American Popular Culture Commons^™

Religious Iconography, Expressionist Lighting, And The Antihero's Spiritual Journey In Marvel's Daredevil, Savannah L. Pruett

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In Marvel’s Daredevil (2015), Matthew Murdock undergoes different phases of an antiheroic spiritual journey as his faith in the judicial system and his Maker is tested by evil in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. This thesis will dig deeper to reveal how the Daredevil series uses purposefully designed religious iconography and expressionist lighting to tell the story of Matthew Murdock’s antiheroic spiritual journey across three seasons. This thesis aims to prove that Daredevil is a complex and thought-provoking franchise that analyzes what it means to be an antihero, including the moral and ethical lines one is willing to cross to …

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 …

Anna Nicole's Constitutional Estates Law Legacy, David Fagundes

Faculty Articles

This Essay examines Anna Nicole's surprising constitutional estates legacy in three parts. First, it overviews the bitter litigation between Anna Nicole and the estate of J. Howard Marshall II. It then turns to the pair of Supreme Court cases spawned by that litigation. Part II discusses the holding and significance of Marshall v. Marshall, a successful challenge to the scope of the wills exception to federal jurisdiction. Part III dis­cusses the holding and significance of Stern v. Marshall, which held that Article I bankruptcy judges cannot enter final judgments on state law counterclaims. In its Conclusion, the Essay …

Song Analysis - Final Project For The American Musical Experience, Agustina Checa

Open Educational Resources

Assignment designed as a final project for the undergraduate course MSH245: The American Musical Experience at Lehman College. This course surveys different musical expressions that emerged in the United States as well as the historical, social and technological contexts framing their popularization.This assignment asks students to analyze a song of their choosing performed by an American artist and to follow specific requirements in their study of this piece which include: historical and social contextualization, analysis of style, influences and lyrics, as well as the elaboration of a "listening guide" to fully appreciate the composition. Students are given the …

Writing White Women: White (Supremacist) Feminism In American Literature And Culture, Post Suffrage To Post Hillary (1920–2020s), Jannell C. Mcconnell Parsons

Theses and Dissertations--English

Recent critical texts by Jessie Daniels, Mikki Kendall, and more frame the histories of mainstream white feminism in ways that highlight its ongoing complicity with white supremacy and its maintenance of racist structures and systems. In conversation with these current scholarly as well as mainstream cultural conversations about white feminism that have been happening with more frequency since 2016, this project turns to post-suffrage narratives of white womanhood to historicize the modern narratives we tell about feminism’s history. Each chapter of this project considers a 1920s or 1930s literary narrative alongside current literary and cultural narratives as I explore the …

Shades Of Justice: Exploring Colorism In The Hispanic Community And Its Legal Battle For Equity, Christel A. Infante

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis focuses on the racial disparity within the Hispanic and Latinx communities as injustices exist within the community and the workplace. Racial disparities in the United States have been a persistent and deeply rooted issue that has plagued the nation for centuries. Despite significant progress in civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation, disparities in areas such as education, employment, and criminal justice persist. Understanding the factors contributing to these disparities is essential for addressing systemic inequalities and fostering a more just society. The analysis of this thesis primarily focuses on the cases and ramifications of Hispanic persons within the workplace, …

Prince Basketball's Ambassadors: Virginia Union's "Dream Team" And The Origins Of Integrated College Basketball, 1938-42, Marvin T. Chiles

History Faculty Publications

This article explores the history of integrated college basketball in the United States, with a focus on the Virginia Union Panthers. The Panthers, known as the "Dream Team," broke the color barrier in college basketball in the 1930s and 1940s. The article also discusses the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team, known as the "Dream Team," and its impact on race relations. It argues that the original Dream Team was actually the Virginia Union Panthers, who symbolized the defeat of white supremacy through athletic achievement. The article highlights the challenges faced by historically black college sports, such as lack of …

Review Of Empire And Environment: Ecological Ruin In The Transpacific., Hanyue Li

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

A Book Review on Empire and Environment: Ecological Ruin in the Transpacific.

Review Of Beyond The Icon: Asian American Graphic Narratives By Eleanor Ty, Maite Urcaregui

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Re-Visions: Examining Narratives Of Asian American Mental Health, Kenji Aoki

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This paper examines the intersection between Asian American mental health and resilience tropes. While research has acknowledged that Asian Americans have disparate mental health gaps regarding mental health stigma and how Asian American young adults are the only racial group in which suicide is their leading cause of death, there has been limited study that attempts to directly convey Asian American voices beyond broad statistical or cultural generalizations. To supplement ongoing research and Asian American livelihoods, this essay conjectures and attempts to illuminate the histories, mental illness, and health narratives of Asian Americans, the good, the bad, the ugly, the …

The Modular Fiction Of Ken Liu, Elizabeth Lawrence

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Ken Liu is an influential translator of Chinese-language science fiction and an award winning author of original speculative fiction as well. His readers routinely observe that Liu draws on his Chinese heritage for world building and plot development. Less remarked upon are parallels between Liu’s creative process and modular production within Chinese literary and material culture. In this article, I explore these parallels through Liu’s wide-ranging fiction. The intent is not to pigeonhole Liu as a distinctly Chinese or Chinese American author – he has rejected such labels himself – but to universalize models of Chinese creative expression.

David Henry Hwang’S Yellow Face: Fictional Autoethnography And Parody On Racial Stereotypes, Quan Manh Ha, Jacob Christiansen

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Hwang’s play Yellow Face (2007), a dramaturgically inventive work, combines multiple narrative forms into a plot that blurs the distinction among social science, social commentary, and fiction. The play is simultaneously self-mocking and self-examining in its representation of the Asian American experience in theatre. It both examines Hwang’s own racial identity and boldly redefines conventional theatrical forms as the playwright places himself at the center of a highly embarrassing, fictional racial controversy in order to scrutinize the performativity of an Asian American identity. This article argues that Yellow Face is fictitious autoethnodrama as it acerbically parodies racialization.

"Loving You No Matter What You Do": Ai's Dramatic Monologues, 1970s Asian American Feminisms, And Reproductive Justice, Catherine Irwin

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay makes visible the 1970s involvement of Asian American and Women of Color feminists in reproductive justice. Grounded in the Asian American feminist praxis of remembering, this essay analyzes how three dramatic monologues by the Asian American mixed-race poet Ai engage with the discourses of reproduce justice set forth by Asian American and Women of Color activists leading up to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Using an Asian American feminist lens, this paper argues that the speakers in Ai’s monologues utilize these discourses circulating about abortion and women’s health care to construct images of the treatment of dispossessed …

In Praise Of Limes, Poets, And Mentors: A Conversation With Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Noelle Brada-Williams, Elizabeth Asborno

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Volume Twelve: Counting Our Blessings, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Aaldp Cover Volume 12, Joanne Lamb

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Romancing The University: Bipoc Scholars In Romance Novels In The 1980s And Now, Jayashree Kamble

Publications and Research

English-language mass-market romance novels written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers and starring BIPOC protagonists are a small but important group. This article is a comparative analysis of how recent representations of diversity in this sub-set of the genre, specifically the character of the Black academic and the language of racial justice, compare with the first group of BIPOC novels that were published in 1984 (Sandra Kitt’s Adam and Eva and All Good Things as well as Barbara Stephens’s A Toast to Love). In Adrianna Herrera’s American Love Story (2019), Katrina Jackson’s Office Hours (2020), and …

Keeping It Real: The Evolution Of The Black American Sitcom, Ebony E. Prescod

Capstones

The image of the black person has undergone many iterations in American popular culture. From the mammy of post antebellum America, to blaxploitation, to the black upper class -- what it next for the representation of black people in popular media, especially as it is now being helmed by black creatives. What does the black American of the 2020s look like? Now, what does it look like to be true to the black experience, today?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KpHMb37_khYkOmlR6-gEPGEHLVZA4ND7HwNwhdz6ig/edit?usp=sharing

A View Of Black Speculative Past And Future: An Interview With Tim Fielder, Julian Chambliss

Third Stone

No abstract provided.

Visual Afrofuturism And Dieselfunk In The Works Of Tim Fielder, Justin Wigard

Third Stone

Tim Fielder is, first and foremost, a visual Afrofuturist. This distinction is significant in understanding Fielder’s corpus, who works as an illustrator, cartoonist, concept artist, and even animator. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi alongside Jim, his twin brother, Fielder has become an ardent advocate, pioneer, and creator in the 21st-century Afrofuturist movement, creating visual representations of Black people overcoming past, present, and future systems of oppression, all within fantastic and speculative settings.

Adapting Black Culture: Without The Black Experience, Bakhita Solenyanu

English

No abstract provided.

Negative Estrangement: Fantasy And Race In The Drow And Drizzt Do’Urden, Steven Holmes

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This essay introduces the concept of negative estrangement to help understand current cultural interventions into the norms of depicting fantasy races. First, this essay builds on Shklovsky’s concept of estrangement to describe the literary practice of negative estrangement, wherein artists craft “more evil” foes based on hybridized amalgamations of stereotypes to create antipathy toward a subject, be it monster or fantasy race. This practice is sometimes used in service of confronting the issue of race and racism, despite seeming to reify or rearticulate racist stereotypes.

This essay builds on Tolkien’s argument in favor of creating “more evil” foes to exemplify …

Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link To Black Women's (Mis)Treatment In Real Life And On The Page, Madisty R. Thomas

English Theses & Dissertations

As a work in progress, this thesis explores the interplay between historical and contemporary devaluation of and violence against Black women, materially and discursively, including visual mediums and written text. Specifically, I focus on the gothic novel to illuminate the impact race-based inventions such as chattel slavery and human exhibitions, as well as the generic tropes of the Gothic, have had on Black women’s representation and lived experience via a wide-ranging introduction and close examination of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. Additionally, the conclusion attempts to suggest how Black women and girls might survive in this antiblack world, thus escape …

Sex In The Sixties: Playboy's Contradictory Contribution To Social Change In The 1960s, Emily Stucky

The Cardinal Edge

This paper summarizes the perceptions of Playboy magazine during the height of its influence, from 1955 to 1975, through the lens of social justice advocates in the 1960s. Many historical scholars characterize Playboy magazine as strictly anti-feminist, while others would cast Hugh Hefner as liberating in his ideology and political views, seen through reviews of the magazine throughout the 1960s and comments from Hefner himself. But it is more likely Playboy’s legacy is much more complicated than either of these positions allow. Playboy occupied a conflicting role in the 1960s: liberating in its post-war sex standards for both men …

The Library Wants To Kill You: Places Of Information As Battleground And Sanctum In Halo, Mackenzie Streissguth

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Video games are often a widespread access point for studying information-seeking behaviors, as a large portion of the population (and its youth) play them. Understanding how real-world analogues, like libraries, are portrayed in games can give us insights into how they mirror conflicts of reality. By examining the depictions of information systems and accompanying curators in Halo: Combat Evolved (2001), we can begin to investigate the perceptions of libraries and their antagonism in ludonarratives. Resulting analysis reveals multiple layers of archival hostility that are ultimately upended in later iterations in the game series, changing the nature of the library itself. …

This Sounds Like An Episode Of The X-Files: Analyzing How Twitter Users Interpreted The Covid-19 Pandemic Through The Lens Of Sci-Fi Television, Nicole Neece

Proceedings from the Document Academy

While science fiction has a long-standing habit of predicting future technologies, The X-Files’ focus on anatomical manipulations as a means of control resulted in a plotline that inadvertently mirrored the COVID-19 pandemic which occurred a few years later. The proximity to such a similar, real-world situation resulted in some audiences interpreting their own experiences through the framework of sci-fi television, demonstrating that the discursive environment crafted through the text of The X-Files is continually applicable to contemporary anxieties and paranoia even after the show finished airing. In this article, I argue that The X-Files’ critiques of real-world abuses of …

Nostalgia's Complicated Role In Contemporary Pop Culture, Ethan Clawsie

Pop Culture Intersections

Over the past several decades, there has been a growing trend of nostalgia in popular culture, with the number of remakes, reboots, and revivals of classic films, television shows, and music at an all-time high. Dozens of old TV shows have also been rebooted in the past few years, old movies are being remade, much of the music that’s been released lately has been engineered to sound like it came from the past, and a subset of recent video games either build upon old games (like Pokémon GO), or are made to look and feel like old games (like Flappy …

Barbie: For Better Or Worse, Renee Ho

Pop Culture Intersections

This article covers a history of Barbie, as well as an analysis of the live action Barbie movie. Barbie lovers and haters alike often debate whether the iconized doll is a feminist figure. Those who critique her argue that the messages she sends are superficial, or that Barbie perpetuates an unrealistic beauty standard and causes harm to the mental well being of her audience, especially because most of her target audience is made up of younger, impressionable girls. However, there is no doubt that Barbie can also be a role model for her audience. She was the first doll to …

Doc/U/Ment: Affinities In 20th And 21st-Century Documental Poetics, Katherine Payne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents, analyzes, and builds on the existing literary genealogy of documental poetry. In 2020 Michael Leong proposed the term documental poetry to describe the turn toward source materials in 21^st-century North American poetry, seen in longform research-based poems that explicitly incorporate documentation and seek to intervene in cultural memory. Using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance, I argue that there are clear affinities between 21^st-century poets and their 20^th-century literary forerunners, also that an expansion of the scope of documental poetics is needed. The three nodes of connection I examine are works …

"Live Free, Read Hard:" Mass-Market Westerns, Mainstream Readers, And The Far Right, 1970-1999, Indigo Recker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes mass-produced western novels and their readers from the years 1970 to 1999. At the end of the twentieth century, when mass market western novels were sold at a rate indicating consistent readerships, the US was seeing a rise in far-right politics with events like the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, the 1993 WACO siege, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. This readership, and these political movements, are the focus of this dissertation, exploring how readers situated themselves into political discourse, how political meanings embedded in mass-market fiction aligned with racial, class, gender, and regional identities in contemporary US …