Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

A Social Relations Model Of Everyday Talk And Relational Satisfaction In Stepfamilies, Paul Schrodt, Jordan Soliz, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined the intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms underlying reported frequencies of everyday talk and relational satisfaction in stepfamilies. Participants included a parent, stepparent, and child from 114 stepfamilies (N = 342) from the Midwest and Southwest regions of the United States. Social relations model analyses revealed that everyday talk and relational satisfaction vary across stepfamily relationships as a function primarily of actor and relationship effects. Stepparents’ reports of everyday talk with the parent (i.e., their spouse) varied primarily as a function of actor effects, whereas reports of both children’s and parents’ satisfaction with the stepparent varied primarily as a …

Agenda Setting Of Arabic Related Content On German Tv: A Content Analysis On Deutsche Welle Tv Arabia, Nadine Abdel Latif Rashwan

Archived Theses and Dissertations

In today's media, international broadcasting is a tool to communicate with a world wide audience. Most of the networks, especially those that are linked with their country's government, try to use their international channels to deliver national policy or want to convey certain important factors of their home culture to nations all over the world e.g. language.

The question of broadcast content is a very controversial issue. That is why in this thesis the researcher has focused on the content of the German TV network Deutsche Welle TV Arabia in order to analyze what kind topics the channel focuses on …

Narrative Politics In Historical Fictions For Children, John Streamas

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In "Narrative Politics in Historical Fictions for Children," John Streamas points out that narrative theory and ethnic studies need to ask each other basic questions before a reading of race in children's literature can be useful. Is the literature merely a reflection of the experience of adult writers and parents? That is, must we read the literature as nostalgic, reflecting a developmental bias? Or does it engage children on their own contemporary terms? Are children themselves capable of racism, even if only as extensions of adult racial imaginations? Certainly the growing number of children's books written by writers of color …

Natives, Nostalgia, And Nature In Children's Popular Film Narratives, C. Richard King

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper "Natives, Nostalgia, and Nature in Children's Popular Film Narratives," C. Richard King offers a critical reading in an effort to appreciate the entanglements of nature, natives, and nostalgia in children's narratives. In this context, an analysis of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron Spirit affords an ideal occasion for such a reading because it centers on the relations between Native Americans, Euroamericans, and the natural world as it tells the story of a wild mustang living in western North America in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, as close examination reveals, the film uses race, gender, civilization, and wildness …

Race And Gender Representations In Advertising In Cable Cartoon Programming, Debra L. Merskin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper "Race and Gender Representations in Advertising in Cable Cartoon Programming," Debra L. Merskin explores what children see and what they learn about racial, ethnic, and gender identity in television advertisements. Merskin examines race and ethnicity in commercials on cable television, specifically on the Turner Cartoon Network, an environment devoted entirely to cartoons and to children. Her content analysis of 381 advertisements reveals that while White and African American children are overrepresented in relationship to their percentage of the U.S. population, other minority group children are rarely portrayed. In only one instance were children of color shown alone, …

Polly Bemis, Pedagogy, And Multiculturalism In The Classroom, Katy Fry

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As Katy Fry suggests in her paper "Polly Bemis, Pedagogy, and Multiculturalism in the Classroom," the history of the US-American West is too often taught in mythological terms. This is especially true in grade school classrooms, where children are told that the West was settled by courageous men and women who dared to come to and conquer a wild, untamed place. The notion of what it meant to be a pioneer remains simple and uncomplicated. As Fry points out, however, there were pioneers of a different sort, such as the Chinese immigrant Polly Bemis. Fry's article examines the various pedagogic …

Introduction To Racialized Narratives For Children, C. Richard King

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Childhood In Ellis's Three Wishes, Wafaa Hasan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In "The Politics of Childhood in Ellis's Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak," Wafaa Hasan outlines the recent controversy in Canada over the restrictions that shape children's literature. Using Neil Postman's and John Locke's conceptions of childhood, Hasan unpacks the ways in which Ellis's Three Wishes has threatened popular conceptions of childhood. Specifically, as her analysis shows, Ellis's work redefines the boundaries of children's fiction by heterogenizing childhood experience and by affording its readers -- limited but consequential -- authorial agency. Further, Hasan asserts that Three Wishes liberates the idea of childhood as a developmental stage of ignorance by …

Children's Film As Social Practice, J. Zornado

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper "Children's Film as Social Practice," J. Zornado argues that the animated feature is a genre distinct in its own right, and, although overlooked by film criticism up to now, deserves rigorous, scholarly attention. Zornado employs the term "iconology" to develop a foundation for a critical methodology indebted to Althusser, Foucault, and Lacan as well as contemporary film criticism. Iconology of the animated feature film is the study of the meaning systems of the dominant culture and the ways in which such systems are inscribed into all kinds of social practice geared, specifically, to seduce and inform the …

Children's Video Games As Interactive Racialization, Cathlena Martin

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Cathlena Martin explores in her paper "Children's Video Games as Interactive Racialization" selected children's video games. Martin argues that children's video games often act as reinforcement for the games' television and film counterparts and their racializing characteristics and features. In Martin's analysis the video games discussed represent media through which to analyze racial identities and ideologies. In making the case for positive female minority leads in children's video games, Martin examines the games and franchises of Rugrats and Dora the Explorer. She argues that the influx of games with a greater diversity of minority female characters has only been a …

The Ambiguous Nature Of Multiculturalism In Two Picture Books About 9/11, Jo Lampert

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper "The Ambiguous Nature of Multiculturalism in Two Picture Books about 9/11," Jo Lampert looks at how some of the Western discourses of multiculturalism and cultural diversity have shifted since 11 September 2001 by discussing two exemplar picture books about 9/11. Lampert begins with a general discussion of children's books as significant cultural producers of knowledge and provides brief summaries of Patel's On That Day: A Book of Hope for Children and Carlson's There's a Big, Beautiful World Out There! Lampert discusses how the imagined readers of these books are positioned problematically in order to embrace racial tolerance, …

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Representation Of Asian Indian Folk Tales In Us-American Children's Literature, Sudeshna Roy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "A Critical Discourse Analysis of Representation of Asian Indian Folk Tales in US-American Children's Literature," Sudeshna Roy explores the representation of India in U.S. children's picture books by interpreting prevailing images of the subcontinent and its peoples and their impact on children's understandings. Roy analyzes three key elements -- titles, illustrations, and text -- identifying a set of predominant themes: nature and wild animals, poverty and hardship, spiritual hermits, and wit and common sense wisdom. From these findings, Roy suggests that Eurocentric imperial ideologies continue to inform the formulation of race, gender, and nation in U.S. children's …

A Bibliography Of Work On Racial Narratives For Children, Marie Drews

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Racism, Disable-Ism, And Heterosexism In The Making Of Helen Keller, Andy Prettol

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper "Racism, Disable-ism, and Heterosexism in the Making of Helen Keller" Andy Prettol offers an analysis of prevailing narratives about Helen Keller. Prettol focuses on the dynamic interplay of race, (dis)ability, sexuality, and gender inherent to all Keller stories of triumph that are so popular in elementary schools across the U.S. He examines three specific works: William Gibson's playscript The Miracle Worker, written in 1956; the film of the same title directed by Arthur Penn in 1962; and the compiled letters of Anne Sullivan in Helen Keller's The Story of Life. Prettol's analysis works to unpack the articulations …

Into The Void: Danielewski And The Uncanny Novel, Chad Bebee

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mark Danielewski's novel. House

Toward A Free Collegiate Press: An Analysis Of Influences That Can Lead To Censorship At College Newspapers, Shaniece Bell Bickham

Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to explore the impact that influences at the individual, organizational and societal levels had on content in college and university student newspapers. Specifically, this research examined the ways that influences at the three levels could lead to censorship of the student press. A quantitative study was conducted through the use of online survey research. Student editors, faculty advisers, and academic affairs administrators of journalism and mass communication programs that are recognized as being accredited by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) were surveyed to gather information about the structure …

Chavs, Neds, Neets And Yobs: The Anti-Social Underclass Of The United Kingdom, Alexander Michael Marra

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This work is the result of the first look by an American into anti-social and yobbish behavior in the UK, and who's responsible for it. The delinquent subculture whose members are alternately either known as chavs or neds will be analyzed in detail. In addition, the NEET, the British government's designation for those who are not in employment, education, or training, will also be analyzed for the roots and reasons behind what may come to be known as the NEET generation in the UK in the years to come. For now they are sometimes called the ASBO generation because of …

Testimonial, Henry Abelove

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Douglas Crimp was born in 1944 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where his brother and sister still live. As a boy, Douglas imagined that he might become an architect, and he went to Tulane University specifically to study architecture. But soon after beginning his university life, he shifted his concentration to Art History. One Tulane Teacher of Art History in particular enthralled him. This was Bernard Lehman, an eloquent, learned, and effervescent lecturer, and a campy gay man, whom Douglas credits as a primary influence.

The Simpsons: A Reflection Of Violence, Theodore S. Huptich

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Violence in the media has always been a concern to many people. There have been numerous studies that have reviewed the effect that violent television programming has had on the people that have viewed; most of these studies have shown an increase in aggression in the people that viewed the violent programming. However, there have been very few, if any, studies that have examined the amount and type of violence that exists in television programs. This study uses the television program "The Simpsons", due to its popularity and longevity, to examine the amount and type of violence that exists. This …

Marx, Postmodernism, And Spatial Configurations In Jameson And Lefebvre, Arina Lungu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Marx, Postmodernism, and Spatial Configurations in Jameson and Lefebvre," Arina Lungu discusses the connection between Marxist sociology and postmodernist theory. Lungu examines Fredric Jameson's volume Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism under the light of the spatial theory developed in the 1970s by Marxian theoretician Henri Lefebvre. For Jameson, the spatial turn is a consequence of the gap between the limited abilities of the human perceptive apparatus and the unrepresentability of the multinational hyperspace. In Lungu's view, Jameson reaches his definition of "culturally-dominant" sensibility by disregarding the rich body of spatial criticism outside postmodern theory. …

Nation Building, Utopia, And The Latin American Writer/Intellectual, María Odette Canivell

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Nation Building, Utopia, and the Latin American Writer/Intellectual," María Odette Canivell discusses the role of utopia in the foundational myths of Latin American cities and its nations. Nation building, in Latin America, Canivell claims, is tied to European myths regarding the New World, as well as to the function of writers' (escribidores) and intellectuals' (letrados) re-formulation of these myths along with their own desires/dreams as to what the ideal of Latin America means. Escribadores and letradas, who make history while re-writing the story/history of their nations, have a direct effect on the policy making and construction of …

Achebe, Conrad, And The Postcolonial Strain, Eric Sipyinyu Njeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Achebe, Conrad, and the Postcolonial Strain" Eric Sipyinyu Njeng presents an analysis of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in a context of postcolonial thought and argues that while Achebe's text is often placed against Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a counter discourse -- thus interrogating Conrad's portraiture of Africans as savages -- Achebe's text in fact represents anti-Africanism and subservience to Occidental values. Examining Achebe's authorial intention in Things Fall Apart, especially as epitomized in the character of Okonkwo, the protagonist, Njeng argues that Achebe corroborates Conrad's portrait of the African. In writing Things Fall Apart, …

Thompson's And Acosta's Collaborative Creation Of The Gonzo Narrative Style, Shimberlee Jirón-King

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Thompson's and Acosta's Collaborative Creation of the Gonzo Narrative Style," Shimberlee Jirón-King presents an analysis of Hunter S. Thompson's and Oscar Zeta Acosta's works and a correction about the origins of Gonzo Journalism. Jirón-King suggests that Thompson's and Acosta's writings express the authors' disillusionment about the loss of the American Dream and that their texts suggest the revolutionary movements they hoped for would transform a disintegrating culture have only fallen prey to the shortsightedness of US-American culture. The counter culture they observe simply develops its own forms of racism, classism, power-mongering, and corruption that re-inscribe hegemonic discourses …

On The Convergence Of Innis's International Political Economy And Sebald's Novels, Joseph S. Pinter

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper "On the Convergence of Innis's International Political Economy and Sebald's Novels" Joseph S. Pinter contributes to the development of an area of scholarship on Harold A. Innis and Canadian political economy which deals with issues of representation, landscape, and memory. Pinter draws attention to a specific aspect of Innis's approach to political economy and focuses on ways in which Innis was able to represent fundamental aspects of the settlement process in Canada. Pinter argues that Innis focussed on landscape as a basic element in the European experience of North America (US and Canada) that, in turn, enabled …

The Methodology Of Architectonic Truth-Finding In Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), Stephan Schaffrath

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Stephan Schaffrath, in his paper "The Methodology of Architectonic Truth-Finding in Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel)," discusses how Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) negotiates the treacherous terrains that lie between positivism and nihilistic relativism by means of a truth-finding methodology. Schaffrath proposes that truth-finding methodology applies approximative, and therefore architectonic, approaches to conventional concepts of narration and history. Grass's novel breaks down and reassembles playfully the conventions of narration and history, not to negate or devalue them, but to reappraise them by means of an approximative truth-finding methodology, an approach that corresponds to Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of …

Intergenerational Support And The Role Of Grandparents In Post-Divorce Families: Retrospective Accounts Of Young Adult Grandchildren, Jordan Soliz

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The purpose of the current study was to examine grandparent support to grandchildren following the divorce of parents. Participants (N = 42) responded to questions focusing on the enactment of support and relationships with grandparents. Through these retrospective, self-report accounts, six categories of grandparent support were identified. Additionally, four barriers to grandparent sup-port emerged from the responses of the grandchildren. These categories of and barriers to intergenerational social support are discussed as they relate to characteristics and expectations of provided support in post-divorce families.

Mississippi’S Social Transformation In Public Memories Of The Trial Against Byron De La Beckwith For The Murder Of Medgar Evers, Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 1994, Byron de la Beckwith was convicted for the 1963 murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Journalistic coverage of the trial and the 1996 docudrama Ghosts of Mississippi crafted a social values transformation myth that depicted Beckwith as the primary villain of the civil rights past and cast his conviction as a sign that racism had been cleansed from Mississippi. Popular media naturalized this myth intertextually though narrative repetition and through symbolic cues that established the film as a source of historic understanding. These cues deflected critical attention from contemporary social conditions that have maintained racial inequity and …

An Emerging Native Language Education Framework For Reservation Public Schools With Mixed Populations, Phyllis B. Ngai

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Currently, we lack a viable indigenous language education framework for reservation public schools with mixed Native and non-Native student populations. Can stakeholders holding different and often conflicting points of view agree to accept and nurture Native language education programs in the public school arena? In search of a workable framework that will guide language education efforts acceptable to most (if not all) stakeholders in mixed districts, the author gathered grassroots input across communities with mixed populations on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. Study participants suggested approaches for dealing with existing obstacles and ways to include diverse local perspectives. The …

Capitalizing On Affect: Viagra (In)Action, Kristin A. Swenson

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Recent cultural criticisms of Viagra’s advertisements and promotional materials have argued that rhetorical constructions of Viagra users reestablish a hegemonic masculinity premised on heterosexual standards of traditional gender norms (Baglia, 2005; Bordo, 2000; Loe, 2004). Cultural critics have also noted that Viagra’s promotional materials allow “for alternative readings by potential users who do not fall into the category of the ‘traditional/ideal’ Viagra user” including women and homosexual men (Mamo & Fishman, 2001, p. 14). What most criticisms fail to take into account is that Viagra, like other lifestyle drugs, does not only reestablish cultural constructs of the contemporary gendered body …

A Transnational Conversation On French Colonialism, Immigration, Violence And Sovereignty, Miriam Ticktin, Ruth Marshall, Paolo Bacchetta

Publications and Research

This conversation was transcribed from a panel discussion that took place at The Scholar & Feminist Conference XXXII, “Fashioning Citizenship: Gender and Immigration,” held on March 24, 2007 at Barnard College.