Digital Commons Network^™

Higher Education: The Impact On Bosnian Women Who Came As Refugees To The United States, Belma Sadikovic

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the impact college education has on Bosnian refugee women who resettled to the United States. The research findings help us better understand the effect higher education has on female students who came to the United States as refugees, their self-sufficiency and their overall integration into their new society. Using Kunz’s refugee theory and Bourdieu’s theory on social and cultural capital as a theoretical framework, the study explores socio-cultural factors that enable and constrain the ability of Bosnian women to navigate the facets of higher education, and how those factors affect their self-sufficiency and overall integration. The participants …

Cultural Reimagining And Literary Voice: Southeastern Tribal Women Negotiate Cultural, Social, And Political Identity Through Literature, Linda Sue Shaffer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines literature written by women who identify with Native tribes that originally inhabited, and in some cases continue to inhabit, the southeastern area of what is now known as the United States. The analysis presented in each chapter applies tribally specific methods used for creating knowledge within the particular discourse community being represented through literature. The project also employs the perspectives of Native literary scholars to consider the ways in which the roles and lives of Native women have been influenced by Euro-American values and to analyze the ways in which these female authors engage literature as a …

The Net Of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, And Political Alienation And Nostalgia In Contemporary Latino And South Asian American Literature, Farzana Akhter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Generally thought of as a yearning for recent past, or homesickness, nostalgia is seen as a sentiment that impairs living in the present. And in case of immigrants, nostalgia is thought of as a debilitating form of escapism and an inability to adapt to change and mobility. In this dissertation, contesting against the prevalent concept, I argue that immigrant nostalgia is neither a colored memory (Dyson 117) nor a romance with one’s own fantasy (Boym xiii); rather, immigrant nostalgia has a socio-economic and political underpinning. By exploring the various nuances of immigrant experience delineated in the literary works of South …

Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, And Colonial Patriarchy, Megan E. Vallowe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy,” interrogates the Western Hemisphere’s spatial construction by settler-states, Indigenous nations, and activists groups. In this project, I assert that Indigenous/Settler contact zones are significantly more convoluted than current scholarship’s use of contact zones in that the distinctions between Indigenous actors and settler-colonial ones are often blurred. These hybrid contact zones sometimes contain negative outcomes for all participants and often include undercurrents of insidious power dynamics within and across settler-states and Indigenous peoples alike. Using critical cartographic theory and deconstruction methods, this project first illustrates how empires ascribed a racialized patriarchy onto the …

Afro-Caribbean Immigrant Faculty Experiences In The American Academy: Voices Of An Invisible Black Population, Dave A. Louis, Keisha V. Thompson, Patriann Smith, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, Juann Watson

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

Afro-Caribbean immigrants have been an integral part of the history and shaping of the United States since the early 1900s. This current study explores the experiences of five Afro-Caribbean faculty members at traditionally White institutions of higher education. Despite the historical presence and influence of Afro-Caribbean communities and the efforts within education systems to address the needs of Afro-Caribbean constituents, Afro-Caribbean faculty members continue to be rendered indiscernible in higher education and to be frequently and erroneously perceived as African–Americans. The study examines the lived experiences of these individuals in the hegemonic White spaces they occupy at their institutions with …

"Revealing Reality": Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize The Transnational Imaginary, Stephen Edward Spence

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation posits that four Asian filmmakers engage in “revealing reality” in unique but interconnected ways that employ innovative narrative and cinematic/visual techniques, including a direct address to the senses and an augmenting of their vision with fantasy or surrealism. My study argues that Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan), Jia Zhangke (China), Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) mobilize this visual and narrative strategy to participate in debates about globalization and to comment on the state of their respective nations, the concept of the nation, and the transnational. The films of each artist are examined in detail; I investigate their stylistic …

Yinka Shonibare Mbe's Critiques Of Empire And His Reception In Four Transnational Case Studies, Johanna Wild

Art & Art History ETDs

In the wake of art history’s “global turn”, the installation art of Yinka Shonibare MBE has obtained vast visibility in the established centers of contemporary cultural practice in Europe and beyond. Shonibare is best known for his installations of mannequins that reenact canonized paintings and historical events culled from European modernity. Dressed in deceptively “African” Dutch Wax fabrics, Shonibare’s phenotypically ambiguous and headless mannequins ensnare audiences with a semblance of “exotic” difference, but ultimately resist the fixity of national, cultural, racial and, in some cases, gendered categorization through an incessant semiotic slippage. In his book, The Culture Game (2001), Olu …

Tā-Vā Kāinga, Time-Space Relationships Theory Of Reality And Tongan Students Journey To Academic Achievement In New Zealand Tertiary Education, Telesia Kalavite

Pacific Studies

Tongan students’ academic achievement results when the different contexts of kāinga tā-vā, time-space relationships intersect or interact disharmoniously or harmoniously within and between the Tongan and Western cultures, especially between the students and the bureaucracy (puleʻanga), their families (fāmili), church (siasi), and wider group (their fonua/kāinga). Furthermore, inflexibility or flexibility within the two cultural relationships in terms of tā (time) and vā (space) by all parties could release social tensions, which can, if left to their own devices, provide obstacles to critical learning, or by mediating them through sustained harmony, can consequently …

Remapping Emotion And Desire: Same-Sex Romance In Ah Cheng's "The King Of Chess", Yanjie Wang

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

This article examines the representation of emotion and desire in Ah Cheng's The King of Chess (Qi wang). The interpretation of The King of Chess has been oriented toward an allegorical reading that revolves around grand cultural concepts, such as aesthetics, Taoist tradition, cultural consciousness, and national identity. In this paradigm of reading, the literary text has largely become a footnote of the master narrative of China's cultural reconstruction of the 1980s. Following the recent interpretative turn of this story from cultural to existential and from allegorical to corporeal, the article extends to yet another domain, that of emotion, intimacy, …

Kendrick Lamar And Hip-Hop As A Medium For Social Change, Diego A. Rocha

Student Publications

This paper provides a context and then analysis of Kendrick Lamar's albums as they relate to advocating and affecting social change. The purpose is to show through example how hip-hop (and music in general) can act as an avenue towards creating positive change for oppressed peoples.

On My Grind: Freestyle Rap Practices In Experimental Creative Writing And Composition Pedagogy, Evan Nave

Theses and Dissertations

My work is always necessarily two-headed. Double-voiced. Call-and-response at once. Paranoid self-talk as dichotomous monologue to move the crowd. Part of this has to do with the deep cuts and scratches in my mind. Recorded and remixed across DNA double helixes. Structurally split. Generationally divided. A style and family history built on breaking down.

Evidence of how ill I am.

And then there’s the matter of skin. The material concerns of cultural cross-fertilization. Itching to plant seeds where the grass is always greener. Color collaborations and appropriations. Writing white/out with black art ink. Distinctions dangerously hidden behind backbeats or shamelessly …

Infinite Citizen Of The Shaking Tent By Liz Howard, David Carruthers

The Goose

Review of Liz Howard's Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent.

Chicana/Latina Feminist Critical Qualitative Inquiry Meditations On Global Solidarity, Spirituality, And The Land, Cinthya M. Saavedra, Michelle Salazar Perez

Mexican American Studies Faculty Publications

In this article we take a journey into using Chicana/Latina feminisms as one way to unearth new possibilities for critical qualitative inquiry (CQI). We start by offering a brief overview of Gloria Anzaldua’s influence on Chicana/Latina feminism, focusing on how she has inspired researching and writing from within rather than about as a decolonial turn (Keating, 2015). We then venture into new imaginaries to pose questions that would lead us to ponder about global feminista solidarity, the spirit, and the land. Our hope is that these contemplations lead us on a path of conocimiento where we can put the broken …

A Canada In The South: Marronage In Antebellum American Literature, Sean Gerrity

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation considers maroons—enslaved people who fled from slavery and self-exiled to places like swamps and forests—in the textual and historical worlds of the pre-Civil War United States. I examine a counter-archive of US literature that imagines marronage as offering alternate spaces of freedom, refuge, and autonomy outside the unidirectional South-to-North geographical trajectory of the Underground Railroad, which has often framed the story of freedom and unfreedom for African Americans in pre-1865 US literary and cultural studies. Broadly, I argue that through maroons we can locate alternate spaces of fugitive freedom within slaveholding territory, thereby complicating fixed notions of the …

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Program, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Program for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Educational Foldout, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Educational foldout for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Educational Foldout, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Educational foldout for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Program, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Program for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

Open Doors College Preparation Program, Mary Raynor Sturgis, Clara Roman-Odio, Diane Kenealy, Daniel Garcia-Archundia, Catalina D. Odio

LIRA Publications

Originally published as the Bilingual College Preparation Program for Latino/a Youth (2016).

Advancing Sylvia Wynter's Reimagination Of The Human And Counter-Poetics: A Critique Of Contemporary Western Science Discourse In Cosmos—A Spacetime Odyssey, With Host Neil Degrasse Tyson, Claire E. Slattery-Quintanilla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the entanglements of "modernity/coloniality," Western conceptualizations of time and space, and questions of the "human" as they are situated in contemporary Western science discourse and thought. Through a textual analysis of the 2014 science television documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey presented by famous black astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, I argue Tyson refuses to discuss race as it relates to Western science on three levels in Cosmos: the racialized logic inherent in Western science, the sociohistorical relationship between European colonial racial subjugation and the emergence of contemporary Western science, and Tyson's experience as a black man …

The Intersections Of Africana Studies And Curriculum Theory: An Exploration, Theodorea Regina Berry

Faculty Publications

There has been much critique of globalization now circulating in curriculum studies both nationally, in the United States, and internationally, helps us understand some of the lethal effects of globalization. Nevertheless, little of such critique is grounded in a strong commitment to work beyond the Western epistemological perimeter. While we, as reconceptualists in curriculum studies, acknowledge the necessity to honor the multiple sources and perspectives of knowledge, we continue to operate in spaces and with intentions embedded in globalized, traditional notions of curriculum. This problem is especially heightened for socially marginalized learners, particularly Black/African American learners.

In this article, I …

The Relationship Between Mainstream Radio Music, Vulgar Lyrics, And Race And The Impact On The Criminal Black Male Stereotype., Deangelo K. Brown

School of Criminal Justice Theses and Dissertations

The criminal Black male stereotype, cemented in early American literature, has been perpetuated in movies, TV shows, and now on mainstream radio. For this study, Billboard song lyrics were analyzed for three main themes—violence, misogyny, and drugs/alcohol. Billboard song rankings are based on digital download sales, radio airplay, and Internet streaming. The researcher found that the songs played on hip hop and rap genre radio stations con-tained lyrics that strongly correlated with the three themes. The researcher also examined whether a relationship existed between artist’s race and lyrics about violence, misogyny, and drugs/alcohol. Black artists comprised 48% of the artists …

Weird Propaganda: Texts Of The Black Power And Women’S Liberation Movements, Marie Buck

Wayne State University Dissertations

“Weird Propaganda: Texts of the Black Power and Women’s Liberation Movements” examines texts of the Black Power and Women’s Liberation Movements: the early Black Arts Movement anthology For Malcolm; the now-canonical texts Our Bodies, Ourselves; The Black Woman; and Sisterhood Is Powerful; a number of pamphlets and other small press works; and the Black Panthers’ newspaper. This project argues that writers and activists used senses of the uncanny, along with elements of science fiction and fantasy, to negotiate the day-to-day uncertainties of political organizing and, more broadly, political hope. The texts examined here convey particular political views in an explict …

Infancia (In)Visible: La Subjetividad De La Niñez Como Transgresión A La Marginalidad En Las Películas Conducta Y Pelo Malo, Tania Carrasquillo Hernández

Faculty Publications

Tania Carrasquillo Hernández's research on race, gender, and sexuality has led her to develop a more specific interest in the study of childhood and sexuality in literature and cinema. This article, based on a presentation given at the Hispanic Literatures Across Cultures Conference (October 6–8, 2016 at Fresno Pacific University), analyzes the representation of boyhood and masculinity in contemporary Cuban and Venezuelan cinema via the films Conducta (2014, directed by Ernesto Daranas) and Pelo Malo (2013, directed by Mariana Rondón).

In the case of Chala (Armando Valdes Freire, Conducta), Carrasquillo Hernández explores how his masculinity is related to the …

The Spaces Between Us: A Queer<=>Intersectional Analysis Of The Narratives Of Black Gay International Students, Bryan S. Hubain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The experiences of international students along the lines of race and ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and nationality are virtually unknown. This study utilizes experience-centered narrative inquiry to explore the experiences of Black gay international students, and how they are racialized and sexualized in American higher education. Using a Queer and Intersectional framework, this study highlighted power structures and processes that continue to marginalize Black gay international students in the U.S. and in their home countries. Their narratives reflected significant moments or events that were important to them and how they understand their identities and realities. This study provides a strong foundation …

Drowning In Rising Seas: Navigating Multiple Knowledge Systems And Responding To Climate Change In The Maldives, Rachel Hannah Spiegel

Pitzer Senior Theses

The threat of global climate change increasingly influences the actions of human society. As world leaders have negotiated adaptation strategies over the past couple of decades, a certain discourse has emerged that privileges Western conceptions of environmental degradation. I argue that this framing of climate change inhibits the successful implementation of adaptation strategies. This thesis focuses on a case study of the Maldives, an island nation deemed one of the most vulnerable locations to the impacts of rising sea levels. I apply a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine how differing knowledge systems can both complement and contradict one another. By …

Latino/A Artist Educators (Laes) And Their Role In Creating And Sustaining Alternative Democratic Spaces In Miami, Deborah Therese Woeckner Saavedra

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This exploratory study utilizes a qualitative, ethnographic approach to locate and contextualize Latino/a Artist Educators (LAEs) in Miami, Florida. Foundational and cutting-edge, it brings together many distinct perspectives to illuminate the power and promise of a newly imagined yet group of individuals to build and sustain alternative democratic spaces. Building on critical educators Paolo Freire, bell hooks, Henry Giroux and Howard Zinn, as well as extending the framework of critical theorists Gloria Anzaldúa, Cornel West and others, this research begins to sketch the influence of the LAEs interviewed in Miami from 2003-2013. As a sociocultural ethnographic study positioned at the …

The Reflection And Reification Of Racialized Language In Popular Media, Kelly E. Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This work highlights specific lexical items that have become racialized in specific contextual applications and tests how these words are cognitively processed. This work presents the results of a visual world (Huettig et al 2011) eye-tracking study designed to determine the perception and application of racialized (Coates 2011) adjectives. To objectively select the racialized adjectives used, I developed a corpus comprised of popular media sources, designed specifically to suit my research question. I collected publications from digital media sources such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Fortune by scraping articles featuring specific search terms from their websites. This experiment seeks …

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Darwinian Evolutionary Theory And Constructions Of Race In Nazi Germany: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Darwin’S Works And Nazi Rhetoric, Emily M. Wollmuth

Departmental Honors Projects

First published in 1856, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is one of the most impactful scientific writings in history. While the influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory on historical events has been widely studied, no single work of scholarship has previously combined close reading of Origin’s representations of “race” with analysis of how those constructions of “racial” difference are (mis)translated across the cultural discourses of the eugenics movement and Nazi Germany. Through comparative cultural studies and close literary analysis of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Darwin’s works—including Origin, Descent of Man, and Voyage of the Beagle, this paper examines how evolutionary …