BA, Oberlin College, 2020, Comparative American Studies

Drawing on the wisdom of prison abolitionists past and present, as well as evidence from interviews and analysis of Illinois' Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) procedural documents, this work argues that Illinois' DCFS and the child protection system more broadly are an extension of the carceral state. Both the criminal punishment system and the child protection system (henceforth referred to as the family regulation system) use a diffuse network of actors to surveil, regulate, and punish the behavior of queer subjects: impoverished people and people of color. The present-day family regulation system builds on a long history of family regulation that predates the founding of the U.S., as is seen in chattel slavery, the cultural genocide of Native Americans, neoliberal and anti-welfare policy regimes, and continues today at the U.S.-Mexico border and in the formalized family regulation system (child protective services). This work explores how to keep children safe in the age of abolition, focusing on non-carceral responses that center strong, accountable communities and divest from dependence on the state.

Committee: KJ Cerankowski (Advisor); Erica R. Meiners (Committee Member); Harrod J. Suarez (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American Studies; Black History; Black Studies; Criminology; Families and Family Life; Gender Studies; Individual and Family Studies; Legal Studies; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Native American Studies; Native Americans; Native Studies; Social Work; Welfare

Ed.D., Antioch University, 2023, Education

This is a critical-phenomenological qualitative research study in which young people who participated in Social Justice Youth Arts (SJYA) programs during their teenage years engaged in a series of semi-structured arts-based interviews focused on recollecting their lived experiences in those programs and the years since. These interviews investigate the ways in which the principles of Healing-Centered Engagement (Ginwright, 2018) were present within these young people's experiences of those programs, as well as the extent to which those experiences may have encouraged or cultivated a lived praxis of the principles of the contemporary abolitionist movement (Kaba, 2021; Kaepernick, 2021). This study describes how these young people's engagement with SJYA programming encouraged their process of identity formation as artists and activists, and how the durability and evolution of those self-identifications manifested in their broader social and behavioral context over time. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Richard Kahn Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Heather Curl Ed.D. (Committee Member); Susie Lundy Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Curriculum Development; Education Philosophy; Educational Theory; Pedagogy

BA, Oberlin College, 2021, Politics

This paper aims to trace the development of carceral feminist politics within United States institutions and feminist movements. I first define and describe Modern Carceral Feminism. I then argue that the development of Modern Carceral Feminism hinged on two different political moments: the development of a homogenous understanding of women's oppression in the second wave feminist movement, and the rising political salience of racialized crime leading to punitive policies nationwide in the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. As a result, carceral feminist logics became pervasive within institutional and feminist activism against sexual violence. By the 1980s, reactionary feminist anti-violence movements, like the anti-rape movement and the battered women's movement, relied on mostly punitive enforcement and policing. This tradition expanded with federal action against the so-called "campus rape epidemic” solidifying the domination of carceral feminist approaches in the 2010s. I end by highlighting a different kind of feminism, abolition feminism, coined by activist and legal scholar Angela Y. Davis. Learning from Black and POC-led abolition feminist organizations, I find that there are three key elements to activism that works to reduce both interpersonal violence as well as the violence caused by the carceral state.

Committee: M. David Forrest (Advisor); Kristina Mani (Committee Member); Cortney L. Smith (Committee Member) Subjects: Criminology; Gender Studies; History; Political Science; Social Research

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, History

This dissertation explores the central importance of capital punishment in the development of a criminal justice system in Wisconsin – first as part of the Michigan Territory (1818-36), then as a separate U.S. territory (1836-48), and, finally, throughout its early years as a state (1848-60). During the 1820s and 1830s, capital cases involving both Indian and white defendants helped to define the boundaries of legal jurisdiction on a settler-colonial frontier. During the 1840s, challenges to capital punishment became intertwined with the politics of state building. During the early 1850s, a series of specific and often controversial developments, such as the execution of wife-murderer John McCaffary in August 1851 and the construction of the first state prison in February 1852, led to the abolition of capital punishment in July 1853. Rather than stemming from a rising tide of abolitionist sentiment inspired by the northeastern anti-capital punishment movement, the abolition of the death penalty in Wisconsin constituted a highly contingent modification of the state's criminal code, enacted despite stubbornly persistent ambivalence on the issue among the people and politicians of Wisconsin. Abolition of the death penalty would not end debate over the state's criminal justice system. Following a series of high-profile murders and lynchings in 1854 and 1855, a vocal coalition argued that the abolition experiment had already failed. Insisting that only a return of the gallows could restore law and order, these critics argued that the so-called enlightened reform – based on the premises that certainty of punishment was more important than severity and that reformation was more important than revenge – had proven unable to curb the spread of violence engulfing the state. Though calls for restoration would ultimately be unsuccessful, a growing fear of lawlessness convinced authorities in Milwaukee and other cities across Wisconsin to completely overhaul their law enforc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Cohen (Committee Chair); Kenneth Ledford (Committee Member); Ted Steinberg (Committee Member); Michael Benza (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Law; Legal Studies

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2020, College of Education and Human Services

In a qualitative narrative study of 11 urban teacher education faculty who teach courses that prepare teacher candidates for field immersions in metro-urban schools, I problematized “whiteness” by asking participants what it meant to them in the contexts of their work in contact zones were teacher candidates and K-12 students meet. The research was shaped as an abolitionist justice project (Tuck & Yang, 2018, p. 8) and considered how “whiteness” might be deconstructed and decentered in urban teacher education. Participants described whiteness as both fixed phenotype and historical and social construct which causes harm and which requires intervention. In scenarios where the harm of whiteness was mitigated for non-white K-12 students and teacher candidates, participants described themselves in supportive rather than authoritative educational roles. The study reflects upon what might constitute one or more forms of abolitionist praxis which might have the utility to dismantle systemic white supremacy as well as to cease and desist in the oppression of children.

Committee: Anne Galletta (Committee Chair) Subjects: African American Studies; Education Policy; Educational Sociology; Ethnic Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Political Science

Police professionalization programs commensurate with the Security Sector Reform (SSR) agenda have gained prominence as part of the international aid agenda and plays a role in NATO and E.U. membership criteria, IMF loans, and U.N. peacekeeping programs. Nonetheless, few studies have considered the impact of SSR on the policing of free expression around the world. I argue that transnational police professionalization commensurate with SSR governance unintentionally empowers police to target protesters abroad. Professionalization promotes a rational-legal model of governing that depoliticizes contentious questions, creates distance between professionals and consumers, and distorts professional roles. Transnational professionalization exacerbates these concerns, as it separates professionalizers from local constituencies and ensnares professionalization programs in global biases and misconceptions. The particular distortions of transnational police professionalization can be seen in three ways. First, transnational police advisors teach police to be “non-political” while providing deeply political methods to sort proper versus improper protests. Second, reformers portray any lawlessness as a prelude to state failure, framing any form of public dissent as catastrophic. Third, reformers transfer potentially dangerous policing technologies abroad with little regulation. This dissertation utilizes an original dataset of OECD and U.S. Department of Defense/Department of State programming to trace the spread and impact of the SSR regime around the world. I also genealogically trace the development of the SSR regime using archival resources from the Cold War and the Post-Cold War. These findings highlight the dangers of transnational police training – as professionalization often empowers police in relation to other actors. Future police training programs must therefore foreground the political nature of police as well as the political nature of police professionalization pr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alexander Wendt (Advisor); Jennifer Mitzen (Committee Member); Christopher Gelpi (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2019, English

Sentimental Sailors recovers a largely neglected genealogy of sentimental fiction that promotes non-national forms of personal and collective identity in the early U.S. The “sentimental sailor”— a term that I take from Thomas Mercer's 1772 poem of the same name — is an antebellum ocean character who works to preserve Christian morals by saving those in physical peril, including individuals who are often considered marginalized or foreign. Appearing in texts across a broad range of genres, this figure develops a humanist, religious identity shaped by ocean adventures. Through acts of rescue, the sentimental sailor encourages citizens on the landed frontier to avoid fixed identities, and to instead develop a mobile fluid mind that could see beyond nationalism and the cultural prejudices of their own communities. While the sentimental sailor is unique to the antebellum era, this figure has gone virtually unnoticed by literary scholars. This oversight, I argue, results from the continued focus of much nineteenth-century American literary scholarship on the relation between literature and conceptions of U.S. national or imperial identity. In particular, scholars have shown that sentimental fiction promotes the idea that a productive and healthy home life will lead to a strong community and nation. For example, Amy Kaplan argues that domestic ideologies unite men and women under a central idea of nationalism, allowing them to stand against outsiders that they considered a threat to the country. Relatedly, Margaret Cohen notes that sea narratives emphasize the ideal of imperialism by showing how labor at sea contributes to the nation's pursuit of a global saltwater empire. However, the figure of the sentimental sailor does not fit into the imperialist agendas and cultural modes of most domestic and ocean fiction, but rather uses the experience-based education of the sea to advocate a form of cultural internationalism that requires scholars to reconsider the history of n (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew Hebard (Committee Chair); Michele Navakas (Committee Member); Katharine Gillespie Moses (Committee Member); Anita Mannur (Committee Member); Kimberly Hamlin (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Comparative American Studies

This thesis draws upon recent works in feminist theory, epistemological theory, affect theory, and abolitionist theory to critically engage with contemporary U.S. forms of “carceral feminism,” Elizabeth Bernstein's (2010) concept that describes the recasting of feminist politics in carceral terms. I expand upon Bernstein to contend that we must direct attention to our epistemic and affective conditions to understand our investments in carceral feminism. I begin by mapping the origins of carceral feminism, first tracing its history through a discussion of the initial iterations of colonialism and enslavement. Turning to a more recent timeline of the mainstream feminist anti-violence movement—a predominantly white and liberal project—I consider the battered women's movement's reliance upon the state in the 1960s, the burgeoning of neoliberalism in the 70s, and the rape law reforms in the 80s. Positioning 1994 as a seismic genealogical moment in carceral feminism, I examine the rhetoric and implementation of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 before introducing my case study: the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the nation's largest anti-violence nonprofit. I conduct a discourse analysis of RAINN's website to demonstrate how it reifies the organization's epistemic claims of punishment as justice just as it affectively persuades its visitors to endorse its carceral feminist agenda. I further wager healing is fundamental to carceral feminism. Focusing on RAINN's “Survivor Series” YouTube playlist, I interrogate how the organization displays and utilizes survivors' trauma narratives. Employing an analysis of affective moments as intensified by RAINN, namely through maneuvers of the camera, I reason that RAINN frames and operationalizes the survivors' discussions of justice, healing, and disclosure to concretize a neoliberal understanding of intimate violence and redress. I conclude by urging for an epistemic and affective de-linking, or divest (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Wendy Kozol (Advisor); KJ Cerankowski (Committee Member); Gina M. Perez (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Criminology; Gender Studies

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2014, History

The abolition of British slavery in the 19th century raises the question of how the British achieved antislavery against colonial opposition. While historical theories have focused on economic, political and religious factors, no account of abolition is complete without a thorough investigation of the history of evolving British legal traditions. This thesis analyzed a number of British homeland court cases and antislavery laws. English legal traditions established principles of freedom long before abolition in Britain, and then upheld them in respect to blacks on British soil in the 18th century. On the other hand, these traditions exposed a void in British homeland law on slavery that failed to provide any positive legal basis for freedom beyond its shores, forcing abolitionists into a long battle to build social and political pressures to create such positive laws. This was facilitated by a gradual expansion of Parliamentary authority to impose such antislavery laws.

Committee: Christopher Oldstone-Moore Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Kathryn Meyer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Opolot Okia Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; African History; African Literature; African Studies; American Studies; Black History; Black Studies; British and Irish Literature; Economics; European History; European Studies; History; International Law; Law; Legal Studies; Philosophy; Political Science; World History

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2012, History

The United States grappled with the question of slavery, that peculiar institution, for decades prior to the Civil War. One result of those debates was the antislavery movement. Gaining ground in the 1830s, the antislavery movement motivated people to respond to the issue of slavery in the way that suited their conscience. The Ohio River Valley is located on what once was the border line between North and South, and what to slaves meant the difference between freedom and a life of enslavement. Clermont County, located along the Ohio River, was no different than other communities along the border, such as Brown County. Its citizens reacted in various ways. Those who were antislavery founded antislavery societies, published newspapers, and went on the lecture circuit. Those who were abolitionists went further and assisted fugitive slaves in their escape to freedom. “The Antislavery Movement in Clermont County” looks at Clermont County's history from its founding in 1800 to the height of the antislavery movement. The study shows that, although there are gaps in Clermont's antislavery and Underground Railroad history, there was persistent and aggressive abolitionist activity in the county.

Committee: Barbara Green PhD (Advisor); Edward Haas PhD (Committee Member); Jacob Dorn PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Arts and Sciences: Political Science

A debate exists in the international relations community over the future prospects of warfare, particularly warfare between the major powers. Many scholars have accepted the notion that interstate warfare is declining. One in particular, John Mueller, has offered the intriguing analogy that war is declining just as slavery did before, because the idea of the institution had first become rationally and normatively unacceptable, and now has become subrationally unthinkable. This historical analogy implies both that major state institutions can become obsolete and that such an outcome can come about through changes in ideas, beliefs, and norms. This dissertation uses a qualitative, congruence/process-tracing methodology to assess the historical record of transatlantic slavery and finds that that institution is sufficiently analogous to warfare to warrant comparison. However, while Mueller suggests a normative cause for slavery's decline, the case studies presented here suggest a more complex causal process that included a mix of normative, domestic-political, and geostrategic factors, including the importance of societal inclination to the success of norm adoption. Such a conclusion challenges many of the assumptions of core international relations theory. For example, the fact that Britain was the first state to end the slave trade and practice despite the fact that such measures were not in its own economic and geostrategic interests, along with the fact that the nature and structure of domestic politics significantly mattered in determining when and which states rejected slavery and how that process proceeded, challenge the dominant realist literature framework. On the other hand, the fact that hegemonic Britain became the most powerful "norm entrepreneur" acting against slavery and that its leadership was crucial to the institution's demise challenges constructivist frames which stress individual/group transnational activism. The study concludes with observations o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Harknett PhD (Committee Chair); Laura Jenkins PhD (Committee Member); Thomas Moore PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2008, History (Arts and Sciences)

The campaign to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade during the period from 1770-1807 was simultaneously pursued by abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic. This thesis traces the roots of the relationship between Anglo-American abolitionists from prior to the American Revolution until the abolition of the trade by both Britain and America in 1807. During this span of nearly forty years the movement morphed from a small campaign focused on influencing a few influential members of government, into a massive crusade that harnessed the weight of public opinion in an attempt to force Parliament and Congress to bring an end to the slave trade. By examining the writing of leading abolitionists of the period the shared strategies between the British and American movements becomes clear.

Committee: Mariana Dantas PhD (Advisor); Robert Ingram PhD (Committee Member); Brian Schoen PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; European History; History

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Media and Communication

This dissertation primarily examines the ways in which images and videos of tortured bodies are used in a neo-liberal socio-economic system. In this dissertation, I examine how the bodies of torture survivors have been used in order to market anti-torture nonprofit websites. In an economically harsh time period, nonprofits are forced (and sometimes encouraged) to act more like corporations. Therefore, their "products" must be advertised similarly to the marketing of corporations in order to gain financial support. In the dissertation, I mainly focus on two nonprofits that are situated in the United States and two in the United Kingdom. I use Freedom from Torture's website as a base template from which I use to compare and contrast the other sites. Of the four, Freedom from Torture has one of the most affectively powerful websites. Because their website has changed so much over the period of this dissertation, I am able to create a roadmap of their development to help categorize the other websites. I argue that Freedom from Torture creates a diversity of images that are sometimes problematic, but include many images that break the concept of survivor as only victim. Freedom from Torture's website helps to empower the survivor. Through my observations of their website, I create the Anti-Torture Nonprofit Development Model in order to better understand the representation of clients on these sites. The model consists of three stages that describe how these organizations represent survivors of torture. I argue that all anti-torture nonprofit websites should strive for the third stage of development where the voice of survivors is central. I use this model to examine Freedom from Torture, Redress, Program for Victims of Torture and Torture Abolition and Survivor Support Coalition International. I believe that this model will be useful to anti-torture websites and other nonprofits that are interesting in empowering their clients through positive representations.

Committee: Radhika Gajjala (Advisor); Tori Ekstrand (Committee Member); Oliver Boyd-Barrett (Committee Member); Phil Stinson (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication