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Description
Hollywood's portrayal of African American men was replete with negative stereotypes before Shelton Jackson Lee, commonly known as Spike Lee, emerged as one of the most creative and provocative filmmakers of our time. Lee has used his films to perform a corrective history of images of black men, by referencing African American male icons in his narrative works. This strategy was evident in his third feature film, Do the Right Thing (1989). Baseball great Jackie Robinson, and freedom fighters, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, were the black male icons featured prominently in the film. The Brooklyn-raised filmmaker's film journals, published interviews, and companion books, have provided insight into his thoughts, motivations, and inspirations, as he detailed the impact of the black male historical figures he profiles in Do the Right Thing (1989), on his life and art. Lee deployed his corrective history strategy, during the 1980s, to reintroduce African American heroes to black youth in an effort to correct media portrayals of black men as criminal and delinquent. He challenged the dominant narrative in mainstream Hollywood films, such as Cry Freedom (1987) and Mississippi Burning (1989), in which white heroes overshadowed black male icons. Lee's work parallels recent scholarship on the history of African American males, as called for by Darlene Clarke Hine and Ernestine Jenkins. The prolific director's efforts to radically change stereotypical depictions of black men through film, has not gone without criticisms. He has been accused of propagating essentialist notions of black male identity, through his use of African American male icons in his films. Despite these alleged shortcomings, Lee's reintroduction of iconic figures such as Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, in Do the Right Thing (1989), marked the beginning of a wave of commemorative efforts, that included the retiring of Robinson's number forty-two by Major League Baseball, the popularization of the Martin Luther King National Holiday, and the rise of Malcolm X as a icon embraced by Hip Hop during the 1990's.
ContributorsHotep, Lasana (Author) / Whitaker, Matthew C. (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Thomas J. (Committee member) / Simpson, Brooks (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
There exists a significant overlap between American Indian history and American history, yet historians often treat the two separately. The intersection has grown over time, increasingly so in the 20th and 21st centuries. Over time a process of syncretism has taken place wherein American Indians have been able to take their tribal histories and heritage and merge them with the elements of the dominant culture as they see fit. Many American Indians have found that they are able to use their cultural heritage to educate others using mainstream methods. Brummett Echohawk, a Pawnee Indian from Pawnee, Oklahoma demonstrated the ways in which American Indian history merged with the larger American historical narrative through his knowledge of Pawnee history and heritage, American history, and his active participation in mainstream society throughout the 20th and into the 21st century. As a student in a government run Indian boarding school, a soldier of the famed 45th "Thunderbird" Infantry Division in World War II, and a successful artist, writer and public speaker, he offered a view of how one could employ syncretism to the advantage of all. Using an ethnohistorical approach to the subject allows a consideration of Brummett Echohawk as an individual, a representative of the Pawnee people, American Indians generally, and as an American. The ethnohistorical approach also helps elucidate the connection he made between success in life and truly fulfilling the Pawnee meaning behind their name Chaticks-si-chaticks, Men of men. Personal papers, published writings, as well as published and privately owned art (ranging from fine art in prestigious galleries to comic strips) provide insight as to how Echohawk made clear the connections between the Pawnee (and American Indian) past and American history. Interviews with family members, friends, and Pawnee veterans also demonstrate the significance of his life for the Pawnee people and the United States, particularly in terms of the martial tradition.
ContributorsYoungbull, Kristin M (Author) / Fixico, Donald L. (Thesis advisor) / Iverson, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Riding In, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis will examine how the Middle Ages are historically interpreted and portrayed in the United States. In order to keep this study within reasonable bounds, the research will exclude films, television, novels, and other forms of media that rely on the Pre-Modern period of European history for entertainment purposes. This thesis will narrow its focus on museums, non-profit organizations, and other institutions, examining their methods of research and interpretation, the levels of historical accuracy or authenticity they hold themselves to, and their levels of success. This thesis ultimately hopes to prove that the medieval period offers the same level of public interest as popular periods of American history.
This focus on reenactment serves to illustrate the need for an American audience to form a simulated connection to a historical period for which they inherently lack geographic or cultural memory. The utilization of hyperreality as described by Umberto Eco lends itself readily to this historic period, and plays to the American desire for total mimetic immersion and escapism. After examining the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of medieval history as high art and culture, the thesis focuses on historical reenactment, as it offers a greater level of visitor interaction, first by analyzing R.G. Collingwood’s definition of “reenactment” and it’s relation to the modern application in order to establish it as a veritable academic practice.
The focus of the thesis then turns to the historical interpretation/reenactment program identified here as historical performance, which uses trained actors in controlled museum conditions to present historically accurate demonstrations meant to bring the artifacts on display to simulated life. Beginning with the template first established by the Royal Armories Museum in the United Kingdom, a comparative study utilizing research and interviews highlights the interpretative methods of the Frazier History Museum, and those of the Higgins Armory Museum. By comparing both museum’s methods, a possible template for successfully educating the American public about the European Middle Ages; while a closer examination of the Frazier Museum’s survival compared to the Higgins Armory’s termination may illustrate what future institutions must do or avoid to thrive.
This focus on reenactment serves to illustrate the need for an American audience to form a simulated connection to a historical period for which they inherently lack geographic or cultural memory. The utilization of hyperreality as described by Umberto Eco lends itself readily to this historic period, and plays to the American desire for total mimetic immersion and escapism. After examining the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of medieval history as high art and culture, the thesis focuses on historical reenactment, as it offers a greater level of visitor interaction, first by analyzing R.G. Collingwood’s definition of “reenactment” and it’s relation to the modern application in order to establish it as a veritable academic practice.
The focus of the thesis then turns to the historical interpretation/reenactment program identified here as historical performance, which uses trained actors in controlled museum conditions to present historically accurate demonstrations meant to bring the artifacts on display to simulated life. Beginning with the template first established by the Royal Armories Museum in the United Kingdom, a comparative study utilizing research and interviews highlights the interpretative methods of the Frazier History Museum, and those of the Higgins Armory Museum. By comparing both museum’s methods, a possible template for successfully educating the American public about the European Middle Ages; while a closer examination of the Frazier Museum’s survival compared to the Higgins Armory’s termination may illustrate what future institutions must do or avoid to thrive.
ContributorsHatch, Ryan R (Author) / Wright, Kent (Thesis advisor) / Warnicke, Retha M. (Committee member) / Fixico, Donald L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Understanding changes and trends in biomedical knowledge is crucial for individuals, groups, and institutions as biomedicine improves people’s lives, supports national economies, and facilitates innovation. However, as knowledge changes what evidence illustrates knowledge changes? In the case of microbiome, a multi-dimensional concept from biomedicine, there are significant increases in publications, citations, funding, collaborations, and other explanatory variables or contextual factors. What is observed in the microbiome, or any historical evolution of a scientific field or scientific knowledge, is that these changes are related to changes in knowledge, but what is not understood is how to measure and track changes in knowledge. This investigation highlights how contextual factors from the language and social context of the microbiome are related to changes in the usage, meaning, and scientific knowledge on the microbiome. Two interconnected studies integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence examine the variation and change of the microbiome evidence are presented. First, the concepts microbiome, metagenome, and metabolome are compared to determine the boundaries of the microbiome concept in relation to other concepts where the conceptual boundaries have been cited as overlapping. A collection of publications for each concept or corpus is presented, with a focus on how to create, collect, curate, and analyze large data collections. This study concludes with suggestions on how to analyze biomedical concepts using a hybrid approach that combines results from the larger language context and individual words. Second, the results of a systematic review that describes the variation and change of microbiome research, funding, and knowledge are examined. A corpus of approximately 28,000 articles on the microbiome are characterized, and a spectrum of microbiome interpretations are suggested based on differences related to context. The collective results suggest the microbiome is a separate concept from the metagenome and metabolome, and the variation and change to the microbiome concept was influenced by contextual factors. These results provide insight into how concepts with extensive resources behave within biomedicine and suggest the microbiome is possibly representative of conceptual change or a preview of new dynamics within science that are expected in the future.
ContributorsAiello, Kenneth (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred D (Thesis advisor) / Simeone, Michael (Committee member) / Buetow, Kenneth (Committee member) / Walker, Sara I (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The Phoenix Coyotes entered bankruptcy and NHL stewardship in 2009 because of poor initial planning, short-sighted private ownership, and geographical constraints associated with the team's location in Glendale. The subsequent sale process extended from 2009-2013 and included multiple potential suitors, municipal politics, and international finance as the NHL fought to keep the troubled franchise in Phoenix.
ContributorsPorter, Brendan Francis (Author) / Simpson, Brooks (Thesis director) / Lynch, John (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
In the years after the American Civil War, New Orleans became an important city in regards to racial turmoil and political futures. Three separate riots, each taking place between the years of 1866-1874, came to be defining moments in the greater pantheon of Reconstruction politics. Each of these riots had major impacts on the political climate of the day, with national implications that stretched far beyond just the city of New Orleans.
ContributorsHillmann, Connor John (Author) / Simpson, Brooks (Thesis director) / Whitaker, Matthew (Committee member) / Campbell, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
This thesis discusses the court-martial of Army Captain Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet and the public reaction to the trial. Maynulet's court-martial took place in 2005 for the mercy killing of an Iraqi during his deployment in 2004. While in pursuit of Muqtada al-Sadr, who was considered a high value target, Maynulet killed the driver of the car which intelligence said al-Sadr was a passenger. Maynulet was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and dismissed from the military. The goal of this research is to show Maynulet was rightly convicted and delve into how public reaction reveals varied and divisive opinions toward mercy killing and military behavior.
ContributorsTindell, Yvonne Sandra (Author) / Simpson, Brooks (Thesis director) / Lynk, Myles (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This dissertation analyzes two regional systems of involuntary servitude (Indian captive slavery and Mexican debt peonage) over a period spanning roughly two centuries. Following a chronological framework, it examines the development of captive slavery in the Southwest beginning in the early 1700s and lasting through the mid-1800s, by which time debt peonage emerged as a secondary form of coerced servitude that augmented Indian slavery in order to meet increasing demand for labor. While both peonage and captive slavery had an indelible impact on cultural and social systems in the Southwest, this dissertation places those two labor systems within the context of North American slavery and sectional agitation during the antebellum period. The existence of debt bondage and Indian captivity in New Mexico had a significant impact on America's judicial and political institutions during the Reconstruction era.
Debt peonage and Indian slavery had a lasting influence on American politics during the period 1846 to 1867, forcing lawmakers to acknowledge the fact that slavery existed in many forms. Following the Civil War, legislators realized that the Thirteenth Amendment did not cast a wide enough net, because peonage and captive slavery were represented as voluntary in nature and remained commonplace throughout New Mexico. When Congress passed a measure in 1867 explicitly outlawing peonage and captive slavery in New Mexico, they implicitly acknowledged the shortcomings of the Thirteenth Amendment. The preexistence of peonage and Indian slavery in the Southwest inculcated a broader understanding of involuntary labor in post-Civil War America and helped to expand political and judicial philosophy regarding free labor. These two systems played a crucial role in America's transition from free to unfree labor in the mid-1800s and contributed to the judicial and political frameworks that undermined slavery.
Debt peonage and Indian slavery had a lasting influence on American politics during the period 1846 to 1867, forcing lawmakers to acknowledge the fact that slavery existed in many forms. Following the Civil War, legislators realized that the Thirteenth Amendment did not cast a wide enough net, because peonage and captive slavery were represented as voluntary in nature and remained commonplace throughout New Mexico. When Congress passed a measure in 1867 explicitly outlawing peonage and captive slavery in New Mexico, they implicitly acknowledged the shortcomings of the Thirteenth Amendment. The preexistence of peonage and Indian slavery in the Southwest inculcated a broader understanding of involuntary labor in post-Civil War America and helped to expand political and judicial philosophy regarding free labor. These two systems played a crucial role in America's transition from free to unfree labor in the mid-1800s and contributed to the judicial and political frameworks that undermined slavery.
ContributorsKiser, William S., 1986- (Author) / Fixico, Donald L. (Thesis advisor) / Simpson, Brooks (Committee member) / Schermerhorn, Calvin (Committee member) / Lockard, Joe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In the rural, modern American West, two Manichean perspectives of the human-nature relationship have contributed to vehement environmental conflicts. Adopting developer Calvin Black and writer Edward Abbey as archetypes, I explore the endurance of these two ideologies in the redrock canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona. Black represents the historically dominant anthropocentric view among Euro Americans that nature ought to be domesticated and commoditized; the competing view, represented by Abbey, is eco-centric and considers the intrinsic value of the broader ecological community beyond its utilitarian function. I argue that environmental conflict in the canyon country has been driven by ideologues who espouse one of these two deeply entrenched and seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. Modern-day conflicts over wilderness, land use, and rural development are endemic, rooted in heritage and culture and driven by particular Anglo-American religious and secular beliefs that reflect differing ways of “seeing” the land. In particular these contending perspectives are reflected in the “built” landscape. Using one especially ubiquitous human imprint on the land as both trope and subject, I explore the political and cultural meanings of roads as symbols variously of progress and of exploitation. Questions of road development and public lands access became the center point of environmental conflict driven by dichotomous worldviews that demonized the opposition and its position. What developed in the last half century is a discourse dictated by categories created by ideologues. This dissertation not only explores the particular circumstances that made these environmental contests volatile in an American desert, but it also meditates broadly on the nature of environmental compromise and conflict, the place of people in "wild" landscapes, and the discontents of rural communities upended by new economic realities. This study illustrates generally how people perceive the land, the technology they wield to manipulate it, and the broader cultural and political transformations that result.
ContributorsRogers, Jedediah S. (Jedediah Smart), 1978- (Author) / Hirt, Paul W. (Thesis advisor) / Pyne, Stephen J. (Committee member) / Fixico, Donald L. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In speeches, declarations, journals, and convention proceedings, mid-nineteenth-century American woman's rights activists exhorted one another to action as equal heirs of the rights and burdens associated with independence and chided men for failing to live up to the founders' ideals and examples. They likened themselves to oppressed colonists and compared legislators to King George, yet also criticized the patriot fathers for excluding women from civic equality. This dissertation analyzes these invocations of collective memories of the nation's founding, described as Revolutionary heritage rhetoric, in publicly circulated texts produced by woman's rights associations from 1848 to 1890. This organization-driven approach de-centers the rhetoric of the early movement as the intellectual products of a few remarkable women, instead exploring movement rhetoric across the first generation through myriad voices: female and male; native- and foreign-born; those who spoke extemporaneously at conventions along with well-known organizers.
Tracing the use of Revolutionary heritage rhetoric over a fifty-year span reveals that activists’ invocations of the founding were inseparably connected to their willingness to work for racial and class equality along with woman's rights. References to the Revolution and such slogans as “no taxation without representation” could be inclusive or exclusionary, depending upon how they were used and who used them. In the opening decades of the organized woman’s rights movement, claims to a shared Revolutionary heritage reflected larger commitments to racial, class, and gender equality. As organizations within the movement fractured around competing ideas about how to best improve women's lives, activists’ rhetoric changed as well. When the commitment to universal equality gave way to ideologies of race, class, and nativity privilege, references to the founding era morphed into justifications for limited, rather than equal rights. Revolutionary heritage rhetoric largely disappeared from suffrage, education, and pay equity arguments by the late 1880s, replaced by arguments grounded in white, Protestant, female moral superiority.
Tracing the use of Revolutionary heritage rhetoric over a fifty-year span reveals that activists’ invocations of the founding were inseparably connected to their willingness to work for racial and class equality along with woman's rights. References to the Revolution and such slogans as “no taxation without representation” could be inclusive or exclusionary, depending upon how they were used and who used them. In the opening decades of the organized woman’s rights movement, claims to a shared Revolutionary heritage reflected larger commitments to racial, class, and gender equality. As organizations within the movement fractured around competing ideas about how to best improve women's lives, activists’ rhetoric changed as well. When the commitment to universal equality gave way to ideologies of race, class, and nativity privilege, references to the founding era morphed into justifications for limited, rather than equal rights. Revolutionary heritage rhetoric largely disappeared from suffrage, education, and pay equity arguments by the late 1880s, replaced by arguments grounded in white, Protestant, female moral superiority.
ContributorsLewis Butterfield, Emily (Author) / Simpson, Brooks (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Victoria (Committee member) / Schermerhorn, Jack (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016