American Popular Culture Commons^™

Snapshots Of A Fictional Past: Photographic Nostalgia In The Early 20th Century Art Novel., Harry A. Jones Iv

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that the proliferation of a mass codependent relationship with nostalgia in the twentieth century shares a parallel history with the widespread adoption of the reproducible image being used by collective audiences as a supplement for natural memory, or what Proust names “voluntary memory.” This conflict between nostalgia-hungry consumers and artists inspired groups such as Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secessionists and artistically minded authors like Henry James, who employed increasingly complex photographic and literary practices to resist the images’ tendency to debase the aesthetic quality of their own work. Authors such as Marcel Proust and William Faulkner used …

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

Warrioress In White: A Semiotic Analysis Of America's Joan Of Arc In The Women Of The Copper Country, Akasha Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

Mary Doria Russell’s The Women of the Copper Country is a fictionalized historical account of the 1913 mining strike in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Significantly in this strike, a great deal of leadership was focused in the Union’s Women’s Auxiliary. In particular, one woman formed the backbone of the local movement. Known by her community as Big Annie, Anna Klobuchar Clements was the heart of the 1913 strike. Memories of her bravery linger today in the form of recorded testimonies by elderly community members, immortalization in plaques and songs, and Russell’s popular novel. Today she is remembered not as herself, not …

"Never Forget": Embodied Absence And Extended Relations Of Care After 9/11, Sophie L. Riemenschneider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a reflection on how loss was articulated in the wake of 9/11. The terror attacks engendered a memorial style that sought to give shape to grief, acknowledging it without filling it in or erasing it. This new style, which I term embodied absence, exists across a range of mediums, from literature to architecture. It is such a potent memorial form because it also captures the traumatic process, which is prolonged, layered, and potentially open-ended. However, despite their ability to mirror the nature of trauma, instances of embodied absence never verbalize the attacks’ root trauma—the disconnect between our …

Existentially Guilty: Where Do I Go From Here?, Devontae Wilson

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Teachers, students, parents, and even politicians have been forced to confront the by-products of not having difficult conversations about race and class. Political pundits are using this moment in history sparked by recorded injustice and the publicized murders of unarmed black people at the hands of law enforcement to demonize Critical Race Theory (CRT), a framework created to analyze how the law is racialized. This portfolio is largely a result of Dr. Rudine Sims-Bishop’s “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” and contextualizing it through my personal experience as a classroom teacher, as a black man in a majority white, female …

"Knowing It's Real Means You Gotta Make A Decision": Depictions Of Post-Traumatic Disorders And Coping Mechanisms In The Punisher And Jessica Jones, Megan M. Rutter

English Department Masters Theses

Post-traumatic disorders have been included in some of the most popular narratives in mainstream culture. Though the early decades of movies included 1948’s The Best Days of Our Lives is an award-winning movie that follows three veterans home from World War II and depicts their struggles with reacclimating to society it became more popular after Vietnam veterans and their allies fought and protested for an appropriate diagnosis for PTSD after decades of it not being seen as a legitimate psychological disorder. Since then, post-traumatic disorders have been included in media as popular as the series finale of M*A*S*H in 1983, …

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me (Double) Consciousness: Literacy, Orality, Print, And The Cultural Formation Of Black American Identity In Harriet Jacobs’S Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl And Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Aisha Matthews

Third Stone

While literacy may have signified the humanity of male slaves in the antebellum South (at least in their own view), the English language and American print culture did not similarly empower female slaves towards positive subject-formation through discourse. This article will examine the tension between oral culture and print culture in Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Ultimately, an analysis of Jacobs’s work through the lens of book history and its power to shape cultural formation will suggest a critical imperative for the contemporary neo-slave narrative genre.

Accordingly, the agency of contemporary …

Using Big Data To Facilitate A Lyrical Analysis Of Poetry And Rap, Remington Yve Giller

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

Poetry and rap are dissected using text mining techniques in order to determine overall trends in the words used by both. With this data, the way in which ideas and concepts are expressed can be compared and contrasted as a way of showing the legitimacy of rap as a form of literary expression. Other topics within the paper are: a background of the history of rap and the digital humanities, and an example of a close reading featuring a medieval poem and a rap by Eminem. This demonstrates how even in a traditional way of handling texts, both poetry and …

Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography With Pseudonyms And Some Tall Tales, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

In a city torn apart by racial tension, Damien Cavalieri is an adolescent without a tribe. His mother -who pines for the 1950s Brooklyn Italian community she grew up in- fears he lacks commitment to his heritage. Damien’s fellow Staten Islanders agree, dubbing him a “fake Italian” and bullying him for being artistic. Complicating matters, his efforts to make friends and date girls outside of the Italian community are thwarted time and again by circumstances beyond his control. When a tragic accident shakes Damien to his core, he begins a journey of self-discovery that will lead him to Italy, where …

Within The Shadow Of The Cowboy: Myths And Realities Of The Old American West, Katherine Lamb

Undergraduate Theses

It has been argued that the American cowboy is the most widely misunderstood and misinterpreted figure in American history. This mythic figure does not look like the real ranch hands who littered the American West throughout the nineteenth century, nor does he act like them. Instead, he is set apart, as a figurehead of masculinity and American ideals, determined to roam the frontier as a guardian of justice and stability. This version of the cowboy, however, is not bound within the pages of novels or within limitations of film. Instead, the cowboy’s ideals, persona, look, and code remain a vivid …

Final Master's Portfolio, Jonathan Correa

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Jonathan G. Correa's Master's Portfolio

Old Industries, Old Conflicts: The Significance Of American Epic Novels, Arturo Alcazar

Honors Projects

This essay focuses on three American epic novels: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and Underworld by Don DeLillo. More specifically, the essay examines the themes of ambiguity, redemption, good and evil, isolation, and violence as they are depicted in these three novels and what they indicate about America and its people and society.

The Infinite Crisis: How The American Comic Book Has Been Shaped By War, Winston Andrus

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis project argues that war has been the greatest catalyst for the American comic book medium to become a socio-political change agent within western society. Comic books have become one of the most pervasive influences to global popular culture, with superheroes dominating nearly every popular art form. Yet, the academic world has often ignored the comic book medium as a niche market instead of integrated into the broader discussions on cultural production and conflict studies. This paper intends to bridge the gap between what has been classified as comic book studies and the greater academic world to demonstrate the …

"The Most Insistent Subject Of Popular Music": An Exploration Of Romeo And Juliet Music Adaptations And Their Expressions Of Modern Cultural Issues, Gabrielle Sheets

Honors Projects

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597) has been persistently popular throughout history, especially in the modern production of popular music releases. People are often widely familiar with Romeo and Juliet’s usage throughout music. However, the reasoning behind the adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is relatively undiscussed. Romeo and Juliet is a leading symbol of tragic romance, an ever-present topic in popular music. Romeo and Juliet’s canonical qualities lead music artists to adapt the original play since it permits access to an audience that is familiar with the contexts of Shakespeare’s tragedy. This essay also provides a clear definition of “adaptation,” requiring …

Look At Her: The Subversive Spectacle Of Grande Dame Guignol Cinema, Michelle Smith

English Theses

While the Grande Dame Guignol films of the early 1960s served in their time to capitalize on the reputations of aging female stars and the growing popularity of the horror genre, an updated reading of this subgenre proves that it is rich with social critique regarding the feminine experience, social performance, and the tendencies of classical Hollywood cinema that promote a dominant, patriarchal social narrative. While many popular and critical responses diminish them as “psycho-biddy” or “hagsploitation” films, the Grande Dame Guignol tradition’s transformation of its actresses from glamorous icons to unrecognizable villains rejects such limiting appraisals by focusing on …

She Lives: Bringing The Bride Of Frankenstein To Life In The Comics, Michael Torregrossa

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein recently celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary, and its story remains vibrant in popular culture, especially in the comics medium. I’ve done a number of conference papers in the past devoted to representations of the Creature and his creator, Victor Frankenstein, in comics and comic art, but I’ve only recently begun to look at how the character of the Bride of Frankenstein has been depicted. I’d like to use this opportunity to further that work and look more closely at continuations and recastings of her story. The Bride has no chance at life in Shelley’s novel, as she is …

Animal-Human Vocabulary Builder, Domenick Acocella, Rene Cordero

Open Educational Resources

The assignment helps students individually build a usable, expanding vocabulary of terms and concepts, enabling each to further contribute to the ongoing, evolving written, oral, and visual conversations centered on the use of and thought about animals for food, clothing, work, entertainment, experimentation, imagery, and companionship.

No Longer, Not Yet: Retrofuture Hauntings On The Jetsons, Stefano Morello

Publications and Research

From Back to the Future to The Wonder Years, from Peggy Sue Got Married to The Stray Cats’ records – 1980s youth culture abounds with what Michael D. Dwyer has called “pop nostalgia,” a set of critical affective responses to representations of previous eras used to remake the present or to imagine corrective alternatives to it. Longings for the Fifties, Dwyer observes, were especially key to America’s self-fashioning during the Reagan era (2015).

Moving from these premises, I turn to anachronisms, aesthetic resonances, and intertextual references that point to, as Mark Fisher would have it, both a lost past …

The Fast Fashion Fad, Megan Wu

Pop Culture Intersections

New companies with mission statements to use solely recycled materials have started to pop-up all over the world. Even well established brands such as Nike or Adidas have started to create lines of products made with recycled materials. However, despite these efforts, I sadly believe that fast fashion will continue to dominate the fashion industry in the years to come due to two factors. Most consumers remain uneducated about the negative impacts that fast fashion has on the environment and mindlessly partake in society’s consumerist culture. Therefore, they fall subject to marketing schemes fast fashion companies employ. While some may …

Secure Digital Contact Tracing Methods Are Necessary For Slowing Down Covid-19, Rania Ansari

Pop Culture Intersections

This article covers the fears of digital contact tracing during the current pandemic. Citizens do have the right to be understandably uncertain about trusting the government because of past instances such as security breaches ranging from NSA security leaks to personal voter data exposure. The information provided in this paper should, additionally, make it easier for those who are worried about contact tracing and their rights to understand what is implied by the phrases “digital contact tracing” and “data privacy.” The novel coronavirus pandemic calls for urgent, necessary, and effective safety methods, including data analytics, surveillance, and Artificial Intelligence that …

Behind Social Media: A World Of Manipulation And Control, Spencer J. Keenan

Pop Culture Intersections

This article will be arguing that big players, mainly governments and large corporations, use user data, targeted advertising, and selective speech to manipulate users of popular social media platforms. They do this in order to achieve their agendas goals at the expense of the users. These goals may range from selling a certain good or service to swaying a certain percentage of voters to cast their ballots one way or another. Regardless of the outcome, people are being taken advantage of, with most not even knowing it. Users must look past the media in front of them to see their …

Seeking Sales In New Channels: The Effectiveness Of Influencer Marketing, Alanna Morgan

Pop Culture Intersections

This article investigates the effectiveness of influencer marketing industry. It closely examines the various types of social media influencers and the impact they can have on target audiences. Through their authentic connection with their followers, influencers create a strong sense of community with their fanbase. As a result, marketers then target specific influencers to promote products to their preferred audiences. If executed strategically, marketers have a higher chance of selling their products through influencers than they would through conventional internet advertisements. This article includes examples of both strong influencer-brand partnerships and weak ones in order to discuss how influencer marketing …

Star Wars: From Fantasy Film To Statement Showcase, Erica Pang

Pop Culture Intersections

This paper will examine the success of the Star Wars franchise by comparing two of its films: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). During the nearly 40 year period in between each film’s release, there was significant socio-political change that had occurred. Therefore, in order to continue to appeal to its existing audience, as well as adopt new audiences, Star Wars had to deviate from the traditional characters and storylines of A New Hope and instead, focus on diversity and representation in The Force Awakens. Using socio-political and feminist approaches, I …

The Societal Influence Of The Nba, Kyle Kawashiri

Pop Culture Intersections

Based on recent events, there has been a lot of discussion about the racial issues in America. Many professional athletes have been vocal about these issues, but NBA players seem to be at the forefront of many of the conversations regarding social injustice in this country. This article will examine different factors that have influenced the popularity of the National Basketball Association, such as product distribution, online engagement, global outreach, and the choice to allow players to use their platforms. The article will then argue how these factors have allowed the NBA and its players to be leaders in the …

Why Playing Video Games Is In Your Best Interest, Adan Salazar

Pop Culture Intersections

This article explores the world of video games and their potential to benefit one's well being. For decades video games have persevered in pop culture and have provided entertainment for countless people. The overwhelming popularity of video games has also sparked debate on how they can affect an individual. From extended screen time hurting vision to violent content affecting actions many claims have been made against video games. The truth is there is far more evidence supporting video games as a benefit towards users. Enriching social practices, providing therapy and implementation into classrooms are just a few of the ways …

Defending K-Pop Idols Online: The Fanbase’S Underlying Issue Of Ignorance, Grace Gita Tantra

Pop Culture Intersections

This article covers how parasocial relationships and echo chambers promote ignorance within K-pop fandoms on social media platforms, specifically when it comes to cultural appropriation, racial stereotyping, and anti-Blackness. Despite the recent surge in education and accountability in other areas of pop culture, K-pop has created a unique space online when it comes to these dialogues. We will be exploring this through looking at the Korean wave, implications of parasocial relationships, and the divide in the common conversation online; these concepts will be applied to specific recent examples of K-pop controversies and the fans' responses.

A World Of Luxury, Tanvi Yeccaluri

Pop Culture Intersections

This article explores the history of luxury and the impacts of the growing consumerism in the United States. The change in consumption habits is touched on, with analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic stimulus check usage and trends. The debate of the importance of social status in the US and how our current society displays materialistic values in relation to the growing demand for luxury is a covered, and supported by numerous studies and research conducted over the past twenty years. There is an explanation of how society has become driven by the desire for luxury in order to increase social …

Death As A Gift In J.R.R Tolkien's Work And Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gaelle Abalea

Journal of Tolkien Research

In the episode “Intervention” (S5 ep.18), when going on a spiritual quest about her nature as a slayer, Buffy is told, by the guide under the form of the first Slayer, that ‘Death is her Gift’. Buffy, a 20^th century young woman is confused by the declaration, as are the viewers unless they have read the Silmarilliion, in which the Elves refer to human mortality as the Gift of Illuvatar, a gift they greatly envy.

Writing decades apart, Tolkien and Whedon may not have the same use of the word “gift” as their background and inspirations are quite different …

Posting About Blm Made It A Movement Pushing For Real Change, Nolan Michaels

Pop Culture Intersections

Although social media includes opposing views that have unified against BLM, it has been responsible for massive growth of the movement. In this paper, I will show how social media plays a pivotal role in BLM by scaling up the movement and encouraging more nuanced and diverse perspectives on BLM to develop. Although all social media platforms are used to promote BLM, my examination will focus mainly on Twitter because it is the primary platform analyzed by scholars that investigates the growth of BLM. What MLK was able to accomplish by tapping into the new medium of television is now …