This thesis examines the musical cultures associated with extreme-right politics, considering not only what this music projects about extreme-right ideology, but also the various ways in which music functions as part of a political subculture. This analysis extends beyond the stereotypical extreme-right music associated with the skinhead subculture, often referred to as Oi!, to incorporate extreme-right engagement with genres such as metal, folk, country and classical music. The chapters explore various aspects of identity—including race, sexuality, gender and class—and their significance to and reflection through extreme-right music, as manifested in genre choices, lyrics, album artwork and the features of the music itself. The thesis also considers the way in which less explicit content is produced and the motivation behind this, the importance of myth and fantasy in extreme-right music, and the way that the conspiracist mindset—which is prevalent, albeit not homogeneous, in extreme-right culture—is articulated both in extreme-right music and in the interpretation of mainstream music as antagonistic to extreme-right goals. Music is significant to extreme-right politics for a number of reasons. It is generally understood to be an effective tool in the indoctrination and recruitment of individuals into extreme-right ideology and politics, which is why music is sometimes freely distributed, particularly to youths. The very existence of this music can act to legitimise extreme-right views through the implication that they are shared by its producers and audience. Music also acts as an important tool for the imagining of an extreme-right community through its creation of a space to meet and create networks, a function consolidated by the media surrounding music, particularly websites, forums and magazines. As well as constructing the spaces for extreme-right communities, this music plays an important role in identifying the characteristics of those communities, in articulating what it is to be “us” as contrasted to “them.” Analysis of this music suggests that it has the ability to resolve the ideological contradictions which define the extreme right, even as this analysis reveals such contradictions.

Over the last two decades, migration to Chile has increased dramatically. This "new migration" (Martínez 2003) marks a demographic shift away from largely Europeans and Argentineans to the current arrival of migrants from Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. As in other Latin American nations, previous migratory waves to Chile were often associated with racial improvement via blanquemiento, or whitening, a deliberate move away from bodily, material, and cultural markers of indigeneity. While Chile and these neighboring countries share a common language, history of Spanish colonization, dominant religion, and some cultural traditions, the current arrival of Latin American migrants has prompted emphatic delineation of racial difference. In analyzing current discourses addressing migration, I argue that the new Latin American migratory flow is always understood in the context of historic migrations from Europe. As Latin American migrants settle in Chile, racialization - the practice of making racial distinctions and pairing these distinctions with an accompanying racial hierarchy - profoundly shapes migrant experiences. I argue that migrant racialization emphasizes both the creation of racial others as well as the assertion of a Chilean national sameness. Indeed, this new migratory flow prompts the construction, contestation, and negotiation of Chile's own national racial identity - one that is produced in constant awareness of global racial understandings. My research extends work on migrant racialization by exploring the recurring tension between racial distinction and national self-presentation through three examples: understandings and experiences of migrant domestic labor, migrant use of public space, and the consumption of Peruvian food. Throughout these examples, I chart the ongoing production of migrant visibility and how the discourses, practices, and processes involved illustrate the shifting terrain of Chilean racial understandings.

published_or_final_version / abstract / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The WWE, formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), has a long history of showcasing harmful stereotypes via hyperracialized characters. Many academics have observed these characters and the overarching types to which they can be assigned as being indicative of the respective sociohistorical conditions in which they were produced. During the mid-to-late nineties, the WWF embarked upon a re-branding effort focused on adopting a new “Attitude” that purported to offer a more “realistic” form of “sports entertainment.” Throughout this “Attitude Era” the WWF purposely obfuscated delineations between fact and fiction, and subsequently, performers and racialized performance. Set against the backdrop of the neoliberal nineties, then – a period when America was supposedly embracing multiculturalism, the “welfare state” had been discarded in favor of fiscal conservatism, and possessive individualism catapulted to paramount importance – in what ways did the hyperracialized characters and storylines of the WWF Attitude Era reflect contemporary American cultural attitudes toward race? This study seeks to answer this question by incorporating historiographical work, industrial discourse analysis, and textual readings to analyze the representation of race in WWF programming of the late nineties. Utilizing an ideological textual analysis to understand how weekly episodes of Monday Night Raw and monthly pay-per-view events that aired during the years of 1997-1999 embodied and reified certain values, beliefs, and ideas, this project will look to the cultural, industrial, and political discourses circulating during the 1990s to show how they intersect with the WWF programming of the period. / text

The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a better understanding of race differences in women’s family formation behaviors, including non-marital birth and marriage. This research addresses three aims using data from various sources. The first aim is to examine the demographic factors that contribute to racial differences in non-marital fertility rates. The second research aim is to investigate how black men’s incarceration (admission rate, release rate, and conditional release rate from/to prisons) is related to black women’s non-marital fertility rate at the county level from 1985 to 2000. The last research aim is to examine how men’s incarceration (admission rate, release rate, and conditional release rate from/to prisons) is associated with women’s transition to first marriage and non-marital birth, and how this association differs by women’s race. To examine the first research aim, I employed a decomposition analysis and found that sexual activity and post-conception marriage no longer contribute to racial differences in non-marital fertility. Instead, the pregnancy rate among sexually active single (not cohabiting) women is the largest contributor to race-ethnic variation in non-marital fertility rates. More importantly, I find that contraceptive use patterns explain the majority of the race-ethnic differences in pregnancy rates. To pursue the second research aim, I used a fixed effects model and found that changes in black men’s incarceration are positively associated with changes in black women’s non-marital fertility rate between 1995 and 2000, even after adjusting for an extensive set of controls. Lastly, building on this finding, I also examined the relationship between men’s incarceration and women’s transition to first marriage and non-marital birth using a discrete time hazard model. The results indicate that county-level men’s incarceration is negatively associated with women’s transition to first marriage, even net of family background, individual women’s SES, and other county characteristics. Although county-level men’s incarceration contributes to the explanation of lower rates of transition to first marriage for women, it does not fully explain racial differences in marriage. Unlike marriage, women’s transition to first non-marital birth is not significantly affected by county-level men’s incarceration, net of women’s SES and family background. Altogether, this study updated our knowledge about the relative importance of marriage to racial differences in non-marital fertility and better explained racial differences in family formation behaviors, including non-marital fertility and marriage, by linking them with men’s incarceration. / text

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My dissertation analyzes the rhetorical nature of nostalgia within American discourse communities. To accomplish this I analyze the construction and manipulation of nostalgia at the Middleton Place Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and in Alan Lomax's memoir, The Land Where the Blues Began. Nostalgia is an emotional response to displacement and occurs when an individual is separated either physically or emotionally from a specific time and place. Because an individual cannot simply return to the place and moment that they long for, nostalgia is hard to remedy and easy to manipulate. The danger of nostalgia is that although it seems individual, it is controlled by social expectations. Because nostalgia can be socially controlled and manufactured, it serves the communal needs of a society rather than the needs of the individual. Therefore, nostalgia can entrench an individual even more deeply into the constructions of their society. In this manner, nostalgia acts as a mechanism of restraint in society, and history based upon or associated with nostalgia becomes a history of containment.My project argues that we recognize the rhetorical work achieved by nostalgia. Three elements must be present if nostalgia is to be rhetorical: it must be purposefully evoked, satiated, and impact the community. Here I define rhetorical activity as any activity that seeks to persuade an individual or a community towards any action. This project analyzes how sites of public memory evoke and satiate nostalgia in their visitors, and reveals the actions that sites request of their visitors. I argue that these sites familiarize their visitors with a time and a place that the visitor cannot have full access to. Because of this, the visitor is displaced and nostalgia is evoked. Sites of public memory then respond to that same nostalgia through the presentation of values, ideals, and beliefs. Consequently, visitors depart sites of public memory with reinforced and realigned values and--due to their newly acquired discourse community--a community of fellow participants. It is in this way that public sites of memory evoke nostalgia for rhetorical ends.

This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. There may be additional materials from the meeting available at the Faculty Center.

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