Amidst the ever-growing prominence of climate challenges, environmentalism has transformed into a highly contentious subject within the US. Given the nation's considerable role in environmental...Show moreAmidst the ever-growing prominence of climate challenges, environmentalism has transformed into a highly contentious subject within the US. Given the nation's considerable role in environmental degradation alongside its prominent global position, internal divisions are a substantial barrier to environmental progress. Politically, the American right has become associated with anti- environmentalism; however, as this thesis helps to understand, this has not always been the case. Moreover, in recent years a new movement has arisen that aims to reunite Republicans with their environmental past. The conservative environmental movement is an intriguing development within the environmental debate. I examine the movement in light of environmental history and combine it with the field of gender research, as the significant contributions of women to the movement have oftentimes been neglected in scholarly works. In bringing these two phenomena together, this thesis addresses the research gap located in the intersection of these academic fields. I apply two different research methods, combining historical and social research, or content analysis. I investigate two current conservative environmental organizations, RepublicEn and the American Conservation Coalition, as well as the product of the institutionalization of the movement, namely the Conservative Climate Caucus. This study is led by the question, how have women contributed to the conservative environmental movement in the United States? The answer is multifold. Historically, women have played significant roles in the development of American environmentalism by using their womanhood and feminine qualities like cooperativeness and communication skills. My socio-political analyses of the present-day conservative environmental movement add nuance: I find gendered distinctions in the conservative environmental approach in the form of the paradigms of “leadership” and “cooperation”. Within the civic organizations of this study, a clear gender difference exists as the women under study are more likely to take a cooperative approach, in contrast to their leadership-oriented male counterparts. This distinction dissipates when women obtain more power, which is shown through the near absence of these distinct approaches within the party itself.Show less
This thesis utilizes narrative and formal analyses of the two highest-grossing science fiction pictures from the year 2005 in order to illustrate how imaginary cinematic worlds have been...Show moreThis thesis utilizes narrative and formal analyses of the two highest-grossing science fiction pictures from the year 2005 in order to illustrate how imaginary cinematic worlds have been infiltrated by the national trauma of 9/11 and its political and societal aftermath. With a main focus on drawing parallels between a post-9/11 American society and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds, this thesis strives to illuminate a larger and more complicated relationship between mid-2000s sci-fi and the new world these films were made in. It offers the reader insight into the themes and modes of thinking that pre-occupied Americans after not only the 9/11 attacks, but the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as well. It draws upon theories on the symbiotic relationship between national identity and cinematic representation that have often been discussed by scholars such as Siegfried Kracauer and Alison Landsberg.Show less
Although speculative fiction in all its iterations has historically mostly been the domain of white, Western men it inherently possesses the capacity for theorizing different futures. This thesis...Show moreAlthough speculative fiction in all its iterations has historically mostly been the domain of white, Western men it inherently possesses the capacity for theorizing different futures. This thesis will explore the works of speculative fiction by three female authors of color: N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, Octavia Butler’s Parable duology and Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death to examine how these novels imagine alternative futures. The theoretical framework will consist of the integration of posthumanist thought with cyborg theory and postcolonial theory, as these theoretical approaches all share the theorization of challenge to dominant power structures. Ultimately, this thesis will read these works and specifically their main characters as figures who straddle or ascend boundaries and in doing so, offer possibilities for transformation and resistance.Show less
An inquiry into the transformation of the collective U.S. memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre through remediation in HBO's Watchmen (2019) and Lovecraft Country (2020).
In this thesis, the argument is made that the extent to which secrecy was employed in early twentieth-century lynching in the American Deep South is dependent on whether that secrecy provided the...Show moreIn this thesis, the argument is made that the extent to which secrecy was employed in early twentieth-century lynching in the American Deep South is dependent on whether that secrecy provided the desired sense of security from persecution to those participating in a lynch mob. Using three case studies, ranging from a highly publicized and public killing in Waco, Texas, to a group slaying of remotely situated Mexican Texans by a division of Texas Rangers, to a highly coordinated attack on a jewish factory boss in the dark of night, it is argued that either the cover of obscurity or the anonimity in a large group setting could each supply the needed sense of safety for those participating in the lynching to commit to the act fully. The circumstances which would dictate the public or secretive approach varied widely in the studied cases, yet there are some common grounds to be found among them as well.Show less
This research examines the construction of the ambiguous category of Jewishness through the affective ‘desire for Jewish identity’ expressed in a number of canonical post-war works of Jewish...Show moreThis research examines the construction of the ambiguous category of Jewishness through the affective ‘desire for Jewish identity’ expressed in a number of canonical post-war works of Jewish-American fiction by Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Joshua Cohen. Building on recent work by Benjamin Schreier, Jonathan Freedman, and Walter Benn Michaels this thesis problematises the racial underpinning of Jewish identity, as well as reopening the broader question of the relation between race and culture in multicultural understandings of identity. Ultimately it makes an argument for the field of Jewish American studies to move away from a critical practice that begins with the prior category of “identity” towards one that places an analysis of the affective “desire for identity” at the heart of its critical project.Show less
