A figure that has been pushed to the periphery of television shows throughout history, the African American woman has become more and more visible recently thanks to the proliferation of the cheap-to-produce reality television genre. Although many of these shows do feature African American women, critics often argue that these shows are a disgrace to the community, full of bickering women who are more obsessed with their labels than one another. This dissertation is an attempt to recuperate these programs from such denigration. I argue that reality television shows that focus on African American women do provide a great service to the community. Using soap opera theory as a theoretical foundation and close reading as an analytic tool, this project argues that these reality programs, which are called docusoaps, provide complex representations of African American women that are rarely seen on television. In addition, they offer therapeutic space to the women on the program as well as possible ones to the Black female viewers at home. The case study is The Real Housewives of Atlanta, a show that has aired on Bravo since 2008. This show has served as the template for the various African American docusoaps that have followed it, making it an important site for the investigation of how these programs present Black women and possible therapeutic spaces for that community.

Heat of the Day investigates the ways race, gender, and nationality intersected in the international sphere during the 1880s - 1920s. It does so by exploring the life, career, and networks of Mary Church Terrell, an African American feminist prominent on the international stage, as a window into the international activism of African American women. More than any other black woman during this time, Terrell frequently crossed the Atlantic - spending a substantial amount of time in Germany and a few other surrounding European countries; however, the story of her international career remains unwritten. As such, Mary Church Terrell is our entry into a very important shift in how black women understood internationalism. Terrell’s involvement in U.S. interracial cooperative organizing, combined with her cosmopolitanism, help to center African American women in national and global politics. The emergence of transatlantic feminist organizing at the end of the nineteenth century offered black women a new avenue through which to advance their own agenda for racial justice and gender equality by cultivating relationships with leading North American and European feminists. The dissertation argues that Mary Church Terrell changed the way people discussed race in transnational feminist organizing circles and in the international sphere more broadly. She forced her white American feminist colleagues to engage in conversations about race. As an African American activist who engaged in trans-Atlantic debates, Terrell taught European feminists about the authority of black women and helped them understand how race impacted their lives; and, therefore that the world worked differently for her. In all, Heat of the Day contributes to the thriving field of black international history.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 426-491).

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from file title page. Emanuela Guano, committee chair; Layli Phillips, Juliana Kubala, Wendy Simonds, committee members. Electronic text (116 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Dec. 13, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-116).

The growth in the number of black women in the prison system necessitates more research become rooted in an intersectional approach. This quantitative study will empirically apply intersectionality to address the unique circumstances of imprisoned black women by comparing and analyzing sentence convictions shared between black and white incarcerated women in Georgia. Drawing on 600 inmate profiles published by Georgia Department of Corrections, this study will address the statistical significance of race, class and gender on the length of sentence for incarcerated white and black women using regression models.

There has been considerable progress in women's sport participation opportunities since the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. These opportunities have allowed women and girls to participate in sports at the primary and secondary school level, as well as at the collegiate level in considerable numbers. Institutions have been adding new, emerging, or growth sports to their sports lineup. Despite this progress, much remains to be done to achieve true equity in women's access to sports. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that women of color may not have benefited from the array of new sports and athletic opportunities as much as white women. To examine this issue, we compare Post-Title IX trends in black and white females' sports participation and directly examine the effect of race on participation opportunities. Quantitative analysis based on multiple national data sets, including the National Longitudinal Study (NLS), the High School and Beyond Survey (HSB), the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS), and the Educational Longitudinal Survey (ELS), reveal that compared to white females, black females have indeed lost ground since Title IX, and that public schools attended by black females offer fewer sport participation opportunities to girls. Qualitative analysis is presented through a detailed, critical examination of the history of white and black women and sports, followed by an assessment of the legal challenges to gender inequality involving Title IX. Although Title IX is supposed to provide greater sports participation and athletic opportunities for women, oftentimes, women of color are disproportionately excluded from participation. As a policy, Title IX is designed to promote gender equity and equality in education, including sports. However, interscholastic athletic access and participation opportunities for females are unevenly distributed along racial lines. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Ronet Bachman, Dept. of Sociology. Includes bibliographical references.

Mental illness is a significant contributor to the global burden of disease. As public health practitioners, we must generate more than sufficient knowledge about mental health and illness in order to identify risk factors, increase awareness, improve treatment, eliminate the overall disparity associated with mental illness, and improve access to care to all affected, including those disproportionally affected by mental illness. Over time, there has been an overall lack of sufficient research studies on depression among African American women. As research in this area grows, it is critical to examine the underlying causative factors that are correlated with this disease and this population in order to provide better treatment options and a global understanding. This project will examine and analyze data obtained from the study assessment as it relates to psychosocial factors as reported by the study participants and generate a conclusion based on these findings. Additionally, this project will look to determine the help‐seeking behaviors of these women with access to a primary care physician and/or clinic. Overall, findings from this thesis project will provide an understanding of the specific psychosocial variables affecting African American women with depression and depressive symptoms, as well as provide an understanding of the help‐seeking behaviors of African American women, and contribute to the improvement of research in mental health in the United States.

This thesis explores both limits and possibilities. It reflects on processes of appropriation, re-signification and critique as practiced variably by African American Muslim women. I situate these processes within the concept of multiple critique, for specifically three moments-Sherman Jackson's Third Resurrection, the black feminist tradition, and Islamic feminisms.

Religious coping and spiritual well-being were found to be culturally important resilience factors for African American women suffering from abuse and depressive symptoms. This investigation aimed to investigate whether: (1) spiritual well-being and its two components of existential and religious well-being mediate the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)-Depressive Symptoms (DS) link; (2) positive and negative religious coping moderate the IPV-DS association; and (3) the mediating effect of spiritual well-being in the IPV-DS link is moderated by level of religious coping (i.e., moderated mediation). The study utilized data from 208 low income, suicidal and abused African American women, ages 18-55. Only the existential component of spiritual well-being was found to fully mediate the IPV-DS link. This indirect effect weakened at higher levels of negative religious coping. As predicted, higher levels of negative religious coping were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Surprisingly, higher levels of negative religious coping were also associated with increases in existential well-being which, in turn, led to decrease in depressive symptoms. The findings underscore the importance of addressing existential well-being and religious coping in clinical interventions and in training for mental health professionals. Clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed and future directions recommended.