American Spirit Research Articles

From "Additive-Free" to "Tobacco & Water": Assessing the Impact of Marketing Claim Changes on Natural American Spirit and L&M Cigarettes.

The 2017 agreement between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the makers of Natural America Spirit (NAS) cigarettes restricted the use of "additive-free" (AF) in brand marketing, which the company replaced with "tobacco ingredients: tobacco & water" (TW), a phrase subsequently adopted by L&M. We tested how participants' perceptions differed when exposed to AF versus TW claims on NAS and L&M packs. A between-subjects experiment was embedded within an online survey in August 2022 (n = 2526). Participants were randomized to view one of three packs (NAS AF pack, NAS TW pack, L&M TW pack). Logistic regressions assessed differences (by pack exposure) in perceived pack attractiveness and relative chemical and harm perceptions compared to other cigarettes. Interactions by smoking status were explored. No significant differences were observed between the NAS AF and NAS TW packs on perceived attractiveness or relative harm, although never smokers had higher odds of having lower relative chemicals perceptions in response to the NAS AF versus NAS TW pack (OR = 1.81). Compared to participants who saw the NAS TW pack, those who saw the L&M TW pack tended to have lower odds of perceiving the pack as attractive, believing that the product had fewer chemicals than other products, or believing the product was less harmful than other products compared to the NAS TW pack. Results suggest the more implicit "tobacco ingredients: tobacco & water" claim functions similarly to "additive-free" and as an unauthorized modified risk claim. NAS brand image also appears to contribute to higher perceived pack attractiveness and lower perceptions of chemicals and harm. Additional marketing regulations and corrective campaigns may be needed to reduce risk-related misperceptions about NAS cigarettes. Our findings show that replacing "additive-free" claims with "tobacco ingredients: tobacco & water" did not sufficiently address the illegal use of unauthorized modified risk claims by the makers of NAS cigarettes. Further regulatory action restricting the TW claim could potentially reduce inaccurate lower harm perceptions about NAS cigarettes. Educational campaigns may also be needed to mitigate NAS's history of marketing that implies reduced harm, given that the effects of implicit reduced risk claims like TW have a greater effect on pack perceptions for NAS than L&M.

Acute effects of charcoal filters and package color on cigarette perceptions and use behaviors: Results from a randomized pilot study examining Natural American Spirit “Sky”

IntroductionCharcoal-filtered cigarettes have been available for decades but have never held a major share of the U.S. cigarette market. This pilot study gathered initial behavioral data characterizing how “Sky”—a recently introduced charcoal-filtered cigarette variety that uses potentially misleading marketing features—is used and what impact its packaging color has on consumer perceptions. MethodsForty adult daily non-menthol cigarettes users (52.5% male, 75.0% White, mean age = 46.1, 14.3 mean cigarettes/day) completed a single-session deception study utilizing a 2 ×2 mixed factorial design to manipulate cigarette filter condition (charcoal vs. non-charcoal) and pack color (light vs. dark). Participants smoked two cigarettes identical in appearance and packaging but differing in filter type (blinded and order counterbalanced) and completed pre- and post-cigarette CO samples and post-cigarette questionnaires. ResultsParticipants endorsed more favorable subjective ratings, puffed less of, held more correct beliefs about risks, and expressed greater intentions to use the charcoal (vs. non-charcoal)-filtered cigarette (p’s <0.05). Pack color had few effects on outcomes; however, cigarettes in light vs. dark colored packs were rated as cleaner tasting (p <0.01). Neither filter condition nor pack color affected CO boost. There were no interaction effects on any outcomes. ConclusionsUnder blinded conditions, Sky charcoal-filtered cigarettes are initially appealing independent of their packaging color. Findings warrant further study of these effects on perceptions, behavior, and harm exposure after longer, open-label use periods. Findings may inform regulatory decisions regarding cigarette packaging and filter composition.

Three Spirit Mediums

Based on interviews with three American spirit mediums during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research note serves as a case study on the role of spirit mediumship during the pandemic. Because they serve clients rather than congregations, spirit mediums were able to develop more nuanced and immediate responses to clients’ grief surrounding the loss of a loved one to COVID-19. Spirit mediums also had an important role during the pandemic as interpreters for creating theodicies explaining why a loved one died and individuals experienced grief. In this meaning-making work, spirit mediums sometimes reflected a “conspiritual” perspective, framing the pandemic’s origins and subsequent vaccine development through conspiratorial thinking. This research note ultimately suggests, therefore, that spirit mediums have an important role in American grief that has been largely overlooked and needs further dedicated research.

Comparative strategies of domestic and foreign ideological and political education in universities in the context of big data

Abstract The comparison and study of ideological and political education methods in Chinese and American universities can enable us to improve ideological and political education methods further. In this paper, we use the global optimization performance of the genetic algorithm to overcome the disadvantage that the K-means algorithm is sensitive to initial values and tends to converge only to local optimum points and propose an improved K-means algorithm based on the genetic algorithm. Meanwhile, the combination with the simulated annealing algorithm eliminates the problem that the K-means algorithm is sensitive to isolated points, makes the algorithm less susceptible to extreme data, and improves the analysis ability of the algorithm. In analyzing the content of ideological and political education in China and the United States, the main contents of ideological and political education in American colleges and universities include civic education, patriotic education and religious education. The first content of ideological and political education in Chinese schools is “mental health education”, accounting for 94.44%, and the second is “moral quality education”, accounting for 75.97%. The second is “ideal and belief education” and “education on life and values”, accounting for 73.23% and 72.70%, respectively. Therefore, American colleges and universities cultivate responsible citizens with the American spirit, while Chinese Civic Education cultivates socialist builders who serve the people.

Longitudinal relationship between relative harm perceptions, beliefs about organic and additive-free tobacco, and cigarette brand switching among Natural American Spirit, Camel and Marlboro cigarette smokers

IntroductionWhile previous research has examined misperceptions related to Natural American Spirit (NAS), a premium cigarette brand using ‘natural’-themed marketing, the longitudinal relationship between NAS-related harm beliefs and switching to NAS...

Organic, Earth-Friendly Tobacco With a Charcoal Filter and Smooth Taste: A Randomized Experiment Testing Effects of Natural American Spirit's "Sky" Cigarette Advertising on Consumer Perceptions.

The Natural American Spirit (NAS) brand has a history of marketing tactics that may convey reduced harm. While no longer allowed to use "additive-free" or natural descriptors (except in the brand name), it continues promoting potentially misleading attributes. This study examined perceptions of NAS's newer "Sky" style, promoted as organic tobacco with a charcoal filter. In an online experiment, we randomized 1927 adult past 30-day tobacco or nicotine product users to one of six conditions showing Sky ads with different descriptors: (1) charcoal filter, (2) charcoal + organic, (3) charcoal + earth-friendly, (4) charcoal + smooth taste, (5) charcoal + all other descriptors, and (6) no-descriptor control (Sky ads without target descriptors). Product perceptions were compared by condition. Participants also reported perceived benefits of charcoal filters. Overall, 28% of participants indicated Sky is less harmful and 38% believed it exposes users to fewer chemicals. Participants in the "charcoal + organic," "charcoal + earth-friendly," and the all-descriptor conditions had higher odds of believing Sky reduces chemical exposure (respectively, 43%, 40%, and 42%), relative to the no-descriptor control. Fewer control participants endorsed beliefs that Sky has a "better filter" and is "more environmentally friendly". Many believed cigarettes with charcoal filters could confer benefits relative to other cigarettes, such as reducing chemical exposure, or being cleaner, purer or safer (though research on relative safety of charcoal filters in cigarettes is inconclusive). Sky marketing may promote misperceptions about product safety and composition, and ads using both charcoal and organic text may particularly reinforce them. This study examined the impact of new cigarette advertising promoting the use of charcoal filters and organic tobacco along with other suggestive claims ("environmentally friendly," "smooth taste") on tobacco users' perceptions of the advertised product-NAS Sky cigarettes. Our study provides new data about positive consumer perceptions of charcoal-filtered cigarettes, and results suggest that combinations of these marketing terms evoke perceptions about reduced harm and reduced exposure to harmful chemicals that may be misleading to the public. Our findings underscore a need for additional regulatory action regarding tobacco marketing that makes use of natural-themed marketing.

The Application of Puritanism in American Early Literature

Puritanism is an important cornerstone of American society and culture, and it has exerted a very important influence on the economy, politics, religion and social life of American society. It has a profound influence on the American people’s thoughts and culture from all aspects, and has laid the keynote of American society and American spirit, and shaped the American people’s character of hard work, thrift, piety sobriety. Early American literary works were also influenced by Puritanism, showing the characteristics of simplicity, directness and freshness. This paper discusses the cause and connotation of Puritanism, as well as its influence on the American character. Based on this, this passage takes the Autobiography of Franklin and the Declaration of Independence as examples to analyze the specific application of Puritanism in early American literary works.

The American spirit: The performativity of folk economics in global financial markets

Inspired by Austin's conceptualisation of utterances as performative, that is, they do things rather than merely represent, research has shown how scientific theories can become performative in financial markets. Research also shows that brokerage and investment work is as much about using everyday knowledge of markets as it is about performing scientific theories. We investigate whether and how this knowledge or what Swedberg calls ‘folk economics’ can also be performative. We focus on Borsa Istanbul, an emerging market where market actors perform what we call ‘the American Spirit’ – a ubiquitous folk theory that frames and plots the Turkish market as one that moves in tandem with American and other developed markets – and in the process become better market forecasters. Our findings have implications for the study of folk economics and performativity in global economy and finance.

Beliefs as causal mediators in the design of communication interventions: exploring semantic and affective priming in parallel encouragement designs.

The design of communication campaigns to alter health behaviors often begins with the identification of behavioral beliefs assumed to be causal antecedents of behavioral intentions. The assumption beliefs are causal derives from various theories of belief and intention/behavior and from statistical patterns of correlation. In cases of high-risk/cost campaigns, presuming causal order should require additional evidence. One approach is the parallel encouragement design which involves "randomly encouraging" levels of the mediator to establish its causal linkage to the outcome. This study proposes and tests a novel method of randomly encouraging beliefs as the mediator of messages on intention. Results show that semantic priming altered misbeliefs about Natural American Spirit cigarettes which in turn influenced intentions, suggesting its utility as an encouragement method to establish causal mediation of beliefs in message effects models. Results for countercampaign messages and broader theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Investigating Grain-on Malt Whiskey Production Using Naked Barley

The ability to produce malt whiskey using grain-on production methods may benefit American craft spirit producers who lack the capacity to separate grains from the wort prior to fermentation and distillation. Off-flavors thought to be derived from barley husk material have prevented distillers from producing whiskey made entirely from malt with grain-on production methods. In the present study, the impacts of using a huskless, naked barley to produce grain-on malt whiskey was investigated. New make spirit was produced at laboratory scale using malt from the covered barley variety Lightning and naked barley variety Buck. The level of esters, higher alcohols, and total polyphenols was measured in the new make spirit. Distillate made from naked barley malt (50% ABV) had a total fusel oil concentration of 2,767 mg/L while whiskey made from covered barley malt had a higher total fusel oil concentration of 3,128 mg/L. Ester levels between the two spirits were similar, with levels of ethyl acetate measuring 7.15 mg/L in the whiskey made from naked barley malt and 7.68 mg/L in the whiskey made from husked barley malt. No polyphenols were detected in either spirit. The new make spirit was also subjected to sensory analysis in the form of a triangle test and quantitative descriptive analysis. Panelists were able to detect a difference between the samples, and whiskey made from naked barley malt was perceived to have a reduction in cereal, feinty, and pungent character. Additionally, despite the naked barley being a GN producer, processing during malting reduced GN to a level associated with non-producing varieties.

Sport and Religion: The State of the Field

Sport and Religion: The State of the Field Rebecca Alpert My own interest in the field of Religion and Sport began when I read the interview I did for Bill Freedman’s 1998 More Than a Pastime: An Oral History of Baseball Fans. Most of my reminiscences were about my childhood connection to the Brooklyn Dodgers. I talked about why Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color line was central to the development of my progressive political values, and how those values had been shaped by growing up in the Jewish community in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Thinking about that connection made me curious about why I automatically associated baseball and being Jewish. So I began to do some research about Jews in baseball. A key moment in that process was attending a panel on the edited volume The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture at the American Academy of Religion in 2002. It was sponsored by the Religion and Popular Culture Group and featured panelists Randall Balmer, Donna Bowman, and Joseph Price, with responses from the editors, Christopher Evans and William R. Herzog II. While sitting in the audience it occurred to me (and a couple of Jewish sports fans who sat with me) that the absence of a discussion of Jewish contributions to baseball was a glaring omission. There wasn’t even an acknowledgement that Meyer Wolfschein, the fictional character to whom F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) was alluding in that famous quotation about playing with the faith of fifty million, was modeled on the Jewish gambler Arnold Rothstein. And more, there wasn’t any reference to the antisemitism that erroneously blamed the 1919 Black Sox scandal on Jewish interference. Bringing Jewish concerns into that conversation seemed like an important contribution to make. I began to write about baseball and Jewish identity and became involved with groups like Jewish Major Leaguers and the [End Page 3] Society for American Baseball Research. In those spaces I met people who welcomed my musings about Jews and baseball and helped me with research questions. I gave papers on Jewish themes at a variety of baseball conferences and published them in Jewish and baseball journals. I became acquainted with the works of Jeffrey Gurock and Steven Riess who had been writing about the history of Jews and sports. The questions I was asking eventually led me to work on my own monograph, Out of Left Field: Jews in Black Baseball, that was published in 2011. In the process I became more curious about the broader context of religion and sports—were Jews always left out of the conversation? I started reading, beginning with Michael Novak’s classic 1976 work, The Joy of Sports: Endzones, Bases, Baskets, Balls, and the Consecration of the American Spirit. I read works by Allen Guttman, Robert Higgs, Joe Price, Tara Magdalinski and Timothy Chandler, Charles Prebish, and Clifford Putney. This was a rapidly developing field. Was there a way to bring these voices together and broaden the conversation to include Jewish voices too? Trolling through the program book of the American Academy of Religion in 2006, I noticed an additional meeting, “Forum on Sports and Religion.” It was described as a place where: Writers and researchers on the relationship of sports and religion meet to discuss their books, works-in-progress, and current research. All are welcome to join the general discussion about this relatively new area of cultural and religious studies. (AAR Program Book, Additional Meetings 2006, 44) Panelists included Joe Price, Eric Bain-Selbo, and editors from Mercer University Press, the sponsor of the meeting and publisher of a book series on sports and religion responsible for several of the works listed above. I was intrigued and attended the session. I joined them again in 2007 for conversations focused on football, in 2008 on the Chicago Cubs, and on sports films in 2009. By then the field had begun to explode, featuring new works by Craig Forney, Joe Price, Eric Bain-Selbo, William Baker, Steve Overman, Robert Higgs and Michael Braswell that explored the intersection of sports and religion and engaged in a debate over whether sports could be considered a religion...

BILIJ: A Children's Literature Interactive Space from the Global South

BILIJ:A Children's Literature Interactive Space from the Global South María José Dulcic (bio), Valentina Rivera (bio), and Constanza Mekis (bio) The Interactive Latin American Library for Children and Youth (hereafter BILIJ, the acronym for its Spanish name, Biblioteca Interactiva Latinoamericana Infantil y Juvenil) opened its doors for the first time on January 8, 2022, in Santiago, Chile. This space was born out of a collective dream that began four years ago in Chile, where Latin American children's literature was at the heart of the discussion. A vast and diverse territory comprising twenty countries with their own heritage and cultural richness, Latin America is often talked about as one homogenous region. Naturally, this misrepresentation makes its way into literary discussions, where distinguishing Latin American identities can become troublesome and their depictions can appear as deficient or incomplete. Luckily, writers, illustrators, and publishers of children's literature have skillfully made efforts to put at the center of their works topics that affect Latin American childhood and have offered creative means to do so, achieving aesthetically and thematically engaging books. Although it is impossible to portray—or even discuss—Latin America as one uniform, unvaried region, it is still possible to find the common threads weaving this extensive identity while giving visibility to each territory. Furthermore, the mostly white and anglophonic exposure within children's literature in the area for many decades has resulted in a lack of mirrors (using Rudine Sims Bishop's useful analogy) and a lack of openings to understand their experiences and to be seen. Needless to say, this affects not only Latin American children, but also all the minority groups outside dominant social groups. All of those experiences, feelings, cultural differences, and knowledges that were, for the most part, suppressed or ignored in children's traditional literature have made their way into a recent trend in publishing and research, where efforts are being made to stray away from ethnocentric ways to read the world through children's books. This challenge instills the urgency for a regional library that could bring together the work of creators of the region and strengthen the sense of belonging to a common culture and identity. It started with the creation of Fundación Palabra, a nonprofit reading-promotion organization aiming to reinforce the bond between young people and reading, culture, science, and art through dialogue and enjoyment with books and cultural objects from Latin America and the world. Within four years, the foundation started BILIJ—a lively space driven by interactivity and the Latin American spirit. The interactivity is fostered through engagement [End Page 69] with different expressions, allowing readers active participation in their reading. Through this interdisciplinary reading space, readers can freely and autonomously explore reading as a wider practice. BILIJ also seeks to highlight the Latin American spirit by means of catalog, artifacts, and encounters with music, art, dance, storytelling, and creative writing. To date, BILIJ has registered 776 members and 5,204 book loans within its first year of operation. Latin America: Its (In)visibility within Children's Books As challenging as it might be, our committed work in and toward BILIJ has led us to identify some commonalities in current Latin American's children's literature, topics and issues that go beyond the mythification and exotification of the territory, which for so long have resulted in reducing Latin American culture to ancestral Indigenousness. In turn, recent publications have brought attention to trends and matters concerned with what Latin America actually faces in the current time. More representation has been given to migration, relationships with the environment and nature, scarcity of resources, and local flora and fauna, and has even delved into political and social crises, present and past. In order to show a wide picture of its state of art, we deem it important to highlight some authors and illustrators, considering the positive reaction from our young readers and their families, along with their ability to portray different current issues. Intra-regional migration and commercial and cultural exchanges have shaped Latin America's characteristics for most of its history. Recent political and social crises have contributed to more significant migration waves, as displacement, labor and...

THE BLUES AND OLDER MINORITY MUSICIANS: MORE THAN JUST MUSIC XXIX

Abstract The “ ’Bo Diddley’ Track”; GSA, 2022 Indianapolis, INLIndianapolis has been described as “The Crossroads of America,” with a long history of fostering the music and entrepreneurial spirit of Black Americans. Starting in 1915 with Mrs. C.J. Walker, America’s first female millionaire and her cosmetic enterprise, and the Starr Piano Company and its Gennett Records Studio – identified as “The Cradle of Recorded Jazz” in the 1920s and 30s – both were instrumental in national distribution of the works of the earliest blues, jazz, country, and gospel artists including Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Alberta Hunter, and Charlie Patton among others.Indianapolis continues to host a thriving Blues music community, and will host the 29th consecutive year of GSA’s “Bo Diddley Track” with local older minority musicians, one of GSA’s most popular and fun events. This year will feature a lecture, interview, and mini-performance with leading local blues musicians exploring their life, influences, music and resilience, followed by a typically raucous live blues performance that evening at a local blues hot-spot, with prizes for the first 50 GSA attendees. This has been going on for 29 years for a reason, folks---don’t miss it!

THE BLUES AND OLDER MINORITY MUSICIANS: MORE THAN JUST MUSIC XXIX

Abstract The Blues and Older Minority Musicians: More Than Just Music XXIXThe “ ’Bo Diddley’ Track”; GSA, 2022 Indianapolis, INLecture/Interview/ Performance: TBAIndianapolis has been described as “The Crossroads of America,” with a long history of fostering the music and entrepreneurial spirit of Black Americans. Starting in 1915 with Mrs. C.J. Walker, America’s first female millionaire and her cosmetic enterprise, and the Starr Piano Company and its Gennett Records studio – identified as “The Cradle of Recorded Jazz” in the 1920s and 30s – both were instrumental in national distribution of the works of the earliest blues, jazz, country, and gospel artists including Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Alberta Hunter, and Charlie Patton among others.Indianapolis continues to host a thriving Blues music community, and will host the 29th consecutive year of GSA’s “Bo Diddley Track” with local older minority musicians, one of GSA’s most popular and fun events. This year will feature a lecture, interview, and mini-performance with leading local blues musicians, followed by a typically raucous live blues performance that evening at a local blues hotspot, with prizes for the first 50 GSA attendees. This has been going on for 29 years for a reason folks---don’t miss it!

RELUGOLIX COMBINATION THERAPY IN NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN WITH ENDOMETRIOSIS-ASSOCIATED PAIN: SPIRIT 1 AND 2 TRIALS

Once-daily relugolix combination therapy (Rel-CT; relugolix 40 mg, estradiol 1 mg, norethindrone acetate 0.5 mg) significantly improved endometriosis-associated pain in the phase 3 multinational SPIRIT 1 and 2 studies. The present analysis evaluated whether there was a difference in treatment response to Rel-CT over 24 weeks (wks) between the overall and North American (NA) SPIRIT study populations.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 다시 쓰기: 미국 흑인 뮤지컬과 The Wiz Live!

The Wiz (1975) is a unique musical theatre work based on L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Although the two works share a similar plot structure, The Wiz has a different racial and ethnic context, as all the characters and most of its creators are African American. This paper analyses The Wiz Live! (2015), a live television adaptation of The Wiz, to explore how this work turned Baum’s novel into a contemporary African American fairy tale. The Wiz Live! enhances the African American identity of The Wiz in various ways. Firstly, the narrative highlights specific topics. For example, The Wiz Live! uses home as a central motive, one that is frequently expressed as the subject of desire in African American literature and in African Americans’ actual lives. In addition, the work dramatically depicts personal and racial liberation. Through this, the characters represent African Americans who move beyond the past of oppression and discrimination to equality and freedom. Secondly, the work inherits the African American popular music used in The Wiz, such as funk and soul, to audibly describe the physicality, spirit, and identity of African Americans. Lastly, the costumes, stage art and choreography in The Wiz Live! imply the cultural aesthetic of Afrofuturism, which evokes a futuristic African American culture and people, thus actively employing modern technology, contexts and media rather than following the example of the original works. The Wiz Live! successfully points the way forward for African American musical theatre in the future.

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp by Mira Ptacin

Reviewed by: The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp by Mira Ptacin Jade Hagan Keywords Camp Etna, Spiritualism, medium, communication with the dead, death, ghost, paranormal, women's rights movement, abolition movement mira ptacin. The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna. New York: Liveright/W. W. Norton, 2019. Pp. xxviii + 260. It is commonplace to describe Spiritualism in terms of a desire to communicate with the dead. Less recognized is the undead nature of that desire, and of Spiritualism itself. In The In-Betweens, Mira Ptacin demonstrates spiritualism's endurance, and enduring appeal, through her account of the presentday characters and historical contexts of Camp Etna, a still operational and little-known Spiritualist camp in rural Maine. Given the steady increase of academic studies of Spiritualism's nineteenth-century origins and contexts, Roger Luckhurst points out in a review that appeared in this journal in 2017 that new studies of Spiritualism have "to fight hard to find space to say something new in this area."1 Ptacin's focus on Spiritualism as it is practiced today, as well as her specific focus on the past and present of Camp Etna, are what enable her to "say something new." Through Ptacin's personal interviews of Camp Etna's members, direct participation in Spiritualist practices and events, and research in the Camp's archives, The In-Betweens not only contributes to our understanding of this particular camp's place in the history of Spiritualism, but also serves as a meditation on the state of religion and faith today. Although Camp Etna was once "one of the largest Spiritualist communities in the nation," it does not have the same recognizability as other Spiritualist camps such as Lily Dale or Cassadaga, in part due to its remote location in the middle of Maine (13). Ptacin's ostensible aim in visiting Camp Etna many times over several years, and in recovering its history in her book, is "to learn about how a strong, independent, faith-based subculture of women (and a few men) live and have lived for centuries, unbeknownst to most of us, in a specific way that is uniquely fulfilling to them" (xxii). Echoing major studies such as Ann Braude's Radical Spirits and Alex Owen's The Darkened Room that are concerned primarily with Spiritualism's challenges to traditional gender roles and ties to nineteenth-century women's rights movements, Ptacin goes further than these previous works in suggesting that the movement remains a source of empowerment for women today (xxii–xxiii, 78). But the scope of The In-Betweens is much broader than this characterization suggests. In under three hundred pages, Ptacin manages to traverse a wide range of issues in existing scholarship on Spiritualism: Spiritualism's connection to abolition and other social reform movements, the movement's fascination [End Page 155] with and appropriation of Native American culture, how Spiritualism fills a void in our culture's attitudes toward death, the relation of Spiritualism to mass media and the entertainment industry, the popular appeal of Spiritualism and critiques of organized religion, how the counterculture and New Age movements of the 1960s and '70s both preserved and transformed the legacy of Spiritualism, and debates about modernity and (dis)enchantment. Alternating between the past and present of Camp Etna, the introduction and nine chapters of The In-Betweens trace the ways in which Camp Etna has historically navigated these issues and continues to grapple with them today. Each of the nine chapters explores a different facet of Camp Etna through the lives of specific individuals and descriptions of specific practices. After Ptacin describes her aim in seeking out Camp Etna in the introduction, the first two chapters concentrate on the history of Spiritualism and Camp Etna. Many scholars will be familiar with the historical touchstones—the Fox sisters, the connection between Spiritualism and nineteenth-century women's rights and abolition movements—covered in the first chapter. But the second chapter's turn to Etna's camp historian, Diane Jackman Skolfield, who recounts the history of Camp Etna by way of "Etna's most famous medium," Mary Ann Scannell Pepper Vanderbilt, and her Native American spirit...

The wanderer in the supermarket: an examination of consumer culture in Cold War America

ABSTRACT The supermarket is one of the ‘great retailing innovations of the twentieth century’. In Cold War America, it held a special ideological place through which capitalism could be promoted as the final, utopian stage of human economic development. Literary figures such as Don DeLillo and Alan Ginsberg played with this concept in their writings, both criticising its place within consumer culture and shedding light on its placement within America’s mythos. This paper explores the unique symbol of the American supermarket as a paradoxical end of culture, a tool of American propaganda, and a spiritual space in which the ‘American Spirit’ can continue to grow and inspire. Through a historical analysis of Cold War propaganda, and the supermarket's placement within it, and a literary analysis of American icons, such as Walt Whitman and Alan Ginsberg, the supermarket emerges as a site of complexity, alienation, and beauty; but certainly not the end of the American story.

Naturally leading: a content analysis of terms, themes and word associations in Natural American Spirit advertising, 2000–2020

BackgroundNatural American Spirit (NAS) is a cigarette brand distinguished by supposed ‘natural’, ‘additive-free’ characteristics, marketing of which is tied to misperceptions of reduced harm. In 2017, NAS’s manufacturer agreed (with...