Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, African-American and African Studies

This dissertation highlights racism's role in the evolution of the U.S. national security state between 1959 and 1980. It investigates the U.S. government's violent responses to domestic and global nationalist movements, including the Cuban Revolution, the Black urban rebellions in Harlem and Watts, the Viet Nam War, the Black Panther Party, and the war for liberation in Zimbabwe. In doing so, it challenges the rigid boundary separating events that occur at home from those abroad. Seen together through a racial lens, U.S. domestic and foreign activities comprise a singular apparatus that I identify as the national security state. Moreover, the state and these movements employed tactics against each other that involved constant adjustment. This dissertation therefore also conceptualizes the modern U.S. national security state as a culmination of the moves and countermoves between these oppositional forces. During the 1960s and 1970s, state forces utilized increasingly preemptive and punitive tactics against Black and Third World populations. This development, I argue, stemmed from the institutionalization of counterrevolutionary warfare as a permanent condition afflicting Black and Third World peoples. Mass incarceration, counterinsurgency, proxy war, and protracted military occupation comprise the U.S.'s modern and global counterrevolutionary war. This dissertation concludes that war became the predominant mode of racial domination after the 1960s. Through war, the U.S. national security state buttressed and elaborated the racialized global order. As such, racial violence, and the resistance against it, compelled adaptations in policing and warfare, which were consolidated into a militarized operation that transcends borders.

Committee: Kwaku Korang (Advisor); Leslie Alexander (Committee Member); Curtis Austin (Committee Member); Mathew Coleman (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; Black History; Black Studies; Comparative; Geography; History; International Relations; Modern History; Political Science; Social Structure; World History

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2023, English

Zora Neale Hurston is an African-American writer, anthropologist, and ethnographer of the Harlem Renaissance. She is distinguished for documenting and celebrating the religions of African Americans in the South. In this study, the author argues that Hurston represents the practiced religions in Southern African-American communities in Jonah's Gourd Vine and Moses, Man of the Mountain while noticeably omitting Islam, despite the fact that Islam predominated in more Northern African-American Communities as a reclaimed religious history and practice. Hurston's exclusion prompts inquiries into the history of Islamic erasures in Southern African-American communities and introduces ambiguity in interpreting the metaphors found in Jonah's Gourd Vine because of the differences between the Biblical and Quranic narratives surrounding the figure of Jonah. The author concludes that Hurston omits Islam because it was not noticeably practiced in the South among the African-American community. Finally, the author argues that Muslim readers must understand the Biblical Jonah to understand the metaphorical meanings of the vine relative to the protagonist John Buddy Pearson in Hurston's Jonah's Gourd Vine.

Committee: Crystal B. Lake Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Andrew Strombeck Ph.D. (Committee Member); Shengrong Cai Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Literature; Religion; Religious History; Spirituality

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Theatre

In the 2019 documentary on The Apollo, Ralph Cooper, founder and original master of ceremonies for the Amateur Night at Harlem's acclaimed theater, declared that “There was always two kinds of show business. There was a white show business. And there was a black show business.” This dissertation considers these disparate worlds alongside each other to foreground the less documented and studied (and therefore deemed less prestigious) Black showgirl traditions in musical theatre and dance ensembles. The chorus girl has been the subject of scholarly consideration from American studies and Feminist studies to Theatre and Media studies, the entirety of which was almost exclusively focused on the historical and cultural implications of the white chorus girl. This project is centered around how the Black chorus girl was performing at the same time, despite having been relegated to history's sidelines, and how her presence on the public stage shaped identity formation and perceptions of Black femininity. Considering the dual phenomenon of race on the revue stage in New York reveals how these segregated performances intersected and how they contributed to the development of the other. This research adds to the narrative of the chorus girl by rendering stories of Black female ensemble performers and identifying the ways in which their lives as dancers and models coincided and diverged with those of their white counterparts. This dissertation examines three distinct Black dance ensembles that performed in shows in New York City from 1910 to 1945, segregated from their other more famous, better compensated, and more stable white counterparts. These companies were chosen because they were conceived and performed with Black audiences in mind. The long-running but rarely remembered touring revue Brownskin Models (1924-1954) established a location for an ongoing presentation of Black beauty. Darktown Follies (1913) was a musical that developed in Black theatres in Harlem and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Beth Kattelman (Advisor); Linda Mizejewski (Committee Member); Hannah Kosstrin (Committee Member); E.J. Westlake (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; American Studies; Black History; Dance; Performing Arts; Theater History; Theater Studies; Womens Studies

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2021, History

Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, and Nina Simone were musicians in the early-mid twentieth century who were innovators for using art as activism. They used their art and platforms to raise awareness and comment on the state of the nation in regards to civil rights. Billie Holiday paved the way with her iconic song "Strange Fruit," calling out racial injustice in the form of lynchings. Lena Horne was a performer who made room for Black actors in Hollywood for roles outside of stereotypes, like servants or "mammies." Nina Simone was a classical pianist who used her strong voice and honest lyrics to narrate the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Their lives demonstrate intersectionality and how Black women used their strength, determination, and art to be part of a movement.

Committee: Chester Pach Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; Black History; Gender; History; Modern History; Music

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

The Postbellum, Pre-Harlem era is often overlooked in African American scholarship. My dissertation proposes a renewed investigation of this era by studying Postbellum, Pre-Harlem African American writers and their negotiation with a prominent discourse during this period: African American folklore. Since “the folk” were repeatedly equated to Black Americans and folklore was used as a measure of African Americans' post-emancipation “progress,” nineteenth century Black intellectuals, recognized nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklore as a key site in shaping Black representation. Moreover, they were “active participants” in fashioning the foundations of American folklore (Waters and Hampton 22-46; Lamothe 23-32; Moody-Turner 4, 89). Thus my dissertation explores the “sites of concern and negotiation” that Postbellum, Pre Harlem writers encountered while creating narratives that incorporated African American folklore (Moody-Turner 13); I seek to characterize and historicize the Postbellum, Pre-Harlem's “racialized regime of folk representation,” discourses that intersected to create the representation of the folk. I conduct this analysis by using a three-pronged approach that combines insights from folklore theory, narrative theory, and African American literature. I call this methodology “positioning.” Using this approach, I study how (1) African Americans were positioned as the folk in a racialized regime, (2) how African Americans (re)positioned themselves, and (3) how African Americans positioned other Black people as the folk. With this methodology, alongside a history of the social construction of “Black folk” in early African American folklore studies and nineteenth-century popular discourse, I examine Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South, Pauline Hopkins's Contending Forces, Alice Dunbar-Nelson's “The Goodness of St. Rocque,” Frances E.W. Harper's Iola Leroy, and W.E (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Adeleke Adeeko (Advisor); Koritha Mitchell (Committee Member); James Phelan (Committee Member); Amy Shuman (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American Literature; Black History; Black Studies; Comparative Literature; Folklore; History; Literature

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Contemporary Music

In this document I examine Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre's ballet Rhythmetron, adding to the scholarly literature available on the contributions of Latin American composers to the percussion ensemble repertoire. Using archival, ethnographic, and text-based analyses, I inquire into the genres, instruments, and performance practices of the piece, as well as its critical reception. This history reveals that the colonial relationship with black sound has continuously been re-inscribed in Brazilian cultural artifacts, and that institutional biases are upheld when determining what constitutes Art music. Through its inclusion of the Afro-Brazilian genres of samba and maracatu, Rhythmetron invites us to consider the hierarchies of valuation that govern what constitutes Brazilian popular music, art music, and ballet, revealing racialized power dynamics. I utilize postcolonial theories of hybridity to demonstrate that Rhythmetron dialogues with the Dance Theatre of Harlem's intent to reimagine and break racial expectations in the realm of classical ballet. This research reveals that what is guarded in our cultural memories is power-laden, and shows that more inclusive canonization practices can challenge existing narratives and create new ones.

Committee: Daniel Piccolo DMA (Advisor); Irina Stakhanova PhD (Other); Sidra Lawrence PhD (Committee Member); Marilyn Shrude D.M. (Committee Member) Subjects: Music; Performing Arts

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Theatre

The Harlem Renaissance and New Negro Movement is a well-documented period in which artistic output by the black community in Harlem, New York, and beyond, surged. On the heels of Reconstruction, a generation of black artists and intellectuals—often the first in their families born after the thirteenth amendment—spearheaded the movement. Using art as a means by which to comprehend and to reclaim aspects of their identity which had been stolen during the Middle Passage, these artists were also living in a time marked by the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and segregation. It stands to reason, then, that the work that has survived from this period is often rife with political and personal motivations. Male figureheads of the movement are often remembered for their divisive debate as to whether or not black art should be politically charged. The public debates between men like W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke often overshadow the actual artistic outputs, many of which are relegated to relative obscurity. Black female artists in particular are overshadowed by their male peers despite their significant interventions. Two pioneers of this period, Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) and Eulalie Spence (1894-1981), will be the subject of my thesis. Both artists, whose work is in close conversation, were innovators in their field. In this thesis I will argue that black women like Johnson and Spence were true innovators during the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement despite the fact that men like Locke and Du Bois are often seen as its figureheads. Johnson and Spence are salient examples for two key reasons. First, their work represents a false dichotomy—art vs. propaganda—which I will endeavor to refute. Second, their work, despite its differences, engages with many of the same themes related to feminism and intersectionality. While there has been an influx of research into the lives and work of such women as Johnson and Spence in recent years, my aim is to furthe (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jennifer Schlueter (Advisor); Beth Kattelman (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Gender Studies; History; Theater; Theater History; Womens Studies

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The Familiar Stranged is a collection of four horror stories written in the vein of George Saunders, Kelly Link, Shirley Jackson, Tananarive Due, and Brandon Massey. Focusing on the unconventional/unusual point of view and also voice, these stories follow unsuspecting characters—an artificial intelligence, dead writers who seek revenge, mannequins who come to life at night, and an imaginary “friend” who all reside in an upside down, familiar made strange, slightly off kilter world, bound and imprisoned by various circumstances. These stories are intended to feel episodic—paying homage to The Twilight Zone in tone and theme. There is a critical introduction followed by the text.

Committee: Imad Rahman MFA (Committee Chair); Mike Geither MFA (Committee Member); Adam Sonstegard Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, American Culture Studies

This study examines the community-based political work of the pionero generation of Puerto Rican migrants to New York City from their collective naturalization under the Jones Act in 1917 to 1948, when political changes on the island changed migration flows to North America. Through discourse analysis of media narratives in black, white mainstream, and Spanish-language newspapers, as well as an examination of histories of Puerto Rican and allied activism in Harlem, I analyze how Puerto Ricans of this era utilized and articulated their own citizenship- both as a formal legal status and as a broader sense of belonging. By viewing this political work through the perspectives of a range of Harlem political actors, I offer new insights as to how the overlapping and interconnected multicultural communities in Harlem contributed to New York's status (in the words of historian Juan Flores) as a "diaspora city." I argue that as Puerto Ricans came to constitute a greater social force in the city, dominant narratives within their discursive and political work shifted from a search for recognition by the rest of society to a demand for empowerment from the bottom up and emanating from the Puerto Rican community outward, leading to a diasporic consciousness which encompassed both the quotidian problems of life in the diaspora and the political and economic issues of the island. A localized process of community-building bound diaspora Puerto Ricans more closely together and re-constituted internal social connections, supported an analysis of social problems shared with other Latinx people and African Americans, and utilized ideological solidarities to encourage coalitional politics as a means for mutual empowerment. In drawing Puerto Ricans into a broad and rich history of Harlem, I consider the insights of a range of neighborhood individuals and groups, including African American and West Indian (im)migrants, allied white populations such as progressive Italians and pacif (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susana Peña Dr. (Advisor); Lara Lengel Dr. (Other); Vibha Bhalla Dr. (Committee Member); Nicole Jackson Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Hispanic Americans; History; Latin American History; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Sociology

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

With an increased interest in the literature of the African Diaspora, scholars have concurrently begun to call upon theories of transnationalism. This joint emphasis has created a critical discussion of the significance of global studies in examinations of modern black identity. One aspect that remains unexamined is the impetus for transnational transition that arises at the crossroads of race and self-identity. This dissertation addresses this gap through the concept of liminality, which refers to an in-between state characterized by marginalization and figurative homelessness. The presence of a perpetual liminality frequently leads to geographical relocation, often transnational in nature, as liminal subjects attempt to discover a place where their self-identity will not result in compromise or tragedy. The Harlem Renaissance presents a microcosm wherein writers frequently traveled internationally and incorporated these dynamics and themes in their literature. The theory of transnational liminality thereby provides a critical lens for underscoring the significance and necessity of a global understanding of the Harlem Renaissance—specifically the fictional and autobiographical writings of Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Langston Hughes. These texts demonstrate the intellectuals' irrevocable challenge of racist milieus of the early twentieth century. Therefore, Harlem Renaissance writers and their protagonists looked to a transnational world in their quest for self-identity and home. In a similar vein, liminality is central to the study of Black Transnationalism in the twenty-first century, as contemporary writings of the African Diaspora continue to use international travel as an essential tool highlighting disillusionment in modernity's ability to eradicate racism and the ubiquitous quest for home. The lens of transnational liminality offers a cultural theory capable of illuminating and addressing these recurring concerns.

Committee: Babacar M'Baye (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism (Communication)

Race and ideologies of racial supremacy were at the very heart of World War II. U.S. troops did not have to look far to see how race influenced the American war machine as the country's military policies required African American and white troops to be processed, trained, and stationed at separate but supposedly equal installations across the country. Race determined whether one carried a rifle or drove a supply truck; operated the naval big guns or loaded munitions into Liberty-class ships; and even whether you would deploy or not. This study took an historical look at how the media reported race and race relations in a war fought over race. Specifically, it examined three events in the United States: the Detroit race riots, Harlem riots, and the Port Chicago explosion; and three incidents in the United Kingdom: the first racial incident in Antrim, Northern Ireland, the mutiny at Bamber Bridge, and the Bristol race riots, to reveal how mainstream newspapers and the American black press reported these events. Through an extensive examination of news coverage in twenty-four newspapers, U.S. and British government and military documents, and oral histories, this study examines how race was reported and framed in the media; and attempts to demonstrate how those frames and newspaper routines expand our understanding of race and race relations during this critical period of history. This study found that often the mainstream media in both nations downplayed race or at the very least attempted to minimize it during major news events, unless it was impossible to ignore. Sometimes this effort to curtail the role of race came from overt pressure from the government, as it was with the British press. Other times, news workers self-censored for fear that images of violence between Americans would fuel the Axis propaganda machine. Still other times, wartime censors severely delayed news reports. This study also found differences in how the U.S. and British press reported (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Sweeney (Committee Chair); Patrick Washburn (Committee Member); Kathryn Jellison (Committee Member); Benjamin Bates (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; Black History; History; Journalism; Military History

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2015, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Long Civil Rights Movement scholars have begun to reconstruct a more accurate representation of the literary left, filling in the gap in scholarship that previously existed between the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. With the aid of the backdrop set up by the “Long Movement” scholars, this study aims to add to the understanding of those authors who lives and works have yet to be fully explored because of the ramifications of the McCarthy era. This discussion focuses on Chester Himes, for his work is as influential as both Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison's, yet Himes has only recently begun to receive the critical acclaim he deserves. Most recent scholarship seems to identify Himes's strongest novels to be If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) and Lonely Crusade (1947) because of the clear political connections that can be made to Himes's life as an activist. Less has been said about his Harlem Detective Series, and the studies that have been conducted present very little connection to his continued political involvement. I will locate his first—A Rage in Harlem (1957)—and his final—Blind Man With a Pistol (1969)—novels of the series within the historical framework that Dowd Hall has set up for us in an attempt to add to the literature on this important, yet discounted author. The same political activism that is seen in Himes's early works is mirrored within these two novels as seen through his absurd depictions of violence in Harlem.

Committee: Julie Burrell PhD (Committee Chair); Rachel Carnell PhD (Committee Member); James Marino PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1925, Sociology

In every library of any standing there exists today and since the days of abolitionism a vast number of books and pamphlets dealing with the negro in America. Some treat of his virtues, some of his faults; some are sentimental, some harsh; nearly all discuss him as a race With emphasis on racial characteristics and racial possibilities. Only recently has the scientific spirit invaded the field sufficiently to reveal the possibility of honest progress through the specific study of concrete situations. As I write there lies on my table the March issue of the Survey Graphic devoted to "Harlem! Mecca of the New Negro." Slowly we are appreciating that our knowledge of social science like our knowledge of physical science will advance only with the painstaking analysis of each contributing factor.I have undertaken a study of the Negro in Oberlin, therefore, not with the expectation of contributing anything of particular value to Oberlin or to the colored man who lives here, but with the hope that a collection and an analysis of the vital factors in the life and the development of the negro community here, in so far as it is possible for me to ascertain and interpret these factors, will find a place, however small, in the sincere effort to build a comprehension of social affairs on a foundation of facts.Oberlin offers a laboratory for such a study which is unique but not abnormal. It is unique in that the history of the relation of both town end college to the negro has been extraordinary in its ideals and purposes. It is typical nevertheless in that the outworking of these ideals has been that of any average town of its size and potentiality. Almost from the outset Oberlin has stood for justice and equality of opportunity for every man regardless of color. With the granting of the opportunity, its responsibilities for the most part have ended. We have no Utopia to observe, therefore, but a very ordinary town with ordinary problems, the usual successes and the usual failu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American History; Sociology; Sociology, Demography

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, American Culture Studies

In three chapters I propose to show that the American art collector Dr. Albert Coombs Barnes simultaneously amassed a major collection of modern European and ancient African art during the first half of the twentieth-century and worked consistently as an advocate for racial, social and educational reform in the United States. In conjunction with this collection and advocacy Barnes also originated a characteristic method for the analysis and understanding of painting that was dedicated to the service of these egalitarian social ideals. Now that the Barnes Foundation, the institution dedicated to preserving this collection and the social mission behind it has been relocated from Merion, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia and opened to the public, I argue that it is essential the Foundation continue to document and teach Barnes' original theories concerning art and social action to visitors from around the world.

Committee: Andrew Hershberger Dr. (Advisor); Jolie Sheffer Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aesthetics; American Studies; Art History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, English

This dissertation examines the ways in which companionate marriage ideology of the 1920s and 30s affected representations of heterosexual relations in novels written by African American authors of that time. Scholars often consider respectability as the dominant concept of African American sexual politics of this era. I propose, instead, that, under the influence of companionate marriage ideology, African American authors pushed forward the notion of pleasure in the sexual lives of African Americans. The background for this argument is set up in the introduction which provides a historical overview of African American discussions of sex and marriage in the early decades of the twentieth century. The first chapter analyzes W.E.B. Du Bois' promotion of a race-specific, uplift-minded version of companionate marriage, identified specifically as partnership marriage. He expressed his vision of marriage for the race in his nonfiction as well as his novel Dark Princess. In the second chapter, I suggest that Nella Larsen's Quicksand is a critique of traditional, reproduction-centered marriage, while Passing by the same author explores various problems that arise from the expectation of eroticized marriage. The third chapter explicates Zora Neale Hurston's representation of African American companionate marriage in Their Eyes Were Watching God and suggests that it directly opposes existing sexual norms including Du Boisian partnership marriage. The fourth chapter analyzes Wallace Thurman's The Blacker the Berry to argue that Thurman not only considers the institution of marriage as contradictory to the reality of African American men's and women's sexual lives but also proposes an alternative way in which to look at intimate relations. To conclude my argument, I suggest that all the texts discussed in this dissertation share a move from respectable to pleasurable, which is to say, their representations of marriage are premised on the idea that pleasure is fundamentally good (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Debra Moddelmog (Advisor) Subjects: African American Studies; American Literature; History; Womens Studies

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History

As the co-owner of Sears, Roebuck & Company, Julius Rosenwald established the Julius Rosenwald Fund in 1917 for “the well-being of mankind” and, by way of a unique fellowship program, supported African Americans and white southerners in a variety of scientific, academic, and cultural fields. Designed specifically to facilitate the accomplishments of “Negro creative workers,” the Rosenwald Fellowship Program became one of the most important sources of funding for black visual artists during the 1930s and 1940s. Although most discussions of patronage by whites during the Harlem Renaissance are limited to figures such as Carl Van Vechten and Charlotte van der Veer Quick Mason, who focused primarily on supporting writers and musicians, only recently have scholars investigated the assistance offered to visual artists. In fact, most information regarding patronage of the visual arts is restricted to isolated reviews and to monographs of individual artists. In this thesis I conduct an in-depth analysis of the creation and administration of the Rosenwald Fellowship Program, not only examining its methods of selection and distribution of financial aid, but also its impact on the development of African American painters, sculptors, and photographers with particular attention to Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Richmond Barth¿¿¿¿, Aaron Douglas, Charles Alston, William Ellisworth Artis, and Haywood “Bill” Rivers, respectively.

Committee: Theresa Leininger-Miller PhD (Committee Chair); Julie Alane Aronson PhD (Committee Member); Mikiko Hirayama PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2012, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History

The Harlem Renaissance is often remembered for its cultural achievements, but scholars often place too much attention on literary and visual artists with little regard for the musicians of the period. When scholars do make the connection between jazz and the Harlem Renaissance, the work of jazz artists in cities outside of Harlem play second fiddle. In fact, New Orleans and Chicago could just as easily stake the claim as the nation's jazz capital in this period, and so many early jazz innovators emigrated to Chicago's South Side from New Orleans that the Windy City could arguably boast a more vibrant music scene than Harlem. Thanks in no small part to the First Great Migration, when over one million African Americans left the South to stake their claim on the American Dream in the urban North, jazz transitioned from a regional to the national music in the 1910s and 1920s. A number of scholars of the Great Migration have shed light on the grass roots leadership that facilitated northern emigration. In the first few decades of the 20th century, African Americans in scores of cities across the country were busy forging a new collective identity, known as the “New Negro”, as expressed in the visual and performing arts, political protest, and economic enterprise culminating in the Harlem Renaissance. Thanks to several historians the political activism of the literary component of the Harlem Renaissance is well known. Unfortunately, few have made the same connections in regard to the musicians of the period. Jazz made its own Great Migration on the backs of a cadre of grass roots musician leaders whose political awareness has yet to be fully appreciated. These considerations suggest that a deeper analysis of jazz, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the political activism of musicians beyond 135th Street and Lenox Avenue is necessary to uncover the “New Negro” of black music. This dissertation examines the Great Migration through the lens of jazz to explore (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Stradling PhD (Committee Chair); Davarian L. Baldwin PhD (Committee Member); Wendy Kline Paula PhD (Committee Member); Tracy Teslow PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Germanic Languages and Literatures

Black Ashkenaz and the Almost Promised Land: Yiddish Literature and the Harlem Renaissance explores the relationship between African Americans and Eastern European immigrant Jews (Yiddish-speaking / Ashkenazic Jews) by examining the depictions of each in their respective literatures. The thrust of this project addresses the representations of African Americans in Yiddish literature. An investigation of the depictions of Jews by Harlem Renaissance writers can contribute to the understanding of an African American/Yiddish interface in which attitudes towards each other are played and written out. This linkage of African American and Jewish history, traditions and reflections regarding identity, culture, and language appears at a significant point in the grand narrative of ethnicity and race ideology in the United States. For Yiddish writers, their works regarding African Americans revealed their projection of what it meant to be Black, just as those of Harlem Renaissance writers projected their concept of what it meant to be Jewish, all in a milieu which saw the redefinition of what it meant to be black, to be white, and to be American. Yiddish writers addressed concepts of Blackness and Jewishness with an understanding of what could be gained or lost; the push to become American, the opportunity for social, political and economic mobility and racial alterity was countered by the pull of conflict with respect to assimilation, American conceptualization of exclusion based upon race, and a Jewish consciousness which rejected both.

Committee: David Miller PhD (Committee Chair); Neil Jacobs PhD (Committee Member); Bernd Fischer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Black History; Comparative Literature; Judaic Studies; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2011, College of Arts and Sciences - History

Space is an important factor in how people construct their identities. Music is an equally important form of expression. Jazz represents the union of these two processes and its trajectory towards mainstream popularity and acceptance in the 20th century demonstrates a great deal about the ways in which Americans defined what it meant to be "American."

Committee: Andrew Cayton PhD (Advisor); Tatiana Seijas PhD (Committee Member); Erik Jensen PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Music; Urban Planning

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2010, English

This thesis pertains to the forgotten women dramatists of the Harlem/New Negro Renaissance of the 1920's and 1930's. It is divided into two parts: Preface and one-act drama. The Preface addresses the problems and issues when researching these women, namely the fact that there is little research devoted solely to their contributions to the movement. Set in the home of Georgia Douglas Johnson in late summer of 1929. Johnson is one of the most prolific women dramatists of the Harlem/New Negro Renaissance, whose works expanded even into the Civil Rights Movement, the one-act drama consists of a meeting between Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston, who is most notable for her non- dramatic works, despite the fact that it was in drama that she first made her mark. The first scene, set in the parlor, attends to the issue of race and how each woman goes about addressing their own representation of how race affects the African American community. In the second scene, the women are in the kitchen and address the most pressing issue of gender relations within the African American community.

Committee: Albino Carrillo MFA (Committee Chair); Stepehn Wilhoit PhD (Committee Member); Joseph Pici MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Literature; Black History; English literature; Gender; Theater; Womens Studies