Cultural History Commons^™

The Feminine Harp As Feminist Tool: Early Professional Footing For Women In Mid-Twentieth-Century America, Chelsea Lane

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1930s North America, women—for the first time—were accorded permanent principal positions in significant American orchestras. Edna Phillips, Alice Chalifoux, and Sylvia Meyer, all students of the legendary harp pedagogue Carlos Salzedo, have been celebrated as pioneers for the prestigious employment they obtained in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, respectively, between 1930 and 1933. Despite the impressiveness of these accomplishments, however, the narrative of their “firstness” is not wholly accurate. In actuality, female harpists have occupied orchestral posts as acting principals, substitutes, and second harpists since the very inception of orchestras. The cause for their early …

Uncovering Alice Bag: An Alternative Punk History, Emily Macune

Scripps Senior Theses

The intention of this thesis is to provide an alternative counter-narrative to the mainstream histories of punk that center white men. By focusing on the contributions of fem queer and POC punks, I aim to legitimize punk music as a form of resistance against systems of oppression that are oppositional to the commodified forms of mainstream punk. Using Alice Bag, as my central case study as a fem queer punk that is often left out of punk historical narratives, I contextualize her work through feminist, queer, and media studies lenses to bridge the gap between academia and forgotten personal experience.

Hip-Hop And Poetry: Listen To The Words, Jordan Dingle

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Hip-hop is a subculture that has become a major part of popular culture and heavily affects contemporary music, clothing, and media. The subculture initially started as a way for the historically oppressed to voice themselves and have a dialogue for social dilemmas that were relevant to them. Maintaining this voice of authenticity will become more difficult the larger and more commercialized Hip-hop becomes, thus it is important to identify mediums that are being used to express authenticity through discussion of social dilemmas in Hip-hop culture. This project identifies poetry as a medium that is used to display authenticity in Hip-hop …

Hip-Hop's Influence On Stripper Culture: The Era Of Cardi B'S, Taylor Bell

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Twenty years ago the terms 'stripper' or 'exotic dancer' would have made heads turn. However, today feminist politics traditional negative stimga on strip culture is being challenged by the presence of the jhip-hop industry within the strip club space. With the emergence of former stripper Cardi B as well as discussions in American politics around former port star Stormy Daniles, it's clear that the way society thinks and interacts with strip culture is evolving away from the stereotypical negative one. 39 pages.

The Creation Of Power: Leaving The Closed Space Of Voluntary Servitude, Isabel Mae Torgove

Senior Projects Spring 2018

This project is a collection and absorption of concepts and frameworks drawn from centuries of thought. Indebted to the past, this philosophical and literary journey seeks to elucidate a productive path to follow in the wake of the “moment,” derived from Du Bois’ “double consciousness.” This split second explosion, resulting in the severance of the conception of the self from the world’s perception of the self, places one in the position of either submitting voluntarily to the dominant forces or producing and creating something, anything, to aid in the search for understanding the self. The transitive property of a split …

Since The Time Of Eve : La Leche League And Communities Of Mothers Throughout History., Joanna Paxton Federico

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

La Leche League International (LLL) is the oldest and largest breastfeeding support group in the world. This thesis examines how, beginning in 1956, seven Catholic housewives from suburban Chicago built up the institutional knowledge to sustain a cohesive global network of breastfeeding mothers. It also explores how LLL managed this knowledge over time in response to developments in scholarship and changing social conditions. Based on a narrative analysis of LLL publications, this thesis argues that the League’s founders drew selectively from existing bodies of knowledge and from their own cultural perspectives to establish a sense of community among breastfeeding women. …

The Parton Paradox: A History Of Race And Gender In The Career Of Dolly Parton, Lindsey L. Hammers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With a career that has spanned over five decades, country music artist Dolly Parton has continually redefined her image and her music to remain relevant. By incorporating the musical and lyrical stylings of disco and other popular music genres into her songs, Parton moved beyond music’s color line to increase her popularity as an artist. This thesis shows how Parton established a distinct career that catered to different audiences as she traversed the musical color line and repackaged what feminism looked like to country music fans during the Women’s Movement of the 1960s. Placing Parton’s actions in conversation with music’s …

Patriarchy, Empire, And Ping Pong Shows: The Political Economy Of Sex Tourism In Thailand, Kristen Kelley

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project provides a postcolonial feminist analysis of the prosperity and reputation of the sex tourism industry in Thailand. It examines the ways in which Western imperialism created the space for the globalization of sex work, as well as providing a postcolonial analysis of the hegemonic structures which have existed throughout Thailand's history that enable the sex tourism industry to thrive today. This project also explores how policy making and enforcement in Thailand affects the sex tourism industry, as well as the ways in which activism works to change or support these policies, and how this affects individuals who are …

Reclaiming And Reconciling What Was Originally Ours--Christianity And Feminism: A Concise History, Soquel Filice

History

No abstract provided.

Building Bridges: Church Women United And Social Reform Work Across The Mid-Twentieth Century, Melinda M. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--History

Church Women United incorporated in December 1941 as an interdenominational and interracial movement of liberal Protestant women committed to social reform. The one hundred organizers represented ten million Protestant women across the United States. They organized with the express purposes of helping to bring peace on Earth and to develop total equality within all humanity.

Church Women United was the bridge between the First and Second Wave of Feminism and the bridge between the Social Gospel and Social Justice Movements. Additionally they connected laterally with numerous social and religious groups across American society. As such, they exemplify the continuity and …

The Cable Network In An Era Of Digital Media: Bravo And The Constraints Of Consumer Citizenship, Alison D. Brzenchek

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation takes a historiographical approach to the evolution of cable television over thirty years. Case analysis of archival data is used to trace the trajectory of the Bravo cable network from 1980 through 2010. My dissertation is a vital contribution to critical cultural studies, feminist studies, citizenship studies, and media history because it historicizes the role branding, commodification, and convergence played in Bravo’s evolution from a highbrow arts programmer guided by bourgeois consumer citizenship, to a affluent lifestyle network guided by nouveau riche consumer citizenship. My combination of production studies and political economic analysis gives visibility to the interpenetrating …

Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Using notions from fan blogs and fan theory, this project analyzes the inconsistencies surrounding the phenomenon of so-called fangirls in the Doctor Who and One Direction worlds. The term fangirl is usually defined as an irrational adolescent female who is only a fan of very specific types of entertainment because of factors that are perceived by other fans as superficial and irrelevant. In contemporary music and television fandom, these fangirls are often criticized and policed by other fans, many times disregarded as not ‘true’ fans. The project studies this distorted perception and how it leads to misconceptions about the wider …

A Divine Inequality: Contextualizing Gender And Authority In Contemporary Mormon Feminism, Taylee Robinson Pardi

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project traces the decline of authority for Mormon women coupled with the rise of defined gender roles within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in order to contextualize contemporary Mormon feminism. Using a radical feminist analysis, this project will explore how contemporary Mormon women relate to their early Mormon sisters and the ways in which the culture and doctrine of Mormonism often converge, lending itself to a unique feminist perspective. This project argues that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as currently practiced, is not just inherently patriarchal, but un-egalitarian, and that contemporary …

Talking Nonsense: Spiritual Mediums And Female Subjectivity In Victorian And Edwardian Canada, Claudie Massicotte

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study traces the development of mediumship in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Especially popular among women, this practice offered them an important space of expression. Concealing their own identities under spiritual possession, mediums ubiquitously invoked well-known historical figures in séances to transmit their opinions on current issues. As such, they were able to promote new ideas to interested audiences without claiming responsibility for their potentially controversial words.

While many studies have been conducted in the United States, Britain, and France regarding the significant role of mediumship in the emergence of women on the political scene, …

Contesting The Marginalization Of Female Leadership In Sports: The Struggle For Equal Opportunities In Men's Collegiate And Professional Basketball, Caitlain Tinker

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This feminist critique interrogates the discourses and practices of gender discrimination in men's professional and collegiate sporting institutions in the United States. This study focuses on delineating and 'naming' the discriminatory ideologies that are (re)produced by dominant social and cultural institutions, revealing in the process how these practices (over)determine gender equality in the professional and collegiate sporting field. To this end, I perform a post-structuralist discourse analysis of what Louis Althusser calls the dominant 'ideological state apparatuses,' namely schools, the media and sporting institutions. I argue that these institutions coalesce to form a network of power that produces, reproduces, and …

For The Benefit Of Others: Harriet Martineau: Feminist, Abolitionist And Travel Writer, Laura J. Labovitz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the distinctive and remarkable traits of Harriet Martineau was her need to publish information that she believed would benefit society. Her publications - Illustrations of Political Economy (1832), Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838) - have the distinct characteristic of being published with the intent to inform and educate the British public. Scholars have focused on her later 1848 publication, Eastern Life: Present and Past, as her most important publication. Yet I will argue that it was her earlier works which set the stage for this later, better known book. Her travel to the …

"This Murder Done": Misogyny, Femicide, And Modernity In 19th-Century Appalachian Murder Ballads, Christina Ruth Hastie

Masters Theses

This thesis contextualizes Appalachian murder ballads of the 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries through a close reading of the lyric texts. Using a research frame that draws from the musicological and feminist concepts of Diana Russell, Susan McClary, Norm Cohen, and Christopher Small, I reveal 19^th-century Appalachia as a patriarchal, modern, and highly codified society despite its popularized image as a culturally isolated and “backward” place. I use the ballads to demonstrate how music serves the greater cultural purpose of preserving and perpetuating social ideologies. Specifically, the murder ballads reveal layers of meaning regarding hegemonic …

The Temperance Worker As Social Reformer And Ethnographer As Exemplified In The Life And Work Of Jessie A. Ackermann., Margaret Shipley Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project used primary historical documents from the Jessie A. Ackermann collection at ETSU's Archives of Appalachia, other books and documents from the temperance period, and recent scholarship on the subjects of temperance, suffrage, and women travelers and civilizers. As the second world missionary for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Ackermann traveled in order to establish WCT Unions and worked as a civilizer, feminist, and reporter of the conditions of women and the disadvantaged throughout the world.