Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Acts Of Provocation: Popular Antiracisms On/Through The Twenty-First Century New York Commercial Stage, Stefanie A. Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an abolitionist feminist study of the role of liberalism in the twenty-first century political economy. It takes as its object New York City bourgeois cultural productions (in particular Broadway theatre and the New York Times) from approximately 1984 to 2009. It offers insights into important yet widely-misunderstood features of turn-of-millennium US society: class, art, political practice, and war. In order to understand liberalism’s political and economic agenda, I look at how these objects are pitched in the struggle over racism. Sometimes when we say “liberal” we mean it in the philosophical sense, with particular attention to liberal …

The Willfulness Of A Missing Frame: Ahmed Zaki And The Politics Of Visual Resistance, Miriam M. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) is one of Egyptian cinema’s most prominent leading actors, with work spanning three decades of critical films that informed a generation’s visual register of masculinity. However, the beginnings of his career were marked by public skepticism around his place as a leading actor due to him being “too dark” and “too poor”; as his career continued to flourish, those very markings of racing and classing Zaki because a foundation for increasingly stamping his public image with the “authenticity” of an Egyptian citizen. At a particularly neoliberal moment in the Egyptian economy, that of the early 80s, new …

Providential Capitalism: Heavenly Intervention And The Atlantic’S Divine Economist, Ian F.P. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Providential capitalism names the marriage of providential Christian values and market-oriented capitalist ideology in the post-revolutionary Atlantic through the mid nineteenth century. This is a process by which individuals permitted themselves to be used by a so-called “divine economist” at work in the Atlantic market economy. Backed by a slave market, capital transactions were rendered as often violent ecstatic individual and cultural experiences. Those experiences also formed the bases for national, racial, and classed identification and negotiation among the constellated communities of the Atlantic. With this in mind, writers like Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw presented market success …

Spectral Bodies: Women's Resistance Across Time In North America, Whitney C. Evanson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project contrasts the lived experiences of feminists within the EZLN in Mexico with the historical persecution of community outsiders during the Salem witch trials. I want to explore the differences between a radical political and social movement (the EZLN), and the radical shift in history in which women were accused of witchcraft based on hysteria and rumors. There are parallels between the witch trials and the causes of the Zapatista movement in the ways that women's bodies were treated--their political usefulness to create fear and obedience from citizens by murdering them for their defiance, burying them in shallow graves. …

Closer Ties: The Dutch Caribbean And The Aftermath Of Empire, 1942-2012, Chelsea Schields

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the unique trajectory of decolonization in the Netherlands and its former Caribbean colonies and argues that sexual and reproductive politics have played a pivotal role in forging a postcolonial commonwealth state. Using sexual politics as a lens, “Closer Ties” explores how postcolonial ties between the Netherlands and its former Caribbean dependencies have strengthened rather than severed in the aftermath of colonial rule. This alternative ending of empire challenges the assumed trajectory of decolonization and locates the drama of imperial dissolution in debates over sexual and reproductive rights in Europe. Looking to the circuits of trans-Atlantic exchange across …

Reimagining The Collective: Black Popular Music And Recording Studio Innovation, 1970-1990, Will Fulton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines developments in the production practices of black popular music in the recording studio from 1970 to 1990. The year 1970 marked a transition in the recording practice of popular music that had a distinct impact on styles marketed as R&B, soul, and funk. Multitracking in the 1950s and 1960s had paved the way for a transformed production process, one initiated by Les Paul’s and Sidney Bechet’s overdubbing experiments in the 1940s. The collective sound of instrumentalists and vocalists heard on records no longer resulted from live-to-tape recordings of group performances, but was increasingly the product of constructed …

Beyond The Vale: Visualizing Slavery In Craven County, North Carolina, Marissa N. Kinsey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Beyond the Vale is a data visualization project dedicated to the study of slavery in antebellum North Carolina. Focusing on Gooding’s Township, a rural farming community in the eastern county of Craven, it is designed to address basic questions about the experiences of the county’s antebellum enslaved population. These questions represent points of contention between local heritage narratives and the direct testimonies of former slaves. Where former slaves describe a complex, yet undeniably exploitative system in which they had only minimal control over their own lives, county literature echoes larger themes in North Carolina state scholarship by either overlooking slavery, …

Black Models Matter: Challenging The Racism Of Aesthetics And The Facade Of Inclusion In The Fashion Industry, Scarlett L. Newman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The global fashion market is expanding every day, but often, the global fashion runways do not reflect that reality. On average, black models make up for six percent of models used on the runway during the fashion month calendar. This small percentage is also mirrored in advertisements and editorials featured in popular fashion magazines. In the 1970s, black models were met with great opportunities, and that success trickled down into the 1980s and the 1990s. As the 90s came to a close, top designers opted for an aesthetic that ultimately excluded models of color, but black models beared the brunt …

Learn By Leaving: An Analysis Of Recruitment And Retention Rates Among Faculty/Staff Of Color, Erica Noelle Claybrook-Cookman

Ethnic Studies

Learn by Leaving is as an analysis of recruitment and retention rates among faculty/staff of color at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), specifically, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo) in San Luis Obispo, California. This project aims to answer the following: How does the presence, or lack thereof, of faculty/staff of color impact the success of students of color at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo? Additionally, how has the presence, or lack thereof, of faculty/staff of color shaped the overall college experience for students of color at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo? In the context of this research, …

Deconstructing Medicine: The Intersections Of Racism And Health Disparities Within Pre-Medical Education, Allison F. Dormanesh

Ethnic Studies

The purpose of this project is to evaluate ways in which historical racism and lack of it in pre- medical curriculum shapes future health professionals and results in negative medical treatment of under-represented groups. Research found in the literature review reveals a strong history of racism within medical practice and medical research, as well as unconscious bias that follows knowledge taught during undergraduate education and onwards. An intersectionality approach is used to show the affect of race and class on health disparities and unethical abuse. This research includes data analyzing the pre-medical curriculums of the ten pre-medical universities that produce …

Buildings And Books: Segregated Libraries As Places For Community-Making, Interaction And Learning In The Age Of Jim Crow (Presentation For The Society For The History Of Authorship, Reading, And Publishing Annual Conference, June 2017), Matthew R. Griffis

Publications and Other Resources

From the conference program: "This presentation reviews the preliminary findings of a federally funded, 3-year historical study that explores how segregated Carnegie libraries were used as places of community-making, interaction, and learning for African Americans in the age of Jim Crow. Known then as "Carnegie Negro libraries," these public libraries opened in eight southern states between 1900 and 1925 and were an extension of the well-known library development program funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

"Drawing on archival sources, including newly completed oral history interviews with surviving library users, this presentation explores how these libraries helped foster a …

The Impact Of "Modern Sexism" On The 2016 Presidential Election, Angie Maxwell

Blair Center Poll

The latest analysis of data from 2016 Blair Center Poll explores how American attitudes about working women and feminism influenced the presidential race along racial, gender, regional and partisan lines.

Link to full report: https://blaircenter.uark.edu/the-impact-of-modern-sexism/

Roman Féminin Africain : Pour Une Géocritique, Mbaye Diouf

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Based on novels published in the 2000s by Fatou Diome and Bessora, this article poses that in a postcolonial context marked by the intensification of population migration, as well as the international circulation of authors and the renewal of aesthetic categories, the current generation of female African novelists are constructing a new imaginary of space that resemanticizes textual territories through literary languages that are both unusual and personalized. Novels like Cyr@no or Le ventre de l’Atlantique rectify the real insular or urban topographies to which they refer by giving a connotated or new meaning to their own narrative, descriptive and …

L’Espace Géographique Et La Perspective Postcoloniale Chez Félix Couchoro (1900-1968), Laté Lawson-Hellu

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The writing of Félix Couchoro, member of the first generation of the Francophone African writers, problematizes the historical, cultural, political and geographic background of the railway system built at the beginning of the twentieth century in Togo. In that problematizing, Félix Couchoro’s writing is in accordance with the geocritic principles as well as those of the postcolonial perspective. By putting those two perspectives together, however, in the reading of that writer’s work, one should go beyond the epistemological frame of the geocritic perspective itself, notably its use of the western postmodern paradigm of indetermination, when it comes to the Francophone …

Villes Et Espaces Africains : Pour Une Géocritique En Contexte Postcolonial, Yves Clavaron

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As for geocritics, postcolonial studies consider questions of representation according to a contextualizing approach, scrutinizing geogrophical and sociopolitical settings. This paper aims at studying methodological affinities between geocritics and postcolonialism in order to observe to what extent Bertrand Westphal’s approach could respond to a postcolonial context and allow for an interpretation of African space – mainly urban – in a few francophone novels by Mongo Beti, Bernard Dadié, Ahmadou Kourouma, Henri Lopes, Alain Mabanckou, Patrice Nganang and Tierno Monénembo.

Non-Lieux Dans Le Roman Africain Postcolonial Francophone : Formes Et Enjeux, Adama Coulibaly

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In the postcolonial African novel, new places are appearing, next to or replacing the former prison site. They can validly be read as «non-places» whose presence and implications in texts must then be questioned. Attempting a literary re-appropriation of an anthropological notion, this contribution analyzes three novels whose fictions are built around places of transit (of non-places) such as hotel, road and... container. These three figures of the non-place call for a writing of horizontality, rhizome, ephemeral, spatial mobility that reactivate the question of the fictitious or moving identity of the African subject from space.

Poétique De La Ville-Symptôme Dans Le Roman Maghrébin, Hassan Moustir

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Postcolonial city is at the heart of maghrebian fictions so that it can be approached as a fundamental element of its particular poetics. In their novels Triptyque de Rabat and Le chien d’Ulysse, Khatibi and Bachi respectively link space as an explicative matrix of the national present and even of what goes beyond characters consciousness. This fact helps to understand the way history figures as a virtual paradigm coming down to space, sometimes threw separate facts, and being part of the personal perception of reality. The concept of reality itself becomes problematic regarding this endless past, we mean the impact …

Fauve Masks: Rethinking Modern 'Primitivist' Uses Of African And Oceanic Art, 1905-8, Joshua I. Cohen

Publications and Research

Fauve painters “discovered” African and Oceanic sculpture beginning in 1905. From that time, Vlaminck first collected African art; Derain studied Oceanic works at the British Museum in spring 1906; and Matisse struggled to paint a Kongo-Vili statuette he purchased in fall 1906. Fauve interests in shallow-relief, relatively naturalistic, and surface-ornamented sculptural works suggest conformity with turn-of-the-century artistic and scientific ideas conflating heterogeneous strains of so-called “primitive” material culture. Nevertheless, the dominant conceptual framework of “primitivism” has tended to limit art-historical understandings of external formal influences on modernism, which can be gleaned here by investigating the particular objects the Fauves appropriated.

Pain Perception In Latino Vs. Caucasian And Male Vs. Female Patients: Is There Really A Difference?, Molly Aufiero, Holly Stankewicz, Shaila Quazi, Jeanne Jacoby, Jill Stoltzfus

Jefferson Health - Northeast Papers (formerly Aria Health Papers)

INTRODUCTION: Pain is a common emergency department (ED) complaint. It is important to understand the differences in pain perception among different ethnic and demographic populations.

METHODS: We applied a standardized painful stimulus to Caucasian and Latino adult patients to determine whether the level of pain reported differed depending on ethnicity (N=100; 50 Caucasian [C], 50 Latino [L] patients) and gender (N=100; 59 female, 41 male). Patients had an initial pain score of 0 or 1. A blood pressure cuff was inflated 20 mm HG above the patient's systolic blood pressure and held for three minutes. Pain scores, using both a …

Fictive Kinship In The Aspirations, Agency, And (Im)Possible Selves Of The Black American Art Teacher, Gloria Wilson

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

In this paper, I explore the pairing of the concepts of fictive kinship and agency in order to explore racial identity narratives of the Black American art teacher. Expanding on the anthropological concept of fictive kinship, where bonds of connectedness between people help to shape selfhood, I consider the powerful impact that visual culture has on shaping identity narratives and the professional aspirations of Black American art teachers. I identify fictive kinship connections as salient in creating spaces which affect agency in the conceptualization and achievement of the self as an artist. I further use the concept of fictive kinship …

Latina Political Leadership In Massachusetts, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

This Fact Sheet offers an analysis of Latina leadership and political representation in the Massachusetts, as of the 2017.

Dark Stars Of The Evening: Performing African American Citizenship And Identity In Germany, 1890-1920, Kristin L. Moriah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dark Stars of the Evening: Performing African American Citizenship and Identity in Germany, 1890-1920 demonstrates that black performers in Germany developed wide networks in the performance world as they sought artistic opportunities beyond the racist circumscription of the American popular stage. Their performances became emblematic of modernity, globalization, and imperial might for German audiences at the turn of the century. African American-styled blackness contributed to the formation of the city of Berlin while allowing African American performers to assert themselves on the global stage. Groups like the Four Black Diamonds had a lengthy engagement with the popular stage in Berlin, …

The Silent Crisis Ii: A Follow-Up Analysis Of Latin@ Participation In City Government Boards, Commissions, And Executive Bodies In Boston And Chelsea, Massachusetts, James Jennings, Jen Douglas, Miren Uriarte

Gastón Institute Publications

This report provides an update on the participation of Latin@s in city government in Chelsea and Boston. Since 2001 several studies have documented a severe underrepresentation of Latin@s in policy-making bodies in government institutions that affect their lives (e.g., Hardy-Fanta, 2002; Uriarte, Jennings, & Douglas, 2014). The Silent Crisis, the 2014 study (Uriarte et al., 2014) commissioned by the Greater Boston Latin@ Network, found significant under-representation of Latin@s in the city governments of Boston, Chelsea, and Somerville. In each of the three cities, the representation of Latin@s in the population far outpaced their role in the municipal governments.

Festivals, Sport, And Food: Japanese American Community Redevelopment In Postwar Los Angeles And South Bay, Heather Kaori Garrett

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study fills a critical gap in research on the immediate postwar history of Japanese American community culture in Los Angeles and South Bay. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute research and literature of the immediate postwar period between the late 1940s resettlement period and the 1960s. During the early to mid-1940s, Americans witnessed World War II and the unlawful incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. In the 1960s, the Sansei (third generation) started to reshape the character and cultural expressions of Japanese American communities, including their development of the Yellow Power Movement in the context of the …

A Recipe For Black Girl Magic: A Critical Study Of The Mise-En-Scene In Beyoncé’S Visual Album Lemonade As A Radical Representation Of Black Women, Tatiyana Jenkins

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Lemonade, a visual album released by pop icon Beyoncé Knowles Carter in 2016, crafts a mise-en-scene that redefines the way that black women are allowed to feel and exist in media culture. Contrary to the negative stereotypes and misrepresentations perpetuated in media, Lemonade is a radical attempt to provide audiences with an alternative representation of the experiences of black women. For this honors project, I address the controversy surrounding the visual album’s radical representations of black womanhood. To inform my understanding of the visual album I examine the various creative contributions such as the film Daughters of the Dust directed …

Smoking As A Form Of Persistence In A Christian Nipmuc Community, Jessica Ann Rymer

Graduate Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to determine the role that smoking played in the gatherings taking place at the Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston farmstead and what its presence meant for the Nipmuc who gathered there. Previous work has firmly established that the farmstead functioned as a site of communal feasting for the Hassanamesco Nipmuc using ceramic and faunal evidence, and Heather Law in her 2008 thesis suggested that the site may have operated as an “informal tavern” based on her analysis of the glass assemblage. In all of these studies clay tobacco pipe fragments were utilized for stem bore diameter …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Tracing Fuel Use And Landscape Change On The Eastern Pequot Reservation 1740-1850, Kalila Herring

Graduate Masters Theses

Gathering fuel wood was a regular chore for most people throughout time and certainly was a part of life for people living in 18th- and 19th-century Connecticut. During this period, the landscape was being altered due to rapidly expanding agriculture and, by circa 1850, would be at the peak of deforestation. During this period, the Eastern Pequot, a Native American nation in North Stonington, were living on their reservation (established in 1683) in a colonial environment and dealing with timber theft, a reduced land base, overseer control, and the overall environmental changes occurring in Connecticut. This thesis examines the charred …

The Protection Of Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights, Melissa Seelye

FIMS Presentations

Librarians and archivists have played prominent roles in initiatives aimed at preserving indigenous cultural heritage in recent decades. Such initiatives have evolved in response to the relative lack of legal protections for indigenous cultural heritage of an intangible nature, especially compared to title laws intended to regulate the use of indigenous lands, burial sites, and plants. Even non-legally binding resolutions that take a holistic approach to indigenous property have proven contentious, with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) having only been ratified in 2007, despite being drafted in 1993. Grounded in a critical understanding of …

Tipping Point, Pang Z. Vang

Theses and Dissertations

What happens to a woman at the tipping point under oppression in a patriarchal society? How does she behave? Pulling from the vagina dentata mythologies, and personal and collective experiences of rape culture, I formed a body of work which problematize the stereotypical narrative of victim/perpetrator. As a visual and conceptual exploration, my work explores the themes of desire, agency/non-agency, and violence [as it manifests within and outside of the body]. Utilizing visual and conceptual quotations from film, pornography and sex toys, these works subvert the exoticized stereotype of the Asian woman as sexual plaything.

47th Chicano Commencement, 2017, San Jose State University, Associated Students

Chicano Commencement

47th Annual Chicano Commencement

"Con Orgullo, Con Poder, Y Sin Miedo" The 47th Annual Chicano Commencement was held on Sunday, May 28, 2017 at the SJSU Event Center.