College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item SAMUEL MORTON, JOSIAH NOTT, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE `AMERICAN SCHOOL': AUTHORITY, GENIUS, AND SYSTEMS-BUILDING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ETHNOLOGY(2009) Donohue, Christopher R.; Ridgway, Whitman H.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis traces the origin and development of the "American School" of ethnology from the natural historical debate over the nature of hybridity and the definition of species between the naturalist John Bachman and the ethnologist Samuel George Morton to the posthumous management of Samuel Morton's reputation and authority by the physician and ethnologist Josiah Nott and his collaborators in Types of Mankind for the purposes of establishing themselves as ethnological authorities in their own right.Item Beyond the Railroad People: Race and the Color of History in Chinese America(2009) Thompson, Wendy Marie; Corbin Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Past discourses on Asian Americans, specifically Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, have historically focused on specific racial interactions with white America that fell somewhere between exclusion and assimilation. However, lost in these discussions are the different nonwhite interracial hybridities that did and continue to inhabit Chinese immigrant and Chinese American lives. This study offers a departure from dominant scholarly conversations that reproduce the master narrative of Chinese immigrants coming to the United States, building the railroads, and assimilating just enough to become what white America has termed the "model minority" and shifts the analysis and conversation to look at other experiences, opening up a racial narrative that situates Chinese bodies in proximity to black and nonwhite America. In applying theoretical perspectives from race and ethnic studies, history, visual culture studies, and immigration studies to examine a broad range of texts, I have discovered that Chinese men using racial passing as a tool to cross American borders illegally, Gold Mountain frontier experiences that included significant contact with Native people, husbands and fathers refusing to bow to greater community pressures and disown their black wives and mixed race children in the Mississippi Delta region, and the presence of Chinese women of African descent in local California Miss Chinatown beauty pageants all suggest that how Chinese people saw themselves racially and continue to see themselves was and is more complex and fluid than the master narratives depict and many Americans appear to believe. contributes to the growing field of Asian American studies by establishing a dialogue between counter-hegemonic discourses and works that give agency and voice to various Chinese Americans whose lived racial realities that included kinship with nonwhite Americans complicate what it means to be Chinese, immigrant, or American. This dissertation also intervenes in the field of American Studies by expanding how we gauge the many ways race, power, and agency shape bodies, relationship, communities, and national identities in the United States.Item Staging the People: Revising and Reenvisioning Community in the Federal Theatre Project(2007-04-26) Osborne, Elizabeth Ann; Nathans, Heather S.; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Federal Theatre Project (FTP, 1935-1939) stands alone as the only real attempt to create a national theatre in the United States. In the midst of one of the greatest economic and social disasters the country has experienced, and between two devastating wars, the FTP emerged from the ashes of adversity. One of the frequently lampooned Arts Projects created under the aegis of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, the FTP lived for four short, turbulent, and exhilarating years. Under the leadership of National Director Hallie Flanagan, the FTP employed more than 13,000 unemployed theatre professionals, brought some much needed emotional support to an audience of more than 30 million, and fought to provide locally relevant theatre for the people of the United States. Yet, how does a national organization create locally relevant theatre in cities and towns throughout this diverse country? Each chapter addresses the same overarching question: How did the FTP develop a relationship with its surrounding communities, and what were the dynamics of that relationship? The regions all dealt with the question in a manner that was unique to their experiences, and which was dependent upon the political, social, cultural, and economic issues that made the communities themselves distinct. Recognizing these differences is vital in understanding both the FTP and the concept of a national theatre in America. This dissertation considers the perceived successes and failures of specific case studies in both urban and rural locations in four of the five major regions, the Midwest, South, East, and West. The integration of a wide breadth of material, from scripts and playbills to inquiries into the government structure, institutional power formations, and dominant discourse, shape this study into a rich cultural history. Points of entry include the Chicago FTP's productions of O Say Can You Sing? and Spirochete, Boston's Created Equal and Lucy Stone, Atlanta's Altars of Steel and "Georgia Experiment," and the pageants developed in Portland, Oregon. This collection of case studies suggests that the FTP served to both continue and inspire a "people's theatre," ultimately becoming one of the most successful failures of American theatre history.Item Hechos de orillas: Nuevas expresiones de la identidad judeo-argentina contemporanea(2007-04-13) Ran, Amalia; Sosnowski, Saul; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The search of the Jewish immigrants for a consolidated identity, social and cultural integration, and recognition within the "official" History of Argentina is narrated through a web of personal stories and family genealogies that disclose the struggles with the collective memories in order to create a new "text": the story of the Jewish Argentineans. After more than a century of Jewish presence in Argentina, what is the importance of these stories for the current identification of these individuals? What is the significance of "being a Jew" -a descendant of immigrants, the other for many generations-, and of "being Argentinean" -a citizen with full political rights and a social actor? This dissertation focuses on novels created in Argentina, Spain, France, United States and Israel by descendants of Jewish immigrants to Argentina and by those born in that country. It examines the current shifting trends in defining the personal and collective identity of Jewish Argentineans in Argentina and its Diaspora. I assess the relevance of geographical spaces, national boundaries, languages and gender for the personal identification with the "imagined community" of the argentinidad and propose different ways to resolve the identity crisis of these individuals whose personal stories had been excluded from the canonical History documented by the state. I argue that the nostalgic return to the migrant past, the revision of symbolic national patrimonies and the redefinition of the collective identity enable new self expressions, and analyze the significance of these discourses through three different perspectives: first, I examine the impact of the distance created by the passing of time. The novels use the "Wandering Jew" as a literary resort in order to dialogue with past events and present an alternative version of it. Second, I evaluate the relevance of geographical distances and linguistic gaps in the formation of the national, cultural and personal identities, upon the nostalgic return to the past, and a sense of dislocation associated with this act. Finally, I examine the importance of biographical elements, such as gender, class and generational differences, for the Jewish and Argentinean identification at the beginning of the XXI century.Item Raising Black Dreams: Representations of Six Generations of a Family's Local Racial-Activist Traditions(2007-04-20) Daves, John Patrick Cansler; Caughey, John; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)How do local African American leadership traditions develop and change? How do they compare to and connect with national African American leadership traditions? This dissertation explores some answers to these questions through an examination of the history of one middle-class African American family's communal activist legacy. It is built, first, on my research into my adopted family's local, evolving communal-leadership ideology, which extends from the antebellum era to the present; and, second, on my examination of how my family's leadership tradition compare with and connect to patterns in national black leadership conventions. In the chapters, I lay out the basic issues I will investigate, discuss the literature on black leadership, contextualize my study, and introduce and define the concepts of racial stewardship, local racial activism, local racial ambassadorship, and racial spokesmanship which are central to my exploration. I conclude the dissertation with an summation of my work, and how my research contributes to existing scholarly conversations about black leadership traditions found in African American Literature, History and the social sciences.Item Tunnel Vision: Urban Renewal in Rio de Janeiro, 1960-1975(2006-06-01) Kehren, Mark Edward; Weinstein, Barbara; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Following the inauguration of the newly constructed capital of Brasília in April 1960, the former federal district and Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro was transformed into the city-state of Guanabara. Although Rio lost its status as the political capital of Brazil after nearly 200 years, extensive urban renewal campaigns to modernize the city were employed by numerous politicians, planners, architects, artists, and ordinary residents to help restore Rio's position as Brazil's "true" capital city. This dissertation examines these urban renewal efforts in Guanabara from 1960 to 1975 - a period when Rio de Janeiro experienced its largest period of population and spatial growth. Whereas many of the urban renewal campaigns and projects for development prior to 1945 were intended to beautify, embellish, and "civilize" the city, the projects of the 1960s and 1970s were highly technical and revolved around integrating the automobile into the urban landscape. The measures of investment and resources devoted to modernizing and reforming the city during the Guanabara period were unprecedented for Rio de Janeiro, consequently resulting in significant spatial, social, cultural, and economic reorganization of the city. "Tunnel Vision: Urban Renewal in Rio de Janeiro, 1960-1975" examines specific projects of urban renewal such as tunnels (Rebouças and Santa Bárbara), expressways, parks (Aterro do Flamengo), subways, overpasses, and beaches while also exploring the technocratic approach to urban planning which was demonstrated through attitudes and principles that often marginalized "non-expert" participation in reforming the city. Using diverse primary sources such as government and urban planning documents, as well as neighborhood association materials, this dissertation also considers broader historical issues such as the politics and culture of military regimes, as well as questions related to the built environment, comparative planning cultures, space, class, race, ethnicity, and popular culture. Furthermore, this study also argues that the politics and culture of urban planning in Rio de Janeiro during the Guanabara period mirrored many of the same political, cultural, and social tensions that existed throughout Brazil and Latin America before and after the Brazilian military coup of 1964.Item Infectious Disease in Philadelphia, 1690-1807: An Ecological Perspective(2006-05-15) Anroman, Gilda Marie; Sies, Mary Corbin; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the multiple factors that influenced the pattern and distribution of infectious disease in Philadelphia between the years 1690 and 1807, and explores the possible reasons for the astonishingly high level of death from disease throughout the city at this time. What emerges from this study is a complex picture of a city undergoing rapid cultural and epidemiological changes. Large-scale immigration supplied a susceptible population group, as international trade, densely packed streets, unsanitary living conditions, and a stagnant and contaminated water supply combined to create ideal circumstances for the proliferation of both pathogens and vectors, setting the stage for the many public health crises that plagued Philadelphia for more than one hundred years. This study uses an ecological perspective to understand how disease worked in Philadelphia. The idea that disease is virtually always a result of the interplay of the environment, the genetic and physical make-up of the individual, and the agent of disease is one of the most important cause and effect ideas underpinned by epidemiology. This dissertation integrates methods from the health sciences, humanities, and social sciences to demonstrate how disease "emergence" in Philadelphia was a dynamic feature of the interrelationships between people and their socio-cultural and physical environments. Classic epidemiological theory, informed by ecological thinking, is used to revisit the city's reconstructed demographic data, bills of mortality, selected diaries (notably that of Elizabeth Drinker), personal letters, contemporary observations and medical literature. The emergence and spread of microbial threats was driven by a complex set of factors, the convergence of which lead to consequences of disease much greater than any single factor might have suggested. Although it has been argued that no precondition of disease was more basic than poverty in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, it is shortsighted to assume that impoverishment was a necessary co-factor in the emergence and spread of disease. The urban environment of Philadelphia contained the epidemiological factors necessary for the growth and propagation of a wide variety of infectious agents, while the social, demographic and behavioral characteristics of the people of the city provided the opportunity for "new" diseases to appear.Item Oracle of Stamboul(2006-05-01) Lukas, Michael; Casey, Maud; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Oracle of Stamboul is a novel-in-progress about a preternaturally intelligent little girl who changes the course of history. Born on the outskirts of the Ottoman empire at the end of 19th century, Eleonora Cohen follows her father to Stamboul, overcomes adversity, learns about herself, and eventually becomes an advisor to the Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II.