My dissertation examines post-civil rights novels by Toni Morrison, Ann Allen Shockley, and Alice Walker, and investigates their subversion of myopic representations of black women in the American literary and cultural imagination. More precisely, this study examines these writers' characterizations of black women who not only diverge from stereotypical images imposed by ideologies of “whiteness,” but who also rebel unapologetically against constructions of female identity imposed by nationalist discourse generally and black nationalism particularly. Drawing upon black feminist theoretical frameworks, performance theory, and postmodernist notions, this study analyzes these characters' transgressive behavior, specifically with regards to their sexuality, as, in part, a means to create a modern identity. While these notions have been engaged in non-literary texts that explicate how race and nationalism construct gender roles, they have been largely understudied in black women's fiction. This dissertation seeks to establish, then, a nexus in which literary texts, movement ideologies, and politics of identity and representation meet to provide an interdisciplinary and broad discursive framework. Organized conceptually, this study explores the aesthetics of transgression in an introduction, four representative chapters, and a conclusion. Chapter One introduces and situates transgressive black women characters within both the African American literary tradition and particular socio-cultural, historical, and political contexts. Chapter Two analyzes Toni Morrison's Sula (1973), and examines the protagonist Sula, who emblematizes transgressive behavior, as subverting the “classical black female script.” Foregrounding politics of sexuality, Chapter Three employs Shockley's Loving Her (1974) and investigates the ways Shockley's black female protagonist Renay, via her interracial same-gender loving relationship, transgresses essentialist binaries regarding blackness, same-sex desire, and homosexuality. Exploring the dialectics of transgression and belonging, Chapter Four examines Alice Walker's Meridian and analyzes the ways Meridian Hill transgresses circumscriptions for women, while concomitantly playing a participatory activist role in various communities. And, reemphasizing the potential of this study, the concluding chapter illustrates this project's centrality to African American and American literature, African American and American Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies.

A “one-size fits all” approach often characterizes discussions of conservatism amongst African-Americans. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to provide a more nuanced account of black conservatism in the United States by examining how it is articulated within three distinct contexts, the intellectual, the political and the social. Second, this study focuses on challenges African-American conservatives face in each of the three spheres as they operate within a larger white conservative movement that purports to adhere to the principle of “colorblindness.” The dissertation not only makes clear the fallacy of that principle, but also, demonstrates how conservatism falls prey to what is termed here, the “inescapability of race.

This dissertation investigates the role of familial racial socialization and formal education in black college students' racial ideologies. I argue that the ascendance of claims that America has become a colorblind, post-racial society necessitates a scholarly consideration of the sources that promote and sustain these empirically unsubstantiated notions. The mass media, through its coverage of highly visible examples of successful people of color, accomplishes some of this work. However, I contend that familial racial socialization and the high school U.S. history course, through its coverage of African American history, are two additional sources of racial messages that assist in promoting colorblindness and post-racialism. While researchers have identified parents as an important source of racial socialization, my interviews revealed that other family members, such as grandparents, siblings, and aunts, also played a significant role in students' racial socialization. Further, while students' racial socialization existed along a continuum of acknowledgment of contemporary racial oppression, the substance of what their parents and family members conveyed to them was generally of one of two types, critical or colorblind. Approximately half of the students in my sample received colorblind racial socialization, an important finding that contrasts with much of the literature on racial socialization. Additionally, high school U.S. history, through its coverage of African American history, interacted with students' familial racial socialization to help shape their racial ideologies beyond high school. Once these students matriculated at college they did not necessarily reproduce the racial ideologies into which they were socialized. Rather, depending on the nature of their racial socialization from family and the high school U.S. history course, I found that students were more or less likely to diverge ideologically from the racial interpretive framework developed prior to and during high school. The primary factor that motivated this process was whether students chose to take college coursework that exposed them to more critical interpretations of race and racism. A secondary factor was the substance of the racial ideologies of those in their peer group.

Strides at the federal and state levels are being made to improve the overall climate for gay rights and relationships across the country. However, despite greater acceptance, legislative victories and visibility of gay rights and relationships, homophobia is still widespread in American society (Fone, 2000; Jenkins, Lambert, & Baker, 2009; Schroeder, 2004). No matter the environment, homophobic attitudes permeate all aspects of the US culture, leading to prejudicial attitudes and inequalities that affect everyone in society. Unfortunately, some of these prejudicial attitudes lead to instituting laws that are inherently homophobic (HRC, n.d.). Trends illustrate that more people are coming out at a younger age in society, creating a larger number of 'out' students on college campuses. However, the increase in 'out' students has also led to an increase of prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation more visible on college campuses (Cannick, 2007; D'Augelli & Rose, 1990; Jenkins et al., 2009). Current research indicates Black college students are more likely than other college students to hold negative attitudes toward LGB students. The purpose of this research was to explore and describe perceptions and feelings of Black college students toward LGB students. A qualitative online survey using open and close-ended questions was sent out nationally to a number of college campuses to solicit responses. Major findings include the following: (1) participants have the potential to be allies for and hold positive perceptions of LGB identified students, (2) contact with LGB individuals affects the participants' ability to have more positive perceptions, and (3) participants are receptive to engage in conversations about LGB related issues. Implications of this study suggest collaboration among multicultural offices and other campus constituents for social and academic related programming. In addition, there is a need to provide a space for potential student allies to feel supported and engage in their own self-reflection and learning on how to create community among individuals that hold multiple social identities.

This historical study investigated the genesis, unfolding, contributions, and demise issues associated with the institution of Storer College. The primary goal was to produce an institutional narrative of Storer College that acknowledged the depth and dimension of its 90-year history, and recognized its three utmost administrators: the Doctors Brackett, McDonald, and McKinney. The inquiry incorporated a broad range of primary and secondary sources, including previously untapped archival resources, in reconstructing the institution’s narrative. The study is predominantly set against the divergence of compounding social, economic, and political forces, including its relationship with the State of West Virginia that outlined the institution’s development over time. The global questions that framed the study were: What was Storer College? How did it change over time? Following the Civil War’s destruction, the nation underwent an extended period of reconstruction. Storer College grew out of several efforts exerted by the Free Will Baptists, a northern denomination under the aegis of the Northern Baptist Convention, who believed that education should be the primary focus for improving freedmen in the Shenandoah Valley. Storer College was first established in West Virginia by the Free Will Baptists Home Mission Society through its Shenandoah Mission center, as the Harper’s Ferry Mission School in 1865. In time, the institution experienced four overlapping developmental phases: (a) Mission School, 1865 – 1867, (b) Secondary Division, 1867 – 1884, (c) Secondary Expansion Division, 1884 – 1921, and (d) Collegiate Division, 1921 – 1955 before its closure in the wake of the 1954 Brown et al. v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas decision. With the outgoing class of 1955, the institution was ultimately dismantled and subsumed under the federal aegis of the United States Department of Interior by 1960. Despite limited funding, Storer College functioned as a social change agent since through its institutional development it correspondingly contributed to the individual development of its students’ literacy, morality, self-dependency, self-advocacy, and self-assertion. These collective actions were among the first efforts toward community-building between and among the African-American community and consequently the community’s greater relationship with the American society. / Ph. D.

The impact which organizational decline in higher education has on African American students and institutional management of organizational decline can influence the access and success of African American students on predominantly White campuses. With higher education fighting for continued existence as a result of enrollment reductions and a shrinking economy, and the growing disparity between African Americans and White Americans, the press for survival prevails for both institutions and cultures. This study examined the effects which institutional decline in public higher education has upon African American students. Specifically, the study focused on how educational administrators and African American students in four Massachusetts institutions of higher learning described and explained the extent of the decline and their perceptions of its short-term and long-term effects. Various approaches and strategies utilized during decline and how they promoted or impeded an institution's ability to support goals and action related to participation of African American students were explored in the study. Attention was given to the different perceptions surrounding these issues in order to present a holistic and in-depth understanding of the dimensions of decline as it impacts African American students. Focus group interviews were used to explore and identify the complexity of these issues. The findings of the study indicate that the perceptions of both students and educational administrators were that African American students had been affected by the impact of organizational decline in terms of reduction and elimination of programs and services which are used and needed by this student population to access higher education as well as to survive in college environments which are hostile and unfriendly. The exploratory nature of this study, through the perceptions and reflections of African American students and educational administrators responsible to and for this population, should deepen the understanding within the academy regarding access and success of African American students during an era of decline.

For decades, Swahili culture and society have been mischaracterized as an extension of Arabic cultural development. Within the last few decades scholars like Thomas Spear, Derek Nurse, and Chapurukha M. Kusimba have challenged Arabcentric and Eurocentric reductionist notions regarding the development of Swahili society. This dissertation traces the discourse of the historiographic discourse of Swahili culture and its impact on the way that the Swahili people, culture, and language are conceptualized. Furthermore, the research presented here is not solely focused on the material evidence of the development of African communities on the Swahili coast, but also on the ethical and cultural foundations of Bantu society manifested within Swahili society. The African ethics manifested in early Swahili society which still exists today illustrate a more nuanced understanding of the Africanity of coastal communities. As demonstrated by the traditional saying of Swahili communities, select folktales, and the construction of philosophical terminology, the ethics and cultural values of an African cultural paradigm. This idea of the essentiality of the African cultural paradigm to the foundation and development of Swahili culture is evidenced by the cross-cultural analysis of Swahili historical and cultural phenomena to other African communities. / African American Studies

This thesis argues that through an examination of the variable market successes of Fashion Fair Cosmetics and Fenty Beauty, racial and gender intersectionality continues to negatively impact the experience of black beauty consumers in the US today. Through influential black feminists, including media theorist bell hooks, and critical race and gender theorists Kimberlee Crenshaw, and Patricia Hill Collins, this paper will discuss how black women historically and presently have been marginalized in relation to the needs and interests of white women. Drawing on the notable anthropologist Soyini Madison’s Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance (2022), I utilize a critical ethnography to analyze how one’s racial and gendered background can affect the relationship between beauty brands and consumers and how this impacts the experience of black and brown women as beauty consumers. This paper will also engage with the rise of historic and contemporary social justice activism and current Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in the wake of Black Lives Matter Movement and the impact that this has had not only on industries but on the experience of black and brown cosmetics consumers. In addition, this paper will note how a speedy and superficial increase in DEI programs across service industries and cosmetics has led to a shallow understanding of the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in all spaces. Lastly, I will deploy an autoethnographic approach to discuss how social media has strongly impacted and influenced the industry Fashion Fair is relaunching in. The autoethnography will discuss the social media strategies that drive a successful makeup brand in the contemporary beauty industry and, importantly, how contemporary consumers of color experience the beauty industry. This paper will close by speculating on the manner in which the legacy brand Fashion Fair, might in the current practice of Fenty, sharpen its appeal and engage the kind of social media strategies that will successfully reintroduce the brand to a new generation—and thereby more successfully resume its mission to deliver care to long-alienated beauty consumers in the US. / Media Studies & Production

In the Cayman Islands, one is raised to be the managers of someone else’s financial empire; the empire of the United Kingdom to be precise. Historically, whenever there are whispers about political independence among the population, they are abruptly quieted by a chorus of familiar rhetoric that attributes the success of business and tourism industries on island to its administrative financial connection to the United Kingdom. In a colony where most people rarely think of themselves as colonized, to the majority of Caymanians there is nothing improper about this relationship, it is simply the way things have been. On the few occasions where there is sustained conversation on the topic of political independence, like clockwork, the dialogue often takes a decidedly anti-Jamaican and anti-black tone that positions the so-called socioeconomic “struggles” of Jamaica as a cautionary tale on the perils of political independence. Perils that are then juxtaposed with the so-called socioeconomic success of Cayman which are framed as the prosperity of political dependency. It is this enduring conversation that warrants further interrogation; how and why African descended persons are actively choosing to not be self-determining. Much of the current literature interrogates the colonial presence in the Caribbean in a historical context. However, my interest is in how modern-day manifestations of colonialism (economic, cultural) impacted understandings of agency and freedom? Moreover, Caribbean scholarly discourses on colonialism tend to situate it in the past, instead a present, ongoing reality in the region today. This project centers Caymanians and their understanding of their own humanity outside of what they provide to others. My work seeks to disrupt the concept of ‘Paradise’ in the Caribbean; a concept evoked in order to provide leisure for tourists (mostly originating from North America and Western Europe) and make the financial management of the wealth of the ruling elite from the same places as those tourists desirable. This research interrogates a humanity that is agentic, self-conscious, and decolonial. / African American Studies

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