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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Gendered Crimes, Gendered Fans: Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, And Fandom In The Contemporary American Crime Drama, Melanie Cattrell Aug 2011

Gendered Crimes, Gendered Fans: Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, And Fandom In The Contemporary American Crime Drama, Melanie Cattrell

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation analyzes the changing representations of gender and sexuality in American network crime dramas over the last thirty years. It also examines the growing Internet fan communities that have developed to discuss these shows. Specifically, it provides a feminist and queer textual analysis of a variety of television crime dramas, comparing 1980's crime dramas such as Cagney & Lacey and Hunter to contemporary programs Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Bones. This textual analysis is followed with an analysis of the contemporary shows' surrounding fan communities. Thus, this work charts the relationship between television studies, audience studies, fan …


Expressions Of Another Center: Borderlands Visual Theory & The Art Of Luis Jimenez, Eric Castillo Aug 2011

Expressions Of Another Center: Borderlands Visual Theory & The Art Of Luis Jimenez, Eric Castillo

American Studies ETDs

An artist who constantly challenged various social and political boundaries, Jimenez and his art contribute to a growing discourse about U.S. sculpture and 21st century American art. By combining various methodologies such as formal analysis, visual analysis, and critical biography, I will underscore the significance of Luis Jimenez's art in 21st century American art. Jimenez's art functions autobiographically particular moment in his life affected his art in many ways. His time in Mexico City, New York, and Rome are a few pivotal moments that shifted the focus of his art and encouraged him to return to the Southwest where his …


Assembling The Poor People's Campaign (1968) Queer Activism And Economic Justice, Christina Juhasz-Wood Aug 2011

Assembling The Poor People's Campaign (1968) Queer Activism And Economic Justice, Christina Juhasz-Wood

American Studies ETDs

This thesis attempts to bring the Poor People's Campaign (PPC) of 1968 into contemporary discussions about queer scholarship and activism. The PPC assembled a diverse racial and ethnic constituency in an unprecedented way to produce a massive, national political campaign to end poverty. This complex assemblage was largely indecipherable to the press and many historians, which has contributed to the view that the campaign was a failure, particularly in relation to the civil rights movement . I describe how the mainstream gay rights movement appropriates the civil rights movement as normative to seek forms of national inclusion. I argue that …


Land, Gender, And The Politics Of Identity Formation: Uncovering Hispana/Mexicana Voices In The Southwest, Karen R. Roybal Aug 2011

Land, Gender, And The Politics Of Identity Formation: Uncovering Hispana/Mexicana Voices In The Southwest, Karen R. Roybal

American Studies ETDs

The southwestern United States has an exceptional history that makes the region a prime focus for study concentrating on culture, tradition, language and land. As an area closely tied to the concept of conquest, the Southwest has had its share of issues related to colonization, imperialism, Manifest Destiny, and cultural erasure. This study focuses on the Southwest as a region that is closely linked to the land as it relates to the formation of identities of its people. Mexican Americans in the Southwest have historically experienced struggle, particularly after 1848 and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when …


Tragicidade- Representação Do Espaço Urbano E Negação De Cidadania Na Ficção Urbana Brasileira Contemporânea, Daniela Meireles Aug 2011

Tragicidade- Representação Do Espaço Urbano E Negação De Cidadania Na Ficção Urbana Brasileira Contemporânea, Daniela Meireles

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis focuses on the fictional writings of three contemporary Brazilian authors: Ana Paula Maia, Luiz Ruffato and Marcelino Freire. In selected works of the three above-mentioned writers, I examine the intertwined representation of social violence and denial of citizenship. The thesis inquires into the way literature depicts and critiques socio-economic difference and proposes — within the fictional realm — modes of reclaiming agency through written expression. Specifically, I examine how violence is broached in contemporary Brazilian literature - what are the aesthetic tools employed to portray violence, why they are used and what is the ideology and the discursive …


Cashing In On Indian Casinos: The Impacts Of "Off-Reservation" Casinos On Sovereignty, The Gaming Industry, Surrounding Communities, Reservations, And Tribal Identities, Adam Bubb Aug 2011

Cashing In On Indian Casinos: The Impacts Of "Off-Reservation" Casinos On Sovereignty, The Gaming Industry, Surrounding Communities, Reservations, And Tribal Identities, Adam Bubb

American Studies ETDs

This study examines the impacts of four tribes, the Forest County Potawatomi, Sault Ste Marie Chippewa, Mashantucket Pequot, and Florida Seminole, and their alternative methods to acquire and participate in off-reservation gaming. The case studies provide geographical and situational examples on how the changing tribal gaming market is reshaping and redefining the boundaries of sovereignty on and off of tribal lands and non-tribal lands. Each case study provides a detailed history of the tribe and their gaming experiences. Through the use of a cultural site analysis, each tribe's on and off-reservation gaming facilities were examined to measure the economic and …


Imagining The Saints: Representations Of Mormonism In American Culture, Jeremy R. Ricketts Aug 2011

Imagining The Saints: Representations Of Mormonism In American Culture, Jeremy R. Ricketts

American Studies ETDs

The purpose of this dissertation is to address how representations of Mormons in American culture reveal not only key aspects of the history of Mormonism in America but also tell us a great deal about American life and thought since the founding of the religion in 1830 to the present day (2011). Representations are powerful vehicles for creating, shaping, reflecting, and naturalizing society's understanding of religious institutions and revealing cultural concerns and anxieties, and the methodology of this dissertation thus focuses on interdisciplinary analytical critiques of diverse texts to better elucidate the complicated but deeply intertwined history of the Mormon …


A Journey To Freedom: The Life Of Richard Oakes, 1942-1972, Kent Blansett Aug 2011

A Journey To Freedom: The Life Of Richard Oakes, 1942-1972, Kent Blansett

History ETDs

A Journey to Freedom: The Life of Richard Oakes 1942-1972,' is the story of Indigenous leader and activist Richard Oakes, and focuses on the climax of the national movement toward Native self-determination and freedom. 'A Journey to Freedom' investigates the intersections of place, space, identity, and socio/political coalitions within the Red Power movement. Oakes' leadership was influential in the Alcatraz (1969) and Fort Lawton (1970) takeovers, as well as Pit River's resistance to PG&E Corporation's illegal land use. Each successive takeover pushed for land rights, treaty rights, and the development of ecological centers that forged links between reservation and urban …


Influence, Agency, And The Women Of England: Victorian Ideology And The Works Of Sarah Stickney Ellis, Ashley Lynn Carlson Aug 2011

Influence, Agency, And The Women Of England: Victorian Ideology And The Works Of Sarah Stickney Ellis, Ashley Lynn Carlson

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation discusses the works of Sarah Stickney Ellis in the context of Victorian culture and argues that Elliss ideas about women, which have frequently been described as 'anti-feminist' by twentieth and twenty-first century scholars, were often progressive and even proto-feminist. The first chapter discusses Ellis's writings on education, where she argues that girls require moral, physical, and intellectual training. This chapter demonstrates that Ellis, though not necessarily radical, is more liberal than she has been given credit for in terms of her educational scheme for women. The second chapter focuses on Ellis's views on courtships and engagements. Rather than …


Sacrilege In Dinétah: Native Encounters With Glen Canyon Dam, Sonia Dickey Aug 2011

Sacrilege In Dinétah: Native Encounters With Glen Canyon Dam, Sonia Dickey

History ETDs

This dissertation spotlights indigenous encounters with Glen Canyon Dam and places Native peoples, especially the Diné, at the center of the dam story. In doing so, it exposes the façade masquerading a less pleasant and creditable reality surrounding the dam than historians have conventionally offered. Considering traditional knowledge; relationships to homeland; pivotal moments in Navajo history, such as the Long Walk and the Bosque Redondo and the stock reduction of the 1930s and 1940s; as well as mid-century Navajo Tribal Council concerns, this study uncovers a multifaceted story of water and energy development in the Southwest. In this version, the …


Dreams And Dust In The Black Hills: Race, Place, And National Identity In America's "Land Of Promise", Elaine Marie Nelson Aug 2011

Dreams And Dust In The Black Hills: Race, Place, And National Identity In America's "Land Of Promise", Elaine Marie Nelson

History ETDs

Indigenous groups that occupied the Black Hills for thousands of years established economic, spiritual, and political connections to the region. Through these relationships, many indigenous people formed their tribal identities in association to this land. Many of these connections with the Black Hills continue to persist in Native American tribes in the present-day. But decades of American western expansion changed indigenous relationships to the region. In 1868, the United States negotiated with the Lakota people the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty, which established the Great Sioux Reservation and legally guaranteed the Black Hills to the Lakota tribe. When the …


The Paper-Haired God, Chris Boat Aug 2011

The Paper-Haired God, Chris Boat

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation consists of a novella entitled The Paper Haired God. It is the story of a man named Jason who one day (after dropping his wife Akiko off at the airport to visit friends) decides to crawl into the cabinet underneath his sink. He doesnt quite understand why he crawls under the sink, just that it is something that he needs to do. Before he realizes it, he is starving and too weak to get back out. When he feels as though he is about to disappear forever, he finds himself in a large cavern. After exploring the cavern …


The Fight Of The Century: The Regulation And Reform Of Prizefighting In Progressive Era America, Margaret Frisbee Aug 2011

The Fight Of The Century: The Regulation And Reform Of Prizefighting In Progressive Era America, Margaret Frisbee

History ETDs

This dissertation considers the symbolic, social, and political conflict between heavyweight prizefighters and progressive reformers from 1892 to 1910. That time frame encompasses the careers of champions 'Gentleman' Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, and Jack Johnson. Their fights to win or defend the heavyweight title were planned for California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, and New York, among other places. By protesting them at every stop, reformers sought to prevent the permanent establishment of prizefighting as a legitimate business, even as the fame of these fighters elevated the sport to the highest level of popularity that …


Miniature Nation Building: Model Railroading And The Dialectics Of Scale In Post-Wwii America, Ivan Weber Jul 2011

Miniature Nation Building: Model Railroading And The Dialectics Of Scale In Post-Wwii America, Ivan Weber

American Studies ETDs

This thesis advances a critical understanding of how scale informs the production and consumption of the American nation, and it makes a foray into Marxist critical analysis by integrating the theoretical and methodological objectives of historical materialism with the multiple, dialectically construed dimensionalities of scale. The hobby of model railroading serves as the case study for this analysis, and the dialectics of scale as the theoretical apparatus with which this analysis is articulated. The central argument of the thesis is that the model railroad hobby builds the nation, in miniature, through the continual regeneration of American masculinity, the traditional American …


The Open Veins Of Guayasamí­N'S Paintings, Maria Otero May 2011

The Open Veins Of Guayasamí­N'S Paintings, Maria Otero

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis will focus on several of the smaller series that make up Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín's La Edad de la Ira series, using them as examples of the main themes of this body of work. These themes include representations of oppressors and the oppressed, which is a regularly occurring opposition created throughout La Edad de la Ira. The first chapter will explore images of series consisting only of oppressors in the context of Latin America's actual history by relating it to Eduardo Galeano's famous book Open Veins of Latin America. I do so in order to explore how Guayasamín's …


"God Must Have Been A Feminist To Make Me": Writings From The Girls Of El Hogar La Buena Esperanza, Anna Lapera May 2011

"God Must Have Been A Feminist To Make Me": Writings From The Girls Of El Hogar La Buena Esperanza, Anna Lapera

Latin American Studies ETDs

My thesis, 'God Must Have Been a Feminist to Make Me': Writings From the Girls of El Hogar la Buena Esperanza is a feminist ethnography of a poetry workshop I conducted over three months in el Hogar la Buena Esperanza, a home for under-privileged indigenous girls located within a cloistered Carmelite Convent in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. Based on seventeen girls and over fourteen different creative writing activities, I explore how their writings reveal particular life histories in Latin America. From reimagining and re-writing stories and memories of their long departed hometowns, re-writing small-town histories; from exploring the cultural borders …


Occam's Beard: Belief, Disbelief, And Contested Meanings In American Ufology, William J. Dewan Feb 2011

Occam's Beard: Belief, Disbelief, And Contested Meanings In American Ufology, William J. Dewan

American Studies ETDs

The purpose of this dissertation is to critically examine the emergence, maintenance, evolution, and dissemination of belief traditions in New Mexico and the United States that are most commonly associated with the UFO phenomenon. This critical analysis incorporates theoretical frameworks from a multitude of interrelated disciplines, including folklore, history, anthropology, popular culture studies, sociology, and psychology. The primary goal of this dissertation involves the attempt to formulate a typology of UFO accounts in American culture, and how said accounts are interpreted, communicated, and publicly evaluated. To achieve this end, a database of UFO-related experiences was compiled in New Mexico and …