American Studies Commons^™

Crafting Girlhoods, Elissa E. Myers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Crafting Girlhoods emphasizes nineteenth and early twentieth century British and American girls' agency and creativity within the prescribed limits of educational crafts—including sewing and periodical-making. My first section shows how girls use psychological means to resist the cultural and gendered imperatives of sewing and tidiness, while my second section shows how girls resisted the censorship and harassment that the newspaper and periodical forms allowed by creating intimate communities in the pages of their periodicals that could help them negotiate these difficulties. In both cases, I will show how the craft forms themselves were their own antidote to the constricting force …

Promoting The Consumer Citizen: Seals, Spectacles, And The Gendered Consumer In Depression-Era America, Danielle B. Wetmore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will argue that New Deal legislation accounted for increased importance placed on consumers and the articulation of consumer citizenship as female during the Great Depression. Once New Deal programs and legislation determined and legitimized the consumer citizen, the consumer citizen exercised influence though purchasing power. Analyzing the ways the federal government defined women as consumer citizens through programs like the National Recovery Administration’s Blue Eagle Campaign offers important insight into who was considered to have a voice. Notions of citizenship define groups by who has the necessary attributes and qualifications—in this case the means to purchase goods—to be …

Political Fictions: Black Feminist Novels Of Slavery And The Narrative Of The American Left, Elizabeth A. Foley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

African-American women at the turn of the 1970s were the ostensible beneficiaries of the multiple liberation movements that had arisen during the previous decades: the civil rights movement, Black Power, second-wave feminism, and the gay rights movement. But black women’s unique vantage point at the crossroads of multiple forms of discrimination – a position that would eventually necessitate the coining of the term intersectionality – allowed them to see the failures and shortcomings of each of these movements with a clarity that often escaped their political peers, and brought home to them the necessity of creating their own movement, one …

Anger, Genre Bending, And Space In Kincaid, Ferré, And Vilar, Suzanne M. Uzzilia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how women’s anger sparks the bending of genre, which ultimately leads to the development of space in the work of three Caribbean-American authors: Jamaica Kincaid, Rosario Ferré, and Irene Vilar. Women often occupy subject positions that restrict them, and women writers harness the anger provoked by such limitations to test the traditional borders of genre and create new forms that better reflect their realities.

These three writers represent Anglophone and Hispanophone Caribbean literary traditions and are united by their interest in addressing feminist issues in their work. Accordingly, my research is guided by the feminist theoretical frameworks …

Dear Black Child: A Discussion On The Formation Of Identity For African Diasporic Adolescents In The U.S., Sokhnagade B. Ndiaye

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this capstone project, I am using art, photography, and music to depict the experiences of African diasporic youth in the United States. I will explore the white supremacist systems that contribute to the anxiety that comes with being a black child in America. In this project, I plan to discuss the ways in which African diasporic adolescents develop their identity and consciousness and the ways in which living in American society helps and/or hinders the development of this identity and consciousness. I argue that living in the United States forces black youth to form double and triple consciousnesses, which …

Depressed & Dis-Eased: Storytelling, Melancholia And The Rhetorical Affordances Of Affect, Carlee Franklin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Because racial oppression is often internalized, this thesis examines literature written by POC about protagonists of color struggling with depression. The pieces are Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Haruki Murakami’s “Tony Takitani,” and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Using literary concepts informed by Black feminist theory, decolonial theory, and affect studies, as well as rhetorical frameworks of silence and listening, this thesis attempts to better understand how the relationship between depression and racial oppression work to color the life expectancy and perspectives of depressed people of color

Fair World 64: A Text-Based Game Of The 1964–1965 World's Fair, Christofer R. Gass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The project is a text-based game of a typical day during the first season of the 1964 World’s Fair in what is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The 1964-1965 World’s Fair, that Robert Moses presided over as president, was one of the largest and most expensive fairs ever created, but only days after the last fairgoer left through the turnstile most of the many pavilions that brought education, entertainment, and joy to so many people were destroyed to leave a vast open space that is relatively empty to this day. Although most of the pavilions were either relocated or demolished, there …

The Life And Death Of Mambo: Culture And Consumption In New York's Salsa Dance Scene, Carmela Muzio Dormani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades salsa dancing has become a global phenomenon, spawning a variety of styles and levels. Although formerly passed from person to person through Latinx family and community networks, salsa dance has long been practiced in a more codified way. Today, salsa is largely reproduced in dance studio classes, congresses, and competitions collectively referred to as “the salsa scene”. In New York City, the salsa scene retains vestiges of Nuyorican and Afro-Caribbean identity, though it is practiced by people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds and marketed to a global base. Building on long term participation observation and nearly …

“Because Like – And So I Don’T – So I Think It’S Maybe, I Don’T Know”: Performing Traumatic Effects While Reading Lynda Barry’S The Freddie Stories, David Lewkowich, Michelle Miller Stafford

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

As a picture of childhood composed from the point of view of a young boy named Freddie, who suffers the effects of repeated and ongoing trauma, the experience of reading The Freddie Stories presents a number of interpretive challenges: its main character is often split and in various states of disassociation, the difference between dreaming and waking life is not always obvious, multiple monsters appear in different and changeable forms, and as Freddie experiences repeated difficulties with language and cognitive function, his traumatic past enfolds upon the time in which the story is set. In this paper, we analyze how …

More Pricks Than Kicks: The Southern Economy In The Long Twentieth Century, Peter A. Coclanis

Study the South

Most scholars and journalists working on the South would likely agree that over the past fifty or sixty years southern states on balance benefitted from a diverse, but generally reasonable and reasonably successful portfolio of policies and programs in the “economic development” space. The fact that the region is still the poorest, the unhealthiest, and the least educated in the United States, a half century or more after the beginning of the “Sunbelt boom” says a lot about the difficulty of extricating a region once it is headed down a pernicious economic path.

Faqs For Administrators And Leaders At Community- And Faith-Based Organizations, Centers For Disease Control And Prevention

Pandemic Response and Religion in the USA: Health

This is the Frequently Asked Questions webpage from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designed to help places of worship prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their congregations. The FAQ page includes prevention strategies, community outreach strategies, and how to decide if services should be in person or virtual. Issues such as discrimination and marginalized populations are discussed on the FAQ page.

Community And Faith-Based Organizations: Plan, Prepare, And Respond, Centers For Disease Control And Prevention

Pandemic Response and Religion in the USA: Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Interim Guidance For Communities Of Faith, Centers For Disease Control And Prevention

Pandemic Response and Religion in the USA: Health

This article from the CDC offers guidelines for religious groups and organizations that are beginning to reopen and hold in-person services as stay-at-home orders are lifted. Guidelines include hygiene tips, disinfecting practices, the use of face masks, and other safe practices designed to keep houses of worship safe as they reopen. Other guidelines include policies for houses of worship to put in place for their congregants upon reopening, such as the use of worship materials.

"The Jeep Is Here To Stay!" Projections Of America And Franco-American Relations During World War Ii, Connie L. Gentry

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

During World War II, the Office of War Information produced American and Allied propaganda that was used at home and abroad. Robert Riskin, head of the Bureau of Motion Pictures Overseas Branch, was responsible for creating Projections of America, a documentary film series made to introduce foreigners to America whilst combating negative impressions of Americans that arose in the interwar years. Films from Projections of America contained themes of American culture, ideology, industry and technology, and democracy. In France, these films were used to sway French opinion of Americans while promoting friendship and appreciation for American culture. Ultimately, the …

The Bird Woman, Erinn Beth M. Langille

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

No Longer Fenced Out: Outlaw Media Discourse And Resistance To Gentrification In Greenwich Village, Joseph Francis Gallegos

American Studies ETDs

Greenwich Village is a so-called “gayborhood” that accepts and welcomes LGBT people. However, Greenwich Village has been undergoing gentrification for the past few decades, and this process exists due to a police-created order of violence that subjugates and displaces queer people and people of color. This order seeks to create a space that is friendly to capital and wealth.

Resistance to these strategies requires tactics that do not necessarily hew to mainstream methods of getting a message out, such as using mainstream media to make a case against gentrification. These often fail, as they will fall on deaf ears of …

Green Book (2018) And Blackkklansman (2018): An Analysis Of White And Black Perspectives In Contemporary Films Using Critical Race Theory, Kelsie E. Posey

Honors College Theses

This research analyzes two films, Green Book (2018) and BlacKKKlansman (2018), to uncover the connections between diverse racial representation off-screen, and the presentation of non-white perspectives on-screen. This study uses CRT to frame the effects of diverse source materials and production teams on the films' narratives.

"I Speak For The Preservation Of The Union" : Daniel Webster, Law, And Morality In The Writings Of The American Renaissance, Rebecca Nicole Girardin

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Daniel Webster, one of the most prominent politicians and orators in American history, effectively ended his political career on March 7th,1850. Webster’s support of the Compromise of 1850 included the Fugitive Slave Law, which forced Northern complicity in the return of captured fugitive slaves. Webster supported the legislation because he interpreted the law based on precedent and a notion of “natural law” determined by geography rather than morality. In this thesis, I look at how two writers of the American Renaissance, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harriet Beecher Stowe, used literature to critique the understanding of law promoted by Webster in …

Pleasure Is All Mine, Lola Ogbara

Graduate School of Art Theses

One’s identity is shaped by many factors such as race, culture, physical appearance, nationality, and religion—amongst many more. As an artist, the subjugation of identity in the context of race, gender, and sexuality is a world I examine closely. Subverting myths of sexual deviancy and racial inferiority that perpetually pathologizes Black feminine sexuality, I often use and reference my own body to create avenues of power through physical and intellectual pleasure. Through material use of clay, metal, photography, and installation, I emphasize on how contemporary Black social cultures are able to write their own narratives in order to further progressions …

Country Fun: A Cultural History Of Opryland Usa, Nashville, And The Suburban South, William C. Nieman

Honors Theses

This thesis centers around the history of Opryland USA, a theme park and “musical showplace” that existed from 1972 to 1997 in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee. Using a variety of primary sources including park ephemera, newspaper articles, and songs, I show how, over its twenty-five years, Opryland became a country music theme park after initially presenting a seemingly diverse picture of American popular music. I reveal that, despite local businessowners’ and musicians’ reluctance to embrace Opryland at first, the park was accepted by many Nashvillians to the point where it is now nostalgically mourned. Then, putting those primary materials …