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Dissertations
Recent dissertations
2012
- Christina Abreu Authentic Assertions, Commercial Concessions: Race, Nation, and Popular Culture in Cuban New York City and Miami 1940–1960
- Chris Finley Decolonizing Sexualized Cultural Images: Bringing "Sexy Back" to Native Studies
- Tayana Hardin Rituals of Return in African American Women's Twentieth Century Literature and Performance
- Sharon Lee The (Geo) Politics of Beauty: Race, Transnatinalism, and Neoliberalism in South Korean Beauty Culture
- Rachel Quinn Dominican Women's Transnational Identitied in Santo Domingo
- Lani Teves We're All Hawaiians Now: Kanaka Maoli Performance and the Politics of Aloha
- Lee Ann Wang Ethnographies of Legal Inclusion: Protection, Punishment and Legal Fictions of Asian Immigrant Women
2011
- Brian Chung Exceptional Visions: Chineseness, Citizenship, and the Architectures of Community in Silicon Valley
- Margot Finn Aspirational Eating: Class Anxiety and The Rise of Food in Popular Culture
- Charles Gentry The Othello Effect: The Performance of Black Masculinity in Mid-Century Cinema
- Laura Hymson The Company that Taught the World to Sing: Coca-Cola, Globalization, and the Cultural Politics of Branding in the Twentieth Century
- Lisa Suhair Majaj Transformative Acts: Arab American Writing/Writing Arab America
- Luis Vazquez Go and Make Disciples: Evangelization, Conversion Narratives and Salvation in Puerto Rican Protestant Evangelical Salsa Music
- Kelly Sisson Lessens Master of Millions: King Corn in American Culture
- Kiara Vigil Stories in Red and Write: Indian Intellectuals and the American Imagination, 1880–1930
2010
- Jason Chang Liberal Imperialism: The Rise and Fall of Liberal Internationalism in US China Relations and the Origins of the Cold War, 1898–1945
- Tyler Cornelius A River Imaginary: Nature and Narrative in the Columbia River Gorge
- Sarah Gould Toys Make a Nation: A History of Ethnic Toys in America
- Afia Ofori-Mensa Beauty, Bodies, and Boundaries: Pageants, Race, and U.S. National Identity
- Matthew Stiffler Authentic Arabs, Authentic Christians: Antiochian Orthodox and the Mobilization of Cultural Identity
- Shanesha Brooks Tatum Poetics with a Promise: Performance of Faith and Gender in Christian Hip-Hop
- Wilson Valentin Bodega Surrealism: The Emergence of Latin@ Artivists in New York City 1976–Present
2009
- Maritza Cardenas “Third Word Subjects: The Politics and Production of Central American-American Culture.”
- Sam Erman “US Citizenship and Puerto Rico: Struggles around Status in the Imperial United States, 1898–1917.”
- Sally Howell “Inventing the American Mosque: Early Muslims and Their Institutions in Detroit, 1910–1980.”
- Dean Saranillio “Seeing Conquest: Colliding Histories and the Cultural Politics of Hawai`i Statehood.”
- Ryan Snyder “Spectra of Singularity: Episodes of Improvisational Lyricism from Hiphop to Pragmatism.”
- Matthew Wittmann “Empire of Culture: U.S. Entertainers and the Making of the Pacific Circuit, 1850–1890.”
2008
- Jan Bernabe “Improbable Visions: Filipino Bodies, U.S. Empire and the Visual Archives.”
- Lloyd Buss “Religion and Culture: Detroit’s Open Housing Movement.”
- Lorgia Garcia Pena “Dominicanidad in Contra (Diction): Marginality, Migration, and the Narration of a Dominican National Identity.”
- David Julyk “The Trouble With Machines Is People. The Computer as Icon in Post-War American 1946–1970.”
- Justine Pas “Finding Home in Babel: Transnationalism, Translation, and Languages of Identity.
- Rachel Peterson “Adapting Left Culture to the Cold War: Theodore Ward, Ann Petry and Correspondence.”
- Deidre Wheaton “Seeking Salvation: Black Messiahs, Racial Formation, and Christian Thought in Late 20th Century Black Cultural Texts.”
2007
- Robert Hill 'As a man, I exist: as a woman—I live': Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America.
- Kathy Jurado Alienated Citizens: "Hispanophobia" and the Mexican Im/migrant Body
- Shawn Kimmel "Freedom’s Police: The Constitution of the Liberal Police State in the Early Republic’s Theater of Civil Society."
- Anne Kustritz "Productive (Cyber) Public Space: Slash Fan Fiction’s Multiple Imaginary."
- Anastasia Pratt "Home: A 20th Century American Construction."
- Ellen Scott "Race and the Struggle for Cinematic Meaning: Film Production, Censorship, and African American Reception, 1940–1960."
2006
- Dolores Ines Casillas: "Sounds of Belonging: A Cultural History of Spanish-language Radio in the United States, 1922–2004."
- Lisa Harris: "In Vitro Fertilization in the United States: A Clinical and Cultural History."
- Robin Li: "Being Good Chinese": Chinese Scholarly Elites and Immigration in Mid-Century America.
- Michele Morales "Persistent Pathologies: The Odd Coupling of Alcoholism and Homosexuality in the Discourses of Twentieth Century Science."
- Tracie Rubeck: "Racial Harmony Through Clenched Teeth: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement in Newsweek & the CBS Evening News, 1990–99."
- Carla Vecchiola: "Detroit's Rhythmic Resistance: Electronic Music and Community."
2000-2005
2005
- Paul Ching: “Work in the New Economy: Internet Business and a Revolutionary Status Quo, 1995–2000.”
- Catherine Daligga: “Claiming Legitimacy for Female Expertise in Motherhood: The Women of the Merrill-Palmer School in Detroit, 1918–1930.”
- Maria Teresa Pool: “Behind the Chair: The Experience and Meaning of Work in the Lives of Hairdressers.”
- Katrina Mann: "Ambassadors of Good Will:" American Race Relation s and Global Geopolitcs in Postwar Racial Problem Films.
- Jennifer Moon: "Cruising and Queer Counterpublics: Theories and Fictions."
- Shani Mott: “Masquerade Narratives: Writing Blackness and Imagining Democracy in American Literature, 1930–1955.”
- Nicholas Syrett: “The Company He Keeps: White College Fraternities, Masculinity, and Power, 1825–1975.”
- Jess Rigelhaupt: “Education for Action” The California Labor School, Radical Unionism, Civil Rights, and Progressive Coalition Building in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1934–1970
- Grace Wang: “Soundtracks of Asian American Identity: Music, Race, and National Belonging.”
- Shawan Worsley: “Cultural Misbehavior: Identity Politics and Contemporary Black Popular Culture.”
2004
- Libby Garland: "Through Closed Gates: Jew and Illegal Immigration to the United States.”
- Nhi Lieu: “Private Desires on Public Display: Vietnamese American Identities in Entertainment."
- Merida Rua: "Claims to “The City”: Puerto Rican Latinidad amid Labors of Identity, Community, and Belonging in Chicago.”
- Jennifer Tilton: "Dangerous and Endangered Children: Representations of Youth and Political struggles to Shape the State and City.”
- Cynthia Wu: “The Mystery of Their Union”: Cross-Cultural Legacies of the Original Siamese Twins”
2003
- Colin Johnson: “Columbia’s Orient: Gender, Geography Orient: Gender, Geography in Rural America.”
- Patricia Kim: "Watching from the Other Side: Latin American Telenovelas and Latina Audiences."
- Charlotte Pagni: "Hollywood Does Kinsey: Cinema, Sexology, and Cultural Regulations, 1948–1968."
- Rebecca Poyourow: "From Working Girl to Adolescent: The Detroit YWCA and the Transformation of Sociability Among Working-Class Young Women, 1900–1930."
- Alejandra Marchevsky: “Flexible Labor, Inflexible Citizenship: Latina Immigrants and the Politics of Welfare Reform.”
- Pablo Ramirez: “Borderlands Ethics: Visions of Incorporation in Chicana/o Fiction.”
- Angela Winand:"Weighed Upon a Scale: African American Women, Class and Consumer Culture."
2002
- Estevan Rael Galvez: "Identifying and Capturing Identity: Narratives of American Indian Servitude, Colorado and New Mexico, 1750–1930."
- Anna Pegler-Gordon:"In Sight of America: Photography and U.S. Immigration Policy, 1880–1930."
- Alex Textor: "American Marriage in Modernity: Cultural Reproduction, Relationality, and Dissidence."
2001
- Anthony Macias: "From Pachuco Boogie to Latin Jazz"
- Daryl Maeda: "Forging Asian American Identity"
- Kate Masur: "Reconstructing the Nation's Capital"
- Jonathan Metzel: "The Freud of Prozac"
- L. Ariella Zeller: "Jewish Women Remembering their Bodies"
2000
- Leslie Paris: "Children's Nature: Summer Camps in New York State, 1919–1941"
- Rapeepanchanok Thongthiraj: "'To Be or Not To Be...Is the Question?' Race and Identity Transformations in Asian American Literature"
- Martha Umphrey: "Dementia America"
1990s
1999
- Joseph Moreau:"Schoolbook Nation"
1998
- Christine Bass: "'It was more like home than a Hospital': Women's Experiences as Patients at Peterson Hospital, Ann Arbor Michigan, 1902–1933"
- Elizabeth Brent: "Domestic Horrors: Family Values and the Intruder"
- Michael Epstein: Detectives, Therapists, Fathers, and Hired Guns: A Cross-Examination of Lawyer Images on American Television"
- Wallace Genser: "'A Rigid Government Over Ourselves': Transformations in Ethnic, Gender, and Race Consciousness on the Northern Borderlands-Michigan, 1805–1930"
- Karen Majewski: "Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1865–1880"
- Joseph Moreau: "Schoolbook Nation Imagining the American Red Blooded Americans: Mulattoes and the Melting Pot in U.S. Racialist and Nationalist Discourse, 1890–1930"
1997
- Heidi Ardizzone: "Red Blooded Americans: Mulattoes and the Melting Pot in U.S. Racialist and Nationalist Discourse, 1890–1930."
- Reshela DuPuis: "Documenting Community: Activist Videography in Hawai'i."
- Duane Niatum: "Shamanism, Sacred Narratives, The Sea, and the Cedar in the Art of John Hoover, Aleut Sculptor."
- Eric Porter: "Out of the Blue: The Challenge of Black Creative Music, 1940–1995."
- Mark Rogers: "Beyond Bang! Pow! Zap!: Genre and the Evolution of the American Comic Industry"
1996
- Marsha Ackermann: "Cold Comfort: The Air Conditioning of America"
- Shi-Qui Cui: "Gender and Representation in Chinese New Cinema: A Cross-Cultural Analysis."
- Mary McGuire: "Disciplining the State: Organized Civil Servants, State Formation and Citizenship in the United States and Germany, 1880–1925."
- James Pringle Morris-Knower: "No Place Like Home: Discourses of Adolescent Identity and the Politics of Space in Contemporary American Coming of Age Narratives."
- Susanne Shavelson: "From Amerike to America: Language and Identity in the Yiddish and English Autobiography of Jewish Immigrant Women."
- Jeanne Theoharis: "This is Not a Human Interest Story: Black Teenagers, Urban Schools, Writing and the Politics of Representation."
- Joseph D. Won: "Yellowface Minstrelsy: Asian Martial Arts and the American Popular Imaginary."
1995
- Angela Dillard: "From the Reverend Charles A. Hill to the Reverend Albert B. Cleage, Jr.,: Change and Continuity in the Patterns of Civil Rights Mobilizations in Detroit, 1935–1967."
- Tom Fujita Rony: "'They Did Me A Great Wrong': History and Meanings of the Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration."
- Michael W. Kline: " The Politics of Knowledge in a 'Post-Industrial' City: Intellectual Work and Political Struggle in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1945–1992."
- William Frank Mitchell: "Jungle Fever and Other Ethno-Racial Myths: Generation, Cultural Production and the Maintenance of Ethnicity."
- Richard Nation: "Home in the Hoosier Hills: Agriculture, Politics, and Religion in Southern Indiana, 1810–1870."
1994
- Corey Dolgon: "Innovators and Gravediggers: Capital Restructuring and Class Formation in Ann Arbor, Michigan."
- Kristin Hass: "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and American Memory: Remaking the Nation with Purple Hearts and Fishing Lures." (1994)
- Michelle Johnson: "Juju Leaves in the Center of a Whirlwind: African American Nature/Culture Mediation." (1994)
- Timothy Shuker-Haines: "Home is the Hunter: Representations of Returning World War II Veterans and the Reconstruction of Masculinity, 1944–1951." (1994)
1993
- Patrick LeBeau: "The Codical Warrior: The Codification of American Indian Warrior Experience in American Culture."
- David Mitchell: "Conjured Communities: The Multiperspectival Novels of Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Louise Erdrich, Julia Alvarez and Cristina Garcia."
1992
- Margarita De la Vega Hurtado: "A Foreigner's Gaze: The American Films of Louis Malle."
- Jane Holzka: "The Limits of Dissent: Liberal State Building and Political Repression in New York, 1917–1929."
- Peggy A. Kusnerz: "Picturing the Past: Photographs at the Library of Congress, 1865–1950."
- Barbara Scott Winkler: "A Comparative History of Four Women's Studies Programs, 1970–1985."
- Laura Wendorff: "Race, Ethnicity, and the Voice of the 'Poetess' in the Lives and Works of Four Late-Nineteenth-Century American Women Poets: Frances E.W. Harper, Emma Lazarus, Louise Guiney, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox."
1991
- Brian Lloyd: "A Miserable Fit of the Blues: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Failure of American Marxism, 1900–1922."
- Catharine O'Connell: "Chastening the Rod: Sentimental Strategies in Three Antebellum Women's Novels."
- Stacy L. Spencer: "The Geography of Gender: Women Writers and the Literary Journey, 1820–1860."
1990
- Paul Bernard: "The Making of the Marginal Mind: Academic Economic Thought in the United States, 1860–1910."
- Neil F. Foley: "The New South in the Southwest: Anglos, Blacks, and Mexicans in Central Texas, 1880–1930."
- Shannon Richards-Slaughter: "The Blossoms of Jazz: A Fictive Treatment of Black Female Entertainers of the 1930s and 1940s."
- William Shea: "The Role and Function of Technology in American Popular Music: 1945–1964."
- E. Jeffrey Vaughn: "America's Pop Collector: Robert C. Scull—Contemporary Art at Auction."
- Wayne Wilke: "Changing Understanding of the Church-State Relationship: The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, 1914–1969."
1980s
1980s
- Joanne Bock: "Ethnic Vision: A Romanian-American Inheritance." (1986)
- Ruth Bradley: "The Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1963–1982: A History Illustrating the Genres of American Avant-Garde Cinema." (1985)
- Howard Brick: "The Crisis of Evolutionary Socialism: Daniel Bell and the Rise of Modernist Sociology." (1983)
- Martin Burke: "The Conundrum of Class: Public Discourse on the Social Order in America." (1987)
- John R. Chavez: "The Lost Land: The Chicano Image of the Southwest." (1980)
- Amy Cherry: "Crowded Lives: A Bakhtinian Analysis of the Novels of Hurston, Arnow, Morrison, and Kingston." (1986)
- Jeffrey P. Chown: "The Auteur in Hollywood: Francis Ford Coppola." (1982)
- Nancy R. Davison: "E.W. Clay: American Political Caricaturist of the Jacksonian Era." (1980)
- Earleen DeLaPerriere: "Afro-American Indirection: Issues in the Signifyin' Monkey and the Art of Coping." (1987)
- Thomas F. Flynn: "John Dos Passos: Fixed Moral Principles in a Changing World." (1982)
- Howard A. Good: "Acquainted with the Night: The Journalist in American Fiction, 1890–1930." (1984)
- Rosemary Gooden: "The Language of Devotion: Gospel Affection and Gospel Union in the Writings of Shaker Sisters." (1987)
- Michael J. Graham: "Lord Baltimore's Pious Enterprise: Toleration and Community in Colonial Maryland, 1634–1724." (1983)
- Nancy J. Groce: "Musical Instrument Making in New York City during the 18th and 19th Centuries." (1982)
- Paul Harris: "The Missionary Experience: Self-Denial and Social Change in the Autobiographical Writings of American Protestants." (1985)
- LeRoy Harvey: "Days of Confidence: The Early Life of Henry Seidel Canby." (1984)
- Wen-ching Ho: "Miscegenation in William Faulkner: A Synecdoche for Slavery/Caste System." (1989)
- Gloria House: "Tower and Dungeon: A Study in American Spatial Politics." (1986)
- Elizabeth Jameson: "High-Grade and Fissures: A Working-Class History of the Cripple Creek, Colorado, Gold Mining District, 1890–1905." (1987)
- John M. Jordan: "Technic and Ideology: The Engineering Ideal and American Political Culture, 1892–1934." (1989)
- Jeremy Kilar: "The Lumbertowns: A Socioeconomic History of Michigan's Leading Lumber Centers—Saginaw, Bay City, and Muskegon, 1870–1905." (1987)
- Zaneta Kosiba-Vargas: "Harry Gamboa and ASCO: The Emergence and Development of a Chicano Art Group, 1971–1987." (1988)
- Rosemary A. Kowalski: "A Vision of One's Own: Four Women Film Directors." (1980)
- Helen F. Levy: "No Hiding Place on Earth: The Female Self in Eight Modern American Women Authors." (1982)
- Robbie Lieberman: "'My Song Is My Weapon': People's Songs and the Politics of Culture, 1946–49." (1985)
- Harry Luton: "Wainwright, Alaska: The Making of Inupiaq Cultural Community in a Time of Change." (1986)
- Lisa MacFarlane: "The Mild Apocalypse: Domestic Millennialism in the Novels of Harriet Beecher Stowe." (1987)
- Patricia J. McAskin: 'These Trifling Matters' — Letters of Mary Craig Cumming, 1811–1815." (1988)
- Richard A. Meckel: "The Awful Responsibility of Motherhood: American Health Reform and the Prevention of Infant and Child Mortality before 1913." (1980)
- G. Steve Moore: "Modes of Black Discourse in the Narrative and Structure of James Baldwin's Fiction." (1989)
- Marilyn F. Motz: "The True Sisterhood: Networks of Female Kin in Nineteenth-Century Michigan Families." (1981)
- Pauline Norton: "March Music in Nineteenth-Century America." (1983)
- Barney Pace: "An Experimental Novel About the Columbian Exposition of 1895: The Fame and Fortune of Jimmie Dawson." (1982)
- David Papke: "Framing the Criminal: Crime, Cultural Work and the Loss of Critical Perspective, 1830–1900." (1985)
- Mark A. Pittenger: "Science and the New Social Order: American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870–1918." (1984)
- Paula Rabinowitz: "Female Subjectivity in Women's Revolutionary Novels of the 1930's." (1986)
- John Reiff: "Human Dignity under Attack: The Political and Military Socialization of Vietnam Veterans." (1982)
- Jane E. Schultz: "Women at the Front: Gender and Genre in Literature of the American Civil War." (1988)
- Mary C. Sies: "American Country House Architecture in Context: The Suburban Ideal of Living in the East and Midwest, 1877–1917." (1987)
- Marcia Swenson-Davis: "From Sex Queen to Cultural Symbol: An Interpretation of the Image of 'Marilyn Monroe'." (1980)
- Satoko Tachiki: "Okakura Kakuzo (1862–1913) and Boston Brahmins." (1986)
- Lillian Trettin: "Traprock Workers: The Culture of Work and Risk at an Underground Copper Mine, 1900–1945." (1987)
- Jonathan Tyman: "Film in Science, Education, Propaganda: Examples of Its Use in America, 1940–1950." (1988)
- George Vargas: "Contemporary Latino Art in Michigan, the Midwest, and the Southwest." (1988)
- Zaragosa Vargas: "Mexican Auto Workers at Ford Motor Company, 1918–1933." (1984)


