<p>"Postmarked Constellations" examines how three late-twentieth century American writers bring long historical processes into view through their use of paraliterary forms. The term paraliterary is used in this study to refer to a set of popular cultural forms that overlap the field of the "literary," thereby complicating the latter's assumed autonomy from the impurities of everyday life. Focusing upon the historical fictions of Gayl Jones's blues novel Corregidora (1975), Samuel R. Delany's sword and sorcery series Return to Nevèrÿon (1979-1987), Cormac McCarthy's Western novel Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West (1985), this dissertation argues that these writers strategically turn to the paraliterary in order to engage their own moment's historical crisis within a larger trajectory of Anglo-European Western expansionism within the Americas. In adopting the blues (Gayl Jones), sword and sorcery (Delany), and the Western (McCarthy), these writers do not merely incorporate elements of these cultural forms, but rather transform their codes and conventions in order to bring past historical experiences into contact with the present. In so doing these writers draw out the historical dimensions internal to each of these generic forms. They show the degree to which genres are embedded within a larger world system, one that cannot be reduced to a national cultural imaginary, but must be placed within a longer-unfolding geopolitical context of colonial modernity, the Atlantic slave trade, the dispossession of indigenous peoples, and the emergence of a world market. </p><p>While written between the years 1975-1987, the texts of this study explore the deeper historical traumas specific to nineteenth-century U.S. expansionism. In turning to these specific histories--either in directly formal ways, as in McCarthy's Western or in the much broader terms of their legacies, as in Jones's blues novel or Delany's sword and sorcery series--these texts reveal the often obscured continuities between nineteenth-century and late-twentieth century forms of American empire. The chapters of this dissertation underscore how the blues, sword and sorcery, and the Western are tied to popular cultural forms that emerge, if not directly out of a nineteenth-century U.S. imperial literary and mass entertainment culture, then out of the historical experiences upon which such mass cultural phenomena was based. But these texts also complicate such ties to an imperial cultural imaginary by actively transforming the narrative logic of their generic forms. Tracing out the paraliterary dimensions of these texts thus allows us to constellate the historical past that their narratives examine with the late-twentieth century historical present in which they appear. In a period characterized by liberation movements and large-scale revolts both at home and abroad, these texts respond both to specifically national situations as well as to unfinished world historical processes. In this respect, these are American fictions concerned less with their quintessential Americanness--a preoccupation of both nineteenth- and early-twentieth century writers and critics--than with their peculiar relation to the world as Americans. "Postmarked Constellations" therefore proposes a method for tracking, not just a new engagement with the historicity of cultural forms within late-American fictions, but also for understanding the response of American writers to a radically new experience of globalization.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Davis, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3250858. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-02, Section: A, page: 0683. Adviser: Clarence E. Walker.

abstract: The Civil Rights Project estimates that Black girls are among the least likely to graduate from high school. More specifically, only about half, or 56%, of freshman Black girls graduate with their class four years later. Beyond the statistics little is known about Black girls who drop out, why they leave school and what happens to them once they are gone. This study is a grounded theory analysis of the stories eight adult Black women told about dropping out of high school with a particular focus on how dropping out affected their lives as workers, mothers and returners to education. There is one conclusion about dropping out and another about Black female identity. First, the women in my study were adolescents during the 1980s, experienced life at the intersection of Blackness, womaness, and poverty and lived in the harsh conditions of a Black American hyperghetto. Using a synthesis between intersectionality and hyperghettoization I found that the women were so determined to improve their economic and personal conditions that they took on occupations that seemed to promise freedom, wealth and safety. Because they were so focused on their new lives, their school attendance suffered as a consequence. In the second conclusion I argued that Black women draw their insights about Black female identity from two competing sources. The two sources are their lived experience and popular controlling images of Black female identity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

abstract: This descriptive qualitative case study explored undergraduate degree attainment by African American males in football and basketball at a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I institution in the Southwest. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four participants at the institution to uncover experiences that helped or hindered their progress toward degree completion. Student perceptions of their environment, the role of athletics in determining future goals, and the role of the athletic institution and its constituent members in promoting or deterring degree completion is explored. Student aspiration to attain a degree, expectations for job prospects and financial opportunity after college is also discussed. Contextual and perceptual elements emerged as salient attributes in their experiences as students and athletes. The study results are consistent with previous findings linking academic engagement and motivation, to family and environment. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Higher and Postsecondary Education 2012

abstract: Hollywood's portrayal of African American men was replete with negative stereotypes before Shelton Jackson Lee, commonly known as Spike Lee, emerged as one of the most creative and provocative filmmakers of our time. Lee has used his films to perform a corrective history of images of black men, by referencing African American male icons in his narrative works. This strategy was evident in his third feature film, Do the Right Thing (1989). Baseball great Jackie Robinson, and freedom fighters, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, were the black male icons featured prominently in the film. The Brooklyn-raised filmmaker's film journals, published interviews, and companion books, have provided insight into his thoughts, motivations, and inspirations, as he detailed the impact of the black male historical figures he profiles in Do the Right Thing (1989), on his life and art. Lee deployed his corrective history strategy, during the 1980s, to reintroduce African American heroes to black youth in an effort to correct media portrayals of black men as criminal and delinquent. He challenged the dominant narrative in mainstream Hollywood films, such as Cry Freedom (1987) and Mississippi Burning (1989), in which white heroes overshadowed black male icons. Lee's work parallels recent scholarship on the history of African American males, as called for by Darlene Clarke Hine and Ernestine Jenkins. The prolific director's efforts to radically change stereotypical depictions of black men through film, has not gone without criticisms. He has been accused of propagating essentialist notions of black male identity, through his use of African American male icons in his films. Despite these alleged shortcomings, Lee's reintroduction of iconic figures such as Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, in Do the Right Thing (1989), marked the beginning of a wave of commemorative efforts, that included the retiring of Robinson's number forty-two by Major League Baseball, the popularization of the Martin Luther King National Holiday, and the rise of Malcolm X as a icon embraced by Hip Hop during the 1990's. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2012

This study examines the role of Afrocentric curricula in higher education. Using four HBCU institutions (Dillard University, Hampton University, Howard University, and Spelman College) as a case study, the researcher selected the institutions on the basis of program quality and geographical spread. Program quality means the institutions must be accredited; geographical spread implies that the institutions must represent different parts of the country where HBCUs are concentrated. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze the data gathered from each institution’s course catalog during the 2011-2012 school year. The purpose was to determine if curricula dedicated to the black experience existed. The study found that all of the four institutions offered Afrocentric curricula. However, the courses vary in terms of their breadth, scope, and function. The conclusion drawn from the findings suggests that although the offering of Afrocentric curricula supports the goal of African-centeredness at each HBCU, the offerings are not widespread enough to bolster the HBCUs’ goal of dedication to leadership in the black community as mentioned in the institutions’ mission statements. In an attempt to address the gap between the HBCUs’ mission statements and what the collected data demonstrated, the researcher offered curriculum recommendations designed to enhance the effectiveness of the HBCUs as they promote black leadership in the community.

The current study investigates the relationships between mother-toddler attachment security, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), sociodemographic risk, and parenting stress utilizing the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCW) longitudinal data set, a nationally representative sample of 4,898 unmarried births. The FFCW oversampled non-marital births from urban, low-income, minority individuals, and the current study utilizes self-report data from mothers during Waves 1, 3, and 6. Sociodemographic risk (Gedaly & Leerkes, 2016) is defined as the potential for increased negative impacts of maternal age at birth, maternal education level, maternal household income, and maternal race on child development due to genetic and/or societal impacts. Data on these variables are collected at Wave 1 per mother report. Mother-toddler attachment security was assessed at Wave 3 using the Toddler Attachment Sort-39 (TAS-39; Bimler & Kirkland, 2002) and parenting stress was evaluated during the same wave. Autism diagnosis in children was evaluated at Wave 6 per parent report. Children in the sample were more likely to be diagnosed with ASD if their mother earned greater than a high school education and identified as White. Results indicated that maternal race influenced both mother-toddler attachment security and the diagnosis of ASD in the sample. White mothers reported higher mother-toddler attachment security when compared to both Black and Hispanic mothers, and children of Black mothers were less likely to have a diagnosis of ASD when compared to children of White mothers. Additionally, toddlers with ASD were less secure at age 3 years when compared to their neurotypical peers. ASD, Black maternal race, and Hispanic maternal race predicted a decrease in mother-toddler attachment security, and both higher maternal education and maternal household income predicted an increase in mother-toddler attachment security. Although mothers of children with ASD reported higher levels of stress when compared to mothers of neurotypical children, parenting stress was not found to moderate the relationship between ASD and mother-toddler attachment security. Parenting stress did, however, negatively impact attachment security. The results of this study provide insight into the unique challenges faced by families with ASD during critical periods of child development and how race may correlate with both the diagnosis of ASD and mother-toddler attachment security. Multicultural considerations at diagnosis and neurodiversity as well as recommendations for family-centered interventions are discussed.

abstract: This study investigates Black male students' perceptions of their teachers' curricular expectations in mathematics classrooms. Curriculum in this study refers to what knowledge students are expected to learn, and the manner in which they are expected to learn it. The topic of this dissertation is in response to persisting and prevailing achievement disparities experienced by secondary Black male students in mathematics. These disparities exist at the school, district, state, and national level. Utilizing an action research methodology, multiple cycles of data collection led to the final iteration of the study, collecting strictly qualitative data and drawing from critical race methodology to address the three research questions. The three research questions of this study seek to address how Black male students perceive their mathematics teachers’ curricular expectations, what practices they have found to be effective in meeting their teachers’ higher curricular expectations, and to determine how they view the reform practices as part of the intervention. Research questions were answered using one-on-one and focus group interviews, classroom observations, and student journals. An intervention was developed and delivered as part of the action research, which was an attempt at curriculum reform influenced by culturally relevant pedagogy, warm demander pedagogy, and youth participatory action research. Findings from the qualitative methods, led to four assertions. The first assertion states, despite achievement disparities, Black male students care very much about their academic success. Second, a primary factor hindering Black male students’ academic success, as communicated by participants, is what they are learning and how they are learning it. Speaking to teachers’ expectations, participants believe their teachers want them to succeed and think highly of them. Additionally, participants preferred interactive, enthusiastic, and caring teachers, even if those teachers are academically demanding. Finally, participants found learning mathematics addressing a problem that affects them, while incorporating components that address their invisibility in the curriculum, increased relevance, interest, and academic self-awareness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2020

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