American Popular Culture Commons^™

Dramatizing The Void: Crime Fiction's Journey To Forgetting, Kylene N. Cave

Andrews Research Conference

Scholars often cite the transition from the golden age to the hardboiled tradition in the 1920s and 1930s as the most radical shift in crime fiction. By 1945, crime stories regularly exhibited destabilized language, increased interest in psychology of the mind, and a blatant rejection of conclusive endings as a means of exploring the unreliable nature of memory and eye-witness testimony. Whereas the crime fiction narratives preceding 1945 embodied a clear sense of logic and order, and established hermeneutics and signifying practices as the keys to unlocking the mysteries behind human behavior; post-45 crime fiction not only rejects these notions, …

“An’ No Place To Lead ‘Em”: The Grapes Of Wrath And The Breakdown Of Myth, Nicholas F. Comeaux

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In spite of its common designation as an outmoded classic of sentimental middlebrow literature, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath remains relevant as a milestone in an extended liminal stage between the failing cultural myths of the past and the founding of newly relevant shared stories. This stage begins with the Enlightenment and continues to present-day conflicts over identity, labor, migrants, notions of truth itself, the function and responsibilities of government, and our shared ecological destiny. Arriving near the end of the Depression and its concurrent economic and environmental disasters, The Grapes of Wrath reflects a particularly chaotic stage in …

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

Coming To Terms With Gonzo Journalism : An Analysis In Russian Formalism., Beau Kilpatrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gonzo journalism is notoriously difficult to define because of its ambiguous nature. To date, scholarly definitions focus on historical interpretations of Gonzo’s content, its connection to social and political contexts, or the biography of Hunter S. Thompson. These definitional attempts neglect the formal devices of the composition. This thesis aims to redefine Gonzo as its own genre by using the nearly forgotten methods of Russian formalism—specifically the works of Victor Shklovsky, Vladimir Propp, and Boris Tomashevsky—to analyze the formal devices and components of its form. The results are twofold; first, it acts to rejuvenate an unpopular literary theory by illustrating …

Non/Human: (Re)Seeing The “Animal” In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Matthew Guzman

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Non/human: (Re)seeing the “Animal” in Nineteenth-Century American Literature uses canonical literary texts as specific anchor points for charting the unstable relations between human and nonhuman animals throughout the century. I argue that throughout the nineteenth century, there are distinct shifts in the way(s) humans think about, discuss, and represent nonhuman animals, and understanding these shifts can change the way we interpret the literature and the culture(s). Moreover, I supplement and integrate those literary anchors, when appropriate, with texts from contemporaneous science, law, art, and other primary and secondary source materials. For example, the first chapter, “Cooper’s Animal Movements: Across Land, …

Transfigurations Of The News: True Fictions, Strange Thresholds, Jeffrey Peer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation compares twentieth-century literary journalism from the U.S. and Mexico, with a focus on the nonfiction novel and the Mexican chronicle. The dissertation considers the two genres both historically and theoretically, in order to distinguish the borders between literature and unscrupulous journalism. North American journalism is at the heart of a crisis over the epistemological status of facts and their place in our political discourse. Some have argued that works of literary nonfiction can damage social norms like journalistic objectivity. Others argue that forms like the chronicle and the nonfiction novel can describe experience better than news reports. This …

Two Poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones, Ánh-Hoa Thị Nguyễn

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This creative work features two poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones

A Once And Future Queen: Jackie Kennedy And Her Kingdom, Alyssa J. Windsor

Honors College Theses

The Kennedy Camelot was important to the American people and how we now come to view families in the White House. Jacqueline Kennedy was perhaps one of the most important characters in this story that was tragically interrupted. A historical figure not fully developed, Jackie single handedly created the beloved Camelot era and changed the way we view twentieth century America. Taking a deeper look into the private life of the most popular First Lady in American history in relation to the political rollercoaster that was the 1960s, new conclusions can be drawn about the Kennedy’s Camelot and who truly …

‘Some Foods Are Considered Aphrodisiac Because They Resemble Sexual Organs’: On Isabel Allende’S Aphrodite, Anke Klitzing

Articles

At the age of 56, well into her second marriage and a grandmother herself, novelist Isabel Allende decided to find out whether aphrodisiacs are all they are made out to be. She wrote Aphrodite: The Love of Food and Food of Love after extensive research into erotic literature across some centuries and continents, and this foundation of age-old wisdom also means that the book, while published in 1998, remains a timeless source of inspiration and enjoyment.

Between The Living And The Dead, Laura Henriksen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout my studies at the Graduate Center, I have attempted to deepen my understanding of how some people, such as myself and my family, came to be white, and what that means, and how it can be undone. This question of whiteness has pushed me further back ontologically, or deeper down, to include how some people came to be human, and then even further, how some matter came to be living. In my thesis project I attempt to participate in dismantling one of the most fundamental binaries in binary thinking — the strict and uncomplicated division between the living and …

Jet Magazine: Celebrating Black Female Beauty, Jazmyn Shepherd

XULAneXUS

Once referred to as, “the Negro bible” by famed actor and comedian Redd Foxx^[1], Jet has continued to be a pioneer in representing Black Americans as beyond the stereotypes to which they are so often relegated. The magazine has not only provided accurate coverage throughout momentous Black historical movements such as the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, the Black is Beautiful movement of the late 1960s, and the Natural Hair Movement of the 2000s, but it has also catered to the daily interests of Black Americans, such as fashion and beauty, lifestyle advice, dating advice, politics, health …

Decolonizing The Body Of The Chosen One: The Bodily Performance Of Anakin Skywalker, Buffy Summers, And T'Challa, Alise M. Wisniewski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis engages the figure of the Chosen One in fantasy literature. The Chosen One arises as a key figure in fantasy and exists today in the Anglo-American literary imagination as a hero above other heroes. This figure embodies Anglo-American understandings of the Hero's Journey and savior narratives theorized by Joseph Campbell. It is a site of colonial triumph and violence and heteronormative white masculinity. Embedded into reiterations of Chosen Ones in American fantasy films and television, this body is being destabilized and decolonized.

In close readings of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars, Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, …

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …

Teaching Visual Literacies: The Case Of The Great American Dust Bowl, Mary F. Rice, Ashley K. Dallacqua

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using The Great American Dust Bowlby Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, The Arrival (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand …

Sleight Of Hand: Gender, Performance, And (In)Sincerity In E. D. E. N. Southworth’S The Hidden Hand, Samantha Martin

Scripps Senior Theses

One of the many cultural anxieties that existed during the nineteenth century in antebellum America centered on the dubious status of authenticity of one’s emotions, gender expression, or socioeconomic class. The fluctuating socioeconomic landscape of antebellum America destabilized the logic of categorization, rendering it an ineffectual means by which to evaluate others’ identities. In her novel The Hidden Hand, or, Capitola the Madcap, E. D. E. N. Southworth explores instead of censures the transformative properties of the self, specifically in terms of gender and class. Her interest in this lack of authenticity, or transparency regarding one’s self and intentions, …

Review: Bury What We Cannot Take By Kirstin Chen, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Review: The Incendiaries By R.O. Kwon, Jessie Fussell

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A book review of R.O. Kwon's 2018 debut novel, The Incendiaries.

Introduction To Volume Nine: Homecoming, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Integration Of Local Poetic Voices: An Interview With Lawson Fusao Inada, Alma Rosa Alvarez, John Rafael Almaguer

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

An interview with Lawson Fusoa Inada

Mobilizing The Vietnamese Body: Dance Theory, Critical Refugee Studies, And The Aftermaths Of War In Andrew X. Pham’S Catfish And Mandala, Quynh Nhu Le, Ying Zhu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Mobilizing the Vietnamese Body: Dance Theory, Critical Refugee Studies, and the Aftermaths of War in Andrew X. Pham’s Catfish and Mandala

Through analysis of Andrew X. Pham’s Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam, this collaboration between a literary scholar and dance scholar joins methodologies from their respective fields to explore the politicized dimensions of the Vietnamese body-in-motion. Published in 1999, Pham's memoir documents his journey, as a Vietnamese refugee living in the U.S., as he travels throughout Vietnam on a bicycle. We argue that through the literal and theoretical mobilization of his …

Viet Thanh Nguyen In Conversation With Andrew Lam

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

A Genealogy Of Self-Development In Modern America, Kelsey M. Binder

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article offers a hypothetical conversation between various authors and creators who have embarked on progressive self-development journeys under the influence of a shared society that intermittently embraces and rejects the structures of the American Dream. While examining the instinctive human motives that cause the radical decision to actualize one’s life, this paper attempts to bridge the psychology of the desire for personal growth to our influential cultural landscape. It explores and analyzes the self-development journeys of individuals such as William Least Heat-Moon and Chris McCandless, as well as the recent message of self-development found in a cinematic pop culture …

Cover Of Volume 9, Sung Yu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

The Persistence Of The Past Into The Future: Indigenous Futurism And Future Slave Narratives As Transformative Resistance In Nnedi Okorafor's The Book Of Phoenix, Ellen Eubanks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a number of authors have written science fiction works that express the concerns and experiences of marginalized people groups, including those in postcolonial societies, Indigenous/First Nations peoples, and other racial minorities. These works provide counter narratives to that of much canonical science fiction, which developed from narrative forms that often explicitly and implicitly supported colonial ideologies, and still often includes these ideologies today. This thesis analyzes the way The Book of Phoenix (2015) by the NigerianAmerican speculative fiction author Nnedi Okorafor uses a combination of the forms of Indigenous futurism and what Isiah Lavender terms meta-slavery narratives …

The Influence Of Individualistic Ideas On American Mobility, Markus Magiera

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

In this paper I showcase the influence of individualistic thinking ranging back as far as Age of Enlightenment on the development of mobility in America since the eighteenth century. My goal is to identify the factors that shaped the evolution of travel. In order to do so I start by analyzing texts from the early nineteenth century, where travel by foot was the common thing. Next I focus on new means of mobility; first the bicycle, and later on the automobile. I aim to convince that modernity's main instigator was the change in thinking brought forth in the Age of …

Resonant Texts: The Politics Of Nineteenth-Century African American Music And Print Culture, Paul Fess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Resonant Texts: the Politics of Nineteenth-Century African American Music and Print Culture, investigates musical sound as a discursive tool African American writers and activists deployed to contest enslavement before the Civil War and claim citizenship after Emancipation. Traditionally, scholars have debated the degree to which nineteenth-century African American music constituted evidence of black culture and marked a persistent African orality that still abides within African American textual production. While these trends inform this project, my inquiry focuses on the ways that writers placed elements of musical sound—such as rhythm, melody, choral singing, and harmony—at the center of their …

Review Of Chris Ware: Conversations, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

An Intersectional Feminist Perspective Of Emmett Till In Young Adult Literature, Claire Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emmett Till’s murder inspired many novelists, poets, and artists. Recently, Till has inspired several feminist young adult novelists who are introducing his case in an intersectional way to a new generation of readers. The works that I have studied are A Wreath for Emmett Till (2003) by Marilyn Nelson, The Hunger Games Trilogy (2008-2010) by Suzanne Collins, and Midnight without a Moon (2017) by Linda Jackson. By examining how the authors employ a feminist perspective, readers can understand how they are striving for a more inclusive, intersectional feminist movement. This is significant because the publishing industry, specifically for Young Adult …