American Studies Commons^™

Pynchon And Place: A Geocritical Reading Of Thomas Pynchon, John Stout

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A special emphasis on artificial or constructed spaces appears throughout Thomas Pynchon’s body of work. This thesis explores how Pynchon describes such spaces and their uses to address such weighty topics as social inequity and the struggle against authoritarianism. In examining the role of sheltering spaces in novels such as V. and Gravity’s Rainbow, I argue that Pynchon depicts various “outsider” characters as finding reification of their own forms of alterity within spaces either designed or co-opted with such purpose in mind. Through Pynchon’s depiction of spatial transformation in novels like Vineland and Inherent Vice, the author finds the opportunity …

Middle Eastern Themes In Contemporary American Fantasy: The Political And Socio-Religious Implications, Sait Ibisi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What follows is a Master’s Thesis in which an insight is given into four Middle East-inspired contemporary American fantasy novels: The Desert of Souls (2011) by Howard Andrew Jones, Throne of the Crescent Moon (2012) by Saladin Ahmed, The City of Brass (2017) by S. A. Chakraborty, and Alif the Unseen (2012) by G. Willow Wilson. In the first part of the thesis I disclose the political implications which the mentioned novels carry. These are inspired by the past and contemporary political developments in the Middle East, and are meant to both criticize the said, but more importantly, to depict …

Miami: Then & Now, Dana Mcgeehan

Library Research Scholars Program 2017-2018

This project consists of an ArcGIS Story Map of Miami-Dade County. Each “then” and “now” photo set will be marked with an icon on the map. The side-bar will show viewers two photos of the same physical space. These photos can be placed side-by-side. These spaces will mostly be buildings, but may also focus on the landscape through maps and how this has changed over time. The “then” photos come primarily from the UM Library’s Special Collections and the Florida State Archives website, floridamemory.com. The “now” photos are ones that I’ve taken myself. A paragraph or two of contextual/background information …

Body Image In Long Distance Runners, Meghan Hull

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

How would you describe the ideal runner’s body? Would you say it is tall or short? Skinny or fat? Muscular or lean? Is it the same as society’s ideal female’s body? A Division 2 collegiate female distance runner recently stated, “The ideal runner’s body is having a six pack and muscular quads and an overall skinny physique. The ideal female body, from what I gather from society, is having larger breasts and a butt, nice hair and a nice face. Runners do not always have the biggest extremities, so …

The Preservation Of The Colonial Spanish Horse And Robert E. Brislawn, Sr., Gretchen L. Patterson Ms.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Preservation of the Colonial Spanish Horse and

Robert E. Brislawn, Sr.

In 1493, the Spanish horse importation to the Caribbean islands provided an important stimulus to American exploration as an agent of transportation. In the late nineteenth century, the necessity of horses declined with the advent of railroads and motorized vehicles. Reduction of Native American populations through wars, disease, and forfeiture of territory also contributed to less reliance on horses. Born in 1890, Robert E. Brislawn, Sr., a dedicated horseman, decided to collect and preserve the best Spanish-type horses that he could locate as links to western heritage. From …

Ready Player One (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Ready Player One 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/ready-player-one-review/

Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Nation: The Theology Of White Supremacy In Liberal White American Christianity, Sophia Driscoll Gamber

Religious Studies Honors Papers

Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Nation explores the relationships between white supremacy, American nation-building, and Protestantism. The argument operates on two levels. It is firstly concerned with unpacking the development of white supremacy as a cultural theology that evolved alongside the American project from European colonization to the present day, one which infiltrates all aspects of the American project and provides its unjust racial hierarchies with divine justification. To this end, the project then turns to an analysis of the development of American nationalism and discusses the ways in which we have cultivated a heroic American mythology that undergirds both white supremacy …

With Media Fixated On The Terror, A Good Time To Look Again At Everyday Middle East, Wendy Kozol

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Democrats To "Deplorables": The Trumpization Of The Republican Party, Lily Talerman

Politics Honors Papers

This thesis explores the transformation of the Republican electoral coalition from the party of Abraham Lincoln to the party of Donald Trump. By comparing the Trump coalition—which Hillary Clinton said was half full of “deplorables”—with previous Democratic and Republican presidential coalitions, the drastic change in the electoral habits of Southerners and white working-class voters is made evident. Trump’s appeal to these voters is due not only to his populist rhetoric but also to the presidential campaigns of Republican candidates Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, as well as to George Wallace’s independent and Democratic presidential campaigns. Trump’s unforeseen victory …

Understanding Trump's Improvisational Presidency, Richard Holtzman

History and Social Sciences Faculty Journal Articles

Much has been made recently of Donald Trump’s improvisational presidency. Through tweets and public comments about border security and Syria, the president appears to be making policy on-the-fly. This behavior is nothing new for Trump. As USA TODAY (April 5) reported: “From transgender troops in the military to immigration and tax cuts, Trump has a habit of winging it: announcing (or tweeting) a policy pronouncement, and leaving it to aides to fill in the details (or somehow walk it back).”

“The Only Way Out Is In”: Negotiating Identity Through Narrative In The House On Mango Street And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Brianna E. Taylor

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

While aimed at vastly different audiences, Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age story The House on Mango Street and Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao both uniquely capture the complexities of navigating the hyphenated territory between their respective Mexican-American and Dominican-American identities. Cisneros engages readers with the simple yet profound narrative voice of Esperanza in a series of vignettes that subtly reveal a growing consciousness of her role as a young Mexican-American woman and her creative consciousness as an artist. Through the multifaceted narrative perspective of Yunior, Díaz skillfully weaves together “ghetto nerd” Oscar de …

A Blend Of Absurdism And Humanism: Defending Kurt Vonnegut’S Place In The Secondary Setting, Krisandra R. Johnson

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay argues that Kurt Vonnegut blends a unique humanist stance into his absurdist plots and characters, ultimately urging readers to confront the absurd with a kindness and human decency his protagonists often find rare. As a result of this absurd and humanist synthesis, I defend and promote Vonnegut’s place in the secondary English curriculum, despite his rank on many banned books lists, since his characters’ journeys correlate thematically with the growth and process of postmodern adolescents and encourage moral responsibility without sentimental manipulation.

Focusing on Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five as primary sources, specifically …

Transgender Murder Memorials: A Call For Intersectionality And Trans Livability, Lazarus Nance Letcher

American Studies ETDs

The number of transgender folks in the United States lost to murder increases every year. These murders have recently gained more recognition, with the memorials moving from trans-run organizations and communities to mainstream LGBTQ groups. Using visual culture and discourse analysis of four transgender murder memorials, I argue there are problematic trends of centering a white and cisgender audience, and lack of acknowledging trans livability. Memorials like Transgender Day of Remembrance take place every year, and though the oldest memorial for trans death in the country and most well known, the event creates a spectacle of violence for cisgender consumption …

The Bird That Flew Backwards, Robin Gow

English and Creative Writing Honors Papers

The Bird that Flew Backwards examines women poets from literary Modernism in the 1910s and Beat culture in the 1950s. Analyzing these eras in tandem reveals contrasting historical constructions of American womanhood and how sociocultural trends influenced how the “poetess” constructed herself and her work and illustrates the retrograde nature of women’s rights in the 1950s. Through close reading, digital mapping, and historical background, The Bird that Flew Backwards establishes a new critical perspective by linking the more well-known Modernists with lesser-known women in 1910s Greenwich Village Bohemia. This linkage between eras branches off to explore themes of formation of …

The Heart Of K'É: Transforming Diné Special Education And Unsettling The Colonial Logics Of Disability, Sandra Yellowhorse

American Studies ETDs

This paper takes up the roles of ideology and spatiality as they impact Diné students and learners in understanding conceptions of normativity, neuro-diversity and bodily variance. I am concerned with how the movement and creation of Indigenous schools and their praxis still maintain and often times produce settler colonial ideologies of being, personhood, difference and ability. I illustrate the challenges that Diné planners and educators face in entrenching cultural knowledge and language into their educational initiatives, while some of the problematic manifestations and expressions of normativity present themselves through state polices, federal law and mainstream curriculum.

I focus on the …

A Sumitography: A Listing Of Postage Stamps Celebrating Contributions To Civil And Human Rights By Martin Luther King Jr. And Associates, Lillie R. Jenkins

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

This "sumitography" (from Latin "sumit" means postage stamp) is a listing of postage stamps celebrating contributions to civil right and human rights by Martin Luther King Jr. and associates. In addition to USA postage stamps, this listing includes stamps from other nations, including Cuba, Ghana, Sweden, Turks & Caicos Islands, and others. Also included are postage stamps honoring King associates--in the struggle for civil and human rights, Mohandas K. Gandi, Rosa Partks, A. Philp Randolph, and Malcolm X.

Don't Call King A 'Civil Rights' Leader: Toward Abolishing Poverty And War By Correcting Our Fatally Inadequate Remembering Of Mlk Jr., Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—primarily as a domestic “civil rights” leader—is inadequate, and sometimes harmful. The term “civil rights” fails to embrace King’s abolitionist movements toward the global abolition of poverty and war. Moreover, King was a Baptist preacher called by God. He advanced an optimistic realism (including a “realistic pacifism”) that improves upon pessimistic-cynical versions of political realism. And King went beyond advancing “civil rights” to advancing economic justice, economic rights, and human rights. He prescribed adding a social and economic bill of rights to the US Constitution, plus full-employment supplemented by “guaranteed income,” …

Clarke, Kenneth Wendell, 1917-2012 (Mss 635), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 635. Manuscripts, notes, publisher’s correspondence, and photographs relating to the scholarly work of WKU English and folklore professor Kenneth W. Clarke, principally "Bud Long: The Birth of a Kentucky Folk Legend" and "The Harvest and the Reapers." Also includes reel-to-reel tape discussing home burial and casket - coffins, African American discussing race relations, singing in Barren County, Kentucky. See also digitized reel-to-reel tape T (T) -7-71-16 discussing cockfighting.

Purgatorio, Rosie Pineda

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

Rodrigo Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of camerastylo, Purgatorio ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images. …

Supergay: A Queer Analysis Of The Cw’S "Supergirl", Anna Degalan

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

An analysis of queer representation and allusions in superhero narratives has been a subject for debate in the both the queer and feminist fields. Throughout history, many scholars have focused on the storyline of superheroes who have “come out” as part of the LGBTQA+ community in comics and in media. However, my paper addresses how a presumed heterosexual character’s introduction into the community as a superhero can be seen as a direct retelling of a queer “coming out” experience in the CW’s show Supergirl (2015). I will discuss Kara Zor-El Danvers’ “coming out” story as Supergirl, as well as how …