The purpose of this thesis project is to affix the attention of Lovecraftian scholarship on the oft ignored racism that pervades many of H.P. Lovecraft’s better known short stories. Existing scholarship revolves around an inordinate focus on the cosmic aesthetic of Lovecraftian horror and Lovecraft’s professed nihilism. The consequence of such criticism is that similar critical readings are produced, contributing to a rhetorical atrophy that prohibits the possible depth of scholarly inquiry. Indeed this limitation is made apparent by the small pool of scholars that produce the majority of Lovecraft scholarship. I seek to broaden the current discourse, and thus invite additional scholarly voices, by introducing a critical lens that allows readers to rethink Lovecraftian horror from a new perspective. Whereas most Lovecraftian scholarship relies on a biographical lens with which to interpret Lovecraft’s works, I will be combining biographical insight with historical context to create a new framework from which readers can address the racism found in Lovecraft’s works in relations to external influences and paradigms. My methodology consists of historicizing Lovecraft and his works within the White racist power structure that defined not only the interaction of Whites and non-Whites, but the collective mindset of contemporaneous White American culture. Specifically, I will introduce three of Lovecraft’s stories as part of a broader social discourse on race and ontology. The stories in question are “The Call of Cthulhu”, “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn” and “Hebert West: Re-Animator”.

Thesis advisor: Leigh Patel / Despite the 1982 Plyler v. Doe court decision, which upheld the constitutionality of undocumented youth having access to public K-12 education in the United States, Latina students who are undocumented face unique educational and societal barriers. Material and psychological conditions of “illegality” permeate these young women’s social worlds (Muñoz, 2015). Latina students continue to lag behind their Latino and white peers as a result of historically built gendered and raced school structures of dispossession (Cammarota, 2004; Fine & Ruglis, 2009). This institutional ethnography used the lens of intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 1998) to examine how ten Latina students navigated “illegality” in schools, the state house, and an immigrant youth-led organization. Intersectional analyses of the Latinas’ multiple experiences within and across institutional structures shed light on the specific ways that “illegality” and heteropatriarchy manifested, changed or remained stagnant, interconnected with race and class, and how these junctures were negotiated in undocumented spaces of resistance. Based on intersectional analysis of policies, interview, and observation data, it became apparent how nationalistic discourses of citizenship were embedded in structures of white racism and heteropatriarchy. The Latinas of color in the study predominantly endured interlocking forms of gendered and racialized oppression, including sexual violence, which became a dimension of intersectional disempowerment that men of color and white women seldom confronted. Based on findings from interview and observation data, this institutional ethnography challenges gendered and raced nativist conceptions of U.S. citizenship, reclaiming pathways for undocumented communities as well as action-oriented educational policies, theories, and pedagogies rooted in intersectional frames aimed at decentering heteropatriarchal whiteness in the construction of the nation state (Collins, 1998), and more in accordance with the fluid, complex realities of interlocked global economies, local cultures, and transnational citizenry. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

“The Future of Football is Feminine”: A Critical Cultural History of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team,focuses on the historical and cultural construction of the U.S. women’s national soccer team. The public and academic discourse that constitutes women’s soccer in the U.S. consistently links the game with the feminist legislation of Title IX, and positions male coaches as benevolent patriarchs who grant young girls and women the right to play. The combination of these two dominant narratives confronts the historical narrative of women’s soccer from an uncritical and celebratory space, which represses and decenters lines of power. I challenge these steadfast discourses by locating this team, and thus, women’s soccer, in the larger cultural frame of neoliberal, postfeminist, post-racial, and sexual politics. Through an examination of U.S. newspapers and magazines, United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) documents, and extensive soccer-specific journals and magazines, I explore the intersection of capitalism, feminism, and racism in women’s professional sport. This research also examines how the media and other corporations have cultivated the U.S. women’s national team and its individual stars, such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Kristine Lilly, Abby Wambach, and Hope Solo to promote themselves as consumer conduits through which moral and ethical behaviors circulate and influence civil society. Since the mid-1990s, young female soccer players find themselves at an ideological crossroad of individual choice and self-discipline. The soccer field has been promoted as a space of gender and racial inclusion as well as economic and political freedom while subtly reinforcing the exact opposite. Moreover, I examine the historical and ever-shifting landscape of women’s soccer, and how neoliberalism as an economic and cultural theory is central to the use of race, class, gender, and sexual ideologies to develop women’s soccer in the United States.

Abstract not available

Pacific Islanders have faced discrimination in New Zealand particularly since the 1960s when members of communities, particularly from the Cook Islands, Samoa, Niue and Tonga began to be transplanted from their home nations to Aotearoa as cheap immigrant labour. Subsequently, the New Zealand vernacular has contained references to Pacific Islanders as 'overstayers', 'coconuts', 'bungas' and 'fresh off the boat' [FOB]. However, the legacy of a domineering relationship between the Palagi1 majority group and Pacific2 minorities that is captured by such derogatory terms is still evident in public forums such as the media. Using a quantitative content and qualitative narrative analysis, this first chapter documents portrayals of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand print media reports (n= 65) published over a three-month period. Findings reveal that Pacific people are predominantly portrayed as unmotivated, unhealthy and criminal others who are overly dependent on Palagi support. Consideration of this offered Pacific identity formation is explored and compared with that implied for Palagi, which is active, independent, competent and caring. Issues in coverage are discussed in relation to how Pacific Islanders are encouraged to see themselves, and the health and social consequences of dominant practices in press coverage. The second part of this thesis will take the findings from the investigation of the characterizations of Pacific Islanders in newspaper coverage and consider audience responses to such coverage. Focus group discussions will be used to explore how different New Zealand audiences view and respond to the portrayals of Pacific Island people and health in news media. The focus on audience responses supports the development of a better understanding of how groups can internalise media portrayals and use these as anchor points for understanding their own situations. Qualitative content from the two groups of Pacific Islanders (P1, P2) and two groups of Palagi (NP1, NP2) enabled a comparative analysis of audience interpretations. Findings propose that health issues are predominantly framed from the perspective of the dominant social group - in the local context Palagi - often at the expense of minority groups such as Māori and Pacific peoples. In appropriating aspects of news coverage, audience members do not engage or regurgitate what they are told or shown through the media. It is a rather complex process with audience members interpreting and using fragments of what they are presented with in making sense of issues of concern in their own lives. All the participants (n= 24) were compensated for their time and travel. We offer some suggestions as to how more equitable representations of Pacific people could be fostered in news media and how changes to a more civilised media will impact Pacific health positively. 1 Palagi (pronounced Palangi) is a term used by Pacific Islanders to refer to people of European decent. 2 We use the terms 'Pacific people' and 'Pacific Islanders' to denote a general social category or minority in Aotearoa used by the media. However, we need to qualify the use of these terms because their use can lead to a glossing over of the diversity in languages and cultures that exists between over 20 different Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian communities.

Based on the analysis of interviews with young Muslim women in South Australia, and the analysis of two daily newspapers, The Australian and The Advertiser, this thesis looks at themes of religious racism, representation, identity, and resistance to racism. This thesis offers critiques of existing terminology used to describe negativity and hostility based on religious affiliation. It also offers strong arguments for the use of new terminology : religious racism. This thesis argues that the lived experiences of young Muslim women in South Australia are fraught with this racism. It argues that claims of a 'secular' society mask the continuing influence of a Christian heritage and assist in the subordination of religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Following similar research in other contexts, this thesis argues that the news media in Australia ( especially newspapers ) plays a significant role in the ( re ) production of religious racism, primarily through the repeated use of negative representations and stereotypes of Muslims. A number of textual strategies are utilised in this process such as the use of negatively loaded words ( eg 'terrorist' or 'fanatics' ), the types of photographs used, and the kinds of stories deemed newsworthy. Numerous examples of such racism are presented in the discourse analysis of representations of Muslims and Islam in the two newspapers. This thesis also addresses the direct impact of such representations on the participants in the study. Although this thesis presents a number of narratives of religious racism as experienced by the women, it does not present these women as passive victims. It argues that in negotiating, dealing with and challenging such racism, these women exhibit personal agency as well as courage and resourcefulness. This thesis acknowledges both the significant impact of religious racism on the women as well as their resistance to it. This thesis utilises literature from the field of race and whiteness studies to critique concepts of hegemonic national identity that marginalise Muslim communities and individuals. It argues that, although Muslims may not figure in hegemonic national identity, they construct they own sense of national belonging that encompasses their identities as Muslims, as women and as Australians. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 2006.

Research on racism in Australia by white psychologists is often fraught with tensions surrounding a) accounting for privilege, b) the depiction of particular racial minorities, and c) how individual acts of racism are understood. Nowhere is this more evident than in research that focuses on the relationship between Indigenous and white Australians. Such research, as this thesis will demonstrate, has at times failed to provide an account of the ongoing acts of racism that shape the discipline of psychology, and which thus inform how white psychologists in Australia write about Indigenous people. As a counter to this, I outline in this thesis an alternate approach to understanding racism in Australia, one that focuses on the ways in which racism is foundational to white subjectivities in Australia, and one that understands white violence against Indigenous people as an ongoing act. In order to explicate these points, and to examine what they mean in relation to white claims to belonging in Australia, I employ psychoanalytic concepts within a framework of critical psychology in order to develop an account of racism which, whilst drawing on the insights afforded by social constructionist approaches to racism and subjectivity, usefully extends such approaches in order to understand their import for examining racism in Australia. More specifically, I demonstrate how racism in Australia displays what Hook (2005) refers to as a 'psychic life of colonial power', one that implicates all people in histories of racism, and one that highlights the collective psychical nature of racism, rather than understanding it as an individual act. In the analyses that follow from this framework I demonstrate how white privilege and its corollary - the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty - are warranted by white Australians. To do this, I engage in a textual analysis of empirical data, focusing on both the everyday talk of white Australians as gathered via focus groups and a speech by Prime Minister Howard. In particular, I highlight how claims by white Australians to 'doing good' for Indigenous people (what I refer to as 'benevolence') may in fact be seen to evidence one particular moment where the originary violence of colonisation is yet again played out in the name of the white nation. More specifically, and following Ahmed (2004), I suggest that claims to 'anti-racism' may be seen as 'non-performatives' - they do not require white Australians to actually challenge our unearned privilege, nor to examine how we are located within racialised networks of power. In contrast to this, I sketch out an approach to examining racism, both within the discipline of psychology and beyond, that is accountable for ongoing histories of colonial violence, which acknowledges the role that the discipline often continues to play in the legitimation of race, and which is willing to address the relationship that white Australians are already in with Indigenous Australians. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Psychology, 2005.

This thesis examines the representation of racial violence in black British literature. Long part of the black British experience, from racial murder to premeditated campaigns of harassment targeting individuals and families, and to police brutality, racial violence has curiously attracted next to no critical attention. This is particularly true of fictive representations, where black writers have sought to capture and convey the embodiment of racism and particularly the nature of what bell hooks has described as “white terror”. This thesis argues that this lacuna is a consequence of the concern to establish admixture, as expressed by terms such as hybridity, syncretism, and creolisation, as the central point of reference in discussions about black British identities. Triumphal accounts of British multiculturalism have followed the success of this paradigm, although some seek to partially solemnise the celebrations with merely passing references to the victims of real life racial murders. Abstract notions of “becoming” deflect attention from uninterrupted processes of forcible essentialisation from without, where the “other” serves as handmaiden to the formation of white subjectivities. This is the case with violent racism, where subjective violence, or physical violence, operates in tandem with symbolic violence, or racialised stereotypes, to essentialise the “victim”. In so doing the perpetrator rapidly arrives at a form of white racialised subjectivity which however must be continually refreshed through further symbolic or physical violence. As Pnina Werbner has argued, these experiences have ontological significance for the victim also and the communities for which the victim was taken be a representative. However this significance has been largely ignored, or at least bracketed, in accounts bent on celebrating “new ethnicities” and postcolonial London, an emerging disciplinary field which, in John McLeod’s words, examines the ways that the capital’s “transcultural facticity has made possible new communities and forms of culture” and which have the added effect of disrupting the “pastoral articulation of English national culture”. This thesis seeks to qualify the revelry that animates these accounts by foregrounding literary representations of racial violence and harassment. Each representation, drawn by writers who have been heralded as multiculturalism’s new baristas, serves as a reminder that multiculturalism is not without fierce contestation and that black lives, if not marked by violence, are still very much at risk of being targeted in this way. The novels examined include: Diran Adebayo’s Some Kind of Black; David Dabydeen’s The Intended; Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album ; Caryl Phillips’s A Distant Shore ; and Courttia Newland’s The Scholar. Writing myself into the thesis as a socially situated reader, each novel will be examined with a concern to highlight the representation of racial violence; the spatial significance of representations; responses to racial victimisation; and the “whiteness” at work in racist violence. Using interdisciplinary resources the thesis will attempt to build a theory of white subjectivity and racial violence and throughout there will be an overarching concern to determine whether these works articulate an anti-racist position and, if so, what this may be taken to say about black tenure in multicultural Britain.

<p>This study investigates the treatment of race biology and related subjects in Swedish schoolbooks from 1873 to 1994, with special emphasis on the “gymnasium”-level. The concept of race biology has several connotations: it is at one hand related to physical anthropology and at the other to eugenics. Like in Germany the latter was in Sweden first called “racial hygiene”. After an introduction giving the historical background the books are reviewed for their content on this matter. The conclusions drawn are as follows:<br /><br />1. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, mental, cultural and physical appearances of peoples from various parts of the world are discussed with little emphasis on the distinction between race (as a biological concept) and culture.<br /><br />2. Finns and Lapps are in early books considered as belonging to the Mongolian race. This may be understood in terms of the confusion between classification of race and language but also of at the time prevailing theories of Sweden’s racial history.<br /><br />3. Around 1930 a distinction between race, as a biological concept, and people, as a linguistic and cultural concept is pronounced. Personality characteristics are attributed to biological races.<br /><br />4. The dark-skinned African and Australian populations are treated with special disrespect, whereas the lighter-skinned Polynesians are discussed with high esteem.<br /><br />5. The teachings of the Nazi racialist H. F. K. Günther have a decisive impact on the treatment of in particular European ”races” and their mental characters on at least one author. Even the word “master-race” is used for the Nordic race. The most controversial parts of this teaching are removed in 1945.<br /><br />6. From the 1950’s onward the interest in races is diminished in books in geography, and in the biology books racism is generally condemned.<br /><br />7. Eugenics (racial hygiene) is advocated in biology books into the 1970’s, in a manner close enough to be called political propaganda. The low efficiency of sterilisation against Mendelian recessives is generally presented. The Swedish sterilisation policies at the time are presented in detail in the biology books.<br /><br />8. Traditional race classification is present still in the 1980’s, even with regard to the European “racial types”. Much attention is given to the “extreme” racial crossing between Europeans and Hottentots.<br /><br />9. In a biology book from 1967, control of the third world population explosion (in itself a theme from the 1950’s onward) is explicitly discussed in the context of eugenics.<br /><br />10. When modern in utero diagnostic methods are discussed in the 1990’s, eugenics is not concerned.</p>

Thesis (B.Psy.Sc.(Hons.)) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.