Digital Commons Network^™

The Arena Players, Inc.: The Oldest Continuously Operating African American Community Theatre In The United States, Alexis Michelle Skinner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hay (1994) gave the Arena Players the moniker, “the oldest continuously operating African American community theatre company” in the U.S. But, if Black Theatre is increasingly found in mainstream venues in regional theatre and Broadway while Black Drama is relegated to syllabi, where is the living practice of African American, or black, community theatre? And what guarantees its survival? Craig (1980) and Fraden (1994) give voice to black critics, like Locke (1925), in co-creating objectives for black theatre during the FTP which took stage as the Negro Little Theatre continued. Hill & Hatch (2003) solidify the geographical and ideological connections …

The Grizzly, March 25, 2021, Simra Mariam, Marie Sykes, Dylan Melby, Gillian Mccomeskey, Shelsea Deravil, Layla Halterman, Faith Denner, Claire Vance, Rosalia Murphy, Ava Compagnoni

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Fairytales on Campus • Rumor Debunked: Upper Wismer Will Not be Raising the Price of a Meal Swipe! • Bonner Leaders Address Food Insecurity in Norristown • The Beginning of Spring • Fulfill Food Bank Run by Guadagno '80, Fights COVID-19 Hunger • Opinion: Break Days - Useful Alternative or Useless Excuse for a Spring Break?; A Disappointed Senior Class • ACHA Health Survey Returns • Update on Spring Sports

Influential Storytelling At Its Finest: Why The Postwar West Took Notice Of Yasujirō Ozu’S Tokyo Story, Abigail Deveney

Japanese Society and Culture

Tokyo Story (1953) came to fame in 1958, when Yasujiro Ozu’s postwar film about a fragmenting family won the Sutherland prize at the London Film Festival – or so cinematic scholarship suggests. There is, however, a much more complex tale to be told. In fact, director Ozu’s shomingeki-genre film was being discussed and promoted internationally long before what is considered that watershed moment.

This dissertation explores why the western world took note. It argues that Tokyo Story’s nuanced and humanist narrative was a unique form of soft power, attracting and persuading decades before that concept was formally articulated. Tokyo Story’s …

Empty Squares And Missing Food Festivals: The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Italian Rural Communities: A Reflection, Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

What does an empty square mean for the future of a rural community? This question has been buzzing in my head since spring 2020 when my country, Italy, entered its first lockdown period due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I am an economic anthropologist. Since the mid-2000s my research has focused on the development of local communities in rural areas of Italy. Specifically, I have been investigating the role played by folk food festivals, the so-called sagre, using ethnographic research in north-western Italy, an area often studied by anthropologists to understand the transformations of the relationship between urban and rural centres, …

Dinner Is The Great Trial: Sociability And Service À La Russe In The Long Nineteenth Century, Graham Harding

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

The shift from service à la Française to service à la Russe that took place between 1850 and 1880 changed Victorian sociability and the Victorian dinner table. In the former style of service all the dishes were put on the table and then carved by the host; in the latter most of the dishes were placed not on the table but upon a sideboard and from there handed to guests individually by the servants. This new “taste regime” had implications not just for the style of food but the conduct of the table and the taste and style of the …

Tinned Sardines And Putrefied Yellow-Fin In Equatorial Guinea: Regimes Of Food In The Novels Of Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, Igor Cusack

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

In his semi-autobiographical novels, Las tinieblas de su memoria negra (Shadows of your black memory) and Los poderes de la tempestad (Power of the storm), the Equatoguinean writer Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo describes a boy’s, and then the man’s, life in colonial and postcolonial Equatorial Guinea, Spain’s only sub-Saharan colony. This paper argues that the numerous descriptions of the food encountered by the protagonist immerse the reader in four different worlds: that of his Fang ethnic group in the Hispanic colony; that of the colonial priests and emancipados of the protagonist’s youth; then the horrors encountered under the cruel postcolonial tyrant, Macías …

Lobster Palaces In Times Square: The Public Stage Where America Discovered Itself Through Play And Leisure, Lydia E. Ravnikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1870 and 1920, the period known as the Gilded Age, New York City became the acknowledged national leader in finance, manufacturing, technology, and entertainment. As the country’s leader, it attracted both new millionaires who wanted to validate their social importance in an attempt to rid themselves of a small-town past and immigrants, who were searching for better opportunities. However, to New York’s elite society, the Four Hundred, led by Mrs. Astor, both groups were not welcomed. While the immigrants proved easier to control physically, the new millionaires, however, were indeed a legitimate threat. With this real threat including pressure …

Auto®Ficción Latinx De Nueva York (1999–2020), Jacqueline Herranz Brooks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research on the intersection of Literary Criticism, Latino Studies, Persona Studies, and Performance Studies has led me to question the accepted definitions of autoficción (Doubrovsky, Gasparini, Alberca, Casas, Schlikers) and expand that definition into a more multifaceted and operational term. Hence, I created auto®ficción, a new term describing the hybrid creations of a group of underrepresented contemporary Latinx authors living/producing/circulating their work in New York City, during the first two decades of the 21^st Century. For these authors, their life experiences and quotidian uses of this city’s spaces are the subjects of their work. Auto®ficción draws attention …

‘We Were Very Much Surprised At Their Worship’: American Girls And Religious Tourism In The Early Republic, 1780-1835, Sharon Halevi

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Following the Revolution, the United States formally embraced the ideal and practice of religious freedom. But how was this ideal instilled and practiced? Could a form of pilgrimage have been mobilised in order to inculcate it? In this article I argue that in the early American republic, religious freedom was demonstrated and imparted to adolescents through a unique form of pilgrimage: visiting and attending the worship services of religious minorities while on tour. I demonstrate my argument by considering the travel accounts of fifteen, Protestant, American adolescent girls (aged 10 to 21) between 1782 and 1835; I trace their visits …

The Shanachie, Volume 33, Number 1, Connecticut Irish-American Historical Society

The Shanachie (CTIAHS)

In this issue: Irish wolfhounds among New England’s earliest settlers -- Please join us for yet another year of Irish history and culture (SHU Digital Commons) -- An Irish actor, his playwright son and a Connecticut landmark -- Civil rights champion for Cape Cod Indians.

From The Dark Margins To The Spotlight: The Evolution Of Gastronomy And Food Studies In Ireland, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Books/Book Chapters

For many years, food was seen as too quotidian and belonging to the domestic sphere, and therefore to women, which excluded it from any serious study or consideration in academia. This chapter tracks the evolution of gastronomy and food studies in Ireland. It charts the development of gastronomy as a cultural field, originally in France, to its emergence as an academic discipline with a particular Irish inflection. It details the progress that food history and culinary education have made in Ireland, suggesting that a new liberal / vocational model of culinary education, which commenced in 1999, has helped transform the …

Moving Towards Equity In The Arts Is America’S Silicon Valley A Cultural Backwater Or Harbinger?, Tom Borrup, Heidi Wagner, Elizabeth Taing, Amanda Rawson

Journal of Urban Culture Research

During a time when American cultural institutions and their funders have committed to advancing cultural equity and reverse patterns of white supremacy, this study illustrates a possible scenario of what that might look like. The nonprofit arts and cultural landscape observed in Silicon Valley raises questions of how American cities and regions might look in their movement towards equity. Data on these nonprofit organizations in this California region were examined in 2019 and compared with data from a decade earlier. These included numbers and start-up years of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, their types, expenditures, and mission-based focus. In addition …

Benin Kingdom's Art Traditions And Culture, Festus Osarumwense Uzzi, Afeez Babatunde Siyanbola, Daniel Omoruan

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This study works on Benin kingdom art traditions and culture. The methodology of these studies were based on field work and oral interview in writing the history of Benin kingdom and its monarchy. The various traditions in Benin City and its environs are also to be identified; potters, bronze casters were interviewed on the history of craft practice. The study also examines the symbolic meaning of each of the traditions. It projects the aesthetic qualities, and the effects of new ideas of the indigenous Benin people‘s craft, and how Benin culture in Nigeria are interpreted with respect to environmental influences …

The Museum That Leaps Over The Physical Wall : Museum Practices In Japan Under The Covid-19 Pandemic, Mengfei Pan

Journal of Urban Culture Research

Under the pandemic COVID-19, museums around the world are facing unprecedented challenges. This paper focuses on the museums in Japan and traces their practices between around February 2020 and March 2021. It presents a timeline of changes in the museum scene with along the spread of the Virus in the country and the policies, particularly the declarations of “State of Emergency.” To open to the public, an inherent purpose of a museum, becomes questionable when physical gatherings are undesirable with higher risk of virus spread and it is more expensive to remain open with much less visitors. This paper offers …

Sport, Kul’Turnost, And Physical Culture In The Khrushchev Era Soviet Union, 1953-1964, James Henry Jennings

All Master's Theses

Sport served many purposes in the Soviet Union, as it has in most modern societies. This study examines the relationship between state-sponsored imperatives for citizens to engage in sport and exercise and cultural norms in the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev years, 1953-1964. It also examines the attempted creation of a class of people who exhibited proletarian engagement with work, but also possessed bourgeois cultural tastes. A variety of visual and text-based primary sources from Russian-language magazines and poster campaigns were analyzed for their tone, content, and cultural signifiers. The sources yielded a view of Soviet society in which the …

Transformation Of The Relationship Between Neighborhood & Sociality Space And Land Use In Tripoli Lebanon, Noha Kassab

Journal of Urban Culture Research

Prior to the technological breakthroughs of the past two decades, the relationship between neighborhood and sociality had long remained relatively stable. However, Social media and technological innovations have occasioned changes in both lifestyles and urban forms. This research takes a social perspective to analyze the urban space of the city of Tripoli across three main stages. Tripoli has been chosen because the city includes a variety of urban structures and a variety of lifestyles. This study investigates how space affects culture and culture affects spaces in urban design. First, I present three parts of Tripoli’s urban fabric, then provide an …

The Nana Yaa Asantewaa War: Analysis Of The Political Institutions Of The Asante During The War Of The Golden Stool And The Existing Narratives, Angela Danso Gyane

Senior Independent Study Theses

The War of the Golden Stool was the last in the Anglo-Asante Wars, where the Asante fought against the British colonial agenda. According to the Asante oral history, Nana Yaa Asantewaa was at the forefront of this war. She was the commander, but most of the literature to not reflect this oral history. Therefore, this study seeks to address two essential questions: how did gender dynamics in the Asante Kingdom's political system shape their Resistance against the British in 1900- 01? Moreover, how does the analysis of oral histories from the matrilineal culture of the Asante decenter Western narratives of …

The Grizzly, September 24, 2020, Simra Mariam, Sam Beckman, Claude Wolfer, Layla Halterman, Shelsea Deravil, Liam Reilly, Kevin Melton, Sean Mcginley

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus Celebrates the Commons Opening • A Not-so-Common Intellectual Experience • Strengthening Your Optimism Muscle • The Fringe Festival 2020 Goes Virtual • Opinion: All Students Should Have the Same CIE Experience; The Case for Pronouns • Pokemon Go Makes a Comeback • The New "Normal" for Ursinus College Athletics

The Good War?: Reinterpreting The Second World War In Contemporary Musical Theatre, Leana Sottile

SURF Posters and Papers

For years, American musicals have contributed to the mythologization of the Second World War and upheld ‘Greatest Generation’ nostalgia in mainstream war memory. For example, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific is effectively silent on the brutality and dehumanization of the Pacific Theater and exoticizes the experience of service members. In the past five years, the New York theatre scene has seen three shows that portray the Second World War more accurately and less romantically: Allegiance, Bandstand, and Alice by Heart. While none of these shows ran for longer than a few months in New York, in that short …

Desegregation Through Entertainment: Rodgers And Hammerstein’S South Pacific As An Instrument Of Military Policy, Leana Sottile

Voces Novae

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific became a staple of mainstream popular culture. However, the musical also served a specific function within the American military where its usage by the United Service Organizations and Department of Defense was widespread. This case study examines how South Pacific arguably served a way to ease the blow of desegregation on the military by other means, in this case, entertainment. This was achieved by combining the show’s progressive views on racial tolerance with the prevalent wartime nostalgia and romanticism in the piece. All of …

Cultural Diplomacy With North Korean Characteristics: Pyongyang’S Exportation Of The Mass Games To The Third World, 1972–1996, Benjamin Young

Research & Publications

During the 1970s and 1980s, the communist government in Pyongyang sent Mass Games instructors to the Third World in order to improve the image of North Korea abroad and promote its version of socialist modernity. The Mass Games, a huge choreographic gymnastics event of 100,000 performers, artistically exhibited the North Korean idea of "ilsim-dangyeol (single-minded unity).” In the era of decolonization, postcolonial leaders in the emerging Third World turned to East Asia for developmental inspirations and some leaders, notably Idi Amin of Uganda, admired the North Korean model of collectivism and discipline. The Mass Games, epitomized the communalistic values of …

Bloodied Hearts And Bawdy Planets: Greco-Roman Astrology And The Regenerative Force Of The Feminine In Shakespeare’S The Winter’S Tale, Christina E. Farella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis offers a new reading of William Shakespeare’s late play The Winter’s Tale (1623), positing that in order to understand this complex and eccentric work, we must read it with a complex and eccentric eye. In The Winter’s Tale, planets strike without warning, pulling at hearts, wombs, and blood, impacting the health and emotional experience of characters in the play. This work is renowned for its inconsistent formal structure; the first half is a tragedy set in winter, but abruptly shifts to a comedy set in spring/summer in its latter half. What’s more, is that planets, luminaries, and …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Country Fun: A Cultural History Of Opryland Usa, Nashville, And The Suburban South, William C. Nieman

Honors Theses

This thesis centers around the history of Opryland USA, a theme park and “musical showplace” that existed from 1972 to 1997 in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee. Using a variety of primary sources including park ephemera, newspaper articles, and songs, I show how, over its twenty-five years, Opryland became a country music theme park after initially presenting a seemingly diverse picture of American popular music. I reveal that, despite local businessowners’ and musicians’ reluctance to embrace Opryland at first, the park was accepted by many Nashvillians to the point where it is now nostalgically mourned. Then, putting those primary materials …

"The Twilight-Colored Smell Of Honeysuckle:" William Faulkner, The South, And Literature As A Site Of Memory, Emily Innes

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the intersection of literature and historical memory, focusing on William Faulkner’s literature and the construction of memory and identity in the 1920s-1930s American South. Understanding the basic objective of memory as using the past to consolidate a social consciousness rooted in a shared identity and future, I examine how literature contributes to and enriches this process. I argue that because memory is deeply embedded in the social frameworks of a population, and dependent on the population’s cultural, political, and social identity, it is a fundamental component of understanding cultural identity. By interpreting literature through the lens of …

The First Cut Is The Deepest: George H.W. Bush And Chirep At The U.N. 1970-1971, James W. Weber Jr.

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Scholarship on George H.W. Bush tends to regard his career with the State Department in the context of traditional presidential biography. His tenure as Ambassador to the United Nations thus becomes a line-item on a presidential resume with little significance beyond its usefulness as a political credential. This paper situates Bush’s voice as it appears in his personal diary into one of the widescreen events of Sino-American rapprochement, the conclusion in 1971 of the long-simmering conflict over Chinese representation at the U.N. (CHIREP) between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the American-backed Republic of China (ROC). As chief of …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

Between The Devil And The Deep Sea: The Korean American War For Independence (1910-1945), Andrew Chae

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

From 1910 to 1945, while the Korean peninsula was a protectorate- and eventual colony- of the Empire of Japan, Koreans in the United States began an arduous process to maintain their sense of identity in a new land, and struggled to have a voice in a society that rejected their race. As a people in diasporic exile, Korean Americans engaged in a collective war for their independence by gathering resources to liberate Korea and committing extraordinary effort to deconstruct contrived stereotypes of Koreans. There are a number of forms of primary sources that corroborate the major arguments of the thesis, …

The Last Crusade: British Crusading Rhetoric During The Great War, Seth Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the Great War many in British society started to utilize Crusading language and rhetoric to describe their experiences during the war. Those utilizing the rhetoric ranged from soldiers, journalists, politicians, to clergymen. The use of Crusading rhetoric tended to involve British nationalism, the region of Palestine, anti-Germanism, and more. Adding to the complexity, the soldiers’ and civilians’ rhetoric differed greatly between the two groups. While the soldiers focused on their personal experiences during the war, and often compared themselves to the British crusaders of old serving under Richard the Lionheart. The civilians had a less personal approach, and a …

Cole Porter: Harmonious Hedonist, Hannah Kremer

Schultz-Werth Award Papers

“There’s something wild about you child, that’s so contagious. Let’s be outrageous. Let’s misbehave!” This exclamation from Cole Porter’s hit, Let’s Misbehave, exhibits the facetious sensuality that was typical of Porter’s music. Well known for his witty, yet generally risqué, lyrics, Porter was a prominent composer of his time. His music, laden with double-entendres, managed to shine anywhere he composed, from the Broadway stage to the silver screen of Hollywood.