American Studies Commons^™

Resonant Texts: The Politics Of Nineteenth-Century African American Music And Print Culture, Paul Fess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Resonant Texts: the Politics of Nineteenth-Century African American Music and Print Culture, investigates musical sound as a discursive tool African American writers and activists deployed to contest enslavement before the Civil War and claim citizenship after Emancipation. Traditionally, scholars have debated the degree to which nineteenth-century African American music constituted evidence of black culture and marked a persistent African orality that still abides within African American textual production. While these trends inform this project, my inquiry focuses on the ways that writers placed elements of musical sound—such as rhythm, melody, choral singing, and harmony—at the center of their …

Mao's "On Contradiction," Mao-Hegel/Mao-Deleuze, Kenneth Surin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Mao Tse-Tung's famous 1937 essay "On Contradiction" is regarded as a significant attempt to redefine and reapply Marx's notion of a "dialectical contradiction" to the Chinese revolutionary conjuncture of Mao's time. I set out the principles outlined in Mao's essay, before arguing that the revolutionary conjuncture of his time no longer exists in the era of globalization and neoliberalism. I conclude that a new conception of "antagonism" is needed, and revise Mao's position with the aid of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.

Mapping Out Chinese Modernity And Alternative Modernity, Song Li

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “Mapping Out Chinese Modernity and Alternative Modernity,” Song Li reviews the writings of Kang Liu, particularly his Aesthetics and Marxism. Kang Liu studies the intellectual trajectory of Chinese Marxism from its inception to its post-Mao phases of transformation by comparing it with the cultural and aesthetic thinking of Western Marxism. It provides not only a new perspective for the study of Marxism in general and Chinese Marxism in particular, but also opens up a new space for mapping out Chinese modernity and alternative modernity. Its 2012 Chinese translation makes it more accessible in China, and it will …

Traveling Theory: Fredric Jameson’S Interpretations Of The Cultural Revolution And Maoism, Xian Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Traveling Theory: Fredric Jameson’s Interpretations of the Cultural Revolution and Maoism," Xian Wang discusses how Fredric Jameson transformed or “transcoded” the Chinese Cultural Revolution into his notion of cultural revolution, regarding it as a radical means to achieve decolonization and national liberation. The Chinese Cultural Revolution therefore became a model for cultural revolution in different parts of the world, and an alternative vision of modernity. Jameson also associates Maoism and the Cultural Revolution with Antonio Gramsci’s concept of subalternity, and considers cultural revolution as an ideological revolution for the oppressed classes. Taking Maoism as a traveling theory, …

Introduction: Rethinking Critical Theory And Maoism, Kang Liu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Rethinking Critical Theory and Maoism," Kang Liu reviews the existing literature in English on the relationship of Critical Theory and Maoism and discusses the need to explore and reconstruct a genealogy of Critical Theory and Maoism within the global context of political, ideological, and intellectual currents and trends. The special issue will focus on three clusters of issues: first, the western invention of Maoism as a universal theory of revolution; second, the reception of Critical Theory in China and its relationship to Maoism; and third, the relevance of Maoism and Critical Theory today. Liu raises the question …

Maoism In Culture: A “Glocalized” Or “Sinicized” Marxist Literary Theory, Ning Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his essay "Maoism in Culture," Ning Wang discusses the importance to literature and art of Mao's famous "Yan'an Talks" as one of his most representative works. Maoism, or Mao Zedong Thought as is generally called in China, is a "glocalized" or "Sinicized" Marxism initiated and developed by Mao and his comrades in arms and successors in China. Wang argues that although Maoism is not a dogmatically "imported" Marxism from the West, it has indeed grasped some fundamental Marxist principles in combination with the concrete Chinese literary and critical practice. Thus a "glocalized" or "Sinicized" Marxist literary theory has contributed …

The Political (Un)Conscious: Rethinking Aesthetics From A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Xiaohong Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "The Political (Un)conscious: Rethinking Aesthetics from a Cross-Cultural Perspective," Xiaohong Zhang adopts a cross-cultural perspective, examining the cultural-specific nuances of critical terms like race, class and gender, all of which have bearings on our perception and conception of aesthetics. Drawing on Emory Elliot's groundbreaking book, Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age (2002), the paper probes into the aesthetic experience whose primary effect is to depragmatize. Along this line of thinking, the author draws attention to the aesthetic impetus of two Nobel laureates, Mo Yan and Gao Xingjian, whose rewriting of Western classics demonstrates Chinese authors' shared predilection for …

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.

Polybius, Katelin Branham

Best Integrated Writing

This story brought me back to my video-game days—the roll of the joystick in my twelve-year-old palm, the smell of adolescent sweat, and the dizzying belief the game was out to get me. Now I’m wondering if that might have been true. Branham’s story delves deep into its main character’s consciousness to extract complicated questions about competition and friendship, the relationship between humans and technology, and the chilling question of what it means to be alive. Branham trusts her readers to keep up and crack the codes of the story, and what we’re rewarded with is both a wild fantasy …

Gone With The Wind, Mike Fallen

Best Integrated Writing

This essay is in response to an assignment that required students to select a short book of the Bible and discuss it in two parts. The first section offers an academic appreciation and analysis of the work. In part two students were challenged with imagining that they were a disciple of the author of the book and were asked to compose a funeral eulogy for their recently deceased teacher. Mike’s wonderful essay on Ecclesiastes, a biblical meditation on the meaning of life, is consistently engaging. At times lyrical in phrasing, it is both evocative and insightful---a joy to read.

Best Integrated Writing 2018 - Complete Edition

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University. The journal is published annually by the Wright State University Department of English Language and Literatures.

Thinking Continental: Writing The Planet One Place At A Time By Tom Lynch, Susan Naramore Maher, Drucilla Wall, And O. Alan Weltzien, Cory Willard

The Goose

Review of Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time by Tom Lynch, Susan Naramore Maher, Drucilla Wall, and O. Alan Weltzien, eds.

August 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Kiddush Levana; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

Home To Harlan: African American Miners' Children Celebration Of Homecoming, Jessica L. Cushenberry

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

For decades, Harlan County has been studied for its unique characteristics—coal, class, power, and segregation, which have allowed many fields to understand the deeply rooted history of the region. It has become increasingly clear that Harlan County is unlike many other mining regions in the Appalachian area. Harlan County mines developed “model towns” with schools, hospitals, stores and housing for their workers, thus, drawing in migrant workers, native Appalachians, and immigrants. Among these people were African Americans.

African American coal miners’ have been heavily discussed in literature, especially in West Virginia and Alabama. This work focuses on African American mining …

Amjambo Africa! (August 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Rwanda Bean Coffee ............ Page 7

Congolese Celebration..........Page 8

Cape Verde Celebration........Page 9

South Sudanese Celebration Page 10

Service Listings - Cut Out & Keep! .....................................Page 13/14

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Self-Reliance, Social Welfare, And Sacred Landscapes: Mormon Agricultural Spaces And Their Paradoxical Sense Of Place, Anthony Ross Garner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

What is the sense of place of Mormon agricultural landscapes? That is to say, what makes an LDS Church-owned welfare farm or a Mormon family garden meaningful to those who interact with it? In formulating a partial answer to this question, this thesis demonstrates how religious ideals of self-reliance and social welfare explicitly define Mormon agricultural landscapes, providing a sacred sense of their purpose to those who work and benefit from them. However, these sacred landscapes are complicated by developments of industrial agricultural equipment, corporate institutions, and urban demographics, which tend to isolate people from each other and the land …

"Full On Toy Story": Exploring The Belief In Object Sentience In Western Culture, Amelia Mathews-Pett

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis considers, from a folklorist’s perspective, the people in Western society who believe that everyday objects have feelings. It establishes these people as a cohesive group for study, referred to as “people to experience the belief in object sentience,” then analyzes their personal accounts of the experience to find both commonalities and differences. From this analysis and discussion of folkloristic perspectives on belief, the main argument is established: people in this group have generally been marginalized and could benefit from a more careful consideration of their beliefs.

The Doyen Of Dixie: A Survey Of The Banjo Stylings Of Uncle Dave Macon, Corbin F. Hayslett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

David Harrison Macon (1870-1952) is often memorialized for his showmanship rather than his banjo playing. To compartmentalize such a significant American musician yields a wide gap within scholarship about Macon, country music history and the banjo. Macon’s banjo playing, documented through over two-hundred and fifty recordings made between the 1920s and 1950s, represents an array of cultures, eras, ethnicities, and styles all preserved in the repertoire of one of the most prolific country musicians of the 20^th century. This study reveals Macon’s playing by considering such factors as influences that preceded his professional tenure, identifying elements within his playing …

America’S Inconsistent Foreign Policy To Africa; A Case Study Of Apartheid South Africa, Olugbenga Samson Ojewale Mr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study lays bare the inconsistencies in the United States of America’s Foreign Policy, and how it contributed to the longevity of apartheid in South Africa. Michael Mandelbaum opined that America’s foreign policy post-Cold War era drifted from containment to transformation.1 America became involved with transferring their democracy and constitutional order to the countries they entangled with in running those countries’ internal governance. Instead of war, America preached and practiced proper, organized governance. Thus, America’s foreign policy to Europe and Asia post-Cold War was all about democracy and protection of fundamental human rights. However, the role of America’s Foreign Policy …

Heavy Lies The Crown: The Role Of Common Sense In Shifting Colonial Blame From Parliament To King In 1776, Megan L. Tocci

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

The purpose of this research is to provide an effective analysis of the role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in shaping colonial resentment of the Crown in 1776. The study draws upon primary newspaper sources from across the Atlantic seaboard, as well as books and academic journal articles published by leading historians. While most research of the American revolutionary period recognizes colonial frustration with the British Empire was primarily focused upon the actions of Parliament, little research traces the public’s changing relationship to the King. This analysis showcases the link between Common Sense and changing colonial perception and postulates that …