American Studies Commons^™

Scripted Realities: Representations Of Autism In Hollywood And Their Effect On Public Discourse, Jessica Jones

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Riots And Rebellions: Memory Of Newark's Long Hot Summer Of 1967, William Tjeltveit

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

From Maycomb To The Nation: Narrative Perspective And Social Justice In To Kill A Mockingbird, Madison Boyd

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

#Metoo?: The Intersectional Reach And Limits Of A Movement In The Digital Age, Catherine Maclennan

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Fomo, Liquid Courage, And The Intoxicated Self, Lindsay Pressman

Senior Theses and Projects

“Binge-drinking” cannot simply be recognized as a feature of campus culture, but as the product of a profoundly alienating one, made strikingly evident by our creation of a separate world (“drunk world”). We have created a small world of impossible possibles that exists in the corners of the actual; a separate world, in which the imagining of the self, other, and the world, is not only permissible but promoted. At the heart of college students’ “partying hard” is a longing, hope, and dogged determination that the liberating and unifying aspects of this world can overwhelm the actual...and in the meantime …

Media And Public Opinion Effects On American Foreign Policy Under Bush, Obama, And Trump, Luke Mayer

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Female Athlete Through An Olympic Lens: Media Coverage Of Women’S Ice Hockey And Its Impact On Gender Equality, Chandler Solimine

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

If It Looks Like It, Moves Like It, And Sounds Like It, Then It Probably Is Contemporary Colonization, Denzel Munroe

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Making & Memories Of Build Academy: The Rise Of A Black Community School In Buffalo During The Late 1960s, Domonique Griffin

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper investigates the social conditions that influenced the creation of BUILD Academy as well as the long-term meaning that BUILD held for some members of the community.

In 1968, a struggle that ensued at Buffalo Public School #48 set the stage for a massive effort to reform the city’s educational system. School administrators decided to transfer a well respected black teacher who was hired to work in a third grade classroom. As a result of their displeasure, parents and community members organized a boycott in which they refused to send their children to school. Following that boycott, the education …

America Through Rose-Colored Glasses: How American Girl Dolls Shape American Girlhood And Identity, Kelly M. Vaughan

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis examines the contributions that American Girl dolls make to the development of girlhood, as well as doll and toy culture. I argue that the BeForever collection of historically centered dolls both informs consumers of United States history while instructing them of what it means to be a wholesome, virtuous girl. American Girl provides timeless stories about overcoming hardship in various periods of U.S. history while utilizing common themes in children’s literature to construct an attractive narrative. These dolls and their stories contribute to consumers’ understanding of girlhood, their sense of self, and broad comprehension of history. Recent developments …

The Longest Walk: Rape, Drugs, And Racial Aggression At Trinity College, Chiarra Davis

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

They Were Never Silent, You Just Weren't Listening: Buffalo's Black Activists In The Age Of Urban Renewal, Domonique Griffin

Senior Theses and Projects

“They Were Never Silent” will explore the inner workings and impact of both top-down and bottom-up approaches to Urban Renewal for African Americans in the city of Buffalo. For decades, government funded projects that arose in the name of “saving” inner-cities have been guilty of concentrating poverty into centralized areas, directing monies toward downtown development that dislocated families, excessive housing clearance, and modernizing segregation in the form of public housing projects. However, we have yet to fully explore how black community members crafted their own visions of a revitalized city. Many of the most significant bottom-up Urban Renewal developments have …

Purchasing The Past: Going, Going, Gone! New England Auctions: Palaces Of Intrigue And Theaters Of Commerce, Martha Kelly

Senior Theses and Projects

Abstract

My thesis presents evidence that auctions are innately socially- constructed places where diverse actors and unique objects are brought together in a transformative theatre of commerce. Commodities offered can carry with them elements of social turmoil and expose intimacies when exchanged. In this culturally-constructed, social-economic landscape, animate participants in the social arena of an auction parallel the inanimate commodities to be exchanged, as commodities are also “thoroughly socialized thing[s]” with biographies and social implications of their own (Appadurai 1986, 6). Patterns of on-again, off-again commoditization of certain goods are part and parcel of the social construction of their complex …

What Are You Laughing At? The Comedy And Social Commentary Of Dave Chappelle, Andrew J. Fishman 5373761

Senior Theses and Projects

Coming off of the second season of his hit comedy show, Dave Chappelle was being hailed by media sources around the country as “the funniest man on television.”[1] The Chappelle Show had found a way to revolutionize sketch comedy through creative yet taboo racial sketches. The show’s wild success was closely tied to the memorable characters, ridiculous stories and the quotable lines that were produced week after week. The Chappelle Show invented many characters that became fan favorites, such as the crack addict Tyrone Biggums, Clayton Bigsby, the blind black man who was a white supremacist, and his memorable …

The Fabric Behind The Doll - The Performance Of The Black Doll In Early 20th Century America, Madison Peterson Starr

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

"I Began To Realize That I Had Some Friends:" Hardship, Resistance, Cooperation, And Unity In Hartford's African American Community, 1833-1841, Evan Turiano

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores Hartford's black community between 1833 and 1841, looking at the exclusion they faced and the ways in which they resisted against it, focusing on four key moments to tell this story. It seeks to use this setting as a platform to make a case for the importance, and uniqueness, of the contributions of antebellum Northern black communities to the rise of antislavery.

A Tale Of Acadie: Le Grand DéRangement Acadien Et Son Identité LittéRaire, Molly I. Parent

Senior Theses and Projects

In 1755, close to 12,000 Acadians, the descendants of French colonists, were expelled by British forces from their home in present-day Nova Scotia. They were then dispersed throughout the thirteen Atlantic colonies of the British Empire and forced to begin their lives anew in the wake of the trauma that they had suffered. This event has since been coined the “Grand Dérangement,” a title that ultimately suggests the havoc that was caused by the disruption of a culture. The Acadians were a people who had separated themselves from the European powers that fought over their land, a people who found …

From Housewife To Sex Goddess: The Shifting Portrayals Of Females On The Covers Of Sports Illustrated Magazine, 1954-2000., Alison Blaine

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Artisan Of Violent Feminine Agency, Carolina Galdiz

Senior Theses and Projects

For decades, scholars have understood Edna St Vincent Millay in two fairly distinctive patterns as either a classical romanticist or ephemeral rebel. This dual reputation has been crafted from the obvious presence of natural imagery, sexual dynamism, feminine voice, and romantic yearning in her work. What critics have failed to see in her poetry are the potent sinister undertones that claim violence as a means to power. I will argue that Millay narrates the gendered struggle that takes place in this violence, in order to ultimately assert feminine agency in the process of forming a cultural identity. Thus, rather than …

The Orphan Train Movement: Examining 19th Century Childhood Experiences, Sophie Goldsmith

Senior Theses and Projects

This project examines orphan trains and the movement's reverberating effects on the United States more closely. Founded by Reverend Charles Loring Brace, the orphan train program aimed to challenge the “greatest evil[s] of our city life” – migration, overpopulation, and poverty - through removing at risk youth from their urban residences.[1] Focused solely on impoverished and orphaned youths, the orphan train progam assisted in approximately 200,000 placements between 1853 and 1929, making it the largest child resettlement initiative in American history.[2]

[1] Thomas Bender. Towards an Urban Vision.(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 151.

[2] Stephen O'Connor, …

The Merits Of Anger: "Put Out" And "Being Outdoors" In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, E. Frances Bower

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

“Like A Mad Geyser In The Moonlight”: The Harlem Riots Of 1935 And 1943 And The Use Of Surrealism In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Diana Lestz

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Graduating Class: Race, Economics And Education In Bloomfield, Ct, Jamil R. Ragland

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper attempts to explain how Bloomfield, CT simultaneously maintains an integrated town population and an extremely segregated public schools population. By examining the intersection of race and class in regards to housing and education, this paper traces the transition of Bloomfield from a predominately white to a predominately African-American suburb, and the effect this change had on the public schools.The paper concludes with a discussion of opinions about Bloomfield, comparing popular perceptions of the town and schools to the lived experiences of former students and parents.

The Spirituality Of Food And Nutrition: A Critique Of The United States' Food Practices Through An Analysis Of Three Asian Religions And Philosophies, Kiley G. Hagerty

Senior Theses and Projects

There is no question that the United States is a country that is currently faced with serious health epidemics, such as hypertension and diabetes, associated with being overweight and obese. It has been the assumption of the government and the public that the large food corporations are to blame for the country’s poor health. However, it is too simplistic to believe that tighter regulations upon corporations would alone lead to improved health. There needs to be a change at the individual level, and of the practices of most of the country’s citizens. Through an analysis of three Asian religions (Hindu …

A Leg Up For Women? Stereotypes Of Female Sexuality In American Culture Through An Analysis Of Iconic Film Stills Of Women’S Legs, Lauren E. Smith

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The New Literati: Sarah Josepha Hale And Edgar Allan Poe In Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture, Julia D. Falkowski

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

"To Promote The Reputation Of My Sex And Do Something For My Own Country": Nation And Gender In Sarah Josepha Hale's Godey's Lady's Book, 1836-1837, Julia D. Falkowski

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Psychedelia, The Summer Of Love, & Monterey-The Rock Culture Of 1967, James M. Maynard

Senior Theses and Projects

The structure of the ensuing analysis is divided into five chapters, the introduction being the beginning of chapter one, based upon a more or less chronological study of rock’s development, beginning in 1965 and ending at Monterey. Each chapter is intertwined with analysis of diverse scholarly material to extract and examine rock’s development and subjective observations utilized to paint an imagery-rich tale of one of America’s most fascinating eras of cultural growth. The first half of chapter one explains how one can understand the latter developments of rock-culture in the 1960s i.e. Woodstock and Altamont by simply observing that rock-culture …

Jack London: A Life In Search Of Love, Ian S. Bain

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis is a study of the interrelation between Jack London's literary and romantic lives. The progression of Jack’s philosophy was the product of an intense competition between his inclinations for naturalism, realism, and romanticism. After he found right love with Charmian the naturalism that had seeped in during his tumultuous, younger years finally fell away. The struggle of that time without love, as he wrote to his friend Cloudsey, was, “that small men down the ages have conjured gods in answer … But how bout you and me, who have no god?” The same reassurance that many gather from …

“A General State Of Terror”: The Enforcement Acts, The Ku Klux Klan, And The Struggle Over Education In The Post-Bellum South, Kathryn E. Murdock

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.