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Title: " ... To do credit to my nation, wherever I go" : West Indian and Cape Verdean immigrants in Southeastern New England, 1890-1940
Creator: Edwards, Janelle Marlena
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This work is a community study that centers the experiences of black immigrants as an overlapping diaspora in multi-ethnic and transnational African-American history. It argues that, through the operationalization of their familial networks, ethnic organizations, and neighborhood enclaves, black immigrants in New England depart from traditional histories of assimilation and acculturation. Though much scholarship has been dedicated to the politically charged organizations and black immigrant...
Show moreThis work is a community study that centers the experiences of black immigrants as an overlapping diaspora in multi-ethnic and transnational African-American history. It argues that, through the operationalization of their familial networks, ethnic organizations, and neighborhood enclaves, black immigrants in New England depart from traditional histories of assimilation and acculturation. Though much scholarship has been dedicated to the politically charged organizations and black immigrant participation in New York, this microhistory of Southeastern New England's port cities -- Providence and New Bedford--demonstrates the commonplace, quotidian lives of West Indians and Cape Verdeans as neighbors, friends, and relatives who experienced and adapted to their diaspora condition differently. While West Indians altered their community landscape and eventually assimilated into the African-American community, Cape Verdeans retained a Cape Verdean ethnic identity, bolstered by their transnational shipping fleet and the constant flow of people, goods, and ideas from the homeland.
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Title: "'I'm gone be 'Black on both sides'" : examining the literacy practices and legacy learning within a sustaining urban debate community
Creator: Jones Stanbrough, Raven
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "This study explored the lived experiences of Black student-debaters and debate supporters in ACTION Debate (AD), an afterschool debate program dedicated to offering and providing debate opportunities and instruction to high school students in a major Midwestern city." -- Abstract.

Title: "'Invading vacationland for Christ' : the construction of evangelical identity through summer camps in the postwar era"
Creator: Koerselman, Rebecca A.
Date: 2013
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Evangelical summer camps blossomed in the post–World War II years, more than tripling their numbers from 1945 to 1960. But scholars have yet to explain the phenomenon at this critical juncture in American history. Summer camps provide a lens for how evangelicals saw themselves in an increasingly secular postwar world. Many believed the influence of evangelicals was on the decline, and scholars have indicated the overall waning of the influence of mainline Protestant denominations...
Show moreEvangelical summer camps blossomed in the post–World War II years, more than tripling their numbers from 1945 to 1960. But scholars have yet to explain the phenomenon at this critical juncture in American history. Summer camps provide a lens for how evangelicals saw themselves in an increasingly secular postwar world. Many believed the influence of evangelicals was on the decline, and scholars have indicated the overall waning of the influence of mainline Protestant denominations throughout the twentieth century. But an examination of summer camps reveals that evangelicals desired to engage in mainstream culture through reaching American postwar youth. They consciously worked to influence America's youth in unprecedented ways, appealing to them through the combination of faith and fun, working to attract the growing teenage subculture in order to create and sustain the next generation of evangelical leadership. Summer camps, an innovative approach to reaching America's youth, aided evangelicals as they sought to reassert both a Christian and American identity in the postwar milieu of anxiety and change. The establishment of evangelical summer camps in the 1940s and 1950s demonstrated a clear resurgence of evangelical power. This evangelical power, building on the organizational foundation of the 1940s and 1950s, continued its trajectory into the national spotlight and cultural significance in the late twentieth and early twenty first century. The examination of the diversity of evangelical summer camps through broader historical lenses provides a variety of different ways to unearth how evangelicals went from a sheltered group that supposedly disappeared in the 1920s to their visibility and influence of today. An exploration of the continuing influence of denominational institutions as well as the growing evidence of non–denominational camps revealed the extent to which postwar evangelicals struggled to neatly identify as liberal, modern, or more conservative. An investigation of the construction of gender–based identities explains how evangelicals sometimes fit with existing gender norms, but also the ways they pushed against traditional gender roles by encouraging girls to pursue evangelical careers. A consideration of the issues of race and environmentalism indicates the immense diversity within evangelicalism during the postwar era. Finally, the exploration of the voices of evangelical youth exposes a language of political activism. Evangelical youth believed they were the solution to the world’s problems and that missionizing, political involvement, establishing more Christian institutions, and pursuing world peace were what evangelicals should care about.
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Title: "A call to honor" : Rebecca Latimer Felton and white supremacy
Creator: Hess, Mary A.
Date: 1999
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A challenge and a promise" : the political activities of Detroit clubwomen in the 1920s
Creator: Morris-Crowther, Jayne
Date: 2001
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A crowd of solitudes" : the social poetry of James Wright
Creator: Schulte, Raphael J.
Date: 1992
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A dialogue with unreason" : the critical history of Edgar Allan Poe's The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838-1993
Creator: Harvey, Ronald C. (Ronald Clark)
Date: 1995
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A different kind of failure" : rupture, transfiguration and the future of indeterminacy in modern drama
Creator: Norman, Lance
Date: 2007
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A dog has four legs but walks in one direction" : multiple religious belonging and organic Africa-inspired religious traditions in Oriente Cuba
Creator: Zaid, Shanti Ali
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "If religion is about social cohesion and the coordination of meaning, values, and motivations of a community or society, how do communities meaningfully navigate the religious domain in an environment of multiple religious possibilities? Within the range of socio-cultural responses to such conditions, this dissertation empirically explores 'multiple religious belonging,' a concept referring to individuals or groups whose religious identity, commitments, or activities may extend beyond a...
Show more"If religion is about social cohesion and the coordination of meaning, values, and motivations of a community or society, how do communities meaningfully navigate the religious domain in an environment of multiple religious possibilities? Within the range of socio-cultural responses to such conditions, this dissertation empirically explores 'multiple religious belonging,' a concept referring to individuals or groups whose religious identity, commitments, or activities may extend beyond a single coherent religious tradition. The project evaluates expressions of this phenomenon in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago de Cuba with focused attention on practitioners of Regla Ocha/Ifa, Palo Monte, Espiritismo Cruzado, and Muerteria, four organic religious traditions historically evolved from the efforts of African descendants on the island. With concern for identifying patterns, limits, and variety of expression of multiple religious belonging, I employed qualitative research methods to explore how distinctions and relationships between religious traditions are articulated, navigated, and practiced. These methods included directed formal and informal personal interviews and participant observations of ritual spaces, events, and community gatherings in the four traditions. I demonstrate that religious practitioners in Santiago manage diverse religious options through multiple religious belonging and that practitioners have strategies for expressing their multiple religious belonging. The diverse expressions involve characteristics of centered and un-centered models of multiple religious belonging, as well as attributes of shared reality and complementarity between religious traditions. The research contributes to a more critical understanding of the complexities of eastern Cuban religious expressions and religious traditions of the African Diaspora. Moreover, the project aims to enhance the conceptual literature around multiple religious belonging with data from the Caribbean island of Cuba."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: "A free ballot and a fair count" : the Department of Justice and the enforcement of voting rights in the South, 1877-1893
Creator: Goldman, Robert Michael
Date: 1976
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A good defense will leave you beautiful, a bad defense will make you ugly" : gender in Muay Thai kickboxing
Creator: Glogower, Naomi Bracha
Date: 2009
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A histoy of telecommunication: the telegraph" : an instructional unit for television
Creator: Bopry, Jeanette
Date: 1978
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A nation can rise no higher than its women" : the critical role of Black Muslim women in the development and purveyance of Black consciousness, 1945 - 1975
Creator: Jeffries, Bayyinah Sharief
Date: 2009
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A place to call home" : the rhetoric of Filipinx-American place-making
Creator: Mahnke, Stephanie
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In this dissertation, I analyze the place-making efforts of the Philippine American Cultural Center of Michigan, a space for Detroit's Filipinx community. By looking at the place-making process from the center's earliest conception to later development, this study aims to determine the negotiations and factors that influence the production and sustainment of space based on the group's cultural ideology. To gather and analyze data, I coded the center's planning minutes from 1980 to 2001,...
Show moreIn this dissertation, I analyze the place-making efforts of the Philippine American Cultural Center of Michigan, a space for Detroit's Filipinx community. By looking at the place-making process from the center's earliest conception to later development, this study aims to determine the negotiations and factors that influence the production and sustainment of space based on the group's cultural ideology. To gather and analyze data, I coded the center's planning minutes from 1980 to 2001, followed by interviews with members of the original planning committee and center's leaders. All findings are validated by the community through the Filipinx indigenous interviewing method of pagtatanung-tanung. Through analysis of the documents and interviews, I conclude the distinct rhetoric of this center's Filipinx-American place-making is a result of negotiated Filipinx values to prioritize beliefs in unity and reciprocity, creating a materially and symbolically malleable cultural center to accommodate different forms of members' "giving back". Results of the study may inform cultural rhetoricians' methodology and fuller treatment of place-making as a rhetorical process, and community organizers of the importance of accounting for distinct cultural ideologies which influence place-making efforts.
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Title: "A ray of hope for liberation" : blacks in the South Carolina Extension Service, 1915-1970
Creator: Harris, Carmen Veneita
Date: 2002
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "A single finger cannot lift a stone" : local organizations and democracy in Mali
Creator: Davis, John Uniack
Date: 1999
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "Accepting and embracing my disability" : describing the life experiences of Latinas/os with physical disabilities who have abused substances
Creator: Córdova, David
Date: 2010
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "Afrographie" : l'écriture comme sites de conflits identitaires dans l'œuvre romanesque d'Ahmadou Kourouma
Creator: Nzokizwanimana, Pierre
Date: 2006
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "All of us would walk together" : the transition from slavery to freedom at St. Mary's City, Maryland
Creator: Brock, Terry Peterkin
Date: 2014
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "ALL OF US WOULD WALK TOGETHER": THE TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM AT ST. MARY'S CITY, MARYLANDbyTerry Peterkin BrockIn 1840, Dr. John Mackall Brome inherited his father's plantation along the St. Mary's River in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Over the ensuing decades, Brome built his plantation into one of the largest in Southern Maryland, both in acreage and slaveholdings. By the Civil War, his plan- tation landscape had been entirely rebuilt, and was home to over 60 enslaved African...
Show more"ALL OF US WOULD WALK TOGETHER": THE TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM AT ST. MARY'S CITY, MARYLANDbyTerry Peterkin BrockIn 1840, Dr. John Mackall Brome inherited his father's plantation along the St. Mary's River in St. Mary's County, Maryland. Over the ensuing decades, Brome built his plantation into one of the largest in Southern Maryland, both in acreage and slaveholdings. By the Civil War, his plan- tation landscape had been entirely rebuilt, and was home to over 60 enslaved African Americans. This dissertation examines how Brome managed his plantation during and after slavery, and how African Americans used, reused, modified, and changed the plantation landscape to survive their bondage and define their freedom after slavery.Examining the transition from slavery to freedom has received limited attention in archaeo- logical analysis, and this research introduces a model for understanding the transition through the plantation landscape. The landscape was a critical form of control developed by planters to ef- ficiently produce archaeological crops and manage enslaved laborers. This system, in place for centuries in the American South, was entirely reformed after the emancipation of African Ameri- can laborers. This study will examine how Brome's strategy for managing his labor changed over time, and how African Americans leveraged their newfound freedom to define their freedom and establish independence.This transition is particularly unique in Maryland, which sided with the Union during the Civil War, and which underwent multiple changes in its agricultural economy throughout the 19th cen- tury, transitioning from tobacco to wheat to meat and dairy production. This complicates the traditional narrative of post-Emancipation agricultural relationships between blacks and whites, as Marylander's began producing less labor intensive crops. Meanwhile, African Americans used their new freedoms to change the way they used space to organize their households, build families, and establish communities on and off the plantation.A number of spheres will be interrogated to understand how space was used before and afterslavery. The plantation will be considered as a whole to understand the way the built environment changed through time, including Brome's plantation redesign during the 1840s and its decline through the rest of the century. Brome's use of this landscape to establish control of his slaves and demonstrate his power to his peers will be examined, and how this was effected by the Civil War and Emancipation. For African Americans, a number of spaces on the plantation will be examined, including the plantation proper, the African American domestic sphere, work areas including the manor home, and the wilderness to provide insight into the way that African Americans used space differently after Emancipation. These spaces will be considered in the context of household formation and community building, extending to areas off the plantation.This research demonstrates that Brome used his landscape as a means of controlling his en- slaved laborers and to demonstrate his power through a performative space to his peers. The regular presence of Union soldiers during the Civil War, crippled his control, and provided the necessary cracks for enslaved laborers to resist their bondage and gain freedom. After the War, Brome's agricultural pursuits transition from large sharecropping towards less labor intensive crops and investments in the railroad, resulting in the reduction of his plantation size by the 1880s.Enslaved African Americans reused plantation spaces to create alternate plantation landscapes. They modified their households to mitigate the effects of slavery, and used space on and off the plantation to build communities. After the Civil War, African American reconstituted their fam- ilies into households, and began to separate their community spaces from the white landscape. Instead of reusing space on the plantation, they instead created independent spaces where they could practice family, household and community interactions.
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Title: "All the forms today are merely parades and arrangements" : the relationship between the music and film of "Le Ballet Mécanique" and their influence on time
Creator: Baumgart, Emily Michelle
Date: 2015
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACT"ALL THE FORMS TODAY ARE MERELY PARADES AND ARRANGEMENTS"THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MUSIC AND FILM OF LE BALLET MÉCANIQUE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON TIMEByEmily Michelle BaumgartThis paper offers a structural and cognitive exploration of Léger, Murphy and Antheil's Le Ballet Mécanique of 1924. Though much recent literature has addressed the iconic and groundbreaking film by concentrating on the audio or visual elements separately, this paper addresses both as a unit; specifically, it...
Show moreABSTRACT"ALL THE FORMS TODAY ARE MERELY PARADES AND ARRANGEMENTS"THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MUSIC AND FILM OF LE BALLET MÉCANIQUE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON TIMEByEmily Michelle BaumgartThis paper offers a structural and cognitive exploration of Léger, Murphy and Antheil's Le Ballet Mécanique of 1924. Though much recent literature has addressed the iconic and groundbreaking film by concentrating on the audio or visual elements separately, this paper addresses both as a unit; specifically, it explores the form and structure, or lack thereof, inherent in the abstract nature of the film. While some analyses have claimed there is a clear sense of organization within either film or music (Lawder, 1975; Oja, 2000), this paper takes the opposite approach by theorizing that there is no coherent form to be found in either. Instead, there is a focus on the use of irregular repetition found in both the visual and aural media: looping in the visual element and ostinato in the aural. Furthermore, this study places an emphasis on the effect these unusual techniques will have on an audience. Drawing on the cognitive literature regarding perception and attention, this paper investigates the role that non-narrative video plays in time perception and disorientation. It uses principles of Gestalt psychology and previous timing experiments to accomplish these aims, postulating that the lack of structure, repetitive nature, and disunity between visual and aural elements will lead to a distorted sense of time.
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