African American Studies Commons^™

A Power Man’S Theology: Marvel’S Luke Cage And Black Liberation Theology, Diarron B. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Netflix released Marvel’s Luke Cage in 2016 to critical acclaim. Born from a 1970s comic book, the series features Luke Cage, an African-American superhero. Cage is a big, bald, bulletproof black man. Instead of tights and a cape, Cage wears a hoodie calling the audience to remember Trayvon Martin and other victims of white racism. Theologian James Cone created Black Liberation Theology in the 1970s. As a result of Cone’s work, Black Liberation Theology addresses the issue of white racism from a theological standpoint. In this thesis I present a close reading of Marvel’s Luke Cage using Black Liberation Theology …

Table Of Contents, Regennia N. Williams

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Transformational Leadership: Flow, Resonance, And Social Change, Enas Elhanafi

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

South Africa As A Dynamic Teaching Experience, Robert A. Simons, Christine Dickinson

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Ua12/2/2 2019 Talisman: Balance, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Archives Records

2019 Talisman yearbook.

• Mohr, Olivia. Balance
• Lunte, Hailee. That Warm Feeling Autumn Took from Me
• Dozer, Claire. Mother Load – Savannah Ranney
• Hubbs, Annalee. Tap After Hours – Dance
• Lancaster, Emily. Opposites Attract – Maddie Rediker & Cameron Blankenship
• Jones, Sydney. Delving into the Dirty – Taylor Gossage, Lion’s Den
• Chu, Phi. Snow Song
• Gordon, Zora. Spells & Spirit – Kristen Dalby, Witchcraft
• Powers, Noah. What is Left – Kelly Meredith, Identity Theft
• Aklilu, Bethel. Uprooting – International Students
• Steffey, Raegan. The Dirty Art Kids
• Dieudonne, Nadia. Self Starteres – Entrepreneurs
• Bass, Morgan. Young & Partisan – Politics
• Powers, Noah. …

Retelling The Classics: The Harlem Renaissance, Biblical Stories, And Black Peoplehood, Mina Magalhaes

Celebration of Learning

Applying social identity theory to the process of creating peoplehood can illustrate the positive power that literature has in uplifting marginalized communities by showing their worth. James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation” and Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain, both composed during the Harlem Renaissance, offer one way to create Black peoplehood by creating depictions of God’s love for His Black people through the repurposing of biblical stories. Through the implementation of social identity theory to Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain and Johnson’s “The Creation,” I argue that these two authors addressed the need among African Americans to …

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Paper: Investigating The Work Of William Styron: The Perpetuation Of The Fantastic Hegemonic Imagination, William Sikich

Womanist Ethics

William Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner depicts a fictitious characterization of the historical Nat Turner. Styron, a white southerner, assumes Turner's perspective in order to tell a speculative story about his slave rebellion of 1831. Similarly, he tells the story of a fictional holocaust survivor in his novel, Sophie's Choice. The decision to take on these perspective evinces some arrogance on Styron's part, and the way in which he executes the narrative of each novel delivers their stories with varying levels of respect to their subjects: Styron's indirect telling of Sophie's story allows Styron some freedom to speculate, while …

Jesse Routte: Using Style To Signify Injustice, Emma Nordmeyer

Race, Ethnicity, & Religion

Jesse Routte, first African-American student to graduate Augustana, made national headlines in 1947 for wearing a turban on a visit to Alabama. In this paper, I explore how Routte's stylistic choices uprooted and questioned the racism of the Jim Crow era.

Interview Of Margaret Mcguinness, Ph.D., Margaret Mcguinness Ph.D., Stephen Pierce

All Oral Histories

Dr. Margaret McGuinness was born in 1953, in Providence, Rhode Island. She went to an all-girls Catholic high school called St. Mary’s Academy Bayview in Providence where she graduated in 1971. McGuinness went on to major in American Studies and Civilization as an undergraduate at Boston University graduating with a B.A in 1975. She continued her work at Boston University where McGuinness earned a master’s of theological studies (M.T.S) focusing on Biblical and Historical Studies in 1979. She would move to New York to work on her dissertation at Union Theological Seminary finishing with her Ph.D. in 1985 concentrating on …

Stewart, Karen (Fa 1273), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1273. Student paper titled “Negro Gospel Music at Barnes Chapel Methodist Church” in which Karen Stewart describes a singular all-day “singing” held at the church in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, in February 1971. Stewart offers a brief description of her fieldwork methods including research and recording and provides an abbreviated background on each of her musical informants. Stewart also recounts the songs that were sung and notes recurrent themes throughout the music. The paper also includes the words to each hymn, a black and white photograph of the performers, and two reel-to-reel audiotapes.

Loving, Frances (Hoover), 1906-1982 (Sc 3339), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3339. Letter, 19 August 1968, of Frances (Hoover) Loving, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to the editor of the Park City Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky. The former resident of Bowling Green deplores the recent bombing of a rural African-American church near the city and expresses the hope that law enforcement will solve the crime, stated in an attached clipping to be the sixth in the county in the past eighteen months. Copied to several state and national politicians, pastors, and Western Kentucky University faculty, the letter was published in the Daily News on …

Capitalizing On My African American Christian Heritage In The Cultivation Of Spiritual Formation And Contemplative Spiritual Disciplines, Claire Appiah

Doctor of Ministry

This project addresses what I perceive to be an opportunity for some aspects of African American spirituality to become more holistic. It is noteworthy that many African American communal worship experiences are powerful and dynamic. I hypothesize that many African American Christians can enjoy an even more enhanced spiritual experience by integrating contemplative spiritual disciplines into present dynamic communal practices for spiritual formation. In Section One, I look at the genesis of the circumstances that necessitated communal solidary for enslaved Africans in the New World. I follow the path of their religious journey from being a clandestine group of ecstatic …

Three Reasons Martin Luther King Jr. Disliked Being Labeled "Civil Rights Leader", Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Three reasons King disliked being labeled "civil rights leader:"

(1) He was a religious leader, a preacher (not a secular politician).

(2) He advanced "economic rights" ("civil rights" do not include "economic rights").

(3) He opposed war in Vietnam (not a civil rights issue).

Texas On The Record: The Church Of God In Christ (Cogic) Determination To Possess The Land In Texas (1907-1935), Karen Kossie-Chernyshev

Department of History, Geography and General Studies

This essay examines the missionary impulse of the Church of God in Christ, the largest predominantly African American Christian denomination in the world.

"'Texas On The Record': Church Of God In Christ (Cogic) Determination To Possess The Land, 1907-1935, Karen Kossie-Chernyshev

Department of History, Geography and General Studies

While members of the COGIC shunned being "of" this world, property records affirm that they were consciously and progressively "in" it. Property records literally grounded the COGIC in the material world and linked their concept of a "royal priesthood and a holy nation" to the bedrock of wealth in capitalist America--real estate, the COGIC's most visible sign of prosperity.

That They May All Be One: Historical And Contemporary Ideologies Of Regional Conferences In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Debbie-Ann Francis

Master's Theses

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church has been known for its wide diversity along with its struggles in racial relations within the Black SDA community in the United States. The SDA Church established regional conferences for Black SDA leaders as an alternative to full integration within the denomination. For this analysis, an ideological criticism was performed on two videos that focused on the topic of regional conferences. The hegemonic ideology that surfaced was that separation within the church organization based on race is necessary in order to fulfill the mission of the SDA Church and that issues such as racism will …

Amos Wimbush Papers, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

Manuscript Finding Aids

Papers and memorabilia of Amos Wimbush and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, including 1918 photo postcard of Camp Robson, Little Rock, Arkansas and newspaper article about Mr. Wimbush.

How Long Shall We Tarry? A Reception History Of Tarrying For The Baptism In The Spirit In Early Pentecostal Testimonies, Daniel D. Isgrigg

College of Science and Engineering Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper, presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, will investigate the methodology of tarrying for the baptism in the Holy Spirit as expressed in the testimonies recorded throughout the thirteen existing issues of the Apostolic Faith (1906-1908) of the Azusa Street Mission. In order to extract the “ordinary theology” expressed by this diverse cross-section of early Pentecostals, this study will engage in a history of reception of how Pentecostals received Jesus’ command to “tarry” and how that reception shaped the expectation of the early Pentecostals experience of receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

An Investigation Of The Help-Seeking Attitudes Of African American Christian Churchgoers, Kristi Madison

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Black Church has been a powerful support system for African Americans, providing economic, and psychological support in addition to meeting spiritual and religious needs. African American church leaders continue to provide a multitude of services to the community; however, research has shown that African American Protestant Christian churchgoers'€™ preference for informal supports may exacerbate some symptoms of mental illness as people may postpone seeking formal help. Utilizing a nonexperimental, cross-€sectional design, this study examined the relationship between these churchgoers'€™ attitudes toward religious help-€seeking and attitudes toward professional help-€seeking. One hundred four African American Protestant Christian churchgoers in the mid-Atlantic …

Background Of King's Preaching Theology (Chapter One Of King's Speech: Preaching Reconciliation In A World Of Violence And Chasm), Sunggu Yang

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "From birth, King was surrounded and influenced by the black faith community. Both his maternal grandfather and his father were successful African-American Baptist preachers in Atlanta, Georgia. Put simply, "King was a product of the black church in America:" How exactly, then, did the black Baptist church-or the black church in general-influence King's reconciliatory preaching theology? There are at least three significant elements of the black church tradition that influenced King: the freedom tradition, open-ended Christian practices, and the particular interpretative tools of allegory and typology."

The Influence Of Spiritual And Emotional Intelligence On Romantic Relationships Of African Americans, Wanda Raquel Harris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The use of religion-based spirituality was examined as a factor in strengthening and increasing emotional intelligence and regulation, facilitating relationship choices and maintenance, and as a key factor in the decision-making process of dating and partner selection among African Americans. The theoretical framework for this study included Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, on which both theories of spiritual and emotional intelligence stand, and Bowlby's theory of attachment. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyze relationships between spiritual and emotional intelligences and attachment styles among African American adults. In a criterion-based purposeful sample of 98 African American participants aged 27 …

Strong Black Women, Depression, And The Pentecostal Church, Dawn E. Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Depression is a global health concern and among the top two causes of disability

and disease. African-Americans often seek help from the Black church, but

Pentecostal churches may fail to provide effective support due to doctrinal beliefs.

African-American women with depression struggle due to psychosocial implications

of the diagnosis. This research study used social constructionism and the

biopsychosocial model of health to explore the lived experiences of African-

American women suffering from self-reported depression while attending

Pentecostal churches in the Northeast United States. Fourteen women, ages

20 to 76, participated in this qualitative, phenomenological study. Data obtained

from the semistructured, …

Religious Coping And Ptsd Symptom Management Among African Americans: A Clergy Perspective, Barbra Talley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Data indicated that although African Americans reported fewer occurrences of traumatic events than that of their racial/ethnic counterparts, however, the degree of traumatic events experienced by African Americans tends to be more serious and violent in nature. More so, lower recovery outcomes associated with PTSD among African Americans have been attributed to varying factors, such as financial restrictions, strained health care access, ineffective coping strategies as well as a mistrust of medical and clinical approaches, thus leading African Americans to seek faith-based approaches. This phenomenological study investigated clergy perspectives on religious coping constructs relative to the management of PTSD symptoms. …

The Homecoming Of The Negro Spirit: Black Spiritual Intelligence As A Structural Form Of Intelligence, Quincy Brown

CMC Senior Theses

In Is Spirituality an Intelligence? Motivation, Cognition, and the concern of Psychology of Ultimate Concern, Robert Emmons develops a case for spirituality as a form of intelligence. His thesis claims that spiritual intelligence is a “set of capacities and abilities that enable people to solve problems and attain goals in their everyday lives”: “the capacity for transcendence; the ability to enter into heightened spiritual states of consciousness; the ability to invest everyday activities, events, and relationships with a sense of the sacred; the ability to utilize spiritual resources to solve problems in living; and the capacity to engage …

Ua37/30/2 Faculty Personal Papers Lowell Harrison Wku Research, Wku Archives, Sam Bruer, Bess Mchone

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by Lowell Harrison while serving as University Historian and writing the 75th anniversary history "Western Kentucky University" as well as numerous articles about the university.

The Role Of The Black Church In Addressing Collateral Damage From The U.S. War On Drugs, Donald L. Perryman

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This research is a qualitative examination of African American pastors from urban communities who address the needs of congregants and/or local communities affected directly, or indirectly by mass incarceration. The Black Church, because of its unique sociocultural location and historic role as resource for Black social and economic problems, must help supply the answers to the devastating collateral damage of mass incarceration that primarily affect children and families. The study sets out to understand urban pastors’ perceptions of the role of the Church in the post mass incarceration era. Specifically, the study examines the unique contributions of the African American …