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Creolized Histories: Hybrid Literatures Of The Americas, Apostolos Rofaelas
Creolized Histories: Hybrid Literatures Of The Americas, Apostolos Rofaelas
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
This dissertation is about a hemispheric understanding of the Americas by foregrounding hybrid literatures written both by Caribbean and U.S. American authors as the space where a transnational slave past of diversity, relation, and cross-cultural influence can be revealed and discussed. I use the term hybrid because these imaginary writings engage with actual events and real-life people that have shaped the history of the Americas, the interpretation of which is re-negotiated here though both history and literature. and literatures because it is not only novels but also epic poetry and oral stories that writers resort to in order to restore …
New South(Ern) Landscapes: Reenvisioning Tourism, Industry, And The Environment In The American South, John Barrington Matthews
New South(Ern) Landscapes: Reenvisioning Tourism, Industry, And The Environment In The American South, John Barrington Matthews
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Commenting on two distinct bodies of visual culture, this thesis examines how the American South has been depicted in photography, advertisement, and popular media. Exploring images of the South ranging from Depression-era Virginia to present day lower Louisiana, these papers seek to better incorporate views of a region traditionally underrepresented in visual depictions of the American landscape. Underlying both projects is an interest in utilizing visual culture as a means to understand humanity’s relationship with the nonhuman world. Taking a closer look at promotional materials from the early years of Shenandoah National Park, as well as the (post)industrial/posthumanist landscapes of …
Putin' On For Da Lou: Hip Hop's Response To Racism In St. Louis, Travis Terrell Harris
Putin' On For Da Lou: Hip Hop's Response To Racism In St. Louis, Travis Terrell Harris
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
The brutal slaying of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 by Police officer Darren Wilson is part of an endemic system of institutional racism against Blacks in St. Louis, Missouri. This system takes place in racialized spaces that entail disparate health care, failing schools, commercial redlining, an unjust justice system and several additional oppressive forces. I am seeking to understand the ways in which Hip Hop respond to these systems of oppression. I am interested in Hip Hop’s response because Hip Hoppers are enduring racism. Further, Hip Hop’s representation in popular culture draws attention to misogyny, drugs, violence and the …
Uncanny Objects: The Art Of Moving And Looking Human, Khanh Van Ngoc Vo
Uncanny Objects: The Art Of Moving And Looking Human, Khanh Van Ngoc Vo
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Automata ("self-moving" machines) and reborn dolls (hyperrealistic baby dolls) individually conjure up questions of dynamic and aesthetic realism--external components of the human form as realistically represented or reproduced. as simulacra of humans in movement and appearance, they serve as sites of the uncanny exemplifying the idea in which as varying forms of the cyborg imbue them with troubling yet fantastical qualities that raises questions about our own humanness. My first essay, “Automaton: Movement and Artificial/Mechanical Life” directly addresses the characteristics that define humanness, principally the Rene Descartes mind-body dichotomy, by tracing the evolution of mechanical life, predicated as much on …
The Politics Of Empire: The United States And The Global Structure Of Imperialism In The Early Twenty-First Century, Edward P. Hunt
The Politics Of Empire: The United States And The Global Structure Of Imperialism In The Early Twenty-First Century, Edward P. Hunt
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
In the field of diplomatic history, scholars have debated how the United States has played an imperial role in the world. Although diplomatic historians have presented many different interpretations, they have never agreed on the defining aspects of U.S. imperialism. My dissertation intervenes in the debate by reviewing how the United States functioned as an imperial power at the start of the twenty-first century. In my dissertation, I make use of a wide array of publicly available sources, including the public remarks of U.S. officials, the public records of the U.S. government, and the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, to …
Between Third Reich And American Way: Transatlantic Migration And The Politics Of Belonging, 1919-1939, Christian Wilbers
Between Third Reich And American Way: Transatlantic Migration And The Politics Of Belonging, 1919-1939, Christian Wilbers
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Historians consider the years between World War I and World War II to be a period of decline for German America. This dissertation complicates that argument by applying a transnational framework to the history of German immigration to the United States, particularly the period between 1919 and 1939. The author argues that contrary to previous accounts of that period, German migrants continued to be invested in the homeland through a variety of public and private relationships that changed the ways in which they thought about themselves as Germans and Americans. By looking at migration through a transnational lens, the author …
Uniting Interests: The Economic Functions Of Marriage In America, 1750-1860, Lindsay Mitchell Keiter
Uniting Interests: The Economic Functions Of Marriage In America, 1750-1860, Lindsay Mitchell Keiter
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
This dissertation, "Uniting Interests: Money, Property, and Marriage in America, 1750-1860," examines how marriage was an essential economic transaction that responded to the development of capitalism in early America. Drawing on scholarship on the history of economic development, household organization, law, and gender, I argue that families actively distributed resources at marriage as part of larger wealth management strategies that were sensitive to regional and national economic growth. I focus particularly on women's property holding and how families deployed the legal protection of women's property as bulwarks against financial disaster. This project restores the family and women to the narrative …
Capitalist Architecture In A Posthumanist World, Lindsay Garcia
Capitalist Architecture In A Posthumanist World, Lindsay Garcia
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
No abstract provided.
Cherries From The Tree: National Identity And The Hero Construction Of George Washington, 1799-1829, Jack Thomas Masterson
Cherries From The Tree: National Identity And The Hero Construction Of George Washington, 1799-1829, Jack Thomas Masterson
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
No abstract provided.
"What Would Jesus Do?": Modern Revival In The Marketplace, 1896-2000s., Jennifer L. Hancock
"What Would Jesus Do?": Modern Revival In The Marketplace, 1896-2000s., Jennifer L. Hancock
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
No abstract provided.
Selling Race In America: Ideologies Of Labor, Color, And Social Order In Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Advertising Imagery, Meghan Bryant
Selling Race In America: Ideologies Of Labor, Color, And Social Order In Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Advertising Imagery, Meghan Bryant
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Scholars have studied American advertising in terms of collectible Americana, histories of printing technology, and consumer culture. These approaches leave a gap in our understanding of American advertising in terms of its role as a powerful carrier of ideological value and a critical participant in national discourses on race and American identity. My study examines nineteenth- and twentieth-century advertising imagery and visual culture—including postcards, prints, and other related ephemera—reading such images as conscious commentary on contemporary racial, social, and economic issues. I employ traditional art historical methods to examine advertising imagery and ephemera, bridging the fields of labor, food, health, …
Radiant Exposure: The Art And Spectacle Of The X-Rayed Body In American Visual Culture, Lita Tirak
Radiant Exposure: The Art And Spectacle Of The X-Rayed Body In American Visual Culture, Lita Tirak
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
Radiant Exposure analyzes how American painting, photography, cinema, and graphic design creatively visualized X-rays to represent the body under forms of invasive scrutiny. I will historicize a variety of works produced between 1895 and the present, which consist of actual X-ray photographs and artistic simulations of their visual effects. Visual culture scholars and art historians have identified the X-ray as an important development in modern experience, perception, and the visual arts, but they have situated the X-ray's aesthetic bearing in the first thirty years after Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of the X-ray. I argue that since their invention, X-rays have persisted …
Oh Shenandoah! The Northern Shenandoah Valley's Black Borderlanders Make Freedom Work During Virginia's Reconstruction, 1865-1870, Donna Camille Dodenhoff
Oh Shenandoah! The Northern Shenandoah Valley's Black Borderlanders Make Freedom Work During Virginia's Reconstruction, 1865-1870, Donna Camille Dodenhoff
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects
During Virginia’s Reconstruction, the freedpeople of the Northern Shenandoah Valley experienced an uneven oppression. They took full advantage of a stable Reconstruction regime and the advocates they found among local Republican reformers, northern missionary society representatives and Freedmen’s Bureau agents to make their freedom meaningful. The control the freedpeople gained over their labor, as well as the success they enjoyed in reclaiming their children from white households and establishing independent institutions assured their status as a free people rather than as emancipated dependents. Nor were the freedpeople plagued with persistent, organized white terrorist tactics. But they did not achieve equal …