Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Theatre

How did The Negro Ensemble Company reconstruct and reframe Black American experience on the stage. This study identifies The Negro Ensemble Company's agenda through a close textual analysis of eight Negro Ensemble Company plays spanning from 1967-1978. The analysis contrasts Amiri Baraka's blueprint for a militant separatist based Black Nationalist Theatre to The Negro Ensemble Company's quest to move beyond the rhetoric of race. Each chapter is organized around specific investigative questions and theories that critically interact with the thematic resonances intoned in each play. Some of the questions considered are the following: How did The Negro Ensemble Company alter the representations of black performativity before and during the early 1960's? What is the link between The Black Arts Movement and The Negro Ensemble Company Movement? How did Black Nationalist theory help The Negro Ensemble Company to reframe black experience? How did the plays produced by The Negro Ensemble Company deconstruct historical black family traditions? How are the tensions of the transatlantic slave trade and primordial origins of the African Diaspora situated in some of these plays? How did The Negro Ensemble Company permanently alter the landscape of Black American Theatre? This dissertation examines The Negro Ensemble Company's deemphasizing of white oppression while probing its restaging of black subjectivity in relation to rather than in opposition to Western paternalism.

Committee: Stratos Constantinidis Ph.D. (Advisor); Beth Kattelman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Joy Reilly Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; African Literature; African Studies; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, African-American and African Studies

"Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place, Citizenship and Imagination" is a project dedicated to examining the ways in which race, geography, and politics intersect to create a sovereign space in visual art and popular media for African Americans to imagine full citizenship. By examining black politics and black nation building through these various lenses, I argue that African Americans use popular media and visual art as channels to acquire access to citizenship rights. With the disappearance of a visible black political movement, black Americans have innovatively used these channels to create an alternative space to deploy Black Nationalism and construct a black nation. I call this space the New Black Nation. Particularly, this project focuses on the viability of the Imagined South, a U.S. South that is dehistoricized, southernized, and recreated as a perfect melding of rural and urban culture, as a home for the New Black Nation. "Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place, Citizenship and Imagination" interrogates black gender politics and the performance of black male sexuality in this New Black Nation located in the Imagined South. In order to engage this New Black Nation, "Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place,Citizenship and Imagination" weaves together a discursive reading of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, the work of Tom Joyner of the nationally syndicated program, the Tom Joyner Morning Show, and various representations of black nonheteronormative bodies that exist (though not wholly) within the black nation.

Committee: Simone Drake PhD (Advisor); Rebecca Wanzo PhD (Committee Member); James Upton PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

When did the 1960s end? Scholarly opinion holds that the spirit, energy and optimism that characterize the decade succumbed to infighting and fragmentation as the decade came to a close in 1968. My dissertation challenges this assertion by examining two influential and understudied student movements at San Francisco State College and City College of New York in 1968 and 1969. Often overlooked in favor of student protests that occurred on elite Ivy League campuses, these protests were characterized by multiracial coalitions that challenged the Eurocentric curriculum and lack of diversity at their colleges. These protests were watershed moments in higher education, and they brought about the creation of ethnic studies and the increased acceptance of students of color. In addition, the philosophy, tactics, and rhetoric espoused by these students contributed to the creation of a Third World Left, which included these students and their allies, as well as other activists of color. The activism of the Third World Left continued into the 1970s and became an important site in the continuation of radical politics, thus belying the notion that “the sixties” ended in declension in 1968. This dissertation will show that when diverse sites of activism are explored, rather than solely the white New Left, many movements outlasted the end of the 1960s, including many groups that were spawned as a result of the Third World student movement. This dissertation foregrounds the processes of coalition building among activists of color, as well as the rhetoric and philosophy developed by these students. By examining the many archival sources such as artifacts and documents from the strike, as well as interviews and oral histories with the activists, in addition to the sparse secondary sources that exist about the protests, I will argue for the seminal role of the Third World student movement in this period.

Committee: Judy Tzu-Chun Wu PhD (Advisor); Lilia Fernandez PhD (Committee Member); Hasan Kwame Jeffries PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Education History; Higher Education; Hispanic Americans; History; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Multicultural Education; Native Americans

PhD, The Ohio State University, 2003, Political Science

Previous studies of African American politics focus on political cohesion in the form of bloc voting, party loyalty and notions of linked fate. This has been detrimental to understanding ideological diversity among African Americans. This project attempts to outline the connection between major tenets in African American political thought –based on degrees of subscription to integrationist and Black nationalist beliefs—and ideological adherence among ordinary citizens. There are three primary findings. First, it finds that this ideological dimension does exist, is methodologically reliable, and is an important ingredient in African American decision-making. It determines levels of internal racial awareness, support for leaders, and other issue positions. Second, like liberalism and conservatism, it is not foremost in ordinary citizens' political calculus. In the focus groups, for instance, Blacks have clear views about desirability of associations with whites, but for the most part, they do not offer ideological beliefs without prompts. Instead, what is found and echoed by the subsequent statistical analyses is that Blacks are ambivalent about their relationship to America. They fall into a middle ground, sometimes endorsing and embracing their “American-ness” and other times taking a more racially protective stance by developing and maintaining Black social and political structures. Last, the Integrationist-Nationalist Index created to measure this ideology can predict levels of political efficacy as well as support for a Black third party.

Committee: Paul Beck (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science, General

MA, Kent State University, 2010, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The Civil Rights Movement is often envisioned very narrowly as a uniquely American movement from 1955-1965. This thesis embraces a wider geographical and temporal definition of this era. No matter where Robert F. Williams was geographically situated, he continually framed his rhetoric within a definition of masculinity that he fully embraced as the key to the struggle for expanded rights and full citizenship for African Americans. Much of the current scholarship on Williams focuses on how his NAACP chapter integrated the library and advocated for progressive employment practices in Monroe, North Carolina from 1955-1961. They clashed with counter protesters on the subject of integration of lunch-counters and black usage of the public pool. These clashes escalated until Williams saved two white supremacists from an angry mob. These actions were perverted into accusations of kidnapping. To avoid charges, Williams left Monroe for Canada that night in 1961. This work's main focus is upon Robert and Mabel Williams after they made their separate ways to Fidel Castro's Cuba. They were granted political asylum by the revolutionary government to protect them from the violence of the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations in Monroe. While in Cuba, Williams continued publishing his newsletter The Crusader and began broadcasting an editorial radio program named “Radio Free Dixie.” He used these two outlets to highlight the denial of full citizenship to African Americans in the United States. In Cuba, Williams's ideology of Black Nationalism and his refusal to endorse Socialism in his radio broadcasts led to friction with a faction that he nicknamed the “Bourgeois Communists.” This designation referred to the apparent lack of “revolutionary fervor” of these communists as well as differing views on politics, masculinity and race which diverged from both Williams and Castro. Due to these differences, Williams was largely silenced and eventually moved on to China despite his warm re (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Pino Julio PhD (Advisor); Mary Ann Heiss PhD (Committee Chair); Smith-Pryor Elizabeth PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies; Caribbean Studies; Modern History

MA, Kent State University, 2009, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the role of black radical activist-intellectuals in developing and articulating the values, discourses, and rhetoric of the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Feminist Movements. The ultimate goal was to analyze how black radicals utilized and contested ideas of race, nation, gender, sexuality, and class. This thesis argues that scholars should consider these formations as intellectual movements. Through their creation of movement institutions and “texts,” black Radicals created a modern black counterpublic that challenged black exclusion in the American public. Within this counterpublic, however, black activists produced their own subordinate publics that contested the ideas, discourses, and visions of other black publics. In taking this approach, one cannot analyze the emergence of and activities within the black counterpublic by adhering to the integrationist-nationalist dichotomy because while particular black political groups and leaders may have diverged politically, points of divergence and convergence emerge when analyzing how their ideas of difference impacted their thought and texts. This thesis represents an intersection between the study of political ideologies, discourse, and rhetoric. This thesis investigates the texts of a broad range of black activist-intellectuals including the Black Panther Party's Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver (1966-1969), who designed an alternative nationalism, gendered and classed notions of citizenship, and sexualized depictions of their enemies, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1956-1968), who transcended America's civic and racial nationalist traditions, with his radical democratic socialist ideas and his concept of the “world house,” and a variety of black feminists including Angela Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and bell hooks (1969-1981), who confronted the disciplinary and homogenizing aspects of black nationalist and feminist discourse and created their own visions of hu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Smith-Pryor PhD (Committee Chair); Timothy Scarnecchia PhD (Committee Member); Zachery Williams PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; History

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2022, Political Science

Recent years have seen online political subcultures that embrace populism and reject many liberal institutional norms gain increased influence over the mainstream political arena. Four of the most prominent of these subcultures include White Nationalists, believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the Black Lives Matter movement, and modern Socialists. All four of these groups have, to varying degrees, seen support for their views rise among mainstream media outlets, elected officials, and the public. However, the insistence of these groups on ideological purity and their often combative stance towards moderate colleagues has made influencing legislative efforts difficult for them at times. Additionally, these groups have had differential impacts on democracy in the United States. While the more progressive of these subcultures seek to expand democratic rights and participation to the poor and people of color, the more conservative among these groups often seek to restrict the political rights and influence of their ideological rivals and historically marginalized people.

Committee: DeLysa Burnier (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1975, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1973, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This study examines the cognitive processes whereby the study of literature—in its capacity for induced role-taking and thus more comprehensive understandings of “other” subjectivities—can promote empathy, altruism, and prosocial behavior across racial and gender lines. More specifically, I explore the role of identity—of both the reader and the literary subject/s—in these cognitive processes, considering theoretical and empirical scholarship relating to potential impediments to empathetic arousal during literary readership and examining implications for pedagogy. I will contend that various mainstream Nationalist discourses impact the very conceptual systems that govern human thought, yielding unconscious emotive-cognitive responses which act as impediments to empathetic arousal. Applying these theoretical methods, I explicate various selections of post-World War II black radical literature—Sonia Sanchez's We a BaddDDD People, Amiri Baraka's Dutchman and The Slave, and Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice—which offer corrective counter-narratives and prescient critiques of global capital expansion and contemporary identity politics in multicultural America.

Committee: Babacar M'Baye Dr. (Committee Chair); Mark Bracher Dr. (Committee Member); Kevin Floyd Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2013, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The tradition of African-American satire developed from within the African village, provided a creative model of uncensored rhetorical criticism from within the limited discursive terrains of antebellum slavery to well into today's African-American artists' often satiric descriptions of contemporary society. Evolved from the nineteenth-centuries first-person slave narrative, the impulse of the neo-slave narrative is two fold: (1) cultural (re) appropriation of the dominant mythology, to correct the plantation pastoral, which had really been out there since 1870 to the 20th century (e.g., Gone with the Wind and The Song of the South), thus to recapture the image of the plantation from the popular imagination laden with negative stereotypes; (2) assess the lasting cultural meaning of slavery, in spite of America's constantly changing social climate. For the neo-slave narratives of Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979) and Charles Johnson's Oxherding Tale (1982), the social climate of the nineteen-sixties and early seventies, dominated by social division—punctuated by Black Nationalism's essentialism and state sanctioned reinforcement of social division the Moynihan Report – informs their unusual pairing of satire with the slave neo-narrative to examine black masculinity through the domestic narrative of the family. To differentiate and interpret the satiric perspective in Kindred and Oxherding Tale, it is through Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogism, polyphony, heteroglossia, and carnival that establishes the critical focus of this thesis on the complex relationship between family and society, in their varying expressions of destabilizing patriarchal discourse and its concomitant-- Black Nationalist masculine authority.

Committee: Frederick Karem PhD (Committee Chair); Adam Sonstegard PhD (Committee Member); Adrienne Gosselin PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies