Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Increments Of Fourteen, Rachel C. Edwards

Scripps Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

American Cars: Patriotic Consumption After September 11th, Lori Bindig, M. Bosau

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Beginning September 20, 2001, the same day President Bush reiterated his call to participate in the U.S. economy, General Motors provided an outlet for patriotic consumption with a commercial announcing 0 percent financing on every new GM car and truck.

A Political Economy Of Formatted Pleasures, Edward Brennan

Books/Book chapters

This chapter argues that, by promoting audience pleasures based in the pursuit of individual and materialistic goals, most television formats are consonant with a dominant orthodoxy which sees markets as the only way to organise society . This elective affinity between format pleasures and free market ideology, however, does not come about through deliberate design. Rather it is an unintended consequence of television production’s response to economic and practical necessity. In their form, content and production practices formats are pre-adapted to the demands of a globalised media market place. This commercial logic has given formats a peculiar signature in terms …

Part Of Their World: Gender Identity Found In Disney Princesses, Consumerism, And Performative Play, Emily Grider Ray

Theses and Dissertations

One way that children explore concepts of gender is through make-believe and performative play. One of the most prevalent presentations of gender that is packaged for children's play is the Disney Princess brand. In 2007 the Walt Disney Princess campaign profited over four billion dollars and expanded to include over 25,000 items for sale. Princess paraphernalia reflects a change in the way that young girls (ages 3-5) engage in imaginary play by creating a whole new paradigm of thought. As these girls project themselves into the role of a certain Princess, typical play transforms into a consumer based theatrical experience. …

The Metaphysical Underpinnings Contemporary Attitudes In Consumerism: An Pontification?, Jason Stigliano

Honors Theses

Contemporary philosopher and activist, John Zerzan, critiques modern civilization, and then in hindsight the history of civilization, on two central grounds, which form the basis for the rest of his criticism and theory. Firstly, we are alienated from existence in as much as our experience is, in various ways, mediated rather than immediate. Through language (or symbolic thought), a sense of measured time, symbolic ritual, technology and all the other constituents of civilized culture, we become alienated. His ideal existence might be something like the state of animals as described by John Gardner in his novel Grendel, “he stares at …

One Generation Consuming The Next: The Racial Critique Of Consumerism In George Romero’S Zombie Films, Henry Powell

Honors Theses

The racial and economic hierarchies in Romero’s films are complex. Each film shows a strong connection between wealthy and white, which rules over the poor and black or Hispanic. In each of his films, the Americans he shows us are so ingrained in their consumer or racist identities that they cannot look past them even in a time when the characters should only be doing what is important to survive. In Night, Harry dies because of his blind selfishness and bigotry against the African American man who attempts to look out for the group. Stephen and Roger both die because …

Race, Gender, And The Elusive Child, Lisa Kirschenbaum

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Art Of The Pink Nun: Evangelical Christianity And The Performance Of Capitalism, Sonia M. Hazard

Religious Studies Honors Projects

The Pink Nun is an underground feminist performance artist, chastity advocate and pious evangelical Christian. In her artwork, the Pink Nun ironically deploys the methodologies and visual vocabulary of late American consumer capitalism, such that the evangelical Christian values of chastity and sexual purity become products to be bought and sold. In this unorthodox appropriation of capitalism, the Pink Nun finds an alternative way to preach her message, engage a self-announcing secular culture, and perhaps ultimately “harvest souls.” I argue that religion here does not perform in a conventionally “religious” way; it may be manifest more subtly, entwined with and …

The Relationship Between Mass Media And Classroom Discourse, Betsy R. Rymes

Betsy Rymes

In this paper, I illustrate the cyclical proliferation of mass-mediated communicative repertoires through small-scale mechanisms of classroom discourse. I draw on examples of current advertising, classroom discourse data from diverse studies, my own study of an elementary ESL group’s interaction, and mass mediated representations of classroom discourse on websites and TV shows about school to illustrate the relationship between mass media and classroom discourse. I analyze how mass-mediated metadiscourse creates new participation frameworks in classrooms that propel small-scale changes in classroom discourse and potentially facilitate the integration of new voices. Finally I discuss the implications of this analysis for how …

Questioning "The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction": A Stroll Around The Louvre After Reading Benjamin0, Jonathan Davis

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this article I claim that Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" merits renewed critical attention. Just as Dada had confronted art with anti-art, so Benjamin hoped his essay would confront aesthetics with an anti-aesthetic. I examine Benjamin's capsule history of the aura and show it to be misleading, criticize the essay's underdeveloped ontology of painting and sketch an alternative, and draw attention to the surprising proximity of Benjamin's notion of value to that of neoliberal thought. I conclude with a critique of Benjamin's cultural politics.

Being Consumed: Economics And Christian Desire, William Cavanaugh

William T. Cavanaugh

Are Christians for or against the free market? Should we not think of ourselves as consumers? Are we for or against globalization? How to we live in a world of scare resources? William Cavanaugh brings us a theological view and practice of everyday economic life with the use of Christian resources. He argues that we should not take the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity as givens, but change the terms of debate in each case. His consideration of the free market is not a question of for or against, but when exactly a market is truly free. He …

The Cult Of Comfort, Raymond W. Leach

Doctor of Ministry

The tension in which we find ourselves when it comes to the accumulation of wealth and material possessions is a common one for Christians in the United States. This is a natural result of living in a culture that is driven by the pursuit of comfort. It is aggravated by the fact that so many of our tendencies when it comes to money, happiness, and success are conditioned by the world instead of being shaped by the Word of God. We strive for worldly kingship, but we are called to otherworldly kingdom participation. We pursue comfort as defined by our …

Social Ape, Morgan Dione Harris

LSU Master's Theses

“Social Ape” is an investigation and rationalization of America’s obsession with consumption. As a designer, this battle between consumption and individualistic expression has been intriguing. It is a platform for questioning how the public processes information supplied by marketing and advertising, resulting visually in interpretations of this information. It seems fascinating that even though consumers are constantly bombarded by persuasive propaganda, they feel in control of their purchasing decisions. To this end, I am using fashion as a tool for investigation. Fashion is a powerful commodity, representing identity and status, and thus fueling consumption and expression.

21st Century Zen Garden, Allison Parker Andrews

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is a discussion of certain philosophical issues that have informed the progression of my work to date.

Where The Students Do The Grading: A Content Analysis Of Ratemyprofessors.Com, Mlisa A. Manning

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"I would have been better off using the tuition money to heat my apartment last winter."

"Three of my friends got As in his class and my friends are dumb."

"The movies are so bad, even he has to leave the room."

These are just a few of the "Funny Ratings" from a page on RateMyProfessors.com, a web site dedicated to providing information to students so they may make a difference in (their) education (http://www.RateMyProfessors.com/ faq.jsp). The online evaluations differ in origin, use and content from traditional teaching evaluations as they are the result of a virtual atmosphere …

The Shop Windows Were Full Of Sparkling Chains: Consumer Desire And Woolf’S Night And Day, Elizabeth Outka

English Faculty Publications

“You know the horror of buying clothes” (L2 232), wrote Virginia Woolf to her sister in 1918. This statement takes us to the heart of early critical assumptions about Woolf and consumerism. Following good modernist principles, the argument ran, Woolf’s art was naturally above shopping, distinct from and even a reaction against consumer culture. More recently, critics such as Jennifer Wicke, Rachel Bowlby, and Reginald Abbott have unsettled this separation and have started to consider the complex relations among consumption, the market, and Woolf’s writing. Most of this attention, however, has focused either on selected essays or on Mrs. Dalloway …

Consuming Asia, Consuming Japan: The New Neonationalist Revisionism In Japan, Aaron Gerow

Aaron Gerow

Is Economic Growth A Panacea For Our Social Ills?, Evert Van Der Heide

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.