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Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

For What Is A Man?: Towards Languaging Contemporary Dance In A Black, Queer, Male-Presenting Body, Thomas Ford May 2023

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.


Us, Abundantly: From Africa To The Americas, Karisma Jay Jan 2021

Us, Abundantly: From Africa To The Americas, Karisma Jay

Theses and Dissertations

"Us, AbunDantly," a Live theatrical dance performance and film, delves into the African Diaspora and its influences. An artistic and academic project built upon the amplification of Black excellence and Black pride, this paper contextualizes a work within the oral histories and contemporary dance studies of a powerfully ancestral community.


Writing For The Humanities And Arts, Shamecca A. Harris Jan 2019

Writing For The Humanities And Arts, Shamecca A. Harris

Open Educational Resources

This dynamic English Composition course asks students to both create and engage with texts, in a variety of forms, that demonstrate how culture and personal experience inform a writer’s work. In this class, students will read and write voraciously about social, political, economic and cultural issues that influence their lived experiences and use the conventions of multiple genres to both reflect and respond to the times in which they live. Moreover, they will also consciously consider what it means to write academically at the college level through regular self-reflection and revision. In doing so, students will strengthen their rhetorical knowledge …


“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales May 2018

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.


Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky Oct 2017

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …


The Blurred Lines Of Cultural Appropriation, Jaja Grays Dec 2016

The Blurred Lines Of Cultural Appropriation, Jaja Grays

Capstones

For centuries, fashion designers, music artists and other celebrities alike have borrowed elements or styles from other cultures for personal gain. In my piece, "The Blurred Lines of Cultural Appropriation," I demonstrate the countless ways celebrities have appropriated different cultures whether at high-end fashion shows or live music performances. Cultural appropriation refers to a privileged culture borrowing or stealing from a marginalized culture-- striping elements of the culture to use it as a prop or for profit. I also discuss how to avoid cultural appropriation and engage in respectful cultural appreciation.