A Glance In Their Direction: The New York City Press And Their Coverage Of African Americans During World War Ii, Michael Losasso

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

My thesis examines the New York City press’ interpretation of African Americans and the Civil Rights movement of World War II. I seek to determine in what measure the press reported on African Americans in the military and at home during the war including segregation of the Armed Forces, and the riots of 1943. Through examining the white and black media’s perception of these events I hope to elucidate how the press wrote about the topic of race during the period and if there was any change in their reporting on race due to the war. Although addressed marginally in …

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 …

Divided They Fall: The Pacific Coast League’S Failed Attempt To Turn Major, Sean Beireis

History Undergraduate Theses

For over fifty years the Pacific Coast League was considered the highest level of organized baseball west of the Mississippi River. As the population of the West grew in the 1940s and 1950s the Coast League attempted to use their geographic isolation and large population base as assets in an attempt to join the American and National Leagues as a third Major League. This paper details how the Coast League members’ inability to agree on a strategy for League growth led to the collapse of the powerhouse that was the PCL.

Fruitful Futility: Land, Body, And Fate In Ellen Glasgow's Barren Ground, Katelin R. Moquin

Culminating Projects in English

Through a Cultural Studies lens and with Formalist-inspired analysis, this thesis paper addresses the complexly interwoven elements of land, body, and fate in Ellen Glasgow’s Barren Ground. The introductory chapter is a survey of the critical attention, and lack thereof, Glasgow has received from various literary frameworks. Chapter II summarizes the historical foundations of the South into which Glasgow’s fictionalized South is rooted. Chapter III explains the connections between land and body, especially through Dorinda’s victimization. The concluding chapter ties together the preceding arguments into a more universal argument regarding Dorinda’s debatable victory as it relates to the novel’s …

Happily Ever After: Is Disney Setting Us Up? A Study On Disney Princesses And Their Influence On Young Women And Their Personal Love Narratives, Brittany Danielle Minor

Theses & Dissertations

This study discusses the issue of whether the influence of Disney films affects the girls who watch these films once they become adult women. Disney "princess" films are animated movies produced by Disney, featuring princess characters such as Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine and Pocahontas. The purpose of this study is to discover how watching Disney princess films as a child affects the decisions adult women aged 20-37 make when it comes to their love lives. A survey, completed by 40 females aged 20-37, was conducted and relating literature was explored for data collection. The surveys were analyzed …

"Tales" Of Text And Culture: Tropes Of Imperialism, Women's Roles, Technologies Of Representation, And Collaborative Meaning-Making In Rita Golden Gelman's Tales Of A Female Nomad, Female Nomad And Friends, And Personal Website, Michelle Lynne Van Wert Kosalka

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines contemporary travel writing specifically created for a popular reading culture, Rita Golden Gelman's Tales of a Female Nomad, Female Nomad and Friends, and personal website. The project is concerned with how culture is continuously represented and shaped through the dialogic interaction between writer and reader, and the subsequent liminal spaces which emerge in moments of meaning-making. Chapter 1 is a close reading of how Gelman's works reinforce and, in some cases, resist, tropes of imperialism. Chapter 2 examines patriarchal gender roles in Gelman's works and the ways in which recent advances in feminist psychiatry and psychology can …

A Study Of The Symbolic Clothing Disposition Behaviors Of Generation Y, Patti A. Borrello

Masters Theses

This qualitative study explored symbolic clothing disposition behaviors of Generation Y. The disposition of their wedding gowns was investigated using material possession attachment concepts. The study explored the following research questions: (1) What did Generation Y wedding gown owners do with their wedding gowns after the wedding?, (2) What disposition method was used and why the disposition method was chosen?, and (3) How is attachment to a wedding gowns related to the disposition method selected? Subjects were recruited using a non-probability, chain referral or snowball purposive approach. Within the broad categories of keeping and disposing of, many of the specific …

Jeane Kirkpatrick And Neoconservatism: The Intellectual Evolution Of A Liberal, Bianca Joy Rowlett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dr. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a leading voice in the neoconservative movement, is best known for her articulation of the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, distinctions between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that served as the foundation for the Reagan Administration's Latin American policies. Her prominence within the neoconservative movement, her impact on foreign affairs, and her political accomplishments in a masculine environment make her an important historical figure in recent American domestic and diplomatic history. This work explores her transition from liberal democrat to neoconservative by examining her early life and educational background, her publications and critiques of American diplomacy in the 1970s, along …

The Relevance Of Culture In Politics: The Application Of Cultural Studies Using The Strategic Culture Method, Elizabeth G. Wilson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

American Studies scholars have long been aware that their interdisciplinary studies reach far beyond Americana. The fields of folklore, English, history, political science and anthropology have all been enveloped under the American Studies umbrella. Public perceptions tend to assume that scholars engaged in these fields are limited to work within academia.

"Wires And Lights In A Box": Fahrenheit 451 As A Product Of Postwar Anxiety About Television, Christine V. Shell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This project discusses the ways in which Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 functions as an indictment of media culture. While many analyses of the novel focus on the text’s sweeping themes of literary censorship, this study instead centers on Bradbury’s depiction of media—particularly television—culture and the ways in which Bradbury feared it could be harmful. Although Bradbury wrote about a future society a century beyond his own, his novel serves as a remarkable reflection of his contemporaneous culture’s media consumption and gendered divisions; this thesis discusses Bradbury’s novel alongside such forces, considering the effects such influences may have had on …

The Post-Apocalyptic Turn: A Study Of Contemporary Apocalyptic And Post-Apocalyptic Narrative, Hyong-Jun Moon

Theses and Dissertations

Few periods have witnessed so strong a cultural fixation on apocalyptic calamity as the present. From fictions and comic books to Hollywood films, television shows, and video games, the end of the world is ubiquitous in the form of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives. Imagining world-changing catastrophes, contemporary apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives force us to face urgent socio-political questions such as danger of globalization, effect of neoliberal capitalist hegemony, ecological disasters, fragility of human civilization, and so on. J. G. Ballard's final fictions, though they do not directly deal with apocalyptic events but evoke apocalyptic mood, portray the bleak landscape of …

"The Falling Man" As Viewed In The Lens Of The "Public Sphere", Laura Reinacher

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Monsters In Common: Identity And Community In Postapocalyptic Science Fiction After 9/11, Jeremy J. Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the aftermath 11 September, 2001, postapocalyptic science fiction has offered a way to make sense of the events of that day, as well as the years of social, cultural and political upheaval that have followed. In many ways, 9/11 began immediately to take on apocalyptic significance in the American national narrative, seemingly marking the end of one period and the beginning of another, entirely different one. To think of 9/11 as a kind of apocalyptic break with the past, however, does not tell the whole story. Moreover, such thinking denies key historical linkages between the American response to 9/11 …

Trashed: The Myth Of The Southern Poor White, April Elizabeth Thompson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The fact of class has been a powerful tool in the process of identity formation, particularly in the American South, which has been viewed as a region apart from the national imaginary. To counter this exclusion, Southerners have often relied on stereotypes. One of the most prevalent and tragic of these is the stereotype of poor white trash, a construction that has been utilized to insist upon elite white Southerners' exceptionalism and innocence and to assert their rightful place in American historiography. While it is difficult to calculate their level of success, as perceptions of the region have varied through …

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 …

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 …

Straight Record And The Paper Trail: From Depression Reporters To Foreign Correspondents, Magdalena Bogacka-Rode

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Straight Record and the Paper Trail: From Depression Reporters to Foreign Correspondents engages with Martha Gellhorn's The Face of War (1959), Virginia Cowles' Looking for Trouble (1941) and Josephine Herbst's The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs (1991) as documentaries of struggle. Documentary as a mode of writing and image making reveals dissonance, contradictions and varied perspectives which undermine the official historical record. The three writers, I argue, by republishing their Spanish Civil War (SCW) journalism in book form intended to set their record straight. This was motivated by their commitment to the 1930s struggle and the need …

The New Deal In Puerto Rico: Public Works, Public Health, And The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, 1935-1955, Geoff G. Burrows

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the 1930s, Puerto Rico experienced acute infrastructural and public health crises caused by the economic contraction of the Great Depression, the devastating San Felipe and San Ciprián hurricanes of 1928 and 1932, and the limitations of the local political structure. Signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) replaced all other New Deal activity on the island. As a locally-run federal agency, the PRRA was very unique and yet very representative of the "Second" New Deal in the United States--which attempted to move beyond finding immediate solutions to the most critical problems …

Millennial Libertarians: The Rebirth Of A Movement And The Transformation Of U.S. Political Culture, Kaja Tretjak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the contemporary resurgence of libertarianism in the U.S., exploring a rapidly expanding, transnational network of hundreds of thousands liberty movement participants connected through student groups, community organizations, and established institutions, as well as through social media and a vast array of online forums. Grounded in 32 months of ethnographic fieldwork and over 200 interviews, it documents the rise of a profound disenchantment, particularly among millennials, with state-based solutions to pressing contemporary problems and, more broadly, with the nation-state project itself. Drawing on first-hand accounts ranging from elite boardrooms and think tank conference rooms, to political demonstrations and …

"With The Class-Conscious Workers Under One Roof": Union Halls And Labor Temples In American Working-Class Formation, 1880-1970, Stephen Mcfarland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a historical geography of interior spaces created by labor unions and other working class organizations in the United States between 1880 and 1970. I argue that these spaces-- labor lyceums, labor temples, and union halls-- both reflected and shaped the character of the working class organizations that created them. Drawing on Neil Smith's theories of geographic scale, I spatialize Ira Katznelson's framework for understanding working class formation. I demonstrate that at their best, these labor spaces furthered working class formation at multiple scales, enabling collective action across lines of racial, ethnic, and gender difference, and bridging the …

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 …

Jean Sénac, Poet Of The Algerian Revolution, Kai G. Krienke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work presented here is an exploration of the poetry and life of Jean Sénac, and through Sénac, of the larger role of poetry in the political and social movements of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, mainly in Algeria and America. While Sénac was part of the European community in Algeria, his position regarding French rule changed dramatically over the course of the Algerian War, (between 1954 and 1962) and upon independence, he became one the rare French to return to his adopted homeland. I will argue, sometimes polemically, that Sénac was and should be considered a properly Algerian …

Material Embodiments, Queer Visualities: Presenting Disability In American Public History, Andrew B. Marcum

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the presentation of disability at three of the most popular sites for the consumption of public history in the United States including the U.S. Capitol, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. I de-construct the cultural and historical narratives and discourses of disability circulating at these sites and offer a visual culture analysis of the images, artifacts, and statuary found at each of them. My study is informed principally by the theories and methods of queer disability studies, visual culture studies, and cultural studies critiques of neoliberalism. I consider how …

Revisioning Reality: Normative Resistance In The Cultural Works Of The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Nella Larsen, And Allan Rohan Crite, 1915-1945, Andrea L. Mays

American Studies ETDs

Despite the fact that nineteenth and twentieth century biologist and Social Darwinists theories of race have been dispelled, the social residue of white supremacist ideologies continue to have social and political implications throughout American society. America's racial hierarchy, and whiteness as a social and racial construct instantiated within it, against which every other group of people has been relationally situated, has helped not only to define non-white racial subjects in inferior terms, it has also guaranteed a perpetuation of race-based structural and social inequalities in United States of America. African American Studies, Critical Race Theory, Whiteness Studies, and most recently …

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 …