Fantasy sports are the latest addition to the sports industry. Fantasy sports (FS) participants compete against one another by using players from the “real” world to create a virtual team. FS simulates the structures of the real sporting world. The most popular FS is football, due to the success of the National Football League (NFL) (World Fantasy Games, 2009). Black males represent a vast majority of the athletes in the NFL and are often bought and sold by white participants who represent a critical mass of FS players. The purpose of this dissertation is to read fantasy football participation and consider the un/conscious commodification, fetishization of black masculinity, which is used for cultural transmission. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) to analyze interdisciplinary literature enhances the discourse surrounding the intersectionalties of race, gender, sexuality, and sport. Critically reading FS, employing bricolage has made it possible to pragmatically analyze FS. I argue race is central to the acquisition, maintenance, and exposition of power that is paramount in sport, and evidenced within FS. The paradox of allowing the masses of white sport consumers to exercise virtual control over black bodies via FS is that it reveals cultural dogma of racialized masculinity with psychosocial links to fetish.

A review of literature has revealed a dearth of research on leisure swimming patterns of Black females. Black youth, both male and female, have a higher rate of drowning than any other racial/ethnic group in the United States (“Water‐related injuries: Fact sheet”, 2005). Two known studies produced by (Irwin et al., 2009; 2010) examining hair as a constraint to swimming for African American youth produced conflicting results. In order to comprehensively examine hair as a constraint to African American female participation in swimming, the current study adopted a qualitative approach which allowed exploration of the cultural background and experiences of the participants enrolled in a required swimming class at Yates University (this is a pseudonym used throughout this research). The following research questions guided the study (a) How does hair influence swimming participation choices of Black females and (b) What is the self-reported degree of difficulty in the constraints negotiation process for Black females who do swim? The major finding is that hair acts as a constraint to swimming for participants of this study, but participants offered ways of negotiating this constraint to still be active participants in swimming.

During the 1890s, a series of extra-legal and illegal activities known as "whitecapping" occurred in Sevier County, Tennessee. While the early episodes were based on traditional responses to deviant behavior in rural communities, whitecapping reflected the loss of community within the county. This study examines the relationship of whitecapping and community in Sevier County and how it changed during the 1890s. The several, often contradictory, social conditions which affected the life of every Sevier Countian are also examined to show the decline of community consensus during this period. Finally, the events galavanizing public opinion against the whitecaps are analyzed to understand their enduring effect on community in Sevier County.

Music is everywhere. From formal occasions to a person’s morning run. Music is available on cell phones, computers, in religious ceremonies, at concerts and venues. Music is seen by society to be important and a person’s choice of music can be used to present an identity. The question considered in this article is how people talk about music and how they present identity through their discussion. The current study examines eight focus groups of three actors instructed to simply talk about music. The discussions were recorded and analyzed in a conversation analytic style to identify the structures of the conversations and how these were used to present and regulate identity. Participants also provided background information about their music preferences and experiences as well as their goals in managing their self-presentation. The results of the study focus on the general question of “What kind of music do you listen to?” and how participants managed their answers. Particular attention is given to actors’ management of opportunities to create an in-group identification and avoid inference rich categorization. This study focuses primarily upon different ways this can be managed. Examples include three part list use, storytelling, subgenre specifications, and the use of phrases like “I listen to all kinds of music.” It is argued that these devices can be used by an actor to present themselves as a member of the current in-group while avoiding being categorized in a possibly negative way based on their music choices.

In this piece of literature, storytelling is used as a method towards understanding, knowing, and validating the experience of the “other”, in this case Mexican immigrants of all shapes and colors, sexual preferences, and diverse socioeconomic standing. I would like to shift the discourse from their potential as socioeconomic assets towards a recognition of their essence as participating members of our community. Immigrants are artists, they are intellectuals, they are leaders. They are simply not given the space in American society to develop their potential without being chained down to the “immigrant” label. I would like to stress the recognition of fluidity and diversity within this marginalized group, in the sense that to assume a homogeneous experience for this population aggravates the gap of understanding, tolerance, acceptance, and celebration of this rich community. Hegemonic forces have kept immigrants in the shadows, blinded, and hidden from the rest of society. My ultimate goal is to promote an idea of fearless engagement in active, undisciplined, self-determined embracement of the hybrid culture that remains buried under layers of socially constructed self-disciplining forces of domination.

The following study examines gendered learning experiences of a population of Appalachian migrants surveyed from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The respondents who participated in the survey used for this study began their lives in Appalachia. These respondents then left Appalachia for various other areas in the country and even around the world only to ultimately return to the mountainous region later in their lives. To begin, theory will be introduced concerning the stratification of gender in the Appalachian economic landscape, as well as a theoretical framework placing Appalachian women in an interlocking web of oppression with other subjugated cultural groups. This outsider kinship found among Appalachian women and other socially ostracized groups, I argue with the support of theory, will foster an atmosphere of tolerance and positive interaction among Appalachian females and the people they meet in their new homes. Literature will also be presented regarding the heavily skewed nature of the role of women versus men in Appalachian society and economy. Using logistic regression, various aspects of migrant experiences away from Appalachia will be examined and analyzed, including the acquisition of job skills, tolerance-based knowledge, and positive interactions with neighbors in their new environment.

In-depth interviews were conducted with African-American female college students ranging from freshmen to graduate level. Students were asked about their dating preferences for African-American men. The study investigated how physical appearance, trust, and attitudes about interracial relationships affected their dating selection. Symbolic interactionism and dramatugry were the theories used within this study. This study found evidence that supports existing literature on attitudes of distrust among African-American females toward African-American males, with lying, physical aggression, and cheating as top reasons. Distrust based on the females' viewpoints began with listening to warnings from their mothers about men's behavior. This study, however, found that dating preferences among females interviewed did not recognize physical appearance, such as light or dark skin preference and body-frame preference, as a significant factor for date selection. This finding is in contrast to existing literature. Attitude differences between young African-American female college students and the older African-American female college students were found. Freshmen and sophomores related more of listening to social-group attitudes on dating preferences whereas junior, senior, and graduate- level females relied on individual decision making on dating selection. Supporting the current existing literature on attitudes about interracial relationships, the majority of the women interviewed had negative attitudes toward interracial relationships.

This dissertation explores the social patterns and cultural layers of musical "open mics" in New York City. The study uses a qualitative approach which includes methods such as ethnography, in-depth interviewing, historical and discourse analyses focusing on open mics and the popular musicians who attend and perform them. Open mics, short for "open microphones," are public events that allow musicians to perform songs without a pre-planned, formal booking with a club or venue. Owing a historical and discursive connection to the folk hootenannies and jazz jam sessions of the past, these events have proliferated and spread considerably across the United States since the 1990s since their development, by name, in the late 1970s. Open mics not only reflect a do-it-yourself and participatory cultural ethos manifested with other recent expressive cultural activities, but also demonstrate a growing interstitial "musical third place" residing between private practicing and public performance. Musical open mics as musical third places provide musicians and singer/songwriters to network with other musicians, practice new musical compositions and play when other performance opportunities are not readily available. It provides a means for musicians to "hone their craft" in terms of performance methods and also construct musical identities in the almost exclusive company of other working singer/songwriters. This "backstage region" is thus framed and keyed by the musicians onto a continuum between two theoretical poles: performance practicing and practicing performance. Performance practicing as defined in this study frames a more performance-oriented display for musicians in locations called "closed open mics" or COMs. These settings, also residing on a theoretical continuum are socially more exclusive in terms of performance types, the aesthetic careers of the performers, the genres represented and the sociological makeup of the setting participants in general. OOMs or "open open mics," on the other hand, usually have a more fluid, diverse sociological composition of musical performers, performance types, and musical genres played and represented in these mainly weekly events. Closed open mics align into more homogeneous, isomorphic settings comprising "local open mic scenes" and open open mics remain more heterogeneous, socially inclusive, and unsettled as "pre-scenes."

During the 1890s, a series of extra-legal and illegal activities known as "whitecapping" occurred in Sevier County, Tennessee. While the early episodes were based on traditional responses to deviant behavior in rural communities, whitecapping reflected the loss of community within the county. This study examines the relationship of whitecapping and community in Sevier County and how it changed during the 1890s. The several, often contradictory, social conditions which affected the life of every Sevier Countian are also examined to show the decline of community consensus during this period. Finally, the events galavanizing public opinion against the whitecaps are analyzed to understand their enduring effect on community in Sevier County.

This thesis is an exploratory examination of the social characteristics of 139 poets featured in a selection of five small press Canadian literary journals. The investigation charts and analyzes the demographics of 64 poets who were published in 1967, and 75 poets who were published in four small press literary magazines in 2010. The 2010 magazines were purposely sampled as representatives of specific geographical areas in Canada (i.e., the West Coast, the Prairies, Central Canada, and the East Coast). The results indicate that in 1967 female poets were less likely to be published; however, 43 years later, this bias has been rectified. Another notable difference between the two groups of poets is that in 1967 ethnic minorities were more likely to be published. Educational achievement was an important factor for both the 1967 and 2010 poets, as was location, occupation and editorial duties. / Graduate