Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons^™

Assessment And Impact Of Gentrified Public Housing Neighborhoods In The United States: A Case Study Of Chicago, Todd W. Sink

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social-mix housing policies play a unique role in shaping the geography of gentrification in cities throughout the U.S. and Europe. The HOPE VI program in the U.S. is one popular example. Since its inception in 1992, HOPE VI has simultaneously displaced thousands of urban poor from their homes and neighborhoods, reduced their housing opportunities, and created and encouraged housing development for a more affluent population. Yet over the years, very few empirical studies have emerged that examine the place-based outcomes of HOPE VI within the context of gentrification. As such, important empirical questions remain unanswered. This study focuses on the …

Breeding Migrations, Survivorship, And Obligate Crayfish Burrow Use By Adult Crawfish Frogs (Lithobates Areolatus), Jennifer L. Heemeyer

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Movements are risky behaviors to animals, and amphibians are no exception. Being unable to cover long distances quickly, amphibians may find migrations challenging, yet many if not most species exhibit cyclic annual migrations. Crawfish Frogs (Lithobates areolatus), are a relatively understudied species of North American amphibian listed as endangered in Indiana and Iowa, and considered a species of conservation concern throughout much of their range. To better understand the biology of this species, and in particular, to assess the role that movements play in affecting survivorship, I radio tracked 48 Crawfish Frog adults, in 2009 and 2010. My study encompassed …

The Failure Of The Free World: Anarchy In Uncle Tom’S Cabin, Andy Cerrone

Interdisciplinary Perspectives: a Graduate Student Research Showcase

Harriett Beecher Stowe is often identified as an advocate for Christianity, woman's suffrage, autonomy, and the abolishment of slavery.  However, inviting the reader to view her work through an anarchist lens, her magnum opus—Uncle Tom’s Cabin— offers the reader the opportunity to reconstruct her politics with immense implication.  Critics regard Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a sermon devised with the intention to inflate the nation with the righteous spirit of God, offering to the reader the opportunity to partake in the message of her religious vision.  While Stowe's absolute faith in her Christian profile of God is present, she invariably …

"Undone By Murmurs Of Love": Traumatic Legacies And The Struggle For Personal And Communal Identity Formation In Toni Morrison's Trilogy, Fida Yasin

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Implications of racial oppression on personal and collective African American identity formation in Toni Morrison’s trilogy are explored in this thesis. Morrison reconstructs African American history in her trilogy, but she also enacts a cultural healing through content and form. Impossible choices are made by characters in Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise who are influenced by the racial trauma they experience and inherit. The legacies of oppression--traumatic memories, fragmentation, stereotypes and negative associations—distort the way these characters view themselves and one another. They are disoriented, isolated, and displaced. Characters recover from their past trauma— together—when they share their stories. …

Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. Comparative Literature: Theory, Method, Application. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998. ISBN 90-420-0534-3 299 pages, bibliography, index. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek presents a framework of comparative literature based on a contextual (systemic and empirical) approach for the study of culture and literature and applies the framework in audience studies, film and literature, women's literature, translation studies, new media and scholarship in the humanities and in the analyses of English, French, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Romanian, and English-Canadian modern, contemporary, and ethnic minority texts. Copyright release to the author in 2006.

History And Transnational Identities In Junot Díaz’S The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Brian Joseph Flores

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of my thesis is to analyze Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and evaluate the role literature plays within the larger context of the relationship among the different countries and cultures in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the place historical events play within this understanding. In Díaz’s novel, there is an understanding of the presence of multiple cultural identities. This awareness of multiple cultural identities leads to the difficulty the characters encounter when trying understanding themselves as individuals. On a much larger scale, the characters also try to understand their cultural, social, and historical …

Transgenic Manipulation In Zebra Fish By Combination Of Cre-Loxp Recombinant System, Tol2 Transposon System, And Rnai Technique, Yang Bai

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overall goal of this research is to make precisely controlled transgene constructs to target genes in zebrafish and facilitate their functional studies. Many of the previous transgenic techniques (e.g. morpholino) can only produce transient gene expression or inhibition, which is not good for long-term studies. Also, transgenes that randomly integrate into the chromosomes are typically difficult to control and are poorly regulated. Thus, it would be of great benefit to develop a reversibly controlled transgenic tool to help study gene function. Here, we propose to combine three distinct techniques to generate a stable transgenic tool to facilitate gene functional …

Diagnosis Of Depersonalization Disorder, Margaret R. Dehoff

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Depersonalization Disorder (DPD) is considered both under-researched and under-diagnosed. A variety of reasons have been proposed for the under-diagnosis of DPD, including the high frequency of depersonalization as a symptom and comorbidity of DPD with other disorders. Under-diagnosis of DPD has also been attributed to inadequate diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV-TR, as it lists only four criteria and only one specifically addresses the phenomenon of depersonalization. Several groups of researchers have proposed more comprehensive and in-depth conceptualizations of DPD. Further, common biases in clinical decision-making, such as an over-reliance on cognitive heuristics and the use of prototypes, can contribute to …

Before It Rains, Veronica O. Parkman

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not parish but have everlasting life." Contemporary Christian literature is becoming first choice in public libraries and bookstores throughout the country. From novels about end-time prophesy to autobiographies of world-renowned pastors, works written for and about Christians have reached an all-time high. Before it Rains is indeed, according to the scriptural definition of salvation found in the King James Version of the bible, a contemporary Christian novel; the characters must go through the biblical process of accepting Jesus Christ as their …

Stressful Life Events And Interpersonal, Religious, And Spiritual Changes, Paul Murdock

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Survivors of stressful life events and traumatic experiences often report positive psychological changes “...as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances” (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004, p. 1). Three often reported areas of growth include having a greater appreciation for life in general, new priorities, and an increased significance placed on interpersonal, spiritual or religious issues. Despite reports of positive changes, the literature on stress-related growth (SRG) is inconclusive as to whether SRG is an illusion or represents actual change. For example, no studies to date appear to use longitudinal data, objective indictors, or behavioral measures of change. …

Confronting Environmental And Social Crises: Octavia E. Butler’S Critique Of The Spiritual Roots Of Environmental Injustice In Her Parable Novels, Melissa Vargas

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

We are living in the midst of environmental and social crises. This fact was not lost on late African-American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, whose 1993 Parable of the Sower and 1998 Nebula Award-winning Parable of the Talents depict and critique the current environmental and social crises in the United States. Speaking of Sower in an interview with Essence magazine, Butler says that all she “did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters” (“Brave New Worlds” 164). In another interview with Randall Kenan, Butler describes environmental …

"Ain't You Heard"?: The Jazz Poetry Of Langston Hughes, Kristin Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

It all began with a piano bench. At the age of four, I sat next to my first piano teacher, as she told me the names of the keys. 'This is C, D, E . . . ," she said, her finger touching each key. moving through the entirety of a C-major scale. Afterward she asked, "Now. which one is F?" Though I touched the incorrect key, A instead of F, I remember being fascinated by the realization that I could create music by depressing those keys, making little wooden hammers strike strings in the piano's hidden belly. That fascination …

Dystopian Surface, Utopian Dream: Wittman Ah Sing Foresees Postethnic Humanity, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

"Dystopian Surface, Utopian Dream" examines the postethnic and the posthuman in fiction by Maxine Hong Kingston, Octavia Butler, and Isaac Asimov.

Male Adolescents Of Divorce: The Relationship With Their Noncustodial Father, Christine L. Kerr

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the divorce rate in the United States began to rise dramatically in the 1970s, researchers have studied the impact of divorce on those involved. The research indicates that children whose parents divorce are more likely than children whose parents remain married to suffer from a lower level of well-being and are at greater risk for a myriad of ills including poorer school performance and increased behavior problems. While few researchers have focused on the impact of divorce on male adolescents specifically, studies of adolescent males in general indicate they are at risk for a variety of problems including poor …

Domain Specific Identity Commitment And Alcohol Use And Problems, Alison Glanville

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identity formation is an important developmental task of the college years. Previous research has demonstrated that identity commitment, as defined by James Marcia, is related to decreased substance use and problems. That is, individuals who are identity achieved or foreclosed use substances less frequently and experience fewer substance-related problems than do individuals who are classified in the statuses of identity diffused or moratorium. However, Marcia discussed identity as developing in two domains, the occupational and the ideological (religious beliefs and political ideology). To date, no studies have examined in which domain commitment is associated with a decrease in substance use …

"I Put The Tale Back Where I Found It": Feeling The Past Through "The Warmth Of The Human Voice", Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

In this article, I examine my revelations and growth related to folk culture and literature connected to the African American community. I borrow from and play on the Sudanese formulaic ending for the folktale; it seemed to me appropriate - even obligatory- that "I put the tale back where I found it." This maxim is symbolic, reflecting what I find one of the most characteristic elements of Black folklore - that is, the focus on the group, the community, in terms of the source of the historical situation of the tale; the moral lesson; the content, style, and delivery; and …

Constructing Black Selves: Caribbean American Narratives And The Second Generation By Lisa D. Mcgill (Book Review), Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

Using second generation Americans Harry Belafonte, Paule Marshall, Audre Lorde, Piri Thomas, and the meringue hip hop group Proyecto Uno, Lisa D. McGill considers in Constructing Black Selves: Caribbean American Narratives and the Second Generation the issues of identity formation of those whose heritage ultimately includes Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, most often New York City. Though her subjects come from different national, racial, and language backgrounds; though they have made their names in different media; and though they have different views of race, identity, and culture, she convincingly makes the argument that "African America becomes powerful site …

Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity In Going To Meet The Man, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

"Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity in Going to Meet the Man" employs the conceit of “impossible” fatherhood to critique mutually reinforcing racist and heteronormative constructions of reproduction. It argues, first, that the white paternal fantasy of creating “pure” white sons is undermined by the homoerotic necessity of bring the phantasmatic black eunuch, castrated yet powerfully potent, into the procreative white bed. The “fact” of the “white” child produced in that marital bed, however, not only cloaks the failure of racial reproduction in the living proof of success but also occludes the male/male union that subtends the heteronormative fantasy of reproduction. …

Cultural-Competency Training For School-Based Mental Health Service Providers, Natasha Lian Smith

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Literature on cultural competence has primarily developed in the fields of counseling psychology and counselor education. The field of school psychology has responded to the increased focus of cultural competency by providing recommended skills needed to provide psychological services in schools to diverse individuals and groups. Currently, research in effective cultural competency training has primarily focused on graduate training programs. This study extends the literature on cultural competency training by developing a training model that is appropriate for professionals who are already working in the field. This study first evaluated the impact of a needs assessment on the preparation of …

Book Reviews: Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews: Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Review Of Place, Language, And Identity In Afro-Costa Rican Literature, By Dorothy E. Mosby, And The Fugitive Race: Minority Writers Resisting Whiteness, By Stephen P. Knadler, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Review Of Moving Out: A Nebraska Woman's Life, Susan Naramore Maher

English Faculty Publications

At the end of her memoir, Moving Out, Polly Spence assesses all the little ironies of her life and concludes, "[each] time everything seemed just right, each time I thought I'd found it all—the work, the love, and the ideal way to live—something brought change to me." Change is a central motif in her narrative, reflected in a title that underscores movement and mobility, not settlement. Spence's Nebraska life provides a toehold on the slippery surface of twentieth-century culture in America.

[Introduction To] From Within The Frame: Storytelling In African-American Studies, Bertram D. Ashe

Bookshelf

The book explores the written representation of African-American oral storytelling from Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison to James Alan McPherson, Toni Cade Bambara and John Edgar Wideman. At its core, the book compares the relationship of the "frame tale" - an inside-the-text storyteller telling a tale to an inside-the-text listener - with the relationship between the outside-the-text writer and reader. The progression is from Chesnutt's 1899 frame texts, in which the black spoken voice is contained by a white narrator/listener, to Bambara's sixties-era example of a "frameless" spoken voice text, to Wideman's neo-frame text of the late …

Foregrounding Motherhood In Toni Morrison's Sula And Beloved, Lindsay Green

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Cross Racial Preferences In Viewing Sexually Explicit Material: A Comparison Between African-American And Caucasian Males, Boyd Randal Horton

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated that extent to which the race of actors in an erotic video affected sexual arousal in African-American and Caucasian heterosexual males. It was hypothesized that the two racial groups would be significantly more sexually aroused while watching their respective homoethnic erotic video. The hypothesis was grounded in the modeling effects of Bandura's Social Leaning Theory (1977), the Matching Hypothesis (1982) and worldview differences between African-Americans and Caucasians (Baldwin and Bell, 1985). Thirty-four African-American and Caucasian males were shown homoethnic and non-homoethnic erotic videos while penile circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and self-report ratings of sexual …

The Pitchman In Print: Oral Performance Art In Text And Context, Joseph Ugoretz

Publications and Research

Oral performance art, patterned performative speech for an audience, is perhaps the oldest and most ubiquitous human art form. Specific instances of this art include the performances of griots and guslars, troubadors and shamans, as well as rappers and riddlers, preachers and politicians. While this art form is by definition oral, it is also the case that, frequently, literary art has represented oral performance art. There is written art which depicts oral art, which describes it, appropriates it, criticizes and co‑opts it.

In this dissertation, I define oral performance art as constituting a separate and unique artistic genre, one which …

The Power Of Hoodoo: African Relic Symbolism In Amistad And The Narrative Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Alicia M. Simmons

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

A Reader's Response To Go Tell It On The Mountain, Sally Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Validity Of Selected Draw-A-Person Test Classifying Criteria Among Homosexual And Non Homosexual Males, Joel Von Ornsteiner

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the validity of Machover's (1949) interpretation that attention to both the hips and buttocks drawn by male subjects in their first male Draw-A-Person Test (DAP) or the drawing of a female figure first are significant indicators of male homosexuality. The hypothesis was that the frequency of these homosexual indicators among non-instituted homosexuals would be significantly higher (P = < .05) than the male heterosexual group. One hundred homosexual and 100 heterosexual males were selected from groups of volunteers from two universities, one bookstore and a community center in the New York City area. The subjects were administered a DAP test in booklet format and a questionnaire. The drawings were classified for homosexual indicators blindly and independently by three judges who were trained in the use of the Machover interpretation of the DAP. Chi square analyses were calculated for the frequency of hips and buttocks and for the drawing of a female figure first and no significant differences between the self identified homosexual and heterosexual male groups in the expected direction were found. It was concluded that the lack of any significant difference between the scores of the homosexual and heterosexual males in this study casts considerable doubt on the validity of the male homosexual interpretations explored. Speculations were made concerning the widely discrepant results from past studies and this investigation. The majority of the past research had been conducted within institutional settings and there have been cultural changes over the last fifty years in both psychology and society's tolerance for the male homosexual. Unlike any previous DAP study, one-hundred urban homosexual and one-hundred heterosexual males were randomly selected. This researcher cautions that the DAP test should be interpreted with other available information, and results based on its independent use are viewed with much skepticism. Implications for future research were discussed.