Arts and Humanities Commons^™

When Language Fails: A Critical Analysis Essay Of Kathryn Stockett’S The Help:, Evan Mccreary

Black Album Mixtape

A critical analysis essay of Kathryn Stockett's New York Times Bestselling book, The Help, and it's subsequent film adaptation, and how in recent years, particularly following the murder of George Floyd, the story has been used as a classroom tool for teaching students about racism and its effects. Written by a Black student in a primarily white school community, this essay was written as an antithesis to the ideology that the book and movie exceed their intended intentions of being a beneficial teaching tool to youth.

Viewing The World Through The Prism Of Cross-Cultural Romances: Film Review Of Christmas As Usual (2023) And Further Reflections, Raja Ramanathan

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Conflict And Race In Literature & Law. The Case Of Americanah, Emanuela Ignatoiu Sora

Comparative Woman

In Americanah, the 2013 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, there is a scene when one of the characters, Laura, speaks of her Ugandan classmate who did not get along with an African-American colleague. Laura is surprised as, for her, all persons of color are similar, with no understanding for their differences in background, personal stories and experiences. The novel depicts and critiques this very categorization of race, which flattens differences, conflating groups and individuals who might share very little, if anything. For a long time, law (with its stipulations, precedents and rulings) has operated in a similar manner, disengaging …

What Does It Mean To Talk About Tolkien And Diversity? A Look Within And Without The Legendarium, Yvette Kisor

Journal of Tolkien Research

“What Does It Mean to Talk about Tolkien and Diversity? A Look within and without the Legendarium” considers racial diversity by focusing on the structure of Tolkien’s universe, both how it is modelled on ancient and medieval concepts like the Great Chain of Being and the Declining Ages of Man, but also remakes those models. In addition, it considers responses to racial structures perceived in Tolkien’s work.

The Black Arts And Black Power Movements In The Artwork Of John T. Riddle, Jr., Isabella Vitti

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the under-studied work of the Black sculptor John T. Riddle, Jr. and how he was influenced by the politics of Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Police brutality, the Vietnam War, the Black Power Movement, and the Watts uprising had a major impact on Riddle’s work.

Jennifer Packer’S Unique Employment Of Color: How The Artist Uses Hue To Mystify And Politicize Simultaneously, Jackson Gifford

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

Jennifer Packer has immensely impacted the art world since her emergence a decade ago. An African American woman, Packer uses her art to depict, analyze, and complicate the intricacies of living in the United States as a Black person. Packer’s singular style of intimate portraits bordering on the abstract makes her work both intellectually and visually engaging. This essay argues that Packer uses color, through various techniques, to address the socio-political dilemmas she wants to get at in her work. At the same time, she uses these hues in abstraction to lift her paintings away from reality.

Dancing Between Worlds: Afrofuturism, Hybridity, Transculturalism, And The Orixás, Alicia Nascimento Castro

Dance (MFA) Theses

This research uses a multicultural lens to analyze the intersections of race and geography. It aims to acknowledge the corporeality of spiritual practices to investigate creative movement. Afrofuturism becomes a theoretical framework utilized as a space for liberation into the past, present, and future. Hybridity is adapted to examine identitdade dupla regarding national, racial, cultural, and lingual identities. The research explores Transculturalism by centering Blackness and interrogating the political powers of race in both the United States and Brazil. The physical manifestation utilizes the Black imaginary with choreography, set design, costuming, and musical composition as ideological frames for time travel …

Creating A Just System Of Civil Recourse – Articulating The Controlled Instrumentalist Approach For Marginalized People, Rukmini Banerjee

CMC Senior Theses

A system of civil recourse is a precondition for a just society. In this paper, I outline the ideal version of a system of civil recourse and analyze the accounts of various liberal philosophers to explain how a non-instrumental and mutual accountability theory of civil recourse best encapsulates its stated purpose. I analyze the American system of civil recourse, specifically tort law, and argue that it bypasses the threshold of tolerable injustice for marginalized people in the United States. Using Tommie Shelby’s framework in Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, I argue that marginalized people are not obligated by …

‘Poetry Is Not A Luxury’, Rage Should Not Be A Privilege: The Potential Power Of The ‘Racial Imaginary’, Georgia Mcgovern

CMC Senior Theses

Female rage exists outside of the constructed masculine ideal of anger. To examine female rage, one must analyze the intersections between gender and race. I examine white women's privilege and access to female rage in reality and the fictional world. I explore Black Feminist poetry as a form of storage for rage at gender-based prejudice, racial injustice, and their intersection. Using Myisha Cherry’s term “Lordean Rage”, I recognize this specialized manifestation of female rage as an artistic, intergenerational source of energy for change.

I examine Claudia Rankine’s term “racial imaginary” as an imaginative space in which white people draw lines …

(Special Section, Hymns Beyond The Congregation Ii): “We’Ll Understand It Better By And By:” Nomenclature, Negotiation, And Naming Our Neighbors, Emmett G. Price Iii

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Hymns, whether composed for religious contexts or as expressions of spiritual reflection, are historically revered for their redemptive nature. For generations, Black Hymnody has cried out for Christological interventions to end shambolic and systemic oppression against Black people. The vicious murder of George Perry Floyd, Jr. on May 25, 2020 reverberated and initiated, as a catalyst, an overdue global awakening that sparked a catalytic moment for conversations too long deferred. Conversations that question how we experience and name things; how we negotiate trauma; and how we engage one another as neighbors. In many ways, the redemptive nature of hymns has …

(Special Section, Hymns Beyond The Congregation Ii): Spiritual Concert-Fundraisers, Singing Conventions, And Cherokee Language Learning Academies: Vernacular Southern Hymnbooks In Noncongregational Settings, Jesse P. Karlsberg, Kaylina M. Crawley, Sara S. Hopkins

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Noncongregational settings were integral to hymnody in the postbellum settler colonial context of the southern United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The incorporation of hymn singing into a wide range of noncongregational settings served Black, white, and Native populations in navigating unsettled racial dynamics during this period across the US South and its diasporas. This essay features three case studies examining hymn collections intended or repurposed for a range of noncongregational uses: spiritual collections connected with the performing ensembles of black institutions, a shape-note songbook that attempted to bridge singing convention and congregational contexts, and a …

A Tale Of Two Motherlands: Bridging The Gap Between The American And Korean Identities Of Korean War Adoptees, Lily Zitko

The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History

In 1955, the Harry and Bertha Holt successfully petitioned for the passing of Private Law 475 (Holt Bill) allowing for the adoption of eight orphans from South Korea. This was the beginning of a global revolution in transnational and transracial adoption. Prior to this, the idea of adoption outside of the United States was seldom possible; however, the work of the Holt family rationalized with the pubic and garnered much attention from the government and media. Even more so complicated was the idea of mixed-race Korean children, fathered by American G.I.s stationed in the Korea during the Korean War. Their …

A Brief History Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints With Emphasis On The Charismatic Roots Of The Race-Based Priesthood Denial, Wayne A. Denton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation provides an overview of the history of race relations and the evolution of authority in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). It traces the early charismatic leadership of Joseph Smith and his liberal racial views, which increased tension between the LDS church and broader American society. After Smith's death, Brigham Young instituted racist policies like slavery in Utah and a priesthood ban for black members to reduce tensions. In the Progressive Era, LDS scholars theologically entrenched the priesthood ban despite their progressive leanings. A push towards correlation and centralized control of doctrine in the twentieth …

African Influence In The Bible: A Sub-Saharan Response To The Gospel And The Divine Prerogative Of African Incorporation In God’S Redemptive Plan, Robert Milton Bugg Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Bible presents God's magnificent divine plan, executed by chosen people for a specific purpose. There are illustrations of those from various regions impacting those worldwide throughout the Bible. While much of the Old Testament takes place in ancient Mesopotamia, the magnitude of God’s plan is global. This dissertation will examine sub-Saharan people groups in Africa, particularly the Kushites and ancient Ethiopians. The discussion will include the history of Africans in the ancient world, their migration and development parallel to recorded biblical history, and their role in the Bible. Scholars utilize many different terms when referring to Kushites, depending on …

Sharp Stick Grasps At Autistic Women’S Liminal Vulnerability, Meaghan Krazinski

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This film analysis of Sharp Stick by Lena Dunham critically explores how the film uptakes representations of the ideas around the vulnerabilities of Autistic women in popular culture, and yet does not explicitly name them as such. This liminality is critical and plays into the intersectional analysis that the author engages around the way vulnerability and Autistic identity is interpreted and read. The author draws upon McDermott's (2022) "neurotypical gaze" in an analysis that shows how traditional tropes around Autistic women’s vulnerability are social constructions that are brought into relief by stereotypes around race, gender, and ability. The author uses …

A View Of Black Speculative Past And Future: An Interview With Tim Fielder, Julian Chambliss

Third Stone

No abstract provided.

Matthew Bullock, Blackface And Belonging: Anti-Black Racism In Eary 20th Century Ontario Press, Rachael Edwards

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In 1922 Matthew Bullock, a young Black North Carolinian was arrested in Hamilton, Ontario having fled the United States following the lynching of his teenage brother. His deportation and subsequent extradition cases received significant attention from the Canadian and American press. Historians Sarah-Jane Mathieu and John C. Weaver have discussed the case in the context of Black community formation and the development of the Canadians courts respectively. However, neither place significant focus on how the Ontario press covered the case. In this thesis, I argue that press and legal responses to Matthew Bullock were informed by a Canadian whiteness shaped …

How Early Modern English Pedagogy Shaped The Gendered And Racialized Use Of Magic In William Shakespeare’S The Tempest, Erin Lindsay Faya

Graduate Thesis Collection

Magical usage plays a significant role in William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. However, who gets to use magic and in what ways? Why is Prospero painted the protagonist while Sycorax gets labeled a witch though both use magic? This thesis looks at how early modern English pedagogy shapes the use of magic in The Tempest. When magic is read as knowledge, then the pedagogy influencing early modern education dictates whose knowledge counts and is seen as correct and whose is erased and vilified. The epistemological formation happening in early modern England is apparent in The Tempest as Prospero uses magic …

The Floating World Around And Between; Print Culture, Racial Blurring, And Japanese Views Of Black People From The 15th To The 19th Century, Angel J. Wakiihuri

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship that exists within Japanese print culture (woodblock prints, newspapers, etc.) from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries as a means of investigating how interactions with Western empires, specifically the United States influenced perceptions and awareness of Blackness and Black people. These images and the analysis surrounding the interactions between empires help to establish what Americans perceived as the performance of “blackness” through minstrel shows and blackface performances as a means of blurring and attaching racial lines and distinctions upon the Japanese people and as a response allow for the Japanese to build an …

Michaud, Jim, Angelli Bishop

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jim Michaud, (he/him), was born in 1964. Jim is a local Mainer, born and raised in Lewiston, Maine. He was born into a middle-class family with his siblings, was raised Catholic, and even attended Catholic school in his earlier years. Since the late eighties, Jim has identified as a gay man. He is a USM alumnus and attended the USM Gay Men's Alliance, which was his first ever encounter participating in an LGBTQ-organized environment. Being proactive in his political activism, Jim annually attends the Pride Parades in Boston, New York, and Maine. He stresses the importance of creating open space …

Poulin-Burrage, Edward "Teddy", Brendan Mcbrine

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Edward “Teddy” Poulin-Burrage is a biracial queer man who has lived in the Portland area for just about his entire life. Teddy has been deeply involved in the world of activism for more than half his life at this point, including with the Southern Maine Workers Center, Sexual Assault Response Services, Portland Racial Justice Congress, Pride Portland, Equality Maine, and other groups. Teddy has mostly done behind the scenes work for these organizations, usually focusing on coalition-building and forging relationships with other organizers. On top of this, Teddy has been a regular in the local gay bar scene for quite …

A Dance Of Resistance: The Puerto Rican Bomba As A Means To Challenge Intersections Of Discrimination On The Island, Daniel Loving

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the Puerto Rican Bomba as a multifaceted cultural and political phenomenon, focusing on its pivotal role in challenging and subverting the enduring issues of racial and gender discrimination on the Island. Drawing from an interdisciplinary framework that encompasses cultural studies, anthropology, history, performance and film studies, this research elucidates the complex interplay between Bomba's rhythmic and choreographic elements, its historical evolution, and its contemporary significance in the context of Puerto Rico's sociopolitical landscape. By analyzing Bomba's historical roots in African and indigenous traditions, its adaptation during colonial and post-colonial eras, and its ongoing relevance in the struggle …

Gordon, Ina, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarized by Kathryn Amend

Ina Gordon grew up on Morris Avenue, just east of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. She describes her childhood with two siblings in a tiny apartment, and her happy upbringing despite her family’s economic struggles. She reminisces on summers spent renting bungalows in the Catskills and childhood joys such as roller skating, visiting the library, and playing tennis.

Gordon explains the importance of education in her family, and describes how she ended up traveling to the University of Chicago for her undergraduate degree. She and her brother both received scholarships to attend. They had a …

Complex Complexions: A Comparative Study Of Colorism Across The Long Nineteenth Century, Robb Daniel Nelson

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation demonstrates the complex nature that skin complexion has played within four different racial communities in the United States during the Early Republic and antebellum periods. Each chapter investigates the cultural, social, and political relationships between a local settler colonial Anglo-American population, and a socially significant, non-white population(s) in the same area. The four chapters individually focus on Blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, the relationship between Indigenous Hawaiians, Japanese immigrants, and Anglo-Americans in Hawaii, Californios in Alta California, and Mormons in Utah. This dissertation contends that the practices associated with empire building and imperial expansion which include manifest destiny, …

The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name, Pamela Caughie

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay asks, when does our effort to avoid offending students interfere with our ability to teach them? Rehearsing conflicts over language and terminology, over who can speak and what can be said, from my four-decade career as a literature professor, critical theorist, and gender scholar, I confront contemporary efforts to censor certain words, to prohibit certain kinds of inquiry, and to limit who can speak about certain subjects by placing recent incidents in relation to previous debates in academia and the public sphere. The university classroom and scholarly peer-reviewed journals have long served as spaces where established viewpoints can …

“Fruit Of The Poison Vine”: Defining And Delimiting Tolkien’S Orcs, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

Fantasy author NK Jemisin has commented that “Orcs are fruit of the poison vine that is human fear of ‘the Other’.” Indeed, we would have every reason to fear Tolkien’s Orcs and their difference. Every way in which they are presented, including the etymology of their species name, the fear and horror they evoke, even the food that they consume, denotes their alterity. Their skin colour, their language, and their behaviour all encourage a reading that is rooted in racialism and essentialism; embedded stereotypes invite a conclusion that this species possesses a definable set of attributes essential to its identity, …

Power And Impact: Examining The Role Of Monarchy And Media In Shaping Attitudes Around Race And Human Rights For Sub-Saharan Migrant Populations In Morocco, Leila Narisetti

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this investigation is to delve into the intricate dynamics surrounding migration in Morocco, specially focusing on the Maghreb region’s treatment of sub-Saharan migrants and the complex interplay between institutions of power, media narratives and societal attitudes towards race and identity. Drawing on Morocco’s historical relationship with slavery and its present handling of Africanness, the analysis unveils a culture of denial that deeply impacts the integration of migrants and the perpetuating of discriminatory practices. The narrative shifts towards the role of rhetoric and media, emphasizing its pivotal importance in shaping societal perspectives, particularly regarding non-Moroccans. The examination extends …

Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link To Black Women's (Mis)Treatment In Real Life And On The Page, Madisty R. Thomas

English Theses & Dissertations

As a work in progress, this thesis explores the interplay between historical and contemporary devaluation of and violence against Black women, materially and discursively, including visual mediums and written text. Specifically, I focus on the gothic novel to illuminate the impact race-based inventions such as chattel slavery and human exhibitions, as well as the generic tropes of the Gothic, have had on Black women’s representation and lived experience via a wide-ranging introduction and close examination of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. Additionally, the conclusion attempts to suggest how Black women and girls might survive in this antiblack world, thus escape …

Conversations About Race Between Educators And K-12 Students, Elana Wolkoff, Ronda Goodale

Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice

Conversations about race between teachers and K-12 students have been found to improve racial attitudes for students of all races and to serve as a protective factor for students of color. This study examines perspectives of educators and youth in regard to these conversations, obstacles that impede them and factors that increase positive outcomes. Eighty-nine educators and 130 youth completed questionnaires that included multiple choice and open response questions. Samples were diverse in regard to race and geographic region within the US. Using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis, researchers found that these conversations generally have positive outcomes and often strengthen …

Race And The Holocaust: Giving Voice To Diverse Learners, Rebecca T. Dupas

Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice

As American student populations grow increasingly more diverse, educators must find ways to promote Holocaust relevancy and honor the voice and experience of learners. While some scholars and educators continue to make a case for a particularist approach to teaching about the Holocaust, a universalist approach is the only of the two to intentionally provide space for diverse groups to find relevancy. This article explores how racial diversity in American classrooms call for teaching that honors the uniqueness of the Holocaust while acknowledging a teacher’s own positioning and the experiences of learners. It explains the author's race and connection to …