Arts and Humanities Commons^™

American Naval History, 1607-1865, Jonathan R. Dull

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

For its first eighty-five years, the United States was only a minor naval power. Its fledgling fleet had been virtually annihilated during the War of Independence and was mostly trapped in port by the end of the War of 1812. How this meager presence became the major naval power it remains to this day is the subject of American Naval History, 1607–1865: Overcoming the Colonial Legacy. A wide-ranging yet concise survey of the U.S. Navy from the colonial era through the Civil War, the book draws on American, British, and French history to reveal how navies reflect diplomatic, political, …

Called To Justice, Warren K. Urbom

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Early in his judicial career, U.S. District Judge Warren K. Urbom was assigned a yearlong string of criminal trials arising from a seventy-one-day armed standoff between the American Indian Movement and federal law enforcement at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. In Called to Justice Urbom provides the first behind-the-scenes look at what quickly became one of the most significant series of federal trials of the twentieth century. Yet Wounded Knee was only one set of monumental cases Urbom presided over during his years on the bench, a set that in turn forms but one chapter in a remarkable life story.

Urbom’s …

Plotting Justice, Georgiana Banita

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

No abstract provided.

Beyond Bend It Like Beckham, Timothy F. Grainey

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Though it burst into public consciousness only with the 1999 World Cup, women’s soccer has been around almost as long as its male counterpart, flourishing in England during and after World War I. From the rise of women’s soccer following Title IX legislation in the early seventies to the watershed 1999 World Cup performance that turned the American team into instant celebrities, soccer is now the most popular sport for girls and women, with participation growing exponentially worldwide. Beyond “Bend It Like Beckham” presents the first in-depth global analysis of the women’s game—both where it has come from and where …

The Archaeology Of The Caddo, Chester P. Walker, Timothy K. Perttula

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

This landmark volume provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the prehistory and archaeology of the Caddo peoples. The Caddos lived in the Southeastern Woodlands for more than 900 years beginning around A.D. 800–900, before being forced to relocate to Oklahoma in 1859. They left behind a spectacular archaeological record, including the famous Spiro Mound site in Oklahoma as well as many other mound centers, plazas, farmsteads, villages, and cemeteries. The Archaeology of the Caddo examines new advances in studying the history of the Caddo peoples, including ceramic analysis, reconstructions of settlement and regional histories of different Caddo communities, …

Cultural Construction Of Empire, Janne Lahti

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

From 1866 through 1886, the U.S. Army occupied southern Arizona and New Mexico in an attempt to claim it for settlement by Americans. Through a postcolonial lens, Janne Lahti examines the army, its officers, their wives, and the enlisted men as agents of an American empire whose mission was to serve as a group of colonizers engaged in ideological as well as military, conquest.

Cultural Construction of Empire explores the cultural and social representations of Native Americans, Hispanics, and frontiersmen constructed by the officers, enlisted men, and their dependents. By differentiating themselves from these “less civilized” groups, white military settlers …

Hoosh, Jason C. Anthony

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Antarctica, the last place on Earth, is not famous for its cuisine. Yet it is famous for stories of heroic expeditions in which hunger was the one spice everyone carried. At the dawn of Antarctic cuisine, cooks improvised under inconceivable hardships, castaways ate seal blubber and penguin breasts while fantasizing about illustrious feasts, and men seeking the South Pole stretched their rations to the breaking point. Today, Antarctica’s kitchens still wait for provisions at the far end of the planet’s longest supply chain. Scientific research stations serve up cafeteria fare that often offers more sustenance than style. Jason C. Anthony, …

Colorado Politics And Policy, Thomas E. Cronin, Robert D. Loevy

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Survey after survey reveals that many Coloradans believe that the U.S. government is too big, too wasteful, and too intrusive. Yet Colorado is arguably one of the most federally subsidized states in the union, with forests, national parks, military bases, and research laboratories benefiting from the federal government’s largesse. A concise history of Colorado’s constitution and central political institutions, Colorado Politics and Policy offers a probing analysis of the state’s political cultures. It shows how the state, in many ways a template of the deeply contrary politics of the nation, puts political power into the hands of an ever-more-polarized electorate …

Positive Pollutions And Cultural Toxins, John Blair Gamber

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

In this innovative study, Positive Pollutions and Cultural Toxins, John Blair Gamber examines urbanity and the results of urban living—traffic, garbage, sewage, waste, and pollution—arguing for a new recognition of all forms of human detritus as part of the natural world and thus for a broadening of our understanding of environmental literature. While much of the discourse surrounding the United States’ idealistic and nostalgic views of itself privileges “clean” living (primarily in rural, small-town, and suburban settings), representations of rurality and urbanity by Chicanas/Chicanos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, on the other hand, complicate such generalization. Gamber …

On Records, Andrew Newman

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Bridging the fields of indigenous, early American, memory, and media studies, On Records illuminates the problems of communication between cultures and across generations. Andrew Newman examines several controversial episodes in the historical narrative of the Delaware (Lenape) Indians, including the stories of their primordial migration to settle a homeland spanning the Delaware and Hudson Rivers, the arrival of the Dutch and the first colonial land fraud, William Penn’s founding of Pennsylvania with a Great Treaty of Peace, and the “infamous” 1737 Pennsylvania Walking Purchase.

As Newman demonstrates, the quest for ideal records—authentic, authoritative, and objective, anchored in the past yet …

Embracing Fry Bread, Roger Welsch

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

When he was out playing Indian, enacting Hollywood-inspired scenarios, it never occurred to the child Roger Welsch that the little girl sitting next to him in school was Indian. A lifetime of learning later, Welsch’s enthusiasm is undimmed, if somewhat more enlightened. In Embracing Fry Bread Welsch tells the story of his lifelong relationship with Native American culture, which, beginning in earnest with the study of linguistic practices of the Omaha tribe during a college anthropology course, resulted in his becoming an adopted member and kin of both the Omaha and the Pawnee tribes.

With requisite humility and a …

Yuchi Indian Histories Before The Removal Era, Jason Baird Jackson

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

In Yuchi Indian Histories Before the Removal Era, folklorist and anthropologist Jason Baird Jackson and nine scholars of Yuchi (Euchee) Indian culture and history offer a revisionist and in-depth portrait of Yuchi community and society. This first interdisciplinary history of the Yuchi people corrects the historical record, which often submerges the Yuchi within the Creek Confederacy instead of acknowledging the Yuchi as a separate tribe.

By looking at the oral, historical, ethnographic, linguistic, and archaeological record, contributors illuminate Yuchi political circumstances and cultural identity. Focusing on the pre-Removal era, the volume shows that from the entrada of Hernando de …

Intercepted, Michael Mcknight

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Hailing from suburban Los Angeles, raised by supportive parents, and educated at a boys-only parochial school, Darryl Henley had it all. He earned a history degree from UCLA, became a first-team All American for the Bruins in 1988, and was a rising star as the starting cornerback for the LA Rams in the early nineties. How Henley, in the space of three short years, went from golden NFL role model to federal inmate is one of the most bizarre stories in the annals of sport-stars-turned-criminal.

The product of eight years of investigative research and over one hundred interviews, Intercepted has …

Frémont's First Impressions, John C. C. Frémont

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

In 1842 John C. Frémont led a party of twenty-five men on a five-month journey from Saint Louis to the Wind River Range in the Rocky Mountains; his goal: to chart the best route to Oregon. In 1843 Frémont was commissioned for another expedition, to explore the Great Salt Lake, Washington, eastern California, Carson Pass, and the San Joaquin Valley, places that did not yet belong to the United States.

His journals from these expeditions, edited in collaboration with his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, and published by Congress, thrilled the nation and firmly established Frémont’s persona as the Great Pathfinder. …

The Allotment Plot, Nicole Tonkovich

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

The Allotment Plot reexamines the history of allotment on the Nez Perce Reservation from 1889 to 1892 to account for and emphasize the Nez Perce side of the story. By including Nez Perce responses to allotment, Nicole Tonkovich argues that the assimilationist aims of allotment ultimately failed due in large part to the agency of the Nez Perce people themselves throughout the allotment process. The Nez Perce were actively involved in negotiating the terms under which allotment would proceed and simultaneously engaged in ongoing efforts to protect their stories and other cultural properties from institutional appropriation by the allotment agent, …

The Ojibwe Journals Of Edmund F. Ely, 1833-1849, Edmund F. Ely

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Twenty-four-year-old Edmund F. Ely, a divinity student from Albany, New York, gave up his preparation for the ministry in 1833 to become a missionary and teacher among the Ojibwe of Lake Superior. During the next sixteen years, Ely lived, taught, and preached among the Ojibwe, keeping a journal of his day-to-day experiences as well as recording ethnographic information about the Ojibwe. From recording his frustrations over the Ojibwe's rejection of Christianity to describing hunting and fishing techniques he learned from his Ojibwe neighbors, Ely’s unique and rich record provides unprecedented insight into early nineteenth-century Ojibwe life and Ojibwe-missionary relations. Theresa …

From Gods To God, Avigdor Shinan, Yair Zakovitch

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

The ancient Israelites believed things that the writers of the Bible wanted them to forget: myths and legends from a pre-biblical world that the new monotheist order needed to bury, hide, or reinterpret. Ancient Israel was rich in such literary traditions before the Bible reached the final form that we have today. These traditions were not lost but continued, passed down through the ages. Many managed to reach us in post-biblical sources: rabbinic literature, Jewish Hellenistic writings, the writings of the Dead Sea sect, the Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and other ancient translations of the Bible, and even outside the ancient …

The Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science And The Failure Of The Enlightenment In Indonesia, Michitake Aso

History Faculty Scholarship

A review of "The Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia" by Andrew Gross

Anti-Trafficking Legislation In Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzing The Role Of Coercion And Parental Responsibility, Ruby Andrew, Benjamin N. Lawrance

Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking: 4th (2012)

This article discusses the effect of US and international support for local laws to combat child trafficking in sub-Saharan African states. The annual ranking of African anti-trafficking measures, produced by the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (OMCTP) in conjunction with the UN Office on Crime and Drugs, not only provides an important source of data but also creates a powerful incentive for African states to effect legislative change.

We argue that, although the US supports criminalization of traffickers and the OMCTP espouses laws to deter parental inducement to support trafficking activities, the implementation of …

Reputation And Social Perfection: The Social Creation Of Mr. Hyde, Valerie Mack '16

Outstanding Gateway Papers

This essay works to explain and generalize the values of the Victorian era and their suppressive quality, and then to apply this knowledge specifically to Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It argues that Victorian values were harmful to the people they governed and forced Victorians to choose between the parts of themselves that would lead to success, like measured behavior, and those that contain basic human desires, such as sexual desires. Respectability and reputation, as well as the need for the appearance of social perfection, suppressed unwanted aspects of human nature.

The essay first describes the …

Stitching As Knowing: Mapping Nebraska With Textiles And Thread, Elizabeth Ingraham

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Mapping Nebraska is a drawn, stitched and digitally imaged cartography of the state (physical, social, cultural, sociological) where I live. The interrelated components of this on-going project are:

• A 15 foot wide hand-drawn “Locator Map” of Nebraska, with every city, town, park, railroad, river, lake and creek drawn to scale on 95 Tyvek sections which were then stitched together.
• Terrain Squares, quilted and embroidered fabric relief forms of the physical topography of selected locations, using software to be able to see the terrain at a much larger scale (1 inch = 596 feet) than the Locator Map.
• Surveys, or on-the-ground …

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Delno C. West Award (2012)

Quidditas

Jessica Winston

The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

Hyperreal Blessings: Simulated Relics In The Pardoner’S Tale, Chelsea Henson

Quidditas

This article argues that reading the relics Chaucer’s Pardoner carries through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s definition of simulacra illustrates the potential existence – and subsequent dangers – of a simulated hyperreality to the spirituality of the fourteenth century. Juxtaposing “The Pardoner’s Prologue” from The Canterbury Tales and Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation lends meaning to both the machinations of Chaucer’s (arguably) most corrupt pilgrim, and to the postmodern idea of simulated realities. Rather than doubles or imitations of an original image or conception of reality, Baudrillard’s simulacra are indistinguishable replacements for the real, as the Pardoner would have us believe …

“A Neighbour, Hedges Haue Eyes, And High-Wayes Haue Eares” Traveling Players, Traveling Spies In 1 Henry Iv And The True Tragedie Of Richard The Third, Robert D. Stefanek

Quidditas

The Elizabethan government used companies of travelling players to serve a number of intelligence functions, which extended to the surveillance of audiences during performances. This surveillance was facilitated by the discursive instabilities of their plays and the architecture of the spaces in which they were performed. Surveillance by travelling players was part of an essentially colonial project in which the crown sought to extend its power and increase its visibility while attempting to fashion a nationalist, pro-Protestant, pro-Tudor identity in the provinces. To consider these dynamics, this article considers two conjectured performances. First, Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV performed by the …

A Fascinating But Frustrating Study Of Marlowe’S Drama And Its Historical Context, Jefferey H. Taylor

Quidditas

Clayton MacKenzie’s Deathly Experiments; A Study of Icons and Emblems of Mortality in Christopher Marlowe’s Plays is a fascinating, but equally frustrating, study of Marlowe’s drama and its historical context. The basic premise, to enrich our reading of Marlowe’s plays through resonance with widely available printed emblems and similar iconic art, is a worthy endeavor, one that follows the impulse to illuminate drama by examining contemporary visual art, and foregrounding the presence of theater as visual communications and enriching sensitivity to the communicative power of image and icon.

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Reflections On My Life: In The Kingdom And The Academy, Thomas H. Olbricht

Churches of Christ Heritage Collection

Reflections on my Life is the memoir of Thomas Olbricht, dedicated Churches of Christ minister, renowned scholar, and prolific author. Olbricht recalls his more than 50-year ministry in the Churches of Christ together with his academic career in Christian education, which includes administrative posts at the University of Iowa, Harding University, the University of Dubuque, Pennsylvania State University, Abilene Christian University, and Pepperdine University.

Politics As Usual Or Political Change: The War On Poverty's Community Action Program In Albany, N.Y., 1959-1967, Brian Keough

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

The historical narrative of the Great Society in general, and the Community Action Program in particular, has largely reflected the events and experiences in large cities such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, ignoring smaller communities’ implementation of the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act (EOA). This article examines the struggle to develop Albany’s CAP and provides a greater understanding of city’s race relations during the early 1960s. I argue that the conflict over community action exacerbated race relations in Albany and contributes to the ongoing narrative about the significance of the War on Poverty in smaller urban areas. A study …

The Most Interesting Place: The Eastern Mediterranean And American Cultural Knowledge, Gregory Wiedeman

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

This study addresses how nineteenth-century Americans perceived the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The project rests upon a detailed examination of American primary school geography textbooks that enjoyed widespread circulation during the century. The lack of an effective education apparatus in the period rendered American students incredibly reliant on their textbooks. These texts reflect the general common knowledge of the region shared by most educated Americans. Additionally, this study draws support from a thorough analysis of travel accounts that were extraordinarily popular during the period. These works offered Americans a chance to explore vicariously the most interesting lands of the …