Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A World Of Infinite Possibilities: Recoding Popular Culture In Modern U.S. Ethnic Fiction, Todd Martinez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines how the U.S. ethnic authors Ralph Ellison, Maxine Hong Kingston and Junot Díaz reflect the dynamic, reciprocal process of transculturation by decoding popular cultural forms. Using strategies made available by cultural studies, hemispheric theory and neoMarxism, critical attention will be directed to each author’s major literary work: Ellison’s Invisible Man, Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, and Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This dissertation further analyzes a hitherto overlooked area of U.S. multiethnic literary studies: the ethnic subject’s relationship to encoded popular culture forms and how they impact dentity formation. Recent scholarship has focused on the ethnic …

Understanding The Professional Experiences Of White Jewish Women In Higher Education: An Intrinsic Case Study Analysis, Janna M. Bernstein

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The exploration of female professionals’ experiences within the realm of higher education is steadily increasing, yet researchers have yet to analyze, much less include, Jewish women. Following a qualitative intrinsic case study approach, this study assesses the lived experiences of ten white Jewish women professionals to better understand how they engage in the world of higher education differently than their non-Jewish counterparts. Using racial formation theory and intersectional analysis as theoretical frameworks, the research examined the current and historical literature on Jewish identity, the role of Jews and Jewish women in higher education, and the relevant methodological research. The study …

The Transformation Of Edgar Huntly: An American Awakening, Willie C. Sosa

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since Charles Brockden Brown published his first novels in the late eighteenth century, he has subsequently shifted back and forth, in importance, from the center to the periphery of the American literary canon. In recent years however, a dramatic increase in scholarship on Brown shows his significance is once again trending back toward the center of importance in this field. Scholarship has tended to coalesce around four topics which can be categorized as postcolonial expansion, the wild city, the distinction between the city and wildness, and identity. Looking closely at identity, although the discourse has done a thorough job of …

Strategic Resistance In An African Owned Hair Salon: Intersections Of Race, Gender, And Nationality In U.S. America, Nicole Jenkins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As social constructions of race and nationality continue to transform in the U.S. and anti-Blackness, and anti-immigrant sentiments grow in popularity and visibility, it becomes increasingly necessary to document, analyze and center the experience of these marginalized groups in the U.S. Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, and unstructured interviews, this research project aims to understand the perspectives and experiences of Black American and Black Immigrant women as they navigate the above-mentioned sentiments within various institutions. I center Black women’s lived experiences in urban cities through sharing their perspectives on Black identity and Black motherhood and analyzing unique …

Emerging Adults’ Identities, Attitudes, And Orientations Concerning Consensual Non-Monogamy, Amber Kory Stephens

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study considered the connection among aspects of emerging adults’ identities and their relational and sociosexual orientations as well as their attitudes toward consensual nonmonogamy (CNM). Results indicated significant relationships among individuals’ collective and social identity aspects, as dictated in the AIQ-IV, and how emerging adults label their relational orientations (e.g., strictly monogamous, monogamish, open, and polyamorous). Additionally, findings demonstrated that the salience/importance of social categories, roles, and reputations in one's identity influences how they choose to label their relational orientation, their attitudes toward non-monogamy, and their orientation toward uncommitted sex (sociosexual orientation). Discussion, implications and future directions follow.

Identi-Tea Podcast: An Original Play, Karsyn Wilson

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Creative Works Winner for 2019:

Identi-Tea Podcast is an original play based on the word-for-word interviews of three LGBTQ+ students of color from UNLV who explore all the various facets of their identities formatted in the style of a podcast. In various moments during the play, audience members are prompted by the actors to critically engage with the ideas presented.

Contesting And Constructing Gender, Sexuality, And Identity In Women's Roller Derby, Suzanne Becker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this dissertation project I use the case of women’s roller derby to examine gender resistance in spaces produced and dominated by women. I examine the challenges and strategies roller derby participants deploy in resistance to the gender binary and its gender mandates, and whether or not these strategies and cultural expressions are oppositional or political. Through a combination of ethnography, participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of web and print media on roller derby, I explain how women’s roller derby participants construct identity, varying types of femininities, and engage in forms of cultural resistance through their sport. I analyze the …

All In - And More! Gambling In The James Bond Films, Pauliina Raento

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

Scholarly analysis of gambling in the James Bond films is rare, despite the multitude of topics in Bondology and the fictional agent’s global fame. The odd commentary in gambling scholarship criticizes the franchise from the perspective of harm prevention. This article counters both groups of scholars with a qualitative interpretation of Bond’s gambling habits and the role of gambling and risk taking in the film series. A basic toolkit of visual methodologies is applied to the 24 EON-produced Bond films released in 1962–2015. The examination shows the critical importance of gambling to character identity, power hierarchies and communication, atmosphere, and …

The Painted Motifs Of Cypriot Ceramic Art: A Study Of Iconography & Identity, Paige Bockman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the iconography of Chalcolithic (c. 3900-2300 cal. BC) Cyprus using ceramic motifs and identify their potential use in revealing differences between the cultural identity present at archaeological sites, as well as the possible causes of such variation. By exploring the existence and origins of subtle differences between the iconographic repertoires of related sites, the study seeks a better understanding of the movement of both ideas and symbols, and how the meaning of symbols developed within the context of a site.

Currently, Cypriot Chalcolithic sites are believed to be largely homogeneous in …

Gestures As Mimetic Forms Of Identity In Post-Secondary Italian As A Foreign Language Classrooms: A Sociocultural Perspective, Ilaria Nardotto Peltier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study investigates the use of mimetic gestures of identity by foreign language teachers of Italian and their students in college classes as a form of meaning-making. All four of the teachers were found to use a variety of Italian gestures as a regular aspect of their teaching and presentation of self. Students and teachers also were found to mirror each other’s gestures. None of the teachers had been video-recorded before the study and all were surprised to see the degree to which they appeared to be Italian, although at the same time all believed this to be an important …

Corrugated Ware Function And Use As Identity Markers At The Harris Site, Danielle Romero

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines the function of corrugated vessels and addresses pithouse and group identity through the differences in technological and design style at the Harris site (LA 1867), a Late Pithouse period (550-1000 CE) Mimbres Mogollon pithouse village. Corrugated wares have long been defined as utilitarian cooking vessels. The goal of this research is to shed more light on corrugated wares as a ceramic type that served a variety of functions outside of cooking, including a presence in ritual spheres. This research also explores the use of technological and design styles of corrugated wares to discuss individual and group identity. …

So Tell Me, What's Different But The Skin I'M In? Seven Adolescent Black Girls Making Sense Of Their Experiences In An Online School Book Club Featuring African American Young Adult Literature, Benita Rutonya Dillard

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Believing the claim made by Black feminist research and scholarship that Black women writers and Black female social networks were safe spaces for Black females to come to voice, this qualitative multiple case study examined how seven adolescent Black females enrolled in a public virtual charter high school positioned themselves as they responded to contemporary realistic young adult fiction written by African American female authors in an online single-gendered book club. This study captured participants as some interacted in Tuesday's group and the others in the Thursday's group. Interpretivist methods are used to specifically examine the ways in which the …