Midwestern College Town Research Articles

Finding strength in adversity: Exploring the process of posttraumatic growth among multicultural individuals.

We explore the process of posttraumatic growth for multicultural individuals after experiences of cumulative multicultural identity-relevant adversity. We conducted an exploratory sequential mixed methods study with two parts. Study 1 utilized Photovoice methodology and individual interviews (N = 27; 13 women, 14 men) with multicultural individuals living in a Midwestern college town. In Study 2, we tested the relationships between themes revealed by our qualitative analysis in Study 1 in a sample of multicultural individuals living across the U.S. (N = 526; 40.1% men, 59.9% women) using a conditional process analysis. Findings from Study 1 indicate that participants appreciated environments that valued diversity, and this helped participants positively frame their cumulative adversities. Participants also described how the struggle with these adversities fostered psychological wellbeing outcomes of personal growth and positive relations with others. Results from Study 2 indicate that appreciation of diversity mediates and positive framing moderates the relationship between discrimination and personal growth, thus supporting and building on the findings in Study 1. Together, these studies highlight the significance of including cumulative adversity in the posttraumatic growth process for multicultural individuals, while identifying appreciation of diversity and positive framing as potential postadversarial growth mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Intuitive Eating and Biomarkers Related to Cardiovascular Disease in Older Adults

ObjectiveExamine whether exercise and diet motivation are associated with 4 biomarkers related to cardiovascular disease. DesignCross-sectional analysis. Data collection involved questionnaires, blood draws, body composition assessments, and accelerometry. SettingSmall, midwestern college town. ParticipantsCommunity older adults (≥ 58 years of age; n = 79) recruited through convenience sampling; the sample was representative of the population of interest for some demographic characteristics (eg, age and sex) but not representative of other characteristics (eg, level of activity). Variables MeasuredIndependent variables comprised self-reported intrinsic exercise motivation (Behavioral Regulation for Exercise Questionnaire-3) and intuitive eating (Intuitive Eating Scale-2). Dependent variables included inflammatory proteins (C-reactive protein and interleukin-6) and lipid levels (low-density lipoprotein/high-density lipoprotein and triglycerides) quantified from blood samples. Covariates included age, body mass index, sex, and objective physical activity measured by accelerometers worn for 7 days. AnalysisMultiple linear regression was used to assess the association between diet and exercise motivation and biomarker outcomes; we analyzed 4 regression models (1 for each biomarker). Significance level P < 0.05. ResultsGreater intuitive eating was associated with a lower low-density lipoprotein/high-density lipoprotein ratio (β = −0.45, P = 0.001) and lower triglycerides (β = −0.37, P = 0.003). Intrinsic exercise motivation was not associated with the biomarkers. Conclusions and ImplicationsIntuitive eating may be a key determinant of certain biomarkers and could be a viable target for interventions to help decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease among older adults.

My Bedeviled Country

My Bedeviled Country Susan Neville (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo courtesy of Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution [End Page 110] I have in my mind a special room with iron doors. The things I don't like I throw in there and slam the doors. —Edith Head Events as I remember them, when placed over the historical record of an era, do not add up. They harmonize, but barely, creating a fuzzy line of historical and personal memory that makes me question whether I existed in that time at all. For instance, it's as though there was a decade known as the '70s with a certain narrative that, like a black hole, pulls all memories of those years, both personal and public, toward it but leaves them in a jumbled mess. I don't know whether to attribute this most to the failure of memory, the power of myth, or something else entirely. [End Page 111] So. It was a weeknight my junior or senior year of college, in the spring as I remember, the first years of the 1970s, when the campus doctor gave a presentation in the freshman dorm. I was in my early twenties. I was a woman, I thought, a sexual being, no longer a girl. And so everything seemed newly born. Even the names of things as simple as flowers were new to me, as though spring hadn't really existed until I woke up and noticed it. Tulip, lilac, daffodil, forsythia. Suddenly I could name them. Where had I been all my life? I walked through that Midwestern college town as though it were a movie set or water, walked through it as though I'd never experienced the pressure of air on my skin, the sweet scent and texture of it. The light in the lobby of that dorm was greenish gold as I remember it, that particular spring light that surrounds the doctor in my memory now, holding up a plastic implement so we all could see. He stood, I think, in front of a black grand piano. But how old was I exactly, and which spring, and why am I remembering the event in the lobby of a freshman dorm I never lived in? I'm not sure. I don't remember what the doctor looked like, but I remember that he was earnest. I remember the light, the device (the thing itself or an image from the packaging?) and the grand piano. What could possibly have gotten into the doctor's head that made him feel the need to gather all the female students together one spring afternoon to—as I'm sure he thought—make our lives better? A kickback? Impossible. I only think of that now that I'm old and cynical, but it's hard for me to believe my older, more cynical self. He wasn't a person who gave speeches or the type of adult who would put young women's lives at risk for money. While I can't picture him as he really was, it's incredible how easily my memory rushes in to fill the blank space of him: I believe I remember thinking that the poor, round, bespectacled, middle-aged balding man must spend all his time worrying about us, the young women having sex day and night, with only one doctor to keep us safe. The campus was the rye, and he was our catcher. I was sure at the time that he saw himself that way. Or maybe he was jealous of the professors holding forth, and he wanted his moment. Who knows? We assumed, if we thought of him at all, that he was some kind of failure or he would have been a real doctor still—because of course he must have left some lucrative practice due to a scandal. Now he was a campus doctor, down on his luck, who lived in a small town and gave us our prescriptions for the pill. He did the tests for [End Page 112] venereal and other infectious diseases. Aside from your basic colds and cases of...

Breaking Away dir. by Peter Yates

Reviewed by: Breaking Away dir. by Peter Yates Sheng-mei Ma Breaking Away (dir. Peter Yates, 1979) For a Taiwanese immigrant to critique the 1979 film Breaking Away—set in the midwestern college town of Bloomington, Indiana, where the Little 500 bicycle race is held annually—may seem downright odd. Interests usually denote self-interest, however the self is defined. When I arrived at Indiana University Bloomington (IU) in 1982 for graduate studies in the English department, I soon became familiar with the film that won an Oscar (Steve Tesich's screenplay) and a Golden Globe (Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy). Tesich himself had been trained at IU in the 1960s; in one shot, "English Major" was intentionally scrawled across a used car's windshield. As I had just embarked on my PhD, I should have attended to the taunt: English was a useless major, now that Tesich—a Russian major—had written an award-winning script. I was introduced to the film by Boyd, an IU bus driver who ferried me to campus for classes. Boyd was a typical Hoosier, with a heavy accent that I could hardly decipher—I had enough trouble with Standard English, however "standard" is defined. Boyd obviously took certain pride in this film that depicted the town-and-gown tension. Perhaps because IU was his employer, he harbored mixed feelings about the institution that put Bloomington on the map and food on his table, while also lording over the working-class locals nicknamed "cutters" in the film. If my critique is a nostalgic trip, then it clicks nicely with the central motif of Breaking Away as a flight of fancy into a desired world beyond reach. Returning to the past morphs into a dream for the future—not just for myself, but for the film crew and viewers, past and future. Born in Yugoslavia, the screenwriter Tesich was fourteen when he came to America. A member of Phi Kappa Psi during his years at IU, Tesich seemingly would not have been a typical fit for a midwestern fraternity. Director Peter Yates was an Englishman with no connection to IU until the making of this film. Though his film ends with a freeze frame of a father looking back at his son, Yates never looked back at the Midwest for the remainder of his professional career. None of the leading actors hailed from the Hoosier State, either. Philadelphian Dennis Christopher plays local bicyclist Dave Stohler who wins the Little 500 with injured, bleeding legs and his feet taped to the pedals. Texan Dennis Quaid plays Mike, the high school [End Page 100] quarterback plagued by an inferiority complex in the face of rich frat boys. Hart Bochner, who plays the "hot rodder" Rod on the university swim team and drives a blue Mercedes convertible, is Canadian. And Robyn Douglass arrives from California to play Dave's love interest, Katherine. Clearly, outsiders "broke away" from their biological and experiential selves to fashion this universal dream of the victorious local underdog. The four "B-town boys"—Dave, Mike, Cyril (Daniel Stern), and Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley)—languish after high school graduation over a hot summer. They are confronted by the harsh reality of an "invasive species" of rich, athletic, and beautiful college students taking over Bloomington, from their favorite swimming hole in an abandoned limestone quarry to the town's streets. While Mike seethes in frustration and rage, breaking his head during a swimming duel with Rod in the quarry, Dave fantasizes an exit into an Italian alter ego. Prompted by his interest in Cinzano, an Italian bicycle racing team, Dave shaves his legs (as Italian bicyclists do) and speaks to his parents in half-baked Italian. He even goes so far as to take on the persona of an exchange student to serenade his sorority dream girl Katherine, or "Caterina" in Dave's affected Italian (replete with trilling Rs). Dave's father, Ray (Paul Dooley), is a used car salesman and a caricature of the potbellied, bacon-eating, sharpies-in-shirt-pocket Hoosier. Ray gloats over selling the worst car on his lot to a "smart college kid," which suggests that he is, subconsciously at...

Reclaiming my name.

When my friends took me to my first rodeo, a little ways outside the small Midwestern college town where we were undergrads, I was interested to experience this American tradition. But I was distracted by a man with a gun strapped to his side staring at me, unblinking and unsubtle, as if I was a zoo animal. At first I wondered, a little foolishly, “Did I inadvertently wear my T-shirt inside out?” Then my best friend, Robert, an African-American military veteran, leaned in almost imperceptibly and whispered, “Stay close to me. I don't think they're used to foreign visitors here.”

Furthering Education

My own PhD diploma is over a decade old, and I teach in a high school rather than a graduate program. However, I think everyone who teaches or mentors in academic settings, not just those contemplating professorial careers, stands to benefit tremendously from A Field Guide to Grad School. In this sagacious yet plainspoken book, sociologist Jessica Calarco gives the gift of expert, culturally critical mentoring on topics ranging from funding your graduate studies to academic publishing to being on the professorial job market.I’m intentionally positioning Calarco’s work here as gift, and you and/or your students will, too. Like many PhD students, I experienced teaching and mentoring in graduate school that was at times unclear, at times combative, and nearly always operating under the assumption I held knowledge I didn’t yet have. A copy of this book, at the start of my academic career, would have gifted me valuable clarity on institutional norms, perspective on difficult interpersonal situations, and language to describe why I (a student from a low-income family with no academic ties) so often felt bewildered and blundering. It’s clear this book aims to serve students, particularly those with marginalized-in-the-academy identities and backgrounds, as they navigate their graduate studies. But, as her last pages make clear, Calarco’s bigger motive is empowering early-career scholars to change the broken systems that created the market for her book in the first place.Chapter by chapter, A Field Guide to Grad School adroitly unpacks the knowledge and skills – from applying to and selecting a program to navigating the job market and balancing work/life as an early-career professor – that graduate students must develop in order to thrive. Calarco is a sociologist, not a biologist, but even portions of the book that skew specific to that field are rich and informative for those in science, education, or both. I am particularly in awe of Calarco’s breakdown of academic writing genres (research reports, focused literature reviews, etc.) into idea-by-idea outlines that center universal practices like argumentation or positioning yourself in meaningful conversation with literature in your field. You and/or your students will also appreciate practical features like the timetable for how long each segment of an academic talk/lecture should take, the appendix containing snapshots of Calarco’s CV as both the document and her career lengthen, and the brief but powerful introduction to backwards-planned and inclusive course design.My favorite part of this Field Guide is how it shows the reader an example of how to serve as an active accomplice in dismantling systems of elitism and oppression. As Marian Wright Edelman has said, “It’s hard to be what you can’t see.” As its subtitle suggests, this nimble and compassionate volume makes visible the hidden curriculum of graduate studies, but it also serves as a paradigm for undertaking the work of responsive education through a justice-oriented lens. Calarco’s integrated, unwavering anti-bias stance is an excellent model for those of us in positions and/or identities associated with power who are ready to learn how to pass that power equitably to others.Calarco and I live in the same Midwestern college town. Although we’ve never met, I am heartened to know that someone like her is approaching the work of mentoring early-career scholars in my hometown with such humanity, courage, and vision. Whether you are considering graduate school, supporting graduate students, or serving elsewhere in higher-education administration – or simply interested in how to make learning and mentoring more humane – A Field Guide to Grad School should be on your reading list.

Dis"Like"

The social diversification hypothesis (SDH) examines the benefits of internet communication for disadvantaged individuals. In a novel application, we use it to explore the perceived costs of internet use, particularly Facebook across two different analyses. First, in-depth interviews with 45 socio-economically and racially diverse participants from a midwestern college town revealed that People of Color and those without 4-year degree were more suspicious of Facebook and more likely to have been the victim of an online scam. In contrast, Whites and those with four-year degrees were often overwhelmed by, but resigned to using, Facebook, expressing instead frustration with the perceived socio-emotional limitations of communicating online. Qualitative findings were then triangulated with a 2018 Pew survey of 2,002 U.S. adults: disadvantaged groups perceive greater social and personal costs of being online while advantaged groups are more dependent on the Internet. Findings suggest that the costs of internet use vary by access to social capital. In addition to a novel theoretical application of the SDH, we discuss the need for demographic-specific digital literacy design and corporate policy changes that can help mitigate these costs.

There’s No Such Thing as a Gay Bar: Co-Sexuality and the Neoliberal Branding of Queer Spaces

Gay bars have historically functioned as communal spaces for the LGBTQ+ community. Because of neoliberalism, LGBTQ+ acceptance continues to rise as “post-gay’’ discourses, coupled with the inclusion of heterosexual audiences, have repositioned gay bars as inclusive spaces. In this study, we explore how the meaning of “gay bar” is communicatively negotiated. Specifically, we employed a co-sexuality lens with spatiality to understand how the “gay bar brand” is constructed and perceived. We used ethnographic methods including observation, 25 semi-structured interviews, and documents at two gay bars in a Midwestern college town. We demonstrate how gay bars, through neoliberal branding, reopened the meaning of gay bars as spaces for “all” sexualities. Three tensions emerged: (1) who gay bars are for (queer or general communities); (2) sexual autonomy (contested meanings around “safety” and “being yourself”); and (3) viable marketing (tension between “community” and “commodification”). This study contributes to the literature on sexuality, space, and branding by moving beyond utopian depictions of gay bars. Instead, it encourages scholars to understand the bars as destabilized and contested queer spaces.

Wildcat wellness coaching feasibility trial: protocol for home-based health behavior mentoring in girls.

BackgroundChildhood obesity is a major public health problem, with one third of America’s children classified as either overweight or obese. Obesity prevention and health promotion programs using components such as wellness coaching and home-based interventions have shown promise, but there is a lack of published research evaluating the impact of a combined home-based and wellness coaching intervention for obesity prevention and health promotion in young girls. The main objective of this study is to test the feasibility of such an intervention on metrics related to recruitment, intervention delivery, and health-related outcome assessments. The secondary outcome is to evaluate the possibility of change in health-related psychosocial, behavioral, and biomedical outcomes in our sample of participants.Methods/designForty girls who are overweight or obese (aged 8–13 years) will be recruited from a Midwestern college town. Participants will be recruited through posted flyers, newspaper advertisements, email, and social media. The volunteer convenience sample of girls will be randomized to one of two home-based wellness coaching interventions: a general health education condition or a healthy eating physical activity skills condition. Trained female wellness coaches will conduct weekly hour-long home visits for 12 consecutive weeks. Assessments will occur at baseline, post-intervention (3 months after baseline), and follow-up (6 months after baseline) and will include height, weight, waist circumference, body composition, pulmonary function, blood pressure, systemic inflammation, physical activity (Actical accelerometer), and self-reported survey measures (relevant to fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and quality of life).DiscussionThis study will evaluate the feasibility of home-based wellness coaching interventions for overweight and obese girls and secondarily assess the preliminary impact on health-related psychosocial, behavioral, and biomedical outcomes. Results will provide information regarding the feasibility of this new model for use in girls as an approach to reduce the burden of overweight and obesity toward the prevention of chronic disease.Trial registration NCT01845480 Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40814-016-0066-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Comparative Analysis of Event Attendees' Spending Behaviors, Satisfaction, and Information Search Patterns By Event Types at a Midwestern College Town

The purpose of this study is to compare differences on information search patterns, spending behaviors, and satisfaction levels among visitors attending three event types. The existing literature has by and large addressed visitor behaviors based on visitor characteristics. This study, however, takes an approach from the supply side and distinguishes visitor behaviors against three event types at the same destination. The study was conducted in a Midwestern college town where 536 usable surveys were collected through onsite interceptions. One-way ANOVA tests were employed to test the behavioral differences at three experience stages (preevents, during, and postevents). The ANOVA tests indicate that festival attendees relied heavily on past experiences and had the highest satisfaction level among all event attendees. Conference attendees tended to stay the longest and sporting event goers spent the most during the event. Implications and future directions of research are provided on this topic.

Expectations and Realities: Education, the Discipline Gap, and the Experiences of Black Families Migrating to Small Cities

In this study, the authors examine the narratives of two African American mothers and grandmothers and two youths who migrated from under-resourced neighborhoods in a large urban city to a smaller Midwestern college town in hopes of gaining access to safe neighborhoods, employment opportunities, and better educational experiences. Using phenomenological case study methodology, the authors were participant observers in two community groups that included a coalition of African American working class mothers and grandmothers and a network for black male youth ages 14–18. The findings in this study ultimately demonstrate how these youth and their families discovered even more racial disparities in their new residence. This was especially true in the areas of education and juvenile justice. Ultimately, the authors argue that the “new migration” has yet to yield the opportunities these families hoped to gain.

A visitor-based brand equity perspective: the case of a public festival

Purpose – This paper aims to empirically examine how five different brand equity dimensions of a festival brand (i.e. awareness, image, quality, value and loyalty) are inter-related. Specifically, this study aims to examine the impact of brand awareness on perceived brand image, perceived brand quality and perceived value; the impact of perceived brand image on perceived brand quality and brand loyalty; and the impact of perceived brand quality on perceived value and brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual model was tested with an onsite sample of a public festival referred to as the VEISHEA (Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Industrial Science, Home Economics and Agriculture) festival, which is located in a Midwestern college-town. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to reach the goals of the study. Findings – The findings revealed that improving attendees’ awareness is a keystone in promoting brand quality perceptions, increasing perceived value and creating favorable brand image. Perceptions of quality on brand loyalty were stronger than any other effect, pointing out the need for superior quality. These findings confirmed that a public festival which does not require visitor admission fees can increase visitors by utilizing branding strategies, as has been done with other types of festivals. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted at a public festival. Further study should be conducted at other festivals/events. Analysis of antecedents such as advertising and promotions in the brand equity creation process will provide further important information. Practical implications – This study provides guidance for practitioners to manage festival brands properly and develop strategies (e.g. communications and promotions) which reinforce the intangible asset of brand equity. Originality/value – This is the first study that applies the brand equity concept to the setting of public festivals. This application to a new context contributes to the body of knowledge of brand equity theory.

A Mother-Daughter Book Club: A Search for Intimacy

This study examines the nature of group interaction and response to texts in an African American, mother-daughter literature discussion group in a predominately White, Midwestern college town. The implications of this research for teachers and librarians include a discussion about the value of community and intergenerational literacy and adolescents’ need to share literacy events with adults from their own racialized group.

Using a participatory action strategic approach to enhance accessibility and participation in arts and cultural events: Results of four focus groups

BackgroundCultural events are abundant in a midwestern college town; however, individuals with disabilities have expressed concerns about their accessibility. Policymakers, business owners, and managers often ignore disability-related issues. Research shows accessibility is the main environmental barrier to participation in arts and cultural events. Individuals with disabilities are disconnected from managers of cultural organizations and city leaders. The lack of awareness about accessibility, including access to the built environment, impedes participation in cultural events in this college town. ObjectivesTo encourage the participation of people with disabilities in cultural events in a midwestern college town, a bold strategic project was initiated to conduct a community-based needs assessment as a foundation for an action plan. Participation in arts and culture was selected as a unique focal point for exploring ways to enhance accessibility. MethodsThirty-nine stakeholders participated in four different focus groups: individuals with disabilities, managers of cultural organizations, caregivers and health care providers, and other stakeholders including politicians. Critical problem areas identified were mapped onto the environmental factors in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). ResultsThree themes emerged: 1) limited awareness about accessibility among the residents with disabilities and a lack of awareness about disability-related issues and accessibility among the managers of cultural organizations; 2) the need for a “central information clearinghouse” to share, provide, and retrieve information; 3) the need for inclusive city-level policies. ConclusionsRaising awareness about disabilities and accessibility, providing a clearinghouse for information sharing and implementing inclusive policies are crucial to strengthen participation in community life.

Evaluation of the criterion and predictive validity of the Alcohol Reduction Strategies—Current Confidence (ARS-CC) in a natural drinking environment

To evaluate several psychometric properties of a questionnaire designed to assess young people's self-efficacy to employ 31 alcohol reduction strategies, we assessed breath alcohol concentration, self-reported drinking, current strategy self-efficacy, and recent past use of these strategies in 100 young adults as they walked to and from the local bar district of a Midwestern college town. In support of criterion and predictive validity of the questionnaire, we found that lower self-efficacy at the initial assessment was significantly correlated with higher scores on a screening measure of consumption, with having engaged in more heavy drinking episodes in the past 30days, and with higher levels of intoxication and use of fewer reduction strategies later that evening. Frequency counts indicate that 10 of the alcohol reduction strategies had been used by at least half of the sample to reduce their drinking earlier that evening.

Alcohol-Associated Illness and Injury and Ambulance Calls in a Midwestern College Town: A Four-Year Retrospective Analysis

Background. Alcohol is often a factor in illness and injury among college-aged individuals. Ambulance services responding to 9-1-1 calls in college towns regularly encounter patients who have consumed alcohol to the point of intoxication and subsequently suffered an injury or experienced an illness necessitating prehospital emergency care. Objectives. The first objective was to review ambulance calls in a Midwestern college town in order to identify patterns or trends related to alcohol consumption. Another objective was to determine to what extent, if any, underage drinking was a factor in these calls. A final objective was to determine whether there were types of illness or injuries related to 9-1-1 calls that were involved with alcohol consumption among college-aged students. Methods. This was a retrospective study using secondary data of four years of ambulance calls that occurred in a specific geographic region of a college town. All patient care reports (PCRs) included alcohol consumption as a pertinent factor in the call. Data were de-identified and in some cases aggregated to ensure confidentiality. Descriptive statistics were used to identify prevalence and incidence of injury and illness and patient demographics. Results. Of the ambulance calls for service in the geographic area, 44.4% to 45.8% identified as “downtown” had alcohol consumption as a reported factor in the PCR. The number of calls for service that involved patients below the legal drinking age (21 years) was small but increased between 2004 and 2007. Calls involving male patients made up the majority of calls with alcohol as a factor. The majority of alcohol-related calls for service were for traumatic injuries, sexual assaults and rapes, poisonings or drug ingestions, and altered levels of consciousness. Conclusion. Alcohol consumption was a comorbid factor in illness and injury that necessitated prehospital emergency medical care in one Midwestern college town. Further research is needed to determine whether these results can be generalized beyond this one geographic location or if causality can be determined between alcohol consumption and injuries or illnesses that lead to emergency medical services calls.

The Emotional Consequences of Service Work: An Ethnographic Examination of Hair Salon Workers

This article explores the connections between service work and the everyday lived emotional experiences of hair salon workers. Over the past few years, numerous studies have linked service work with various social psychological outcomes, including well-being, job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, depression, and stress. In an effort to explore the connections between service work and the everyday lived emotional experiences of service workers, original data in the form of nonparticipant field observations and in-depth interviews of 25 hair salon workers were collected in a moderate-sized Midwestern college town. Our findings are generally consistent with the power and status theories of emotion described by Theodore Kemper (1984, 1990, 1991) and Randall Collins (1984, 1990). Customer service interactions are conducive to both positive and negative emotional outcomes. Specifically, complimentary evaluations and the conferral of intimacy favor feelings of pride and happiness, whereas unsatisfactory evaluations and the denial of intimacy contribute to feelings of anger and sadness.

"Witty House Name": Visual Expression, Interpretive Practice, and Uneven Agency in a Midwestern College Town

Abstract Many students living in a college town located in the Midwest of the United States have put up large signs on the houses in which they reside. The signs’ messages such as "Hangover Here," "Crammed Inn," and "Syc-a-College" create puns drawing on multiple domains of meaning from student or local life, including locations, institutions, and popular film or music titles. This article considers the different meanings and purposes of house signs as envisioned by different groups of residents of named houses in order to explore the contours of agency involved in house sign activity. Interviews with residents of named houses reveal that some groups’ interpretive desires are salient to all residents of named houses, regardless of what they understand their house sign to do, while the interpretive desires of others are thwarted. Thus, this article argues that agency is mediated by house sign activity in uneven ways and, more broadly, uses the college house sign phenomenon to shed new light on the ways in which agency is mediated by language.

"Witty House Name": Visual Expression, Interpretive Practice, and Uneven Agency in a Midwestern College Town

Many students living in a college town located in the Midwest of the United States have put up large signs on the houses in which they reside. The signs' messages such as "Hangover Here," "Crammed Inn," and "Syc-a-College" create puns drawing on multiple domains of meaning from student or local life, including locations, institutions, and popular film or music titles. This article considers the different meanings and purposes of house signs as envisioned by different groups of residents of named houses in order to explore the contours of agency involved in house sign activity. Interviews with residents of named houses reveal that some groups' interpretive desires are salient to all residents of named houses, regardless of what they understand their house sign to do, while the interpretive desires of others are thwarted. Thus, this article argues that agency is mediated by house sign activity in uneven ways and, more broadly, uses the college house sign phenomenon to shed new light on the ways in which agency is mediated by language.

Reading in the Borderland: An Ethnographic Study of Serious Readers in a Mega-Bookstore Café

Today, mega-bookstores are one of the most powerful sponsors of reading. They are not just selling books; they are teaching people new ways to read. The enthusiasm among some individuals to read in a retail store (as opposed to the home or library) did not occur spontaneously. Mega-bookstores’ marketing strategies underwrote a “commercial-contract approach to reading” and wider social formations helped enable it. This ethnographic study explores the tension between the reading environment constructed by one Borders bookstore in a midwestern college town and the different expectations and practices that serious and not-so-serious readers bring to the café. Although the reading culture in the café appears unstructured, Borders has made sure that little has been left to chance. Borders’ fluid “social, sensual” narrative of reading is designed to control store space by affirming the identities of its preferred customers and by promoting reading practices that translate into sales. The author would like to thank David Paul Nord, Radhika Parameswaran, Eva Cherniavsky, Michael Evans, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of this work.