Department: American Culture Studies/Communication ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
10 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 10.
1.
Altman, Melissa A.
Producing Im/Possible Subject/Ivities At The Intersection Of The Virtual And The Real.
Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2005, Bowling Green State University
► This thesis considers the production of subjectivity at the intersection of technologically…
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▼ This thesis considers the production of subjectivity at the intersection of technologically mediated and non-technologically mediated environments. The research questions explored here include: First, how do students negotiate non-normative identities in the classroom space? How is this negotiation impacted by the subjectivity production in the MOOspace? Second, who is empowered to speak/exist on the MOO and who is not? This question considers questions of access, including hardware, facility, comfort level, previous experience as well as questions of power? Who is empowered to speak and who is silenced? Lastly, how does dwelling on the MOO impact the performance of "real life" identity in the classroom? I develop a theoretical framework for examining the process of producing subjectivity at the intersection of virtualspace and realspace. I address Butler’s notion that subjectivity is enacted or performed. In addition, I use Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to look at the context of sedimented history that frames future actions or performances of identity. Because the object of study here is specifically the process of subjectivity production, I engage a methodology that considers meaning-making process from the point of view of the participant/subject. Methods used include textual analysis, participant observation, autoethnography, performative writing. I offer a performative writing text employing a narratized account of MOO transcripts (from engaging MOO technology), journal entries, and discussion board posts in order to reconstruct the meaning-making process found at the intersection with technology. I came to this research negotiating im/possible subject/ivities. The MOO serves as a metaphor, for me, of how production of the self always happens in relation to a structuring context, a set of rules and requirements and habits that are always in force, regardless of whether we can see and understand them. The process of producing subjectivity is negotiation, from various positions of power and knowledge, but always negotiation with the discourse, the structuring language and habitus that forms the context of production.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gajjala, Radhika.
Keywords: subjectivity; virtual; production; habitus; technology
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2.
Hilpert, Zachary Michael.
Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth Mccausland’s “America. The 48 States”.
Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2006, Bowling Green State University
► This thesis will explore the documentary photography of Berenice Abbott, specifically her…
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▼ This thesis will explore the documentary photography of Berenice Abbott, specifically her 1935 planned collaboration with art theorist and critic Elizabeth McCausland to build a portrait of America through images and words. The proposed cross-country journey, which never came to fruition due to a lack of willing funding sources, aimed to produce a book of photographs and journalistic writing titled, "America. The 48 states," a manuscript intended to capture the essence of the country during the Great Depression. Though the project itself was never realized, Abbott shot a handful of preliminary photographs during a self-funded trip, and she and McCausland produced a small but dense collection of documentation surrounding the proposed efforts. Such a bold attempt to create a serious portrait of America, at a time when no similar book had yet been published, says as much about these two important figures in the history of documentary photography as it does about the ensuing influx of images that would, a short time later, reveal to the country just how low the conditions of their fellow citizens had sunk in many parts of the nation. The plans for the America series were not only an attempt by Abbott and McCausland to define their culture as they saw it, but the proposal was also Abbott's first grand statement of her photographic and social principles, and a harbinger of her subsequent and most vital work.
Advisors/Committee Members: Sealander, Judith.
Keywords: Berenice Abbott; Elizabeth McCausland; documentary photography; American history; the Great Depression
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3.
Lea, Carolyn.
Beyond Celebration: A Call for Rethinking Cultural Studies.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2007, Bowling Green State University
► This is a polemical dissertation which seeks to serve as an intervention…
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▼ This is a polemical dissertation which seeks to serve as an intervention into the theoretical debates and tensions within cultural studies. These debates, which have taken place over the last few decades, have centered on the populist bent within cultural studies, the turn away from the concerns of political economy, and the influence of French theories that emphasize signification, play, and relativism. At stake in these debates is our way of understanding the world and imagining it differently. I argue that the celebratory direction found in much of the work by cultural studies scholars in which resistance, subversion and transgression are located in all things popular has led to an expressivist politics which lacks explanatory power and is symptomatic of a loss of political will. This dissertation critiques three particular directions that exemplify the celebratory turn: claims regarding transgression; claims regarding audience activity; and celebratory accounts of consumption. Chapter one provides an exposition of the debates that have plagued cultural studies, laying the ground for later arguments. Chapter two provides an introduction to reality television which is enlisted as a cultural symptom through which to interrogate weaknesses in theoretical positions (in chapters three through five) adopted by cultural studies scholars and strengths in alternative theoretical legacies. Chapter three turns toward the concept of transgression, arguing the romantic view of transgression as subversion relies on a partial reading of the work of figures such as Bakhtin. Chapter four focuses upon a critique of the limitations of conceptions of the active audience, arguing that the political economy of the Frankfurt School theorists can serve as a corrective to perspectives that divorce production from consumption. Chapter five then examines the promotion of consumption as resistance, construing individual self-fashioning as a politics. Such an expressivist politics ignores broad structural change in favor of changing the self. Finally, I conclude that there has been a failure of imagination within cultural studies scholarship. I propose that a return to devalued theoretical legacies, such as the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, can provide a vantage point for rethinking cultural studies.
Advisors/Committee Members: Berry, Ellen.
Subjects: American Studies
Keywords: Cultural Populism; Transgression; Audiences; Consumerism
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4.
Lupro, Michael Mooradian.
Space Oddities for the Age of Space Tourism.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► This research focuses on musical representations of space in the context of…
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▼ This research focuses on musical representations of space in the context of the nascent space tourism industry. The argument contextualizes music as a political practice, one that conceptually constructs spaces and thus could intervene in the colonization of space as produced, largely discursively so far, by transnational entertainment corporations. I specifically focus on the musical texts “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, “Rocketman” by Elton John, and “Space is the Place” by Sun Ra as examples of interventions and revisions of dominant space discourse. Methodologically, the production and reception processes of popular music are used as a template for generating analyses of how particular musical texts might intersect with other culture industry productions such as space tourism. The research concludes that popular music has the capacity to help keep space open for multiplicity, diversity, equity, and, if need be, resistance.
Advisors/Committee Members: McQuarie, Donald.
Subjects: Aerospace materials; American studies; Communication; Geography; Mass media; Motion Pictures; Music; Science history; Social structure; Technology; Transportation; Urban planning
Keywords: Space; Tourism; Space Tourism; Popular Music; Space Oddity; Rocketman; Space is the Place
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5.
Mahfoodh, Hajar Ali.
Hijab in the Eyes of Little Muslim Women.
Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► Hijab has born many different meanings associated with social, political and cultural…
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▼ Hijab has born many different meanings associated with social, political and cultural changes. During the Iranian revolution, Hijab was used as an important political tool to represent the new character of Iran after the Pahlavi dictatorship. Hijab is often exclusively connected to Islam even though the practice of veiling is as ancient as the Roman Empire where the free women had to veil themselves when walking out in public places. Hijab is frequently discussed outside the borders of Islam, and it is presented from either a Western or an extreme feminist perspective. This results in a misunderstanding of Hijab, obscuring religious, cultural, political and regional differences. The topic of Hijab will be discussed within an Islamic context, through interviews the auther conducted with girls between the ages of 8-12, from two diffferent cultures. One group represents the diaspora of the United States, represented by girls from Dearborn, Michigan. The Middle East Muslim culture is represented by girls from Bahrain. The goal of this paper is to provide a counterpoint to the accusations made against Hijab. It is an attempt to initiate a new approach in discussing Hijab as it is practiced in current and previous Islamic cultures, from the perspective of girls who willingly choose to practice. It is also constructs a new methodology for percieving the many alternative meanings for Hijab, rather then reducing it simply to an Islamic garment.
Advisors/Committee Members: Duntley, Madeline.
Keywords: Hijab; Islam; Muslim feminine Culture
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6.
Mueller, Denis.
John Dewey and Documentary Narrative.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2007, Bowling Green State University
► This dissertation takes full advantage of the use of video clips as…
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▼ This dissertation takes full advantage of the use of video clips as part of the presentation. My work is a combination of traditional scholarship and a visual account concerning the construction of the different narratives in my films. It also contains interviews with other filmmakers about narrative construction in their films. My aim is to show how a new mode of representation in the documentary film, with ties to the theories of John Dewey and his view of art in experience, has developed throughout the past several years. This process is tied to John Dewey’s idea of the concerned citizen in a democracy and his belief in the idea of art based in the concept of experience. The examination of my films will use video illustrations, which will allow the dissertation to provide a visual commentary on the thought process of a filmmaker. This will give the dissertation a self-reflexive quality that is part of a long tradition of scholarship by documentary filmmakers. I include, as part of the dissertation, a newly edited version of an updated film and a sample from a new film that I have begun to produce. The interview sections with other filmmakers provide us with a glimpse into their thought process as these filmmakers discuss narrative construction in their documentary films. This section will establish the links between John Dewey’s thoughts on the process of inquiry and the development of a documentary film. I also will reveal how Dewey’s view of art provides filmmakers, scholars, and students with a fresh look into the construction of the documentary film and the idea of art in experience.
Advisors/Committee Members: Callen, Don.
Subjects: Cinema
Keywords: John Dewey; documentary narrative
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7.
Prince, Rob.
Say Hello to My Little Friend: De Palma's Scarface, Cinema Spectatorship, and the Hip Hop Gangsta as Urban Superhero.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► The objective of the study is to intervene in the ongoing discourse…
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▼ The objective of the study is to intervene in the ongoing discourse that interrogates the relationship between fictional ultraviolent film representations and real life behavior in audiences that these types of films are marketed to. Using a case study approach to apparatus and audience reception theories, the dissertation investigates the significant role Scarface, the 1983 gangster film directed by Brian De Palma, has played in influencing the cultural and social development of young African-American males who live in American inner cities. The study focuses on how the inner city portion of the Scarface audience came to self-identify themselves as “gangstas” (a Hip-hop term for gangster) and why one particular character in the film, a murderous drug dealer, has served as the gangsta role model for heroic behavior for over twenty-five years.The study found that performing the gangsta male identity emotionally satisfies these economic and socially disconnected young men and that this group viewed the violent and illegal behavior in Scarface as offering practical solutions to their ongoing struggle to survive the hopelessness and terror rooted in their environment. The research demonstrated that film narratives can be both a window into, and a mirror of, the often paradoxically complex relationships between marginalized target audiences and savvy multi-national media corporations that successfully market negative representations to these audiences, profit from the transactions and, during the process, manipulate both mainstream and oppositional perceptions of class, race, and power.
Advisors/Committee Members: McQuarie, Donald.
Subjects: African Americans; American studies; Black history; Fine Arts; Mass media; Motion Pictures; Social psychology; Social structure; Sociology
Keywords: Film studies; Hip-hop; Hip-hop films; Scarface; Brian De Palma; Al Pacino; Universal Studios; Gangster films; Films set in Miami; Cocaine in films; Black masculinity; audience reception; Gangstas; African-American audience reception; violence in films
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8.
Richman, Lisa Helene.
From Subculture to Mass Culture: The Impact of Internet Photography on the New York Club Scene.
Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► This study examines a contemporary New York City Club Culture whose history…
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▼ This study examines a contemporary New York City Club Culture whose history is rooted in the likes of Studio 54 and Andy Warhol's Factory; it is valued by its members for providing a safe, inclusive space for alternative performance of self and style. Club Culture has always navigated between subculture and mass culture systems. With the introduction of Internet photography to the Scene, the Scene's sustained future is threatened by capitalism and mass culture commodification. Within this study I contend that while past New York club scenes experienced cultural appropriation of their art and lifestyles through printed media and exclusive art showings, digital photography disseminated through Internet spaces has increased the depth and speed with which mass culture impacts the once exclusive spaces. During fieldwork in the current New York Club Kids' Club Scene I performed participant observation, interviews with Club Kid girls, and later, archival research of Scene-focused media coverage. Subcultural research suggests that the internal process of meaning making is key to sustaining subcultures. Internet photography impedes this process through the popularization and commodification of the Club Scene (e.g. books, style trends, images) and through the facilitation of external meaning making. A new group of partiers are drawn to the clubs who are externally educated by popular media representations of the Scene. The entrance of the public into the private space of the physical clubs reinforces the mass media's representation of the Scene with hypersexualized, heternormative female roles. This process undermines and marginalizes the Club Kids within what was once their most private space.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gajjala, Radhika.
Subjects: American studies; Communication; Cultural anthropology; Gender
Keywords: Club Kids; photography; New York; hipster; Internet; commodification; capitalism; style; performance; power; subculture; mass culture; scene; Studio 54; Michael Alig; Misshapes
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9.
Tahmahkera, Dustin.
Representations of Redface: Decolonizing the American Situation Comedy’s “Indian”.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2007, Bowling Green State University
► This study critically analyzes the thematic development of representations of redface, or…
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▼ This study critically analyzes the thematic development of representations of redface, or of playing “Indian,” by non-Native characters in live-action and animated American sitcoms. Predominantly White characters have played “Indian” to reeenact nostalgic colonialist versions of historical events, to gain fame and fortune deceptively, to be honorary members of a tribe, to acknowledge heritage through a distant “Indian” relative, and to be in “Indian” clubs. This dissertation also discusses the dehumanizing roles of rare on-screen “Indians” as cultureless dupes or subservient, vanishing Natives who legitimize and authenticate non-Indigenes’ constructions of redface. Representations of redface in American sitcoms, from their appearance in the 1951 I Love Lucy “The Adagio” to the 2006 The Suite Life of Zack and Cody “Boston Tea Party,” have largely defined the sitcom’s “Indian.” The result is a redface collective that emphasizes the recurring visibility of (mis)leading “Indian” players that represent, or stand in for, the mostly invisible Indigenes. American sitcoms have set forth a restricted logic on how “Indians” in comedic television should appear. In turn, this limited logic of the sitcom’s “Indian” transmits a narrow, non-fully human view of real Indigenes to non-Indigenous and Indigenous audiences. A major objective of this study is to interrupt the perpetuation of “Indian” play by decolonizing the stereotypical, mythic, and fabricated representations of redface through decolonized viewing. As a media-focused area of decolonization that responds to media colonialism, decolonized viewing is a critical approach for Native and non-Native audiences to apply to their interpretations of American sitcoms. After explaining decolonized viewing in one chapter and applying it to the next three chapters of analyses, this study concludes with explaining the importance of shifting from the sitcom’s “Indian” to the Indigenous sitcom, a crucial part of Indigenizing television.
Advisors/Committee Members: Dixon, Lynda.
Subjects: American Studies
Keywords: Decolonization; Native Americans; Situation Comedy; Sitcom; Television; Playing Indian; Representation; Redface; Decolonized Viewing; Brady Bunch
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10.
Tuszynski, Stephanie.
IRL (In Real Life): Breaking Down the Binary of Online Versus Offline Social Interaction.
Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Communication, 2006, Bowling Green State University
► "IRL (In Real Life): Breaking Down The Binary Of Online Versus Offline…
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▼ "IRL (In Real Life): Breaking Down The Binary Of Online Versus Offline Social Interaction" examines the framework of "real versus virtual" that is often applied to studies of online social activity. This framework is often employed as a default in new media research, influencing a number of areas including the ongoing debate among scholars about whether or not the word "community" can be justly applied to a virtual group. The difficulty lies in the fact that few researchers have examined the framework in a critical context, in particular in the context of our larger narrative of the history of mass media technologies. This research begins with a detailed discussion of the real/virtual binary as a theoretical construct, in order to see if the idea of a sharp separation between online and offline activity is supportable. Having broken down the binary construct, this work turns to a case study of an online community known as "the Bronze," which existed from 1997 to 2001. By utilizing interviews and archival information, the case study examines the ways in which Internet users combine online and offline social activity seamlessly, the ways Internet forums can become integrated into daily activity rather than exist as exotic oases away from normal routines, and concludes with examples of the community organizing to deal with unwanted behavior, and also with a discussion of what the risk of deception in an online space means for the legitimacy of online social interaction.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gajalla, Radhika.
Keywords: Internet; new media; communications studies; online social activity; computer-mediated communication; computer supported social interaction; media audiences
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