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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Against All Odds: A Study Of Success Attainment Among African American Males From Single-Parent Households, Judith Roberts Jan 2013

Against All Odds: A Study Of Success Attainment Among African American Males From Single-Parent Households, Judith Roberts

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

For years the vast body of literature on single-parenting has focused on the weaknesses experienced by the family and the adverse consequences for the children who reside in such a household. The literature reviewed for this study postulate African American males raised in single-parent households perform poorly academically, are more likely to drop out of school, experience emotional difficulties, and are unable to attain self-sufficiency. Researchers have also argued that African American males from single-parent households are more vulnerable to delinquent acts than those of two-parent households. These acts can lead to incarceration or death. One arena that has not …


Tarrying With The "Private Parts", Robert F. Reid-Pharr Jan 2013

Tarrying With The "Private Parts", Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Publications and Research

Two-thirds of the way through Object Lessons (2012), Robyn Wiegman's provocative study of the institutional and ideological development of what she names identity-based modes of inquiry in US colleges and universities, the author recounts a 2003 trip she took to Leiden to attend the inaugural meeting of the International American Studies Association. There, she was regularly met with the claim that American studies, at least as it is practiced by citizens and long-term residents of the United States, was deeply provincial and too caught up with rehearsals of the humdrum difficulties of American social and cultural life, particularly our always …


Melungeon Portraits: Lived Experience And Identity, Tamara L. Stachowicz Jan 2013

Melungeon Portraits: Lived Experience And Identity, Tamara L. Stachowicz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The desire to claim an ethnicity may be in response to an institutional and systemic political movement towards multiculturalism where ethnic difference is something to be recognized and celebrated (Jimenez, 2010; Tatum, 1997). Those who were a member of a dominant or advantaged group took that element of their identity for granted (Tatum, 1997). Identity work has included reflections and congruence between how individuals see themselves and how they perceive others to see them, including Optimal Distinctiveness Theory where one determines the optimal amount of individual distinctiveness needed to feel a healthy group and personal identity (Brewer, 2012). When most …


Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson Dec 2012

Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis project consists of two parts: a memoir of my experience as a Korean adoptee, and a research paper examining how transracial, transnational adoption affects identity development in Korean adoptees. The memoir, as a first person narrative, gives voice to the research as one example of the findings. The majority of research on Korean adoptees has focused on levels of adjustment within a short time frame after adoptees’ placement in their adoptive homes. While the overwhelming majority of the prior research has declared positive and overall satisfactory adjustment for most adoptees, serious flaws exist in the methodologies that do …


An Undergraduate Seminar On Irish Musical Culture In Ireland And The Irish Diaspora In America, Including The Influence Of Irish Music On Appalachian Folk Music Culture, Frieda Eakins Dec 2012

An Undergraduate Seminar On Irish Musical Culture In Ireland And The Irish Diaspora In America, Including The Influence Of Irish Music On Appalachian Folk Music Culture, Frieda Eakins

Masters Theses

The following project establishes a concise, yet multifaceted design for a seminar on Irish musical culture. While it was initially developed as a course for its author to teach in the undergraduate, on-ground classroom, this project provides a framework adaptable enough for use by other instructors and/or for additional music seminars. This project is unique in its two-fold purpose in that the design and resources are directed to assist the instructor with streamlining course curriculum preparation, while the course content specific to the project when utilized offers students in the undergraduate college classroom a better understanding of Irish musical culture …


Operating The Silencer: Muted Group Theory In The Great Gatsby, Sarah Funderbruke Nov 2012

Operating The Silencer: Muted Group Theory In The Great Gatsby, Sarah Funderbruke

Masters Theses

This master's thesis examines gender and social roles seen in dialogue in the American classic novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The researcher conducted a coding and rhetorical analysis to determine if elements of muted group theory were in the novel. Muted group theory was developed by Edwin and Shirley Ardener after their research indicated that a culture's values and social structure were voiced through rhetoric. The theory states that dominance in certain groups mutes, or silences, others from communicating effectively. Five passages from The Great Gatsby were selected for this analysis. These passages highlighted dialogue between the …


Evaluating The Role Of Latinidad And The Latino Threat In The State Of Missouri, Joel Jennings, J.S. Onésimo Sandoval Oct 2012

Evaluating The Role Of Latinidad And The Latino Threat In The State Of Missouri, Joel Jennings, J.S. Onésimo Sandoval

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Growing Latino populations in midwestern cities of the United States are leading to the creation of contested ethnic spaces and urban landscapes. In this article we examine the historical, demographic, and social contexts associated with a growing sense of Latinidad and the countervailing Latino threat narrative in Kansas City and St. Louis, the two largest metropolitan areas in Missouri. Latinidad, or a notion of belonging based on ethnic identity in Missouri, is being challenged by nativist discourses that frame the growing Latino population as a threat. We highlight the different historical trajectories and geographical characteristics that have created distinct demographic …


Race, Memory, And Historical Responsibility: What Do Southerners Do With A Difficult Past?, Larry J. Griffin, Peggy G. Hargis Aug 2012

Race, Memory, And Historical Responsibility: What Do Southerners Do With A Difficult Past?, Larry J. Griffin, Peggy G. Hargis

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

Newly emerging, transitional societies –– that is, societies that traded dictatorial or authoritarian rule for some form of open or liberal polity –– face at least three interdependent problems of what is called in legal scholarship and social science “transitional justice”: the first is how (if at all) to hold the old regime’s autocratic, often violence-laden leadership responsible for its wrongdoings while in power; the second is what (if anything) to do with thousands upon thousands of ordinary folk whose participation in, or compliance with, the old regime helped legitimate and thus perpetuate the wrongdoing; and the third task how …


Browning, Jimmy D. (Fa 157), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Jul 2012

Browning, Jimmy D. (Fa 157), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 157. This collection includes cassette tapes of interviews with eight women used as research for Jimmy D. Browning’s paper “A Tie That Binds: Contemporary Funeral Foodways In A Rural, Central Kentucky Community.” Two copies of the paper are also included in the collection.


A Mother's Love: A Narrative Analysis Of Food Advertisements In An African American Targeted Women's Magazine, Janine Danielle Beahm Jul 2012

A Mother's Love: A Narrative Analysis Of Food Advertisements In An African American Targeted Women's Magazine, Janine Danielle Beahm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how food advertisers contributed to the cultural identity of the "good mother" in the 1990s and 2000s. It expands on previous research that investigated traditional gender ideologies in food advertisements by narrowing in on the specific stories presented to African American women. It highlights a time when advertisers were responding to the demands of African American activists to recognize the African American consumer, and depict African American characters in a positive light. A narrative method of inquiry is utilized to deconstruct the stories in 117 food advertisements running in Essence magazine (an African American targeted women's magazine) …


A Lone Nut In Compton:Lessons In Community Engagement With Treepeople In South Los Angeles, Jason Schlatter May 2012

A Lone Nut In Compton:Lessons In Community Engagement With Treepeople In South Los Angeles, Jason Schlatter

Capstone Collection

The following study was conducted as an exploration of the community engagement practices of the Los Angeles based nonprofit organization, TreePeople. The intention of this study was to foster a deeper understanding about the theories and practice of the “outsider” TreePeople’s community engagement initiatives in the region of South Los Angeles, with particular emphasis on the communities of Compton, Inglewood, and historic South Central. I attempted to synthesize a collective narrative about the way TreePeople interacts with its constituents and community partners by drawing upon the experiences and perceptions of TreePeople staff, community partners, and community members. The individual experiences …


Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan May 2012

Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Certain films and television programs depicting fathers have both enduring popularity and have reflected the advances in the institution of fatherhood. This has happened because of a symbiosis that has delivered positive results: popular films and television shows that earn money for producers and advertisers have depicted fathers who have changed to reflect the popular example. These depictions have contributed in their way to mending the family dynamic, specifically related to the father’s essential role in the family. Such family-oriented films and television shows have effectively showed fathers (and men that would become fathers) that they could be much more …


The Truth Shall Set You Free: The Bible, The Revolution, And The Debate Over Slavery In The American South, Kevin Simon May 2012

The Truth Shall Set You Free: The Bible, The Revolution, And The Debate Over Slavery In The American South, Kevin Simon

Masters Theses

Before the slavery debate pushed a divided American nation to the brink of civil war, the argument divided the family of God. By the time cannon fire erupted at Fort Sumter, Christians had already staked out positions based on sophisticated lines of argument they used to justify or condemn chattel slavery. The generation coming of age during the Civil War era witnessed a debate more intense and contentious than their ancestors had seen, but in terms of the arguments employed, it broke very little fresh ground. Contrary to the assumption that antebellum apologists in the South invented the defense of …


Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant May 2012

Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant

Masters Theses

From the colonial era through the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism colored key points of development in America's early history. Amidst the English colonial experience, the Revolution and establishment of the republic, and the educational reform efforts of the nineteenth-century, anti-Catholicism emerged as a fundamental factor in the development of America's characteristically Protestant political and religious identity. While many studies of early American anti-Catholicism focus on one region or time period, drawing connections across geographic boundaries and constructed historical periods attests to the sentiment's pervasive and enduring influence. While this sentiment varied in intensity throughout America over time, its presence profoundly shaped …


From Martyrs To Mothers To Chick In Choos: The Medieval Female Body And American Women's Popular Literature, Gina M. Sully May 2012

From Martyrs To Mothers To Chick In Choos: The Medieval Female Body And American Women's Popular Literature, Gina M. Sully

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Placing the generic conventions of medieval hagiography, Nina Baym's insights about nineteenth-century American sentimental fiction's overplot, and contemporary American women's popular literature into tension illuminates some important commonalities. First, biographers of the medieval virgin saints and authors of contemporary American women's popular literature deploy the same overplot that Baym identifies as characteristic of American women's nineteenth-century popular fiction. Second, in order to define feminine virtue and establish the virtue of their protagonists, nineteenth-century and post-millennial American women writers rework the contrastive tropes by which hagiographers establish their heroines' virtue. Third, struggles for ascendance in the domestic realm gesture toward its …


From The Struggle To Liberation: A Critical Analysis Of The Film The Color Purple, Rebecca Matlock Apr 2012

From The Struggle To Liberation: A Critical Analysis Of The Film The Color Purple, Rebecca Matlock

Undergraduate Research Conference

This paper critiques and analyzes The Color Purple movie. The Color Purple movie released in 1985 is based on the 16982 novel written by author Alice Walker (Jones & Spielberg, 1985). The movie sheds light on he struggles that African American females faced as their reality in the 1930s. This paper begins with a brief overview of the movie discussing the context of the movie. The paper then discusses four intercultural concepts that is significantly related to the movie. The four concepts are: cultural norms, identity, self-awareness, and discrimination. From an intercultural communication view, the movie impacts, viewers by making …


The Electric Housewife: Post-War Supermoms And The Modernization Of The American Home, Mary Welch Apr 2012

The Electric Housewife: Post-War Supermoms And The Modernization Of The American Home, Mary Welch

Undergraduate Research Conference

THe ideal American housewife is based off of post World War II media driven model. Society judged a 1950s family on the involvement of the wife within the home. By social standards housewives were expected to work full-time in the home. Electric appliances were introduced as saving devises and became socially accepted as necessities of the modern home. Contrary to popular belief electric home appliances did not reduce the amount of work required by a housewife but rather increased the number of obligations which she became responsible for.


Unemployed Veterans During A Recession: Factors Affecting The Completion Rate Of The Vocational Rehabilitation And Employment Program, Chris Witt Apr 2012

Unemployed Veterans During A Recession: Factors Affecting The Completion Rate Of The Vocational Rehabilitation And Employment Program, Chris Witt

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The purpose of my research is to determine what factors affect the outcome of the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program. Previous literature examines individuals from each state in various stages of the program to determine which factors cause their individual outcome. Although previous research covered a broad spectrum of factors there still remains a lack of significant evidence to determine the observed outcome. I added state expenditures to the previous data to attempt to determine whether or not there is a correlation between funding and the completion of the program. I used the Department of Veteran Affairs 2007 Veterans Employability …


The Effects Of Tribal Governments On Reservation Poverty Rates, Heather Raisch Apr 2012

The Effects Of Tribal Governments On Reservation Poverty Rates, Heather Raisch

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Poverty rates on Indian reservations are far higher than the national average. Since Tribal Governments have at least some control over these reservations, to what extent are they to blame for these higher than average poverty rates? I look at each reservation and their type of government, constitution, policies and demographics to analyze the causes of their poverty as it relates to tribal government. There are many other pieces of research that are similar to this, but none looking specifically at the overall effects the government has on its community. My hypothesis is that communities with higher poverty rates tend …


Larths Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 395), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Mar 2012

Larths Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 395), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 395. Minutes, yearbooks, correspondence, financial records, photographs, and other records of the LARTHS Club, a literary club founded in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1925.


Out Of Our Depth: Hyper-Extensionality And The Return Of Three-Dimensional Media, Justin Alan Brecese Mar 2012

Out Of Our Depth: Hyper-Extensionality And The Return Of Three-Dimensional Media, Justin Alan Brecese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work theorizes the contemporary attraction to three-dimensional media. In doing so, it reframes ongoing debates surrounding digital three-dimensional media in order to critique the neoliberal social relations such media engender. I argue that the contemporary interest in dimensionality, especially regarding digital media, is symptomatic of a broad cultural shift, wherein millions of lives are now essentially being lived through two-dimensional, "flat" media, which have consequently generated a lack of spatial relationships and a craving or desire for "depth." This "desire for depth" has arisen in contemporary society because people are being "spread too thin" through a combination of the …


It's A Support Club, Not A Sex Club: Narration Strategies And Discourse Coalitions In High School Gay-Straight Alliance Club Controversies, Skyler Lauderdale Mar 2012

It's A Support Club, Not A Sex Club: Narration Strategies And Discourse Coalitions In High School Gay-Straight Alliance Club Controversies, Skyler Lauderdale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

School reform efforts, such as those to form high school gay-straight alliance clubs (GSAs), are often met with resistance by school personnel and local community members. Using a sample of newspaper articles related to school reform GSA controversies in two Southern states (N=83) drawn from an initial sampling frame of GSA controversies receiving newspaper coverage between January 2006 and August 2011 (N=631), I use narrative analysis-- including a discourse coalitions approach--to identify common themes of resistance in the narration of characters, plot, setting, and morals which GSA members and allies must overcome to successfully form GSAs. Substantively, I locate four …


Helm, Carrie (Fa 66), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Feb 2012

Helm, Carrie (Fa 66), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 66. “Woodburn: A Memory Just Beneath the Surface”, an interpretive paper and interviews executed by Carrie Helm for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University in 1989.


Ladies Literary Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 393), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Feb 2012

Ladies Literary Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 393), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 393. Minutes, correspondence, programs, historical sketches, and miscellaneous material of the Ladies Literary Club of Bowling Green, Kentucky.


Scarborough, John Arne, 1916-1995 (Fa 50), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Jan 2012

Scarborough, John Arne, 1916-1995 (Fa 50), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 50. “Growing Up in Blue Springs, Alabama” Lecture by Dr. John A. Scarborough to Lynwood Montell’s class on rural adolescence at Western Kentucky University. Includes a copy of Scarborough’s obituary.


Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones Jan 2012

Remember The Fillmore: The Lingering History Of Urban Renewal In Black San Francisco, Christina Jackson, Nikki Jones

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2008, I moved to San Francisco, California. I lived in the city for three months. As a researcher, my objective was to learn more about Mayor Gavin Newsome’s African-American Out-Migration Task Force. The Task Force convened in 2007 and met eight times from August to December. In 2009, the Mayor's office released a final report on the Redevelopment Agency's website that summarized the history of blacks in the city and outlined several recommendations for reversing their flight. The final report found that the political, economic, and social conditions of African-Americans are disproportionately more dire than any …


"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner Jan 2012

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …


Caregiver Training: Increasing Generalization Of Parenting Skills Through Teaching Caregivers To Recognize Child Behavior, Mary Rachel Sawyer Jan 2012

Caregiver Training: Increasing Generalization Of Parenting Skills Through Teaching Caregivers To Recognize Child Behavior, Mary Rachel Sawyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has demonstrated the efficacy of a behavioral parent training program for increasing the accuracy of trained skills; however, few studies have examined the extent to which those skills generalize to the natural environment (i.e., the home) and are used with the target individual (i.e., the child). In addition, little is known about the direct effect that caregiver implementation of the skills has on child behavior. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to (a) assess caregiver accuracy with implementation of three parenting skills, and (b) assess subsequent effects of the parenting skills on child behavior. Results demonstrated …


Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim Jan 2012

Study Guide For United In Anger: A History Of Act Up, Matt Brim

Open Educational Resources

The United in Anger Study Guide facilitates classroom and activist engagement with Jim Hubbard’s 2012 documentary, United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The Study Guide contains discussion sections, projects and exercises, and resources for further research about the activism of the New York chapter of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The Study Guide is a free, interactive, multimedia resource for understanding the legacy of ACT UP, the film’s role in preserving that legacy, and its meaning for viewers' lives.


Citizen Bunker: Archie Bunker As Working-Class Icon., Kathleen Collins Jan 2012

Citizen Bunker: Archie Bunker As Working-Class Icon., Kathleen Collins

Publications and Research

Archie Bunker, the central character and patriarch of Norman Lear’s “All in the Family,” (1971-1979) has been referred to as an “everyman” and an “angry-man prototype” with “hard had prejudice.” The name Archie Bunker itself has become synonymous with a blue-collar, racially chauvinistic mentality. The title of the show’s pilot and theme song, “Those Were the Days,” emphasized Archie’s dream of a simpler (though idealized) time, a world that he could understand and upon which he could exert some control. In 1970s America, Archie seemed to feel that the world was against him – economically, socially, politically and culturally – …