M.A. - American Studies

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https://hdl.handle.net/10125/587

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    Sugar Schools: Cultivating the American Experiment in Territorial Hawaiʻi 1919-1934
    (2024) McConnell, Matthew J.; Kahanu, Noelle M.K.Y.; American Studies
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    The Cultural Politics of Drone Warfare
    (2024) Jung, Jiyeon; Eagle, Jonna; American Studies
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    "We call to the voices of Waialua" Envisioning a Waialua Heritage Center Connecting Past, Present and Future
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2021) Greiner, Rachel Elise; Kosasa, Karen; American Studies
    How can community-based museums, archives and libraries (memory institutions) build an organization that is accountable to the community at all levels of the organization? In Waialua, community members have fought changes brought on by settler-colonialism including over-development, tourism and military development for many generations. This thesis will provide recommendations for how a heritage center can support this continued fight by drawing on the hands-on experiences of community-focused memory institution professionals, and the wisdom and experiences of community members from Waialua working with the North Shore Ethnographic Field School. From "behind-the-scenes” strategies for community consultation and staffing policies, to front-facing exhibit design and education practices, community-based memory institutions must find ways to be accountable and committed to the communities they represent.
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    Island: Aldous Huxley’s 1962 Utopian Novel Island And Its Literary And Social Significance In Postwar American Society
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2020) Martin, Kevin John; Perkinson, Robert; American Studies
    In 1962, Aldous Huxley, one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, published a utopian novel titled Island. During his career, Huxley wrote eleven novels; Island was his final novel and the most important to Huxley personally. Island was not Huxley’s most famous or acclaimed book, but he and many others considered Island to be his most influential and far-reaching. Huxley spent his life traveling, studying the world, and looking for solutions that would liberate individuals from the tyranny of authoritarian control, discourage mass militarization, and halt the innovation of predatory technological developments. The intersectional of control, militarization, and industrialism left Huxley and many others disillusioned and pessimistic about the future of humanity. However, after a series of spiritual epiphanies, Huxley began to envision the possibility of the postwar period of 1954-1962 as a time where people could demand change and create a more equitable, inhabitable, and peaceful world instead of succumbing to the blight of modernity. At the time, it was a radical belief that the future of humanity could result in the betterment of the human race, as most of the popular literature of that era focused on destruction, suffering, and chaos. Most importantly, this particular utopian vision was unlike anything previously proposed, as it sought to integrate Eastern mysticism and Western science. This thesis argues that Island exemplifies the most salient social concerns from the postwar 1950s epoch in American society. By the 1950s, a growing resentment towards traditional American values became visible through various social movements such as the Beatnik Movement, the 1960s Anti-war Counterculture Movement, and the Human Potential Movement. I will examine three popular texts – Lord of the Flies by William Golding, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson – to illustrate the difference between Island compared to other books of the time. Each one of those books became popular because they presented a searing critique of authoritarian control, colonial values, and mass industrialization, all of which Huxley provides a solution to in Island.
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    Critical Masses: American Populationism, Eugenics, And War, 1945 To 1975
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2019) Barsocchini, Robert Joseph; Eagle, Jonna; American Studies
    This thesis argues that American thinkers in the post-war period (1945 to 1975) who diagnosed global overpopulation made implicit suggestions that “population problems” could be addressed by raising death rates, such as through war. I illustrate that the fear of population growth, which became ubiquitous in the United States during this time, largely derives from eugenically influenced concerns over losing power relative to colonized people of color around the world, but that these concerns also predate eugenics. I then apply this lens to readings of the Korean and Vietnam wars, arguing that populationist thinking is evident in these campaigns and that its prevalence at this time likely intensified American violence and increased a focus on eliminating large numbers of people, including civilians.
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    Making Raiders: Material Culture at ‘Iolani School
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-08) Greenhill, Tyler A. K.; American Studies
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    That Does Not Compute: Unpacking the Fembot in American Science Fiction.
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2017-05) DeSure, Pearl A.; American Studies
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    Miss Represented: Misrepresentations of Kanaka Maoli Women in American Cinema and Moolelo as Alternative Method
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2016-12) Leao, Oriana
    Since 1898, countless American films have depicted “Hawaiian” women but only a handful that uniquely convey the lived experiences, well-being, and accurate cultural depictions of Native Hawaiian women. This text argues that Native Hawaiian women have been misrepresented in American Cinema and that Native Hawaiian mo‘olelo (stories and oral histories) should be utilized as an alternative method for representing Native Hawaiian women. This thesis offers an analysis of the film Princess Ka‘iulani (2010) by director Marc Forby in order to explore examples of the very gendered, nationalist, historical, and racialized ways in which Kānaka women have been depicted. The second part of this thesis explores the ways in which Kānaka women could be depicted differently through a discussion of mo‘olelo and mana wahine. The hope of this study is to provide a space where representations of Native Hawaiian women in American Cinema can be discussed in a way that is productive and constructive. The goal is to shift past multifaceted arenas of difference and reimagine ways to remap difference.
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    Urban Ruins and the Myths of Modernity: Challenge and Resistance through the Work of Sarah R. Bloom
    (University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2015-08) Dunn, Amy
    This thesis explores the political potentialities of urban ruins through an investigation of ruins generally as well as through the work of artist Sarah R. Bloom. Ultimately this thesis describes urban ruins and their imagery as sites where powerful political (re)mapping of neoliberal capitalist modernity occurs. Whether through a (re)mapping of time, space, or hegemonic notions such as disposability, images of urban ruins do important work toward imagining alternative futures that are more just and sustainable for both humans and nature.