American Popular Culture Commons^™

African American Performers In Stalin’S Soviet Union: Between Political Promise And Racial Propaganda, Christopher E. Silsby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first half of the twentieth century, a significant number of African Americans left the United States for the promise of racial and economic equality in the supposedly class-less society of a post-Revolution Soviet Union. This dissertation uses a series of interrelated case studies to contextualize the theatrical work of Paul Robeson, jazz dancer Henry Scott, actor Wayland Rudd, and the 1955-56 international tour of Porgy and Bess within the overlapping social, political, and aesthetic landscapes of African American and Soviet performance in Moscow during the rise and height of Stalinism.

Starting with an overview of race in the …

Making It Pay To Be A Fan: The Political Economy Of Digital Sports Fandom And The Sports Media Industry, Andrew Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a series of case studies and sociological examinations of the role that the sports media industry and mediated sport fandom plays in the political economy of the Internet. The Internet has structurally changed the way that sport fans access sport and accelerated the processes through which the capitalist actors in the sports media industry have been able to subsume them. The three case studies examined in this dissertation are examples of how digital media technologies have both helped fans become more active producers and consumers of sports and made the sports media industry an integral and vanguard …

The Warner Brothers Prove Their Patriotism, Lara Jacobson

Voces Novae

Warner Bros. Pictures did not become the widely successful company they are today by sitting back and letting “the world go to pot.” The Brothers patriotic beginnings in America earned them a reputation as trailblazers in the motion picture industry. Their Polish and Jewish family heritage initially motivated the four brothers to take a stand when they released Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) as a direct result of Hitler’s growing reign in Europe. Many of the Brothers’ early movies focused on injustice, prejudice, and violation of basic human rights; the era of World War II would be no different. …

Review Of Chris Ware: Conversations, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Sharing Identity: Indexing Cultural Perspectives Through Writing Responses To Graphic Novels, Alex Romagnoli

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Indexing identity through writing responses among ELL students in response to a graphic novel helps provide insight into how writing responses represent people and how graphic novels can aid in that process of self-discovery through their inherent multimodalities. This study takes looks at four students in an ELL class at an urban high school in southern Pennsylvania as they responded in writing to a portion of Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (2006). All of the participants took events from the portion of the graphic novel provided to them and indexed their urban, cultural perspectives through their …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Cultures And Politics Of The Global Drug War [Urban Studies/English], Justin Rogers-Cooper

Open Educational Resources

This staged and high stakes Urban Studies assignment was developed in conjunction with two Center for Teaching and Learning Seminars at LaGuardia Community College: “The Pedagogy of the Digital Ability” and “The Next Generation ePortfolio.” All Urban Studies courses at LaGuardia are writing intensive, and all are designated for the college’s Global Learning Core Competency and the Written Communication Ability. Urban Studies courses exist on different points of many programmatic curriculum maps for Liberal Arts majors, but students usually take it as a midpoint course. Dozens of different majors completed this assignment and take Urban Studies courses more generally, including …

Tinker, Robert Rush (Fa 1149), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1149. Student folk studies project titled “Playground Language: [Newburg, Kentucky]” which includes survey sheets with a brief description of playground rhymes in Newburg, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Sheets may include rope skipping rhyme, group game, informant’s name, and text classification.

Electronics And The Music Of Miles Davis, Darren E. Shekailo

Theses and Dissertations

Miles Davis produced a wealth of music relying on the use of electronic instruments and new technology. With their adoption, the famous trumpeter began his “electric” period. Examining the electric period of Davis’s career helps us trace the profound impact of electronic instruments and technological advances on his music.

“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.

Dorothea Lange: Capturing The Reality Of The Great Depression And The New Deal Era, Laura Vandemark

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Dorothea Lange created some of America’s most enduring and influential images as she documented the reality of the Great Depression in the 1930s and early 40s for the Farm Security Administration. Featured in government publications, printed on postage stamps, and used by social activists, Lange’s photographs helped define the era and the emerging field of photojournalism. This paper examines Lange’s motives and process as she tried to capture her subjects’ most intimate moments without exploiting their lives. It draws on Lange’s field notebooks and interviews and surveys the existing body of scholarship to assess how Lange’s life impacted her work …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

A Man Went Looking For America And Couldn't Find It Anywhere: The Wanderer In On The Road And Easy Rider, Taylor Camara

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This paper analyzes the archetype of the wanderer as a cultural phenomenon in 1960s America starting with Jack Kerouac's On the Road as an embodiment of the Beat Generation and ending with Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) as an embodiment of sixties counterculture. Through this progression, On the Road's projection of the wanderer is found within the hobohero as a dissident nomadic figure, and Easy Rider's as a cosmic cowboy- a countercultural twist on an American icon. By analyzing these figures, the contradictory nature between rebellion and tradition meet as hobo-hero and cosmic cowboy reject societal norms in the search …

Hip-Hop And Poetry: Listen To The Words, Jordan Dingle

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Hip-hop is a subculture that has become a major part of popular culture and heavily affects contemporary music, clothing, and media. The subculture initially started as a way for the historically oppressed to voice themselves and have a dialogue for social dilemmas that were relevant to them. Maintaining this voice of authenticity will become more difficult the larger and more commercialized Hip-hop becomes, thus it is important to identify mediums that are being used to express authenticity through discussion of social dilemmas in Hip-hop culture. This project identifies poetry as a medium that is used to display authenticity in Hip-hop …

Misrepresenting Climate Change: Deconstructing New Media Discourse Through The Case Study Of Hurricane Irma, Amy Dickens

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project uses critical discourse analysis to understand the relationship between U.S. news media coverage on natural disasters like Hurricane Irma and the ideological implications of that coverage. More specifically, in news media discourse, personification of natural disasters alienates humans from their actions, many of which are actively aiding in the advancement of anthropogenic climate change. By taking an in-depth look at how various factors come into play, like the humans vs. nature binary, the polarization of American politics around climate change, and various news media framings, the essay demonstrates that the personification of Irma is both the result of …

Hip-Hop's Influence On Stripper Culture: The Era Of Cardi B'S, Taylor Bell

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Twenty years ago the terms 'stripper' or 'exotic dancer' would have made heads turn. However, today feminist politics traditional negative stimga on strip culture is being challenged by the presence of the jhip-hop industry within the strip club space. With the emergence of former stripper Cardi B as well as discussions in American politics around former port star Stormy Daniles, it's clear that the way society thinks and interacts with strip culture is evolving away from the stereotypical negative one. 39 pages.

The Real Atlanta: Representations Of Black Southern Culture, Masculinity, And Womanhood As Seen In Season One Of The Fx Series Atlanta, Tamisha Nicole Askew

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

This project explores how the new FX original series, Atlanta, challenges previous notions of Blackness on American television. The series Atlanta delves into conversations on hip-hop and Black culture through what has been considered an authentic representation of Black Atlanta. This paper examines tropes of Southerness and perceived homophobia in hip-hop and Black culture while analyzing the way in which the series creators and producers create a dialogue on economic and social matters facing the Black Southern community in the city of Atlanta. Finally, this paper examines controlling images of Black women on American television to uncover the ways …

Performing Authentic Savagery: National Myth-Making And Indigenous Survival At American World's Fairs, 1893-1904, Hannah Facknitz

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The late nineteenth century in America was a period of intense change, where society took on the project of describing what exactly made America what it was. An important vehicle for this exploration of identity was the world’s fair. This paper analyzes the Chicago World Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Omaha Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898, and the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 and their depictions of Indigenous North Americans which were closely tied up in the current project of national myth making. A three-way conflict emerges in this study between contemporary anthropologists, entertainment professionals, and so-called …

Suspense Radio Series, Gothic Literature, And The American Family, Kelly Kirkham

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

My plan B thesis argues that the Suspense radio series, which aired from 1942-1963, served as a cathartic release for Americans during the Golden Age of Radio; the program accomplished catharsis by borrowing characteristics originating in 19th century gothic literature: sound effects, domestic space as setting, and the uncanny. The evidence I use in my argument includes radio show recordings, magazines, and published works from prominent radio scholars to analyze the effects of the Suspense program, specifically the 1960 season. Scholarly works include books and articles from Neil Verma, author of Theater of the Mind and assistant professor in Radio/Television/Film …

Racial Peeves: The Exploitation Of Microaggressions, Olivia Gabrielle Ellis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Racial Peeves: The Exploitation of Microaggressions documents my personal experience of dealing with microaggressions throughout my life, as well as the history of these racial issues. This thesis also documents the creation of my Senior BFA Exhibition of the same title inspired by 1970s Blaxploitation posters.