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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke May 2020

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Cities are broadly conceived to be queer utopia when compared with rural spaces. While the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa fit this simplistic model in some ways, the region has several unique characteristics that warrant their own investigation. I argue that the social climate of the Quad Cities is generally perceived as welcoming and inclusive by the LGBTQ+ community. However, despite an assortment of community-building institutions, some find socialization and partner-seeking a bit difficult. Many advocate for investment in a variety of physical LGBTQ+ “third places” (public gathering places), which would yield a variety of benefits for this community. …


Passing Down The Rolling Pin: Lefse, Memory, And A Norwegian-American Identity, Rebecca Garbe Apr 2020

Passing Down The Rolling Pin: Lefse, Memory, And A Norwegian-American Identity, Rebecca Garbe

Scandinavian Studies Student Award

This paper explores the intersections between memory and food-making and how they inform a Norwegian-American cultural identity. Based on fieldwork done in June and July of 2019 in Fosston, Minnesota, I use lefse, a Norwegian potato-based flatbread, as a focal point, for analysis. I argue that lefse-making in Fosston acts as a medium through which residents engage with a collective memory of an immigrant heritage. This traditional food-making, I assert, relies on knowledge passed down through and across family lines allowing food-makers and eaters to experience an embodied connection to their cultural past. Investigating my own Norwegian heritage, I draw …


Songs From Home: A Study Of Musical Traditions Amongst Iraqi Refugees, Moira Rose Dunn May 2019

Songs From Home: A Study Of Musical Traditions Amongst Iraqi Refugees, Moira Rose Dunn

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Families relocating to new communities face the hardships of learning how to navigate in a new legal and cultural environment and can also experience an interruption of past forms of passing down cultural, personal, or familial traditions, such as music. My research asks the following questions: how does music exist in the memories and daily life of Iraqi refugees in the Quad Cities, and how does the community provide specific expressive outlets for them? Using a combination of interviews with resettled Iraqi refugees and community members who try to reach out to them and participant observation, this research focuses on …


Jesse Routte: Using Style To Signify Injustice, Emma Nordmeyer May 2019

Jesse Routte: Using Style To Signify Injustice, Emma Nordmeyer

Race, Ethnicity, & Religion

Jesse Routte, first African-American student to graduate Augustana, made national headlines in 1947 for wearing a turban on a visit to Alabama. In this paper, I explore how Routte's stylistic choices uprooted and questioned the racism of the Jim Crow era.


Trauma In Guatemala And Postville, Iowa, Jessica J. Lechtenberg Jan 2018

Trauma In Guatemala And Postville, Iowa, Jessica J. Lechtenberg

Latin American Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This study uses a historical understanding of Guatemala to explain the significant trauma following the largest immigration raid in U.S. history which primarily deported Guatemalan residents who had been working at the Agriprocessors meat processing plant without documentation. Through an analysis of literature detailing the immigration raid, Guatemala's history of violence, and court proceedings, I have found that high levels of trauma exist for the individuals who were deported following the raid and for their families and friends. Personal communication with the current Dean of Students at Postville's public school lends a hand in gaining a deeper understanding of the …


Music And The Migrant: A Transnational Account Of Cumbia, Irene L. Mekus Feb 2016

Music And The Migrant: A Transnational Account Of Cumbia, Irene L. Mekus

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

This paper looks into the cultural synthesization and the transnational ties of cumbia between Latin America and the United States. Three case studies look at the story of migrants and their transnational ties through cumbia and are analyzed through an ethnomusicology framework.


Education, Crystal C. Gray Apr 2015

Education, Crystal C. Gray

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Education is a spoken word poem that explores many aspects of the African American struggle within (self-knowledge). It starts with an African American college student who is disappointed with the lack of courses about her culture. Most curricula in the United States tend to be from a Eurocentric perspective, leaving out a multitude of information about people of color. All groups of people of color have unique experiences, however, African Americans have the most known (or perhaps I should say, unknown) history. The standard explanation of their existence is often limited to the start of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, when …