American Studies Commons^™

I’Ll Be Goldenrod And You’Ll Be Aster: The Case For Revolutionizing Western Methods Of Teaching Using Indigenous Ontologies, Joanna Logerfo

Master's Theses

An interesting facet of living as a human in the 21st century is contending with the end of the world. It’s been imagined in a thousand ways over the past twenty years. Will it be zombies? Aliens? An AI revolution? Or will it perhaps be something more mundane, more “down-to-Earth”? The floods, the droughts, the famines, and all the rest of the cataclysmic global events that occur every year have taken center stage in the world-ending debate, parading under a name as threatening and expansive as the Boogeyman: climate change. A recent article from NPR covered the United Nations’ 2022 …

A United, Not A Divider: Community, Identity, Performance & The Tomato Krewe Parading Group Of East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival, Allison Cate

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the “Tomato Krewe,” a social group that participates in the parade of East Nashville’s annual Tomato Art Festival. Drawing on participant-observation, interviews, and my own experiences as a member of the krewe and resident of East Nashville, I examine krewe members’ narratives about the festival, the material culture that they create for the parade, and the levels of performance that they engage in while parading. Central to my analysis is how krewe members understand the Tomato Art Festival as an expression of East Nashville identity.

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

U.S.-China Trade War: Phase One Agreement And Self-Enforcing Contracts, Hameedullah Hassani

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Sino-American bilateral trade relations have increased significantly in the past four decades since China started its economic reforms in 1978. The bilateral expansion in trade has been accompanied by increased complexity and tensions, which emerged in the form of a trade war during the President Trump administration. After a series of tit-for-tat tariff increases, in an attempt to address concerns through negotiations, both sides reached a Phase One agreement. However, the commitments made in the agreement were not delivered. In my thesis, I use the “self-enforcing contracts” theory to analyze the status of Phase One deal. The examination indicates that …

Black Girl Magic: History, Identity, And Spirituality In Contemporary Fantasy And Science-Fiction, Taylore Fox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2013, activist and social media influencer CaShawn Thompson composed a Tweet claiming, “Black Girls Are Magic,” which shortened to the hashtag “#BlackGirlMagic.” As the hashtag began to circulate social media, the phrase birthed a digital movement that celebrated the beauty, accomplishments, and mere presence of Black women and girls. This project argues that Black Girl Magic, operating as a social and literary framework, combats the injustice, inequality, and lack of respect and representation that Black women and girls faced in the past and continue to face today. In Black Girl Magic literature, Black women characters perform literal and figurative …

Muslim Enough? Egyptian Enough? American Enough?, Essraa Nawar

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Essraa has studied, lived and worked in many places, including the Gulf area (Qatar), Washington D.C., where she worked for The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexandria, Egypt where she worked for Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2002, she moved with her husband and family to the United States where they have been studying, working, and living for 20 plus years. In this vulnerable presentation, Essraa will share for the first time her journey navigating motherhood as an immigrant, Muslim women while thousands of miles away from her family in Egypt. Everyday Essraa will ask herself: Is …

The Creation Of Political Survival Strategies By Black Collegiate Women On Virginia’S Predominantly White Campuses, Maya Jenkins

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The University of Mary Washington is a liberal arts institution founded in 1908 as a normal and industrial school for women (Our History - About UMW, 2015). Because of its small size, Mary Washington was historically known as Virginia’s “undiscovered gem” (Boyer, 2011). Mary Washington is described as a place built to support the “innovative, passionate, intellectual, and genuine” (Boyer, 2011). However, in 2020, the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade and a racial protest that took place near the college’s campus caused many Black collegiate women at Mary Washington to question if their university was built to support …

Purposefully Feminizing Masculinity: Femininity In Male Rock And Metal Stars 1950s - 1980s, Maria Myer

The Compass

Traditionally in Western culture, men have had the privilege of promoting rebellion while women have had to be submissive and socially desirable. This expectation applied to all women but especially women in the rock ‘n’ roll scene. The overwhelming loudness of rock and the typical message of rebellion was connected to the power that men held within society.¹ The combination of loud and fast paced music with the electronic nature of the instruments is what sets rock ‘n’ roll and metal apart from other genres. The attention that rock ‘n’ roll music demands, both from the challenging nature of …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

Effects Of Stereotypes On Black Women Audiences, Darian M. Shorts

LSU Master's Theses

This study focuses on the effects that televised racial stereotypes have on the self-perception of viewers who identify as Black women. This paper lists three commonly used stereotypes for Black women in television and provides detailed background and analysis of each. There were three goals that I wanted to achieve with this study. The first goal of this study was to measure the amount of stereotyped entertainment these specific viewers consume. The second goal of this study was to understand the positive and negative effects that racial stereotypes have on Black women. The last goal of this study was to …

One Among Many: Charlotte Kolmitz, Assistant U.S. Attorney In Seattle, 1918–1925, Anna Synya

Digital Legal Research Lab

One Among Many: Charlotte Kolmitz, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Seattle, 1918–1925

Research poster prepared for Digital Legal Research Lab, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Media Exploitation Of Black Athletes: Challenges, Consequences, And Empowerment, Spencer K. Myler

Student Publications

This paper examines the issue of media exploitation of Black athletes and its detrimental impact on their lives, careers, and public perception. It explores the historical context, underlying factors, and consequences of this exploitation, while also providing empowerment strategies and potential solutions. Through an analysis of media representation, athlete experiences, stereotyping, endorsement deals, and social media influence, this paper aims to raise awareness about the issues impacting Black athletes. Media exploitation of Black athletes is a problem that needs immediate attention, and this paper provides a detailed look into the athlete experience to better understand the issues at hand, in …

2023 Cswr/Crs/Laii Graduate Fellows Colloquium, Joshua Heckman-Archibeque, Neider Andrey Devia Merchan, Gisselle Lydia Salgado, Hakim Bellamy

CSWR Public Programs

Graduate fellows from the Center for Southwest Research, funded by the Center for Regional Studies and the Latin American and Iberian Institute, gave public presentations on April 4, 5, and 6, 2023 on the work that they did for the academic year.

April 4, 2023

• Hakim Bellamy - A People's History: The Dr. Harold Bailey Collection

April 5, 2023

• Gisselle Lydia Salgado - Modernity within the Plutarco Elias Calles Archive

April 6, 2023

• Joshua Heckman-Archibeque - Land Struggles: FBI Surveillance of Alianza

• Neider Andrey Devia Merchan - Indigenous Affairs in the Archivo Plutarco Elias Calles 1919-1936 (FAPECFT)

Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly, G. Connor Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).

A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush

Senior Theses

This project analyzes the stereotypical image of lawyers in popular culture, focusing on either overly demonic or unrealistically heroic. Both stereotypes that are common portrayals of attorneys in popular culture are unrealistic and deny society a true comprehension of the profession. Popular culture has molded the image of lawyers to the characteristics that sell, rather than focusing on a realistic portrayal. Therefore, popular culture creates a falsely dramatized image of attorneys to generate revenue, putting the reputation and future of the profession as risk. These stereotypes are exemplified in this project through a close literary analysis of lawyer characters from …

Robert X House Collection, Dan Bonenberger, Brooke Boyst, Franklin Haywood, Carrie Malas, Jaclyn Panter, Ian Tomashik, Laura Waskiwicz, Taylor Williams, Austin Martin

Digital Heritage Preservation Collection

This collection examines the Robert X House at 18827 Keystone Street in Detroit, Michigan, a significant site in the history of the Nation of Islam and the broader narrative of Black empowerment and civil rights in mid-20th century America. Originally built in 1951 as a modest Federal Housing Administration (FHA) minimum ranch-style home, the property was purchased by Robert Davenport (later known as Robert X), an influential leader in the Nation of Islam. The house became a hub for religious instruction, community-building, and activism.

Robert X, a former boxer and musician, became a prominent figure in Detroit’s Nation of Islam …

Still Lending You The World: The Toledo Lucas County Public Library In The 21st Century, Cade Clem

Honors Projects

This research paper focuses on how the Toledo Lucas County Public Library (TLCPL) has adapted to the 21st century, with an emphasis on the impact of digital materials and the Internet. This paper looks at these changes primarily through three lenses: official policies, services and programs, and internal culture. This paper uses quantitative data to determine if TLCPL has maintained overall growth in areas such as number of cardholders, customer counts, circulation, computer usage, and program attendance. These numbers show that, while not always maintaining growth, TLCPL has adapted quite well to the 21st century, bringing in record high numbers …

Remembering Complicity And Resistance: A Review Of Mihaela Mihai’S Political Memory And The Aesthetics Of Care: The Art Of Complicity And Resistance (2022), Sofía Forchieri

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article offers a review of Mihaela Mihai’s book Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care: The Art of Complicity and Resistance (2022). In it, Mihai courageously brings together insights from critical theory, political and legal science, philosophy, literary studies, and feminist theory to argue for the need of rearticulating how we remember complicity and resistance in the aftermath of political violence. Mihai develops her argument in three steps. First, she provides an account of how complicity and resistance are misremembered after systemic violence. Second, she tracks the political, epistemic and ethical consequences that this faulty work of memory-making holds …

Terada Torahiko, A Physicist And A Haikai Poet, Akira Komiya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Terada Torahiko is known as a scientific essayist in Japan, but hardly anyone knows he was a haikai poet as well as a physicist. According to him, haikai poetry and physics are two different ways of conceiving Nature, both valid and perhaps complementary to each other. Seeing his research in physics looking for regularities in apparently irregular phenomena in everyday life, we may say his haiku haikai spirit is manifest there and that he was pioneering a new science such as the one developed later by Ilya Prigogine. His association of haiku haikai poetry and Freudian interpretations of dreams leads …

Orature: The Political Interpretation Of Performance Framework In Anthills Of The Savannah And Half Of A Yellow Sun, Jing Duan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The focus of discussion in this paper lies in a perception that orature of African written literature is not innocent but a form of control. Operated through its performance framework, the concept of orature provides an angle to observe how African oral tradition penetrates written literature and cultivates an awareness of the political nature both of the material to be written and of the writing process itself. This paper explores the performance framework in two African novels — Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Through such key concepts as event, narrative and self-reflexivity …

Loving Blackness: A Sense Experience, Ricardo J. Millhouse

Feminist Pedagogy

The late bell hooks framed feminist pedagogies as a set of practices and systems that provide a description of feminism, a feminist learning environment, and ways to cultivate a community that is ready for feminist instruction. Using intersectionality, hooks (1992) discussed “loving blackness” as a representational and destabilizing practice to de-center whiteness. hooks (1992, 20) writes, “loving blackness as a political resistance transforms our ways of looking and being, and thus creates conditions necessary for us to move against the forces of domination and death and reclaim black life.” I propose a black feminist praxis teaching tool, “a sense experience,” …

‘Reading The Cultural Landscape’ In The ‘Birthplace’ Of Modern Race/Racism: Using Hooks To Invite Students In As Critical Knowledge Producers & Co-Conspirators, Danielle Docka-Filipek

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

International Intrigue In The American Colonies, Arianna Vicinanza

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

Spies have always been a subject of intrigue, nowadays we are surrounded by films, tv series, and books based on undercover business. Usually espionage is associated with WW2 or the Cold War, two periods of times in which espionage and secret agencies were essential in order to gather critical information about the enemy. Despite common belief that secret services developed one century ago, espionage and Spy Rings are as old as time. Espionage is the oldest profession in the world, kings used spies to monitor the enemy or to discover plots going around the royal court. In the American Revolution, …

Amazon Web Services, The Lacanian Unconscious, And Digital Life, Marshall N. Armintor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In late 2011, ex-Amazon developer Steve Yegge’s rant about his former company described Amazon’s rapid transformation from an online bookstore to a web-services entity with a ruthlessly unified platform, all guided by the idea that the company’s effort to streamline its internal efficiency could be monetized, and the resultant software products sold through Amazon Web Services. The media consumerism that fed Amazon’s early years funded a surveilling behemoth, one that everyone feared Microsoft would become. As such, AWS has become a manifestation of the internet’s Lacanian unconscious (even providing the services and hosting for Reddit), structured around the optimization of …

Purloined Significance: How Recidivism Algorithms Capture, Transform, And Automate Our Intersubjective Unconscious As Data, Macy Mcdonald

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ever since ProPublica published their groundbreaking analysis of Northpointe’s Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions Core Risk and Needs Assessment software (COMPAS) in 2016, this web-based decision support system (DSS) has spawned a wide range of critiques and charges of racial bias. COMPAS provides a full suite of decision support applications to the US prison-industrial complex, including algorithmically derived recidivism predictions that increasingly guide parole decisions. The larger conversation surrounding COMPAS raises the question of how we analyze powerful, and yet opaque, data assemblages. In this article, I model an allegorical analysis of data assemblages. I argue the skills …

The Social Sinthome, Ryan Engley

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Much of the critical discourse on social media misidentifies its problematic features as bugs, or problems to solve. Supposed solutions to these problems tend to focus on individual actions. We should delete the apps, own our own data, never click on recommended videos, and realize that we are the product. But if predatory algorithms succeed by individuating people—selling people “choice” and “options” as it harvests user data—then an entire online ecosystem arranged through the logic of that design can neither be meaningfully challenged nor effectively understood at the level of the individual alone. Transformative action addressing social media can only …

Lacan And The Algorithm, Clint Burnham

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Exploring the development of algorithms in Lacanian theory, specifically the "R schema" in the 1950s, I argue that psychoanalysis, read through contemporary debates about the "algorithmic cult" of Netflix and other avatars of popular culture, can be said to reveal the inhuman, machinic essence of subjectivity. The etiology of algorithms, mathemes, and other formulae and diagrams in Lacan’s oeuvre has been under-studied, in part because for some readers they are not as attractive as his more bravura flourishes of word play as exegetical excess, and in part because they derive largely from the ‘hard’ structuralist moment of his work in …

Platform Psychoanalysis: What Does The Algorithm Want?, Matthew Flisfeder

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Children And The Cold War: Race & Hypocrisy Amid Fear Of Nuclear War, Richard D. Mctaggart Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

During the Cold War, American propaganda centered the wellbeing of the child in its messaging warning of atomic attack at the hands of the Soviet Union. However, despite American claims that all children were valued by the United States, this was proven untrue by its unequal treatment of Black children.

Anthology On Racism, The Black Experience, And Privilege, Marshall University Society Of Black Scholars, Marshall University Office Of Intercultural Affairs

Marshall Books

RACISM IN YOUR LIFE

The depth, impact, and experience of “racism” in our personal lives is a story that we do not often tell. These are predominantly private matters, only occasionally shared and with only certain people in our lives. Unfortunately, many people in our world are unaware of its full existence and do not know the truth about the experiences of racism in our daily lives. Without knowledge of these truths, society, including university leadership, cannot make adequate advancements to address these demoralizing experiences of people of color. In this anthology, writings on this subject will bring clarity, truth, …