Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Bears, Baby Carrots, And The Colbert Bump: An Analysis On Stephen Colbert's Use Of Humor To Set The Public's Political Agenda, Dominique Mckay

Masters Theses

In recent years, political satire has risen in popularity and recognition as an effective means of transmitting political news to a younger generation of voters. This recent development brings forth new questions about the role of political satire in setting the public's political agenda. Using Agenda-Setting Theory as a framework, this study takes The Colbert Report, one of the most popular satire television shows of this generation, and analyzes it for a possible political agenda. In the end, what this study finds is that in the six weeks leading up to the 2008 U.S. presidential election The Colbert Report chose …

Cultural Impact On Customer Satisfaction And Service Quality Evaluation In Hotels, Yeji Seo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify how the cultural differences impact customer satisfaction and service quality evaluation in U.S. hotels.

Statement of Objective: The objective of this paper is threefold. The first objective is to define customer satisfaction and what customer satisfaction means to people from different cultural backgrounds. The second objective is to evaluate past research on satisfaction and to develop a taxonomy based on the existing literature to introduce how to measure customers’ satisfaction effectively in accordance with each culture. The third objective is to recommend what should be done by the hotel professionals in …

You Sir Are A Fine Young Gentleman. Thank You, My Lady: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Eighteenth Century Conversations Regarding Gentility And Gender, Kati Overbey

Masters Theses

This study rhetorically analyzed the eighteenth century work of Richard Steele and Joseph Addison's The Spectator and Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator using Kathleen Turner's framework for rhetorical history as social criticism integrating text and context. Ten essays from The Spectator as well as ten essays from The Female Spectator were selected based on content and subject matter regarding manners and gentility. When Turner's framework for analysis was applied to the essays, defining characteristics of gentility were revealed. A presentation of the results of the textual and contextual analysis of these twenty selected essays is provided. An analysis of the …

Sorry Buddy, But Your Name Isn't On The List: Fear And The Ethics Of Organ Donation In Film, Ted Callis

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

The fear of death and illness is a powerful motivator. When taking into account the ethical reasoning that drives organ transplantation and procurement practices, it is persuasive enough to sway minds and corrupt pure reason. And so this paper will uncover how fear of illness and death shape answers to the ethical questions that arise in transplant debates and how these debates are in turn raised in the ethical dilemmas portrayed by popular American films. This paper will examine recent films such as The Island, and Never Let Me Go to illustrate how the ethical dilemmas associated with organ …

Busting A Gut: Portrayals Of Obesity In Popular Culture, Carly Babel

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Obesity is America’s number one leading health epidemic, affecting more than 93 million Americans today (OAC). From 1985 to 2010, obesity has gone from affecting an average of 10% of individuals in just about every state to today affecting 33.8% of people within each state. Children and adults alike all over the U.S. are being diagnosed with obesity and encouraged to change their lifestyles. Doctors are prescribing patients to lose weight, exercise, eat healthy, and in extreme cases, go under the knife, but none of these recommendations are making a dent in lowering the rate of obesity. Rather, the number …

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Thinnest Of Them All?, Ann Marie O'Brien

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

Societal standards of feminine beauty are presented in all forms of popular culture, thus bombarding women with images that portray what our society considers to be the “ideal body type.” These images, as seen on the cover of magazines, in popular films and in all forms of web and print advertising, are consistently depicted and easily described with one word: skinny. The regular use of unnatural, unhealthy and unrealistic models sends the implicit message that in order for a woman to be beautiful, she must attain this ultra-thin physique. Such adulation of these images encourages women to sacrifice their health …

The Notion Of Life In The Work Of Agamben, Carlo Salzani

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben" Carlo Salzani analyzes the notion of "nudity" Giorgio Agamben's understanding of Western culture. Beginning with a reading of the essay "Nudity," in which Agamben proposes an archaeological investigation of the theological apparatus of the concept, Salzani analyzes the pivotal trope in Agamben's Homo Sacer project, "bare" or "naked life," that is, the nudity of life in the grip of sovereign power. Nudity and the nudity of life are construed as a "limit-concept" in a double movement of simultaneous positing and negation or in a positing that grants at …

Us-American New Women In Italy 1853-1870, Sirpa A. Salenius

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "US-American New Women in Italy 1853-1870" Sirpa A. Salenius discusses the Italian experience of sculptors such as Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis, who were independent, career-oriented women studying and working in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century. They were among the most representative New Woman figures who started to challenge US-American society's male-dominant norm and gender-imposed limitations, while reinventing an identity for themselves. Other progressive women, who observed them in Italy, were impressed and influenced by the example of their lives and work. For instance, the influence of Frances Willard's visit to Italy became visible after her return …

National Trauma And The 'Uncanny' In Hage's Novel De Niro's Game, Hany Ali Abdelfattah

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "National Trauma and the 'Uncanny' in Hage's Novel De Niro's Game" Hany Ali Abdelfattah attempts to decipher the "uncanny" in the character of George who has been haunted by the memories of Bassam, a Lebanese survivor of trauma. Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game crystallizes the national trauma of Lebanon and the massacre of Sabra and Shatila as it unfolds in the story of the friendship between George and Bassam. Abdelfattah employs the psychoanalytic method of analysis with a focus on Freudian concepts such as "repression," "belatedness," "effacement," "displacement," and "non-abreaction of experience" in order to trace …

Color And Brand Design For Multicultural Packaging, Kyle Valdillez

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study is to determine how companies can use the color and brand design of packaging to effectively communicate their products across multiple cultures. Companies are entering new markets overseas where culture is affecting how a product is being perceived. Whether it is positive, negative, or neutral, they must accommodate these influences to potentially increase profits. This study will specifically explore the Spanish and Japanese cultures in comparison to the American culture, concerning the meanings of various colors and their use in brand design. The research methods used were historical research and content analysis. Through thorough examination …

Imperialist Nostalgia In Masters's To The Coral Strand, Fikret Mehmet Arargüc

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Imperialist Nostalgia in Masters's To the Coral Strand" M. Fikret Arargüç discusses nostalgia as a resource of identity formation. Arargüç argues that imperialist nostalgia is no innocent emotional attachment to the past; rather, it is an adaptation to changed circumstances and its discursive practices (i.e., eulogizing) evade responsibility. In addition to practices to alleviate or absolve repressed guilt about the past, they often relate to discourses of power and regret that the past is no more. This type of nostalgia is another neo-imperialist form of exploitation by (ab)using or generating fluid, dynamic, and ever-evolving identities. Arargüç …

Aesthetics, Opera, And Alterity In Herzog's Work, Jacob-Ivan Eidt

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Aesthetics, Opera, and Alterity in Herzog's Work" Jacob-Ivan Eidt analyses Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo. Eidt's analysis is executed in the context of opera, cinema, and aesthetics. Eidt argues that Herzog uses opera as a romantic motif with which he creates a self-critical process whereby elements of the Romantic vision are called into question thus providing a nuanced reading of the main character and the Indigenous world he encounters. This process, Eidt argues, produces a complex narrative of colonial alterity where colonial self-inscription upon an Other is ultimately doomed to failure.

The Wounded Healer As Cultural Archetype, Galia Benziman, Ruth Kannai, Ayesha Ahmad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Wounded Healer as Cultural Archetype" Galia Benziman, Ruth Kannai, and Ayesha Ahmad discuss the topos of the wounded healer, a concept of an archetypal dynamic coined by Jung to describe a phenomenon which may take place between analyst and analyzed. They examine representations of the archetype in diverse cultures and demonstrate how a reading of its various narratives may enrich our theoretical and practical understanding of the importance of empathy and mutuality in the healing process. The archetype of the wounded healer is valuable in acknowledging cultural diversity, as well as universal parallels between healing practices …

The Role Of The Intellectual In Contemporary Turkish Women's Narratives, Adile Aslan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Role of the Intellectual in Contemporary Turkish Women's Narratives" Adile Aslan analyzes the figure of the woman intellectual in two of the most widely praised novels written in Turkish, Adalet Ağaoğlu's 1971 Ölmeye Yatmak (Lying Down to Die) and Leyla Erbil's 1985 Karanlığın Günü (The Day of Darkness). Aslan discusses how the two authors represent in their texts intertwined personal histories with political history. The novels present, as well as surmount the obstacles that the current socio-historical conditions impose on people in general and intellectuals in particular and how these circumstances have a bearing on their …

Homosexual Identity, Translation, And Prime-Stevenson's Imre And The Intersexes, Margaret S. Breen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Homosexual Identity, Translation, and Prime-Stevenson's Imre and The Intersexes" Margaret S. Breen examines the role of translation in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies. Breen's focus is Edward Prime-Stevenson, who, under the penname Xavier Mayne, wrote two works: a short novel, Imre: A Memorandum (1906), and a general history of homosexuality, The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem of Social Life (1908). Breen argues that Prime-Stevenson's texts are relevant to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century discussions of (homo)sexuality because they point to the importance of translation in writings concerning sexual and gender identities and …

Queer Love In Woolf's Orlando And Chu's Notes Of A Desolate Man, Pei-Wen Clio Kao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Queer Love in Woolf's Orlando and Chu's Notes of a Desolate Man" Pei-Wen Clio Kao analyses Virginia Woolf and T'ien-Wen Chu's novels in the context of gender studies. Kao's reading of Orlando and Notes of a Desolate Man is an elaboration on homosexual sensibilities of both men and women based on the concept of écriture féminine in the context of patriarchy and the former's power of subversion and change. Kao's analysis results in the finding that while Woolf's Orlando is more attuned to the feminist discourse based on an extended Western project in its period and …

Davis's Poetic Dialogue With Leiris's Autobiography, Jonathan Evans

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Davis's Poetic Dialogue with Leiris's Autobiography" Jonathan Evans analyzes Lydia Davis's translation of the first two parts of Michel Leiris's autobiography, which shows an encounter between two writers. Davis has also written stories which reference Leiris and thus position him as a precursor. Evans proposes that Leiris is not only a source of influence for Davis, but that their texts can be read as a dialogue. Using a methodology that draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Evans shows how Leiris focuses on sound and graphological patterns in order to understand his own conscious and unconscious relationship with words. Davis, …

Trauma, Apocalypse, And Ethics In Israeli Theater, Zahava Caspi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Trauma, Apocalypse, and Ethics in Israeli Theater" Zahava Caspi traces the traumatic experience as a point of departure in apocalyptic plays in Israeli literature. Caspi argues that in Israeli apocalyptic plays a critical gap opens up between the fictional narrative that ends with destruction and the theatrical apparatus that creates a sense of continuity. The theatrical text delivers a message to the audience inviting them to increase their engagement with and accountability for continuity not merely during the theatrical event, but more significantly, once the performance is over. The play's moral imperative to provide a "positive" ending …

Free Indirect Discourse In Farsi Translations Of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Zohreh Gharaei, Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Free Indirect Discourse in Farsi Translations of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway" Zohreh Gharaei and Hossein Vahid Dastjerdi discuss the degree to which free indirect discourse is reproducible in Farsi translations of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Gharaei and Vahid Dastjerdi's analysis reveals that while it is possible to employ free indirect discourse in Farsi, the grammatical features of the technique represent the most problematic areas of translation to Farsi. Although some studies have attributed deviations from the style of the original writer to the structural differences between Farsi and English or domesticating strategies on the part of …

Bellow's Letters And Biographies About Bellow: A Book Review Article Of New Work By Atlas And Taylo, Gustavo Sánchez-Canales

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.