1 |
Educating to Change the World: John Dewey, Jane Addams, and W.E.B. Du Bois in Turn-of-the-Century AmericaLummis, Katherine January 2004 (has links)
Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. Lyerly / This study is based on the premise that navigating boundaries of the self is a historical, ideological process. Up until the turn of the century, categories of race, class, and gender were seen as fixed constructions that grounded individual selves within non-negotiable spheres. The advent of modernity, however, witnessed a number of political, economic, and social changes. Reformers in the early 1900s were thus able to renegotiate the structures of American public life, using education as their primary means. By combining accepted, unifying, pragmatic principles with more radical ideas of social revolution, John Dewey, Jane Addams, and W.E.B. Du Bois were able to rethink class, gender, and race and thereby attempt to mold anew the identity of the American public. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.
|
2 |
Political contradictions : discussions of virtue in American lifeLaVally, Rebecca 26 January 2011 (has links)
This dissertation asserts that American political culture faces a crisis of virtue and explores the role of citizens, journalists and politicians in fostering it. The historic election of Barack Obama on a platform of hope and change in 2008 suggests that Americans yearn for an infusion of virtue into political life. I assert, however, that we have lacked a lexicon of political virtue, or any systematic understanding of which virtues we value and which matter most to us. Nor have we understood whether groups who constitute key elements of our democracy—citizens, journalists, politicians, men and women, Democrats and Republicans—value virtues in politics similarly or differently. Without a working knowledge of the anatomy of virtue in the body politic, what is to prevent us from having to change again? By charting the virtue systems of these key groups, I have made explicit what is implicit to reveal that political virtue is more valued—and more present—than Americans likely realize. This exploration, I believe, contributes to the scholarship of political communication by enabling a fuller and more useful understanding of American political culture—and of the contradictions, curiosities, and surprises that enrich it. / text
|
Page generated in 0.0543 seconds