ETD Search Results: instcode:bgsu

1. Abu Sarhan, Taghreed Mahmoud. Voicing the Voiceless: Feminism and Contemporary Arab Muslim Women's Autobiographies.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2011, Bowling Green State University

► Arab Muslim women have been portrayed by the West in general and… (more)

Subjects: Communication; Ethnic Studies; History; Religion

Keywords: Arab Muslim Women; Transnational Feminist Theory; Contemporary Arab Muslim Women's Autobiography; Third World Women; Western Feminism; Women's Movement in the Arab Muslim World

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2. Alexander, Lisa Doris. RACE ON FIRST, CLASS ON SECOND, GENDER ON THIRD, AND SEXUALITY UP TO BAT: INTERSECTIONALITY AND POWER IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, 1995 - 2005.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2006, Bowling Green State University

► Baseball, in one form or another, has existed in the United States… (more)

Keywords: Major League Baseball; Race; Ethnicity; Black Feminist Thought; Critical Race Theory; Latina/o Critical Theory

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3. Bell, Ramona J. Competing Identities: Representations of the Black Female Sporting Body from 1960 to the Present.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2008, Bowling Green State University

► The bodies of African American women athletes have historically constituted a site… (more)

▼ The bodies of African American women athletes have historically constituted a site where the vast, and largely problematic, complexities of gender and race are revealed and contested. I approach this study through an interpretive textual analysis that examines how representations of black female sporting bodies – Wilma Rudolph in the early 1960s, Debi Thomas in the late 1980s, and last, Serena Williams in the late 1990s signify cultural messages. Specifically, I turn to mainstream media such as magazines, newspapers, and commercial advertisements to unpack the meanings constructed around their bodies and to interrogate dominant discourses about race and gender. Ultimately, this project argues that representations of Black female sporting bodies are sites of ideological conflict over the construction of social identities between dominant and historically marginalized groups: African American women. The significance of this study lies in how perceptions of the bodies of African American women athletes allow the therorizing of citizenship, race, gender and nation. By turning to representations of black female athletes, I examine how the intersection of race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality frames the black female subject and how these women constantly negotiate and navigate these discursive boundaries to make rightful claims to society resources. In negotiating space in American society, Black women have had to employ various strategies such as the politics of race and respectability. Individual Black women understood respectability in different ways depending on their social, political, and cultural context. The reconfiguration of the discourse of respectability speaks to the ways in which race and gender are rearticulated around the Black female sporting body throughout different historical moments.The two themes that have emerged and remained constant are the persistence of racism – blatant racism in the 1960s, color-blind racism in the 1980s, and commodity racism in the 1990s and early twenty-first century, and secondly, the struggle by African American women to carve out their own self-defined space within a racist and sexist culture. Advisors/Committee Members: Luibhéid, Eithne.

Subjects: African Americans; American studies; Mass media; Womens studies

Keywords: Black female body; sports; African Americans; representation; media; identity

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4. Cooperkline, Kristen J. Misconceptions Crumble: The Potential of Native-Controlled Theatre to Deconstruct Non-Native Americans' Perceptions of Native Peoples in the United States.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2009, Bowling Green State University

► This study seeks to determine if Native-controlled theatre could provide an opportunity… (more)

▼ This study seeks to determine if Native-controlled theatre could provide an opportunity for non-Natives to move past their understanding of Native Americans as static figures of the past and embrace members of Native American communities as individual, complex people. While Native-controlled theatre must first and foremost serve Native peoples, it also has the potential to help non-Natives recognize and learn from their possible misconceptions. I explore this possibility primarily through play analysis in three chapters. In chapter 1, I create a foundation for the ideology behind many non-Native Americans' need to utilize Native American stereotypes in order to reaffirm a national identity based on a frontier utopia. I then apply the discourse to play texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to establish that non-Natives still use theatre and Native characters to reaffirm a national identity. In chapter 2, I provide a general political history of Native Americans in the twentieth century in order to argue that Native-controlled theatre not only is a political act, but that Native characters serve a very different purpose for Native peoples than they do for non-Natives. Finally, in chapter 3, I argue that despite Native and non-Native Americans need to use Native characters and stories to fulfill different purposes, Native-controlled theatre can be used to teach non-Native audience members about contemporary Native lives. I apply Mary Louise Pratt's concept of a contact zone to two Native-written plays and found that the result could be that non-Natives learn about and from their misconceptions about Native Americans. Although the purposes behind theatrical practices continue to be some of the many factors that keep many Natives and non-Natives in direct conflict with one another, Native-controlled theatre has the ability to allow non-Natives to actually engage with and learn from Native peoples about Native lives today. Advisors/Committee Members: Magelssen, Scott.

Subjects: American studies; Native Americans; Native studies; Theater

Keywords: Native American theatre stereotypes national identity

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5. Crist, Angela R. South African Ubuntu Theory in Cross Cultural Community Development Practice: An Autoethnographic Exploration.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2009, Bowling Green State University

► As researchers and development workers frequently work in communities that are nottheir… (more)

Subjects: American studies; Communication; Multicultural education; Social research

Keywords: autoethnography; ubuntu; South Africa; community development; cross cultural; privilege; social work; research; horizontal learning; identity construction; community assets model; emerging adulthood; microlending

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6. Esseissah, Khaled M. The Increasing Conversion to Islam Since 9/11: A Study of White American Muslim Converts in Northwest Ohio.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2011, Bowling Green State University

► This thesis explores the trajectories of conversion to Islam among White Americans… (more)

Subjects: American Studies; Ethnic Studies; Religion

Keywords: Religious Conversion to Islam since 9/11; White American Muslim Converts; Northwest Ohio

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7. Gerken, Christina. Immigrant Anxieties: 1990s Immigration Reform and The Neoliberal Consensus.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2007, Bowling Green State University

► Immigrant Anxieties: 1990s Immigration Reform and the Neoliberal Consensus concentrates on the… (more)

▼ Immigrant Anxieties: 1990s Immigration Reform and the Neoliberal Consensus concentrates on the discursive intersections between immigration, anti-terrorism, and welfare reform that developed in the mid-1990s debates over immigration reform in the United States. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work, this project analyzes the discursive strategies that created, shaped, and upheld a race-specific image of a “desirable” immigrant. I argue that government debates, media discourse, and public perception were part of a larger regime of knowledge/power that continually produced and reinforced the neoliberal ideal of a responsible, self-sufficient subject. This underlying neoliberal logic with its reductionist insistence on cost-benefit analysis foreclosed any attempt to engage in a serious moral/ethical debate about the merits and effects of the U.S. immigration system. At the same time, my research demonstrates that despite this foreclosure of the terms of debate, the mid-1990s discourse on immigration was characterized by a productive tension between its underlying neoliberal assumptions and other often contradictory values and objectives. In addition, I interrogate how long-standing and deep-seated anxieties about immigrants’ race, class, gender, and sexuality intersected with neoliberal logic in both the public discourse and the legislative process. My dissertation examines congressional debates and mainstream newspapers to illustrate how immigration discourse circulates and how these distinct discursive sites work intertextually within the larger discourse to reinforce, supplement, and even contradict each other. Chapter 3 examines the neoliberal logic behind the restructuring of the family preference category to show how Congress used an explicit pro-family rhetoric to justify measures intended to activate legal immigrants’ capacity for self-sufficient citizenship. Chapter 4 interrogates the discursive construction of “illegal aliens” as “anti-citizens.” Chapter 5 explores the linkages between media and legislative discourse. Chapter 6 focuses on the mainstream media’s use of human interest stories, demonstrating how these stories served as an important tool to negotiate widespread anxieties about immigrants’ race, class, and sexuality. Advisors/Committee Members: Buffington, Robert.

Keywords: Immigration Reform; Neoliberalism; Race; Gender

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8. Higgs, Dellareese M. Behind the Smile: Negotiating and Transforming the Tourism-Imposed Identity of Bahamian Women.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2008, Bowling Green State University

► This research seeks to describe the links between whiteness and tourism in… (more)

▼ This research seeks to describe the links between whiteness and tourism in the construction of ‘Othered’ identities. It adds to the challenge of theorizing identity as posed by Frantz Fanon and Stuart Hall, and presents sociopolitical and theoretical insights informed by the historical constructions of whiteness from the lived experiences of black Bahamian women’s struggles for agency. Throughout this dissertation, I use Frantz Fanon’s inquiry into black identity formation – that is, as a construct in opposition to whiteness – as a framework to examine the development of tourism and identity negotiations in the Bahamas. Fanon himself – colonized French, black, expatriate, and activist – knew all too well the pitfalls of being at the margins of many identities. Moreover, with the advent and development of tourism throughout the Bahamas, whiteness became the protracted mode by which Bahamian progress was assessed. The minority white elites in the Bahamas benefited financially from the tourist industry, building an economy and a country where rich wealthy whites are served by the majority black populace, hence the development of a ‘white tourist culture.’ I use the term ‘white tourist culture’ in this dissertation to describe how Bahamian national identity is constructed through our dependency on a tourist economy that has built its financial system on a myth of paradise, where white tourists are catered to, and black Bahamians serve, entertain and cultivate the exotic. Through examination of my own life experiences and the experiences of women working both in and outside of the tourist industry, this work helps to reposition whiteness as a form of oppression for racialized Bahamian women. This project uses the voices and experiences of women working in the Bahamas Cultural Markets (the straw market, as it is known by the local people of the Bahamas). It discusses the lived experience of women, who on a daily basis are compelled to ‘perform’ their constructed indigenous identities created through the marketing of the Bahamas to the rest of the world, as the "ultimate tourist destination." It also focuses on the production and maintenance of representations of whiteness in the way these are constructed and contested in the lived experiences of Bahamian women. I, along with Babb (2002), contend that whiteness is a social location of structural advantage, power and privilege. In this context, I demonstrate that, in tourist populated places like the Bahamas, markets like these are designed to reposition Bahamian women as an exotic proletariat, and they contribute to the continued subjugation of black Bahamian women, while giving white tourists legitimized access to feelings of power and privilege. Advisors/Committee Members: Gajjala, Radhika.

Subjects: Womens studies

Keywords: Bahamas; tourism; postcolonialism; women's identity; Caribbean; black identity; race

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9. Johnston, Christopher F. Performing Blackness at the Heart of Whiteness: The Life and Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2008, Bowling Green State University

► Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960 to a Haitian father and… (more)

▼ Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960 to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Jean-Michel Basquiat rose to prominence as a painter in the 1980s art world. When he died in 1988 at age twenty-seven from a drug overdose, he had achieved more fame and wealth than any black artist in history; he remains today the world's most recognizable black painter. This study seeks to show how Basquiat's racial and cultural background shaped his life and art. In its first three chapters, this study examines Basquiat's experiences in New York City in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s in a variety of contexts including his neighborhoods, schools, the graffiti movement, avant-gardism, and the art world. This study finds that the artist's blackness often made him racially hyper-visible and the target of racism and stereotyping. It also finds that of all the artistic traditions that Basquiat was exposed to and involved in, his experiences with performance art had the most enduring impact on him artistically. In its final two chapters, this study looks at Basquiat's public persona and art. Chapter Four covers the way the artist walked, talked, dressed, wore his hair, acted in interviews, posed for photographs, and behaved in public in general. Chapter Five considers not just at his art's aesthetic but also at the way he painted, talked about his art, and acted as an artist. This study finds that throughout his career from 1981 to 1988, Basquiat brought to his canvases a hasty, unfinished, and chaotic look while intentionally cementing an image of himself as rude, rebellious, and difficult. This paper argues that Basquiat's wild behavior and equally wild-looking art represent a performance of "blackness." The artist embodied in his paintings and public persona the stereotypical image of the young black male in order to comment on and locate the casual racism and racially naïve attitudes of his predominantly white liberal audiences. Although several popular and academic discourses explain Basquiat's life and art in terms of the modernist construct of tortured genius, this study challenges this romanticized version by offering a more grounded and materialist interpretation. Advisors/Committee Members: Hershberger, Andrew.

Subjects: African Americans; American studies; Art History

Keywords: African American Art; Jean-Michel Basquiat

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10. Kubik, Erica. From Girlfriend to Gamer: Negotiating Place in the Hardcore/Casual Divide of Online Video Game Communities.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2009, Bowling Green State University

► The stereotypical video gamer has traditionally been seen as a young, white,… (more)

▼ The stereotypical video gamer has traditionally been seen as a young, white, male; even though female gamers have also always been part of video game cultures. Recent changes in the landscape of video games, especially game marketers’ increasing interest in expanding the market, have made the subject of women in gaming more noticeable than ever. This dissertation asked how gender, especially females as a troubling demographic marking difference, shaped video game cultures in the recent past. This dissertation focused primarily on cultures found on the Internet as they related to video game consoles as they took shape during the beginning of the seventh generation of consoles, between 2005 and 2009. Using discourse analysis, this dissertation analyzed the ways gendered speech was used by cultural members to define not only the limits and values of a generalizable video game culture, but also to define the idealized gamer. This dissertation found that video game cultures exhibited the same biases against women that many other cyber/digital cultures employed, as evidenced by feminist scholars of technology. Specifically, female gamers were often perceived as less authoritative of technology than male gamers. This was especially true when the concept “hardcore” was employed to describe the ideals of gaming culture. It was harder for female gamers to claim the identity of hardcore gamer because this ideal referenced masculine attributes that women were perceived as lacking. Rather, female gamers were lumped into the category of the “casual” consumer ofvideo games, not valued in the community and sometimes also seen as problematic. Biases against perceived feminine gaming styles were also discovered in formal structures of video game cultures, as evidenced by analyses of video game reviews. This data suggests that female gamers had a harder time fitting into video game cultures than male gamers because of gendered biases within the cultures. This dissertation advocated for the dismantling of hidden male privileges underpinning these biases so that a more equitable gaming culture could be achieved. Advisors/Committee Members: Gajjala, Radhika.

Subjects: American studies; Communication; Gender; Mass media; Technology; Womens studies

Keywords: videogames; hardcore gaming; casual gaming; girl gamers; cyberfeminism

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11. Otto Zimmann, Martin. A Place Apart: The Role of Nostalgia in a Detached Community.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2011, Bowling Green State University

► This work investigated the power of nostalgia in perpetuating rituals and folkways… (more)

▼ This work investigated the power of nostalgia in perpetuating rituals and folkways in detached communities. The focus of this study was Camp Luther, a family camp operated under the auspices of Lutheran Outdoor Ministries. Over the summer of 2010, approximately sixty interviews were conducted at the camp, and qualitative data from these interviews was used to formulate ideas and theoretical underpinnings for a concept the author calls “the nostalgic reflex.” These interviews were transcribed and then coded to indicate the manner in which nostalgia was driving the thought processes of the interview subjects. Quotations from the interviews were used throughout the document to support the theory of the nostalgic reflex. The interview data was rich with language and notions that indicated the level to which adherents of the camp were “under the influence” of the nostalgic reflex insofar as their devotion to the ethos of the camp’s character was concerned. One of the most interesting data points was people’s willingness to raise a large sum of money to preserve the lakefront of the camp, giving credence to the theory of “solastalgia” as coined by Glenn Albrecht. The language of the interview subjects also dovetailed neatly into Diane Barthel’s tenets of the Staged Symbolic Community. Also, the work borrowed from Edwin Friedman’s study of homeostasis and emotional triangles in his germinal work Generation to Generation. The study also parsed the differences between Svetlana Boym’s restorative and reflective nostalgia, especially in maintenance of the hetero-normative male dominated status quo at the camp. The work concludes that the academy has a somewhat overt bias against nostalgia. It noted with irony how it is ultimately nostalgia that undergirds the structure of the academy itself in the postmodern era. Further studies were discussed in the conclusion, inviting more discourse on the topic, especially in gender and ethnic studies. Ultimately, the work added to the ongoing influences of Harper, Davis, Lowenthal, Boym, and Wilson on the power of nostalgia. From the conclusion: So the nostalgic reflex is there to remind us in times of joy and adversity of those things which matter most. Like any faculty, it can be used for good or ill, depending on the motives of one who wields it. It remains within all of us. It is triggered on a daily basis, and its presence in our cognitive processes is often unseen, yet influential. I know, on a purely cognitive level, that Camp Luther is a collection of mildewed cabins, bland food, with a panoramic vista that only hints at the greater grandeur of an ocean view. This is what the photographs show and the palate recalls. The narrative of camp as polished through the lens of nostalgia, however, breathes magic into my cognition, and my desire for its luminosity trumps my rationalism every time. I only hope that others feel this quickening as I do, not necessarily for camp per se, but for something that adds value to their existence—a sense of Harper’s “presence,” even if that translates into a temporary escape from ennui and malaise. Advisors/Committee Members: Martin, Scott.

Subjects: American Studies

Keywords: Nostalgia; Solastalgia; Nostalgic Reflex; Homeostasis; Staged Symbolic Community; Fear; Anxiety

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12. Pratt, Marnie. The L Word Menace: Envisioning Popular Culture as Political Tool.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2008, Bowling Green State University

► This dissertation interrogates the intersections that may occur between media, culture, and… (more)

▼ This dissertation interrogates the intersections that may occur between media, culture, and politics through a case study of the audiences surrounding the popular television drama The L Word. While much of the press discourse related to the series is positive, often labeling it as groundbreaking television, the viewer response is much more diverse. Many individuals are deeply invested in the show and the ability to witness visual images of queer women in mainstream popular culture. However, other viewers are unsatisfied, if not angered, by The L Word's representations and storylines. I investigated these varied responses and the ways in which audiences have made use of the series. My methodology was mainly comprised of participatory ethnography, but was also complimented by an online survey, which generated over 100 responses. These were placed in conversation with a historical narrative of queer women's social and political interactions with popular culture, the economic framework that has been labeled the gay marketplace, and a theoretical framework comprised of several scholars. Employing Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theories of the closet, I argued that queer individuals may have deep investments in visual representations because of the unique nature of their oppression, which is centered on invisibility. José Esteban Muñoz's work on disidentification presented a possible rationale for audiences that continue to interact with the show, despite its unsatisfactory aspects. Finally, Henry Jenkins' theories of convergence culture provided an understanding of how the Internet and new media influences audience interaction and use value, and his theories on fan communities' extensions into political arenas helped support my contention that the actions of The L Word's viewers may even hold implications for the wider queer women's social and political movements. These ethnographic, historical, economic, and theoretical frameworks, when taken together, helped explain audience reaction to, interaction with, and use value of The L Word. Finally, this project has illustrated that the consumption of media and popular culture is an increasingly complex terrain, and as scholars, it is necessary for us to examine not only cultural texts but also the audiences interacting with these in order to gain a stronger understanding of a cultural production's significance. Advisors/Committee Members: Berry, Ellen.

Subjects: American studies; Cultural anthropology; Gender; History; Mass media; Womens studies

Keywords: The L Word; lesbian; lesbian history; lesbian popular culture; queer; fandom; television

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13. Serrano, Tamara E. Intersecting Identities: Race and Gender in a Quinceañera Fashion Show.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2009, Bowling Green State University

► Research on Latina girls often focuses on those stigmatizing experiences that mark… (more)

Subjects: American studies; Hispanic Americans

Keywords: Quinceañera; Latina; girl culture; Ohio; Toledo; race; gender; intersections; femininity; social services; fashion show; hispanic

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14. Shepard, Neil Patrick. Rewiring Difference and Disability: Narratives of Asperger's Syndrome in the Twenty-First Century.

Degree: PhD, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2010, Bowling Green State University

► This dissertation explores representations of Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. Specifically,… (more)

Subjects: American studies

Keywords: Autism; Asperger's Syndrome; Disability Studies; Geek Syndrome; Media Studies; Wired

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15. Taylor, Jack A III. Consciousness in Black: A Historical Look at the Phenomenology of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2007, Bowling Green State University

► This project grew out of a disappointment with the ways in which… (more)

Subjects: Black Studies

Keywords: W.E.B Du Bois,Frantz Fanon, Phenomenology, Consciousness, Double Consciousness, Existentialism.

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16. Yuliani-Sato, Dwi Hesti. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE NATION OF ISLAM AND ISLAM.

Degree: MA, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies, 2006, Bowling Green State University

► This study compares the Nation of Islam with the religion of Islam… (more)

▼ This study compares the Nation of Islam with the religion of Islam to understand the extent of its religious kinship to Islam. As with other religions, there are various understandings of Islam and no single agreement on what constitutes a Muslim. With regard to that matter, the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) teachings and beliefs are regarded as unconventional if viewed from the conventions of Islam. Being unconventional in terms of doctrines and having a focus on racial struggle rather than on religious nurturing position the Nation of Islam more as a social movement than as a religious organization. Further, this raises a question, to some parties, of whether NOI members are Muslims in the sense of mainstream Islam’s standard. It is the issue of conventional versus unconventional that is at the core of this study. The methodologies used are observation, interview, and literary research. Prior to writing the thesis, research on the Nation of Islam in Toledo was conducted. The researcher observed the Nation of Islam in Toledo and Savannah, Georgia, and interviewed some people from the Nation of Islam in Toledo and Detroit as well as a historian of religion from Bowling Green State University. The research questions are around the teachings and beliefs of the Nation of Islam in the past and today, the development of the Nation of Islam, and how its members see themselves and their organization both in relation to race relations in the United States and to Islam as a religion of Muslims worldwide. The result of the research indicates that the Nation of Islam has gradually taught the teachings of Islam as embraced by the Muslim world while continuing to hold to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad in contradiction with the accepted conventions of Islam. It is hoped that the research will have important implications for the American public’s view of the Nation of Islam and of Islam, to the Nation of Islam itself, and to other Muslims who do not belong to it in their understanding of each other’s differences and of the factors that lead to them. There are two implications. The first implication is to correct American people's perception of the Nation of Islam as a racist and anti-white organization (if it has changed). The second implication is to create mutual understanding and brotherhood among the Nation of Islam and other Muslims in the U.S. and other countries so that they can cooperate in positive activities that may help clear Islam’s image as a religion which loves peace and never suggests hatred, racialism, or even terrorism often pointed out to Islam. Hence, this thesis is aimed at the understanding of the Nation of Islam as what leads to its radical views that is often considered by the American mainstream as provoking racism and separatism. America has made the Nation of Islam as it has been. This thesis is also aimed at the mutual and dual process of learning and understanding for both the Nation of Islam and the so-called “orthodox” Muslims. The unique circumstances of the African American diaspora work as the background of NOI ideology that sets it apart from the rest of the Muslim world. It must be understood that Islam as a universal religion for all people never suggests hatred (even less terrorism) and superiority of a people (race) over the other(s). At the same time, however, it is necessary to understand the Nation of Islam’s insistence on black power, pride, and self-reliance when the American system is not in favor of many poor blacks whose voices are unheard. Advisors/Committee Members: Ashcraft-Eason, Lillian N.A.

Subjects: American Studies

Keywords: Nation of Islam, the religion of Islam, social movement, Millenarian movement, African American, the Nation of Islam in Toledo

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