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<p>This dissertation explores the significance of Africa (both as a literal geographic space and as an imagined or symbolic space) in 19th century American intellectual and literary culture. I argue that when nineteenth-century intellectuals grappled with the institution of slavery, the significance of slave revolt, and the extent of black intellectual capacities, they dealt not only with a set of domestic social and political concerns, but also with a wider epistemological crisis surrounding the very idea of Africa and Africanness. The paradoxical legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, which produced unthinkable dislocation and suffering even as it created new diasporic networks of black affiliation built around a common African origin, forced a reexamination of conventional thinking about history, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, education, and civilization. </p><p><italic>Diasporic Reasoning</italic> traces the impact of the idea of Africa on specific American intellectual outlets, including popular historiography, the novel, and the university. I contend that in each of these cases, the engagement with the idea of Africa enriches the possibilities of thought and leads to a fruitful reframing or refinement of established ideas, genres, and institutions. I begin with an exploration of the different historiographic uses of "representative men" in Ralph Waldo Emerson's <italic>Representative Men</italic> and William Wells Brown's <italic>The Black Man</italic> (Chapter One). I argue that Brown's contribution to the genre of collective biography complicates the apparent "universalism" of Emerson's earlier text, and forces us to rethink the categories of the universal and the particular. In Chapter Two, I continue to examine the impact of the African diaspora upon historical consciousness by arguing that the encounter with the specter of slave insurrection produces cognitive (and in turn, formal) ruptures in two historical novels, Herman Melville's <italic>Benito Cereno</italic> and George Washington Cable's <italic>The Grandissimes</italic>. Chapter Three focuses not on a literary genre, but on the circulation of knowledge through the institution of the modern university. Building from a comparative reading of the educational philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edward Wilmot Blyden, I argue that Blyden's provocative conception of an "African university" draws out and extends upon the implications of Emerson's thinking on education. Finally, in the Epilogue, I look at the syncretic uses of "Ethiopianism" in Pauline Hopkins' <italic>Of One Blood</italic>, J. A. Casely Hayford's <italic>Ethiopia Unbound</italic>, and W. E. B. Du Bois' <italic>Darkwater</italic> in order to explore the new paths that Pan-African and diasporic thought would take in the twentieth century. I argue that these works reflect the degree to which an evolving anthropological understanding of the idea of "culture" and the specific political contexts of anti-colonial struggles across the African continent would complicate the kinds of intertextual possibility available in the nineteenth century. This dissertation thus traces the often-surprising intellectual interrelations of America and the African diaspora, and in so doing, opens up a more nuanced approach to the study of nineteenth-century literary and intellectual culture.</p> / Dissertation

<p>This dissertation examines the way in which funk music, in the context of twentieth century African American literature, operates as a means of stimulating the sensorium. Funk, narrowly defined as a musical form, once carried negative connotations. Whether understood as depression, a genre of popular music, an odor, or as a euphemism for sex, the genre is concerned with attitude and visible emotions. Much work has been done in the field of African American literature regarding jazz and blues, and studies of hip-hop are gaining traction. Funk, however, has not fulfilled its potential for investigating its affect of musical performance or its connection to narratives. This project is an examination of the aesthetics of this musical form, which will generate more nuanced readings of musical and literary narratives of the 1960s and 1970s through an analysis of sound and its sensorial variants. I examine the function of music in a literary text as opposed to how it is described.</p><p>Funk operates as a link between the jazz- and blues-inspired poetry and novels of the early twentieth century on the one hand and the emergence of "urban," "street," or "hip-hop" narratives on the other. Its artistic intervention in social relationships brings the aesthetic and political into conversation. I argue against the binary differentiating "serious" and "popular" musical forms; funk bridges the gap between these two designations in an important context, which creates a sonic and social space to examine the idea of difference both in terms of the general and the specific. A misconception of "sameness" is the site of theoretical and ontological difference or disruption.</p><p> Funk's ability to disrupt resides in its paradoxical nature. Rhythmically, the musical genre departs from soul of the 1960s and is fundamental to the development of hip-hop in the late-1970s and early 1980s. Though rooted in distinct rhythmic patterns, Funk seeks to dismantle conceptions of rhythmic expectation and production common in popular music by pushing back against previously popular forms. Prior to Funk's popularity, most musical forms ranging from jazz to rock and roll emphasized the second and fourth beats in a measure. Funk compositions typically emphasize the first and third beats, which changes the momentum of the music. Though it is a genre geared towards dance and therefore rooted in the body and movement, Funk gravitates towards transcending the physical limits of the body by addressing discourses of sensorial perception. Funk (both as a musical genre and an aesthetic) is something of sensory ensemble--each sense a part of the whole, complex experience. The five senses are brought together in an all-out attack on what hegemony comes to represent. Each chapter presents a different mode of assault on the body's ability to process the sensorium. I demonstrate the way Funk disrupts through a fusion of ethnomusicology, socio-cultural analysis, and literary criticism in the act of reading, hearing, watching, smelling, and tasting musical performances, cultural events, and works of literature.</p> / Dissertation

<p> This study examined the relationships between internalized racism, perceived minority status, code-switching and three types of organizational commitment of African Americans. Overall, internalized racism and code-switching were related to less positive forms of organizational commitment. The perception of minority status was not related to affective or continuance commitment, but was strongly related to code-switching.</p>

<p> This integrated literature review compiles past and present literature on the African Holocaust or Maafa to provide a more in-depth understanding of the unique sociopolitical narrative of the enslavement and oppression of Africans and African Americans for half a millennium in the United States. This study integrates historical data, theoretical literature, and clinical research to assess immediate and sequential impacts of the traumatization of the African Holocaust on enslaved and liberated Africans, African Americans, and their descendants. This investigation engages literature on trauma (Root, 1992), historical traumas (Duran, Duran, Brave Heart, &amp; Yellow Horse-Davis, 1998), historical unresolved grief (Brave Heart &amp; DeBruyn, 1998), and multigenerational trauma transmission (Danieli, 1998) to explore claims of slavery and relentless oppression leaving a psychological and behavioral legacy behind to the contemporary African American community (Abdullah, Kali, &amp; Sheppard, 1995; Akbar, 1996; Leary, 2001, 2005; Poussaint &amp; Alexander, 2000; B. L. Richardson &amp; Wade, 1999). By and large, this study provides a comprehensive exploration and critical examination of Leary&rsquo;s (2005) Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome theory (PTSS), which suggests that the traumatization of slavery and continued oppression (i.e., racism, discrimination, and marginalization) endured by enslaved Africans in the United States and their descendants over successive centuries has brought about a psychological and behavioral syndrome prevalent amongst 21st century African Americans. Findings from the critical analysis revealed that in addition to inheriting legacies of trauma from their enslaved and oppressed African ancestors, contemporary African Americans may have also inherited legacies of healing that have manifested as survival, strength, spirituality, perseverance, vitality, dynamism, and resiliency. Clinical implications from this research underscored the importance of not pathologizing present generations of African Americans for their attempts to cope with and adapt to perpetually oppressive environmental circumstances. Further quantitative and qualitative research that directly tests the applicability of PTSS within the African American community is needed to better grasp the representational generalizability of PTSS. Lastly, rather than focus on the repeated victimization of African Americans, the findings from this study suggest that future research should focus on the mental sickness of African Americans' oppressors in addition to identifying and delineating intergenerational legacies of survival, resilience, transcendence, and healing birthed out of the historical trauma of slavery.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple-case study was to explore the lived experiences and the challenges African American male nurses faced in leadership roles and in providing quality care for minority patients. Participants included 15 African American male registered nurses (RNs) working in executive, administrative, and managerial leadership positions in Florida&rsquo;s hospitals and other healthcare organizations. The participation criteria included being an African American male RN working in a leadership position in Florida with experiences in leadership and providing quality care for minority patients and at least 5 years of leadership experience. Participants completed in-depth face-to-face, digitally recorded interviews answering open-ended questions. Analysis of the interview data identified emerging themes and patterns using NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software. Four major themes were identified: (a) specific leadership challenges associated with being an African American male leader, (b) general leadership challenges, (c) patient-level challenges limit the ability to provide quality care for minority patients, and (d) systemic challenges limit the ability to provide quality care for minority patients. Recommendations to healthcare leaders include a work environment free of gender segregation and racial discrimination, organizations adequately funded to deliver quality care, and strong leadership support for nurses and staff. Future studies should include additional geographic locations to increase the generalizability of findings to other populations.</p>

<p> This study investigated the effects of racial microaggressions on symptoms of anxiety and depression in Black and African American women. The study employed an online survey and snowball recruitment method that involved individuals from high income and highly educated populations. The participants responded to questions related to demographic information; symptoms of anxiety (GAD-7; Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams, &amp; L&ouml;we, 2006b); depression (PHQ-8; Kroenke et al., 2009); and racial microaggressions (IMABI; Mercer, Zeigler-Hill, Wallace, &amp; Hayes, 2011) in order to assess current mental health functioning and level of distress in response to racial discrimination. Results indicated that those who reported higher levels of racial microaggression distress also reported higher symptoms of anxiety and depression. The findings related to racial microaggressions and symptoms of anxiety and depression indicated positive correlations. However, when age and level of education were investigated for a moderation effect, neither was found to be significant. Therefore, neither age nor level of education acted as a buffer for racial microaggression distress and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Results supported the need for assessing and addressing racial discrimination within the therapy session, awareness of racial microaggressions and their clinical implications on mental health, and normalization of these experiences for Black and African American women. </p>