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Description
Since the mid-1970s, punk has operated to fulfill the postmodern objective to destabilize and disrupt metanarratives. In the early days of punk, US and UK punks used their Do It Yourself (DIY) aesthetic and ethos to counter the aggressive capitalist takeover of music and media. With its roots in anarchism, egalitarianism, and individuality, punk’s philosophical and ideological base, methods for pushing boundaries, and monstrous aesthetics have made a lasting impression that can be clearly identified in many of the social justice movements of the past 40 years. This project examines punk publics and publishing praxes and argues that marginalized groups utilize punk’s disruptive strategies to disseminate culture beyond the boundaries of hegemonic systems of knowledge production. This dissertation focuses on punk not as a counterpublic but as what I call a parapublic due to its position alongside the dominant culture. As punk’s recognizable signifiers continue to be absorbed into and consumed by capitalism, these signifiers become part of the mainstream, leading to a reconfiguration of punk. The reconfigurations signal a shift in the dominant culture because punk seeks to make itself abject to appear monstrous. We can look at the abject as occupying a position between the subject and the object, and then we can see that punk allows us to examine culture’s fears and desires through the embodiment of its monsters. This project centralizes the figure and the function of the monster within the works and publishing practices of zines and the punk authors Dennis Cooper and Kathy Acker.
ContributorsHorton, Joshua T (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Holbo, Christine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This dissertation analyzes the works of visionary Afrofuturist writer Octavia Estelle Butler, focusing on collapsing binaries of race, gender, time, and space through her representations of dystopia and utopia within the African diaspora. The paradox of her work can be captured in the home-looking or home-going aspect of Sankofa. Sankofa is a metaphor and a philosophical framework rooted in the Akan language and cultural traditions of Ghana on the West Coast of Africa. Sankofa is widely expressed visually in Africa and the diaspora as a female bird with its head turned backward while its feet face forward, carrying a precious egg in its mouth. Sankofa is often associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as: “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” The idea of “going back for that which you have forgotten” is central to Butler’s relationship to history and her work’s message for future readers. Like this avian image of Sankofa from Ghana, Butler’s speculative fiction, set in the African American past, traces that past to the present. In order to forecast a future that leads to a reverberating demise of dystopian despair, her novels imagine emancipation for Black women. As in the works of her predecessors, nineteenth-century writers like Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, and Ruth Todd, Butler’s fiction demonstrates the extreme vulnerability of the bodies of Black women, as has been shown in innumerable histories of the Middle Passage, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and other forms of constructed inequalities. Butler’s science fiction may be read as a chronicle of the unrelenting subjugation of the bodies of Black women. However, she insists that these bodies can prevail, but to do that, Black women must engage in perpetual resurrections enabled by intensified embodied experiences that transcend time and space.
ContributorsAgorsor, Aaron Agbeshie (Author) / Brown, Lois (Thesis advisor) / Horan, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This thesis reviewed variables of baseball mechanics and performance as discussed in current literature. This included investigating factors of biomechanics, the health of players, and comparisons across demographics. At the biomechanical level, components of the kinetic chain were observed as the energy transferred from the lower body to the upper body. Additionally, the upper body appeared to compensate for deficits in the rotation of the trunk. Injuries to the abdominal and low back were correlated with trunk rotation, while arm injuries were traced back to overuse and fatigue. When considering experience level, variation tended to decrease. Youth players demonstrated different patterns of fatigue and different injury correlates compared to adults. At a geographic level, American pitchers may be associated with an increased risk of elbow injuries, with Japanese and Korean pitchers to shoulder injuries; these differences are thought to be due to differences in instruction. Applying this research and findings to current baseball players may help guide training and performance or continue research.
ContributorsPennebaker, Jamie (Author) / Ramos, Christopher (Thesis director) / Siegler, Jason (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor)
Created2022-05
DescriptionThis thesis explores the intricacies of Gothic literature through the lenses of Latinx Gothic and African American Gothic sub genres, revealing how they confront themes of identity, oppression, and the enduring legacy of colonial power.
ContributorsMacias, Megan (Author) / Adams, Brandi (Thesis director) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2024-05