This thesis focuses on the development of the first project for FIU’s ICAVE, The Globe Experience, presented as part of the “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare” exhibit during February, 2016. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part is the project itself: a virtual reality recreation of going to The Globe Theater to see a play by William Shakespeare. The second part examines the digital project and outlines how Walter Benjamin and postcolonial theorists influenced the design of The Globe Experience, resulting in, what I call, a “temporally and spatially disjointed London.” From this examination, the thesis goes on to question the role of canonical literature in the humanities. I go on to make the argument that the design decisions made in recreating The Globe reveals the ways in which canonical literature can reinforce and support hierarchical ideologies which can impede student learning.

This study examines the cultural production and political history of Nicaragua from the 1960s to the early 1990s and interprets Francisco Goldman’s The Ordinary Seaman alongside Central America’s literary boom period, the nation-building project of the revolutionary letrados, and race relations between Nicaragua’s Pacific region and its two autonomous sectors of the Atlantic coast. It is argued that Central American ways of seeing are colored by the interplay between a revolutionary past, the myth of the pure Indio or mestizo, and the erasure of national identity in the US contact zone. Rather than recuperating a Central American identity, it is maintained that exposing the construction of said identity uncovers the hidden blackness and the heterogeneity of the Central American isthmus. Ultimately, the thesis aims at giving visibility to forgotten and ignored Central American narratives, histories, and people, and stresses the significance of studying the region within a literary and black Atlantic perspective.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Cost-sharing is neither a new subject nor a recent practice in the financing of students’ higher education in Zimbabwe. The practice of cost-sharing in Zimbabwe’s higher education dates back to the colonial period. Unlike those African countries that have historically had free higher education, in Zimbabwe cost-sharing has always been part of its higher education financing formulae. As a result, whereas the challenge in other African countries has been to shift from free higher education to cost-sharing, the challenge in Zimbabwe has been that of moving from one cost-sharing model to another. While Zimbabwe has experimented with various cost-sharing strategies, literature on the country’s experiences with the practice is limited. This study fills the knowledge gap by identifying and accounting for the shifts in the conception and practice of cost-sharing in the financing of students’ higher education in Zimbabwe. Consistent with the study’s focus on describing and understanding historical processes (shifts in cost-sharing policy over time) in higher education financing in Zimbabwe, a qualitative approach was adopted to gather and analyze data. In particular, the study used an historical research design to identify and account for the policy shifts in higher education financing in Zimbabwe from 1957 to 2009. The scope of the study was limited to student funding in the public university sector. The study used documents as the major sources of data, while interviews and focus group discussions with key actors in higher education financing in Zimbabwe provided additional data to validate data generated from document sources. The study demonstrates that Zimbabwe adopted cost-sharing in higher education financing at the very point of inception of the first university in the country, the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which is now the University of Zimbabwe in 1957. Starting (in 1957) with a deferred tuition fee policy that was complemented by a mortgage type loan system and government grants, a confluence of global, national and local forces combined in specific fashion in specific historical epochs over time to ‘negotiate’ and ‘renegotiate’ the student funding models. It is further shown that during the colonial era, while the cost-sharing model rode on the back of a favourable Government loan and grant system aimed at promoting access to higher education, the racist basis of colonial education policies created bottlenecks that severely curtailed access to higher education by the majority black population. Colonial education policy iii regimes deliberately limited the feeding streams into university enrolments by black students, resulting in a proportional mismatch between the number of white students entering university and that of black students. Thus, during the colonial era, access to higher education was largely a function of the ‘barrier’ system in African education that defined inequality between whites and Africans. Independence in 1980 saw the new socialist government embracing the loan and grant based cost-sharing model and further implementing radical measures to democratize access to education. However, the increase in student numbers and in higher education institutions, coupled with poor loan recovery, and the ascendancy of neoliberalism at about the turn of the twenty-first century presented serious challenges to the state’s capacity to adequately fund higher education. In the process, the loan and grant system declined gradually and was eventually replaced by an upfront tuition fee policy that took a toll on access to higher education. Noting the inadequacies of policy interventions through the introduction of the Cadetship Scheme, the ‘successor’ to the loan and grant system, the study recommends the resuscitation of the loan system. It is however, important that such reintroduction of the loan system be predicated on the development of a robust framework that ensures that loans are allocated to students who are in real financial need and that there is in existence, effective and efficient loan recovery machinery.

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This written portion of my thesis will document and codify how I as dramaturg, writer and director adapted and staged the classic Harlem Renaissance novel Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman. I walk the reader through how seeing as a director influenced my creative choices through key aspects of production: script development, design, and building the ensemble. The thesis will conclude with a post-production reflection and summary.

This essay examines the relationship between language, identity, power and visibility in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019). This is achieved by applying post-colonial theories regarding double consciousness, and the construction of an Other. Theories put forward by Spivak and Fanon are also discussed in relation to this. By looking at how language is used, both by characters and author, we can see what an immense role language playes in the construction of identity and in the establishing of power.

Traditional policies dictate that Black-White multiracial people conform to monoracial minority status arising from Hypodescent (the “One-Drop Rule”) and White privilege. Despite some social recognition of Black-White persons as multiracial, racial microaggressions persist in daily life. Subtle racist acts (Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, & Esquilin, 2007b) negatively impact multiracial identity development. Since 2007, studies have increasingly focused on the impact of racial microaggressions on particular monoracial ethnic groups. Johnston and Nadal (2010) delineated general racial microaggressions for multiracial people. This project examines the effects of racial microaggressions on the multiracial identity development of 11 part-Black multiracial university students, including the concerns and challenges they face in familial, academic, and social racial identity formation. Data were analyzed through a typological analysis and Racial and Multiracial Microaggressions typologies (Johnston & Nadal, 2010; Sue et al., 2007b). Three themes arose: (a) the external societal pressure for the multiracial person to identify monoracially; (b) the internalized struggle within the mixed-race person to create a cohesive self-identity; and (c) the assertion of a multiracial identity. Participants experienced Racial Microaggressions (Sue, 2010a; Sue et al., 2007b), Multiracial Microaggressions (Johnston & Nadal, 2010), and Monoracial Stereotypes (Nadal, Wong, Griffin, Sriken, Vargas, Wideman, & Kolawole, 2011). Implications included encouraging a multiracial identity, educating the school community, and eliminating racial microaggressions and stereotypes.

[pt] O imaginário de beleza e sexualidade ainda se faz presente em diferentes segmentos, como o de turismo, com o objetivo de vender o Brasil como produto. Ao colocar a mulher brasileira como centro deste imaginário, verifica-se que há um processo de silenciamento desse sujeito, impossibilitando-o de que se autorrepresente. Esse processo de silenciamento do sujeito feminino é analisado por autores pós-coloniais, como Gayatri Spivak, que considera esse sujeito duplamente subalternizado: pelo patriarcado e pelo colonialismo. O presente estudo buscou, então, compreender de que forma a subalternização de agentes do Norte Global às mulheres brasileiras se materializa em um contexto de turismo. Para atingir o estado de conhecimento estabelecido, foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade com 11 mulheres brasileiras que tiveram experiências de turismo em países do Norte Global. A análise dos dados mostra que a subalternidade se materializa por meio da visão da mulher brasileira como sendo associada a prostituição; da figura feminina como um objeto sexual; e da percepção de que o Brasil é um país repleto de atrasos, trazendo às entrevistadas sentimentos negativos quanto à sua identidade perante povos Eurocêntricos. / [en] The imaginary of beauty and sexuality is still present in different segments, such as tourism, with the aim of selling Brazil as a product. By placing the Brazilian woman at the center of this imaginary, it appears that there is a process of silencing this subject, making it impossible for him to represent himself. This process of silencing the female subject is analyzed by post-colonial authors, such as Gayatri Spivak, who considers this subject doubly subordinate: by patriarchy and colonialism. The present study then sought to understand how the subordination of agents from the Global North to Brazilian women is materialized in a tourism context. In order to reach the state of knowledge established, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 Brazilian women who had tourism experiences in countries of the Global North. Data analysis shows that subordination is materialized through the view of Brazilian women as being associated with prostitution; the female figure as a sexual object; and the perception that Brazil is a country full of delays, bringing to the interviewees negative feelings about their identity before Eurocentric peoples.

In this re-evaluation of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, I identify the original causes that made the Study emerge, examine why the intent of this research shifted over time, reveal the manner in which the Study was conducted, expose the role the government played in the manipulation of the Experiment, and, finally, investigate the ways, as well as the reasons, for the selection of the participants involved in the Study. After exploring the Experiment itself, I investigate the lasting effects of it on the community in which it occurred and the ways in which it further affected the relationship between African Americans and the United States Government. I explore the reasons for the involvement of Tuskegee Institute. Also, the philosophies of its founder, Booker T. Washington, are examined to discover the rationale behind the Institution's participation in an Experiment, which eventually became harmful. Finally, I hope to reveal why Tuskegee has been historically omitted from any blame in the Study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Mayareligiosity is portrayed and expressed in visual media in the form of series and films. The study also aims to investigate why Mayareligiosity is portrayed and expressed in that way and to discuss what reasons may be behind this. Based on the study´s purpose, the following questions have been formulated:  1.       How is mayareligiosity portrayed in these films and series? 2.       Why is mayareligiosity portrayed in this way?   The empirical material for this candidate's thesis consists of three visual media in the form of two films, The Fountain (2006) and Apocalypto (2006), and a series, Maya and the Three (2021). Based on previous research, background and postcolonial theory, the films, and series’ portrayal of Mayareligiosity is presented, analyzed, and discussed. It was possible to find several similarities between the portrayals in the visual media and there were also some differences. A division that was made was based on from what perspective the Mayareligion was portrayed, from the inside or from the outside. Discussion about how the perspective affects the portrayal and what this means followed. The foundations of how and why Mayareligion is portrayed the way it is can be found in post-colonial theorizing. It is based in a colonial history with power relations between colonizers and colonized and power relations around historiography. It is expressed through orientalism, binarism and subaltern groups. The discussion shows how a film industry built on Christian foundations and in Christian contexts leaves traces in films and their actions, partly in post-colonial perspectives.