1,390,319 research outputs found

    American Culture and Chinese Material

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    Nabokov's Dystopia: Bend Sinister, America and Mass Culture

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    “I am as American as April in Arizona,” Nabokov claimed in a 1966 interview. Although he repeatedly emphasized his American citizenship and the affection he held for his adopted nation, my argument is that his 1947 novel, Bend Sinister, offers us an opportunity to interrogate the received narrative of Nabokov's unproblematic arrival and assimilation into the United States. In examining the engagement with mass culture in this dystopian novel, my intention is to restore some of the political valence denied the novel by both Nabokov and his readers, and to suggest how it functions as a critique of American culture which reveals the author's profound ambivalence about his adopted nation in the early to mid-1940s. Drawing on unpublished archive material, as well as theoretical work by Theodor Adorno, this paper opens up a new approach to Nabokov's American work and demands a reassessment of his avowed apoliticism

    MS-002: Franklin O. Loveland Papers

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    The Franklin O. Loveland Collection is divided into three Series. I. Charles S. Wake; II. Native American Culture and III. Caribbean Culture. Series I is material Loveland collected while conducting research on British anthropologist Charles S. Wake (1835 - 1910) and includes correspondence between Loveland and other Wake scholars. Series II constitutes the bulk of the collection and includes research, articles and various other materials on Native American cultures. Of special note to researchers is the field research Loveland conducted on Shawnee Indians in Oklahoma during his sabbatical during the summer and fall of 1985. Series III includes research, articles and papers on various aspects of Caribbean culture, with the bulk of the Series comprised of field research Loveland conducted in Belize in the summer of 1982. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1001/thumbnail.jp

    Forging Insights: Indian Agency Blacksmiths of the American Frontier

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    Following the War of 1812, the United States government sought to more directly deal with the Native tribes in the American interior. The establishment of Indian agency blacksmith shops was one significant component of this endeavor. While it remains a virtually untouched topic in scholarship, the analysis of agency blacksmith services may reveal significant historical insights within topics as diverse as ethnic perception, material culture, frontier government practices, and language dynamics during a time of great upheaval. This case study of the blacksmith shop at the Fort Winnebago sub-agency in pre-state Wisconsin seeks to demonstrate the manner in which these institutions provide new opportunities for a better understanding of the cultural and political dynamics of the American frontier

    North American Material Culture Research: New Objectives, New Theories

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    Pedagogies of Race: The Politics of Whiteness in an African American Studies Course

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    This paper evaluates students\u27 arguments for a color-blind society to avoid discussions related to the continued existence of racism in USA culture. Relatedly, this writer finds that as an black woman her status as facilitator in the classroom is directly challenged, on occasion, and that race and gender play a primary role in students\u27 perception of classroom material and how she is perceived. Classroom discussions related to historical texts reveal that structures of domination have slanted perception of black and white people in U.S. culture. Finally, a key to open dialogue about race and racism, primarily for white students, is to explain and demonstrate the invisibility of whiteness or white privilege in American society

    Clay Connections: A Thousand-Mile Journey from South Carolina to Texas

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    This publication is based on papers delivered at the inaugural David B. Warren Symposium, American Culture and the Texas Experience, presented by Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Feb. 9-10, 2007. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, established the biennial David B. Warren Symposium, American Material Culture and the Texas Experience, to honor Bayou Bend\u27s founding director emeritus. This volume presents five papers from the inaugural symposium, placing the pre-1900 material culture of Texas, the lower South, and the Southwest within a national and international context. Volume

    The Role of Amache Family Objects in the Japanese American Internment Experience: Examined Through Object Biography and Object Agency

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    This project investigates the meaning of Japanese American families\u27 personal possessions associated with internment through the concepts of object biography and object agency. It uses material culture analysis to help anthropologists understand the Japanese American internment experience, specifically through a case study at Amache, the Japanese American internment camp in southeastern Colorado. Five semi-structured phone interviews, and one structured email interview, are the primary data used to explore the importance of material culture associated with the site and to help preserve the cultural heritage of Amache. Object agency and object biography are key components of the new material culture theory. In this project, object biography concerns how examining different meanings, values, uses, and contexts over time can help anthropologists better understand the Japanese American internment experience. Object agency involves analyzing the relationship between former internees\u27 families and their personal possessions. One of the crucial ways to investigate this concept is understanding why museum donors decided to donate their family items to a museum. It also involves why objects were donated specifically to the Amache museum, instead of to other museums that have Japanese American collections. This thesis suggests there are multiple patterns and themes in the relationships between museum donors and their objects that relate to the Japanese American internment experience

    History, Material Culture, and the Search for the Mythic American Dream in Angie Cruz’s Let it Rain Coffee

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    This thesis examines the connection between Dominican history, the influence of American material culture, and the mythic American Dream as catalysts for migration. The two U.S. occupations and American propaganda through media had a great effect on the deceptive perception of an American life as an effortless method for attaining wealth. Let it Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz, will focus on the character, Esperanza Colon, and her obsession with the lavish lifestyle she views on the television show, Dallas. Material objects, as argued by Daniel Miller in his book, Stuff, work in subtle yet significant ways and determine our function, identification, and experience in society. If the ideal purpose of material culture is to presuppose our roles as individuals, one can conclude that the novel showcases the issues of a subordinate class struggling to attain the material goods that represent economic wealth while maintaining a sense of self-identification and self-agency
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