American Studies Commons^™

The Hodgepodge Creation: Amalgamated Adaptation In Video Games, Tom Chen, Tom Chen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Amalgamated adaptation is a concept that involves blending multiple sources into a hodgepodge creation. This practice has become commonplace among game creators in recent years, yet it is neither readily covered nor explicitly mentioned in current video game scholarship. My previous research highlights the profound application of amalgamated adaptation to older texts, particularly myths and sacred texts from various cultures or communities. This method grants creators the autonomy to reinvent these texts in bold and extreme ways, achieved by melding borrowed ideas that complement and, at times, synergize with one another. I argue that single-source adaptations of myths, when reshaped …

Voicing The Margins: Contemporary Chicana Autobiographical Writing, Veronica Morales

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Chicana literature's emphasis on personal and collective narratives provides an essential critique of societal norms and injustices, illustrating how the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and class shape the lived experiences of Mexican American women in a rapidly changing world. This study analyzes nonfiction autobiographical narratives by three Chicana writers—Ana Castillo, Cherrie Moraga, and Sandra Cisneros—and the historical contexts of their production and reception. These texts focus on different aspects of Chicanismo, and when placed in conversation with each other they illuminate the multifaceted experiences of Chicanas from diverse backgrounds. All three writers have become well established in Chicana studies and …

Queer Hope And Asexual Desire In Nella Larsen's Passing And Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, Jeremy Buckner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This project examines Nella Larsen’s Passing and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse together as queer artifacts in hopes of shedding new light on how race and sexuality can be reexamined across national modes of thinking. Although these writers’ backgrounds provide them with different bodies of knowledge, Larsen’s Irene and Woolf’s Lily have much more in common than might first appear. For one, even if racialization is more explicit—and presents more of an obstacle—for Irene, race is an important factor for both characters. Additionally, Irene and Lily both express profound discontent with marriage, Irene in her marriage to Brian and Lily …

Love Y Ganas; A Revolutionay Revelation, Thomas J. Salas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My thesis does not have an abstract.

Efecto De Soles, Natalia Soriano Moreno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

En este texto quiero exponer cómo fue el proceso de creación de Efecto de soles, el cual se desarrolló entre los años 2022 y 2025. El libro presenta la cotidianidad de un barrio que un día se ve afectado por distintos cambios en la naturaleza cuando aparece un fenómeno particular: los soles de algunas casas se vuelven cuadrados y aumentan su nivel de alumbramiento. Esto hace que el entorno natural del barrio comience a cambiar: aparecen gusanos fosforescentes, las flores pierden su olor, la lluvia se vuelve negra, las mariposas se van y a los árboles les salen hojas de …

Harmonic Innovators And Cultural Catalysts In American Jazz: The Social Impact And Musical Innovations Of Louis Armstrong In The Real Ambassadors, Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts And John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Marcia C. Vandervinne

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Abstract This capstone project explores how three landmark jazz works—Louis Armstrong’s The Real Ambassadors (1961), John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1965), and Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts (1965–1973)—responded to the social challenges of the Civil Rights era while advancing the artistic stature of jazz. Each composition challenged systemic racism through its unique blend of innovation and cultural expression: Armstrong’s performance in The Real Ambassadors used satire to critique American racial hypocrisy; Coltrane’s A Love Supreme presented a spiritual and musical journey grounded in modal development and personal transformation; and Ellington’s Sacred Concerts fused jazz with sacred and classical traditions to elevate …

Belly Dance In Nebraska: Identity, Social Acceptance, And Perseverance, Alex R. Mohr

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Belly dance is an art form as well as an often-contested practice due to tensions over dress, terminology and cultural practices within the belly dance community because the dance originated outside the United States. Additionally, there is often a need to prove the legitimacy of the dance to those outside its sphere because it is often stigmatized due to the early association with exotic dancing. Belly dance is inherently geographic, as seen through its places of origin, music and movement styles, global spread, practitioners, and spaces of practice. However, it has not been well-represented in geography, and there is also …

Space And Subjectivity In The Emerging American West, Scott Hendry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The American West resists theoretical definition. As myth, ideal, region, contact zone, place, space, symbol, territory, home, assemblage, dream, and home, the West is continually changing. As a region, the West is not a closed space; it is an open, ongoing constellation of processes, an unfolding simultaneity of storied events or happenings. This dissertation, “Space and Subjectivity in the Emerging American West,” explores literature and cinema of the modern West. My project seeks to answer the question “What is the American West?” by examining the work of novelists, poets, filmmakers, cultural geographers, philosophers, and photographers who reimagine identity, locality, and …

Sacred Connections In Cartoonish Places: Exploring The Implications Of Teotl In Avatar: The Last Airbender (2008), Makenzie P. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Taking Avatar: The Last Airbender (2008) seriously, Sacred Connections in Cartoonish Places explores the animated children’s series and how it is understood through the monistic Nahua (Aztec) concept of teotl. Relying on James Maffie’s text Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion (2014), this thesis determines that Avatar: The Last Airbender benefits from monistic analysis. This analysis results in a breakdown of the show into four body chapters. These chapters respectively explore Aang’s role as a monistic representative, the differences between the physical and spirit worlds presented in the show, the kind of relationships that appear in the series, and …

Black Women During The Great Migration: Transitions From Sharecropping To Black Metropolis, Ryan Daye

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The origin of the dissertation came about as me being the only southerner within the group of individuals completing the MALS Program. While studying Cultural studies, I began to take a focus on the Great Migration of black Americans migrating from the South to other regions of the United States. As a southerner, I was aware of the migration patterns but never went in-depth on the subject because I felt no connection. While studying, I noticed the perception of black women who were being used as subjects. Women who were being forced out of their southern situations because of segregation, …

"Next Time Is Next Time. Now Is Now": A Review Of Perfect Days, Bob De Smith

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The best films, the best art, not only examine life, helping us to notice what we haven’t seen before, but they ask us to change our lives. And this is one of those films."

Posting about the movie Perfect Days from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

Perfect Days

Sister, Lover, Monster: Gender, Sexuality, And Monstrousness In Batwoman, Carter Click

Honors Projects

Introduced in 2006, Kate Kane is the modern iteration of Batwoman, who is an out lesbian woman, in contrast to her 1950s counterpart that was created to alleviate concerns that Batman was gay. She would go on to star in stories by Greg Rucka, J.H. Williams III, and W. Haden Blackman that were published from 2009 to 2013. This run established core aspects of Kate’s character, supporting cast, and origin story. Though Rucka and Williams’ work has received some scholarly focus, Williams and Blackman’s work has received very little. This project attends to how these Batwoman comics facilitate queer representation …

American Letters: Loren Eiseley

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Except from: The Bird and the Machine, The Immense Journey (1957)

The Mother Of It All (Fiction), Ardis Berghoff

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents Vol 10(1) May 2025

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

Editorial: Vol 10(1), May 2025

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

No abstract provided.

American Letters: Albert H. Hochbaum

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Excerpt from: Travels and Traditions of Waterfowl (1955)

"It's Not Your Job To Save The World, Young Women": Evangelical Women On Social Media, Ilaria P. Johnson

Master's Theses

Masters research thesis on the role of evangelical influencers on social media in spreading their beliefs on conservative politics, Christian motherhood, and Christian womanhood. Five Instagram accounts are analyzed and profiled.

“Every Mother A Missionary”?: The Vlogs Of Mormon Mothers, Celia Golden

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) places high expectations on mothers because their role in the church is to rear children into godly adults. When their lives are made public through social media, Mormon mothers online avoid religious expectations by withholding information about their Mormon faith and scarcely showing their husbands on-camera. Mormon husbands are expected to be the providers for the family, but as demonstrated through mothers’ vlogs on Instagram, husbands’ erasure allows for mothers to market their expertise to others as a paid product to earn their own revenue. Through descriptive coding, this study …

I Have Some Reservations: Examining Whether Federal Rules Of Evidence 413 And 414 Serve Legitimate Purposes Of Punishment For Native American Defendants, Cameryn Gonnella

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

This essay will analyze the legitimacy of Federal Rules 413 and 414 as applied to Native American defendants through the lens of the purposes of punishment: rehabilitation, deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and restitution.