American Popular Culture Commons^™

Reviving Hysteria: The Nineteenth Century At The End Of The Twentieth, Christina Quintana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores popular and medical representations of female madness in two time periods: the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. I argue that 1990s American culture produced an abundance of texts, images, and narratives that revitalized the iconography and medical discourses of late nineteenth-century hysteria. Analyzing popular texts, films, and cultural touchstones of the 1990s, I explore how Victorian ideas about women’s minds—such as the inherent feebleness of the female brain and nervous system; the fatalistic, life-altering effects of female puberty; the association between hysteria and deviant female sexuality; and the implicit racialization of hysteria and female madness more …

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Black Radio’S Contribution To Collective And Cultural Memory: Personnel Perspectives Of Black Radio History In The United States, Kim Fox

Faculty Journal Articles

This interdisciplinary research investigates the significance of the community connection between Black radio personnel and their audiences through the lens of collective and cultural memory narratives. The study addresses two key research questions. First, how do Black radio personnel’s collective and cultural memories contribute to the Black public sphere? Second, what are the defining characteristics in developing parasocial relationships and interactions between Black radio personalities and their audiences? The qualitative research employs an autoethnographic methodology and a questionnaire, utilizing insights gained from the author’s experiences working at a Black-owned radio network and station. The questionnaire, distributed to key informants in …

Make America(N Cinema) Great Again: The Rhetoric Of Nostalgia In Trump Era Cinematic Multiplicities, Courtney J. Dreyer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation investigates the rhetoric of nostalgia in politics and popular Hollywood cinema during the Trump era. I argue that MAGA Cinema, the contemporary trend of reboots, remakes, and sequels related to properties from the late 1970s to early 1990s, both respond to and strengthen attachments to an imagined version of the 1980s. However, this illusory golden age more closely reflects the world as depicted in the cinema of the 1980s rather than the reality of American in the years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Through a close analysis of David Gordon Green’s Halloween Reboot series, Top Gun: Maverick, and …

The Power Of Polish: Exploring The Impact Of Nail Adornments On Perceptions Of Attraction, Sara Demichele

Honors Theses

Understanding the significance of nail adornments in shaping perceptions of attractiveness and mate value provides insights into human behavior and preferences. In the current investigation, participants rated human nail length and color on physical attractiveness and partner desirability measures. Results revealed significant effects of nail length and color across different demographic groups. Medium-length nails consistently received higher ratings for physical attractiveness, cuteness, and partner desirability compared to short and long nails. White-colored nails were generally rated most attractive, while blue and black nails received the lowest ratings. Additionally, participants reported a moderate association between having manicured nails and feelings of …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

Women's Interracial Friendships: Cultivating Coalitional Possibilities Across Difference Through Dialogue, Akie Fukushige Wenk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation, I thread through the macro-structure as well as micro-operations of hegemonic ideologies, namely white-supremacist capitalist cis-hetero patriarchy (hooks, 1995, Valdes, 1996), that has historically plagued the United States, eventually gaining a global reach over time. I center interracial friendship between Black and White cis-women, where I locate coalitional possibilities that begin at the grassroots level. I situate this interracial relationship within the socio-ecological system where the personal meets the social (including racialized backgrounds). I use a series of analogies to equate these ideologies as toxins in the air, water, and soil. Soil is where we can work …

The Landscape Does Not Care It Is A Landscape: A Utopian Pessimist Journey In Kentucky., Shachaf Polakow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These thesis and exhibition, invite the viewers to travel through different places in Central and Eastern Kentucky. The region’s landscape, like many other American landscapes, is often known to the public through the settler colonial lens—a lens that ignores Indigenous peoples’ history in the region. The work in the exhibition is a response to landscape art's history and its complicity with American settler colonialism- art that was recruited to create a new identity for the settlers and for the country from the beginning of the American Colonial Project. Landscape art was a crucial part of this effort, presenting the land …

Myth, Fiction And Politics In The Age Of Antiheroes: A Case Study Of Donald Trump, Igor Prusa, Matthew Brummer

Heroism Science

In this article, we demonstrate that the antihero archetype informs our understanding of Trump in important ways, including his rise to and fall from power. We introduce an analytical framework for analyzing Trump’s antiheroic traits based on his social positioning, individual motivation, and personal charisma. We argue that Trump is fascinating because he is powerful, amoral, and charismatic, and suggest that the American public was primed for Trumpism through a zeitgeist hospitable to antihero worship. That is, Trump’s dogged popularity with nearly half of the American public was foretold by decades of pop-cultural obsession with, and adulation for, the antihero.

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 …

Hudson Yards: Hybrid Capital's New Home, Massimo D. Scoditti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the material and metaphysical aspects of the Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US History. With its roots in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the site is representative of neoliberal ideology. It is also one in which cultural production is central. This is in terms of the rationalization and mythos of the building of the space itself and the dreamworlds created to obscure the mechanisms of extraction and accumulation that make such a complex possible. The Hudson Yards is particularly interesting because, as Cindi Katz might suggest, topography lines connect it to transnational capital. And …

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

Conceptualizations Of A Flea Market Space, Tyler D. Curran

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The ubiquitous presence of flea markets is emblematic of midwestern life. They illustrate common consumption practices and distinct modes of entertainment. This study investigates how vendors within a large, midwestern flea market conceptualize and utilize the space. Additionally, this study reveals the relationship between variant conceptualizations of the market and the merchandise sold by individual vendors. Existing research identifies a tension between social and economic dimensions within flea markets. This study extends prior research by examining the specific social fulfillments vendors garner and identifying other non-economic rationalizations for participation within the market. The results are derived from ethnographic observations and …

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? A Marxist Analysis Of "Hamilton" And Its Relationship To The Broadway Economic System, Alana Ritt

Honors Projects

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit Hamilton: An American Musical has been both a critical and academic darling since its premiere in 2015. A historical retelling of America’s inception through the eyes of an oft-ignored founding father, the musical weaves together a diverse cast and hip-hop musical stylings in order to tell the story of “America then, as told by America now.” While many critics and scholars alike have praised the musical for putting an exciting and accessible twist to American history, others have argued that the musical is not nearly as “revolutionary” as it claims to be. This essay is designed to …

Ethnography Of Reading Comic Books, Azadeh Najafian

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores why adults read comic books. This research used the ethnographic method and interviewing eleven people, four women, seven male, as its primary source. Based on information and common themes gathered from interviews, I built this thesis into one introduction, three body chapters, and a conclusion.

In the first chapter, I argued that comics could function the same as myths and explained this function and related examples under the “mythic effect” name. In the second chapter, I discussed how my informants use reading comics as a means to escape their everyday lives and how sometimes this escapism carries …

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

You Are Resilient: Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Treatment For Low-Ses, Urban Youth, Courtney Molina

Dissertations

The focus in this review was to explore the benefits and optimal use of trauma-informed, strengths-based care for the therapeutic treatment of low-socioeconomic status (SES), urban youth. Specific focus was given to evidence-based research on the treatment of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among low-SES, urban youth. The review was guided by the following research questions: How can emotional and behavioral dysregulation be symptoms of trauma among low-SES, urban youth; What makes trauma-informed and strengths-based care optimal for the treatment of low-SES, urban youth with dysregulation; and What are clear guidelines for providing trauma-informed, strengths-based care to low-SES, urban youth with …

Instagram And Eating Disorders: An Empirical Study Of The Effects Of Instagram On Disordered Eating Habits Among Young Girls, Katherine Wayles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scholars have studied the relationship between body dissatisfaction and social media use, particularly focusing on young women as vulnerable consumers. Many studies concentrate on the amount of media consumed, rather than the specific activities and behaviors associated with feelings of low self-esteem or poor body image. It is important to determine exactly what behaviors and social media engagements contribute to disordered relationships with food, assessing a user’s pre-existing weight/body concerns in relation to the amount and type of media they consume. Instagram in particular is included in this study, as it is an image-based social networking site where users can …

Night Of The Witch: Alternative Spirituality, Identity And Media, Andreana Tarleton

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis works to understand the relationships witches and conjurors have with the film and television depictions of them. Employing the method of film critique, I argue that the witch stands as a cultural symbol in the US of women and femmes with power, and that their stories serve as lessons to these populations about what it means to be an acceptable woman or femme, while simultaneously creating and perpetuating stereotypes of magic practitioners. Then, using the combination of hashtag ethnography, in-person and video interviewing and internet surveys, I argue that #witchblr and #witchesofcolor, as well as the space of …

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, …

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.

Infinity Wars: Post 9/11 Superhero Films And American Empire, Peter J. Bruno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last two decades, superhero films have accounted for some of the most popular and financially lucrative films of all time. This thesis analyzes some of the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of various superhero films following their post 9/11 boom. Beginning with America’s response to the events of 9/11 and a subsequent retreat into a Manichean world of good versus evil, I introduce the term “empirical reality” in order to account for the ways daily American life is shielded from the worst effects of U.S. foreign policy. On screen this manifests by perpetuating the myth of the “clean war” …

Black Lives Matter: Understanding Social Media And The Changing Landscape Of Social Trust, Diana Carolina Cascante

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to understand how social media is changing the landscape of social capital. Current research indicates a paradox between the growing use of mediated sources that are building social capital and low levels of social trust found in social media. People are skeptical of whether social media is trustworthy because there is no mechanism for fact-checking or verifying the information posted online. Since traces of social capital postulate social trust, it is needed to promote communal change. To understand this paradox, the Black Lives Matter movement is examined as an online platform that brings people together who have …

3rd Place Contest Entry: Aesthetic Activism: Protest Art In The Delano Grape Strike, Felicia Viano

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Felicia Viano's submission for the 2019 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won third place. It contains her essay on using library resources, a three-page sample of her research project on the use of art as a social movement tactic by the United Farm Workers during the Delano Grape Strike, and her works cited list.

Felicia is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in History and Peace Studies. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Robert Slayton.

1st Place Contest Entry: Countering The Current: The Function Of Cinematic Waves In Communist Vs. Capitalist Societies, Maddie Gwinn

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Maddie Gwinn's submission for the 2019 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won first place. It contains her essay on using library resources, a three-page sample of her research project on how the Czech New Wave and New Hollywood cinema are defined by their agency in preserving and prescribing cultural meaning across their societies while being bound to their economic systems, and her works cited list.

Maddie is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in Film Production. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Carmichael Peters.

Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis documents and analyzes representation of abortion in American adult animated comedy, charging that it is under-examined and significant because representation on television in other genres has traditionally been absent or misleading. It covers theories on how pop culture communicates social norms, and posits that greater truthful representation of abortion in popular culture may be effective in reducing prevalent abortion stigma in the U.S. amongst the young by normalizing and more accurately representing the procedure. It reviews why our culture should be concerned about reducing abortion stigma in the U.S. It also identifies the “taboo ratings paradox,” wherein television …

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 …

Gender, Politics, Market Segmentation, And Taste: Adult Contemporary Radio At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Saesha Senger

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation explores issues of gender politics, market segmentation, and taste through an examination of the contributions of several artists who have achieved Adult Contemporary (AC) chart success. The scope of the project is limited to a period when many artists who figured prominently in both the broader mainstream of American popular music and the more specific Adult Contemporary category were most commercially viable: from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. My contention is that, as gender politics and gendered social norms continued to change in the United States at this time, Adult Contemporary – the chart, the format, and the …

Batman's Animated Brain(S), Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Presentations

Much of the analysis of Batman’s brain – whether by scholars, writers, or other comic characters – focuses on his psychological make‐up. That is, what makes Bruce Wayne psychologically motivated to be The Batman? His childhood trauma is often poised as the answer, the tireless pursuit of “justice” in an attempt to regain control from the trauma of his parents’ murders (Sanna 2015). The same could be said for his nemeses. Madness, psychopathy, and insanity are centered in the corrupted minds of Gotham’s ghastliest, some of whom have also had psychological or physical traumas (Langley 2012; Lytle 2008). A psychological …