American Studies Commons^™

Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions: Strategies & Tactics For Spatial Reparations, Isaac Howland

Architecture Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Noise Over Signal: Phonography Culture As Participatory, Patrick Williams, Jason Luther

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

While participatory culture has been of special interest to scholars for nearly three decades, much of the focus has centered on digitally networked contexts. The digital age has indeed transformed our approaches to listening to music and how we operate as fans of music; these approaches can weave together the new and the old, and are enacted among a variety of spaces, objects, and relationships. We explore how the re-emergence of one such object in the digital age — the LP — has produced social arrangements that perhaps excavate older listening practices but do so in ways that have been …

The Rise Of Trump And The Death Of Civility, Keith Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

According to supporters and opponents alike, Donald Trump has been an unconventional candidate and president. In this article, I evaluate the relationship between Trump’s unconventional behavior and the requirements of civility. I provide a definition of civility, and I explain why it makes sense to relate Trump’s actions to civil norms. I then discuss how civility is enacted, I examine criticisms of civility’s triviality, and I explore the ways in which civility may repress dissent and maintain hierarchy. Although I consider the degree to which Trump’s actions are strategic, I ultimately argue that Trump’s incivilities should be understood as an …

How Civility Works, Keith Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

Is civility dead? Americans ask this question every election season, but their concern is hardly limited to political campaigns. Doubts about civility regularly arise in just about every aspect of American public life. Rudeness runs rampant. Our news media is saturated with aggressive bluster and vitriol. Our digital platforms teem with expressions of disrespect and trolls. Reflecting these conditions, surveys show that a significant majority of Americans believe we are living in an age of unusual anger and discord. Everywhere we look, there seems to be conflict and hostility, with shared respect and consideration nowhere to be found. In a …

I Want To Be In That Number: A Song Profile Of "When The Saints Go Marching In", Gregory H. Jacks

Honors Capstone Projects - All

“When the Saints Go Marching In” has never been subject to a sustained study of its origins, disseminations, and current manifestations. A study like this, focused on a song’s perceptions via various viewpoints through time, is typically referred to as a song profile; a form of reception history specifically concentrated on a single musical composition. “When the Saints Go Marching In,” also known as “Saints” or “The Saints,” is an African-American spiritual typically listed as a traditional in most songbooks without a composer.[1] I have laid out this paper into four sections, one for each period of the song’s …

From Maus To Magneto: Exploring Holocaust Representation In Comic Books And Graphic Novels, Rachel Elizabeth Mandel

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The following Capstone project documents my research into the topic of Holocaust representation in comic books and graphic novels. Comics are an oft-overlooked medium in academic circles, so there is a distinct lack of scholarly works examining comics outside the fields of pop culture studies or comics art studies. As a result, outside of works like Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the phenomenon of Holocaust representation in comics is relatively uncategorized and unexamined. It was my intention in this project to demonstrate that comics are a legitimate medium for depicting and analyzing the Holocaust both as a historical event and through …

Salt, A Web-Based Ipad Magazine, Caitlin Dewey

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not included.

All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies And The Rule Of Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper contains the introduction to the new book, All Judges Are Political—Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press, 2010).

The book begins with the observation that Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether courts operate on the basis of unbiased legal principle or of political interest. This division in public opinion in turn breeds suspicion that judges do not actually mean what they say, that judicial professions of impartiality are just fig leaves used to hide the pursuit of partisan purposes.

Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, the …

Omnibus: Precursor Of Modern Television, Mary Beth Hinton

The Courier

"Omnibus" was, to use an expression current during the Golden Age of Television, a "window on the world", through which art, drama, music, dance, history, literature, science and technology, as well as athletics and comedy were brought into American homes by the gentlemanly and articulate host, Alistair Cooke. Between 1952 and 1961, "Omnibus", in seeking new ways to inform and to uplift, expanded the repertoire of television and stimulated the American public's appetite for 'cultural' programming.

In the early 1960s, Syracuse University unexpectedly acquired kinescope recordings of the "Omnibus" television series' first two seasons: 1952-53 and 1953-54. After the Ford …

Ted Key, Creator Of "Hazel", George L. Beiswinger

The Courier

This article highlights the life and works of the cartoonist and author Ted Key, researched through his extensive collection in the Syracuse University Special Collections. Key is best known for his cartoon "Hazel," whose personality endeared her to generations of readers.

Benjamin Spock And The Spock Papers At Syracuse University, Robert S. Pickett

The Courier

This article gives a portrait of the controversial pediatrician and popular author Benjamin Spock, much of it gleaned from his personal papers located at Syracuse University's Special Collections. Among some of the insights into his life worth noting are his wife Jane's contributions to his personal attitudes and even his books.

Freak Show Images From The Ron Becker Collection, Robert Bogdan

The Courier

This article details the rise of freak shows from 1840 to 1940 in America, drawing from the extensive collection found in the Ron Becker Collection in the Syracuse University Special Collections. The exhibits played upon the superstitions and prejudices of popular American culture, and every exhibit was a fraud of some sort. The photographs of these "human curiosities" fascinated Ron Becker, who amassed a collection of the photos, mostly from the photographers Charles Eisenmann and Frank Wendt.

Benson Lossing: His Life And Work, 1830-1860, Diane M. Casey

The Courier

Benson J. Lossing's interest in reaching a popular rather than an elite audience, his journalistic style, and the changing methods of historical research, which began to develop at the end of the nineteenth century, have all led to the current opinion of him-that he was a popularizer of history, and not a historian. However, an examination of his long and varied career suggests that his work deserves consideration in the study of antebellum American life.

Roy Crane—Pioneer Adventure Strip Cartoonist, Ray Thompson

The Courier

The newspaper comic strip was well established in the United States by World War I. It had become a part of every American's cultural background long before the Disney cartoon films of the 1930s. The George Arents Research Library for Special Collections at Syracuse University has a large collection of original drawings for comic strips. There are cartoons from the early days of the comic strip to the work of artists still drawing strips which many Americans read every day.

Some of the comic strips have extraordinary lives, continuing past their creator's lifetimes. Buzz Sawyer and his friend Roscoe Sweeney …

The Decline Of The Written Word, William Safire

The Courier

Part of a commencement speech delivered by William Safire to the graduating class of 1978 at Syracuse University, William Safire bemoans the state of rhetoric and the written word, chastising not only the White House but society at large. He argues attention spans have steadily waned over the years, with popular culture filling the void where intellectual discourse used to exist.

Bud Fisher—Pioneer Dean Of The Comic Artists, Ray Thompson

The Courier

The George Arents Research Library for Special Collections at Syracuse University has an extensive collection of original drawings by American cartoonists. Among the most famous of these are Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff."

Bud Fisher set the pattern of a new phase of visual entertainment that has endured and blossomed to this day. Everybody knows of "Mutt and Jeff" - an American institution and a synonym for "tall and short." Fisher was one of the most copied of the early cartoonists. One can trace his influence through dozens of strips created between 1910 and 1920.