American Culture Research Articles

Following western conceptions of masculinity: homohysteria and transgressive bodies in a masculine Turkish environment

ABSTRACT This article uses qualitative interview data derived from 18 Turkish gay males who exist within in a traditionally masculine space in order to examine for a social movement pattern based in relation to the Western context. In examining the entanglement of homophobia with cisgender masculine social hierarchies it suggests similarity between current Turkish culture and historical American culture: that the antecedent of homophobia facilitates an approximate social process of hierarchy-making that privileges heterosexuality and cisgender bodies while stigmatising femininity and queer bodies. Results also show limited signs of resistance, with a differing embodiment of hypertrophic bodies, and cautious optimism with aspirations of liberation through adopted western identity politics.

Analysis of the Transmutation of Chinese Archetypes in The Woman Warrior

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior is a rich tapestry of Chinese literary archetypes interwoven with the fabric of American culture, reflecting the complex identity of Chinese Americans. The use of archetypal figures such as Hua Mulan and Yue Fei serves multiple purposes: they represent the struggle against racial discrimination, embody the resistance to cultural invasion, and symbolize the quest for a unique ethnic voice within the immigrant experience. The article will explore the major Chinese archetypes in The Woman Warrior and the reasons why these archetypes undergo transformation and change.

Empowering African‐American museums: The vital role of black museum anthropologists in grantmaking

AbstractMany African American museums face financial constraints and need resources to preserve their collections, create exhibits, and offer educational programs. Grant funding is crucial for the sustainability of these museums. Black anthropologists are essential in grant writing because they provide their extensive knowledge of African American history and culture to help museums develop compelling narratives that resonate with grant funders. Additionally, Black anthropologists are needed as reviewers of grant proposals. By leveraging their unique insights from professional training and personal experiences, Black anthropologists can champion the cause of these museums in the grant‐making process. Their expertise allows them to assess proposals from a culturally sensitive perspective, considering the unique needs, goals, and challenges African American museums face. This essay highlights the significant contributions of Black anthropologists who have advocated for and strengthened grant applications from African American museums, ensuring that they align with the mission and vision of the grant‐making institutions. By helping African American museums secure grant support, Black anthropologists also convey the significance and value of other African American museums.

Confrontation between Liberals and Radicals in Amy Waldman’s The Submission

The paper explores the repercussions of 9/11 in the diversity of the United States of America as portrayed in Amy Waldman’s The Submission published in the aftermath of 9/11 based on the cultural conflicts inherent in American culture. I unfold the problems the minority Muslims experience because of the 9/11 attacks on the US. The implications of the attacks on the intercultural relations of the minorities with the majority community reveal that the prevailing biases against Muslims and Islam as depicted in the text become obstacles to cultural harmony and integrity in American culture. The setbacks Muslims face in the aftermath of 9/11 make the principle of multiculturalism questionable. The paper has investigated into the cultural variables including traditions, behaviors, beliefs and practices of the respective ethnicities particularly American and Muslim in the United States. Such factors have influenced the opinions of both common Americans and the authorities to deal with the people having differences in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Consequently, the liberals including Mo Khan and Claire from both American culture and Muslim minority are forced to suffer the backlash.

Shifting the gaze from racism to healing from racism: A systematic review of selected psychology journals from 1992 to 2022.

Using a decolonial approach, we provided a narrative review of the research on racism in psychology and conducted a systematic review of the top five psychology journals publishing research on racism and mental health to identify trends in racism research over time and the research gaps. We examined 372 articles on racism published between 1992 and 2022: American Psychologist, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Counseling Psychology, and The Counseling Psychologist. Based on our review, we found that published research examining racism has steadily increased over the past 3 decades, with the greatest spikes in 2021 and 2022. The largest increase was in studies focused on People of Color's experiences with racism. The overwhelming majority of the articles were empirical (86.3%) and most of these studies (87.5%) employed cross-sectional designs. We identified corollary topics by racial/ethnic group, prevalent research designs, and the emergence of strength-based and healing approaches to address racism's impact. There were general racial and ethnic differences in trends, with research on various People of Color groups focused on the harmful effects of racism and research on White populations focused on Whiteness and level of awareness of racism. We conclude with recommendations to enhance the content and methodological rigor of future research while also suggesting policy implications to support advancements in this critical area of study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Uncertain Blackness: The Mysterious Case of Joseph Stadler

Abstract Historians have identified George Coleman Poage as the first African American Olympian. Poage won two bronze medals in the hurdles at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. In that same year, the name of another potential Black Olympian, Joseph Stadler, appeared briefly in a few newspaper stories previewing the games. Stadler clearly competed in St. Louis, winning a silver medal and bronze medal in the now-archaic forms of standing jumps. Whether he should join Poage on the roster of pioneering African American Olympians, however, remains a mystery among Olympic researchers—as does his racial identity. Analyzing the historical record regarding these claims and employing new information from census data and other public records reveals that Stadler was most likely white. His “misidentification,” however, reveals more than just a trivial episode about an inaccurate reading of racial identity from limited sources. The long history of narratives about Joseph Stadler's identity reveals important patterns about the social construction of race, illuminates the complexities of more than a century of seeking to depict the Olympics as a fulcrum of racial progress in American culture, and showcases the dangers of attempting to read “race” from historic photographs.

“The American Dream” in Norman Mailer's novel and travelogue “O'key, an American Novel” by B. Pilnyak: Shattered Illusions and Rethought Dreams

The concept of "dreams" as the core of American literature is recognized by most literary critics. The affirmation and apologetics of the "American dream", which is associated with the traditions of critical realism, remains the subject of discussion by both foreign and Russian researchers. Literary studies of the concept of the "American dream" encourage us to critically analyze the beliefs, experiences and aspirations underlying it, as well as its broader implications for society. The subject of this article is the concept of the "American dream", analyzed on the basis of Norman Mailer's novel "The American Dream" and the travelogue “O'key, an American Novel” by Boris Pilnyak. Using descriptive, hermeneutical, comparative, historical-literary and historical-cultural methods, the author examines the details of this concept that were not affected in previously published scientific works. The sources and prerequisites for the emergence of the phenomenon of the “American dream” in American literature are presented and its complex quintessences presented in the works of Mailer and Pilniak through the prism of different cultural contexts are revealed. The study showed that the failure of the American Dream project leads to its restructuring, which confirms its self-stabilizing nature and fundamental role in the process of personal self-determination of the character. Mailer, deeply rooted in American culture, criticizes the American dream from the inside, emphasizing individualism, social pressure and the pursuit of success. On the contrary, Pilniak offers us a different view of the "American dream". This is the view of a Soviet writer who emphasizes the relationship of the American dream with capitalism, democracy and social transformation. Conclusions. Despite the revealed differences in views, both authors encourage readers to take a critical look at the promises and pitfalls of the American dream, enriching our understanding of its universal appeal and enduring relevance.

Materializing the public sphere in American religious history

AbstractThis article reviews scholarship in American religious history around the concept of the public sphere. Considering that the public sphere was readily aligned with the productions of the printing press, ‘materializing’ surveys works that have relied upon, expanded, and critiqued print's centraility to early American religious public culture. Recent attention to materiality has also encouraged greater attention to contingencies, locality of circulation, and specificity of audiences in our studies of public texts that would trouble technological determinisms that readily aligned Protestant ascendance, secular modernity, and print publishing with democratization. The essay concludes with new questions regarding print culture, calls for greater multimedia approaches to our study of media objects, and posits the importance of critically evaluating what we count as public or private in our historical narratives about religious communities.

Study of the Presentation of Cultural Elements in the PEP English Textbooks for Junior Middle Schools

With the increasing impact of globalization, the cultivation of cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication skills has become more and more important in English teaching. Textbooks play a crucial role as materials and carriers for English teaching. The way in which Chinese and foreign cultural elements are distributed and presented in textbooks can significantly affect students' learning of cultural knowledge and the development of their cultural awareness. To enhance students' cultural awareness, this study analyzed the cultural elements in PEP English textbook for junior high schools. The statistical results indicate that this textbook predominantly features Chinese culture, followed by British and American cultures, with non-target language cultures being the least presented. The presentation of cultures is primary through pictures and texts. The distribution of cultural elements is not balanced, and there is less cultural knowledge in the first book of the seventh grade. To address this issue, it is suggested that textbook writers should pay attention to the presentation of non-target language cultures, innovate the forms of cultural presentation, and distribute cultural knowledge. Teachers should strive to enhance their cultural literacy, deeply explore cultural elements, innovate cultural teaching methods and enhance students' cultural confidence. The aim is to deal with the cultural knowledge in the teaching materials scientifically and further develop students' cultural awareness.

The Rave Panic

This thesis examines the "Rave Panic": a moral panic surrounding rave culture during the 1990s and early 2000s. It argues that, while the backlash against rave culture was not solely due to the use of so-called “club drugs,” War on Drugs rhetoric, fiercely promulgated in the decades prior, fostered a political environment in which the novelty of both the rave scene and Ecstasy were seen as a threat to American youth culture, fueling a massive social and political uproar. In addition, this thesis examines how electronic music ultimately survived the Rave Panic, becoming the global phenomenon that it is today. With the recent discussion of drug use shifting toward the importance of rehabilitation and harm reduction, as well as the increasing legalization of drugs such as marijuana and psylocibin across the country, the War on Drugs now seems to have lost its luster. This thesis argues that the Rave Panic represented one of the last gasps of the drug war, and, largely due to shifting social attitudes toward drug use, the electronic music community ultimately survived. The American rave scene contracted significantly following the passage of anti-rave federal legislation, however, the popularization of European electronic music, combined with the widespread shift in thinking about drug use, allowed its resurgence during the early 2010s. For the full text, please visit https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/736666315.

Enchanted Backburner: Channeling Taylor Swift and Niki on Cegil Identity

This study chooses a transnational perspective to understand the practice of American culture in Indonesia. As this study discussed identity formed in social media and involved popular music singers, the theories applied in this study are the theories of identity, youth culture, new media, and popular music from the popular culture approach. In examining this study, the content analysis method was applied. After reviewing primary and secondary sources and find suppported theories for the data, it is find that the cegil identity is channeled through Taylor Swift and NIKI’s musicality due to the interconnection of youth culture and new media in treating popular music. The star and stardom of Swift and NIKI influence people's perspectives on their songs. The cegil community likes their lyricism in descriptive, imaginative, and poetic songs. Global access and media allow Spotify and X as the mediums to communicate and participate for cegil to express their feelings. They were also the place where the cegil term was coined. The last factor is a youth culture that treats music as the soundtrack of life and hence sees songs as a medium to express themselves.

American Fashion Influence in Japanese Imagination: A Study of Semiotic on Furudate’s Haikyuu!!

This research discusses the influence of American culture in Japan on Haruichi Furudate's Haikyuu!! manga. The manga was published in 2012 and ended in 2020 with 45 volumes. In the context of American influence, more precisely in the field of sports, one of them is adopted as the theme of the Haikyuu!! manga, which is volleyball. This manga tells the journey and struggle of the main character, Hinata Shoyo, to become a professional volleyball athlete. But as it turns out, apart from the volleyball sport introduced by America, there are other aspects that are also American influences. By using Transnational American Studies, this research found the influence of American culture by the characters in the Haikyuu!! manga. The influence of American culture in this research is specific to the cultural aspect, fashion, which is then examined using the semiotics of Roland Barthes. From the analysis, it was found that there is some American fashion used by some characters in Haikyuu!! manga, leather jacket and denim.

Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath, By Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones BrownConvicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture, By Janiece Johnson

<i>Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath</i>, By Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown<i>Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture</i>, By Janiece Johnson

The Dark Side of Branding: Language and the Real in Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt (2006)

The protagonist, an unnamed African American nomenclature consultant, has been a victim of his own trade: his stroke of genius, the name and advertising slogan for a band-aid that fits the many skin tones of multicultural America, “Apex Hides the Hurt”, has ironically cost him an infected toe that he merely covered with the adhesive bandage instead of having it treated. When he is asked to arbitrate the rebranding of the town of Winthrop, the ad man faces both an onomastic and an existential challenge.This paper draws on specific aspects of the philosophy of language to discuss the motivation of signs in relation to naming strategies and analyzes the performatives, performances, and diverse conditions of felicity that naming implies. The former is indebted in part to the legacy of Plato’s Cratylus and branding manuals—strange bedfellows; the latter draws from J. L. Austin’s speech act theory, as revisited by Barbara Cassin and Judith Butler. In both conceptions the real comes to dwell in language, either as a determining factor or as a product of a world-shaping activity. Since Apex is a fiction of naming, it provides an imaginary “actual” context for this verbal act. It can also describe the failed encounters between language and the real, the attempts at euphemizing or repressing reality, as well as the shattering irruptions of the real within discourse. As a satire of corporate culture and its bearing on “race”, it also generates an interface with the reality of contemporary American culture.

Эволюция образа предпринимателя в автобиографическом романе Дж. Белфорта «Волк с Уолл-стрит»

The aim of the study is to identify the specific features of the American entrepreneur’s image in J. Belfort’s novel “The Wolf of Wall Street” and their significant differences from the characteristic features of this image in the works of American literature of an earlier period. The paper examines the literary image of an entrepreneur created by J. Belfort based on an autobiographical narrative using his personal experience in stock market activities. The study investigates the change in the value paradigm in the personality and character of the entrepreneur in comparison with the main characteristics of this image created in the works of W. Bradford and B. Franklin. The scientific novelty of the study lies in discovering radical changes in the image of the 21st-century American entrepreneur in comparison with the ideal that was formed in American culture in the 17th and 18th centuries. As a result of the study, it was found that the image of an entrepreneur in J. Belfort’s novel has undergone significant changes compared to the works of early American literature. There is a significant contradiction between the moral and value attitudes created in the works of W. Bradford and B. Franklin and the modern image of the American entrepreneur depicted in the novel under consideration.

Radio-Lect: Spanish/English Code-Switching in On-Air Advertisements

The 2020 census reports that 61.2 million Latinxs live in the US, totaling around 19% of all residents, forming the country’s largest minority population. With the growing number of Latinxs, there has been a higher level of contact between Spanish and English leading to language mixing or code-switching (CS) in mainstream American culture. This paper examines the Spanish/English CS in radio advertisements on Los Angeles’s 96.3 La Mega, a bilingual radio station geared towards today’s youth. Using Derrick’ 2015 sentential framework for the linguistic analysis of multilingual sentences, I carry out a sentence-by-sentence analysis of the linguistic nature of the on-air bilingual advertisements. I explore both national advertisements, as well as DJ-endorsed advertisements, to discern whether they follow the patterns previously pointed out in the literature for positive consumer evaluations of Spanish/English bilingual advertisements. Furthermore, I am interested in if these advertisements are in line with the ethos of 96.3 La Mega, which prides itself on being fully bilingual. This research will shed light on the linguistic nature of contemporary strategies being used in bilingual advertisements for the US Latinx community and marketing tactics designed to encourage their consumerism.

Influence and Untimeliness in Modern Architecture: A Conversation between Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Amanda Reeser Lawrence

A conversation between Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Amanda Reeser Lawrence recorded on November 13, 2023 at the Yale School of Architecture. The conversation focuses on their shared interest in twentieth-century American architecture culture, including architectural pedagogy marked by the use of architectural precedents as a generative design tool and the rise of art historical formalism as a dominant method of teaching architectural history. During the discussions the authors unpacked the key concepts and intellectual roots of their respective projects, “untimeliness” and the “usable past” (Pelkonen) and “influence” and “anachronism” (Lawrence) and shared notes on how they approach history teaching in a design school setting so as to make it an integral part of architectural thought.

Scopes, Specula, the Speculative: Histories of Medical Experimentation and Looking in African American Art and Fiction

This article traces a speculative and critical engagement with histories of health care disparity and medical exploitation shared across fictions by Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison, and the artwork of Ellen Gallagher. It argues that insistent returns to racialized experimentation and scientific modes of looking form a significant interrogation of a wider set of US promises and attritions. Specifically, it asks how postwar African American culture takes up scopic questions to address dominant accounts of progress and the modern, both via reference to visual orders and technologies, and via formal choices regarding iteration, perspective and scale.

Youth Suicide Prevention Programming among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians: Effects of the Lifelines Student Curriculum.

Suicide continues to be a leading cause of mortality for young people. Given persistent intersecting forms of disadvantage, Native American adolescents are especially vulnerable to mental health adversities and other suicide risk factors. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (MBCI) implemented the Choctaw Youth Resilience Initiative (CYRI), a five-year SAMHSA-funded project that began in 2019. This study uses Choctaw student pre-test/post-test survey data to examine the effectiveness of the Hazelden Lifelines Suicide Prevention Training curriculum for youth. A lagged post-test design was used, whereby post-surveys were administered at least one month after program completion. Several intriguing results were observed. First, the lagged post-test model was subject to some pre-to-post attrition, although such attrition was comparable to a standard pre/post design. Second, analyses of completed surveys using means indicated various beneficial effects associated with the Lifelines curriculum implementation. The greatest benefit of the program was a significant change in student perceptions concerning school readiness in response to a suicidal event. Some opportunities for program improvement were also observed. Our study sheds new light on suicide prevention training programs that can be adapted according to Native American youth culture. Program implementation and evaluation implications are discussed in light of these findings.

The Nepalese Diaspora and Adaptation in the United States

The Nepalese in the United States of America (USA) are an emerging diasporic community. In spite of the phenomenal growth of the Nepalese diaspora in the USA in the last more than two decades, little is known about this new diasporic community, especially regarding how the Nepalese adapt to American life. This study documents the rapid growth in Nepalese immigration to the USA in the twenty-first century, based on data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Using the data from an online survey, it analyzes the experiences of the Nepalese in cultural adaptation, structural adaptation, marital adaptation, identificational adaptation, and receptional adaptation. The results show that although the Nepalese have become partly assimilated to American culture, they still to a large extent retain their ethnic culture, ethnic association, ethnic identity, and ethnic marital partners, and they have had mixed experiences of prejudice and discrimination. The findings have significant scholarly and practical implications.