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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Hierarchy And Responsibility In Media: Cults, Culpability, And Culture, Max Hargett Jan 2022

Hierarchy And Responsibility In Media: Cults, Culpability, And Culture, Max Hargett

Online Theses and Dissertations

This is a descriptive research project that investigates how popular entertainment media portrays cults. My intention is to see how the selected films and television shows portray issues of hierarchy and culpability within the cult and to explore how the genre and theme of the content was utilized in order to evoke certain reactions and sentiments in the audience. The selected films were The Sacrament, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Midsommar. The selected television shows were Waco and American Horror Story: Cult. Each film and series is given its own analysis. Findings indicate that a common theme of the rigid …


Creating A Place For Monstrosity: The Forced Liminality And Limited Mobility Of Codified Monstrosity In Leigh Bardugo's King Of Scars, Kaylee Brooke Lambert Jan 2020

Creating A Place For Monstrosity: The Forced Liminality And Limited Mobility Of Codified Monstrosity In Leigh Bardugo's King Of Scars, Kaylee Brooke Lambert

Online Theses and Dissertations

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) outlines the purpose of young adult (YA) literature as addressing the unique needs of adolescents, which are “distinguished by unique needs that are – at minimum — physical, intellectual, emotional, and societal in nature” (Cart “Value” para. 8). This unique period in life is liminal, a time between childhood and adulthood. Adolescents search for meaning in the world around them, with literature as one avenue for self-discovery and affirmation. Mental health is one area teenagers seek answers, and YA literature has attempted to provide spaces to navigate those questions in popular contemporary works …


Bombs, Bikinis, And Godzilla: America's Fear And Fascination Of The Atomic Bomb As Evidenced Through Popular Media, 1946-1962., Joshua Samuel Scott Cornett Jan 2017

Bombs, Bikinis, And Godzilla: America's Fear And Fascination Of The Atomic Bomb As Evidenced Through Popular Media, 1946-1962., Joshua Samuel Scott Cornett

Online Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to illustrate the change in emotions white, middle class Americans experienced towards the atomic bomb during the nineteen forties to early nineteen sixties by examining the popular culture that they produced and consumed. These Americans described the bomb as being an object of beauty, a powerful savior, an object of prosperity, and a weapon of fear. Each of these depictions are examined in their own separate chapter with various popular culture items examined as evidence. A wide range of popular media were inspected for this study, including films, magazines, comic books, cartoons, novels, and even video games.


"It's Like We Were Being Watched ... Like There Were Only 3 Walls, And Not A Fourth Wall": Manifestations Of Metafiction In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Caleb Randall Dempsey-Richardson Jan 2013

"It's Like We Were Being Watched ... Like There Were Only 3 Walls, And Not A Fourth Wall": Manifestations Of Metafiction In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Caleb Randall Dempsey-Richardson

Online Theses and Dissertations

Despite the extensive collection of works related to both Joss Whedon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, relatively little critical attention has so far dealt with the subject of metafiction. This study aims to make use of narratological analyses as well as drawing upon relevant theorists (e.g., Patricia Waugh, Fredric Jameson) to illustrate the various different ways Whedon has consciously constructed metafiction as an integral part of his most influential television series. Additionally, the project also endeavors to show how textual self-consciousness can be housed outside of the tradition space of the diegesis in favor of a paratextual element instead. …