American Popular Culture Commons^™

Mexican-Americans In Los Angeles: Strengthening Their Ethnic Identity Through Chivas Usa, Stephanie Goldberger

CMC Senior Theses

A large Mexican-American population already exists in Los Angeles and, with each generation, it continues to rise. This Mexican-American community has maintained its connection to its heritage by playing and watching soccer, Mexico’s top watched sport. In this thesis, I analyze how Major League Soccer's Chivas USA serves as an outlet through which many Mexicans in Los Angeles have developed their ethnic identities. Since the early twentieth century, Mexicans in Los Angeles have created separate residential communities and sports organizations to strengthen their connections with one another.

To appeal to Mexican-Americans, Chivas USA has branded itself closely to its sister …

Street Art, Ideology, And Public Space, Tiffany Renée Conklin

Dissertations and Theses

The concept of the city has come to play a central role in the practices of a new generation of artists for whom the city is their canvas. Street art is a complex social issue. For decades, its presence has fueled intense debate among residents of modern cities. Street art is considered by some to be a natural expression that exercises a collective right to the city, and by others, it is seen as a destructive attack upon an otherwise clean and orderly society. This research focuses on various forms of street art from the perspective of the urban audience. …

Staebell, Sandra L., B. 1958 (Fa 572), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 572. Compact disc of Sandra L. Staebell’s December 2011 interview with June McGuyer, discussing Elizabeth Richardson (McGuyer’s mother), her interest in quilting, and her collecting related to quilts and quilting.

Feminizing Presidents: Joseph Keppler And Gender In Gilded Age Political Cartoons, Jerome Gonzalez

American Studies Senior Theses

Amid the crowded newsstands of American cities in the late nineteenth century, the average reader flipping through a copy of Puck, a weekly humor magazine devoted to political and social issues, may have been surprised to see an unusual print: that of the President of the United States depicted in women’s clothing, with feminine features, performing a womanly task! These few drawings, alluding to both literary and social ideas, done by the Austrian immigrant artist Joseph Keppler, appeared in his Puck magazine in the years 1877, 1880, and 1884, coinciding around an election year. While Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James …

Hear My Voice: An Examination Of The Views Of Parents Who Are Raising Children Of African American Descent, Chavez Maurice Phelps

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have demonstrated that children who attend early childhood education programs benefit academically and socially (National Institute for Early Education Research, 2003). However, other researchers have shown that African American students may still lag behind their counterparts when they enter school (National Center for Education Statistics ([NCES], 2004). To explain this phenomenon, scholars and practitioners have relied on deficit theories, such as Ruby Payne’s (2005) culture of poverty theory or John Ogbu’s (1992) oppositional culture identity theory, which shift the blame solely on the child or their parents. However, there are other researchers who have stressed the importance of examining …

The Writing On The Stall: Graffiti, Vandalism, And Social Expression, Brett Wolff

Kaleidoscope

Graffiti and vandalism are everywhere in the modern city; they seem to be part of the typical urban background. While graffiti are usually associated with concrete walls, bridges and train cars, one particular area of focus of vandalistic writing is the walls and stalls of public bathrooms. This area, for both obvious, and sometimes unclear reasons, is a popular forum for anyone wanting to write. This project was conducted with the intent of better understanding these somewhat ubiquitous and seemingly mundane scribbles. As the first step toward this goal, a literature review of approaches to vandalism was conducted. This theoretical …

Table Of Contents

The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard & Pulp Studies

Prefatory Remarks, by Mark E. Hall

Jeffrey Catherine Jones (1944 - 2011), rememberance by Charles Hoffman

"Ode," poem in memoriam by Charles Hoffman

Howard's Escape?, letter by Barbara Barrett

Castration Anxiety, letter by Jeffrey Shanks

Acknowledgements

Faction and Fiction in "Barack the Barbarian," by Jeffrey Kahan

Gloria, by Rusty Burke and Rob Roehm

Theosophy and the Thurian Age: Robert E. Howard and the Works of William Scott-Elliot, by Jeffrey Shanks

"Howard's Horror," review by Jason Ray Carney

"Black Wings:" Lovecraft's Widening Gyre, review by John Goodrich

"Malygris, Malnéant, and Malinbois, Nut No Malfeasance," review by Steve Tompkins

Briefly Noted, by …

A Psychoanalytical Approach To Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Wenying Xu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Racial minorities in the U.S. are often tormented by the tension between the corporeal and the ontological, with the former experienced as confining and the latter expansive. Such ambivalence often expresses itself in one's relationship with food. Here I propose to illustrate how Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical theory on desire can assist us in understanding ethnicity as a bodily performance, which I venture to call an embodied ontology, applying this concept to Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner (2007).

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending October 10, 2011, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles.
• Visits to the ranch this quarter included: Dr. Diedra Clemente, history professor for UNLV, visited the ranch to determine research possibilities for students in the history department …

Art+Politics, Shannon Egan, Jenna L. Birkenshock, Hillary B. Goodall, Tessa M. Sheridan, Josiah B. Adlon, Megan E. Hilands, Emily A. Francisco, Molly E. Reynolds, Shelby P. Glass, Colleen L. Parrish, Francesca S. Debiaso

Schmucker Art Catalogs

For the exhibition Art + Politics, students worked closely with the holdings of Gettysburg College's Special Collections and College Archives to curate an exhibition in Schmucker Art Gallery that engages with issues of public policy, activism, war, propaganda, and other critical socio-political themes. Each of the students worked diligently to contextualize the objects historically, politically, and art-historically. The art and artifacts presented in this exhibition reveal how various political events and social issues have been interpreted through various visual and printed materials, including posters, pins, illustrations, song sheets, as well as a Chinese shoe for bound feet. The students' …

The Grand Tour And Development Of Tourism: 1600-1900, Osher Map Library

Osher Map Library Exhibition Catalogs

The Grand Tour and Development of Tourism, 1600 to 1900.

October 4, 2011 to April 28, 2012

The 400th anniversary of Thomas Coryat’s "Crudities" (1611), the first tourist memoir, is celebrated by this history, to 1918, of the European tourism industry and the development of guidebooks and maps.

Curated by Yolanda Theunissen, USM.

Pop Culture, Politics, And America's Favorite Animated Family: Partisan Bias In The Simpsons?, Kenneth Michael White, Mirya Holman

Faculty Articles

An essay is presented on the impact of the political content of the television program "The Simpsons" on the politics, pop culture and viewers in the U.S. It offers an overview of the creation of the show and explores the different aspects of the show, particularly the debate over its so-called partisan bias. It also discusses the criticism from Republicans including former President George H. W. Bush that the show favors the left.

The Cultural Politics Of Wmd Terrorism In Post-Cold War America, Harold Williford

Re-visioning Terrorism

Terrorism’s definition is hotly debated and notoriously problematic. The resulting instability of counterterrorism and counterterrorist identity, however, is less often explored. This paper analyzes the prehistory of the War on Terror to explore how the meaning and associations attributed to terrorism by counterterrorists in the 1990s reflect the latter’s priorities, agenda, and anxieties. Prevalent ahistorical post-Cold War representations of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a “new” threat indicate that WMD-wielding terrorists functioned to justify the continued existence of the American national security state after the Soviet Union collapsed. Close readings of Rainbow Six, a Tom Clancy …

Ferguson, Lynne Marrs (Hammer), B. 1956 (Fa 569), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 569. Paper: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Study of a Funeral Ribbon Quilt" written by Lynne Marrs (Hammer) Ferguson for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Kohn, Margaret (Bulger) (Fa 566), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 566. Interview conducted by Margaret (Bulger) Kohn with Freeman Kitchens at Kitchens Grocery in Drake, Warren County, Kentucky on 22 September 1974. They discuss the store, Kitchens's phonograph collection and his association with the Carter Family (musical group).

Interview Conducted By Margaret (Bulger) Kohn With Freeman Kitchens (Fa 566), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Oral Histories

Transcription of an interview conducted by Margaret (Bulger) Kohn with Freeman Kitchens in Drake, Kentucky on 22 September 1974. They discuss the store, Kitchens's phonograph collection and his association with the Carter Family (musical group).

Interview Conducted By Ron Morrison With Freeman Kitchens In March 1978 (Fa 565), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Oral Histories

Transcription of an interview conducted by Ron Morrison with Freeman Kitchens at Kitchens Groceries in Drake, Warren County, Kentucky in March 1978. They discuss the store, Kitchens's phonograph collection and his association with the Carter Family (musical group).

Morrison, Ron (Fa 565), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 565. Interview conducted by Ron Morrison with Freeman Kitchens at Kitchens Groceries in Drake, Warren County, Kentucky. They discuss the store, Kitchens's phonograph collection and his association with the Carter Family.

Jameson, Jennifer Michelle, B. 1987 (Fa 567), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text paper (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 567. Paper: "A Brief History and Orientation to the Freeman Kitchens Collection" written by Jennifer Michelle Jameson for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Includes photos and an oral interview conducted by Jameson with Kitchens on 24 November 2010 in Drake, Kentucky.

Humphreys, George Gary, B. 1949 (Fa 564), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 564. Interview conducted by George Gary Humphreys with Lexington attorney and political memorabilia collector Julius Edward Rather. Rather discusses 20th century politicians he knew and how he got involved in collecting political memorabilia.