Event-Horizon, Jaye Austin Williams

Faculty Journal Articles

In this essay, I elaborate my present project, grounded in what I call drama theory, the critical theoretical dimensions of dramatic writing, and address the deeply troubling intramural tensions across Black Studies, between those who read blackness, and black cultural production, through largely futurist, celebratory lenses; and those who apply a structural analysis to blackness as the site against, upon, and through which the world coheres its soci(et)al apparatuses and machinations. I situate myself within the latter constellation, and sample here two plays by Suzan-Lori Parks to demonstrate how I translate the analyses of antiblack violence by black feminist …

Dark Stars Of The Evening: Performing African American Citizenship And Identity In Germany, 1890-1920, Kristin L. Moriah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dark Stars of the Evening: Performing African American Citizenship and Identity in Germany, 1890-1920 demonstrates that black performers in Germany developed wide networks in the performance world as they sought artistic opportunities beyond the racist circumscription of the American popular stage. Their performances became emblematic of modernity, globalization, and imperial might for German audiences at the turn of the century. African American-styled blackness contributed to the formation of the city of Berlin while allowing African American performers to assert themselves on the global stage. Groups like the Four Black Diamonds had a lengthy engagement with the popular stage in Berlin, …

A Recipe For Black Girl Magic: A Critical Study Of The Mise-En-Scene In Beyoncé’S Visual Album Lemonade As A Radical Representation Of Black Women, Tatiyana Jenkins

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Lemonade, a visual album released by pop icon Beyoncé Knowles Carter in 2016, crafts a mise-en-scene that redefines the way that black women are allowed to feel and exist in media culture. Contrary to the negative stereotypes and misrepresentations perpetuated in media, Lemonade is a radical attempt to provide audiences with an alternative representation of the experiences of black women. For this honors project, I address the controversy surrounding the visual album’s radical representations of black womanhood. To inform my understanding of the visual album I examine the various creative contributions such as the film Daughters of the Dust directed …

Black Matter, Kahlil Irving

Graduate School of Art Theses

History as we know it, is inherited. Racism, fascism, white supremacy, and Eurocentric dominance have been presented as normal and acceptable within our society for many years. This has allowed police officers to execute Black American’s and not be acquitted for their horrendous crimes. As an activist I want to challenge the status quo. As an artist I am interested in investigating how I can present ideas embody or reflect contemporary issues and concerns. Using different colors can aggressively change how an object is perceived. Historical objects hold many important.

I explore many mediums, but an anchor material that I …