Other American Studies Commons^™

Hope For The Dammed: The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers And The Greening Of The Mississippi, Todd Shallat

Faculty & Staff Authored Books

Always, like the Great Mississippi, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been a conduit of hope and fear and scientific conjecture, of faith in American progress and terror of what progress has wrought. Always the Engineers have shouldered much of the credit and blame for massively spectacular projects. Always, since the 1820s, when the agency emerged as a builder and broker on the Mississippi, the Corps has enlisted science in the service of waterway engineering that defenders call monumental and detractors call grandiose.

My involvement began in the aftermath of Earth Day when the Corps, said a famous critic, …

Zilphia Horton, A Voice For Change, Alicia R. Massie-Legg

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation examines the role of Zilphia Horton (1910-1956) in helping to establish the use of music as a powerful tool to unify and train groups involved in social reform at seminars led by Highlander Folk School. In engaging in what has been termed the “mobilization of music,” Mrs. Horton was active in labor disputes, training seminars in the United States and Canada, and the formation of women’s union auxiliaries from 1935 until 1956. The study uses correspondence written by Horton to her husband, Myles Horton; business letters to labor union officials and contributors to songsters; and writings revealing her …

Liminal Encounters And The Missionary Position: New England's Sexual Colonization Of The Hawaiian Islands, 1778-1840, Anatole Brown Ma

All Student Scholarship

This study on New England’s early contact with the Hawaiian Islands examines the sexual liminality of the initial encounter. Late eighteenth century navigators from Boston recorded what could be described as “intimate encounters” with Native Hawaiian women and men.

Generational Dream: First Generation American Citizens And Their Relationship To The American Dream, Anna A. Mintz

Honors Theses

The term the "American Dream" was coined in 1939 by James Truslow Adams and has undoubtedly become an integral part of the American ethos. This narrative has brought thousands of immigrants to American shores with the promises of prosperity and success for centuries. Yet in 2014, it must be questioned whether this dream still holds significance for the young people of this country. By studying first-generation American citizens, whose parents did not grow up here, it can be ascertained how relevant this narrative still is and the sort of power that it retains. The following research describes my interactions with …

Black Gay Genius Interview With Lisa C. Moore, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

An interview with the publisher of Redbone Press, the small press, black lesbian owned and operated, that republished the archival material of Joseph Beam, excavating the work of the gay black male icon and writer of Brother to Brother and In the Life.

For The Love Of Music: A Story Of Organizational Culture And Change, Malii Brown

Capstone Collection

For the Love of Music: A Story of Organizational Culture and Change is an examination of culture and possibilities for change at an organization that manages one top-tier, U.S. classical music orchestra. The research was carried out for the purpose of making and refining meaning from collective employee experiences at a canon cultural organization whose practices reflect and influence our society beyond the context of music. The inquiry at the heart of the work is, ‘How does the organizational culture of the subject organization, Orchestra, Inc.[1], affect its readiness for organizational change?’ The research methodology consisted of organizational culture assessments …

Unruly Catholics From Dante To Madonna: Faith, Heresy, And Politics In Cultural Studies, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"During the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church went through a period of liberal reform under the stewardship of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Successive popes sharply reversed course, enforcing conservative ideological values and silencing progressive voices in the Church. Consequently, those Catholics who had embraced the spirit of Vatican II were left feeling adrift and betrayed. In Unruly Catholics from Dante to Madonna, scholars of literature, film, religion, history, and sociology delve into this conflict–and historically similar ones–through the examination of narratives by and about rebellious Catholics.

Essays in Unruly Catholics explore how renowned Catholic literary figures …

Telling Their Own Story: How Student Newspapers Reported Campus Unrest, 1962-1970, Kaylene Dial Armstrong

Dissertations

The work of student journalists often appears as a source in the footnotes when researchers tell the story of perhaps the most significant period in the history of higher education in the United States – the student protest era throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Yet researchers and historians have ignored the student press itself during this same time period. This dissertation considers how the student reporters and editors did their job during major protests that occurred between 1962 and 1970, and tells not only the story of reporting protest but the individual stories of the student journalists.

The key …

Diurnal And Nocturnal Avian Antipredator Behavior In Thermally Challenging Conditions, Jennie M. Carr

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Diurnal avian antipredator behavior has been the focus of much past research, yet the influence of the thermal environment on such behaviors is often overlooked. Far less is known about nocturnal avian antipredator behavior, including how these behaviors are influenced by challenging thermal environments. The first portion of my research focused on how the thermal environment influences the diurnal antipredator behavior of wintering birds while (i) exposed to high wind speeds, (ii) foraging in sunlit and shaded microhabitats, and (iii) when using thermoregulatory postures to conserve body heat. In addition to increasing convective heat loss, high wind speeds increase the …

Unaffiliated Parents And The Religious Training Of Their Children, Christel Manning

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This article examines how parents who are religiously unaffiliated make decisions about the religious upbringing of their children. Drawing on qualitative data, this study explores the diverse worldviews that are included within the term "None” and how those beliefs are reflected or not reflected in the way parents raise their children. The article identifies four distinct worldviews among unaffiliated parents and identifies five different strategies that parents use to incorporate religion in the lives of their children. The article then analyzes the relationship between parent worldviews and actions, with particular attention to secular unaffiliated parents who incorporate religion in the …

Understanding The Civil War, Charles O. Boyd

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper examines why the American Civil War took place and what the modern significance of the conflict is. The paper demonstrates that slavery was indeed the main cause of Southern secession and debunks, one by one, the arguments against that view. It also argues that modern day tributes to the Confederacy are offensive and that the Civil War should be understood as part of a long struggle in the United States for equal rights.

Eating Spaces And Places: Examining The Latin@ Barrio, Chinatown, And Black Urban Space As Sites Of Collective And Social Imagination, Kathlynn E. Hinkfuss

American Studies Honors Projects

I focus on three specific neighborhood tropes that are commonly understood and accepted in the American social imagination: the Latin@ Barrio, Chinatown, and Black Urban Space. I examine how these three neighborhood tropes show up in and play out on physical examples of these spaces. I identify three currently existing neighborhoods in the Upper Midwest: the South Side of Milwaukee, Chinatown in Chicago, and North Minneapolis. To more specifically interrogate the connection between the abstract and concrete, I argue that specific sites of analysis in each neighborhood are symbolically and physically consumed: the Mexican restaurant “La Perla” in Milwaukee, the …

Archeological Investigations For The Levi Jordan Plantation House Stabilization, Brazoria County, Texas, Jennifer K. Mcwilliams, Douglas K. Boyd, Aaron Norment

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Levi Jordan plantation house is one of the few antebellum plantation structures to have survived in Brazoria County. It is the only standing structure associated with the plantation, which began operating in 1848 and was occupied continually up through the 1990s. The original house, built in the early 1850s using slave labor, was a 20x60-ft two-story wooden frame structure. It was altered many times during its long occupation, often due to hurricane damage. A portion of the Levi Jordan Plantation was acquired by the State of Texas in 2002 and managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department until …

Cracking The Tax Codes: How State Tax Laws Influence The Number Of Manufacturing Jobs Within Their Borders, Nick Lorenson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

With the recent economic downturn, jobs have been at the forefront of people’s concerns. Policy makers in every state have promised their constituents new jobs. Of particular importance are high paying jobs. Manufacturing jobs tend to be a well-paying and highly sought after form of employment. However, in recent decades, the percentage of manufacturing jobs has been declining in the United States. Also, manufacturing facilities have shown an increased likelihood of relocating to different states. I theorize that manufacturing facilities relocating and expanding in different states is primarily due to state tax policies. This phenomenon has increased within recent years …

"In Family Way": Guarding Indigenous Women’S Children In Washington Territory, Katrina Jagodinsky

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The cases discussed here represent very few of the guardianship arrangements that characterized intergenerational and interracial households in territorial Washington, yet the patterns they illustrate correspond with other evidence that allows historians to track the distribution of Indian and mixed- race children in the Puget Sound region. Th e 1880 federal census schedules for counties bordering the Puget Sound reveals the informal guardianship of Native women’s children in ninetytwo households. Among these extralegal arrangements were forty- two households headed by white men, some single like Ed Boggess and others married to white women like Phoebe Judson, who classified the indigenous …

Tiki Kitsch, American Appropriation, And The Disappearance Of The Pacific Islander Body, Daniel Mcmullin

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

After Greenberg's famous analysis of kitsch in terms of aesthetics, Art critic James Gaywood, reasserted the question of kitsch in terms of market. (Gaywood 1997) Here Picasso and cultural appropriation were supplanted by Marcel Duchamp and the readymade. The products of art became completely non-native on all fronts, the world so reflected was postcultural. In that sense, cultural appropriation was no longer an aesthetic, it was a commodity for production, and as much as possible, production by machines. The form of such commodity, of Pacific Islander cultures, was highly variable, from a 17th century English play by John Clarke, to …

Godly Heretics: Essays On Alternative Christianity In Literature And Popular Culture, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. …

Remaining Two Parcels 39 And 41 Principal Investigator Waldo Troell, Waldo Troell

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The project field survey took place on September 23-24, 2013. The project’s area of potential effect (APE) encompasses a maximum of 122 acres including current right of way (ROW) [1.29 acres] and proposed ROW [120.71 acres]. A previous TxDOT pedestrian survey in September/October 2010 [permit # 5665] had covered approximately 117.52 acres where right of entry had been granted to TxDOT. At the time of the first survey no right of entry was granted for parcels 39 and 41. TxDOT has since purchased the entire APE and current survey covers the remaining two parcels 39 and 41 [4.48 acres]. No …

Archaeological Survey Of The Nolan Creek Improvements For The City Of Belton, Bell County, Texas, Michael R. Bradle, Herbert G. Uecker

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In September 2013, American Archaeology Group LLC conducted an archaeological survey of three tracts of land along Nolan Creek totaling 8.68 acres for the City of Belton’s planned low water dam removal and replacement dam installed, development of a parking lot and trail for kayakers, and removal of a low water bridge crossing. These improvements are being funded by a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department grant. The investigation consisted of a pedestrian survey supported with mechanical trenching. No archaeological sites were identified during the survey. American Archaeology Group LLC recommends that construction within the project area should be allowed to …

Two Archeological Surveys In The Texas Department Of Transportations Atlanta District: Fm 450 At Little Cypress Bayou, Harrison County (Csj 0843-02-012), And County Road 4114 At Brutons Creek, Morris County (Csj 0919-20-030), Damon A. Burden, Ross C. Fields

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Prewitt and Associates, Inc., was contracted by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to perform two intensive archeological surveys in TxDOT’s Atlanta District under Texas Antiquities Permit No. 6385. This work was completed prior to replacement of a bridge and realignment of approaches on Farm-to-Market Road (FM) 450 at Little Cypress Bayou in Harrison County (CSJ 0843-02-012) and replacement of a bridge and improvement of approaches on County Road 4114 at Brutons Creek in Morris County (CSJ 0919-20-030). The Area of Potential Effects (APE) for the FM 450 project is 50 acres and includes existing and new TxDOT right of …