American Studies Commons^™

Cross-Cultural Interpretation And Chinese Literature: A Book Review Article On Owen's Work In Sinology, Qingben Li, Jinghua Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Egyptian Enlightenment And Mann, Freud, And Freund, Rebecca C. Dolgoy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Egyptian Enlightenment and Mann, Freud, and Freund" Rebecca C. Dolgoy discusses various ways in which ancient Egypt is used in three works from the 1930s: Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism, and Karl Freund's film The Mummy. By showing the similarities and differences in how these works use Egypt, Dolgoy develops the concept that memory is the way in which the past is used. Dolgoy follows the structure of a cinematic shot casting: The Mummy as the long shot which both sets up the general Egyptomania characteristic of …

Text, Textile, And The Body In Baudelaire's 'A Une Mendiante Rousse' And Devi's Indian Tango, Michelle C. Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Text, Textile, and the Body in Baudelaire's 'A une mendiante rousse' and Devi's Indian Tango," Michelle C. Lee aims to rethink the post-romantic division between aesthetics and politics through a reconsideration of the idea of complicity in Charles Baudelaire's poem and Ananda Devi's novel. Lee argues against the claim that aesthetics needs to remain autonomous in order to be able to radically critique bourgeois society. Through a reading of the trope of clothing in each of the texts, Lee re-evaluates the formation of autonomous modernist aesthetics and attempts to show that avant-garde self-reflexivity engages in the …

Frye's Thought And Its Implications For The Interpretation Of Nigerian Narratives, Ignatius Chukwumah

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Frye's Thought and Its Implications for the Interpretation of Nigerian Narratives" Ignatius Chukwumah applies Northrop Frye's theoretical work on archetypes, mythos, and modes for the analysis of Nigerian literature. Chukwumah's application in the interpretation of Nigerian literature results in the understanding that the hero as conceived by Frye is not exactly the same with Africa's or Nigeria's and requires that scholars and critics of African texts fill up the ellipses generated by Frye with an autochthonous, resistant, rewarding, African-related symbolic templates in order to make the sense of the hero in both traditional and postcolonial African/Nigerian literatures …

An Argument For Gender Equality In Africa, Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "An Argument for Gender Equality in Africa" Cyril-Mary P. Olatunji addresses the problematics of gender inequality in Black African society. Many scholars working on African Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures have had something to say about the treatment of women and the topic of gender inequality in Africa. Some suggest(ed) that the roots of women's oppression are to be sought in customs and traditions and so despite of a legal system that guarantees women rights in Africa. Olatunji's objective is to advance the current discussion on the issue using the method of simple philosophical analysis, an argument from …

Literature And The Study Of Intermediality: A Book Review Article On New Work By Grishakova And Ryan And Carvalho Homem, Ioan-Flaviu Patrunjel, Asunción López-Varela

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, And Human Rights, Eric Sipyinyu Njeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, and Human Rights" Eric Sipyinyu Njeng argues that Chinua Achebe exposes failings in the fabric of African society and engages with violations of human rights. Achebe is careful not to hurt the pride of Africans who in the Zeitgeist of the nationalist ferment of the 1950s were wary of European powers. Achebe does not "write back" to the empire: he writes the empire in and he lays bare the weaknesses in African culture grounded in the father-son-grandson trajectory he narrates. Achebe presents what may be termed a cultural dialectics: the thesis (flawed African customs …

The Father's Power In Breitbach's Report On Bruno And Achebe's A Man Of The People, Amechi N. Akwanya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Father's Power in Breitbach's Report on Bruno and Achebe's A Man of the People" Amechi N. Akwanya analyses Joseph Breitbach's Report on Bruno and Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease in order to lay bare the underlying processes of these texts. Undoubtedly the patterns of struggle in the two texts are political, but reading them in exclusively political terms has the consequence that the works are of no further interest once the putative political agenda is identified and described. Akwanya's analysis discloses shared features in the two texts published within two years of each other. …

Sound Semiotics Of Osundare's Poetry, Christopher Chukwudi Anyokwu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Sound Semiotics of Osundare's Poetry" Christopher Anyokwu postulates that in our increasingly chirographically and typographically oriented culture and society, we often forget how tenacious and over-arching the oral continues to be. Semiotics, the science of signs, highlights among others how speech acts and speech sounds are deployed in everyday human interactions to convey meaning and communicate humanity's need for understanding and fulfillment. This meaning-signaling potential of the tonality of language is even more pronounced in most African languages which are, unlike English, syllable timed and tonal in nature. This tonal nature of African languages is appropriated by …

The Dilemma Of Western Education In Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story, Naylor's The Women Of Brewster Place, And Morrison's Beloved, Solomon Omatsola Azumurana

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Dilemma of Western Education in Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story, Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, and Morrison's Beloved" Solomon Omatsola Azumurana examines the problematics of Western education with regard to Black Africans and African Americans through the creative lens of three prose fictions written by African and African American women. While Ama Ata Aidoo is a West African writer from Ghana, Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison are African American writers. Azumurana argues that Western education poses issues whether for African Americans of Black Africans and whether educated and literate or not, there …

Ecocriticism In An Age Of Terror, Simon C. Estok

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecocriticism in an Age of Terror" Simon C. Estok argues that we cannot ignore the context of terror in and through which ecocriticism works and that the relationships between the imagining of terror on the one hand and the conceptualizing of hostile environments on the other is in very serious need of critical analysis. Changes in how we think about nature are also long overdue, as are changes in how we think about doing ecocriticism. Working toward these changes now in our scholarship will take us leaps and bounds closer to the activist intervention about which ecocriticism …

Towards A Framework Of A Semiotics Of Dance, Nikoleta Popa Blanariu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Towards a Framework of a Semiotics of Dance" Nicoleta Popa Blanariu constructs a framework of based on de Saussure's, Peirce's, and Barthes's thought. She applies Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of semiosis defined as a cultural system of conventions. In dance this occurs when choreographic signs are encoded, for example in magic, ritual, or religious expressions of movement. Further, Charles Sanders Peirce's concept of the role of "intelligent consciousness" is crucial for the engendering of signification and thus to dance. In dance, the choreographer "interprets" the world and by means of selection and interpretation, the choreographic sign …

Ambanasom's Son Of The Native Soil And The Western Concept Of The Tragic Hero, Denis Fonge Tembong

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ambanasom's Son of the Native Soil and the Western Concept of the Tragic Hero" Denis Fonge Tembong discusses the view that although African and Western literatures are fundamentally different as they exhibit or represent distinct cultural values, they nevertheless share some common notions. The concept of a tragic hero is one of those convergent loci where the two literatures meet. With this in mind, Tembong examines in Aristotle's and Shakespeare's concepts of the tragic hero and demonstrates how the ideas exploited in Macbeth are similarly used in Shadrach A. Ambanasom's Son of the Native Soil against the …

Racism And Identity In Onwueme's Riot In Heaven, Onyeka F. Iwuchukwu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Racism and Identity in Onwueme's Riot in Heaven" Onyeka Iwuchukwu explores Tess Osonye Onwueme's acclaimed play in the context of the Black diaspora in the U.S. Iwuchukwu posits that because of Onwueme's exploration of the theater of the absurd in the play, audience's attention is directed to the illogical presentation of dialogue and action. However, the technique with textual properties suggesting unmotivated and meaningless references in fact carries profound meaning. Further, the said "absurd" presentation and narration results in a strong ideological and political message akin to the practice of littérature engagée. Iwuchukwu's analysis of …

David Foster Wallace To The Rescue, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

The Boatbuilders: Steve White '77 And Jock Williams '62 Have Built International Reputations Fore Their Classically Inspired Yachts, Matthew P. Murphy

Colby Magazine

In the world of custom-built yachts, Maine boatbuilders Jock Williams ’62 and Steve White ’77 are renowned for their boats’ classic lines and impeccable craftsmanship.

Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989 (Sc 883), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 883. Letters, 1978-1984 (17), written by Robert Penn Warren in response to Kentucky poet Charles Semones’ letters, discussing mainly the poetry. Also letter, 1993, giving data about the Warren letters.

Blakey, Margoline (Pace), 1910-1999 (Sc 869), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 869. Paper written by Margoline (Pace) Blakey titled “Alice Hegan Rice.”

Ravelings (Fa 752), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 752. Clippings of "Ravelings" column from "Harland (Kentucky) Daily Enterprise" and "Corbin (Kentucky) Daily Tribune" with collected mountain superstitions, customs, and folkways.

The Borderpsychosocial Development Project: Is There A Specific Psychosocial Consciousness That Frames Development For Border Women?, María Gloria Munguía Wellman

American Studies ETDs

Often placed at the center of psychotherapeutic training rhetoric are the notions of cultural sophistication, competency, and responsiveness; however, these notions are often pushed to the margins of practice. This qualitative and interdisciplinary community project explores an important strand of psychosocial development that has always already existed, but had yet to be named. Psychosocial consciousness develops, through time, as a natural human response to our day-to-day experiences and encounters. These experiences and encounters form, reinforce, and perpetuate systems of understanding of self and others which profoundly impact our experience in the world. The exploration of the psychosocial development of a …

Savage Fakes: Misdirection, Fraudulence, And Autobiography In The 1920s, Whitney Purvis Rakich

American Studies ETDs

In the 1920s, Americans grew increasingly interested in the figure of the primitive man, who was championed as the antidote to civilization's weakening effects on the modern human spirit. Concurrently in the field of American Studies, Vernon Lewis Parrington theorized about the effects of the "broad currents" of American life. the return to a primitive, natural self was just such a “broad current” of the day. With primitive conduct as the potential salve for civilized humanity, a handful of American authors of the 1920s used fake autobiographies to articulate the savage internal self. In the four texts that comprise this …

White, Mary F. (Townsend), 1854-1933 (Sc 842), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 842. Letters from Henry T. Coates and Company, Publishers, to Mrs. Alfred L. White, New York, regarding the use of a photograph of “the Rookery” in a fictional revolutionary war monograph entitled Pemberton, or 100 Years Ago, by Henry Peterson. Includes letter, 28 July 1898, from Lavalette Wilson, Haverstraw, New York, civil engineer and surveyor, questioning the place the leading character, Major André, lodged the night prior to his capture.

Dockery, Admiral Porter, 1885-1968 (Sc 2658), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2658. Compilation of Dockery’s poetry titled “Verse of a Traveling Showman” edited by Eldon Doyle Dockery.

Dean, Harry Moseley, 1884-1958 (Sc 2659), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2659. A volume of Harry Moseley Dean's poetry compiled by Gayle R. Carver.

There Will Come A Day, Dereck Daschke

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of There Will Come a Day (2013) directed by Giorgio Diritti.

The Cowboy Hero In American Fiction: Myth And Realism In The Virginian And Lonesome Dove, Lindsay Lane Penn

Student Theses and Dissertations

A cultural icon and national myth, the cowboy has been a hero of American fiction for more than one hundred and fifty years. The emergence of the Western hero in dime novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries combined with the Western motion picture boom of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s created a cowboy myth, one that often features tall, dark, and handsome gunslingers in picturesque surroundings. As with all myths, debunking is inevitable, and the late twentieth century began the current trend toward Western realism in which the appearance, duties, personality, and environment of the cowboy are depicted …

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 10, 2013, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles.
• UNLV continues to work with BLM, supplying content for interpretation at the future Walking Box Ranch museum.
• BLM and UNLV visited the ranch on December 5th to …

Pinto, Chelsea (Fa 591), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 591. Paper, titled “Paul McCartney Wanted Dead or Alive”, written by Chelsea Pinto for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University. Pinto details the urban legend surrounding the alleged death of Paul McCartney of the English rock band The Beatles, and his subsequent replacement by a “look-alike”. Pinto bases her conclusions largely on a small number of interviews conducted with Beatles fans.

Hancock, Elizabeth Ann (Moore), B. 1924 (Sc 906), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 906. New Year’s greeting, designed using family members’ photos, of Elizabeth Ann (Moore) Hancock, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Constance Mills, Bowling Green, Kentucky, and data about each family member’s 1993 activities. Mrs. Hancock is the daughter of Kentucky author Janice Holt Giles.

Herreshoff Marine Museum: Historical Analysis, Jake Getz, Dylan Matteo, Alexander Rudkin, Arnold Robinson, Susan Bosco

History

These methods that Herreshoff utilized can be classified as early stages of the LEAN manufacturing concept which is used today in a majority of America’s leading manufacturers. Herreshoff made sure that his entire inventory was used and nothing was wasted. By reducing/eliminating waste, Nat preserved the value of his products and increased the efficiency of operation.