Other Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Migrant As A Pilgrim: Decolonising Identity And Belonging, Susan Nemec

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper responds to pilgrimage scholar George Greenia’s assertion that meaningful intersections exist between pilgrimage and various forms of displacement, such as migration or involuntary exile due to famine, war, or political unrest. Greenia proposes that vulnerable, displaced individuals might find shelter, both conceptually and emotionally, within the framing of pilgrimage. By extending concepts of pilgrimage, it can be understood as a deliberate and intentional journey, simultaneously emphasising the transformative potential inherent in migratory movement. By adopting a working definition of pilgrimage as ‘any form of travel that is intentional, purposeful, or transformative,’ the paper considers how migrancy, particularly within …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

The Evolution Of Palestinian Narrative: ‘Mo' As An Illustration, Ihsan Abualrob, Ayman Talal Yousef

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

The article aims to explore the present-day challenges facing the Palestinian narrative. It delves into the ways in which the narrative has been shaped by historical events namely the Nakba, the Naksa, and the Oslo Accords, and how these events have left a lasting impact on the Palestinian identity. The article then examines the potential for the development of a new form of cultural resistance utilizing personal stories; as demonstrated by the Netflix show ‘Mo’. The show proffers a novel approach incorporating Palestinain political messages onto comedy and drama, and therefore has the potential to reach a wider audience. In …

Pachuquismo E Identidad Nacional Imaginada En Los Estados Unidos Y México En La Década De 1940, Isabel Saavedra-Weis

Hispanic Studies Honors Projects

Pachuquismo was a counterculture born in the barrios of East L.A. in the 1940s. Mexican-American youth created their own social group defined by specific clothing (zoot suits), music fusions (mambo and swing), and linguistic dialects (caló). However, on both sides of the U.S. and Mexican border, pachucos had a poor reputation. In the U.S., mainstream media portrayed pachucos as juvenile delinquents and domestic threats. In Mexico, pachucos were mimicked and heavily criticized for their Americanization. In this essay, I identify how U.S. and Mexican mainstream media reacted to pachucos, and what those portrayals can tell us about the imagined national …

菠蘿包(Pineapple Bun): Exploring Memory And Language Through Animation, Elaine Yang

Scripps Senior Theses

菠蘿包(Pineapple Bun) explores the themes of reconstruction, evocation, and memory through my childhood in Taiwan. Inspired by other Asian American animators, I aim to tell a simple story of connection through my grandfather and I's daily swimming ritual. The film is a 3-minute animated short film following our language barrier and how we engage with each other's differing backgrounds.

Reclamation: The Crown Of African American Identity, Lindsey Kellogg

English MA Theses

African American voices have been the main sources of influence on society and culture. For this reason, it is important that African Americans speak up and reclaim their voices. Not only are their voices important, but the stories that lie behind the voices are what need to be amplified. With the application of postcolonial theory, this thesis takes modern stories located in North America depicting racist behavior towards African Americans from the year 1970 to present-day New York City in order to fully amplify the process of social struggle. As these narratives are passed down through generations serving as a …

Memorias De Mi Familia, Melissa Z. Montero

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Memorias de Mi Familia is an hour-long personal documentary through which I explore the meaning of “home.” I was born and raised in New York to a Puerto Rican mother and Ecuadorian father and lived between two worlds—sometimes more. While on a visit to Puerto Rico with my mother, Sylvia, I search for belonging and explore my family’s story of migration between the island and the United States.

Through interviews, family films, home videos and photographs spanning over 60 years, I examine the revolving migration pattern common to many Puerto Ricans on the island and in the diaspora, a …

Owning Your Story: Agency, Power, And Freedom In Greta Gerwig’S Faithful And Radical Little Women Adaptation, Siobhan Cooney

Honors Program Theses

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868) has an extensive lineage of film adaptations. The classic novel’s most recent film adaptation was written for the screen and directed by Greta Gerwig (2019). This thesis employs adaptation theory as well as visual and verbal close reading and critical analysis of the film, source novel, and popular film reviews. Gerwig’s adaptation looks, sounds, and feels like the Little Women that has been cherished for decades. The director fulfills these aesthetic expectations to subvert our understandings of sentimentalism, domesticity, individuality, and the relinquishment of childhood. An examination of art’s imitation of life, the epistolary …

‘Convicted Of Patricide?’: Robert Frost’S Nationalism In The Eyes Of Contemporary Arab-American Women Writers, Eman K. Mukattash

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Given the culturally expansive nature of the American literary tradition of today, the question of the relevance of Robert Frost’s poetry to the poetry of contemporary Arab-American women writers is an issue worth digging into. Writing almost one hundred years ago does not make Frost’s poetry out of date. Frost’s poetry is as relevant to today’s America as it has been to the America of his days. And this can be ascribed to the multiplicity of perspectives he presents in his poetry as he examines crucial questions lying at the core of America’s “grand narrative of national development.” (Westover 2004: …

Fractured Selves, Gearoid Dolan

Theses and Dissertations

Fractured Selves is a self-portrait that examines the histories and points of conflation and diversion of my four public personas. In the style of a Zoom meeting, they chat with a host against animated backgrounds. Interactivity creates non-linear consuming of the content and user directed navigation through four timelines

Morkovcha [Korean Carrot Salad], Lidiya A. Kan

Theses and Dissertations

Morkovcha, Korean Carrot Salad is a short documentary that tells a story of ethnic Koreans from Russia and the post-Soviet territories making their new home in New York City. The history of the diaspora is told through conversations with my mother, personal stories, fragmented memories, and my family photo archive. This very personal film is my attempt to revisit the 160-year history of the Russian Korean diaspora and to record and preserve our unique fusion of cultures in the melting pot that is the United States. Its purpose is to help to process and accept the tragic past of my …

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 …

People And Place: A Journey Through Film, Tourism, And Heritage, Sarah Beals

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Old Tucson Studios is a theme park where film, tourism, and heritage all converge through the American Western genre. During national social change, Westerns increase in number to reflect national values and identity. Westerns that ally with landscapes and people are potentially the most powerful storytelling tool in mainstream media. My research shows that this paring of people and place creates a prevailing image in the audience’s memory. The results suggest that the current image of the West comes from films made between 1951-1970, despite there being newer Westerns. John Wayne and saguaro cactus are enduring images with historic, cultural, …

Notoriously Ruthless: The Idolization Of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lucille Moran

Political Science Honors Projects

It is now a fixture of mainstream commentary in the United States that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a popular idol on the political left. Yet, while Justice Ginsburg’s image and story has reached an unprecedented level of valorization and even commercialization, scholars have yet to give sustained attention to the phenomenon and to contextualize it: why has this idolization emerged within this context, and what is its impact? This paper situates her portrayal in the cultural imagination as the product of two political forces, namely partisanship and identity politics. Considering parallel scholarly discourses of reputation, celebrity, …

Chase Riboud’S Hottentot Venus (2003) And The Neo-Victorian: The Problematization Of South-Africa And The Vulnerability And Resistance Of The Black Other, Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article touches upon issues of captivity, suppression, misrepresentations and exclusion of black people from a historical and cultural point of view through the analysis of Chase-Riboud’s neo-Victorian novel Hottentot Venus (2003). It also focuses on the implications and consequences for contemporary South Africa of situations of slavery and exploitation of African descended peoples. Notions of identity and moral and legal inclusion of black women into past and contemporary societies and communities will be also discussed from the point of view of postcolonial and gender and sexuality studies. The complexities of blackness and the violation of human rights as a …

The Places That Became Home: A Collection Of Short Stories And Memories, Stephanie Ewing Mace

CMC Senior Theses

This is a collection of short stories and memories from the eight places that I have lived. Through these stories and memories, I reflect on themes of identity and community. I also consider the idea of home: what defines a home, how we make a place feel like a home, and what transforms a city or a town into a home. Each chapter also includes my own original designs and photographs.

The stories about Sharon and Westwood, small towns in Massachusetts, focus on childhood and familial relationships. The narratives about St. Louis, Missouri and Toluca Lake, California, consider the transition …

Part Of This World: A Personal Exploration Of Media And Queer Identity, Emilee Harrison

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This paper is a mix of research and personal narrative exploring the impact of television, film, and online media on identity formation. I look specifically at my own identity as a queer person and how it has been shaped by what I have seen and experienced as a young queer and as an educator. Topics discussed include homophobia in the classroom and workplace, the impact of social media on youth development and identity formation, and our changing culture as queer visibility increases. This piece is primarily a personal reflection that runs from early childhood to adulthood. It addresses social interactions …

Introduction To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided for the introduction.

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Differentiating The Transnational From The National In A Multicultural Setting: Identity In Persepolis And Rush Hour, Laura A. Kasper

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay explores the differences between transnational identities and national identities in a multicultural setting by juxtaposing the films Persepolis and Rush Hour. Furthermore, it examines the characteristics of both transnational and national identities and how they are represented in film. In an increasingly globalized world, it is important to distinguish these two types of identity and consider how these individuals interact with today’s society; thus, this essay asks readers to think about the influence that the commingling of transnational and national identities has on the modern world.

Queer Hybridity And Performance In The Multimedia Texts Of Arroyo And Lozada, Ed Chamberlain

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Queer Hybridity and Performance in the Multimedia Texts of Arroyo and Lozada" Ed Chamberlain examines the unconventional writing of Puerto Rican writers Rane Arroyo and Ángel Lozada. Arroyo and Lozada craft texts which can be interpreted as performances and these performative texts blend internet-based writings with more traditional genres including the novel and poetry. Arroyo's and Lozada's stylistic approaches exhibit a queer sensibility which resembles the way in which Latina/o queer people construct and perform their cultural identities. Chamberlain argues that these queer performances suggest we can neither create nor identify absolute truth in matters of identity …

“All Data Is Credit Data,” Or, On Close Reading As A Reciprocal Process In Digital Knowledge Environments, John Hunter

Faculty Journal Articles

The new knowledge environments of the digital age are often described as places where we are all closely read, with our buying habits, location, and identities available to advertisers, online merchants, the government, and others through our use of the Internet. This is represented as a loss of privacy in which these entities learn about our activities and desires, using means that were unavailable in the pre-digital era. This article argues that the reciprocal nature of digital networks means 1) that the privacy issues that we face online are not radically different from those of the pre-Internet era, and 2) …

Is First, They Killed My Father A Cambodian Testimonio?, John Maddox

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Is First, They Killed My Father a Cambodian testimonio" John T. Maddox discusses aspects of the testimonial. Dialoguing with leading Latin Americanists, Maddox argues that Cambodian writer Loung Ung's First, They Killed My Father (2000) challenges this uniqueness and opens studies on the testimonio to new possibilities for intellectual reflection and political activism. In Maddox's view, the continued use of the term testimonio would serve as a reference to this long-standing tradition of writing and thinking about political violence in Latin America. After a discussion of the debate of the definition and function of testimonio and …

Performing And Interpreting Identity, Lee Farquhar

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

This one-year cyber-ethnography examines  identity presentations and interpretations  of 346 Facebook users. The social–psychological theoretical framework used drew specifically from symbolic interaction, Goffman’s performance of self, and schema theory. Generally, Facebookers sought social acceptance with their presentations. Primary findings indicate that the Facebookers present over-simplified imagery to reduce ambiguity and align with specific social groups. This study asked Facebookers to respond to strangers’ Facebook profiles, and the responses showed that due to the glut of identity-related information on the site, interpretations are heavily reliant on schemas. Online interview participants indicated several basic categories of identity performance that were used to …

Selfless: Buffy's Anya And The Problem Of Identity, Victoria Large

Undergraduate Review

No abstract provided.