American Studies Commons^™

Native Newspapers: The Emergence Of The American Indian Press 1960-Present, Russell M. Page

CMC Senior Theses

During the 1960s and 1970s, tribes across Indian Country struggled for tribal sovereignty against “termination” policies that aimed to disintegrate the federal government’s trust responsibilities and treaty obligations to tribes and assimilate all Indians into mainstream society. Individual tribes, pan-Indian organizations, and militant Red Power activists rose up in resistance to these policies and fought for self-determination: a preservation of Indian distinctiveness and social and political autonomy. This thesis examines a crucial, but often overlooked, element of the self-determination movement. Hundreds of tribal and national-scope activist newspapers emerged during this era and became the authentic voices of American Indians and …

Imprisonment, Punishment, And Progress In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Ashley Breanne Waggoner

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Narcissistic Intertextuality In The Works Of Bret Easton Ellis, Jennifer Grindstaff

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the works of Bret Easton Ellis, specifically his three latest novels: Glamorama, Lunar Park, and Imperial Bedrooms, and identifies the metafictional and intertextual elements in these texts. For my purposes, I am defining metafiction as fiction that draws attention to itself and makes the reader aware that he or she is reading fiction. Intertextual will be defined as elements in the novels that appear in other works of fiction. In the case of Ellis, he is drawing upon and reusing elements from his own fiction. These elements include characters that reappear in novels other than the text …

The Fall Of The Yellow Wallpaper, Rachel Payne

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Many have acknowledged the Gothic influence of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” on Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Critics often examine the opposition of genres in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” arguing it as either a feminist movement or Gothic tale. However, the Female Gothic genre centers the female role inside a Gothic tale. This genre typifies a criticism of oppressive patriarchies and support for female independence. Both “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” demonstrate women who overcome repressed voices by finding their expressions through writing.

Tarrying With The "Private Parts", Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Publications and Research

Two-thirds of the way through Object Lessons (2012), Robyn Wiegman's provocative study of the institutional and ideological development of what she names identity-based modes of inquiry in US colleges and universities, the author recounts a 2003 trip she took to Leiden to attend the inaugural meeting of the International American Studies Association. There, she was regularly met with the claim that American studies, at least as it is practiced by citizens and long-term residents of the United States, was deeply provincial and too caught up with rehearsals of the humdrum difficulties of American social and cultural life, particularly our always …

A Single Day: Isolation And Connection In Virginia Woolf’S Mrs. Dalloway And Christopher Isherwood’S A Single Man, Hannah Williams

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

No abstract provided.

The Costumed Catholic: Catholics, Whiteness, And The Movies, 1928 - 1973, Albert William Vogt Iii

Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation examines the impact movies had on the place of Catholics of European descent in mainstream white America. Most scholars who study the history of Catholic populations in this country assume that they attained whiteness at some point. Whether with the Irish in the late nineteenth century, or more generally when urban parishes began the move to the suburbs post-World War II, the historiography claims that Catholics earned white status. However, an analysis of twentieth century American film complicates the historiography of Catholicism. A set of negative stereotypes, instead, have colored the presentation of the religion in cinema …

The Black Freedom Struggle And Civil Rights Labor Organizing In The Piedmont And Eastern North Carolina Tobacco Industry, Jennifer Wells

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines labor organizing in the U.S. South, specifically the Piedmont and eastern regions of North Carolina in the mid-twentieth century. It aims to uncover an often overlooked local history of civil rights labor organizing which challenged the southern status quo before America's 'mainstream' civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. This study argues that through labor organizing, African American tobacco workers challenged the class, gender, and race hierarchy of North Carolina's very profitable tobacco industry during the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the historiography of black working class protest, …

Sundance Film Festival / Computer Generated Imagery / Video Game Industry / Battlestar Galactica / Pageants / Stereophonic Sound, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), have been on American popular culture. Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond. Included here are six sidebars that reveal some of the more fascinating contribution Mormons have made to American popular culture.

Profiles Of Selected Mormon Athletes In Professional Sports, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

“Profiles of Selected Mormon Athletes in Professional Sports” provides profiles with career highlights of over 200 Mormon athletes in professional sports, including baseball, basketball, bodybuilding, boxing, football, golf, hockey, racing, running, volleyball, and wrestling. This chapter appears in the second volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.

Constructing A Healthcare Assets Map In Rural Appalachia: An Analysis Of Healthcare Services And Perceived Health Threats, Catherine Myers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using data gathered over the course of two months through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with health providers (n=19) and community members (n=20), this research analyzes patient access to health care resources and describes community members' and health care providers' perceptions of pressing health concerns in their area. The results of this research show the types of health care resources in the county, the similarities and differences between health providers' and community members' perceptions, and how the unique characteristics of this community influence health care access and health disparity.

A Midwestern Culture Of Civility: Student Activism At The University Of Northern Iowa During The Maucker Years (1967-1970), Christopher J. Shackelford

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This project examines the changing social dynamic of those affiliated with the University of Northern Iowa during the latter half of the 1960s, with special emphasis on student activism and the changing attitudes of administrators and community members. This project intends to use the medium of alternative newspapers as a central component in the analysis of the time studied and as an unfiltered voice of student dissent. By narrowing the focus of this project to an individual university and community, an intimate narrative emerges that acts as a testament of the overwhelming atmosphere of change that engulfed American colleges throughout …

Playing By New Rules: Board Games And America's Cold War Culture, 1945-1965, Matthew John Sprengeler

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines the domestic culture of the United States during the first two decades of the Cold War, using popular games as an interpretive tool to expand our understanding of the changes that took place. Four board games which were popular during the 1950s – Scrabble, chess, Clue, and Risk – explain some of the anxieties and evolutions in mass culture. Scrabble illustrated the nation's growing respect for expertise and, along with game theory, the hope for intellectual solutions to the country's problems. Chess, often seen as a symbol of the Cold War, served as a proxy battlefield for …

Melungeon Portraits: Lived Experience And Identity, Tamara L. Stachowicz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The desire to claim an ethnicity may be in response to an institutional and systemic political movement towards multiculturalism where ethnic difference is something to be recognized and celebrated (Jimenez, 2010; Tatum, 1997). Those who were a member of a dominant or advantaged group took that element of their identity for granted (Tatum, 1997). Identity work has included reflections and congruence between how individuals see themselves and how they perceive others to see them, including Optimal Distinctiveness Theory where one determines the optimal amount of individual distinctiveness needed to feel a healthy group and personal identity (Brewer, 2012). When most …

"It's Like We Were Being Watched ... Like There Were Only 3 Walls, And Not A Fourth Wall": Manifestations Of Metafiction In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Caleb Randall Dempsey-Richardson

Online Theses and Dissertations

Despite the extensive collection of works related to both Joss Whedon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, relatively little critical attention has so far dealt with the subject of metafiction. This study aims to make use of narratological analyses as well as drawing upon relevant theorists (e.g., Patricia Waugh, Fredric Jameson) to illustrate the various different ways Whedon has consciously constructed metafiction as an integral part of his most influential television series. Additionally, the project also endeavors to show how textual self-consciousness can be housed outside of the tradition space of the diegesis in favor of a paratextual element instead. …

Artaud's Journey To Mexico And His Portrayals Of The Land, Tsu-Chung Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Artaud's Journey to Mexico and His Portrayals of the Land" Tsu-Chung Su examines Artaud's visions, visualizations, descriptions, and conceptualizations of Mexico. Su argues that Artaud's writings about Mexico were his textual appropriations and cartographical remappings of the land. They embodied both the geographic wandering of his itinerary and the bodily spasms of his thought. At once geographical and psycho-physiological embodiments, they were not only texts of a questing spirit but also words of a schizophrenic mind. While tracing and mapping Artaud's deterritorialized wanderings in cultures, religions, and rituals of Mexico, Su aims to explore the interlinking relationships …

Negra D'America Remond And Her Journeys, Sirpa A. Salenius

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "negra d'America Remond and Her Journeys" Sirpa A. Salenius analyzes Sarah P. Remond's travels to Europe. Remond, an African American born free in Salem, Massachusetts in 1826 into an abolitionist family, was a successful lecturer on abolitionism in the United States before traveling to England in 1859. During her anti-slavery lecture tour there, she also became involved in promoting women's rights thus enlarging the scope of her social and political agenda to embrace both racial and gender oppression. Subsequently, she studied in London, graduating as a nurse from London University College before moving to Italy where …

The Slave Trade In The Work Of Fox, Johnson, And Spielberg, Ya-Huei Lin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Slave Trade in the Work of Fox, Johnson, and Spielberg" Ya-huei Lin analyzes Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer (1973), Charles R. Johnson's The Middle Passage (1990), and Amistad, the 1997 film directed by Steven Spielberg based on the true event of 1841. Lin's examination of these three texts is an attempt to clarify the event's narration in the context of Walter Benjamin's historical materialism. Further, Lin explores what Louis Althusser proposes in "A Letter on Art" as to how the texts at hand make one see the ideology from which they are located. The authors' …

Reimagining "Tense And Tender Ties" In García's Monkey Hunting, Yu-Fang Cho

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Reimagining 'Tense and Tender Ties' in Garcia's Monkey Hunting" Yu-Fang Cho analyses Cristina García's re-narration of transnational histories of the multi-racial, multi-generational Chinese Cuban family in Monkey Hunting (2003) as a critical project that recasts developmental immigrant narratives primarily set in the United States as part of the emerging cultural archive of global migrations. Drawing on recent scholarship on comparative racialization, especially Ann Laura Stoler's formulation of "tense and tender ties" as a method, Cho examines how García's family saga unsettles the temporal and spatial logics of Euro-American modernity through the deployment of cyclical narrative structure …

Mental Travel And Memory Mapping In Sebald's Work, Jonathan White

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Mental Travel and Memory Mapping in Sebald's Narratives" Jonathan White analyses several of the journeys — real and by means of the mind — by which W.G. Sebald follows what he once called "invisible connections that determine our lives." These connections are often although not always between the living and the dead "on the far side of time." In reaction against what Sebald interpreted as a conspiracy of silence in his youth over the destruction that Germany had caused and that which had been done in turn to it, Sebald attempted to reconstruct worlds and people destroyed …

Gulliver, Travel, And Empire, Claude Rawson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Gulliver, Travel, and Empire" Claude Rawson analyzes Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels as a central document of European intellectual history. Rawson focuses on the relationship between ethnicity and human identity and asks what constitutes humanity and how individual groups qualify (or not) for human status. Posing teasingly as a "parody" of travel books, it is both a series of voyages and an ethnically widening arc of moral exploration as Book Four at once expresses an ambivalent perception of the Irish under English rule and extends to what Swift/Gulliver calls "all Savage Nations" and ultimately takes in what Swift …

Evans's And Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels, Hui-Chu Yu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Evans's and Cheevers's Quaker Missionary Travels" Hui-chu Yu investigates Katharine Evans's and Sarah Cheevers's account of their experiences as Quaker missionaries in Malta between 1658-1662. For Evans and Cheevers traveling was a mission ordained by god and thus their journey is less a trip for the gratification of exploration than spiritual and physical trials. With a purpose to spread Quaker texts, Evans and Cheevers traveled to different lands such as Ireland and Malta. Although they perceived the hostility toward their belief, they still claimed to be god's handmaids with an aim to preach their religious belief. Their …

The Life Writing Of Hart, Inspector-General Of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service, Henk Vynckier, Chihyun Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Life Writing of Hart, Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service" Henk Vynckier and Chihyun Chang analyze the life and writing of Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911). Hart arrived in China in 1854 and served as Inspector-General of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service 1863-1911. Although Hart disparaged his own role, Jonathan Spence views him as a key adviser to the Qing government. Despite of the historical importance of Hart's texts, of his seventy-seven volume diary only eight of the volumes have been published and the remaining volumes remain largely unexamined. Vynckier and Chang examine the complex transmission …

Cannibalism, Ecocriticism, And Portraying The Journey, Simon C. Estok

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Cannibalism, Ecocriticism, and Portraying the Journey" Simon C. Estok discusses the ways early modern preoccupation with cannibalism is at once rooted in and reflective of an ecophobic environmental ethics. Looking both at descriptions of metaphoric and literal cannibalism, Estok shows that imagining cannibalism was central to the travel narrative and to its investments in writing the center and the periphery, the human and the nonhuman, the acceptable and the repugnant — binaries which reveal ethical positions, not only toward people, but, more broadly, toward the natural environment. Estok argues that it is relevant to discuss the discourse …

Alexander The Great, Prester John, Strabo Of Amasia, And Wonders Of The East, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East" I-Chun Wang analyses the wonders referred to the realm of Prester John and the imagination of India as exemplified in the pseudo-letter of Alexander the Great. The pseudo letters attributed to Prester John and Alexander demonstrate imagination and identity construction. Throughout history, terra incognita suggested a longing to discover new lands and utopia. Cathay, India, Timbuktu, and El Dorado have drawn the imagination of Westerners in different periods are represented in legends, folktales, literary texts, and travel and pseudo-travel texts. Including the said pseudo-letters, …

On Naipaul's Cultural Positions In The Middle Passage, Shizen Ozawa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "On Naipaul's Cultural Positions in The Middle Passage" Shizen Ozawa discusses V.S. Naipaul's first travel writing. An account of his "returning" journey to the five Caribbean "colonial societies," The Middle Passage constitutes a major turning point in Naipaul's long literary career. Whereas his earlier novels depict his homeland of Trinidad ironically, although with a certain warmth and sympathy, from The Middle Passage on the world depicted both in his fictions and non-fictions turns bleaker. Correspondingly, his authorial persona changes from that of a West Indian writer to a controversial chronicler of chaotic postcolonial conditions. Ozawa analyses …

Introduction To New Work About The Journey And Its Portrayals, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Horizontality And Impossibility In Kafka's Parabolic Quests, Frank W. Stevenson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Horizontality and Impossibility in Kafka's Parabolic Quests" Frank W. Stevenson explores a horizontal-parabolic interpretation of several Kafka narratives. The key idea is that the meaning/truth of a parable is being thrown-beside-itself "on the horizontal": thus it is impossible not only to vertically reach any higher meaning/truth but even to "cross-over" to a truth which has now been horizontally "displaced." Noting that Derrida's and Agamben's reading of "Before the Law" — the narrator cannot "enter into the Law" because the latter "prescribes nothing," is nothing but an "opening" — not only excludes any vertical-hierarchical dimension but even any …

Power And Representation In Anglo-American Travel Blogs And Travel Books About China, Stefano Calzati

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Power and Representation in Anglo-American Travel Blogs and Travel Books about China" Stefano Calzati presents a comparative analysis between two travel books and two travel blogs written by Anglo-American travellers about China. The assumption is that travel books and travel blogs, being two differently mediated forms of travel writing, share some similarities: they are "autodiegetic narratives" and they bear a (cross)cultural potential. Through a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis I investigate how Anglo-American travel writers represent themselves and Chinese people as to what extent the definition of travel writing is medially affected; 2) to what extent the cross-cultural …

Travel And Empire In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, Yi-Chin Shih

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Travel and Empire in Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good" Yi-chin Shih analyzes Our Country's Good from the perspective of travel in order to explore the exercise of empire and the practice of resistance. Considered as one of the luminaries in British theater, Timberlake Wertenbaker (1951-) has produced several successful works, especially Our Country's Good (1988), which won her a Laurence Olivier Award for the Best Play and solidified her reputation as an important playwright in world theater. Our Country's Good is based on real historical facts about the First Fleet's transportation of criminals from England to Australia …