The main focus of this thesis is how children’s books were used as a tool within the Black Power Movement to overcome the cultural deficit. After examining the state of children’s literature prior...Show moreThe main focus of this thesis is how children’s books were used as a tool within the Black Power Movement to overcome the cultural deficit. After examining the state of children’s literature prior to the movement the Black Power Era’s influence on children’s literature is addressed. The children’s books written by Julius Lester To Be a Slave (1968) and Black Folk Tales (1969) are then the key texts with which to examine how children’s books reflected the cultural changes that were developed during the Movement. The books provide a more nuanced and less overtly political view of black identity that is aimed at children. In conjunction with other materials, such as Ebony Jr., I demonstrate that the Black Power Movement enabled the production of various media such as magazines and children’s books that were not as extreme as the vision of Amiri Baraka’s view of the Black Arts Movement but nevertheless important in the struggle against the cultural deficit. Though these images and texts are less recognizable they were part of an effort that built on work prior to the Civil Rights movement but struggled in the shadow of the militaristic and provocative cultural expressions of the Black Power movement.Show less
A historiographical history of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The historiography has changed a lot over the years. From Diedrich Knickerbocker to Russell Shorto, every writer had their own...Show moreA historiographical history of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The historiography has changed a lot over the years. From Diedrich Knickerbocker to Russell Shorto, every writer had their own heroes and focus. This thesis is how this historiography has changed over the years.Show less
The avoidance of procreation is a recurrent theme in John Dos Passos’s novels, playing an especially significant role in Manhattan Transfer (1925) and The Big Money (1936). However, few scholars...Show moreThe avoidance of procreation is a recurrent theme in John Dos Passos’s novels, playing an especially significant role in Manhattan Transfer (1925) and The Big Money (1936). However, few scholars publishing on gender in relation to Dos Passos have addressed the theme of procreation, or more precisely, his denial of procreation from his female characters. To fill this hiatus in the scholarship on Dos Passos, this thesis will address and explore several aspects of procreation as a theme in Manhattan Transfer and The Big Money, placing these novels in the wider social-historical context of contemporary debates about birth control and abortion, and especially the literary-historical context of modernism in general and Dos Passos’s work in particular.Show less
This study examines the public debate surrounding gangsta rap as a musical genre in 1980s-1990s America. Whereas most academic studies of the genre have focused on testing and contesting negative...Show moreThis study examines the public debate surrounding gangsta rap as a musical genre in 1980s-1990s America. Whereas most academic studies of the genre have focused on testing and contesting negative stereotyping of the music by approaching the genre as a cultural and political product with deep roots in African-American history and culture, this study focuses on the public reactions that emerged against the genre as well as the national discourses that ensued. An extensive analysis of the treatment of those stereotypes and characteristics most commonly ascribed to gangsta rap in scholarly research and anti-gangsta rap campaigns, this study constructs a better understanding of the way gangsta rap was defined by its mainstream opponents (black and white), what its societal positioning was in an era of increasing poverty and tension in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and why the genre was considered so controversial. Additionally, the public discussion of gangsta rap is linked to the concurrent public discussion of crime, African-American youth and economically disenfranchised neighborhoods, which offers interesting new insights into the problematic stereotyping of these subjects in American society.Show less
