American Studies Commons^™

Postindustrial Societies, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

The term postindustrial society presupposes categorizing society based on an economic means of classification. Its use rests on assessing the relative status of manufacturing industry as an economic sector. Significant adjustment in sectoral location and nature of employment precipitated by late-twentieth-century deindustrialization in the developed world led many social theorists and critics to predict broad changes throughout domains of everyday life. Some began to speak not only of sectoral transformation but also of an emergent ‘ postindustrial society. ’ Following earlier agrarian and industrial ‘ revolutions, ’ postindustrialism suggested yet another revolution that would again transform how societies were organized.

'The Last Honest Film Critic In America': Armond White And The Children Of James Baldwin, Daniel Mcneil

Daniel McNeil

Women And Death In Film, Television And News: Dead But Not Gone, Joanne Clarke Dillman

Joanne Clarke Dillman

Desire And Disaster In New Orleans: Tourism, Race, And Historical Memory, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

Most of the narratives packaged for New Orleans's many tourists cultivate a desire for black culture—jazz, cuisine, dance—while simultaneously targeting black people and their communities as sources and sites of political, social, and natural disaster. In this timely book, the Americanist and New Orleans native Lynnell L. Thomas delves into the relationship between tourism, cultural production, and racial politics. She carefully interprets the racial narratives embedded in tourist websites, travel guides, business periodicals, and newspapers; the thoughts of tour guides and owners; and the stories told on bus and walking tours as they were conducted both before and after Katrina. …

The Young White Faces Of Slavery, Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Review Of Encyclopedia Of Great Popular Song Recordings, Nevin Mayer

Nevin J Mayer

No abstract provided.

Inventing The Egghead: The Battle Over Brainpower In American Culture, Aaron Lecklider

Aaron S. Lecklider

Throughout the twentieth century, pop songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels in the United States represented intelligence alternately as empowering or threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, cultural historian Aaron Lecklider offers a sharp, entertaining narrative of these sources to reveal how Americans who were not part of the traditional intellectual class negotiated the complicated politics of intelligence within an accelerating mass culture. Central to the book is the concept of brainpower—a term used by Lecklider to capture the ways in which journalists, writers, artists, and others invoked intelligence to embolden the majority of Americans who did not have access …

Imagining Woman Otherwise, Or Nothing: Sexuation As Discourse In Lacanian Thought, Rahna Carusi

Rahna M Carusi

My dissertation looks at the connections between Lacan’s four discourses and the sexuation graph in order to claim that sexuation is discursive and that, as Lacan presents it with the phallus as its quilting point, the sexuation graph is a narrative based on patriarchal hegemony, which is one of many possible narratives. I argue that through the hysteric’s discourse and a removal of the phallus as the Symbolic-Imaginary quilting point, we can begin to formulate new narratives of sexuated subjectivities. The textual objects I use for this project are literary and filmic works where women are the central topic or …

Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, And The Black Body, Harvey Young

Harvey Young

In 1901, George Ward, a lynching victim, was attacked, murdered, and dismembered by a mob of white men, women, and children. As his lifeless body burned in a fire, enterprising white youth cut off his toes and, later, his fingers and sold them as souvenirs. In "Embodying Black Experience," Harvey Young masterfully blends biography, archival history, performance theory, and phenomenology to relay the experiences of black men and women who, like Ward, were profoundly affected by the spectacular intrusion of racial violence within their lives. Looking back over the past two hundred years---from the exhibition of boxer Tom Molineaux and …

Going Graphic: Understanding What Graphic Novels Are -- And Aren't -- Can Help Teachers Make The Best Use Of This Literary Form, James Carter

James B Carter

Best practice information for considering graphic novels in the k-12 classroom

Racial Contagion, Harvey Young

Harvey Young

No abstract provided.

Comics, The Canon, And The Classroom, James Carter

James B Carter

This chapter, which explores what I call the canon-curriculum-culture connection in terms of comics and graphic novels, also offers definitions of the augmental and supplemental approaches to using graphic novels in the classroom. The link is to the "Google Books" version of the paper, which begins on page 47 of the book.

Die A Graphic Death:" Revisiting The Death Of Genre With Graphic Novels, James Carter

James B Carter

A revisitation of the concept of genre as it applies to graphica. I argue, as have others, that comics is a medium or art form rather than a genre. But, I also illustrate the concept for rhetoric's sake.

Transforming English With Graphic Novels: Moving Toward Our "Optimus Prime", James Carter

James B Carter

I argue for the transformative potential of graphic novels in the English classroom.

Armored Bodies, Elaine Cardenas, Ellen Gorman, Joanne Dillman

Joanne Clarke Dillman

The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture is a study of the notorious automobile/sports utility vehicle. Featuring more than fifteen essays, this collection analyzes the Hummer through a wide array of disciplines, including material culture, marketing and advertising, popular culture, military technology, urban planning, and political economy. It provides a complete overview of the vehicle: production, marketing aspects, and cultural significance. The only book of its kind, The Hummer is of great value to cultural studies and American studies scholars and students, as well as to any general reader with an interest in contemporary American culture.

Building Literacy Connections With Graphic Novels: Page By Page, Panel By Panel, James Carter

James B Carter

A book devoted to using graphic novels in the classroom for authentic literacy experiences, focusing upon pairing graphica with young adult or canonical texts. The URL is to the book's page at the publisher's.

Carving A Niche: Graphic Novels In The English Language Arts Classroom, James Carter

James B Carter

An introduction to the roles that graphic novels can play in the secondary English Language Arts classroom.

Imagetext In The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, James Carter

James B Carter

Notions of WJT Mitchell's imagetext are explored as they are revealed in Mark Haddon's young adult novel *The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time*. Christopher Boone's particular way of reading the world illuminates imagetext relationships.

Why The Rwandan Genocide Seemed Like A Drive-By Shooting: The Crisis Of Race, Culture, And Policy In The African Diaspora, Seneca Vaught

Seneca Vaught

From the American perspective, the Rwandan genocide developed amidst a cultural and racial crisis of the 1990s. The American attitude towards the crisis in Kigali provides a complex historical case study on how race and culture have profound and often-ignored policy implications. Specifically, the lack of American intervention in Rwanda reveals the complexity race and policy in American history and the shared fates of Africans throughout the world. Taken as a whole, the domestic cultural background of the early 1990s, including the rise of gangsta rap, rioting, and the dilemma of "black-on-black crime," collectively influenced American policy towards Africa at …

Old Comics And Current Technology Combine To Form New Hybrids, James Carter

James B Carter

Critical reviews of "40 Years of The Amazing Spider-Man." DVD-ROM. Graphic Imaging Technology. New York: Marvel Comics, 2004 and "44 Years of Fantastic Four." DVD-ROM. Graphic Imaging Technology. New York: Marvel Comics, 2005.

Princes, Beasts, Or Royal Pains: Men And Masculinity In The Revisionist Fairy Tales Of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, James Carter

James B Carter

An examination of the roles men fulfill in select short stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.

Enchanting Readers With Revisionist Fairy Tales, James Carter

James B Carter

"Students examine three examples of revisionist fairy tales in which female characters act in empowered roles rather than behaving helpless and submissive"

Alan Moore And The Graphic Novel: Confronting The Fourth Dimension, Mark Bernard, James Carter

James B Carter

Comics, especially the works of Alan Moore, are examined as meeting the goals of modernist artists and writers due to their combination of image and text, succeedeing where neither form of expression could independently of one another.

The Wandering Bachelor: Irving, Masculinity And Authorship, Bryce Traister

Bryce Traister

No abstract provided.