American Studies Commons^™

[Introduction To] More Than Shelter: Activism And Community In San Francisco Public Housing, Amy L. Howard

Bookshelf

In the popular imagination, public housing tenants are considered, at best, victims of intractable poverty and, at worst, criminals. More Than Shelter makes clear that such limited perspectives do not capture the rich reality of tenants’ active engagement in shaping public housing into communities. By looking closely at three public housing projects in San Francisco, Amy L. Howard brings to light the dramatic measures tenants have taken to create—and sustain and strengthen—communities that mattered to them.

More Than Shelter opens with the tumultuous institutional history of the San Francisco Housing Authority, from its inception during the New Deal era, through …

Flying In Place: Black Superheroes And Their Origin Stories, Kolton Harris

English Honors Papers

In recent years, the black superhero has received more attention from scholars. With this surge of interest, comes a wealth of uncharted territory. My paper examined the origin stories of black superheroes, some of which have not yet been critically analyzed. The basis for my analysis is the overwhelming repetition of an urban black narrative that serves as the template for black superhero origin stories. It has proven to be narratively restricting and highly dependent on stereotypes.

Throughout this paper, I offer close readings of black superheroes that are informed by criticism of black masculinity. While the superhero narrative is …

The American Socio-Political Spider Web And The Rise Of Global Christianity, Michael F. Younker

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

The Divided Reception Of The Help, Suzanne W. Jones

English Faculty Publications

The reception of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (2009) calls to mind the reception of two other novels about race relations by southern white writers: Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936) and William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967). Like Gone With the Wind, The Help has been a pop culture phenomenon— prominent in bookstores and box offices, and the “darling of book clubs everywhere.” In January 2012 when I asked students in my Women in Modern Literature class what was the best book they had recently read by a woman, most named either The Help or The Hunger …

Terror, Hospitality And The Gift Of Death In Morrison’S Beloved, Puspa Damai

English Faculty Research

The “us versus them” narrative still pre-dominates the analysis of terrorism in the West, which invariably associates “them” with terrorism. Toni Morrison’s hauntingly memorable novel – Beloved – provides a radically different and historically grounded view of terror and terrorism in the West. The novel not only releases us from the “us versus them” paradigm by demonstrating America’s intimacy with terror, it also enables us to examine terror and terrorism from the perspective of a gendered and ethnic subject who subverts the easy categorization of “us” and “them” or civilized and terrorist. Following Jacques Derrida’s contemplations on death and terror, …

Fixin' To Tell: Cultural Preservation, Multiculturalism, And A Delicate Double Commitment In Appalshop's "Insider" Activism, Kathleen S. Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From global non-profits to local community centers, many groups working with and from within mis- and under-represented populations have embraced documentary media in activist work as a tool for undermining stereotypes and engendering positive identity formation. Despite steady increases in community-based documentary work, such programs remain relatively underscrutinized, with the majority of scholarship praising the liberatory potentials of documentary self-representation. Further, of the many programs implementing community-based documentary work as a tool for social change, I found very few based in rural regions of the Southern U.S. Likewise, in scholarly discourse associated with such programs, the South, in general, remains …

A Study Of The Life And Legacy Of Son House On The Identity And Character Of Blues Culture, Kyle Crockett

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the unique and pivotal life of Son House, a Mississippi bluesman from Lyon, Mississippi, who did much to change the identity and perpetuate the existence of blues music and culture. Furthermore, House was influential in shaping blues music as a medium for historical research, as they revealed a strikingly honest perception of the tumultuous and evil circumstances for African Americans in the South during the early twentieth century. Research on Son House was a unique experience, in that it called not only for academic exploration, but also human exploration. When researching the importance of blues music in …

Physicians, Patients, And Poets, Mary Ball Markow

Honors Theses

I examined the works of William Carlos Williams, Peter Pereira, Rafael Campo, Tory Dent, Lucia Perillo, and John Rybicki to gain a better understanding of the field of medicine. I selected these authors based upon their varied experiences with illness, disease, and loss. Their prose and poetry illuminate the nature of medicine and provide insight into human nature as well. The thesis has been edited for the SMBHC Thesis Repository to protect the copyright interests of some authors and publishers. The table of contents has been edited to reflect the changes.

Gravity In A Jar: A Poetic History Of The People, Places, And Events Of Detroit, Morgan Mccomb

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I explore the history of the city of Detroit in order to better understand the factors that have led to Detroit's current state. The research materials I have used are standard history books as well as newspaper articles, journals, and published interviews with former and current Detroit residents. I have incorporated this research into the construction of both a strict research element as well as poetry in order to present varying accounts of the city of Detroit beginning in the early 20th century and continuing into the present-day. I have found that the history of Detroit has …

Zilphia Horton, A Voice For Change, Alicia R. Massie-Legg

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation examines the role of Zilphia Horton (1910-1956) in helping to establish the use of music as a powerful tool to unify and train groups involved in social reform at seminars led by Highlander Folk School. In engaging in what has been termed the “mobilization of music,” Mrs. Horton was active in labor disputes, training seminars in the United States and Canada, and the formation of women’s union auxiliaries from 1935 until 1956. The study uses correspondence written by Horton to her husband, Myles Horton; business letters to labor union officials and contributors to songsters; and writings revealing her …

Magical Me: Self-Insertion Fanfiction As Literary Critique, Melody Strmel

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the traditions of textual interaction that impact the forms of reading engaged in with fanfiction. This thesis continues by exploring how self-insertion fanfiction functions as a medium through which authors express their reading of the text primary through the emotional impact of the text through wish fulfillment, and the interaction of their cultural moment and the text. Furthermore, it argues that self-insertion fanfiction is a mode of literary critique in which the author acknowledges the effect of a mediated world on their perception of self and reality. Through this recognition of a constructed self, the author rejects …

Modern(Izing) Burial In Interwar American Literature, Victoria Marie Bryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to study literary representations of interwar American deathways as reflections of modernity. The study of burial in United States history tends to focus on mid- to late-nineteenth century movements that distance the dead from the living. This dissertation argues that these practices left Americans ill-equipped to process the influx of death from the conflict areas of World War I, keen to allow the further development of the funeral industry during the interwar period, and anxious about the certain rise in death tolls that would result from World War II. Interwar literature, therefore, exhibits a difficulty in meaning-making …

Bottling Hell: Myth-Making, Cultural Identity And The Datil Pepper Of St. Augustine, Florida, Anna Hamilton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the datil pepper (capsicum chinense) as a potent cultural symbol against a backdrop of heritage tourism in St. Augustine, Florida, widely known as "the nation's oldest city." the datil is a locally popular and regionally unique heirloom pepper endemic to St. Augustine and the surrounding environs. A romantic origin story and local lore are embedded on this spicy pepper, tying it to north Florida's Minorcan population, a group descended from indentured workers brought to the area in the late 1700s. The prominence of this mythology speaks to heritage tourism's demand for consumable cultural emblems, and the datil …

Noir Westerns After World War Ii, Kenneth Estes Hall, Chritian Krug

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: Towards the end of Ethan and Joel Coen's Academy-Award winning No Country for Old Men (2007), Carla Jean Moss's life depends on the toss of a coin. Heads or tails will decide whether she lives or dies.

The Kansas Cattle Towns: Where Trail Meets Rail, Kenneth Estes Hall

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: That land of the West has gone now, "gone, gone with lost Atlantis," gone to the isle of ghosts and of strange dead memories. It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where wild game stared at the passing horseman .

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From The Iron Horse To Hell On Wheels: The Transcontinental Railroad In The Western, Kenneth Estes Hall

ETSU Faculty Works

Excerpt: "I'm crazy about trains! says Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) to his friend Wyatt Earp (James Garner) in Hour of the Gun (Sturges Ch. 6), explaining why he's waiting on the Contention train. Of course he's really there to help Earp get his revenge on Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) - but then we never quite know with Doc Holliday.

The Universal Roar: Walt Whitman, John Muir, And The Song Of The Cosmos, Jason Balserait

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The idea of an ancient harmony uniting the universe has been theorized since the ancient Pythagoreans got the idea of musica universalis, often translated as The Music of the Spheres. John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, not only recognizes similar musical patterns in the wilderness but emphasizes how they bring a sense of balance his life. Walt Whitman, often coined America’s poet, uses the harmonies resonating throughout the natural and urban worlds to demonstrate unity throughout the cosmos. Similarly, Aldo Leopold revolutionized our understanding of ecology, as he wrote about reciprocity and the connection of all things to the …

Annie Proulx's Wyoming: Subversive Storytelling From The Bunchgrass Edge Of The World, Elizabeth P. Tyson

Scripps Senior Theses

Annie Proulx’s three Wyoming short story collections, Close Range, Bad Dirt, and Fine Just the Way It Is, tell regional stories that push against the myths surrounding the American West. Elements of Naturalism in her work reverse the paradigm of man’s dominance over the frontier. The cyclical nature of time in her stories shows the unfulfilling nature of nostalgia. She uses folk storytelling techniques to take an insider’s perspective and to utilize the subversive nature of dark humor.

Faulkner's Feeble Few: The Mentally Impaired Citizens Of Yoknapatawpha, Matthew Brent Foxen

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores Faulkner's use of mental impairments and illnesses, by analyzing closely three of his characters. With chapters focusing on Benjy Compson, Tommy, and Darl Bundren, this work investigates the literal, aesthetic, and figurative purposes that each man serves in his respective novel. It identifies commonalities and differences among these and other mentally impaired or ill characters.

Front Matter, Tom Mack Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Blithedale Romance: Sympathy, Industry, And The Poet, Matthew Chelf

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Understanding Death In Brown And Poe: Backgrounds And Continuities, Anthony Cunder

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 16 Fall 2014

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Dryden And Baroque Chamber Music, Dan Sperrin

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Sublime Experience: Individual Versus Collective Morality In William Faulkner’S Absalom, Absalom!, Erika Guynn

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents, Tom Mack Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Hysteria And The Performance Of Masculinity: A Feminist Reading Of James Joyce’S “A Painful Case”, Adam Quinn

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Rhetoric Of The Hip Hop Hustler: Shifting Representations Of American Identity, Marylou Renee Naumoff

Wayne State University Dissertations

The nature of American identity is highly contested in the twenty-first century. This dissertation seeks to understand how this state of uncertainty produces a rhetorical opening for new and unimagined rhetorical possibilities. As citizens lose faith in the narratives that have defined national identity, the populace becomes open to a new narrative and a new figure to represent American identity. I argue that the hip hop mogul, or what I label the Hustler, seizes this rhetorical opportunity to rewrite the narrative of the Self-Made Man, a narrative that has historically been figured as white and masculine. The Self-Made Man is …

Italian-American Literature And Working-Class Culture, Fred L. Gardaphé

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.