American Studies Commons^™

Review Of Manitoba Politics And Government: Issues, Institutions, Traditions. Edited By Paul G. Thomas And Curtis Brown., Jim Mochoruk

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This collection of20 essays stems from a conference held at St. Johns College, University of Manitoba, in the fall of 2008, convened specifically to address what its organizers (now the book's editors) saw as the most glaring gaps in the coverage of "various aspects of Manitoba society, politics, government and contemporary policy issues." As with all such projects-especially when contributors come from several different fields-the contents are a bit uneven. Indeed, readers may feel somewhat whipsawed as they move from the smooth prose and deft touch of western Canada's leading historian, Gerry Friesen (who provides the first substantive chapter), to …

Review Of Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes At Waconda Lake, Kansas. By Donald J. Blakeslee., Lauren W. Ritterbush

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In Holy Ground, Healing Water readers are treated to a historical journey through the changing cultural landscapes of the Waconda Lake area, northcentral Kansas. This region provides the setting for discussion of unique and representative Native American and EuroAmerican cultural developments in the Great Plains. Don Blakeslee, anthropologist with Wichita State University, briefly reviews roughly 13,000 years ofNative traditions, based on archaeological investigations in the region, then discusses the Pawnee Trail, early European and Euro-American expeditions, complex Native-Native and Native-Euro-American interactions during the 19th century, sacred and secular perceptions and uses of Waconda Spring, and Lincoln Park, a local example …

Review Of Food Justice. By Robert Gottlieb And Anupama Joshi., Toby Ten Eyck

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

It is a story about food we have heard before-big is bad; small, local, and organic is better; and if you can link small, local, and organic to students, that is best of all. Part of the problem is that the usual suspects-WalMart, McDonalds, PepsiCo, etc.-have so many more resources than the usual cast of small-is-good heroes eking out a living from the earth and hard work: organic farmers , migrant workers, CSA founders and operators, and similar supporters. Gottlieb and Joshi provide some hope by pointing to a few small victories among the heroes, but it is a fight …

Review Of A Field Guide To The Amphibians And Reptiles Of Nebraska. By Daniel D. Fogell., Joseph T. Collins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

A good field guide to any wildlife group includes an identification key, quality photographs, distribution maps, and a natural history summary. The recently published Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Nebraska does not fail the reader in this regard, having all of these features and more. Dan Fogell effectively presents all 62 species of amphibians, turtles, and reptiles native to Nebraska as well as four additional species of possible occurrence within the state, and all in a useful and compact guide that can be toted easily on a hike or any other field expedition.

This long-overdue updated field …

Review Of Generous Man - Ahxs-I-Tapina: Essays In Memory Of Colin Taylor, Plains Indian Ethnologist. Edited By Arni Brownstone And Hugh Dempsey., Daniel C. Swan

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume celebrates Colin Taylor's contributions to North American ethnology through the presentation 251 of 14 research articles that reflect the diversity and vigor of Taylor's scholarship. Taylor spent his entire life in the Sussex region of southeastern England and the majority of his career teaching at the University of Hastings. His interest in Native Americans began with a boyhood fascination that matured into a disciplined and enduring passion for research and scholarly discourse. Arni Brownstone and Hugh Dempsey, two respected scholars and close friends and colleagues of Taylor, edited the volume. The three of them, along with John C. …

Review Of Hard Grass: Life On The Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. By Mary Zeiss Stange, Linda M. Hasselstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Twenty years ago, Stange and her husband traded a modest New Jersey house for seven square miles of overgrazed prairie and set out to right the wrongs done to a place that had been mismanaged ecologically as well as environmentally. The restoration begins disastrously with llamas before it proceeds to success with bison. Her narration includes her own experiences, but most of her essays are serious, in-depth studies of the broader topics that constitute life in the great grasslands spreading across the interior of the country. She begins with prehistory, analyzing the evolution of both plants and animals in the …

Review Of Steamboats West: The 1859 American Fur Company Missouri River Expedition By Lawrence H. Larsen And Barbara J. Cottrell, Ken Robison

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Using two exceptional traveler journals, Steamboats West takes the reader on a remarkable journey "on one of the most memorable feats of steamboat navigation in North American history." The adventurous travelers, Elias J. Marsh, medical officer, and Charles Henry Weber, tourist, boarded the steamboat Spread Eagle for the annual American Fur Company expedition up the Missouri River to Fort Union in Dakota Territory.

In the words of historian Hiram Chittenden, "The incidents of a single steamboat voyage from St. Louis to Fort Union would make an entertaining chapter in any book of adventure." But, for Marsh and Weber, their adventure …

Review Of The North American Journals Of Prince Maximilian Of Wied, Volume 2: April-September 1833 Edited By Stephen S. Witte And Marsha V. Gallagher, Michael G. Noll

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The travel accounts of Prince Maximilian of Wied have long been considered one of the finest early scientific and ethnographic descriptions of North American landscapes. Maximilian journeyed with the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer through the United States in 1832-34 to study its natural environments and Indigenous peoples. His keen observations were published in German in 1839-41, were translated into other languages in the following years, and have been harvested ever since for their factual information. Maximilian's publication, however, left out a good portion of his original observations.

With this, the second of three volumes of Maximilian's journals, Stephen S. Witte …

Review Of Frontier Feminist: Clarina Howard Nichols And The Politics Of Motherhood By Marilyn S. Blackwell And Kristen T. Oertel, Barbara Cutter

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

After a difficult first marriage that ended in divorce, Clarina Irene Howard Nichols became an avid supporter of married women's property rights, mothers' custody rights, and, eventually, female suffrage. She was a journalist, a newspaper editor, and in 1852 she became the first woman to speak to the Vermont state legislature, in an address in favor of women's school suffrage. By 1853, she was traveling through the Northeast and Midwest as a public lecturer on temperance and women's rights. She emigrated to Kansas in 1854 as a strong advocate of the free soil cause, but also because she had high …

Developing A Community Of Learners: A Multi-Level Integrated Curriculum In The Foreign Language Classroom, Cheryl Matthews

Honors Thesis and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Brashear, William Helm, 1855-1942 (Mss 14), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 14. Manuscripts of William Helm Brashear's poems, essays, play, and eulogy of Clarence Underwood McElroy. A few letters (6) and many clippings of his published works are included. Also scrapbooks have published poems pasted in them (3). Brashear was from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

The Cultural Politics Of Wmd Terrorism In Post-Cold War America, Harold Williford

Re-visioning Terrorism

Terrorism’s definition is hotly debated and notoriously problematic. The resulting instability of counterterrorism and counterterrorist identity, however, is less often explored. This paper analyzes the prehistory of the War on Terror to explore how the meaning and associations attributed to terrorism by counterterrorists in the 1990s reflect the latter’s priorities, agenda, and anxieties. Prevalent ahistorical post-Cold War representations of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a “new” threat indicate that WMD-wielding terrorists functioned to justify the continued existence of the American national security state after the Soviet Union collapsed. Close readings of Rainbow Six, a Tom Clancy …

Historicizing The Present In 9/11 Fiction, Todd Kuchta

Re-visioning Terrorism

Reconfiguring the debate on the historical efficacy of postmodern fiction, novels inspired by 9/11 seek to view the present itself as history. McEwan’s Saturday, DeLillo’s Falling Man, and Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist attempt to move beyond the view of history-as-text. Rather than evoking “the presence of the past,” they present characters trying to situate themselves in a new historical reality. Žižek’s account of Lacan illuminates DeLillo’s attempt to historicize the present, while McEwan gestures toward Foucault’s view of the present as exit. Only Hamid engages the historical potential of the present.

Terrorist Or Victim? Comparative Analysis Of The Characters In Jess Walter’S The Zero And Khaled Khalifa’S In Praise Of Hatred, Chloé Tazartez

Re-visioning Terrorism

The characters of Jess Walter’s novel and Khaled Khalifa’s are built as figures of terrorist or victim. According to Bertrand Gervais’ theory, a figure is first of all an object of obsession. The characters of these novels obsess us, questioning our cultural references which permit us to define who represents the terrorist and who represents the victim. Both novels play with these categories, underlining the manipulations of the images through various discourses. This questioning of usual conceptions is built through the use of lost characters, unable to communicate or simply live. These characters illustrate a crisis of the contemporary imaginary …

Ferguson, Lynne Marrs (Hammer), B. 1956 (Fa 570), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 570. Paper: [Examination of a Speech Titled "Shake Rag Revisited"] written by Lynne Marrs Hammer Ferguson for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class. The speech was delivered on 21 October 2004 by Herbert Oldham at the dedication of a historical marker in the neighborhood.

Ferguson, Lynne Marrs (Hammer), B. 1956 (Fa 569), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 569. Paper: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Study of a Funeral Ribbon Quilt" written by Lynne Marrs (Hammer) Ferguson for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

“The City, The Country, And The Road Between”: The 2011 Lion And The Unicorn Award For Excellence In North American Poetry, Michael Heyman, Michael Joseph, Joseph T. Thomas Jr.

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Expressions Of Another Center: Borderlands Visual Theory & The Art Of Luis Jimenez, Eric Tomás Hernández Castillo

American Studies ETDs

An artist who constantly challenged various social and political boundaries, Jimenez and his art contribute to a growing discourse about U.S. sculpture and 21st century American art. By combining various methodologies such as formal analysis, visual analysis, and critical biography, I will underscore the significance of Luis Jimenez's art in 21st century American art. Jimenez's art functions autobiographically particular moment in his life affected his art in many ways. His time in Mexico City, New York, and Rome are a few pivotal moments that shifted the focus of his art and encouraged him to return to the Southwest where his …

Gendered Crimes, Gendered Fans: Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, And Fandom In The Contemporary American Crime Drama, Melanie A. Cattrell

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation analyzes the changing representations of gender and sexuality in American network crime dramas over the last thirty years. It also examines the growing Internet fan communities that have developed to discuss these shows. Specifically, it provides a feminist and queer textual analysis of a variety of television crime dramas, comparing 1980's crime dramas such as Cagney & Lacey and Hunter to contemporary programs Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Bones. This textual analysis is followed with an analysis of the contemporary shows' surrounding fan communities. Thus, this work charts the relationship between television studies, audience studies, fan …

Los Tres Grandes - Herman Gallegos, Ernesto Galarza, Julian Samora: Rooted In Community, Guided By Friendship, Cultivating Leadership., Carmen R. Samora

American Studies ETDs

Los Tres Grandes, Ernesto Galarza, Herman Gallegos, and Julian Samora, fused intellectual constructs and grassroots strategies to reverse the societal dynamics they understood had marginalized Mexican Americans at both governmental and social levels. In 1968, the three scholar/activists launched the Southwest Council of La Raza (SWCLR), which four years later became the National Council of La Raza. My dissertation explores the relationship of these three men, a nexus of history and personality that launched what became the largest civil rights organization for Latinos in the United States. At a time when foundations earmarked minority support primarily for African Americans, Los …