African American Studies Commons^™

"Their Past In My Blood": Paule Marshall, Gayl Jones, And Octavia Butler's Response To The Black Aesthetic, Williamenia Miranda Walker Freeman

Dissertations

Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Gayl Jones’ Corregidora (1975), and Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) enhance our conceptualization of black aestheticism and black nationalism as cultural and political movements. The writers use the novel as genre to question the ideological paradigm of a black nationalist aesthetic by providing alternative definitions of community, black women’s sexuality, and race relations. Because of the ways in which these writers respond to black aestheticism and black nationalism, they transform our understanding of movements often perceived as sexist, racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. An examination of their works reveals the need for additional …

Shaking The Closet: Analyzing Johnny Mathis’S Sexual Elusiveness, 1956-1982, Vincent L. Stephens

Vincent L Stephens

Though pop crooner Johnny Mathis inadvertently revealed his homosexuality in a 1982 “off-the-record” interview his sexuality had long been an open secret prior to this disclosure. “Shaking the Closet” argues that the notion of “the closet” is insufficient for understanding Mathis’s career and those of many other seemingly “closeted” queer public figures. The presentation suggests that the non-threatening sexual image Mathis presented in the 1950s was an overt commercial strategy intended to appease white audiences and adhere to an imperative for public respectability, an enduring theme within African-American cultural politics. Despite these seeming compromises close critical attention to his musical …

Women Of African Descent: Persistence In Completing A Doctorate, Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the educational persistence of women of African descent (WOAD) in pursuit of a doctorate degree at universities in the southeastern United States. WOAD are women of African ancestry born outside the African continent. These women are heirs to an inner dogged determination and spirit to survive despite all odds (Pulliam, 2003, p. 337).This study used Ellis’s (1997) Three Stages for Graduate Student Development as the conceptual framework to examine the persistent strategies used by these women to persist to the completion of their studies.

Black Lesbians In The 70s, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

During the initial planning session for In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 70s Spring Series, there was lack of clarity about the activity of Black Lesbians in the early part of the 1970s. The aim for Black Lesbian Herstory in the 70s: An At Home Tour and Guide to the Black Lesbian Herstory of the Collection was to present information to the lesbian community and increase Black Lesbian invisibility.

Hines, Thomas Collier, Jr. (Fa 7), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 7. Interviews conducted by Thomas Hines. Includes intervewis with Sarah Alice (Marcum) Roemer. The interviews include information about Alice Roemer's life, inlcuding her childhood, education, work and family experiences, with special emphasis on Thanksgiving customs.

Passing For Black: Coon Songs And The Performance Of Race, Patricia R. Schroeder

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Diggin' Uncle Ben And Aunt Jemima: Battling Myth Through Archaeology, Kelley Deetz

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Aa Ms 05 Cummings Guest House Register Finding Aid, Karin A. France

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

The Cummings family of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, ran a guest house from 1923 until 1993. Register in which guests signed themselves in or were signed in by staff at the Cummings Guest House, 110 Portland Ave., Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Includes signatures of family members who attended reunions after the Guest House ceased operation.

Date Range:

1923-1998

Size of Collection:

1 ft.

The Obama Effect On American Discourse About Racial Identity: Dreams From My Father (And Mother), Barack Obama's Search For Self, Suzanne W. Jones

English Faculty Publications

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Joseph Curl reported that the Obama organization "would not answer when asked why the biracial candidate calls himself black," replying only that the question didn't "seem especially topical." Biracial ancestry and racial identity are still sensitive subjects in the United States, not suitable for sound bites. But they are perfect topics for the introspective musings of an autobiography, and Barack Obama must have thought he had answered this question in depth in Dreams from My Father (1995). In his introduction, Obama hesitates to use the term "autobiography" because it connotes, he says, "a certain closure"; …

Invisible Dread, From Twisted: The Dreadlock Chronicles, Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

This excerpt traces the issues and process surrounding the dreadlocking of an Afri­can-American professor's hair. The personal history leading up to the decision to grow locks is briefly addressed, as is the experience of getting twisted for the first time and some reactions to the new hairstyle. Twisted discusses issues of cultural authenticity and academic nonconformity. It examines dreadlocks as a pathway to explore black identity, but in opposing ways: the act of locking ones hair does dis­play unconventional blackness - but it also participates in a preexisting black style. To what extent, the excerpt asks, can the adoption of …

Rhythms Of Rebellion: Artists Creating Dangerously For Social Change, Susan J. Erenrich

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

On December 14, 1957, after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Albert Camus challenged artists attending a lecture at the University of Uppsala in Sweden to create dangerously. Even though Camus never defined what he meant by his charge, throughout history, artists involved in movements of protest, resistance, and liberation have answered Camus’ call. Quite often, the consequences were costly, resulting in imprisonment, censorship, torture, and death. This dissertation examines the question of what it means to create dangerously by using Camus’ challenge to artists as a starting point. The study then turns its attention to two artists, Augusto Boal …

Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, And The Black Body, Harvey Young

Harvey Young

In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In "Embodying Black Experience," Harvey Young masterfully blends biography, archival history, performance theory, and phenomenology to relay the experiences of black men and women who, like Ward, were profoundly affected by the spectacular intrusion of racial violence within their lives. Looking back over the past two hundred years---from the exhibition of boxer Tom Molineaux and …