Cultural History Commons^™

A Canvas Decolonized: An Exploration Of Haiti’S Colonial History Through Haitian Artists Philemon Obin, Jean Appolon, Sheilby Mecena, Flex Morisseau–Leroy, And Claes Gabriel, Dominique Dempsey

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

A Canvas Decolonized examines the complex realities faced by Haiti through the lens of its vibrant artistic heritage, highlighting the role of art in interpreting, preserving, and challenging narratives about the nation's history and identity. By exploring the works of Haitian muralists, photographers, painters, and poets including Jean Appolon, Flex Morisseau Leroy, Claes Gabriel, and Edwidge Danticat this study illuminates how these artists engage with themes of colonization, immigration, generational trauma, and cultural displacement. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Frantz Fanon and Benedict Anderson, the paper argues that Haitian art provides a powerful medium to analyze and contextualize the …

The Grizzly, March 6, 2025, Kate Horan, Jesse Cherone, Ashley Adam, Nathaniel Nerone, Saher Khan, Sidney Belleroche, Adam Denn

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Bears' Basketball Season Comes to an End • Tidbits About Title IX • Bears Together Strong • Saher on the Modern Rainbow Scare • Fundamentals • Opinions: Ranking Dining Options on Campus • Gymnastics Looks to Finish Strong! • Women's Wrestling Ready to Rumble

Anarcho-Syndicalism In The Negaunee Branch Of The Finnish Socialist Association, Michael P. Selwa

HS 390 Primary Research Papers

Socialism reached a prominence as a movement in the United States during the early 20th century. Fueled by the machinations of industrial capitalism and labor reform, many workers, immigrants, and other individuals would arrive to the precepts of socialism, a political movement avowing to shirk the constraints of capitalism on the proletariat. Specifically, the question of why and how labor unions should function in a socialist society was a central tenet of debate within the faction of the American Socialist Party. The central question of this article is to examine why anarcho-syndicalists argued against traditional socialist reformist arguments in the …

Rolling The Dice: The History Of Indian Reservation Gambling In The Upper Peninsula, Xavier Binkley

HS 390 Primary Research Papers

The History of Indian reservation gambling in the Upper Peninsula is of a struggle for expectance from the state government, and of the people in the state. The positive economic gain of states being one of the reasons behind why the rise of the gaming industry needed to happen. With the passing of The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act helping the regulation of reservation gambling and breaking down what was not allowed under the act. Newspapers and an interview with Frederick Dakota, give a personal look into the rise of the gaming industry and the struggle that the people were having …

Under The Veil: Women's Head Coverings In Tudor England, Savannah Toth

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to discover and analyze the agency and meaning of the role of women’s head coverings and veils within the context of Tudor Christianity, society, and the fashion world of English culture. By observing the usage of the veil through various lenses, this thesis examines the nuance of the veil as an object and actor in Tudor society that enables yet prohibits personal choice for women. This research uses various sources such as Tudor paintings and portraits, surviving pieces of garments, and written accounts to paint a picture of the impact and significance the veil had in every …

The Grizzly, February 27, 2025, Kate Horan, Caitlin Cunnane, Renee Washart, Nathaniel Nerone, Claudia Tracy, Emily Veasey, Adam Denn, Jesse Cherone

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

The Fateful Fire of Elliott House • Mother Mold: A Cosmogony • Couldn't Have Been an Email • Grubhub: Convenience or Chaos? • Opinions: Where Are My Fabulous Friends? • Bears Going to Battle: Men's Wrestling • Bears' Basketball Squads Make Conference Playoffs

Public Memory Through Memorialization, Sophie A. O'Brien

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This research project aims to contextualize the story surrounding various Nashville monuments that memorialize civil rights leaders. This project will explore the history of monuments and road names in Nashville. The history will span from the Confederacy to the civil rights movement and examine how public memory has evolved and changed with the removal of some statues and the changing of road names. It aims to show who we choose to memorialize and why, and how the civil rights leaders we choose to remember reflects public sentiment of the civil rights era.

The Forgotten Heroes Of Postman’S Park, John Price

Heroism Science

The Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park contains fifty-three memorial tablets, each dedicated to an act of life-risking bravery, undertaken by an otherwise ordinary individual, largely in the course of their everyday life, and within commonplace surroundings. The memorial’s creator, G. F. Watts, was a pivotal figure in the conception and promotion of the idea of ‘everyday’ heroism in Britain. Where he led, others followed. On this basis, the Watts Memorial has come to inform our understanding of how everyday heroism as a concept was constructed. Further research has now identified eighty-four individuals who were intended for commemoration …

The Grizzly, February 20, 2025, Kate Horan, Sidney Belleroche, Renee Washart, Claudia Tracy, Adam Denn, Ashley Adam

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Sigma Gamma Rho: Semester of Service • The UC Tonight Modern Band • BearShare Now Open! • After the Career Fair: Checklist • Bird is the Word! • El Gordo Bros: Adding Flavor to Collegeville • Opinions: Bear-Bones • Ursinus Swimming Set for Championships! • A Wonderful Weekend of Sports: February 15-16th

The Grizzly, February 13, 2025, Kate Horan, Sidney Belleroche, Renee Washart, Nathaniel Nerone, Claudia Tracy, Emily Veasey, Hadley Whitman, Jesse Cherone

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

The Launch of Soulful Creations • Annual UC Career Fair Coming Soon! • CIE Syllabus Change Proposals • Professor Pairs • Behind Their Doors: Meet the New Staff of Ursinus • Valentine's Day: Friend or Foe? • Shattering Limits: Bears Break School Records • Basketball Bears Push Towards Playoffs!

Common Threads In Monsters Across Time And Space, Jade Gladue

CAFE Symposium 2025

Fear is an undeniable human emotion, and monsters have always been a way for human societies to grapple with and explain our fears. In this project, common aspects and groupings of monsters across different indigenous cultures and folklores are discussed and dissected to determine inherent human reactions to fear. The project identifies and analyzes types of monsters and what the hidden meaning behind the existence and endurance of these creatures might be.

Four Nations Hockey, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

The Four Nations Hockey Tournament begins today. The National Hockey League and two television networks are touting this as a matchup as the best-on-best of Hockey. Of course, it is not. It is the best hockey players in the National Hockey League from four countries. The four are Canada, Sweden, Finland, and The United States.

“These Are Not Ordinary Criminals!” The First War Crimes Trial At The People's Tribunal And Its Implications In Post-Holocaust Romania, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the neglected war crimes trials of Holocaust perpetrators that took place at the People's Tribunal in early postwar Romania, focusing especially on the first trial (the “Macici group”). The article shows that in spite of the political interferences by the new pro-communist regime and the USSR, the Macici group trial in particular, and the first war crimes trials in general, were not Stalinist show trials or fake trials and they sentenced real war criminals and accurately captured Romania's participation in the Holocaust. Unlike the Antonescu group trial – that indicted the former pro-Nazi dictator and his closest …

Weeding Out Dishonesty: Rhetoric And Information Literacy For The Age Of Disinformation, Victoria M. Tischio

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

We live in what some call a post-fact world where what is presented as true becomes true and circulates widely. Politicians lie because they have calculated that they gain more than they lose, and media outlets repeat those lies because they profit from them (Adair 2024). Fear and suspicion make individuals vulnerable to these lies (Young 2017). Like an invasive species, it is nearly impossible to eradicate these lies once released into the media ecosystem. While fake news is not new (think P.T. Barnum and 17th-century canards), its virulence has reached epidemic proportions, infiltrating all aspects of society. This constitutes …

Super Bowl, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

In the beginning, it was no larger than a snowflake. Then, it grew to the size of a snowball. Within a few years, it resembled a Midwest snowstorm. Now, it is nothing short of an avalanche.

Deuce Redemption: Grindhouse Cinema, Moral Panic, And Urban Renewal, Robert Brenner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

If you consult standard histories of the “redevelopment” of 42^nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue, AKA “the Deuce,” you will read that it was filled with nothing but criminals and pornographers, that decent people avoided it at all costs, and the only way the block could be “saved” was by seizing it via eminent domain, evicting all the current tenants, and replacing them with Disney and its fellow entertainment corporations.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer a more nuanced alternative to these standard histories. I will argue that the Deuce was a lower-class, multiracial, queer entertainment …

Building A Global Partnership Through A Shared History, Lisa Lacross, Shawn Dillard, Bri Ard, Kern Jackson

International Journal of Transformative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Effective global partnerships in higher education promote intercultural awareness (Delong et al., 2011) and influence future study and work abroad experiences by articulating the value of global learning (Lewin, 2009). Seeking to broaden global engagement opportunities for minoritized students, specifically African Americans, one institution developed a virtual exchange program through a global partnership of stakeholders from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cape Verde, and the United States. Grounded in a shared history of the 2019 discovery of the last reported ship to bring enslaved West Africans to the United States, students from Mobile, Alabama and Cotonou, Benin participated in virtual discussions that …

Gone With The Wind: The Confederacy's Trojan Horse, Skyler J. Shipp

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper analyzes the film Gone with the Wind as a piece of Southern nationalist propaganda. This includes an exploration of the earlier Southern nationalist film Birth of a Nation, as well as a comparison to Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind. In my analysis of Gone with the Wind’s production process, including memos between producer David O. Selznick and other members of the production team, I find that Selznick maintained tight control over the film’s production and was extremely concerned with maintaining positive publicity for his film. This led him to allow a few seemingly progressive …

Sugar, Spice, And Everything Nice: Sweets As A Communicator Of Power And Wealth In Early Modern Spain, Liam Rafaty

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

What makes a luxury good so valued among the elite? How is luxury defined? This paper examines sugar and the value placed on sweet treats in early 17th-century Spain when sugar was a prized, expensive good among the elite. The 1611 cookbook by royal chef Francisco Martínez Montiño draws attention to this through the popularity of sweet goods, the portion sizes of the recipes, and the emphasis on sweet treats being served at gatherings, and the 1747 recipe book written by the head pastry chef for the Spanish crown Juan de la Mata provides an interesting contrast as sugar’s availability …

Restitution Of Jewish Property In Northern Transylvania During The Early Postwar Years, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Articles and Research

The restitution of Jewish property in the multiethnic region of Northern Transylvania faced numerous challenges during the first post-Holocaust years as a result of the complicated wartime history, postwar demographics, legal status, interethnic dynamics, and occasional violence. Having the lowest rate of survival among all Jewish communities in Romania, most of the region’s Jews died during the deportation and did not return to their native places to claim their properties. This impacted the extent of restitution of individual private property. Some of the Aryanized property was restituted to the Jewish survivors or their heirs because the wartime beneficiaries fled the …