Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lone Man And All My Relations, Doug Meigs

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Lone Man is the central creation figure of the Mandan, an indigenous people of present-day North Dakota. The story of Lone Man begins with the creation figure becoming self-aware on the open ocean. He creates the Earth and sets off to discover his people. Doug Meigs is writing the oral history of Robert O’Brien, a modern Mandan man living in Omaha, Nebraska, who grew up without any knowledge of tribal identity. Late in life, he would set off to learn that he was Mandan. O’Brien is still coming to terms with the meaning of that identity.

Session B-4: Why Study War? The Importance Of Teaching Military History, Justin Riskus

Professional Learning Day

This session will provide educators with the means and methods of incorporating American military history into the classroom, and how its study fosters critical thinking skills. A global perspective of American military power {Civil War, Cold War, War on Terror), and ideas on how to teach such perspectives, will be explored.

Session B-2: Pirates: Past And Present, Kitty Lam

Professional Learning Day

Piracy has endured for as long as maritime trade has existed. From the ancient Mediterranean world to the modern-day Somali coast, pirates have threatened merchant ships. The legacy of piracy has inspired countless songs, poems, novels, and movies. Who were pirates? What did they want? Where did they go? How did they interact with states? Students have internalized stereotypes about pirates from popular culture, but rarely consider these questions about piracy. This workshop will examine the significance of piracy in world history through texts and visual material. Case studies will be global, but focus on the early modern period.

Session A-3: The Yin And Yang Of U.S.-China Relations 1840-Present, Diane Haleas

Professional Learning Day

The United States and China have experienced both difficult relations and positive relations. For over 150 years these interactions between the United States and China have resulted in significant influences on political, economic, and cultural decisions in both countries. This presentation will offer an overview of time periods, emphasize crucial events, and analyze the implications for U.S.-China relations today and in the future. Lesson plan ideas will be included.

Session A-4: Legacy: Enslaved African Muslims In The Americas, Steven Buenning, Elizabeth Buenning

Professional Learning Day

Among the estimated 12.5 million enslaved African persons deported to the Americas, about 10-20% were Muslims. What were their experiences? How did their actions influence life in the Western Hemisphere? What is their legacy today? Through new scholarship, the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, primary sources, and geography exercises, we will explore how this topic can enrich your teaching of the history of slavery. In addition, books for young readers about Islam and other world religions will be discussed.

2017 Making Literature Conference, Tom Noyes, Shari Wagner, Grace Tiffany, Jessica Mesman Griffith, David Griffith

Making Literature Conference

Keynote Speakers: Tom Noyes, Shari Wagner, Grace Tiffany, Jessica Mesman Griffith, David Griffith

Hitler's Inconsistent Jazz Policy And How It Weakened His Control, Emmy Freedman

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

In my paper, I discuss Hitler’s ironclad regime and how jazz music played a role in weakening it. Jazz music, with its democratic style and history, served as the antithesis to Hitler’s favored classical compositions. Although he tried to control the music and its supporters, Hitler never fully understood the genre and therefore was never able to stop its spread across Germany. In the paper, I also discuss how jazz music played into race relations and its distinctions among the social strata. Jazz music and Hitler’s opposition to it also had an impact on technology, the 1936 Olympics and propaganda.

The Acts Of Subjugation And Repatriation Of Africa And Its People Through The Viewfinder, Mariah Morales

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

No abstract provided.

Monuments, Movements, & Memory: The Visual And Spatial Implications Of The Shooting At Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Megan G. Zembower

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

This paper focuses on the dichotomous relationship of race relations and visual culture in the American South, with a particular focus on the shooting of nine black Americans at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015 by Caucasian South Carolinian Dylann Roof. Prior to the shooting, Roof posted images of himself posed in front of various Confederate landmarks in South Carolina to online social media platforms. Using these images as evidence, I contend that Roof’s racist motivation for the crime was, in part, fostered by the surrounding environment that memorializes fallen Confederate soldiers …

Vohou-Vohou: A Search For Post-Colonial Cultural Identity In Cote D’Ivoire, Olivia Keefer

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

This paper addresses the Vohou-Vohou movement (1970s-1980s) in Cote d’Ivoire. Through an explanation of the region’s history, the paper brings to light the motivations of the movement and its founders. The work of Youssouf Bath, Théodore Koudougnon, and Kra Nguessan are the focus of this paper to represent the movement’s style, formation, and impact on Cote d’Ivoire culture. Vohou-Vohou developed a decade after Cote d’Ivoire gained independence from French colonial control, and the movement became an inward return to local culture. The artists had an interest in rejecting the West. A visual representation of the rejection is seen through Vohou-Vohou …

Painting Photographs: Absence On Mohammed Mahmoud Street, Kirsten Stricker

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

The Egyptian Revolution prompted an outpouring of art. It filled the streets of Cairo, a city that had lacked any street art prior to the revolution, with large murals and art of every kind. Ammar Abo Bakr says that his massive murals are not art — they are news. His works are a protest against the censorship and selective reporting of the mainstream media. Bakr is best known for his large mural on Mohammed Mahmoud Street near Tahrir Square, Cairo. The mural is massive and contains many elements. One element consists of paintings of mothers holding photographs of their children …

The Essence Of Bogolanfini: Thinking About Ethical Design With African Inspiration, Sierra N. Bailey-Van Kuren

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Bogolanfini are intricately designed textiles created by Bamana women in Mali. The cloths are created through a natural process, producing rich designs and motifs that address stories, narratives, female-specific ideas or relate to historical events. Each textile is hand made for a particular individual and given to her as she enters adulthood, an event marked by puberty and clitoridectomy. During this time, the cloth is used to absorb blood from the operation, a process transferring the woman’s spirit into the bogolanfini. As she progresses through life, the utility of her bogolanfini extends to absorbing her life-blood during menstruation, first intercourse …

Rethinking The "Anonymous:" Simeon Agbetuyi And The Yoruba Example, Caroline Bastian

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

In looking at “Traditional” and “Contemporary” African Art, it is clear Western culture still struggles with recognition of the individual African artist. For example, most museum exhibitions displaying local or more continent-based African art still tend to embody a flawed sense of “traditional” art created by a culture rather than an individual. In contrast, contemporary African art stresses the importance of the singular artist, their personal style, historical context, and cultural motivation. Part of the problem stems from colonialism, when many Western “collectors” seized any art they deemed valuable and “exotic,” taking it away from context leaving behind all information …

African Mask Display In Context, Elise C. Aronson

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

African masquerade is deeply interconnected with the community in which it performs. However, in Western-based exhibition display, the mask becomes the sole object of scrutiny and interest, decontextualizing it from its holistic dimension and multi-media interface. In fact, much of masquerade’s cultural significance is lost if the dynamic multimedia display of which the mask is part becomes alienated from its holistic context, reducing it to a mere static object hung on a wall. The argument can be raised, to mount a mask on a white wall or behind glass, especially grouped among other masks from Africa, as many museums do, …

Renee Green: Combination Artist, Cail P. Lininger

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Renée Green, a combination artist, engages viewers in multi-faceted and diverse topics without directly addressing the central theme. In Partially Buried In Three Parts (1991-1996), Green utilizes films shot in a “home-movie” fashion and site-specific archiving to curate complex dialogues across three different locations: Kent State in 1991, exploring the shootings in 1970 and Robert Smithson’s installation, Partially Buried Woodshed; Germany and the United States and what it means to be a displaced national undergoing culture shock; and Korea, in war and peace. Green originally displayed all three in an installation designed to invoke feelings of nostalgia amidst confusion regarding …

Media In The Murid World: Analysis Of Inscribed Faith And Religious Identity In Murid Agencies’ Media Approach, Macodou Fall

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Previous studies about Muridiyya have mostly focused on the economic and political influences of the Senegalese Sufi Islamic Brotherhood founded by Shaykh Amadu Bamba at the end of 19^th century. At the beginning, Muridiyya was a reactive force to colonialism and it aimed to propose alternatives to Western cultural and economic domination. However, the rapid growth of Muridiyya was possible via the creation of decentralized Murid organizations and groups called dahiras (religious associations). Prior to the rise of dahiras, Murid’s religious ideology spread throughout daaras (Quranic schools), which intended to initiate Murid talibes (disciples) to Islam and the …

Mediated Sankarism: Re-Inventing A Historical Figure To Reimagine A Future, Lassane Ouedraogo

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Thomas Sankara has contributed significantly to the formation of the modern national identity of post-independent Burkina Faso before his assassination in 1987. This essay used discourse analysis to examine the emergence of Thomas Sankara’s ideology also known as Sankarism (and his praxis?) in the Burkinabe public discourse. In the current socio-political context of a nascent democracy characterized by the emergence of active civil society movements and multiple political factions contesting the right to govern and claiming the capacity to provide a new direction to a country caught up amid local and global issues, the reinvention and re-appropriation of Sankarism call …

The African Immigrant Experience In France According To "La Haine", Samantha B. Weiss

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Le Haine depicts the fictional experiences of three immigrants to France, each with a different background, but a similar fate. The title, which translates to "hate" sets the tone for the movie, which is quick to explain its motives – depicting the life of a French migrant as a hopeless, fruitless one. Though the African character - his home nation never named - can speak perfect French and even attempts to better the lives of those around him, his efforts are met with violence, hatred, resistance, and an anti-immigrant mentality. By reading the conflicts of the movie in reference to …

What To Keep, What To Let Go: The Case Of Indians From Nyasaland, Debra Nicholson

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

This paper examines how identity may be constructed in the case of multiple transnational migrations within just a couple of generations, using an example (or examples) of immigrants from India to Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) to Great Britain to Canada.

What happens to your sense of identity when your Indian ancestors emigrate to Nyasaland, you grow up there, but around 1964, soon after independence from Great Britain, all Indians, including you and your family, are deported from your homeland of Nyasaland?

In one case study analyzed in this paper, a Nyasa Catholic woman of Indian descent first travels to Great Britain …

Fighting The Lion: Nationalist Masculinity In Sam Nujoma's Autobiography, Kelly J. Fulkerson Dikuua

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

Dr. Samuel Nujoma’s autobiography, Where Others Wavered: My Life in SWAPO and My Participation in the Liberation Struggle, documents his life as a pivotal figure in the Namibian war for independence leading to his tenure as the first president of Namibia (1990-2005). Nujoma, known as the “Founding Father” of Namibia, occupies a larger-than-life sphere within the public imagination through monuments, public photographs, placards and street names. Nujoma’s autobiography prescribes a certain type of national citizenship that details a specific construction of masculinity for Namibian men. This paper analyzes his autobiography, arguing that Nujoma constructs a hegemonic masculinity based on four …

Andrew Jackson And Harriet Tubman: A Monstrous Intimacy, Sheneese Thompson

Africana Studies Student Research Conference (2013-2019)

In the wake of the announcement of Harriet Tubman joining Andrew Jackson on the back of the twenty-dollar bill, as well as the recent election of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45^th president, this paper employs Christina Sharpe’s notion of monstrous intimacies to assert that the coupling of the two on the bill reinscribes the monstrosity of the intimate encounters between the enslaved and their masters, even though Jackson did not own Tubman herself. Further, the appropriation of Tubman’s image and the revisionist underpinnings of her inclusion on money, once offered for her bounty, serves no other purpose than …

The Cross-Border Consequences Of U.S. Deportation Policy And Immigration Enforcement, Laura D. Gutierrez

Distinguished Speaker Series

Despite statistics that illustrate how Mexican migration to the United States continues to decrease, politicians and voters continue to demand increased border enforcement, deportation of all undocumented migrants, and a wall to prevent Mexican migrants from entering the country without authorization. The disconnect between reality and rhetoric illustrates how Mexican migrants have become inextricably associated with illegality, crime and deportability although they have become central to how the U.S. economy operates. In an era of unprecedented deportations, Mexico has struggled to address the constant influxof deportees and return migrants. Based on research conducted in Mexico and the United States, Gutiérrez …

Keynote - Lucky You: What Science Tells Us About Why You’Re Here, William Irvine

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Introduction Of Keynote, Kristin Sobolik

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche’S Case Against Political Moralism, Donovan Miyasaki

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Debating Meditation And Education In Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation, Judson Murray

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Ensuring Kindergarten Readiness: The Role Of Social Capital, Jennifer E. Subban

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Comics, Swing And Vaudeville: The Transatlantic Connection, Damaris Serrano, Ayotunde Oluwakorede Ositelu, Kirsten Leigh Smith

CoLA Research Conference

Script: Dr. Damaris Serrano

Voice: Ayotunde Oluwakorede Ositelu

Voice: Kirsten Leigh Smith

Technical Support: Beth Anderson

A Semester At The American School Of Classical Studies At Athens: An Update From Greece., Bruce M. Laforse

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Assessment: How To Do It And Why It’S Important, Deborah J. Crusan

CoLA Research Conference

No abstract provided.