Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted.

For years Black women’s subjectivity in the use of their bodies and movements has been overshadowed or completely erased by dominant hegemonic systems that created its own narrative of Black women, their bodies, and their movement. This thesis works to acknowledge and analyze the dialogic relationship among the narratives of Black women, Black women’s performances of their “theories of the flesh” through dance as well as their everyday activities, and the race, gender, and class conditions that inform said “theories of the flesh.” During football season, everyone in the African-American community of Jackson, Mississippi is looking at and talking about the dance company, the Prancing JSettes. There are audience members who critique their movements and costumes and there are those who view the group as a vital part of the community. Either way every audience member is captivated by the J-Settes because their cultural history is depicted by the women’s performance. How does this work? How is the Prancing J-Sette image constructed and by whom, and why and how does it persist? These are the questions I ask to examine the gender, class, and racial relations that are inscribed upon the movements of Black women in the African Diaspora. For a group whose African ancestors viewed dance as very spiritual, with such activities as the ring shout, it is interesting to note the ambivalence that surrounds the public dancing body in Jackson, Mississippi. While some Jacksonians view the female body in the public sphere with a Protestant Christian lens, they also enjoy the Africana aesthetics and aggressive energy of the J-Settes’ performances. Also, while the J-Settes buck their society’s hegemonic system of propriety, they also comply with some of these standards in their performance. I examine this ambivalence through the discourses of critical race theory, Black feminism, the social significance of African Diaspora dance conventions and HBCUs, and the classed, racial, and gendered power relations in the African Diaspora. I argue that the stories about the Prancing J-Settes can be expanded to present a genealogy and present state of contradictory values and issues of visibility affecting all Black women.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-293). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.M.) Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Frank Gunderson, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 5-14-2007). Document formatted into pages; contains 195 pages. Includes biographical sketch. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is titled Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears. It consists of an original play of the same name based upon the life-story of the author’s paternal grandmother and an accompanying essay titled “Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears: Visibility, Invisibility, Roots and Liminality in the African Diaspora.” The play falls under the following theatrical categories: African Diaspora drama, black theatre, western Canadian black theatre, realism, the memory play and to some extent, contemporary existentialism. The essay is a discussion by the author regarding the dramatic, social and political context of the play. The following themes are highlighted: history — pertaining to a collective black history and individual histories and (her)stories, regarding and respecting ones’ elders as a link to history and Africa, and notions of commonality and difference within the African Diaspora with attention paid to myths and narratives about what it means to be ‘dark-skinned’ or ‘light-skinned’ in various black communities around the world. The methods of investigation were: a study of the drama and literature of the African Diaspora, the dramatic literature of other post-colonial societies and marginalized groups, one-on-one interviews with Rose Landers, whose experiences are represented by Carrie, the main character in Lost Lesotho Princess/Landlord Ears and field research at JazzArt - a dance-theatre company in Cape Town, South Africa. The view-point the play lends itself to and the conclusions drawn by the essay are: that black people and black communities need agency and healing, that being of mixed race does not have to equal psychological confusion and that mixed communities, families and cultures have been and will continue to be relevant to the universal black experience and the artistic representation of the African Diaspora. The importance of writing as a form of healing, resolution and revolution for members of the African Diaspora and the importance of authorship of ones’ own history is highlighted. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

This report is an assessment of archaeological research conducted on sites related to African American history that have been examined within the state of Texas. The research conducted had four broad research goals. The first goal was to understand the nature of African American archaeology in Texas. The second goal was to compare African American archaeology as practiced in the state of Texas to that of the wider discipline of African American archaeology as practiced within academia. The third goal was to integrate data of historic sites that have an African American component to assess sites within the state that hold archaeological promise. Finally, the fourth goal was to compare and contrast between the common types of historic and archaeological sites related to the life and history of Black Texans in order to assess gaps in the archaeological understanding of African American life and history. / text

During eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the suburbs of southwest Houston, Texas I examined the ways in which White upper class students, teachers, administrators, and parents think about race. As a result of exploring racial language, racial discourse, and racial texts in two US history textbooks, classroom lectures and activities, students' conversations and interviews, and local parents' political organizing, I explored the ways in which White people often think about, construct, and employ race. More specifically I learned the ways in which the White elite residents of this particular suburb know race. I am calling their way of knowing race a "White epistemology of race." I demonstrate how this White epistemology of race has informed, shaped, and guided this particular White community's attitudes toward their own education and residential resources as well as the education and residential resources of their Black and Brown intra-district peers. This dissertation aims to theorize the White epistemology of race and show it to be the unyielding source of a White "redemptive" ideology that is supported and created by the deployment of certain racialized discourses that insist and depend upon representations of Black cultural pathology. / text