This thesis examined bodied activism in Chicago's Slutwalk 2012 march, a contemporary movement initiated in Toronto, Canada that publicly challenged the mainstream sentiment that women are responsible for their own rape and victimization. Adopting an intersectional approach, I used textual analysis to discuss photographs posted on the official Chicago Slutwalk website to explore the ways this form of public bodied protest discursively engages women's empowerment from movement feminism as well as third wave and postfeminisms. I additionally analyzed the overall website and its promotional materials for the Slutwalk marches as well as how Chicago's photographic representations privilege the white female body as victim, demonstrating how the reclamation "slut" privileges whiteness. The website depictions normalize how one should react to a system of violence which provides negative implications for women and men who are situated in a postfeminist rape culture. Positioning my analysis within Communication/Cultural Studies and Women's and Gender studies, I contributed to the literature about rape culture and postfeminist activism through my analysis of Slutwalk. By employing intersectionality from feminist theory and textual analysis, I demonstrated how Slutwalk's promotion of bodied activism naturalized postfeminism and excludes Black women from participating.

Abstract This thesis analyzes lynching and segregation in the American South between the years 1877 and 1951. It argues that these crimes of physical and social violence constitute genocide against black Americans, according to the definitions of genocide proposed by Raphael Lemkin and then the later legal definition adopted by the United Nations. American law and prevailing white American social beliefs sanctioned these crimes. Lynching and segregation were used as tools of persecution intended to keep black people in their designated places in a racial hierarchy in the United States at this time period. These crimes were two of many coordinated actions designed to physically and mentally harm a group of people defined and targeted on grounds of race. These actions of mentally and physically harming members of the group do constitute genocide under both Lemkin's original concept of genocide and the United Nations' legal genocide definition. Studies of the black experience, although starting to gain some research popularity, are virtually absent from genocide historiography. This thesis aims to fill part of that void and contribute to the emerging studies of one of America's "hidden genocides."* * "Hidden genocides" is a term that Alexander Laban Hinton, Thomas La Pointe, and Douglas Irvin-Erickson have used to describe intentional destruction of groups in human history (genocide) that are often denied, dismissed or neglected in popular and scholarly discussions about genocide. [Alexander Laban Hinton, Thomas La Pointe, and Douglas Irvin-Erickson. Hidden Genocides: Power, Knowledge, Memory. New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 2014).

A descriptive analytical study was done of the influence of Federal government policies on the present economic and educational status of Indian Americans. Three Perspective views underlying government actions toward Indians were identified. The policy of extermination manifested itself in open conflict and the removal of Indian tribes to reservations. This segregation intensified Indian poverty and retarded educational development. The paternalism underlying the special wardship status of Indians created a sense of powerlessness in which Indians felt alienated from the decision-making process. Assimilation policies which were in essence Anglo-conformist policies were strongly followed in many government boarding schools. Anglo-conformity techniques in many cases led to a loss of self-esteem and cultural identity, and various types of social maladjustment became evident among Indians. Historically the policies which have shaped Indian educational and economic policies have been Anglo-directed. Certain social movements which are Indian-directed have arisen as a reaction to paternalism and assimilation. Tribalism and Pan-Indianism are two examples. The social movement which has most support among Indians and non-Indians is the move toward self-determination. Through self-determination Indians are seeking to establish greater respect for their culture and to increase belief in their competence to decide and direct economic and educational policy for themselves. Self-determination is compatible with cultural pluralism. Several schools and projects which have developed as a result of the self-determination movement are described and in part evaluated. Among these are schools at Rocky Boy and Ramah, The Rough Rock Demonstration School, the Navajo Community College, and the Institute of American Indian Arts, all of which are in New Yexico. Some industries which are financed and directed by reservation money and located on the reservations have been established in conjunction with this movement. The tribes which originated in the Southwest and which maintained an agricultural existence with social and religious institutions based on agriculture appear to have been less influenced by Anglo-conformist policies. These tribes have progressed far on the road to self-determination. One example is the Zunis who are independent and relatively autonomous. Tribalism and self-determination seem to be bringing about a renaissance of Indian culture and of cultural pluralism.

A comparative study was conducted of several variants of the Raven cycle of myths as manifested among the Tlingit Indians of the Northwest Coast. The results of this folkloristic study indicate that the myths serve several didactic functions. In addition to the manifest function of explaining the origin of the present order of the world the myths also serve to provide members of the society with a classificatory system through which they are able to relate to observable phenomena within their environment. The myths also provide institutionalized behavioral alternatives available to the society as manifested by the actions of Raven, the principal character in Tlingit mythology. In the role of Culture Hero, Raven's motives for his actions are altruistic, and in this context are to be emulated, while in the role of Trickster his motives are selfishness and greed and because they are ultimately destructive to society, are not to be condoned.

This work traces the relationship of Jews to African-Americans in the process of Jews attaining whiteness in the 20th century. Specific attention is paid to blackface performance in The Jazz Singer and the process of identification with suffering. Theoretically this work brings together psychoanalytic theories of projection, repression and masochism with afro-pessimist notions of the libidinal economy of white supremacy. Ultimately, I argue that in its enjoyment and its masochism, The Jazz Singer empathizes with blackness both as a way to assimilate into white America and express doubt at this very act.

This study focused on the continued mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino students in an urban elementary school. An illustrative case study design was used to examine the teachers' perception of factors contributing to this gap in mathematical performance, and what instructional math strategies can narrow the achievement gap. Socioconstructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy were the learning theories used to form the conceptual framework in this study. Qualitative data were obtained from 6 individual interviews with 4th grade math educators, classroom observations, and teacher artifacts. Data analysis in this study included data triangulation and coding, as well as identification of common themes as an important analytical approach to enhance the credibility of this study. Methods for minimizing bias and error included peer debriefing and member-checking, which consisted of obtaining feedback from participants to ensure the trustworthiness of findings. The key results of this study indicated that teachers perceived that 4th grade African American students often lacked basic skills and background knowledge for their school grade. Based upon the findings, the outcome was a plan for professional development training to help teachers gain knowledge on how to incorporate cultural relevant pedagogy, through strategies that include differentiating learning instructions and mastery learning into their classrooms, to narrow the mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino 4th grade students. Implications for positive social change from this study include providing teachers with research-based strategies targeted toward narrowing the mathematical achievement gap between 4th grade African American and Latino students at the local and district site.

What role did identification play in the motives, processes, and products of select post-colonial authors who "wrote back" to William Shakespeare and colonialism? How did post-colonial counter-discursive metatheatre function to make select post-colonial adaptations creative and critical texts? In answer to these questions, this dissertation proposes that counter-discursive metatheatre resituates post-colonial plays as criticism of Shakespeare's plays. As particular post-colonial authors identify with marginalized Shakespearean characters and aim to amplify their conflicts from the perspective of a dominated culture, they interpret themes of race, gender, and colonialism in Othello (1604), Antony and Cleopatra (1608), and The Tempest (1611) as explicit problems. This dissertation combines post-colonial theory and other literary theory, particularly by Kenneth Burke, to propose a rhetoric of motives for post-colonial authors who "write back" to Shakespeare through the use of counter-discursive metatheatre. This dissertation, therefore, describes and analyzes how and why the plays of Murray Carlin, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott function both creatively and critically, adapting Shakespeare's plays, and foregrounding post-colonial criticism of his plays. Chapter One analyzes Murray Carlin's motivations for adapting Othello and using the framing narrative of Not Now, Sweet Desdemona (1967) to explicitly critique the conflicts of race, gender, and colonialism in Othello. Chapter Two treats why and how Aimé Césaire adapts The Tempest in 1969, illustrating his explicit critique of Prospero and Caliban as the colonizer and the colonized, exposing Prospero's insistence on controlling the sexuality of his subjects, and, therefore, arguing that race, gender, and colonialism operate concomitantly in the play. Chapter Three analyzes A Branch of the Blue Nile (1983) as both a critique and an adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra, demonstrating how Walcott's framing narrative critiques the notion of a universal "Cleopatra," even one of an "infinite variety," and also evaluates Antony as a character who is marginalized by his Roman culture. The conclusion of this dissertation avers that in "writing back" to Shakespeare, these authors foreground and reframe post-colonial criticism, successfully dismantling the colonial structures that have kept their interpretations, and the subjects of their interpretations, marginalized.

This project honors and recognizes the art and activism of four Black woman--Nina Simone, Nikki Giovanni, Elizabeth Catlett, and Ntozake Shange that contributed to the revolutionary movements of the 1960s through the early 1980s. This thesis examines the works and political challenges of Black women by asking what elements in their artistry/activism addressed issues specifically related to Black women's unique position in America during the Black Revolution and feminist movements? Both primary and secondary sources such as literature from advocates of the Black Arts Movements and the lyrics, poetry, and visual art of the four Black women artists were used to gain perspectives to answer the thesis major questions. The creative visions and activism of these Black women expressed the dire need for the issues of Black women to be heard and also to address all forms of oppression that Black women experience with race, gender, social or economic status, and even cultural identity. The works of these Black women were radical and were also cultural reflections of Black women embracing their idiosyncratic position as Black women despite the climate of perpetual deceptions used either by White Western ideologies or Black male chauvinism. This thesis concluded that when the concerns of Black women are attended to by their own strengths of character and merits, they are also able in return to contribute to their own self-empowerment as well as to the development of racial, gender, and community uplift.

在後殖民主義的觀點下，一部「描寫異域」的文學作品，已不再被視為是對殖民地的「寫真」或忠實表現，而是被「解碼」成一種殖民暴力的再現和想像。本論文採取「對位閱讀」(contrapuntal reading)策略，探討《黑暗之心》這部小說對歐洲文明的批判。本論文的基本觀點是：通過一種「暴力再現」，對他者的論述將導致一種「自我認識」和「自我彰顯」的行動，這種自我理解的行動，是通過以「對他者的暴力否定」為工具而獲得表現的。在西方本體論與形上論的約制架構下，「異文化」的形塑是根據歐洲定做的真理和本質來拼湊的，而不是根據歷史的真實。 《黑暗之心》是一部以非洲剛果為目的地的探險故事，但其內容卻並未觸及非洲的文化與社會。做為一部探險文學，《黑暗之心》是一部「歐洲觀點」的探險，一種固著於種族和帝國的殖民想像。對故事中的主角馬羅和克茲而言，「非洲」不是一個導致歐洲文明崩解的強硬體系，而是一種歐洲與非洲之間「權力滿載」的約定，使得「歐洲式的縱欲」成為現實。 本文第一章討論馬羅「邊界論述」的曖昧性：對非洲的負面呈現夾雜著對帝國主義的軟弱批判。馬羅對殖民主義的雙重態度，正是《黑暗之心》的立足點：在揭發帝國主義意識形態卑鄙野心的同時，又通過澄清和辯証帝國主義理想模式，鞏固了帝國主義的典型。第二、三章從「後殖民理論」探討「他者再現」的文本權力觀：通過將第三世界化約成西方道德形上學的範疇，西方得以塑造和管制異己的世界，進而再次議定和確認西方世界的優越性。第三章則分析表現在馬羅「猶豫敘事」的風格下，一個「異族」歷史和語言所遭到的凐沒。第四章以自種女性和克茲的非洲女僕為對照，討論《黑暗之心》的女性角色。 本文的結論是，非洲只是一面鏡子，它折射出歐洲人最原始的感官。對他者的塑造就是對自我的確證，異域的前往是一種中心的回返。對歐洲文明的曖昧批判和對他者的「暴力再現」，構成了《黑暗之心》對一個消逝中的歐洲主體的最後眷念。 / From the perspective of Post-colonial theory, a literary work depicting alien territories is no longer considered as truthful portrayals but is decoded as a violence of representation in Western imagination. This thesis employs a “contrapuntal reading”to explore Marlow's vacillations in his critique of European civilization. In Marlow's vacillations between corrupted and ideal imperialism, a concrete world of the other hemisphere is rendered silent and invisible in Marlow's narrative. The Africa and Africans are invisible in that they are transformed into a negative and abstract category which contributes to Marlow's moral and metaphysical meditations. Through a negative representation of the Africa as an alien other which holds the wicked power the Europe does not possess, Marlow achieves his self-revelation and maintains his European identity. Africa is relegated to a category opposite to the West and is deprived of any concrete reality of history and language. Africans are reduced to function as a negative mirror which reflects the primitive psyche of the European self. The first chapter explicates the ambiguities of Marlow's narrative which is located in a border terrain, a tension between his disclosure of a ferocious imperialism and his ineffectiveness to criticize. Marlow takes an ambiguous stance to imperialism; he offers contradictory versions of imperialism: one a harsh denunciation of imperialist exploitation, the other a reluctant endorsement of imperialist civilization. The effect of his vacillations is his appeal to cultural and racial solidarity. The second and the third chapters examine the fiction from the viewpoints of post-colonial theories as formulated by Edward Said. The purpose of these two chapters is to unveil extreme subjugation of history and language in the racial Other deployed among Marlow's reflective narration of vacillations and hesitations. Chapter four discusses the function of female characters as a negative trope in the fiction. Both white women (the Intended and Marlow's aunt) and the native women (Kurtz's African mistress) occupy marginal yet essential parts in Marlow's narrative. The conclusion is that Heart of Darkness participates in the very ideology the fiction attempts to expose and destroy. Despite Marlow's effort to step outside the circle of imperialistic premises and to expose their fallacy, ther are still blind spots to the most acute and sardonic critic's perception.

<p>Intercultural communication (ICC) is one of the most relevant fields for investigation in post-colonial Africa and post-apartheid South Africa, given the movements between people from African countries and the wide range of attractions, both economic and social, that South Africa holds for people from other African countries. This study reports on intercultural communication in post-democratic South Africa in an era marked by what Appadurai (1990) calls &lsquo / flows&rsquo / . Greenmarket Square in the heart of Cape Town, well known as a hub for informal traders, local people and tourists, was chosen as the site for this study, because of the rich cultural diversity of the role-players. The principal aim of this research is to examine how people from different cultural backgrounds in this particular space of Greenmarket Square communicate with one another, and where the &lsquo / intercultural fault-lines&rsquo / (Olahan, 2000) occur, keeping in mind how ICC could be improved in such a space. My position as a trader in the market placed me in an ideal &lsquo / insider&rsquo / position to do the research. The theory of spatiality (Vigouroux, 2005 / Blommaert et al. 2005) was used to show how the space of Greenmarket Square affected intercultural communication. Discourse analysis was also applied to the data to show how the various roleplayers were socially constructed by others. Saville-Troike&rsquo / s (1989) ethnography of communicative events was also used to bring out other barriers that were not identified by spatiality and discourse analysis. Aspects like scene, key, message form and content, the observed rules for interaction and where these rules were broken and to what effect as well as the norms for interpretation were considered during the analysis of this qualitative data. The analysis showed that spatiality, social constructions of &lsquo / the other&rsquo / and other factors like nonverbal communication and differences between communicative styles in high and low context cultures (LCC/HCC), had a major impact on intercultural communication at Greenmarket Square, frequently leading to complete breakdowns in communication. Many of the traders interviewed acknowledged that they needed to improve their competence in intercultural communication. The study concludes with a number of recommendations on how people can become more &ldquo / interculturally competent&rdquo / (Katan, 2004) in a globalized world.</p>