Dirty Modernism: Ecological Objects In American Poetry, Michael D. Sloane

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines how early-to-mid twentieth century American poetry is preoccupied with objects that unsettle the divide between nature and culture. Given the entanglement of these two domains, I argue that American modernism is “dirty.” This designation leads me to sketch what I call “dirty modernism,” which includes the registers of waste, energy, animality, raciality, and the sensual. Reading these registers, I turn to what I call “ecological objects,” or representations of how nature and culture come together, which includes trash, natural resources, inanimals, and tools. Through an ecocritical mode of analysis, I introduce dirty modernism with the Baroness Elsa …

The Triple Double: Racially Ambiguous Afro-Latino Identities In America, Yen Rodriguez

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Historically, racial identities in the United States of America have operated on a binary platform of ethno-racial consideration. In turn, this system has classified most racially ambiguous members of society into categories that fail to acknowledge the complexity of their ethnic and racial identities. These pre-determined classifications have lasting effects on the accessibility of opportunities and the social spaces available to ethno-racially unidentifiable members of society. These groups of racially ambiguous Americans, however, challenge the efficacy of an 'either/or' binary system. This piece outlines a learning community for first year students, exploring the ethno-racial ambiguity of Afro-Latino identities in America. …

No Prejudice Here: Racism, Resistance, And The Struggle For Equality In Denver, 1947-1994, Summer Marie Cherland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study chronicles a story of civil rights that has been left untold until now. Recent scholarship contributing to the history of the "long civil rights movement" has reframed our understanding of civil rights beyond the years of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition, it has also demonstrated that civil rights activity occurred in regions other than the South. However, most work on the long civil rights movement demonstrates that activism among blacks began much earlier than the Brown v. Board Supreme Court case and instead, was a part of a longer freedom struggle that, in many ways, …

Resurrection: Representations Of The Black Church In Contemporary Popular Culture, Rachel J. Daniel

Doctoral Dissertations

From 1997 to 2013, there have been multiple representations of the black church in popular culture. African American artists have always explored spirituality within black communities; in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, however, the increasing fame of Tyler Perry, T.D. Jakes, Steve Harvey, and other prominent African American Christians has placed black church culture on the center stage of American mainstream media. This dissertation examines contemporary black Christian popular fiction, stage performances, black church films, and rap music. These representations demonstrate that black church culture is distinct from secular black popular culture and white evangelical Christian …

Ruby Dee, 1922-2014, Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Ruby Dee was a marvelously expressive actor, and a lifelong risk-taking radical committed to challenging racial and economic inequality. She made history as part of an extraordinary group of Black Arts radicals — including Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, Harry Belafonte, John O. Killens and Julian Mayfield, as well as her husband Ossie Davis — who actively protested white supremacy and thought deeply about the political implications of conventional racial representations, creating new stories and introducing new Black characters to convey deep truths about Black life.

In small parts and choice roles, Dee’s presence lit up stage and screen. In her …

Ruby Dee, 1922-2014, Judith Smith

Judith E. Smith

Ruby Dee was a marvelously expressive actor, and a lifelong risk-taking radical committed to challenging racial and economic inequality. She made history as part of an extraordinary group of Black Arts radicals — including Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, Harry Belafonte, John O. Killens and Julian Mayfield, as well as her husband Ossie Davis — who actively protested white supremacy and thought deeply about the political implications of conventional racial representations, creating new stories and introducing new Black characters to convey deep truths about Black life.

In small parts and choice roles, Dee’s presence lit up stage and screen. In her …

Review Of Demands Of The Dead In American Literary History, Katy Ryan

Katy Ryan

No abstract provided.

Terror, Hospitality And The Gift Of Death In Morrison’S Beloved, Puspa Damai

Puspa Damai

The “us versus them” narrative still pre-dominates the analysis of terrorism in the West, which invariably associates “them” with terrorism. Toni Morrison’s hauntingly memorable novel – Beloved – provides a radically different and historically grounded view of terror and terrorism in the West. The novel not only releases us from the “us versus them” paradigm by demonstrating America’s intimacy with terror, it also enables us to examine terror and terrorism from the perspective of a gendered and ethnic subject who subverts the easy categorization of “us” and “them” or civilized and terrorist. Following Jacques Derrida’s contemplations on death and terror, …

The Dark Skin I Am In, Zakiya A. Brown

SURGE

“You know, you’re pretty for a dark skinned girl, but I’m sure people tell that all the time”

“Can I honestly tell you, that you are the prettiest dark skinned girl I know?”

Throughout my life I have received comments such as these. I’ve heard them from my mother’s colleagues, strangers, and sometimes my friends. They provoked me to think that somehow I genetically lucked out to be physically attractive even though I was cursed to live within dark skin. [excerpt]

A Dynamic Blend: The Study Of Traditional Ghanaian Dance In Connection With American Hip-Hop And Tap, Hanna Stubblefield-Tave

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

• Objective: The goal of this study is to explore the composition of dance that blends traditional Ghanaian dance with movements from American hip-hop and tap. In order to achieve this goal, the objectives were:

i. To study traditional dances from West Africa, especially Ghana, including the movements, histories, and meanings

ii. To learn about the process of choreographing traditional dances for the stage, particularly as dances from other cultures are blended in

iii. To investigate the risks and rewards of the cultural exchange and transformation that occur when traditional dance is mixed with other forms

• Methodology: Research involved learning several …

Different Placements Of Spirit: African American Musicians Historicizing In Sound, Casey Hale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines two recent projects by African American musicians that enact critical and historiographic agency by reconstructing the music of the past: William Parker's project The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield, dedicated to re-imagining the works of the soul music icon with an ensemble featuring the poetic recitation of Amiri Baraka; and Marcus Roberts's reinvention of the Jazz Age rhapsodies of George Gershwin and James P. Johnson, Rhapsody in Blue and Yamekraw: A Negro Rhapsody. Rooted in African American interpretive traditions, and working both within and against such discursive categories as "jazz," "black music," and "American music," these artists …

Reconstructing The Nation: African American Political Thought And America's Struggle For Racial Justice, Alex Zamalin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how twentieth-century African American intellectuals engaged American political cultural beliefs central to American identity. A prominent argument of American political thinkers has been that the liberal-democratic ideals of freedom, equality, representative government, the rule of law, tolerance and civic obligation are what make Americans a unique people. From the immediate aftermath of the Second World War to the late twentieth-century such an argument provided American politicians, social movements and intellectuals a strong justification for divergent political claims, from Cold War warriors calling for the containment of Soviet Communism, to Civil Rights activists calling for racial integration to …

Filipinos Depicted In American Culture, Eileen Regullano

e-Research: A Journal of Undergraduate Work

From the early 20th century, Filipinos have been depicted as treacherous savages or as innocent children in America, evidenced in political comics and comments from the time. In today's society, even though the depictions are not as blatantly racist as they were in the early 20th century, Filipinos are dehumanized, exoticized, or idealized and represented in a two-dimensional way. However, this construction of the Filipino identity may be starting to change with the advent of more ardent vocalization by Filipinos with regard to the production of their images.

On Popular Visual Culture And Asian American Literature: Interview With Professor Elaine Kim, Karen Chow

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

“Finding” Guam: Distant Epistemologies And Cartographic Pedagogies, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Introduction: On Contemporary Asian American Literature And Popular Visual Culture, Pamela Thoma

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Remapping Chinatown On The Diagonal: Frances Chung’S Crazy Melon, Anastasia Wright Turner

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Disorienting The Vietnam War: Gb Tran’S Vietnamerica As Transnational And Transhistorical Graphic Memoir, Caroline Kyungah Hong

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Graphic Self-Consciousness, Travel Narratives, And The Asian American Studies Classroom: Delisle’S Burma Chronicles And Guibert, Lefèvre, And Lemercier’S The Photographer, Monica Chiu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Teaching With Collaborative Writing Projects: Creating An Online Reader’S Guide To Karen Tei Yamashita’S I Hotel, Grace Talusan

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

“Capturing The Spirit”: Teaching Karen Tei Yamashita’S I Hotel, Lai Ying Yu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Transnational Gestures: Rethinking Trauma In U.S. War Fiction, Ruth A.H. Lahti

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the need to "world" our literary histories of U.S. war fiction, arguing that a transnational approach to this genre remaps on an enlarged scale the ethical implications of 20th and 21st century war writing. This study turns to representations of the human body to differently apprehend the ethical struggles of war fiction, thereby rethinking psychological and nationalist models of war trauma and developing a new method of reading the literature of war. To lay the ground for this analysis, I argue that the dominance of trauma theory in critical work on U.S. war fiction privileges the "authentic" …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Here, There, And In Between: Travel As Metaphor In Mixed Race Narratives Of The Harlem Renaissance, Colin Enriquez

Doctoral Dissertations

Created to comment on Antebellum and Reconstruction literature, the tragic mulatto concept is habitually applied to eras beyond the 19^th century. The tragic mulatto has become an end rather than a means to questioning racist and abolitionist agendas. Rejecting the pathetic and self-destructive traits inscribed by the tragic label, this dissertation uses geographic, cultural, and racial boundary crossing to theorize a rereading of mixed race characters in Harlem Renaissance literature. Focusing on train, automobile, and boat travel, the study analyzes the relationship between the character, transportation, and technology whereby the notion of race is questioned. Furthermore, the dissertation divides …

Correspondencias Tempestuosas: Tres Ensayos Para Acompañar A Sycorax Y Calibán, Santiago Vidales

Masters Theses

William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) theatrical work The Tempest was first performed in 1611 at the court of James I. Since the XVII century until today this work of art has travelled the world and has been (re)interpreted from the perspective of multiple ideologies. This thesis seeks to understand the representations and uses that Caliban has had in different spaces and historical moments. The anti-colonial interpretations of Roberto Fernández Retamar authorize us to read metaphorically the current socio-political situation of Latin immigrants in the United States through the perspective of The Tempest. The first chapter of this thesis studies and critically …

Sacagawea: A Uniquely American Legend, Donna Jean Kessler

Donna J Barbie

In an examination of American texts produced from 1804 to 1989, this dissertation delineates that Sacagawea became a legendary figure because she has exemplified critical elements of narrative traditions recounting the nation's sacred beginnings. As a plethora of works have portrayed Sacagawea as the Indian princess of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, she became an important emblem of manifest destiny. Flexible within its mythic framework, the Sacagawea legend has additionally enabled proponents to confront timely cultural issues, such as women suffrage, taboos against miscegenation, and modern feminism.

Chapter one provides a review of American frontier myths, concepts of sacred mission …

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 Influence Of Literacy On The Lives Of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures, Laura Leighann Dicks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The American South has long been a region associated with myth and fantasy; in popular culture especially, the region is consistently tied to skewed notions of the antebellum South that include images of large plantation homes, women in hoop skirts, and magnolia trees that manifest in television and film representations such as Gone With the Wind (1939). Juxtaposed with these idealized, mythic images is the hillbilly trope, reinforced by radio shows such as Lum and Abner, and films such as Scatterbrain (1940). Out of this idea comes the southern illiteracy stereotype, which suggests that southerners are collectively unconcerned with education …

Framing Identity: Repudiating The Ideal In Chicana Literature, Michael A. Flores

All NMU Master's Theses

In the 1960s Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez penned his now canonical, epic poem “I Am Joaquin.” The poem chronicles the historic oppression of a transnational, Mexican people as well as revolutionary acts of their forefathers in resisting tyranny. Coinciding with a series of renewed, sociopolitical campaigns, collectively known as the Chicano Movement, Gonzales’ poem uses vivid imagery to present an idealized representation of Chicanos and encouraged his reader to engage in revolutionary action. Though the poem encourages strong leadership, upward mobility, and political engagement the representations of women in his text are misogynistic and limiting.

His presentation of the “black-shawled …

Kittens In The Oven: Race Relations, Traumatic Memory, And The Search For Identity In Julia Alvarez’S How The García Girls Lost Their Accents, Natalie Carter

Natalie Carter

The search for an ever-elusive home is a thread that runs throughout much literature by authors who have immigrated to the United States. Dominican authors are particularly susceptible to this search for a home because “for many Dominicans, home is synonymous with political and/or economic repression and is all too often a point of departure on a journey of survival” (Bonilla 200). This “journey of survival” is a direct reference to the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, who controlled the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961. The pain and trauma that Trujillo inflicted upon virtually everyone associated with the Dominican Republic …