Cultural History Commons^™

Sockdologizing: Finally Laughing At The Lincoln Assassination, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I've taken solace in the fact that Abraham Lincoln died laughing. Sarah Vowell, in her riveting and powerful Assassination Vacation, speaks about how, "it is a comfort of sorts to know that the bullet hit Lincoln mid-guffaw. Considering how the war had weighed on him, at least his last conscious moment was a hoot." [excerpt]

As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project argues that American daytime soap operas, since the1970s, have adopted prevailing discursive ideas of queerness, re-articulated them, and introduced new discursive understandings of queerness into popular culture. Most often, these re-articulated representations reflect a heteronormalized model,owing to myriad historically-situated discourses related to human sexuality (e.g.,mental health, AIDS, and gender identity). This point is made through a broad examination of these shifting discourses, coupled with a direct analysis of salient queer characters and storylines that appeared concurrently within daytime serials. Building on Feminist and Media theory, this project includes Queer theory to frame a comprehensive historical-discursive understanding of queerness …

Paradox On The Playa: Uncovering The Contradictions Embedded In Burning Man, Shelby Anne Rothman

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project examines the contradictions embedded in the stated goals and organizational structure of Burning Man. Burning Man is something that is portrayed as positive in an alternative community; but in reality has its own hegemony and hierarchical bureaucracy. Through a discourse analysis and participant observation, this project shows that the ideologies of the culture are partially liberatory while most other aspects of Burning Man are hegemonic. The social contradictions of Burning Man are pointed out through employing theories of ideology, hegemony, place and space, heteronormativity, and subculture theory.

Dancing With The Gods; Santeria's Historical Context In Eastern Cuba, Lauren Reed

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Santeria is a religion that originated in Cuba in the 1600's and grew out of the tensions between two ethnic groups: Spanish slave masters and West African slaves. Their religions- Catholicism and Ifa, respectively- coalesced to create a syncretism, or amalgamation of multiple concepts. This syncretism, Santeria, is an extraordinarily complex religion through which adherents communicate with God and deities called orishas using prayer, music, dance, divination, and rituals. Though many claim certain truths about Santeria, they are often contradictory and unfounded, making it difficult to accurately understand the religion. However, with effort, these truths can be pieced together to …

From A Place Of Fear: Death, Slavery & Stonewall, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Earlier this spring, I sat in Gettysburg at the "Future of the Civil War" conference and listened to an intern talk about how he had been scared to interpret. He was afraid of his visitors, afraid to tell them about a place. [excerpt]

The Semester Ends, The Semester Begins, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

It's finals week at Gettysburg College, but in another time, it was just the beginning of the oddest session of college just over 100 students would ever experience. Some would join the 26th PEMR, some would run home from the oncoming rebel hordes, and others would remain in Gettysburg, sitting in the cross-hairs of the war as the slowly rested on Adams County. [excerpt]

The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850, Jon Miller

University of Akron Press Publications

FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD

From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and …

Virtual Sesquicentennial: #Invasion63 Goes Live, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I teased this project a short while ago, and now that May has arrived history has begun coming back to life. Over the next three months, the men and women who walked Gettysburg's streets and crossed the Pennsylvania College campus will reenact their lives in the last few moments before Gettysburg changed irrevocably. As May creeps along, more characters will rise from the grave and begin reliving the past. [excerpt]

Female Paramilitary Experience In Northern Ireland, Emily Artalejo

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

"Peace is not what our people fought for. They fought for independence." Declared Bernadette Sands-McKevitt in response to the Provisional Irish Republican Army's acceptance of the Belfast Agreement. A former member of the PIRA, Sands-McKevitt is now an active member of the "Real IRA," a splinter group formed by republicans who were disillusioned by Gerry Adams' acceptance of the Mitchell Principles during the Northern Ireland Peace Process. She is the founder and current Vice Chair Person of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee, a single-issue pressure group designed to eliminate the partitionist articles of the Agreement and unite Northern Ireland with the …

Pennsylvania At Chancellorsville, But Headed Back Home, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

With the anniversary of the battles around Fredericksburg this week, the Civil War world's eyes seem to be turned toward Chancellorsville and the battles there. Almost as a reflex, my mind has gone there too. I've been thinking about Simon Stein Wolf, the Gettysburgian who faced death at Chancellorsville only to find it terribly displayed in the days after. So today another excerpt from my manuscript, to start re-conceptualizing Chancellorsville through the eyes of a Pennsylvania College dropout. [excerpt]

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter research, course development, pedagogy development, …

Went Off To The Shakers: The First Converts Of South Union, William R. Black

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In 1807 the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers)
established a society near the Gasper River in Logan County, Kentucky. The society was soon named South Union, and it lasted until 1922, the longest-lasting Shaker community west of the Appalachians. Most of the first Shaker converts in Logan County had only a few years beforehand participated in a series of evangelical Presbyterian camp meetings known collectively as the Kentucky Revival, the Revival of 1800, or the Great Revival.Though Presbyterian revivalism and Shakerism shared certain characteristics (particularl millennialism and enthusiastic forms of worship), there were many differences between …

Editor's Notebook, Andrew C. Holman

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Totalitarian Regimes And The Individual On Russian And Soviet Music, Tyler Christian Mills

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper addresses the development of Russian and Soviet music from the 1860’s through Stalin’s terror in the late 1930’s. It focuses on the constraints placed on the composers by the totalitarian regime and how these individual composers were able to not only survive, but leave a greater impact on the development and style of music than the state that was constraining them. The paper focuses on how individual composers were able to use their innovation and talent to create unique material that captivated audiences both at home and abroad.

Robert Nathaniel Dett And The Music Of The Harlem Renaissance, Daniel Weaver

History Theses

While the contributions of writers and poets to the period of American cultural history known as the Harlem Renaissance are relatively well defined and understood, assessing the contributions of musicians has been more problematic. The topic has been covered indirectly through works of American music history and African American history, but there have been comparatively few works linking music directly to the goals of the movement. Much of the insight into music’s place during this period derives from contemporary writers such as Alain Locke and James Weldon Johnson, both of whom featured discussions of music in their writings. Relatively unknown …

Cooking Up A Course: Food Education At Pomona College, Christina A. Cyr

Pomona Senior Theses

Cooking skills are important but declining, with significant health, social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental implications. Food and cooking education can begin to address some of the negative effects of the cooking skills decline. This thesis makes the case for cooking classes in the education system, especially in higher education. The paper begins with a history of cooking education and skills, outlines the implications of the decline in skills, and discusses the potential for cooking education in higher education. The second part consists of a course syllabus, designed for Pomona College. The third section includes a discussion of the implementation …

Preserving Dance Forms In India Through Education And Performance: A Curriculum For Bollywood Dance, Kimberly Martin

Masters Theses

This project is a practical curriculum of Bollywood dance that can be used to assist in the preservation of dance forms in India through education and performance. The goal of this curriculum is to systematically equip dancers of all ages with the basic knowledge and experiences needed to excel as dancers and choreographers of Bollywood dance. This will be achieved through practical experience that is built from the basics of Bollywood dance and founded in classical tradition and theory as presented in Bharat Natyam. This curriculum is broken up into four sixteen-week semesters and covers a series of steps, basics …

The Harmonic Implications Of The Non-Harmonic Tones In The Four-Part Chorales Of Johann Sebastian Bach, Timothy Willingham

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study sought to identify the harmonic implications of the non-harmonic tones in the four-part chorales of Johann Sebastian Bach and to identify if the implications were modern, extended harmonies. The study examined if non-harmonic tones implied traditional or extended harmonies more often, which non-harmonic tones more frequently implied extended harmonies, and which chords typically preceded implied extended harmonies. The study was a corpus analysis of the four-part chorales. The data collected was organized in and analyzed with frequency charts and a chi-square goodness of fit test and chi-square tests of independence from the chordal analysis conducted by the researcher. …

Gettysburg's Other Unknown Soldier, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

We all know the name Amos Humiston. We know he was found on the first day's field. We know he clutched the image of his three children, an unknown soldier until his wife Philinda Humiston saw her children peering back at her from a copy of that picture. We know his drama and the agony of Philinda, we know the heartbreak and horror.

But who's buried next to him? [excerpt]

The Grizzly, April 25, 2013, Jessica Orbon, Sara Sherr, Dana Feigenbaum, Alyse Reid, Rosemary Clark, Vivek Reddy, Megan Maccaroni, Rayleen Rivera-Harbach, John Parry, Briana Keane, Shane English, Austin Fox, Allen Weaver

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Students, Dean Recall Boston During Bombings • Wismer to Get Summer Makeover • Residence Life Expands Gender-Neutral Housing • UC Organic Farm • Alumni Always Welcome • Ninjutsu Club's New Identity • B' Nats' Concert • Opinion: Consider Your Privilege at Thrift Shops • Grizzly Staff Thanks Dr. Kirstie Hettinga • Senior Day Ahead for Spring Athletes • Cheers and Jeers: Ursinus, Philadelphia Athletics • Women's Lacrosse Falls Short