Anthropology

"Authenticity, Citizenship and Accommodation: LGBT Rights in a Red State" examines the discourse around volunteerism, exceptionalism, and queer citizenship that emerged within the context of a statewide (anti-gay) ballot initiative campaign in the American Southwest. I argue that the ways in which local volunteers and activists define themselves and their attempts to defeat the ballot initiative is tied to the struggle over the authority to represent local LGBT organizational culture and an emergent New West identity. In such a way, local debates over authentic western lifestyles that divide regional communities intertwine with intergenerational debates over gay liberation and rights frameworks, and the polarized discourse on blue and red states which have dominated the U.S. political climate of the past decade. While statewide campaign leaders with a base in Phoenix (the state capital) focused on polling data and messaging in order to stop the passage of the amendment, many Tucson activists and organizational leaders tied to the LGBT community center sought to strategize a long-term grassroots approach to change hearts and minds. Within this debate over campaign strategy and internal decision-making, both groups drew attention to the differences between the metropolitan areas. This regional example speaks to the ways in which established theoretical frameworks anthropologists utilize to understand social movements may prove insufficient for understanding the diversity that exists within the everyday processes of collective action. The internal messaging war that spilled outside of the confines of the campaign steering committee meetings into the pages of the statewide gossip and newspaper editorial sections also speaks to the ways in which official declarations of ideological stance should not be taken as the actual intent of those seeking change. One may shape one's personal story to be on message, choose to defy those constraints, or use the rhetorical strategy of the message without actually committing to the underlying premise. The broader national concerns are localized symbolically in the notion of blue and red counties, but also take on a regional flavor in the satirical call to statehood for the Southern Arizona. Here issues of authenticity emerge not only within the context of the campaign disputes around messaging, and by extension, who has the right to speak for and about the LGBT organizational community, but also in the realm of derisive banter that travels back and forth between the two major metropolitan areas over what it means to live an authentic western lifestyle. Within the southern metropolis, this discourse is framed by the notion that the western desert is a different sort of place, with a different sort of people and way of life that is threatened by snowbirds, retirees, Midwestern lifestyles and corporate interests. Often Phoenix to the north is seen as a representation of all these negative influences. In addition, Center-based activists and volunteers, describe…

English

Men's tears are considered rare, and women's tears are considered profusive. Thus, we tend to think of tearjerkers and melodrama as the province of weepy women viewers. However, if we look back at the last several decades of Hollywood filmmaking, melodramas focused on men – or "male weepies" – have been a steady staple of American cinema. This dissertation explores cycles of male melodramas since 1969, placing them in their socio-historical contexts and examining the ways that they participate in public discourses about men, masculinity, and gender roles. Melodrama's focus on victims, bids for virtue, and idealizations of not how things are, but how they should be, have made it a fitting and flexible mode for responding to the changing social landscape of America since the rights movements of the 1960s. Specifically, these films consider both the ways that white capitalist patriarchy has circumscribed the public and private lives of men and the ways that advancements of women and racial minorities are impacting (white) men's lives. This study analyzes the rhetorical effects of these films through both textual evidence and popular reception. Chapters are organized by chronology and subgenre, discussing buddy films of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Midnight Cowboy, The Last Detail, and Scarecrow), paternal melodramas of the late 1970s and early 1980s (The Great Santini, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Table for Five), films of sensitive men in the early 1990s (The Prince of Tides, Regarding Henry, and Philadelphia), and black male weepies from the 1990s and 2000s (Boyz in the Hood, Antwone Fisher, John Q, and The Pursuit of Happyness). The epilogue also considers the developing genre of the bromance, a hybrid of melodrama and comedy. By classifying and analyzing these films as male melodramas, this dissertation challenges both the popular denigrating view that tearjerkers are "chick flicks," and the continued gender bifurcation within film studies' work on melodrama as a narrative mode, which tends to treat weepies as a female form of melodrama and action films as a male form of melodrama. While individual subgenres have received some critical attention, this dissertation is one of the first works to look at male weepies collectively. Putting the spotlight on male weepies reveals Hollywood's interest in gender and the emotional lives of men, though the films display a mix of progressive and conservative strains, often common in Hollywood filmmaking. Specifically, these weepies tend to question and often even reject traditional masculine ideals, and thus exhibit some forms of gender "liberation"; at the same time that they show men suffering under patriarchy and even the pressure to be powerful, these films also shore that power up for men by never forfeiting it. As such, these films reveal the dangers of Hollywood "doing" gender critique: however inadvertently, they contain feminist, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic challenges and re-inscribe the various privileges of characters (in terms of gender, race, sexuality,…

Sociology

This study is an examination of mobilization processes, with a particular focus on how people come to contemplate and ultimately embrace or reject veganism. It is a response to social movements scholarship that has called for examinations of how identity interacts with mobilization. Engaging the narratives of 34 interview participants who interacted with vegan advocacy networks in Greater Philadelphia, the study accounts for how prospective vegans negotiate forces, such as social networks and ties, that activate or hinder their mobilization; and for how they prioritize veganism amid competing priorities. Among other manners, participants came to contemplate the prospect of becoming vegan upon recognizing veganism as congruent with their other priorities. Participants who became vegan were more likely than participants who did not to prioritize altruism and to seek information that motivated and empowered them. Rather than prioritize their veganism over competing priorities, the vegans more often sought to harmonize their veganism with competing priorities. The study also measures the capacity of people from socioeconomically and racially contrasting neighborhoods in Philadelphia to engage in a behavior and a movement such as veganism. Results from a sample of 335 survey participants suggest that people from impoverished neighborhoods may be less capable because they are less likely to know people who practice veganism. The study's findings suggest that participation in movements is contingent on how prospective participants prioritize, on the incentives with which they contemplate participation, and on their capacity to participate.

Temple University – Theses

English

This project argues that Octavia's Butler's construction of the black woman characters is unique within the pantheon of late eighties African-American writers primarily through Butler's celebration of black female physicality and the agency the black body provides. The project is divided into five sections beginning with an intensive examination of Butler's ur-character, Anyanwu. This character is vitally important in discussing Butler's canon because she embodies the attributes and thematic issues that run throughout the author's work, specifically, the author's argument that black woman are provided opportunity through their bodies. Chapter two addresses the way black women's femininity is judged: their sexual activity. In this chapter, I explore one facet of Octavia Butler's narrative examination of sexual co-option and her subsequent implied challenge to definitions of feminine morality through the character Lilith who appears throughout Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy. Specifically, I explore this subject using Harriet Jacobs' seminal autobiography and slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as the prism in which I historically focus the conversation. In chapter three, I move the discussion into an exploration of black motherhood. Much like the aforementioned challenge to femininity vis-à-vis sexual morality, Octavia Butler often challenges and interrogates the traditional definition of motherhood, specifically, the relationship between mother and daughter. I will focus on different aspects of that mother/daughter relationship in two series, the Patternist sequence, which includes, in chronological order, Wild Seed, Mind of my Mind and Patternmaster. Chapter four discusses Butler's final novel, Fledgling, and how the novel's protagonist, Shori not only fits into the matrix of Butler characters but represents the culmination of the privileging of black female physicality that I observe in the author's entire canon. Specifically, while earlier characters are shown to create opportunities and venues of agency through their bodies, in Shori, Butler posits a character whose existence is predicated on its blackness and discusses how that purposeful racial construction leads to freedom.

Temple University – Theses

Anthropology

This dissertation explores the creative responses of domestic violence advocates, activists, and other professionals working to address domestic violence in a South Atlantic U.S. state. Neoliberal political-economic policies have supported the development of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to address social ills that the state has increasingly relinquished responsibility for. While personal responsibility and the work of civil society is extolled as the best way to address social problems and offer social services to the public, state-level cuts of funding streams to NGOs have made it increasingly difficult for these entities to perform their missions. Moreover, reliance upon the state for funding leads to a slippery slope whereby missions shift and projects may be selected based on funding availability rather than what target communities could truly benefit from. Limited resources and time available to adequately conduct organizational missions within NGOs has helped promote new forms of community coalition building across agencies and systems. Based on ethnographic research within a quasi-state agency and multiple community coalitions, this dissertation examines the knowledge and practice of actors situated within these different sites and their relationships with the state. I address the following questions: 1) how are actors affected by and then in turn respond to the socioeconomic affects of neoliberalism; 2) how do socially defined categories of difference shape knowledge and practice; and 3) what is the relationship between dominant and alternative discourses of domestic violence and the differentially positioned actors who adopt them. My research sheds light on the process of community coalition building and activism in the context of a national financial crisis, which supports politically driven hostility towards domestic violence activist work. Through an in depth analysis of the early development of a community coalition to end domestic violence in the LGBTQQI community, I examine the ways actors heterogeneous social compositions and life experiences shape understandings of domestic violence, and receptiveness to alternative forms of knowledge and practice. Material constraints produced by neoliberal political-economic policies further hinder knowledge production and actors' capacity to contend with alternative frameworks for analyzing domestic violence.

Temple University – Theses

Dance

'Community' is a multivalent concept, subject to a plurality of contexts and constructs that can alter and shift its meaning. As a dance artist, I have encountered myriad understandings and manifestations of 'community' through dance practice, and perceive an intrinsic relationship between dance and 'community.' A 'West African' dance class in Philadelphia — designated as a 'community-based' class by the instructor — provides a rich opportunity to excavate this relationship. The class, one of several offered throughout the city, is located in West Philadelphia. It is an intergenerational class attended by a diverse demographic of participants (race/ethnicity, gender, profession, class, age, ability, etc.) with an array of motivations and goals for participating in class (as made evident through conversations and interviews). All are welcome to attend, regardless of previous experience or skill level in 'West African' dance. My dissertation is a qualitative research study that examines participant experiences and interpretations of 'community,' with attention paid to the socio-cultural/political context of 'West African' dance in the United States, specifically in Philadelphia. Methodologically, this study is situated in sensory ethnography, philosophically oriented in community based participatory research, and draws from phenomenological strategies towards gathering lived experience data. Lived experiences of 'community' are placed in conversation with literature concerned with theories and constructions of 'community' from a range of disciplines, as well as texts that interrogate the historical, sociocultural and political contexts which frame 'West African' dance within the United States. As a member of this particular 'West African' dance class, I situate my own experiences within that of the collective, migrating inward and outward between personal reflection and participant narratives. As such this investigation lies at the intersection of subjective, intersubjective, and cultural knowledge.

Temple University – Theses

Dance

The purpose of this study is to begin to articulate the theoretical identity of the field of dance studies as an academic discipline and to produce a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship, while asking questions about disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity within dance studies historically and today. My primary research questions are: What are dance studies research methods? And, which research methods, if any, are inherent to dance as an academic discipline? In order to answer these seemingly direct and simple questions, I also question the assumption that we know what dance studies research methods are. In Chapter 1 I first introduce and qualify myself as a dance artist and scholar, connecting my own experiences to my research; I narrate my research questions in detail and describe the significance, limitations, and scope of this project. In Chapters 2 and 3 I provide a history of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary origins of dance studies in higher education and situate that history within contemporary conversations in dance studies on disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. In Chapter 4 I offer an analysis of the National Dance Education Organization's (NDEO) Research Priorities for Dance Education: A Report to the Nation and The Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi), an online searchable database that aims to document all literature and research in dance education (not dance studies) from 1926 to the present, as it relates to issues and methods in my own research. In Chapter 5 I identify and describe current research methods found in all dance studies dissertations granted from the 4 doctoral programs in Dance in the United States over a three-year period. This chapter begins to articulate the current theoretical identity of the field. I examine and report on current trends in dance studies research methods and draw comparisons across dance studies doctoral programs, setting the foundation for future discussion of dance studies research methods. In Chapter 6 I summarize the project and make suggestions for the future. A feminist lens is used throughout as a way of providing a feminist intervention into the phenomena of disembodied scholarship by asking questions about research methods (particularly the use of critical theory as a method for research and writing about dance) and if or how particular research methods lead to the production of embodied or disembodied scholarship.

Temple University – Theses