The Memory-History-Popular Culture Nexus: Pearl Harbor As a Case Study in Consumer-Driven Collective Memory

In this paper I examine the fusing of collective memory, history and popular culture by analyzing current trends in American-made commercial films with historical events as subject matter that have also been distributed to a global audience. Pearl Harbor is the primary case study. Analysis shows that dominant historical narratives are reified by the use of what I term an 'anticipatory-driven' film experience where audience members engage in an interaction with pre-existing mainstream collective memory while their anticipation for impending climactic trauma is systematically heightened. Comparisons are made to other widely released US films about national and international events and 'non-events.' Questions are also raised about the increasing global importance of the memory-history-popular culture nexus post 9-11, and, how US produced films about 9-11 may or may not engage in the practices detailed in this analysis. In this vein the paper concludes with a discussion of how Pearl Harbor was marketed, edited and received in Japan, the second largest audience for Hollywood films and what this implies about social memory construction in a global commercial context.Collective Memory, Film, Hollywood, National Identity, Pearl Harbor, Social Memory

A Review of Rufus Stone: The Promise of Arts-Based Research

In this essay I review the research-informed short film Rufus Stone. Rufus Stone is the result of a 3-year funded research project led by Kip Jones. The film tells the story of a young man in rural England who, while developing an attraction to another young man, is viciously outed by small-minded village people. He flees to London and returns home 50 years later and is forced confront the people from his past and larger issues of identity and time. This essay considers Rufus Stone as both a film and as a work of arts-based research. I suggest Rufus Stone is not only a terrific film but it also represents the best of arts-based research and public scholarship more broadly

Feminist Content Analysis and Representative Characters

This paper details textual, visual and audio-visual content analysis from both a general and feminist perspective. It provides a backstage look at how I took an abstract idea of analyzing the larger socio-cultural-political American 1990s/2000 context through a representative fictional character, Ally McBeal, and created a manageable project outline for how to achieve my research goals using content analysis in multiple wa

A Commentary on Academic Publishing: Insider Tips

Patricia Leavy, Ph.D. is a leading qualitative researcher, best-selling author, and the creator and editor for seven book series. On the release of her 20th book, American Circumstance: Anniversary Edition, the prolific author offers TQR readers this commentary on academic publishing

A curriculum guide for art in the elementary grades

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Fiction, Feminism, and Qualitative Research: An Interview with Dr. Patricia Leavy

In this interview, sociologist Patricia Leavy introduces arts-based research, discusses how qualitative researchers can use fiction, and reviews her own practice of writing feminist novels including her latest release, Film

Spark: Why I Wrote a Novel Designed to Teach the Research Process

I’m a sociologist specializing in research methodology. I’m also a novelist. When my latest novel, Spark, was released, people remarked that it seemed inevitable for me to combine my two passions. I agree. In some ways this is probably always where my work was heading, although it necessarily took a long time to get here. I’d like to share why as a scholar I turned to fiction, the inspiration for Spark, and my hopes for the book

“A Conversation Between Kip Jones and Patricia Leavy: Arts-Based Research, Performative Social Science and Working on the Margins.”

This paper reports a conversation between international pioneers in Arts-Based Research and Performative Social Science, Patricia Leavy and Kip Jones. They begin by delineating the differences between research and/or dissemination that use tools from the Arts in their production. Leavy turns to her fiction writing as an example, while Jones discusses the making of his research-based short film, Rufus Stone. The conversation then turns to how these novel approaches have changed the way in which they work and these efforts in relation to the academy. The concept of “audience” is raised. Both then give examples of taking alternative routes in their career paths and funding for this kind of work. Jones specifically talks about using creativity in all our approaches, including small-scale projects that rely on creativity rather than money. He suggests being creative in the ways in which we write for publication and present our work to other academics. Leavy ends the conversation by discussing taking risks and walking through fear. Jones recommends not working in silos, but letting all parts of our lives influence our outputs

Femininity, Masculinity, and Body Image Issues among College-Age Women: An In-Depth and Written Interview Study of the Mind-Body Dichotomy

In this article we investigate college-age womens body image issues in the context of dominant femininity and its polarization of the mind and body. We use original data collected through seven in-depth interviews and 32 qualitative written interviews with college-age women and men. We coded the data thematically applying feminist approaches to the analysis. We conclude that the current standard of femininity disproportionately associates womens worth with their bodies. Differing from literature that suggests femininity is associated with physicality and masculinity is not, our research suggests that masculinity is also partly associated with physicality, but in a way that is linked to power and does not reduce masculinity to only physicality

Racial Identity and the Development of Body Image Issues among African American Adolescent Girls

As readers, children with dyslexia are vulnerable to becoming academically, socially, and emotionally detached from education. Traditional educational practices tend to use quantitative measures to diagnose children to better serve their needs and researchers, who study students with special needs often focus on a deficit model that quantify just how far a child is from the norm. This practice, while full of good intentions, often creates emotional scars and feelings of inferiority in a child. This reductionist view of a disability is most likely different from the lived experience of the person with the disability. To get a complete picture, we must use qualitative methods to reveal children’s words, their interactions, and the entire context within which their disability is nested. In this study, I use qualitative methods to unpack the educational experiences of a group of students with dyslexia. Data were gathered from four sources: interviews with students and teachers, field notes, and journal entries. The words of the participants are presented to convey the emotional impact that a reading disability brings and to remind educators and researchers that quantitative methods do not always provide a complete picture of a child’s experience in school