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2015

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University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Race Patriots: Black Poets, Transnational Identity, And Diasporic Versification In The United States Before The New Negro, Jason T. Hendrickson Nov 2015

Race Patriots: Black Poets, Transnational Identity, And Diasporic Versification In The United States Before The New Negro, Jason T. Hendrickson

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the contributions of black poets in the United States before the New Negro / Harlem Renaissance Movement. Specifically, it focuses on their role in creating and maintaining a tradition of regional transnationalism in their verses that celebrates their African ancestry. I contend that these poets are best understood as “race patriots”; that is, they at once sought inclusion within the nation-state in the form of full citizenship, yet recognized allegiances beyond the nation-state on account of race through a recognition of shared African ancestry across borders. Their verses point to a shared kinship – be it through …


Sweat The Technique: Visible-Izing Praxis Through Mimicry In Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought From Africa To America", Karla V. Zelaya Nov 2015

Sweat The Technique: Visible-Izing Praxis Through Mimicry In Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought From Africa To America", Karla V. Zelaya

Doctoral Dissertations

“On Being Brought from Africa to America” was written in 1768, seven years after a seven or eight-year-old Phillis Wheatley arrived to British North America. Phillis Wheatley was about fifteen-years-old when she wrote the most reviled poem in Black literature. Charged with thinking white and writing white, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” would condemn Phillis Wheatley as an imitator of the white gaze. Although accused of straightening her tongue, Phillis Wheatley did not imitate the white gaze in “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” She mimicked it. To imitate means to do something the same way. To …


"The Imagination And Construction Of The Black Criminal In American Literature, 1741-1910", Emahunn Campbell Nov 2015

"The Imagination And Construction Of The Black Criminal In American Literature, 1741-1910", Emahunn Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation examines the origins of the perception of black people as criminally predisposed by arguing that during eighteenth and nineteenth-century America, crime committed by black people was used as a major trope in legal, literary, and scientific discourses, deeming them inherently criminal. Furthermore, I contend that enslaved and free black people often used criminal acts, including murder, theft, and literacy, as avenues toward freedom. However, their resistance was used as a justification for slavery in the South and discrimination in the North. By examining a diverse set of materials such as confessional literature, plantation management literature, (social) scientific studies, …


Creating The Ideal Mexican: 20th And 21st Century Racial And National Identity Discourses In Oaxaca, Savannah N. Carroll Nov 2015

Creating The Ideal Mexican: 20th And 21st Century Racial And National Identity Discourses In Oaxaca, Savannah N. Carroll

Doctoral Dissertations

This investigation intends to uncover past and contemporary socioeconomic significance of being a racial other in Oaxaca, Mexico and its relevance in shaping Mexican national identity. The project has two purposes: first, to analyze activities and observations of cultural missionaries in Oaxaca during the 1920s and 1930s, and second to relate these findings to historical and present implications of blackness in an Afro-Mexican community. Cultural missionaries were appointed by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) to create schools throughout Mexico, focusing on the modernization of marginalized communities through formal and social education. This initiative was intended to resolve socioeconomic disparities …


Slavery On Their Minds: Representing The Institution In Children's Picture Books, Raphael E. Rogers Aug 2015

Slavery On Their Minds: Representing The Institution In Children's Picture Books, Raphael E. Rogers

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines how slavery is represented in contemporary children’s picture books. Given that many primary and secondary school teachers are committed to using picture book fiction to teach students about slavery, it is necessary to explore how slavery is depicted in these texts. One of the goals of this study is to contribute to the discussion about how the featured picture books engage with and respond to the early historiography of slavery, which asserted that Black slave were content and docile and that slave owners were kind and paternalistic. This study seeks to analyze how the picture books that …


The Physical Uplift Of The Race: The Emergence Of The African American Physical Culture Movement, 1900-1930, J. Anthony Guillory Aug 2015

The Physical Uplift Of The Race: The Emergence Of The African American Physical Culture Movement, 1900-1930, J. Anthony Guillory

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, “The Physical Uplift of the Race: The Emergence of the African American Physical Culture Movement, 1900—1930,” situates the early twentieth century of African American physical culture within a historical narrative that shaped philosophical viewpoints of African American urban community development. Previous inquiries of related topics attempt to describe a physical culture movement that was somehow separate and apart from the larger historical narrative of African people in the United States. My work does not continue in that vein. My objective is to illustrate how the black physical culture movement was primarily a reaction to African Americans’ new geo-political …


Imaging Her Selves: Black Women Artists, Resistance, Image And Representation, 1938-1956, Heather Zahra Caldwell Aug 2015

Imaging Her Selves: Black Women Artists, Resistance, Image And Representation, 1938-1956, Heather Zahra Caldwell

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses specifically on dancer Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), pianist Hazel Scott (1920-1981), cartoonist Jackie Ormes (1911-1985), singer Lena Horne (1917-2010), and graphic artist, painter, and sculptor Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012). It explores the artistic, performative, and political resistance deployed by these five African-American women activists, artists, and performers in the period between 1937 and 1957. The principal form of resistance employed by these women was cultural resistance. Using a mixture of archival research, first person interview, biography, as well as other primary and secondary sources, I explore how these women constructed personas, representations, and media images of African-American women to …


Historic Black Lives Matter: Archaeology As Activism In The 21st Century, Kelley F. Deetz, Ellen Chapman, Ana Edwards, Phil Wilayto Apr 2015

Historic Black Lives Matter: Archaeology As Activism In The 21st Century, Kelley F. Deetz, Ellen Chapman, Ana Edwards, Phil Wilayto

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

May 19, 2015 would have been Malcolm X’s 90th birthday, and fifty years after his assassination we are still dealing with the ghosts of slavery, Jim Crow, and the manifestations of institutionalized racism. While much progress was made from the Civil Rights Movement, we still have far to go. This past year brought the topics of slavery, civil rights, and racism back into the mainstream. These stories are not new for those of us who work tirelessly to chronicle these historical and contemporary narratives in an attempt to educate the public about Black history. The “New Civil Rights Movement” launched …


Mapping The Terrain Of Black Writing During The Early New Negro Era, A Yęmisi Jimoh Jan 2015

Mapping The Terrain Of Black Writing During The Early New Negro Era, A Yęmisi Jimoh

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.


Richmond’S Archaeology Of The African Diaspora: Unseen Knowledge, Untapped Potential, Ellen Chapman Jan 2015

Richmond’S Archaeology Of The African Diaspora: Unseen Knowledge, Untapped Potential, Ellen Chapman

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.


Don’T Call It A Comeback, We’Ve Been Here For Years: Reintroducing The African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Kelley Deetz Jan 2015

Don’T Call It A Comeback, We’Ve Been Here For Years: Reintroducing The African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Kelley Deetz

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.


Related Media And Additional Reading Jan 2015

Related Media And Additional Reading

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.


The Significance Of Richmond's Shockoe Bottom: Why It's The Wrong Place For A Baseball Stadium, Ana Edwards, Phil Wilayto Jan 2015

The Significance Of Richmond's Shockoe Bottom: Why It's The Wrong Place For A Baseball Stadium, Ana Edwards, Phil Wilayto

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.


The Thread: Reflections On #Blacklivesmatter And 21st Century Racial Dynamics, Kelley Deetz Jan 2015

The Thread: Reflections On #Blacklivesmatter And 21st Century Racial Dynamics, Kelley Deetz

African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter

No abstract provided.


American Studies Journal: Ralph Ellison Issue, A Yęmisi Jimoh, Phd, Et Al Jan 2015

American Studies Journal: Ralph Ellison Issue, A Yęmisi Jimoh, Phd, Et Al

A Yęmisi Jimoh

Special issue of journal


Melus: A Community Of Intellectuals Scholars, And Teachers.Pdf, A Yęmisi Jimoh, Phd Jan 2015

Melus: A Community Of Intellectuals Scholars, And Teachers.Pdf, A Yęmisi Jimoh, Phd

A Yęmisi Jimoh

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