This thesis examines the tradition of the Great American Novel (GAN). Against current academic trends, this literary canon is not understood to safeguard conservative hegemonies. Here, it is rather...Show moreThis thesis examines the tradition of the Great American Novel (GAN). Against current academic trends, this literary canon is not understood to safeguard conservative hegemonies. Here, it is rather studied as an ongoing discourse that has questioned ostensible certainties in American national identity throughout the twentieth century. A select number of GANs are shown to have survived in the canon for decades, and to share an even more select number of archetypes which the novels consistently problematise. The continued resonance of these narratives is argued to be indicative of inherent ambiguities that fester on in American identity as cultural unfinished business. An added relevance is the fact that those uncertainties cropped up precisely during periods when US nationalism seemed to peak, a pattern that forms a surprising, alternative cultural history. The term “Great American Novel” was coined in 1868 by John William DeForest, who called for realist American novels to equal European ones, and to present an imagined US community that overcame post-Civil War regional divisions. Ever since, the tradition has been alluring to American authors seeking to establish their cultural weight. Yet the canon as we know it today only took shape after the confidence-boosting outcome of the First World War, when critics and academics renounced the European, realist ideals of their predecessors in favour of “Romance”, a symbolical style which they claimed had always been the basis of literary American exceptionalism. Retroactively, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick and Huckleberry Finn were canonised as the Romance-edifice, as if they had always been just that. Their archetypes, namely individualism, the American Dream and the frontier spirit, together became a national mythology of sorts, so successful was this invented tradition. Soon it was so familiar, that subsequent authors who sought to reflect on American identity could do so by alluding to those three ultimate GANs. The canon thus became an ongoing discourse, a cultural conversation in which a limited set of rules and clichés were contemplated as national roots. Authors from the Great Depression were the first to demonstrate this. They took the three tropes mentioned, and superimposed them onto topical stories of economic hardship. GANs from the era thus romanticised the canonical archetypes as the eternal foundations of American exceptionalism, precisely by linking their betrayal to contemporary, “un-American” injustices. The years following the Second World War, by contrast, saw such a boost to national confidence that they were named a “Golden Age.” Yet a new generation of authors showed its teeth by digging up GAN-archetypes and weaponizing them, especially those related to frontier-adventurism, against contemporary ideals of dull material comfort. Indeed, the canon’s role as underminer of cultural certainties became fixed in these years. Hence the nadir in GAN-output amid the blows to American superiority of the 1960s and 1970s: the eras of Vietnam and Watergate required no reminding of American problems. The Reaganist 1980s did, however. Especially black authors began to attack Americans’ sense of innocence regarding their history, by again returning to the GANs’ archetypes: taken as the roots of US exceptionalism, they were rewritten as shared traumas. Far from weakening the canon’s position, this attack on its traditions actually revitalised its function as ongoing discourse. Consequently, the 1990s saw more (critically acclaimed) GAN-attempts than any other decade. Within them, authors indicated how the end of the Cold War not only boosted American exceptionalism, but also left it without a signifying Other, and thus without direction and narrative. Again, cultural confidence in the wake of a victory in a major global conflict was being undermined by GANs’ exposing hidden ambivalences in national mythology. The GAN’s imagined community has always destabilised American certainties. The canon forms a surprising, alternative cultural history, in which anxieties invisible in other histories come to the fore, precisely when one would least expect them to. Understanding canons as mere conservative bastions is thus argued to be highly reductive, and damaging to their rich analytical promise in cultural analysis. NB: Dubbelscriptie t.b.v. de opleidingen MA Literary Studies en MA GeschiedenisShow less
Deze scriptie behandelt de vraag hoe het verleden zich al dan niet laat ervaren via film. Specifiek richt ik mij op de notie van presence - een voelbare, onbemiddelde ervaring van het verleden. Dit...Show moreDeze scriptie behandelt de vraag hoe het verleden zich al dan niet laat ervaren via film. Specifiek richt ik mij op de notie van presence - een voelbare, onbemiddelde ervaring van het verleden. Dit idee problematiseer ik aan de hand van een excurs door de Kritische Theorie, specifiek waar deze film aan de orde stelt. Naar blijkt is de ervaring (van het verleden) niet een kwestie van een onbemiddelde aanwezigheid, maar zelf een historisch bemiddelde categorie.Show less
This thesis exlores the interlinkage between cats and women in the domestic sphere. It goes into the more overall image and treatment of cats around 1900, but also more explicitly within the...Show moreThis thesis exlores the interlinkage between cats and women in the domestic sphere. It goes into the more overall image and treatment of cats around 1900, but also more explicitly within the domestic sphere and the ideal of domesticity. However, the final chapter demonstrates how cats could actually be utilized by women to escapte the narrow notion of domesticity. Animal agency and the animal experience are important factors as well.Show less
This thesis examines and compares the ways in which Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden made use of the rhetoric of American exceptionalism in their public speeches and statements between...Show moreThis thesis examines and compares the ways in which Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden made use of the rhetoric of American exceptionalism in their public speeches and statements between 2007 and 2017. It argues that although all three politicians were members of the Democratic Party and were part of the same administration, there are significant differences in the way they used and related to the concept of American exceptionalism.Show less
In this thesis, the distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism is questioned through a study of sources from the Confederate States government during the American Civil War. Key...Show moreIn this thesis, the distinction between ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism is questioned through a study of sources from the Confederate States government during the American Civil War. Key concepts in this study are 'othering', 'framing' and theories from heritage studies. The main conclusion is that Confederate nationalism cannot be defined solely as ethnic or civic. The creation of Confederate nationalism is a continuously changing process and can be adjusted to support various differing narratives.Show less
This thesis argues that Theodore Roosevelt, as the head of the Progressive Party, attempted to lead the party to victory through the years 1912 to 1916, but ultimately failed due to his personal...Show moreThis thesis argues that Theodore Roosevelt, as the head of the Progressive Party, attempted to lead the party to victory through the years 1912 to 1916, but ultimately failed due to his personal struggles affecting his political strength.Show less
This thesis analyzes how The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal explained the loss of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries. This thesis argues that...Show moreThis thesis analyzes how The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal explained the loss of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries. This thesis argues that conservative and liberal media focus on different explanations for Sanders’s loss and that through the style of media reporting several important factors in the Bernie Sanders’s primary defeat, such as the influence of the invisible primary, were not sufficiently explored. Through the media’s “horse race” reporting style, which solely focuses on which candidate is ahead and which candidate is lagging behind, no attention was paid to what happened before the actual primaries and caucuses began. This thesis states, first, that there were no significant differences in how the analyzed newspapers explained Sanders’s loss, second, that the invisible primary was overlooked by the three analyzed media outlets and, third, that the invisible primary played a key role in Sanders’s loss.Show less
This thesis seeks to answer the question "In what way did the pamphleteers of Great Britain identify the colonists living in America during the American Revolution and Revolutionary War (1764-1783)...Show moreThis thesis seeks to answer the question "In what way did the pamphleteers of Great Britain identify the colonists living in America during the American Revolution and Revolutionary War (1764-1783)? To find an answer to this question, twenty pamphlets (each for every year the Revolution and War took place) have been researched. The question of whether or not nationalism was at play during this time has also been a guideline while writing, and researching for, this thesis.Show less
Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan (R) quickly rose within the ranks of the GOP as a vehemently conservative thinker. After the rise of the Tea Party, Ryan was marked as one of the new movement's...Show moreWisconsin Representative Paul Ryan (R) quickly rose within the ranks of the GOP as a vehemently conservative thinker. After the rise of the Tea Party, Ryan was marked as one of the new movement's political leaders and during the 2012 election became the GOP nominee for Vice-President. After the failed 2012 election, his relationship with the GOP's conservative base began to shift. Through the political career of Paul Ryan, this thesis explores the relationship between the GOP leadership and the Party's most conservative base.Show less
Fossil fuel industry giants in the United States like ExxonMobil sponsor contrarian science to distort the public image of the (virtually non-existing) debate on whether anthropogenic global...Show moreFossil fuel industry giants in the United States like ExxonMobil sponsor contrarian science to distort the public image of the (virtually non-existing) debate on whether anthropogenic global warming exists. The efforts of this so-called ―Denial Machine‖ seem to bear fruit: despite scientific consensus, Americans remain divided on the issue of anthropogenic climate change. Liberal Democrats are more likely to follow the consensus view (79% believes the planet is warming mostly due to human activity), whereas only 15% of the Conservative Republicans supposes this to be the case. Dunlap and McCright argue that conservative media outlets function as an echo chamber for the contrarian voices of this Denial Machine. Liisa Antilla argues that the conservative media is not the only side responsible for this echoing—in their quest for ―journalistic balance,‖ mainstream and progressive news outlets (including the New York Times) have also presented contrarian voices as ―experts‖ in the past. With these insights in mind, this study maps the climate change discourses and source-use of two opposing poles in the U.S. media landscape in the months prior to Trump‘s election: the New York Times on the Liberal Democrat side; news weblog Breitbart on the Conservative Republican side. The results show that these opposing poles conduct their climate change reporting on completely different levels: while the conservative Breitbart seems stuck in denial, hence condemned to the debate-level, the liberal Times has passed this level by accepting consensus and focusing its reporting on the consequences of climate change. In addition, this study also concludes that the Times no longer functions as an echo chamber for contrarian voices for the sake of journalistic balance, while Breitbart, by giving pseudo scientists space to directly publish on their platform regularly, not only functions as echo chamber, but also as the vocal cords of contrarian voices.Show less
Since its emergence, heavy metal music met with serious opposition. Accused of promoting violence, suicide, drug abuse and distorted images of sex, heavy metal artists were considered a threat to...Show moreSince its emergence, heavy metal music met with serious opposition. Accused of promoting violence, suicide, drug abuse and distorted images of sex, heavy metal artists were considered a threat to the well-being of America’s youth. These accusations were major arguments in the 1980s religious conservatives’ crusade to establish family values. Trying to raise parents’ awareness of the music’s alleged catastrophic effects, these conservatives campaigned to restrain or eliminate heavy metal music. In 1985, the then newly-formed Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) condemned several artists for advocating violence and substance abuse and for their predilection of the occult in their songs’ lyrics. PMRC created an agenda that was later used in court cases against heavy metal artists.Show less
This thesis will assess in three case studies the municipal writings of Richard T. Ely, Albert Shaw, and Frederic C. Howe. The contention here is that their work provides valuable examples of the...Show moreThis thesis will assess in three case studies the municipal writings of Richard T. Ely, Albert Shaw, and Frederic C. Howe. The contention here is that their work provides valuable examples of the pluralism and the transnationalism of the Progressive Era in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. To do so, the approach of this thesis will be to deploy Daniel T. Rodgers’ argument about the role of transnational narratives in the transference of transatlantic reforms. This study will thereby demonstrate the means by which the municipal writings of the three cases studies in question deployed their transnational narratives for the conveyance of foreign reform policies, measures, practices, and concepts.Show less
Between January and April 1861, in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election, the seceding lower South states sent five secession commissioners to Virginia to persuade the Virginians to secede and...Show moreBetween January and April 1861, in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election, the seceding lower South states sent five secession commissioners to Virginia to persuade the Virginians to secede and join in forming the Confederacy. This study examines why all but one failed to achieve their goal. While this thesis only gives a partial answer, it sheds light on a number of complexities regarding both the commissioners' efforts and Virginia's secession crisis.Show less
On August 9, 2014, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson shoots down a black teenager by the name of Michael Brown in downtown Ferguson, Missouri. Brown, having been shot six times, was killed on...Show moreOn August 9, 2014, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson shoots down a black teenager by the name of Michael Brown in downtown Ferguson, Missouri. Brown, having been shot six times, was killed on the spot. The shooting sparked two weeks of violence and looting, a civil unrest that became known as 'the Ferguson riots'. In its aftermath, theorists have argued that the riots have ultimately resulted in "The Ferguson Effect": the belief that crime numbers have risen due to police's incompetence to retain authority. However, this belief appears to be false, as crime statistics show that crime had already started to rise in the months prior to the police shooting. Nevertheless, the term still circulates in the media on a regular basis. This thesis will take a more rational approach towards the supposed “Ferguson Effect”. First, I will focus on historical crime data, provided by the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics (UCR). Furthermore, this thesis will focus on comparable statistics of a similar civil unrest, the 2001 riots of Cincinnati, in order to spot potential similarities and/or disparities. The findings will invalidate the hypothesis of a “Ferguson Effect”, while at the same time prove the existence of a rise in crime in the years following the 2001 riots in Cincinnati -- “the Cincinnati Effect”, if you will. But as opposed to "The Ferguson Effect", the term has never been introduced by the media. In terms of civil unrests, this thesis will focus on the changes in media coverage by comparing the reports of four newspapers (Cincinnati Enquirer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, New York Times and the Los Angeles Times) on both the Cincinnati riots in 2001 and the Ferguson riots in 2014. Furthermore, a cross-sectional analysis will be conducted to find out the extent to which coverage has transformed, both in the case of regional and national coverage specifically as well as comprehensive coverage. Ultimately, these analyses will confirm the following thesis statement: the term “Ferguson Effect”, introduced by the media in its coverage on the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri, is a result of the media’s growing involvement in police brutality against black citizens, as compared to the coverage on the 2001 riots in Cincinnati, Ohio.Show less
