"What don't Black girls do?": constructions of deviance and the performance of Black female sexuality

This research interrogates the ways in which Black women process and negotiate their sexual identities. By connecting the historical exploitation of Black female bodies to the way Black female deviant identities are manufactured and consumed currently, I was able to show not only the evolution of Black women's attitudes towards sexuality, but also the ways in which these attitudes manifest when policing deviancy amongst each other. Chapter 1 gives historical insight to the way that deviancy has been inextricably linked to the construction of Blackness. Using the Post-Reconstruction Era as my point of entry, I demonstrate the ways in which Black bodies were stigmatized as sexually deviant, and how the use of Black caricatures buttressed the consumption of this narrative by whites. I explain how countering this narrative became fundamental to the evolution of Black female sexual politics, and how ultimately bodily agency was later restored through sexual deviancy. Chapter 2 interrogates the way "authenticity" is propagated within the genre of reality TV. Black women are expected to perform deviant identities that coincide with controlling images so that the "authenticity" of Black womanhood is consumed by mainstream audiences. Using Vh1's Love and Hip Hop Atlanta and Basketball Wives I analyze the way these identities are performed and policed by the women on both shows. Lastly, Chapter 3 is a reflexive analysis detailing the ways in which Black women process the performances of deviant Black female identities on reality TV using ethnographic methods. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Deep in the heart: Mark Twain and Walker Percy as authors of agency

The following project examines the transformative power of literature against certain problems of the modern and postmodern experience as articulated by political theory. The primary concern is what theologian David Kyuman Kim calls "melancholic freedom," a condition wherein the intelligibility of the self has been compromised by the decreases in personal agency brought on by a modern disconnect from moral and ethical sources. As such, this work is situated within the contemporary debate on the interrelatedness of identity and agency, and thus the work of Charles Taylor will figure prominently. Much of the work of twentieth and twenty-first theorists has centered around attempts to resolve the complications that have developed in the wake of our modern era, to explain the tradeoffs and contradictions. Kim suggests the need for "projects of regenerating agency," which satisfy the following criteria: 1) provide suggestion of a religious imagination at work; 2) support a cultivation of the self; 3) demonstrate a search for moral identity and present opportunities for spiritual exercise; and 4) exhibit an aspiration toward a vocation of the self. It is my argument that engagement with the literary arts, either as a reader or writer, fulfills these conditions and presents an alternative site for regenerating agency. This expansion of Kim's work opens theory to wider application and joins political philosophy and literature in a common project of expanding the discourse on identity and agency. I will demonstrate how the writing and lives of Mark Twain and Walker Percy meet Kim's criteria for such a project. Twain and Percy as authors of projects of regenerating agency advance the case that art has the capacity to be instructive and illuminating as part of our moral discourses in ways that theory cannot replicate. Also, a reading of literature motivated by the concerns of political theory--in this case the discussion on identity, agency, and their points of intersection--allows us to reinvigorate the critical appreciation of these two authors. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The sense of international and being-with-in-common

Where do(es) international relations present? The discipline of International Relations (IR) avoids this question because the answer is so obvious. What constitutes the discipline of IR is an attempt to localize the place of international relations as a form of politics that has unique characteristics. These characteristics refer to the limits of politics. In this sense, international relations constitutes an outside of the political sphere within which the political self finds the certainties upon which its political self-understandings rely. It is a projection of the transformation of universal politics to the particular and internal, through the territorial mentality of the classical—in the Foucauldian sense, judicial-political—sovereignty theories. Following this tendency, political theory ignores international relations as an element of the ontological status of being-with, while for its part, the discipline of IR does not take account of the everydayness of being-with as a concern for international politics or attempt to translate our everyday encounter into the particular language of international relations. This project attempts to reverse this shared lacuna of both disciplines and tries to treat the international—as a sense which produces specific meaning of nearness and a particular version of being-inside—which operates in the ontological status of being-with. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Virtue ethics and the narrative identity of American librarianship 1876 to present

The purpose of this study is to propose a means of reconciling the competing ideas of library and information science's identity, thereby strengthening professional autonomy. I make the case that developing a system of virtue ethics for librarianship would be an effective way to promote that reconciliation. The first step in developing virtue ethics is uncovering librarianship's function. Standard approaches to virtue ethics rely on classical Greek ideas about the nature of being to determine function. Since classical ideas of being may no longer be persuasive, I introduce another approach to uncover librarianship's function that still meets all of the criteria needed to establish a foundation for a system of virtue ethics. This approach is hermeneutical phenomenology, the philosophical discipline of interpreting the meaning given to historical events. Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic circle technique and Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative intelligence are used to engage in a dialogue with three crises in the history of American librarianship. These pivotal events are the fiction question, librarian nationalism during World War I, and the dispute between supporters of the "Library Bill of Rights" and social responsibility. From these crises, three recurring themes become apparent: the tendency to reconcile idealism and pragmatism, the intent to do good for individuals and society, and the role of professional insecurity in precipitating the conflicts. Through emplotment of these themes, an identity narrative for librarianship emerges. My finding is that librarianship's function is the promotion of stability-happiness. This is the dual-process of supporting dominant socio-cultural institutions as a means of protecting librarianship's ability to offer the knowledge, cultural records, and avenues for information literacy that can improve lives and facilitate individuals' pursuit of happiness. In the conclusion, the ethical implications of having stability-happiness as the profession's function are considered. It includes a discussion of how librarianship's narrative identity could be applied to develop an ethical character for the profession and how such a character, combined with knowledge of function, might address persistent problems of race and gender disparity in library and information science. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The political elements of selection

Despite cross-field implications, the strategic and political aspects of selection and appointment have received limited scholarly attention. Prior research has primarily focused on one system of selection or appointment. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the strategic and political elements of selection and appointment by investigating the influences, considerations, and strategies under different systems, with different constraints, and from different perspectives. The first part of this dissertation investigates the determinants of appointments to different bureaucratic job types in a legally unconstrained system by evaluating Papal appointments to the Roman Curia. The second part of this dissertation investigates how strategic behavior changes when a veto player is introduced to the selection and appointment process by evaluating how the political dynamics between the president and the United States Senate affect confirmation duration to agencies of different ideological backgrounds. The third part of this dissertation evaluates how procedural rules affect selection from within a body of colleagues by conducting a case study of the 2005 Papal Conclave, the first conclave under a rule that would have limited the “infinite game” until a two-thirds majority was achieved to elect a pope. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Feet don't fail me now: brass bands in post-Katrina New Orleans

The purpose of this interdisciplinary study is to examine brass bands in post-Katrina New Orleans. Told primarily in the words of the musicians themselves, this study analyzes the intersection of the city's recovery efforts and the complex web of formal and informal sociocultural relationships that exist in the brass band community. The perspectives of these musicians, who were active New Orleans brass band musicians before and after the storm, help us better understand the resurgence and popularity of brass bands in post-Katrina New Orleans by highlighting the ways in which brass bands, as an informal cultural institution, use, experience, and depend on the vitality of public life and the social construction of public space as mechanisms that are critical for their cultural continuity. Using a musician-researcher perspective into the history, culture and people that make up contemporary brass band music in post-Katrina New Orleans, this study reveals new insights that explain the resurgence of brass bands and their performative cultural continuity. It reveals that the everyday lived experiences of the musicians are entrenched in the deep-rooted attachment and dependency of making sense of place and space--New Orleans--through music. Although tourists and outsider scholars see their cultural practices as mere entertainment, their position as community-based cultural practitioners is the sum total of the lived-experiences of real people, in real time, and rooted in a real place where living culture is surviving in spite of myriad struggles in a city still recovering. This study examines the impact of post-disaster recovery and issues such as city policies, gentrification, cultural appropriation, cultural commodification through image-making and popular culture, the appropriation of public space, and education reform efforts are impacting brass bands performative cultural continuity and potentially jeopardizing their longevity as a community-based cultural practice. Hence, if these important cultural practices are restricted, than we not only lose the core relevancy of their sociocultural importance, but we also face the potential loss of an informal cultural institution that has been vital for public life in New Orleans for more than 180 years. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Risk of COVID-19 after natural infection or vaccinationResearch in context

Summary: Background: While vaccines have established utility against COVID-19, phase 3 efficacy studies have generally not comprehensively evaluated protection provided by previous infection or hybrid immunity (previous infection plus vaccination). Individual patient data from US government-supported harmonized vaccine trials provide an unprecedented sample population to address this issue. We characterized the protective efficacy of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and hybrid immunity against COVID-19 early in the pandemic over three-to six-month follow-up and compared with vaccine-associated protection. Methods: In this post-hoc cross-protocol analysis of the Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, we allocated participants into four groups based on previous-infection status at enrolment and treatment: no previous infection/placebo; previous infection/placebo; no previous infection/vaccine; and previous infection/vaccine. The main outcome was RT-PCR-confirmed COVID-19 >7–15 days (per original protocols) after final study injection. We calculated crude and adjusted efficacy measures. Findings: Previous infection/placebo participants had a 92% decreased risk of future COVID-19 compared to no previous infection/placebo participants (overall hazard ratio [HR] ratio: 0.08; 95% CI: 0.05–0.13). Among single-dose Janssen participants, hybrid immunity conferred greater protection than vaccine alone (HR: 0.03; 95% CI: 0.01–0.10). Too few infections were observed to draw statistical inferences comparing hybrid immunity to vaccine alone for other trials. Vaccination, previous infection, and hybrid immunity all provided near-complete protection against severe disease. Interpretation: Previous infection, any hybrid immunity, and two-dose vaccination all provided substantial protection against symptomatic and severe COVID-19 through the early Delta period. Thus, as a surrogate for natural infection, vaccination remains the safest approach to protection. Funding: National Institutes of Health