Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-100).

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes final project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-190, 64-70).

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-89).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 178 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-178).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 24, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-82).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-225).

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes final project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-190, 64-70).

This study examines the politics of identification in antiracist struggles and asks how people begin and sustain social movement work across lines of difference. The project follows a series of activists and public intellectuals to sites of conflict in order to explore how actors confront failures in solidarity by summoning people to understand their freedom as bound to antiracist struggles. In work by James Baldwin from the 1960s and work by three contemporary social movement organizations—Black Lives Matter, antiracist LGBTQ organization Southerners on New Ground (SONG), and immigrant justice organization #Not1More—actors construct shared forms of identification across racial lines using kinship language and references to the body. Undergirding these rhetorical and organizing strategies is a concept—boundness—with a history in black political thought; a paradigm in which people’s lives are understood to be co-constituted and their freedom bound together. The first chapter traces the concept of boundness in James Baldwin’s political thought and explores how boundness offers an alternative and embodied way to theorize racial identity, racialized violence, and interracial solidarity. Chapter II examines interviews with James Baldwin in 1963 and #BlackLivesMatter activists in 2014-2015 to explore how their overlapping interventions reorient public discussions about racial violence. Chapters III and IV examine how contemporary activists in SONG and #Not1More generate shared forms of identification across racial lines. Drawing on archival research and ethnography, this study employs a close reading approach to specific moments in political discourse and organizing to theorize how people on the ground are crafting and contesting forms of identification. Ultimately, this project offers an account of the ways in which forms of political identification are structured by ethical and emotional orientations, and contends that contestations over these structures are a primary site of politics. This dissertation includes previously published material (Chapter I). / 10000-01-01

The rapid settlement of North America in the seventeenth century was motivated by the dream of success— a dream which the numerous possibilities of that virgin land inspired. The new land of America suggested the possible achievement of a heaven upon earth: the realization of the Utopian myth of timeless perfection. Throughout the subsequent growth of the Republic, this American dream, because of its tremendous strength and of its powerful influence as myth, completely captivated the imagination of the Americans. Consequently, a unique pattern of thought evolved in America; one that has given form and significance to the political, cultural, social, and religious life of the nation; one, in fact, that has moulded the entire history of the United States of America. In this thesis, The American Nightmare, I have attempted to illustrate the effect of the American dream on American literature, particularly on the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald and of James Baldwin. To do this successfully, however, I found it necessary to define the American dream: to trace its origins and subsequent development. Moreover, I have suggested that the American dream, once a vital force because it was relevant to the facts of life in America (or apparently so), has, in the twentieth century, become a nightmare, dedicated to illusion and hypocrisy. Indeed, the literature of the chosen writers reflects not only their preoccupation with the American dream and its influence, but also their desire to reveal and to analyse the apparent failure of this dream and the disillusionment, the despiritualisation, and the inhumanity which the quest for success has engendered in America. The society depicted in the novels I have selected for discussion is a bewildered one--an "incoherent" one. The authors themselves, despite their insight into the problems of American life, are indeed victims of the Medusa-like American dream. The thesis is divided into four sections. Section One, "The American Dream," discussing the settlement of America in the seventeenth century, examines the origins of the dream. Moreover, it traces the development and increasing secularization of the dream in the eighteenth century, witnesses the westward expansion of American settlement and its effect upon the nineteenth century vision of America's future, and, finally, reveals the failure of the dream and the subsequent fear, disillusion and bewilderment in twentieth century America. In short, this section shows how the American dream, once a vital force in American life, has now become a "nightmare"—a mirage which frequently lures many to self-destruction. Sections Two and Three treat specific works of Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby) and of Baldwin (Giovanni's Room and Another Country) respectively in the light of the American dream. The thesis concludes with a brief survey of the lives of the two writers, and an evaluation of the effect of the American dream upon their careers. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

abstract: James Baldwin (1924-1987) was one of the most well-known African American fiction and nonfiction writers of the twentieth century. Throughout his life and career, he earned a worldwide reputation as a respected novelist, memoirist, and essayist who contributed to a wide array of artistic movements and intellectual discourses. Many scholars have noted the particular African American religious and cultural influences upon Baldwin’s work. More recently, scholars have additionally noted the importance of Baldwin’s globally-engaged thought and internationalist life. Throughout all of his work, Baldwin wrote extensively on the subject of religion. This dissertation posits the topics of religion, violence, and marginalization as integral to his nonfiction writings and speeches, particularly after 1967. As such, it argues that Baldwin in his early career established four distinct discourses on morality, evil, scapegoatism, and purity that he came to connect in his later writings on the intersection of religion, violence, and marginalization. Within these writings, Baldwin also displayed a rigorous engagement with multicultural and multireligious artistic and literary canons, along with the evolving academic study of religion. Therefore, not only should the intersection of religion, violence, and marginalization be a central consideration for Baldwin scholarship, but scholars of religion and violence in particular would benefit from engaging Baldwin’s addressment of this intersection. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2019