American Studies Commons^™

Diversifying Representation In Film: An Examination Of Racial And Ethnic Inclusivity In Black Panther And Crazy Rich Asians, Alexandria Hatchett

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Although Hollywood films are distributed globally, they have historically featured white actors and reflected Western life. As Hollywood influences one’s understanding of race in the United States, Black Panther (2018) and Crazy Rich Asian’s (2018) inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities combat racism and xenophobia and reveal alternate ways in which power is manifested in society. This thesis project utilizes critical rhetoric as its method to give a voice to communities of color that have been marginalized due to colonization and persistent structural racism. It employs Critical Race Theory, postcolonialism, and Afrofuturism as its theoretical lenses to explain how race …

(Re)Producing The Neoliberal Subject: Child-Rearing Advice Literature Following "The Great Risk Shift", Sophie Boczek

Scripps Senior Theses

Following neoliberal restructuring in the 1980s, parenting advice literature experienced a significant growth in popularity. As the state largely transferred responsibility to individual citizens for economic survival, child-rearing discourse encouraged the cultivation of a subject who was best-suited for the contours of neoliberal life. This thesis explores the implications of this parenting rhetoric, as well as of the rise in popularity of parenting advice literature in neoliberal circumstances.

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

Beyond Nationalism: James And Grace Lee Boggs And The Black Radical Tradition In 1980s Detroit, Ryan A. Mccarty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the Black Radical Tradition in the 1980s through the lens of James and Grace Lee Boggs and their dedication to grassroots, community organizing and evolving revolutionary rhetoric. Existing scholarship on the decade is largely dedicated to the dialectic fluctuation of Black Power ideology and liberal reform that created a more conservative political agenda centered around partisan politics. Alternatively, the activism of James and Grace Lee Boggs in the immediate aftermath of the Black Power Era presents a complex view of the decade, providing space for black radicalism. The adaptation of the couple’s theories and mobilization strategies …

Give Me A Choice: Perceptions Of Freedom And The Anti-Vax Movement In Maine, Louisa Goldman

Honors Theses

While vaccination has proven to be an incredibly effective method of disease prevention, the growing ‘anti-vax’ movement threatens the population-level benefits conferred by widespread immunization. Recent findings indicate that anti-vax beliefs are not, as had been previously assumed, necessarily the result of scientific illiteracy but rather, are likely produced by intertwining social and situational contexts. With these considerations in mind, the goal of this study was to identify potential motivations underlying anti-vax behavior by performing a deep examination of anti-vax rhetoric, coupled with demographic and situational analyses. I focused specifically on the anti-vax community in Maine, with a special interest …

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 41 (2020), Joanna E. Evans, Deanna Allred, Linda Baumgarten, Hallie Bond, Mary Bywater Cross, Gretchen Guidess, Kimberley Smith Ivey, Charlene Bongiorno Stephens, William G. Stephens, Rosa Thornley

Uncoverings Journal

Preface by Joanna E. Evans

Unraveling the Mysteries of a White Quilt One Quilt, Two Cultures, and ­ree Approaches by Linda Baumgarten, Gretchen Guidess, and Kimberly Ivey

“Nothing Thou Love Be Lost or Die”: An 1846 Friendship Quilt Made at the Vermont Asylum for the Insane by Charlene Bongiorno Stephens and William G. Stephens

Seeking the Evidence: ­The Solar System Quilt and Artist Ellen Harding Baker by Mary Bywater Cross

“For Top-Cover Warmth” North Country Comforters, 1800–1970s by Hallie E. Bond

“Reach Out and Touch Someone”: Examining How Instagram Has Become a Conduit for Quiltmaking Communities by Deanna Allred and …

Proletarian Modernism : Aesthetic Intervention In Naturalist Epistemology In Steinbeck, Wright And Mccullers, Kenji Kihara

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation explores three proletarian novels published at the end of the Depression era—John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Richard Wright’s Native Son, and Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—in light of how their aesthetics complicates the inherited epistemology of literary naturalism in response to the changing political climates in the age of the Popular Front. Calling these texts “proletarian modernism,” I investigate how their aesthetics mediate the relations among Marxist ideas, political solidarity and the American value of individualism in an age when it became gradually difficult to fundamentally criticize capitalism and liberalism.

Dickinson At Thirty, Philip Pardi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

When we say there are “no Mozarts in literature,” we point to an enticing fact: writers become. Pick any text you love or revere, and there was a moment earlier in the author’s life when it could not have been written. The writers we remember develop over time; they change and are changed. Their careers divide, if not always easily, into a before (often thought of as a kind of apprenticeship) and an after (a work or body of work that has a significant claim on our attention). Personal relationships, lived experiences, social and political contexts, readers real and imagined, …

Panel Discussion: The Right To Education: With Liberty, Justice, And Education For All?

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Legacy Of Uncle Tom : The Transformation Of Black Masculinity And Racial Politics, Lauren R. Weeks

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The main aim of this thesis is to reveal the immense effect that literature can have on society spanning generations. It explores the restriction of black men’s political possibilities due to their perceived relationship with the character Uncle Tom, which not only causes harm to black activist projects by inciting disunity, but also becomes a source of inner turmoil for black men who struggle to be identified in society. This project offers to call these harmful standards that black men are judged by, due to the creation of Uncle Tom, as the binary of black masculinity. By analyzing how this …

Idealist And Materialist Approaches To Abolition In Uncle Tom's Cabin And The Daughter Of Adoption, Jillian Shea

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sentimentalism was a popular aesthetic, moral, political, and literary movement in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States and England, and both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and John Thelwall’s The Daughter of Adoption (1801) use sentimentalism in their attempts to advocate for the abolition of slavery. Scholars such as Lauren Berlant critique sentimentalism, specifically Stowe’s use of sentimentalism, for its potential to make structural problems appear as if they can be assuaged by personal change, and I situate this understanding of sentimentalism within an idealist framework, or a framework that primarily emphasizes subjectivity’s role in …

Recovering Lost Voices: The Rappahannock Tribe And The Jamestown Festival Of 1957, Woodie L. Walker Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis employs the interdisciplinary methodologies of ethnohistory and oral history to examine the legacy of the 1957 Jamestown Festival through the experiences and memories of Rappahannock people. “Recovering Lost Voices: The Rappahannock Tribe and the Jamestown Festival of 1957” adds to the historiography of Virginia Natives by revealing that Rappahannock participation in the Jamestown Festival was the culmination of centuries of cultural preservation, greatly influenced and made immediate by their experiences in “Jim Crow” Virginia during the twentieth century. This research establishes that the enduring legacy of the Festival for the Rappahannock Tribe was political influence, culminating in state …

Introduction To Volume Ten: Aiiieeeee! At 45, Tara Fickle, Wei Ming Dariotis

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

The editors of the special issue on Aiiieeeee! locate the seminal anthology within the history of Asian American literature as a scholarly discipline and contextualize contributor's responses to the personal and cumulative effects of Aiiieeeee! on the Asian American literary landscape.

Allen Ginsberg's "Kaddish": A Definitive Mid-Twentieth Century Poem., Teddy Duncan

Digital Repository: Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence

No abstract provided.

Hee Won Choi, "A Study Of Granville Oral Roberts’S Whole Person Healing Mission/그랜빌 오랄 로버츠(Granville Oral Roberts)의 전인치유선교 연구," Phd Dissertation, Juan International University, (In Korean), Hee Won Choi

Books and Other Holy Spirit Artifacts

A thesis written in Korean for PhD in Intercultural Studies at Juan International University in South Korea.

English Abstract:

The thesis proposes Whole-Person healing mission as an effective for pastoral ministry and mission to respond to the challenge of the ineffective evangelistic mission as the critical hindrance to Christian ministry and mission. The study argues that the whole-person healing mission and evangelization of Granville Oral Roberts(1918-2009) through revival meetings, broadcasting, education, and medical service in the twentieth century would serve as a new theological breakthrough. His whole-person healing mission became a significant ideological foundation of holistic mission, faith mission, mission …

Cypher [How An Anthology Helped A Mixed-Race Filipino American Writer Draft A Novel], Brian Ascalon Roley

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In this work of creative nonfiction, Brian Ascalon Roley, the author of American Son (W.W. Norton, 2001) recounts the cultural landscape of the late 20^thc. America for Filipino American and mixed-race writers as he recounts some of the events that influenced his novel’s conception and explains how stumbling upon an anthology helped him to revise the draft. It was one of the first novels to feature mixed-race Filipino American characters, and would go on to receive the Association of Asian American Studies Award.

Labor Union Members' Stance On Major Social Issues In The 2016 General Election, Matthew Sauser

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In 2016, Democratic Candidate for President Hillary Clinton faced off against Republican Candidate Donald Trump in what was expected to be a lopsided victory for the Democrats. As the campaigns and researchers did a post-mortem on the results, they saw that white voters in key states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan weren’t as motivated to get to the polls for Candidate Hillary Clinton versus her opponent Donald Trump. I took a deep dive into trying try to find the reason that why labor union members could have broken from their traditional ranks of Democrats to vote for Donald Trump by …

Freakish Taxonomies: How The American Freak Show And Its Literature Redefine The Archive, Megan E. Pillow

Theses and Dissertations--English

The American freak show, which dominated the entertainment landscape from 1840 to 1940, is considered by some disability studies scholars to be off limits for critical engagement. In Freakish Taxonomies: How the American Freak Show and its Literature Redefine the Archive, I argue that by casting the freak show solely as an exploitative institution, we overlook its capacity to serve as a model for reinterpreting the relationship between literary studies and the archive. By recognizing the freak show not just as an exploitative institution but also as a dynamic archive of marginalized lives—one that utilizes an imperfect, often deceptive …

Curious Natures: Constructing Queer Ecologies In Early America, Richard Lee Parmer Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation argues that early American writers often constructed queer ecologies in order to naturalize Anglo-American civilization and justify its expansion into Native American territories. Since there is so little textual evidence on the subject, the major challenge to studying sexuality in early America is approaching sexuality studies creatively—to broaden both our understanding of what counts as sexual discourse and our frameworks for analyzing it. My dissertation addresses this challenge through what many ecocritical scholars of sexuality call queer ecology. In their groundbreaking anthology on the topic, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erikson remind us that, historically and in the present, …

The Mothman And Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse In Online Social Media Communities, Brenton Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Little work has been conducted on the intersections of queer and Appalachian identities, in part because these two identities are viewed as incompatible (Mann 2016). This study uses a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach to examine the Instagram posts of the Queer Appalachia Project, which represent a substantial body of discourse created by and for queer Appalachians. Of specific interest to this analysis are those posts which employ folkloric figures, such as West Virginia’s Mothman, to do identity work that is queer, Appalachian, and queer-Appalachian. Often, this act is accomplished through juxtaposition with Appalachian imagery and the reclamation of homophobic …

Envisioning Catholicism: Popular Practice Of A Traditional Faith In The Post-Wwii Us, Christy A. Bohl

Theses and Dissertations--History

Marian apparitions in the United States have occurred in ever-increasing numbers since World War Two, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. These apparitions occupy a unique space in religious life, as they provide opportunities for Catholics to practice their faith outside of the Church hierarchy while still maintaining their status as faithful Catholics, often placing women in prominent positions. Although apparitions are an important part of faith for thousands of American Catholics, most Americans and Catholics are unaware of how widespread this movement is. This dissertation takes a comparative approach to examine a selection of apparition events, illuminating the pilgrimage …

News - Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System, Wallace Branch Library, Leah E. Holloway

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Occupied Land Is An Access Issue: Interventions In Feminist Disability Studies And Narratives Of Indigenous Activism, Jess L. Cowing

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Native/Indigenous narratives of health and environmental activism often engage with feminist disability issues to center the connections between land, health, sovereignty, and historical legacies of settler militarized colonialism. Within the context from which Native women and youth act as key leaders in health and environmental activism, expanded modes of feminist disability inquiry could interrogate how transformative justice issues require historicizing concepts of ableism through ongoing legacies of settler colonialism. Considering the work of Native writers such as Winona LaDuke, feminist disability studies scholars might critically examine how key tenets of feminist disability issues such as access require attention to Native/Indigenous …

Tap For The Times: A Study Of Contemporary Tap Dance, Elise Wilham

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Tap dance is an American art form that began with the blending of traditional dance styles from English and Irish immigrants and African slaves. Throughout the 20th century, tap dance developed many styles in response to cultural changes that took place. Contemporary tap dance emerged in the latter half of that century and continues developing today with the fusion of other dance genres and new technologies. This research examines tap dance history to create an understanding of how it developed through a historical lens and analyzes the current approaches applied to the artform along with the characteristics and creative processes …

Making Memory, Making Meaning: Memorial Museums And The Participatory Audience, Hillary Kirkham

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between memorial museums and visitors, reexamining the process of remembering traumatic events in United States history. My work examines this meaning-making dynamic in case studies of four memorial museums: The 9/11 Memorial Museum, The Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Manzanar National Historic Site, and Carthage Jail. By combining textual analysis of museums with data from visitor-produced materials such as guestbooks, letters, periodicals, and Instagram posts, I examine memorial museums' aims and rhetorical strategies while analyzing visitors' roles and contributions, illustrating how both guest and site collaborate to create memory and meaning. Drawing and …

“There Is Power In A Woman’S Wit And Will” : Womanly, Wit, Will, And Wiles In Gothic Works Of Louisa May Alcott, Alexandra Ortea

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Central to the Female Gothic is a woman searching for her identity in the confinements of society. Utilizing Louisa May Alcott’s Gothic works, I will examine the extent to which the formation of an identity is subjected to internalized forces of normalcy. In “A Whisper in the Dark” (1863), “V.V.; Plots and Counterplots” (1865), and “Behind a Mask, or a Woman’s Power” (1866), Alcott explores themes of feminine identity, power, and sexuality. Alcott both subverts and adheres to gender roles to reveal their falsehood. Furthermore, Alcott exposes the effect of the patriarchal order on both men and women by destabilizing …

The Public And The Personal: Mapping The Nyc Subway System As An Urban Memoryscape, Soledad O. Tejada

Library Map Prize

No abstract provided.

The Cultivation Theory And Reality Television: An Old Theory With A Modern Twist, Jeffrey Weiss

Capstone Showcase

George Gerbner, a Hungarian-born professor of communication, founded the cultivation theory, one of the most popular and regarded theories in the communications world. Developed in the mid 20th century, the theory focus on the long-term effects of television on people. Longer exposure to signs, images and people on television cultivates their perception of reality in the real world. The television became a household staple during this time. Families often spent time together watching programming together, however, it played out different effects for each person. Television's constant visual and auditory stimulation on a person made it easier to cultivate certain messages, …

Naming Power?: Urban Development And Contestation In The Callowhill Neighborhood Of Philadelphia, Rachel E. Marcus

Honors Papers

Fundamentally the transformations of the American urban landscape in the years following World War II are reflections of shifting distributions of power facilitated by the emerging neoliberal regime. Eminent spatial theorist David Harvey’s writing about the “right to the city” postulates that the ability to “make and remake” the city is a human right. Universally, though, the only actors able to make and remake the city are those who have access to wealth, power, and capital. Philadelphia has seen an inordinate amount of change in the postwar years, from urban renewal in the mid-20th century to gentrification happening today––these alterations …