American Studies Commons^™

Race, Place And Young Adulting In Southern And Adolescent Literature, Karly Eaton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies southern literary theory to contemporary young adult literature (YAL) in order to analyze constructions and representations of the South and adolescence(ts) in the texts discussed. Arguing that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird acts a master narrative for popular conceptions of southern adolescent identity, this project proposes that Lee’s 2015 novel Go Set a Watchman along with contemporary publications in YAL disrupts the master narrative Mockingbird and Scout Finch present readers. Though analyzing how representations of adolescence(ts) act as a construct used to establish a white-normative narrative about childhood, the second and third chapters discuss how this …

The Net Of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, And Political Alienation And Nostalgia In Contemporary Latino And South Asian American Literature, Farzana Akhter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Generally thought of as a yearning for recent past, or homesickness, nostalgia is seen as a sentiment that impairs living in the present. And in case of immigrants, nostalgia is thought of as a debilitating form of escapism and an inability to adapt to change and mobility. In this dissertation, contesting against the prevalent concept, I argue that immigrant nostalgia is neither a colored memory (Dyson 117) nor a romance with one’s own fantasy (Boym xiii); rather, immigrant nostalgia has a socio-economic and political underpinning. By exploring the various nuances of immigrant experience delineated in the literary works of South …

On Growing Up Finnish In The Midwest: A Family Oral History Project, Ingrid Ruth Nixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores what oral history interviews with my mother reveal about the familial and community dynamics that influenced Finnish-American children growing up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between 1930 and 1950. Close to four hours of oral history interviews were conducted with Viola Nixon, who is second and third-generation Finnish-American on her father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. After conducting a narrative analysis of the interviews, five themes emerged as significant to community function: family, language, education, work and church. I grouped some of these themes together to create three stories informed by materials drawn from the interviews, a cookbook, and …

Wayward Women, Macho Men: Linguistic Construction Of Gender Binaries In Yxta Maya Murray's Locas And Denise Chavez's Loving Pedro Infante, Stephanie Tangman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Language labels and defines in order to enhance meaning and communication, but through these labels and definitions speakers are also conditioned to associate certain connotations with words and, therefore, their referents. While often harmless, linguistic conditioning can at times create unsavory associations with these referents. One of these instances occurs in gendered labels and conceptions of male and female bodies and purpose. Both Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas and Denise Chavez’s Loving Pedro Infante can be read through a lens that applies linguistic conditioning with gender theory in order to examine the reinterpretation of female archetypes in the Chicana imagination. It …

The Two-Sided Coin: Madness And Laughter As Subversion In Alice’S Adventures In Wonderland And The Sandman, Tessa Starr Swehla

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mad female characters in Western literature have traditionally represented attempts by dominant patriarchal discourse to subjugate women’s discourse: these characters are usually pathologized in both their dialogue with other characters and in their physical bodies. This subjugation by representation of mad female characters in dominant discourse parallels similar attempts to portray women as lacking in humor. This thesis studies the intersections between madness and humor and the ability of female characters that embody both to challenge and subvert dominant discourse. By examining the characters of Alice from Lewis Carroll’s novel and Delirium from Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel series The Sandman …

The Black Maternal And Cultural Healing In Twentieth Century Black Women's Fiction, Paula Wingard White

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work examines representations of maternal relationships between black women in five contemporary novels: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Sula by Toni Morrison, The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Louisiana by Erna Brodber. Rather than situating the origins of black feminist literary studies during the Black Women’s Literary Renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s, I argue that Hurston’s work shapes contemporary black feminist literary studies. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Nanny provides a mothering archetype that inspires a dominant theme and practice—the black maternal, within contemporary black …

"The Caribbean Imaginary In Southern Women's Literature", Christy Delaine Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“The Caribbean Imaginary in Southern Women’s Literature” examines the U.S. South’s often contradictory approaches to viewing the Caribbean. While the image of the U.S. South has long been constructed by imagined fantasies, the southern authors in this project often thrust their own images onto the Caribbean imaginary. Throughout this project, I argue that over the past seventy years, the imperialist bent towards the Caribbean manifests in a variety of forms: media manipulation, patronage, fantasies, and nostalgia. At times, the Caribbean is seen as an imagined utopia full of potential, however this construction often erases the historical renderings of economic and …

Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, And Colonial Patriarchy, Megan E. Vallowe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Indigenous Resistance: Settler-Colonialism, Nation Building, and Colonial Patriarchy,” interrogates the Western Hemisphere’s spatial construction by settler-states, Indigenous nations, and activists groups. In this project, I assert that Indigenous/Settler contact zones are significantly more convoluted than current scholarship’s use of contact zones in that the distinctions between Indigenous actors and settler-colonial ones are often blurred. These hybrid contact zones sometimes contain negative outcomes for all participants and often include undercurrents of insidious power dynamics within and across settler-states and Indigenous peoples alike. Using critical cartographic theory and deconstruction methods, this project first illustrates how empires ascribed a racialized patriarchy onto the …

Anatomy Of A Rupture: Identity Maintenance In The 1844 Latter-Day Saint Reform Sect, Robert M. Call

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, managed dissent throughout his prophetic career. Most of the earliest dissenters came and went with little lasting impact on Mormonism—the church maintained a coherent structure despite attempted disjuncture. However, when Smith was assassinated in June 1844 (just fourteen years after he established the church), the Mormon community ruptured. Claimants to Smith’s ecclesiastical office competed for church-wide leadership. Brigham Young led thousands westward to the Rocky Mountains, but thousands of Mormons rejected Young and his version of Mormonism. This crisis over succession sparked the growth of schisms in …

"This Aggression Will Not Stand": The Coens On Masculinity, Evan Kelly

Honors Projects

This research examines the constructions of masculinity within the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. Through textual analysis of three film, Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), and The Big Lebowski (1998), three key themes emerge: masculinity as performance, children and family as ego extensions, toxic masculinity personified, and children and redemption through rejection of hegemonic masculinity. Comprehensively, the paper seeks to prove the Coens uniquely construct masculinity as a performance which can override public policy and interpersonal prosperity. This research serves several functions. First, it recasts the Coens as cutting-edge progressive filmmakers, despite their protestations to the contrary. What we …

True Crime As A Literature Of Advocacy, Leslie Rowen

Undergraduate Theses

True crime is often dismissed as a genre of cheap paperbacks with little literary merit and highly sensational, pornographic content. By contrast, my paper proposes an alternative literary history of true crime which merits further investigation because of its focus on advocating for justice where the justice system failed. I begin with Catharine Williams’ 1833 piece Fall River: An Authentic Narrative, an early example from true crime literature. The text disputes the acquittal of a Methodist preacher for the murder of a female mill worker, arguing that the trial was unfairly slanted in the defendant’s favor. More than a century …

Korean-Ness: Creating And Embracing New Identities Through Language And Culture, Damon Dohe, Daniel Shin

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

Technological advances in communications and transportation have unlocked new pathways for mobilizing transnational flows of people, information, and culture. The cyber-networked landscape in which we now live has enabled a pluralistic existence, no longer restricted to singular definitions of citizenship, identity, and cultural membership. In the era of the internet and globalization, the world is often said to be “shrinking.” However, instead of a smaller or simpler world, our project illustrates far more layered and complex relationships and positionalities. This multi-sited research project focuses on the ways in which Korean immigrants and Korean Americans use language to establish cultural networks, …

Private Deaths: The Impossibilities Of Home In The Modernist Novel, Ava Bindas

English Honors Projects

This project examines novels by Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and Nella Larsen featuring female characters who contemplate or commit suicide. Relying on a composite theoretical framework that weaves together geography theories of spaces as well as gendered theories of bodies by authors like Judith Butler, Rita Felski, and Victoria Rosner, I argue women commit suicide because their modern homes fail to accommodate their gendered bodies. Focusing less on the moment of death than on the conditions that make choosing to live impossible, this project tracks how, during a moment of supposed liberation, conceptions of gender, modernity, and domestic …

Powell, Joseph, B. 1949 (Fa 1020), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1020. Folk studies student project titled: “Christmas Customs in My Family,” which includes descriptions and survey sheets of Christmas practices in Grayson County, Kentucky. Survey sheets include brief descriptions of customs, stories, and beliefs, informant’s name, and motif index number.

The Shack (Movie Review), Joshua Matthews

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"[The Shack] deals head-on with the vexing questions of why a good God allows evil to exist and why people have to suffer."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie The Shack from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

http://inallthings.org/the-shack/

Inside Research: Q&A With Paige Drew, Rachel L. Wood

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Inside Research: a Q&A with senior English Education major, Paige Drew

Rice, Laban Lacy, 1870-1973 (Mss 605), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 605. Correspondence, writings, photographs, clippings, and papers of Laban Lacy Rice, a Webster, County, Kentucky native, educator, author, lecturer, poet, and president of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee. Includes his scientific writing, principally on astronomy, relativity and cosmology, as well as fiction, poetry, and autobiographical writing. Also includes some correspondence and papers relating to his brother, poet and dramatist Cale Young Rice, and sister-in-law, author Alice Hegan Rice.

From Sand Creek To Somalia: Black Bodies In Denver’S Post-Industrial Urban Cultural Re-Imagination, Webster Matjaka

American Studies ETDs

In this research project I situate black experience in the mid-sized post-industrial city of Denver, Colorado within the city’s colonial history in order to highlight some broader historical, global as well as local and national developments that, although seemingly unconnected, have a significant impact on urban social life today, in the case at hand, black urban experience. As people who have been displaced by the main axis of modern European global capitalist expansion: colonialism and slave trade, Native Americans, African Americans and recent African immigrants in Denver occupy a globalized socio-historical space of Euro-American socio-political domination that, in complex ways, …

"Revealing Reality": Four Asian Filmmakers Visualize The Transnational Imaginary, Stephen Edward Spence

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation posits that four Asian filmmakers engage in “revealing reality” in unique but interconnected ways that employ innovative narrative and cinematic/visual techniques, including a direct address to the senses and an augmenting of their vision with fantasy or surrealism. My study argues that Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan), Jia Zhangke (China), Tsai Ming-liang (Taiwan), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) mobilize this visual and narrative strategy to participate in debates about globalization and to comment on the state of their respective nations, the concept of the nation, and the transnational. The films of each artist are examined in detail; I investigate their stylistic …

1st Place Contest Entry: Critical Media Literacy: Liberating The "Criminal" And Empowering African American Males, Talia Cain

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Talia Cain's submission for the 2017 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won first place. She wrote about how media contributes to the criminalization of African American males and the effects of this on African American male students.

Talia is a sophomore at Chapman University, majoring in Integrated Educational Studies. Her faculty mentor is Professor Anne Steketee.

Images, Speech Balloons, And Artful Representation: Comics As Visual Narratives Of Early Career Teachers, Julian Lawrence, Ching-Chiu Lin, Rita Irwin

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The ways in which teachers adjust to challenges in the process of becoming professionals are complicated. Teacher mentorship, however, is an important step to creating and sustaining a strong professional career. This article discusses new understandings from a Canadian research project: Pedagogical Assemblage: Building and Sustaining Teacher Capacity through Mentoring Programs in British Columbia. Through our use of an a/r/tography informed methodology in teacher mentorship, we have come to understand how the use of comics permits an unfolding of visual narratives as a unique way of contextualizing the complex stories of teaching and learning. Our motivation in employing comics as …

Teaching Critical Looking: Pedagogical Approaches To Using Comics As Queer Theory, Ashley Manchester

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Given the challenging depth of queer theoretical concepts, this article argues that one of the most effective ways to teach the complexities of queer theory is by utilizing comics in the classroom. I focus on how college-level instructors can use the content, form, and history of comics to teach students how to enact and do queer theory. By reading and making comics, students learn concrete and theoretical tools for combatting oppressive discourses and modes of meaning making. Teaching comics as queer theory promotes both innovative critical thinking and critical looking skills by centralizing both the rich history of queer comics …

Review Of Captain Marvel And The Art Of Nostalgia, By Brian Cremins, Sean Kleefeld

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Take Long Looks At Anything, Luke Hawley

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Posting about the podcast S-Town by Brian Reed from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

http://inallthings.org/take-long-looks-at-anything/

Hell Or High Water: Tattered And Familiar, Bob De Smith

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Turns out the hell or high water of the title is less about lines in the sand than it is about commitments."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­the movie Hell or High Water from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

http://inallthings.org/hell-or-high-water-tattered-and-familiar/

Portfolio Vol. Vi N 1, John Wyman, Harold R. Holbrook, Barbara Hayne, Merrimon Cuninggim, Thelma Willett, Albert Miller, Pat Brannon, Nancy Forsberg, Carolyn Kearns, Richard Harvey, Robert Spike, Patricia Stodghill, Donald Ladd

Portfolio

Wyman, John. "Mrs. Brannon's Bathtub". Prose. 1.

Holbrook, Harold R. "Sonnet". Poem. 7.

Hayne, Barbara. "Prayer of A Youth". Poem. 7.

Egger, Ellen. "An Evening". Poem. 7.

Cuninggim, Merrimon. "Lambda Pi Beta Mu". Prose. 9.

Willett, Thelma. "White Rosebuds". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Span of A Life in Mine". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Seventeen". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Ave Atque Vale". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "The Ashes of Letters". Poem. 11.

Miller, Albert. "...To One I Have Known and Loved". Prose. 12.

Wyman, John. "Browning the Artist". Prose. 14.

Brannon, Pat. "Revolution". Poem. 18.

Forsberg, Nancy. Unnamed. Poem. 18.

Kearns, …

Portfolio Vol. Vi N 2, John Wyman, Harold R. Holbrook, Barbara Hayne, Ellen Egger, Merrimon Cuninggim, Thelma Willett, Albert Miller, Pat Brannon, Nancy Forsberg, Carolyn Kearns, Richard Harvey, Robert Spike, Patricia Stodghill, Donald Ladd

Portfolio

Wyman, John. "Mrs. Brannon's Bathtub". Prose. 1.

Holbrook, Harold R. "Sonnet". Poem. 7.

Hayne, Barbara. "Prayer of A Youth". Poem. 7.

Egger, Ellen. "An Evening". Poem. 7.

Cuninggim, Merrimon. "Lambda Pi Beta Mu". Prose. 9.

Willett, Thelma. "White Rosebuds". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Span of A Life in Mine". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Seventeen". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "Ave Atque Vale". Poem. 11.

Willett, Thelma. "The Ashes of Letters". Poem. 11.

Miller, Albert. "...To One I Have Known and Loved". Prose. 12.

Wyman, John. "Browning the Artist". Prose. 14.

Brannon, Pat. "Revolution". Poem. 18.

Forsberg, Nancy. Unnamed. Poem. 18.

Kearns, …

Portfolio Vol. V N 3, Marilyn Koons, Sally Davidson, Marianna Stander, John Morton, Bonnie Tomlin, Helen Rhu, Carolyn Metcalf, Dick Harvey, Mary Vercoe, Jacque Hill, Earl W. Brannon, Barbara Hayne, Pete Burrows, Leslie Seagrave, Virginia Benson, Virginia Reynolds

Portfolio

Koons, Marilyn. "Apology". Poem. 5.

Koons, Marilyn. "A Woman's Request" Poem. 5.

Davidson, Sally. "Of the Present". Poem. 5.

Koons, Marilyn. "Escape in Memory". Poem. 5.

Stander, Marianna. "Self Portrait". Picture. 5.

Morton, John. "Consumer's Victory". Prose. 6.

Rhu, Helen. "Prize Winning Poem". Poem. 8.

Rhu, Helen. "To the Victor". Poem. 8.

Rhu, Helen. "Fantasy at Midnight". Poem. 8.

Tomlin, Bonnie. "The Drag". Picture. 8.

Morse, Kay. "In Spite of all..." Prose. 9.

Metcalf, Carolyn. "Isolation". Cartoon. 12.

Koons, Marilyn. "In Black and White". Prose. 14.

Harvey, Dick. "Through Enemy Eyes". Prose. 15.

Vercoe, Mary. "Storm".Poem. 16.

Vercoe, Mary. "Refuge".Poem. …

Portfolio Vol. V N 2, Marilynn Koons, J.G. Rucker, John Wyman, Marace Tolan, Edward A. Wright, Virginia Benson, Moll Wilhelm, Alice Rolph, Mary Vercoe

Portfolio

Koons, Marilynn. "America Is". Poem. 4.

Rucker, J.G. "Nothing but the Beat". Prose. 5.

Wyman, John. "Pringle". Prose. 6.

Tolan, Marace. "Hands at Midnight". Poem. 7.

Wright, Edward A. "All in a Day's Work". Prose. 8.

Benson, Virginia. "Now is the Time". Prose. 9.

Moll, Wilhelm. "The Dead Lover". Prose. 12.

Flammt, Marga. "Escape". Poem. 14.

Rolph, Alice. "Fancy's Flight". Poem. 14.

Vercoe, Mary. "Future". Poem. 14.

Klammt,Marga. "Parting". Poem. 14.

Anonymous. "Denisoniana". Picture. 10.

Benson, Virginia. "Marquand-H.M. Pulham. Esquire". Prose. 15.

Benson, Virginia. "Junior Miss". Prose. 15.

Reynolds, Virginia. "Stubs of the Jungle". Prose. 16.

Masquers. "Thespiana". Prose. 17. …

Portfolio Vol. V N 1, Franklin M. Dippery, Margaret Shields, Toby Raymond, Scott Pruyn, Maurice Tolan, Virginia Benson, Hoyt Leon Sharman, Ervin Nussbaum, Pat Brannon, Leslie Seagrave, Charles Jones, Peggy Collins, Duke Smith

Portfolio

Dippery, Franklin M. Unnamed. Prose. 2.

Shields, Margaret. "The Dance". Prose. 4.

Raymond, Toby. "Tundra". Prose. 7.

Pruyn, Scott. "Lest We Forget". Poem. 9.

Tolan, Maurice. "Pronounced 'Mejico'". Picture. 10.

Phillips, Alison. "Pronounced "Mejico"". Prose. 10.

Benson, Virginia. "Matter of Opinion". Poem. 12.

Benson, Virginia. "Cloud Shadows". Poem. 12.

Benson, Virginia. "Autumn Organist". Poem. 12.

Sherman, Hoyt Leon. "Orchard". Picture. 12.

Nussbaum, Ervin. "The End of John Brown". Picture. 13.

Brannon, Pat. "Revolution". Poem. 13.

Anonymous, Pat. "A Dream". Poem. 13.

Anonymous, Pat. "Her". Poem. 13.

Seagrave, Leslie. "Tibetan Rug". Prose. 14.

Benson, Virginia. "Cronin-The Keys of the Kingdom". Prose. …