American Studies Commons^™

February 2020, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: tu B'Shavat; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

Amjambo Africa! (February 2020), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Free English classes in Portland.. p.4

From Jordan to Maine............... p.13

Legislative Update.................... p.16

Correspondence With The Season Of Autumn, Seth Nevin

Robert Penn Warren Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Performing Nyc Latinidades: Building A Diasporic Home At Pregones And The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Oriana E. Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In December 1966, Miriam Colón, a Puerto Rican actress, starred in The Oxcart at the Greenwich Mews Theatre in New York City. The play, written by Puerto Rican playwright René Marques in 1951, told the story of a Puerto Rican family’s migration from the countryside to San Juan, and finally, to New York City. One-year post-production Colón founded the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT) as a response to the lack of diversity she saw in the audiences at the Greenwich Mews and everywhere else she performed during her prolific acting career in the 1950s and 1960s. Thirteen years later, Rosalba …

American Novels Amidst The Rise Of New Media: Emergent Publics And Forms, Sarah Ruth Jacobs

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines long-term shifts in the quantities and demographics (namely the race and educational attainment) of twentieth-century American literary readers alongside the rise and popular consumption of new media (namely television and the internet). The twentieth and twenty-first centuries are testament to a great expansion in the numbers and demographics of literary readers, and in turn an increase in the variety and intended audiences of literary publications. Examples include the rise of “middlebrow” readers and books in the 1940s and the rise of African-American, feminist, and countercultural small presses in the 1960s and 1970s. However, even as the variety …

The Afterlives Of Government Documents: Information Labor, Archival Power, And The Visibility Of U.S. Human Rights Violations In The “War On Terror”, Rachel Daniell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is about access to information.

It examines the different ways that access to U.S. government records related to the “War on Terror” is generated through the intersection of law, bureaucratic policy and procedure norms, and the everyday work of archivists and transparency advocates. I argue that, both through their labor pushing for access to government records via complex records searches, Freedom of Information Act requests, and legal action, and also through their labor layering those records with new forms of metadata in public digital circulation platforms, these individuals, in the context of their organizations, generate new forms of …

In Support Of Abstraction: Physical Interiority Beyond Postmodern Dance, Irene Hultman Monti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigate how speculative philosophy informs critical thinking about dance and its performance, encompassing both the act of creating and the action of executing. Speculative thinking augments and draws out new experiences and realities in the artistic body. I will argue that speculative theories widen the understanding and implementation of dance and its performance through a combination of human and nonhuman forces. This broadened understanding encourages progress, transformation, and evolution within the field of dance. I discuss the human (that which is experienced through sensibilities, therefore tangible and understandable on a cognitive and practical level) and the nonhuman (forces beyond …

African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles For Authenticity, Michael Cotto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

African American Existential Heroes: Narrative Struggles for Authenticity argues for the development of existential authenticities and their impact on African American self-identity constructions in three African American literary classics:

Richard Wright’s The Outsider, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain. For that purpose, the introduction puts forward the aforementioned topic; defines the major terms, authenticity, existentialism, and African Americanness; identifies the three texts to be studied; explicates its methodology; studies the anagnorisis of each text in relation to the existential crisis; accounts for the existential philosophers used, Martin …

The History Of Martha J. Lamb: Her Origin, Rise, And Progress., Mary Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On June 16, 1883, Harper’s Weekly ran a story foreshadowing the transformation of the City of New York from the island of Manhattan to a massive metropolis, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Another article on the page announced that Martha J. Lamb “has become editor of the ‘The Magazine of American History.’” It does not mention that she was also president of the company purchasing the journal. Ten years later, just a few months after her death, Mrs. Lamb’s great work, her History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress, was included in …

Movie Review: 1917, Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"1917 might seem like it’s in the distant past. But, the war’s horrific effects will extend long into the future, making Mendes’ movie relevant for a long time into the future."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie 1917 from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/movie-review-1917/

If It Looks Like Scholarship..., Aaron Barlow

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Factors Supporting Turkey’S Policy To Purchase Russian S-400 Anti-Air Strike Defense Units, Chendika Yonanda, Maryam Jamila, Zulkifli Harza, Ilman Syarif Masri

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Turkey is a member of the NATO military alliance since 1952, as a member of NATO, cooperation between Turkey and Russia invites counterparts from other NATO alliance countries. But even with criticism, Turkey continues purchasing S-400 from Russia . Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors that support Turkey's policy on purchasing S-400.This research is a descriptive research through internet-based literature.Turkey's policy in purchasing S-400 analyzed using the concepts of Arms, Alliances and Security Tradeoffs proposed by James D. Morrow. James stated that there are three factors that influence the state to conduct arming; economic & military technological factors, …

The Death Of Kobe Bryant: Fallen Icons And Heart Of Popular Culture, Justin Bailey

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"It was one more reminder that control is an illusion, that life is fragile, and that each day with loved ones is a gift."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­reactions to the death of Kobe Bryant from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/the-death-of-kobe-bryant-fallen-icons-and-heart-of-popular-culture/

African Heritage And African-American Experience, Tanzeem S. Ajmiri

Open Educational Resources

This class is Introduction to Black roots from ancient Africa to contemporary America as an orientation to the nature of Black Studies emphasizing its relationships to world history, Europe, Asia, the Americas, slavery, Reconstruction, colonization, racism, and their politico-economic and cultural impact upon African descendants worldwide. In this course we will learn to do close readings of texts to draw evidence from them and use that evidence to produce well developed, historically situated arguments using evidence to support conclusions. Students will evaluate evidence and arguments critically and analytically to build their critical thinking skills.

Finally, students will gather, interpret, and …

Woodie Guthrie And Billie Holiday- Revolutionizing Music And Society In The Great Depression, Mark Naison

Occasional Essays

No abstract provided.

"Demand Prisoners Be Given Liberty." Los Angeles Herald (February 2, 1908), Holy Spirit Research Center Oru Library

Parham News Paper Clippings

An article by Charles Parham outlining a meeting by Charles Parham in protest of the detention of "laboring class" for idleness and unemployment.

"Dowie Good-By Bitter; Reviles Wife And Son", Holy Spirit Research Center Oru Library

Parham News Paper Clippings

A report on Dowie's departure from Zion City. The paper and date is unknown. It was likely 1906. Dowie says, "I am not a sick man. My disease is a broken heart. For twenty five years I lived with my wife a broken hearted man. Her private life was a shame. She abused me every day."

This report also mentions that Dowie, "ordained George W. Slater, a former negro attendant, as an evangelist."

Shows That Shape Us: Saved By The Bell, Erin Olson

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"No one really watches sitcoms because they think they’re truly representative of reality, but we also don’t want them to reinforce common misperceptions."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the television program Saved by the Bell from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/shows-that-shape-us-saved-by-the-bell/

2020 Mlk Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Michelle Alexander, Rosanne Somerson, Matthew Shenoda

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI.

In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as "striking in the intelligence of her …

Appropriating Black Music While Segregating Black People: The Paradox Of 1920’S American Culture, Mark Naison

Occasional Essays

No abstract provided.