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As a cornerstone of American identity, the American Dream serves as a hegemonic ideology rooted in myth. This myth centers on an ardent belief in equity despite the existence of systemic racial and economic exclusions, which includes inconsistent access to healthy food resulting in the hunger-obesity paradox. Because fast food plays a leading role in generating this paradox where an individual can be both hungry and obese, this thesis analyzes the 2015 Kentucky Fried Chicken advertising campaign to identify how the campaign perpetuates Dream discourse and understand how that discourse contributes to the hunger-obesity paradox. With the Colonel anchored at the heart of this campaign, the analysis found that he embodies the Dream and acts as a megaphone for Dream discourse. And ultimately, because Dream discourse overlooks and even admonishes low-income people and people of color, the people who most often face hunger and obesity, it contributes to the paradox.

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Student debt affects a multitude of gifted and intelligent college students each year. In order to attend our nation’s premier universities, members of the lower and middle classes must procure loans which prove debilitating to their respective economic situations. Upon graduating, such financial burden ultimately forces these individuals to choose economic pragmatism over the pursuit of their true passions. This growing reality calls for a reexamination of the American system of higher education, particularly the underlying ideology behind it – the American Dream. Through an analysis of eight interviews and the use of supporting data, this study reflects the need for drastic reform. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology Honors Program. / Discipline: Sociology.

Dolores Dyer played from 1952-1953 for the Texas Cowgirls, a barnstorming women's basketball team that provided a form of entertainment popular throughout the United States in that era. The story of Dyer's life demonstrates how a woman could attempt to achieve the American dream—a major theme in American history—through success in athletic competition. Dyer's participation with the Texas Cowgirls also provides a look into the circumstances that limited women's participation in professional sport during the mid-twentieth century. Women's sports studies, although some are very thorough, have gaps in the research, and women's barnstorming basketball is one of the areas often overlooked. In light of this gap, this thesis relies on a variety of sources, including primary documents from unpublished collections, archived materials, and original oral histories from several members of the Texas Cowgirls team. This thesis contains analysis of the socioeconomic factors that influenced Dolores Dyer's maturation into a professional basketball player, examines what the American dream meant to her, and evaluates the extent to which she achieved it. Overall, it constructs a social history that can serve as a foundational source for further study of women in sports during the twentieth century.

"Spark and Ruin: a Story of Re-beginning" is a multi-media concert dance work that addresses empathy as a physical and cognitive reactionary state, and utilizes dancing bodies as agents to facilitate this empathic experience. This work developed out of "The Flint Project," which investigates Flint, Michigan, "the most violent city in America," and a community characterized by racial tension and severe distinctions in class and social standing. This post-industrial, urban community serves as a microcosm through which we can examine how racial, social, and cultural politics intersect to establish systematic practices that challenge the possibility of the "American Dream." "The Flint Project" is a vehicle for creative research that investigates these systems and develops the material into a live performed event, "Spark and Ruin: a Story of Re-beginning". This performance includes installations featuring live performers and also various forms of media (including photography, film, and interactive "stations"). All of this material is constructed to contextualize the material for the viewer in a proscenium-style full-length dance performance. The objective of this piece is to establish a space for viewers to empathize with the material--to create an experience that will evolve into inquiry of systematic inequality as well as self-reflection of perception and bias. In facilitating this level of questioning, I aim to move viewers with compassion and heightened awareness of social inequity, as well as opportunities to chge the systems that enforce it.

This dissertation examined the presidential elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000 for the narrative tools used to persuade Latino voters. Using Walt Fisher's narrative theory, I evaluated the various parts of the American Dream myth, looking specifically at the characters and settings used in the candidate's narrative. Then, I evaluated the values in those narratives through the lens of the Plan of Delano, specifically looking for ways these candidates actually reinforced important Latino values. The new tellings of the American Dream myth valued specific characters- characters that had been blessed by the American Dream. Clinton's 1992 character had to work to gain success, but he was also blessed. George P. Bush (George W. Bush's nephew) was another character blessed by the American Dream. As a first-generation American, he represented the hope that brings many to America; the idea that their children could have opportunities the parents could not. The settings of the American Dream story were also important. These settings varied greatly-from the decrepit and desolate to the fanciful and idyllic-but they represented all the different places where the American Dream is possible. Hope, Arkansas is not a place where much hope seems to exist. But even a community as impoverished as Hope can be the birthplace of a President, because of the amazing ability of the Dream to permeate even the darkest corners of America. The barrios of the Southwest appear to be hopeless, but as Clinton's telling of the myth reminded Latinos, even people growing up in the barrios should have hope-because the American Dream can exist anywhere. These values, these characters, these settings have added to the rich rhetorical history of the American Dream myth. These presidential candidates expanded the places where that hope could reach, and the people who could be blessed by the Dream. All of this culminated in a story that Latinos could relate to, that they shared in and that rhetorically persuaded them to believe in these candidates.

Thesis(M.S.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.98-101).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3347262."