Imperial Adolescence In Kenzaburō Ōe's "Prize Stock", D'Yanna Coffey

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The study of adolescents in Postcolonial Studies is a growing area of research. This thesis defines Imperial Adolescence, a critical framework that be used to examine the development of adolescents in imperial settings, applies it to Kenzaburō Ōe’s “Prize Stock,” and encourages postcolonial scholars to add to a steadily discourse. “Prize Stock” tells the story of a black American airman captive in a rural Japanese village, and Imperial Adolescence is applied to the novella’s adolescent narrator. The four stages of Imperial Adolescence (Childhood, Early Adolescence, Puberty, and Middle Adolescence) are used to trace the impact of Postcolonial elements (such as …

Mouralherwaqh Coastal Wetland Road Crossing Da'luk, Natalie Mendez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The integration of Indigenous and Western science plays an essential role in Tribally led collaborations for land management. This process of woven sciences is rooted in reciprocal relations and partnerships guided by Tribal Nations. Our cohort was invited by Wiyot Tribal Representatives to investigate a culvert located within the wetlands of Mouralherwaqh— a parcel of land reacquired by the Wiyot Tribe in 2022. This document seeks to share our experience and analysis as part of the Wiyot Tribe’s broader journey in navigating ecocultural restoration projects within Mouralherwaqh. The four community interests we investigated for the wetland crossing included a resized …

Countering Dominant Narratives In Community: The Many Voices In Spoken Word Poetry, Natalie Raquel Acuña

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this project I research the counternarratives within spoken word poetry by authors of color (i.e., Rafeef Ziadah, José Olivarez, and Denise Frohman) and how they resist the dominant narratives that are broadcast towards a larger audience. I analyze categories of counterstory through the following paired themes: immigration/citizenship, and joy/trauma. I delve into the heavy importance of community within my project in the realm of spoken word poetry. A lot of poetry is going against dominant narratives, community within this discourse gives a sense of belonging and relatability to the experience of the spoken word performers.

Digital Footprints: Freedom On The Move At The University Of Kentucky, Vanessa Holden, Reinette F. Jones, Jennifer A. Bartlett, Kopana Terry

Library Presentations

During the late 18th through the mid-19th centuries, the Commonwealth of Kentucky saw significant movement of self-emancipated people seeking freedom from bondage. Often referred to as “runaways” or “fugitive slaves,” in historical texts, self-emancipated people defined freedom in many ways. These migrations were widely documented in newspaper advertisements known as fugitive slave advertisements and runaway ads in local newspapers published throughout the state. Access to these materials (often buried in databases or on microform) has been problematic at best. Enter the Self Emancipated and Enslaved People in Kentucky (SEEK) Project, a partnership between faculty in the University of Kentucky Libraries …

Autopathography Across Media: Trauma And Fluid Embodied Subjectivity, He (Kristen) Shen

Honors Theses

Illness memoirs with first-person point of view have gained more attention in recent years among medical sociologists and anthropologists. Different from traditional “case histories”written by doctors that are in danger of ignoring patients’ voices, autopathograhical works delineate narrators’ transformative experiences of persons to patients, emphasizing the importance of gaining social understanding of illness. Focusing on three works within the category of autopathography across genres and media forms in the late 1950s and contemporary periods, The Cancer Journals (1980) written by Audre Lorde, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019) written by Esmé Weijun Wang, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) directed …

Navigating Black Identity: Black Young Adults’ Perception Of Being ‘Black Enough’ In America, Tabitha Omanano

Masters Theses

This thesis highlights young adults’ assumptions that social performance and certain cultural proficiencies validate one’s Blackness. I discuss cultural expressions and differences and social behaviors and why such markers and differences are insufficient to define and authenticate Black identity. I posit that the primary determinant of Blackness is a matter of biology and a shared historical context. I begin by reviewing historical and contemporary perspectives on the racial identity of African Americans and Black Africans across various eras in the United States. This is followed by analyzing the ways in which young people question their Black identities—ethnic, cultural, social, and …

Moonshine Babies, Arghavan Heydareslam

Theses and Dissertations

Moonshine Babies is a two-screen film made of collage/cut-out stop-motion and live-action. It is a visual poem based on my journals from when I recently started living in the US as an outsider. The experience left me feeling divided between the empty present and memories of the past. suggesting that there are collective memories among a group of interconnected individuals that unite them within a single narrative.

There was a moment when I asked, "If you are your memories, what does it mean to be somewhere you have no memories of and no one has memories of you there?"

Memories …

La Voz Winter 2024, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

In this issue: 

• Joint Senior Faculty Hire Between the Department of Sociology and El Instituto
• Congratulations to our Colleague Rodolfo Fernandez!
• Building a Better Future: The Latino and Puerto Rican Policy Agenda Summit
• New PRSI Dashboards
• Update on NDOU Department
• CALAHE Annual Conference

Guide To "The Music Of Black America" Radio Script Collection, Columbia College Chicago

CBMR Collection Guides / Finding Aids

The collection contains scripts from “The Music of Black America,” a radio show written and produced in Los Angeles in 1982, hosted by J.J. Johnson (a Los Angeles radio personality) and Grammy Award winning singer Lou Rawls. The program featured a mix of contemporary and historical music, along with interviews. The donor, Albert D. Cunningham, was the show’s principal writer and producer.

Women, Animals, Food: Planetary Perspectives On The Non-(Hu)Man, Samu/Elle Striewski

Comparative Woman

The paper comparatively reads Mahasweta Devi’s Pterodactyl, Pirtha, and Puran Sahay (1995) and Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (2009) to trace the ways in which both novels show the complex intertwinement of the climate crisis with gender, class, race, subalternity, anthropocentrism, and veganism. Bringing together Gayatri C. Spivak’s notion of “planetarity” with ecofeminist philosophy and literary criticism, the article proposes a planetary ecogender reading of the two texts and their representation of the non-man, non-human, and non-subject. Building up further on Jacques Derrida’s critique of carno-phallogocentrism, the pedagogy of a relational ethics of “nurturing” is hence presented …

Ua12/2/84 Sigma Chi, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Phi Alpha fraternity and it's forerunner Sigma Chi.

Ua12/2/82 Phi Beta Sigma, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Ua12/2/85 Sigma Gamma Rho, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.

Ua1c11/127 Stephen Flora Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs donated by WKU alumnus Stephen Flora, taken for class and College Heights Herald.

The Realities Of Adulthood: Insecure's Journey Through Chaos To Fulfillment, Aniyah G. Lathan

Emerging Writers

This article discusses the profound impact of the HBO series "Insecure" (2016) on the lives of young black women, particularly those navigating the complexities of their 20s and early 30s. Through the lens of the awkward yet endearing character Issa Dee, the show portrays a vivid narrative of love, friendship, and career struggles.

Destiny's Cultural And Spiritual Healing: The Practice Of Care And Unlearning In Choreographing, Destiny Rivera-Gomez

Scripps Senior Theses

This research thesis reflects on the choreographic practices of care and unlearning that were implemented in choreographing a piece on personal narratives of immigration, indigeneity, conformity, rejection and celebration of ethnic and cultural pride. The author is a danzante of the Danza Azteca ceremonial practice. She explains the importance of handling the art form with care by learning its history and unlearning the misconstrued histories that have been told about the Mexica and Nahua people who practice the ceremonial danza. Touching on the history of the genocide of the Mexica people who were historically named and referred as the Aztecs. …

Housing Equity In Golden Gate Village, Nicole White

Social Justice | Senior Theses

For generations, the African American community has faced many forms of housing discrimination that have created major inequalities in their everyday lived experiences (Lockwood, 2020). This study explores the long-lasting effects of discriminatory housing policies in creating disparate housing conditions within the public housing community in Marin City called Golden Gate Village, as well as the role of the Marin Housing Authority in practices of displacement and neglect. The methodology for the study included seven different interviews with Golden Gate Village residents to obtain knowledge about the community as well as grasp an understanding of the lived experiences of the …

The Bourgeoisie Black Church: An Analysis Of The American Black Church's Aspirations And Imagination, Alexander Robert Booker

Seattle Pacific Seminary Theses

I am a product of the Black church. It is my home, my heart, and it has helped me spiritually, financially, and emotionally in many ways throughout my life. However, the church that I love dearly and has provided me with many opportunities has also provided spaces of harm, exclusion, and the promotion of an imperialistic Christ. This tension is not a unique tension for many institutions born in America, but what I see so clearly is the tension between the Black church’s countercultural and resistant roots that started in the brush harbors of the antebellum south and into what …

Solidarity Dividend With Us Wool And Community Engagement To Address Socioeconomic Inequities, Helen X. Trejo, Angela Becerril

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a long-standing natural fiber, wool provides an opportunity for community engagement and reflexive practice. Our process involved sourcing wool from US sheep and wool farms in lower income areas and hands-on textile development, and intersectional reflection. Being at a Hispanic Serving Institution, informed approaches to engage with concepts, such as the “zerosum paradigm” and “Solidarity Dividend” based on Heather McGhee’s NY Times Best Selling book “The Sum of Us.” It explores how racism affects intergenerational wealth among minorities. The zero-sum paradigm is the idea that progress is a tradeoff; benefits to some is at an expense for others. The …

Describing Dictee, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

The visual images in Dictee are famously captionless. They resist straightforward explanation. In writing image descriptions of the images in Dictee, I have tried to preserve the "captionlessness" of the original. The point here is not to explain the pictures—an image description is not identical to a caption—but to make Dictee more accessible to readers who are blind and visually impaired. I realize, of course, that in trying to make Dictee's captionless images more "legible," I have inevitably "mistranslated" Dictee as it was originally designed to be experienced. Its captionlessness is lost in translation despite my efforts to preserve it. …

Corporate Law As Decolonization, Martin W. Sybblis

Faculty Articles

After centuries of colonial subordination, Black and Brown former colonies are still fighting to achieve the fruits of decolonization. The traditional theory is that former colonies will emerge from the colonial period with the legal mandate and international recognition needed to chart their own futures. But, for those Black and Brown British colonies that achieved political independence, it became clear that, without economic strength to care for their societies, legal separation could not deliver on its promise of freedom from subordination. This Article argues that investments in corporate law innovations by some jurisdictions, such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, …

The Past As A Colonialist Resource, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

Originalism’s critics have failed to block its rise. For many jurists and legal scholars, the question is no longer whether to espouse originalism but how to espouse it. This Article argues that critics have ceded too much ground by focusing on discrediting originalism as either bad history or shoddy linguistics. To disrupt the cycle of endless “methodological” refinements and effectively address originalism’s continued popularity, critics must do two things: identify a better disciplinary analogue for originalist interpretation and advance an argument that moves beyond methods.

Anthropology can assist with both tasks. Both anthropological analysis and originalist interpretation are premised on …

Reclaiming My Identity: A Philosophical Deconstruction Of Stereotypes Placed On Black Women In Hip-Hop, Kichev L. Moultrie

Honors College Theses

Imposing damaging stereotypes on Black women has persisted throughout American culture, specifically within hip-hop. To analyze modern depictions of Black women in hip-hop, I will trace the historical roots of these stereotypes including, but not limited to, angry Black woman, jezebel, sapphire, and how they have persisted in modern media. This includes referencing the works of philosophers like Patricia Collins, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, etc. I will address the intersectionality of gender, racism, and classism, to show how these stereotypes are used as an oppression mechanism which we witness in society and the hip-hop community. However, in the face of …

Paths To Belonging: How Chinese Parachute Kids Construct Identity Across Borders, Huiying Chen

Pitzer Senior Theses

Chinese parachute kids, defined as unaccompanied minor who study in foreign countries alone while their parents remain in China, represent a unique segment of international students.This research specifically focusing on Chinese parachute kids studying in the U.S. Grounded in interviews with nineteen individuals who were once parachute kids, this study challenges the popular view that all international students have monolithic experiences especially within the assimilationist framework.

I propose a typology of three orientations (the heritage, the instrumental, and the global) and argue that Chinese parachute kids’ orientation determines their sense of belonging and their approaches to embeddedness in American educational …

Between Two Worlds: Navigating Bicultural Identity, Jesus Diaz

A with Honors Projects

This essay explores biculturalism, third culture identity, cultural hybridity, acculturation, and cultural dissonance to articulate my experiences as a second-generation immigrant and connect with others on similar journeys.

"Many Fabulous Stories And Idle Tales": The Intersection Of Elizabethan Political Gambits And Indigenous Erasure In The Early American Republic, Daniel Ryan Lewis

Theses and Dissertations--History

Welsh Indian Theory, originating in Elizabethan England, stated that a group of Welsh explorers settled in the Americas in the late 12^th century and intermarried with the Indigenous tribes, thereby explaining “advanced cultures” ranging from the Mississippians to the Aztec Empire. This act of erasure became rooted in Kentucky and the surrounding area in the 18^th and 19^th centuries; a series of prominent individuals from Kentucky in turn contributed to a growing body of false historical narratives that denied Indigenous Americans their cultural identities and connection their ancestral lands in the United States. With a 460-year trail …

Confronting Yanqui Racismo: The Cuban Revolution And The (R)Evolutionary Radicalization Of Amiri Baraka, Ariane Ribeiro Santana

Theses and Dissertations--History

This study examined the July 1960 trip to Cuba financed by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the Cuban cultural center Casa de las Américas, in which the Black poet and activist Amiri Baraka took part. Diving into his experiences in Cuba and his later writings, it is possible to conceive of diaspora as an interaction that is based not only on race, but on points of common oppression, as seen between Baraka and the African American delegation he joined in 1960 and the Cuban society he engaged with during the trip. This work therefore furthers the field of …

Three Contemporary Prosecution Case Studies And The Challenges Affecting The Indian Arts And Crafts Act, Tiffini Bowers

Theses and Dissertations--Arts Administration

The Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA) is America’s only federal arts policy. This study explores the IACA and the challenges contemporary prosecution cases identify for arts stakeholders, along with the implementation and effectiveness since the 2010 Act, to understand better the social and public policy implications and challenges for arts stakeholders. A qualitative study using multiple legal case studies, document analysis, and semi-structured interviews, along with an elite theory theoretical framework, anchors the research. Findings support existing research by indicating the main challenge is the definition and complexity of Indian identity; additional significant findings that contribute to future policy …

How We Make It: Disability Justice, Autoimmunity, Community, A Multimedia Project, Alexandra Juhasz, How We Make It Collective

Publications and Research

How We Make It: Disability Justice, Autoimmunity, Community is a born-digital multimedia piece that lives on the Scalar platform and that was submitted and eventually accepted into the Special Section on Autoimmunities in the Wake of COVID-19. The text below is a close reproduction of the Navigation page within the Scalar piece. While reading this text, one cracks open the door to glimpse the ten-person collective behind this project.

Looking At The Past To Change The Future: Showcasing Featured Collections, Building Communities, And Co-Creating, Sherry Buchanan

Library Faculty and Staff Publications and Presentations

Academic libraries have the opportunity and the responsibility to promote and advance content that creates transformative and iterative learning opportunities. To that end, and in an effort to build communities and facilitate co-creation, Portland State University showcases three main Featured Collections in our open access repository, PDXScholar: Climate Justice, COVID-19, and Racial and Gender Equity, with a fourth pilot collection—Student Work: An Open Showcase of Outstanding Student-Created Research & Creative Work—under development. The collections include a broad range of audiovisual materials, such as podcasts and webinar series, as well as sustainability and equity work, student-created content, and numerous future-focused multidisciplinary …