American Material Culture Commons^™

Stolen Valor: Mapping The Style Subcultures Of The Left, Lydia Mokdessi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

"Stolen Valor: Mapping the Style Subcultures of the Left'' performs an analysis of three observed style subcultures prevalent in American fashion between the 2000s and the 2020s and demonstrates how these distinct style languages each draw from the aesthetics of various 20th and 21st century Leftist political movements, discussing the extent to which each style subculture undergoes a process of appropriation by the dominant culture and subsequent subsumption into the mainstream compared to the extent to which the subversive communicative power of each subculture remains intact for the original adopting population. The three style vernaculars this text identifies will be …

“The Way To Dusty Death”: The Feminist Revision Of The Western In Nomadland (2021), Lucas Cicarelli Vieira

FIU Undergraduate Research Journal

The Western film genre is founded upon patriarchal and capitalist conditions embedded deeply within structuralist analyses. The portrayal of the solitary, white male cowboy—with its themes of rugged individualism and phallocentric mannerisms—has affected the depiction of women, people of color, and other marginalized groups across media. These prejudicial structures, though applied throughout the genre, has seen revision in recent productions, most notably by feminist directors of the modern era. In Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, Western narrative elements and cinematic techniques have been amended to favor genuine testimonials from affected individuals of economic collapse caused by the hubris of industrialists and the …

Seeing Is Believing: Observing Trans Spirituality Through The Smith-Waite Tarot, Phoebe Santalla

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

In 1909 the Rider Company published the Smith-Waite Tarot deck which featured 78 illustrated cards by Pamela Colman Smith. With heavy use of appropriated and ambiguous symbology, the Smith-Waite deck became a meditation tool for realizing alternative realities. By observing the history of the deck, analyzing Smith’s approach to illustration, and retracing the counterculture occult explosion in the 1970s, this essay argues that the Smith-Waite deck is an object the reflects the queered body and self. The modern, trans-contentious, Western political climate creates an environment that obscures the fact that transgender people exist beyond the medicalization of their bodies. To …

Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020): A Psychoanalytic Review Of Masculinity And Rape Culture, Marjorie A. Briones

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

TW: mentions of sexual violence and rape

When it comes to the subject of sexual violence, there are systemic and cultural effects that prevents assaulters from being properly prosecuted. In the U.S., perpetrators of sexual violence largely consists of heterosexual, white men (RAINN, 2022). So, we begin to question the ways in which sexual violence and masculinity are interconnected. By conducting a psychoanalytic analysis of Emerald Fennell’s 2020 film Promising Young Woman, the ideas of toxic masculinity and “rape culture” will be deconstructed in regard to Cassie’s–the protagonist–story. Theories by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung will be connected to real-life …

Rendering Documentary Portraiture: An Interrogation Of Archival Discourse Through A Critical Exploration Of Nineteenth Century Stage Actress Charlotte Cushman’S Material Memory, Skyler Sunday

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Visual depictions of nineteenth century stage actress Charlotte Cushman, such as photographs, engravings, and painted portraits assist researchers in re-envisioning her both as an actress and as a person, but what do her remaining archival possessions further reveal to researchers about her memory? How do different objects operate as portraits that allow the researcher to tap into and remember specific moments and memory? How does the effort to preserve memory take different forms? This project argues that, when viewing the archive through its stored objects, our collective notion of portraiture can be expanded and used to interrogate existing methods of …

"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …

Because Potato, Candice Evers

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This thesis project explores the phenomenological qualities of the internet; asking, since the internet is difficult to grasp, what other modes of investigation might we have available? Using an investigative framework set forth by Jack Halberstam, this thesis declines to come to knowledge solely through understanding the formal, the structural, the highly visible and mainstream. The literature that I have gathered provides a range of modes for interrogating the simultaneously central and inconsequential subject of my thesis itself: the potato. Juxtaposing the physical, political and material conditions of the potato the internet’s least academic mode of knowing: the meme. Analyzing …

Asking For Forgiveness: Negotiating The Creation Of Memory Through Public Memorialization, Alyssa Castronuovo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The practice of spatializing culture, or “examining space through theories of embodiment, discourse translocality, and effect,” localizes the global and separates hegemonic narratives of space from how it is actually utilized by the people who interact with it. Setha Low argues that this perspective is especially useful to the anthropologist committed to challenging the discipline’s historically eurocentric approach to studying culture. She writes that a spatial focus “[draws] on the strengths of studying people in situ, producing rich and nuanced sociospatial understandings.” This project began with an interest in theorists such as Edward Soja, Michel de Certeau, and Henri Lefebvre, …

Fashioning The Flapper: Clothing As A Catalyst For Social Change In 1920s America, Julia Wolffe

Honors Program Theses

Fashion has been a catalyst for social change throughout human history. Fashion in 1920s America in particular reflects society's rapidly evolving attitudes towards gender and race. Beginning with how corsetry heavily restricted women for nearly four hundred years up until the twentieth century, this thesis explores how clothing has acted as a tool for societal progression following World War I and Women's Suffrage and during the Jazz Age and The Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, this thesis examines how the influence of jazz music and dance that originated from Black American communities led to the creation of the flapper evening dress. The …

Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery (Sewing) Society: Handcraft As A Metaphorical Tool For The Abolitionist Cause, Hinda Mandell

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In 1851, in Rochester, New York, a group of six women banded together as the founding members of an anti-slavery group in order to support the work of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. They called themselves the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery (Sewing) Society, although they dropped “Sewing” from the group’s name in 1855. Yet the fact that “Sewing” was included in the original name of this reformist group indicates the foundational role of craft not only as a guiding activity but also central as an activist mechanism to abolish the institution of slavery. They were the benefactors of Frederick Douglass, himself regarded …

"Rainbow Is The Way To Go" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Rainbow is the Way to Go!"

Multicolored marker on white posterboard.

"Thou Shalt Not Eat Clams" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Guess What... The Bible Also Says: 'Thou Shalt Not Eat Clams' )do you eat clams, Mr. Phelps?) What Now?

Black marker on white psterboard.

The "Mr. Phelps" referenced in the text is likely Fred Phelps (1929-2014), former pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church.

"We Are A Land Of Many Colors" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "We Are A Land of Many Colors America the Beautiful"

Multicolored marker on white background. Rainbow details.

Gsta "Crest" Poster, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Poster created by Betsy Parsons for conference, workshop, or training. Poster feature a drawing of a crest divided into four quadrants, with each listing goals, positive affirmations, and well-known public figures.

Multicolored marker on posterboard.

"Never Be Ashamed Of Love" Poster, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Poster created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Never Be Ashamed of Love".

Black and multicolored marker on white posterboard.

"Proud Lesbian Teacher" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign carried by Betsy Parsons for a march or demonstration. Text reads: "Proud Lesbian Teacher 30 (x29) Years ~Portland Public Schools~.

Hand-painted, purple, red, and blue paint (likely acrylic or tempera) on white poster board.

:Anti-Gay Discrimination Is Illegal..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for protest or march. Text reads "Anti-Gay Discrimination is Illegal in Maine Schools and Universities".

Handpainted. Blue and red paint, likely acrylic or tempera on white poster board.

"Trans Gay-Straight Alliance..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for march or demonstration. Text reads: "Trans Gay-Straight Alliances: Youth Leading for Equality".

Red and black text with a rainbow in the background. Acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

"Proud Glbt Students + Teachers" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Proud GLBT Students and Teachers".

Black text with rainbow-colored hand prints. Acrylic or tempera on posterboars. GLSEN bumper sticker.

"Equality" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march.

Text reads "EQUALITY"

Black text on red posterboard.

"Free To Learn..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Free to Learn Teach LEad".

Green, red, purple, and black text on white background with a rainbow. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

Safe Schools For All" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "GLSEN Safe Schools for All".

Black and rainbow text on white background with GLSEN bumper sticker. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

"Glsen" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for event. Text reads: "GLSEN Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network

Black text on yellow background. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

"Gsta Youth Testimony" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: " GSTA Youth Testimony Helped Protect the Maine Human Rights Act".

Black, red, green, and blue text on white background. Acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

"Love Is Compassion..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Love is Compassion Love is Caring Love is Beautiful Love is Love"

Pastel marker on white background.

"Safe Schools For Glbt People" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "GLSEN Safe SChools for GLBT People".

Black and red text on white background. GLSEN bumper sticker.

"We Are All In This Together" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads "We Are All In This Together" in several languages.

"Proud Gay Student" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created for march or demonstration. Text reads: " Proud Son Christian Student Gay". Note, the word "Gay" is written vertically next to "son", "Christian" and "Student".

Acrylic paint on white background.

"Trans Students Are Everywhere" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for protest or march. Text reads "Trans Students Are Everywhere".

Handpainted rainbow text, likely acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

Remembering Kate Gleason: Introducing A Twentieth-Century Businesswoman To Twenty-First Century Students, Michael J. Brown, Rebecca Edwards, Tina O. Lent

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

In the fall of 2015, the faculty of the Museum Studies Program at RIT mounted an exhibition titled "Kate Gleason, Visionary: A Tribute on Her 150th Birthday." While Kate Gleason’s name is familiar on the RIT campus because the College of Engineering is named for her, this association obscures recognition of her many and varied accomplishments. The challenge we undertook was to contextualize her work in engineering within her other entrepreneurial endeavors in manufacturing, banking, and building, focusing on the innovation and vision that united them. In addition, we wanted Gleason’s career and accomplishments to be compelling and relevant to …