DOCSLIB.ORG

Bitter Sweet Home": Celebration of Biculturalism in Japanese Language Japanese American Literature, 1936-1952 Junko Kobayashi University of Iowa

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Bitter Sweet Home University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations 2005 "Bitter sweet home": celebration of biculturalism in Japanese language Japanese American literature, 1936-1952 Junko Kobayashi University of Iowa Copyright 2005 Junko Kobayashi This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/97 Recommended Citation Kobayashi, Junko. ""Bitter sweet home": celebration of biculturalism in Japanese language Japanese American literature, 1936-1952." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2005. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/97. Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd Part of the History Commons “BITTER SWEET HOME”: CELEBRATION OF BICULTURALISM IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE JAPANESE AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1936-1952 by Junko Kobayashi An Abstract Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa July 2005 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Stephen G. Vlastos 1 ABSTRACT My dissertation “‘Bitter Sweet Home’: Celebration of Biculturalism in Japanese Language Japanese American Literature, 1936-1952” explores Japanese-language Japanese American literature as a discourse of identity politics among Japanese Americans between 1936 and 1952. Shūkaku, the first Japanese American translocal and multi-genre literary journal, published its inaugural issue in November of 1936, and 1952 marked the publication of Ibara aru shiramichi (Thorny path) by Asako Yamamoto, which was one of the earliest sustained literary accounts either in English or Japanese of the wartime experiences of Japanese Americans. One of the major goals of this dissertation is to uncover the muffled voices of Japanese Americans whose primary language was Japanese. I further scrutinize the ways in which Japanese Americans valued the tradition of English-Japanese bilingualism, and how bilingualism played a central role in the formation of Japanese American identity. From the 1930s through the Pacific War when the relationship of Japan and the US was the most hostile, and even after the war when Japan-US relations changed dramatically, Japanese Americans felt acute pressures to suppress Japanese language and culture which had become associated with political sympathizer with Japan, the enemy, and therefore disloyalty to the US. Even under such intense pressure, however, bilingualism remained a critical tool for Japanese Americans to maintain and reconfigure their identity. They carefully guarded the tradition of biculturalism grounded in bilingualism to preserve a distinct identity against the intensified pressures of Americanization with the emphasis on English-only monolingualism. The wartime political environment imposed a racially polarized discourse of American identity that singled out Japanese Americans as disloyal group and gave new impetus to Americanization programs. I argue that Japanese language literature provided 2 writers protected space within which they engaged politically charged discussions on such topics as racialized and gendered politics of loyalty and retaining biculturalism under the increasing pressure of Americanization. After the war, as the issue of disloyalty receded, Japanese language literature acquired a new role as a critical resource for Japanese Americans to commemorate wartime experiences, and to rebuild cultural and psychological ties with Japan and Japanese culture. Abstract Approved: ____________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________ Title and Department ____________________________________ Date “BITTER SWEET HOME”: CELEBRATION OF BICULTURALISM IN JAPANESE LANGUAGE JAPANESE AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1936-1952 by Junko Kobayashi A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa July 2005 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Stephen G. Vlastos Copyright by JUNKO KOBAYASHI 2005 All Rights Reserved Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ____________________________ PH.D. THESIS _____________ This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of Junko Kobayashi has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in History at the July 2005 graduation. Thesis Committee: ___________________________________ Stephen G. Vlastos, Thesis Supervisor ___________________________________ Linda L. Kerber ___________________________________ Paul R. Greenough ___________________________________ Shelton Stromquist ___________________________________ Scott R. Schnell To my family of blood and of relation 血縁と結縁の家族に捧げます ii In writing this book I was sustained by my admiration for and sympathy with people who found themselves at odds with Japanese society as they were experiencing it. I was attached to them and to the idea of a society different from the one currently silencing them. Attachment can come from birth and literal kinship, shared experience, intellectual empathy, or sheer fantasy. It doesn’t guarantee the quality of the criticism, its rightness, but it can explain why one brothers to criticize a structure, a set of practices, in the first place. Bothers, that is, for reasons other than or in addition to economic concerns, which I do not mean to dismiss inasmuch as economic well-being is essential to our capacity to think, to give and take pleasure, to live humanly. To reduce all criticism of Japan to bashing is to congeal a complex of people, places, food, cars, movies, estures, longings into a ridid singularity, “Japan,” populated by “the” Japanese. Ditto for America. It kills the possibility of declaring a complicated love. Norma Field, In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century’s End ことばはいきもの。世界は限りなく濃密。このいきもの を手にして世界に向かっていくのが文学。文学は人間が精一 杯世界と向き合ったときの一つのかたち。 ノーマ・フィールド、『祖母の国』 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS May I continue to live consciously and humbly to acknowledge my debt to all the people who have made me who I am. Thank you for all your support and guidance from the bottom of my heart. In particular, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to: Chako-chan, my sister who has taught me the deepest meaning of our lives; Mitsuru and Kiminobu Kobayashi, my parents; Yūko Taniguchi, my sister; Masae Tadachi, my grandmother. They have patiently waited for nine years to witness me obtaining the Ph.D. When I informed my grandmother about my graduation, she stated that she had known this would happen one day, since my late grandfather Yoshikazu Tadachi had predicted it long ago. Thank you, Ojīchan. I wish you were here with us. I also wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Aminta I. Pérez, my partner, who believed in me when I could not even trust myself. Without your belief in me, support and love, I could not have done it. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr. Alejandro Pérez and Mrs. Minerva Pérez, my parents-in-law, who welcomed me into the Pérez clan from the very beginning as an honorary Mexican. My sincere gratitude for each and every members of the Pérez clan for your warm acceptance of me as a member of the clan. I would like to acknowledge my genuine appreciation and honor to Grand Master Yong Chin Pak and Master Min Seok Kang for guiding me with patience in becoming a better martial artist and human being. Without learning the “indomitable spirit” and the concept of perseverance, I could have never reached the place I stand now. I also would like to thank Mrs. Jing-shu Zhu Kang for your support, friendship, and patience when we often keep Master Kang from going home on time. My gratitude extends to Master Brian iv Hayes, Master Scott Williams, and fellow martial artists in the University of Iowa Hap Ki Do club and Kang’s Martial Arts Academy. I feel very fortunate and honored to have Dr. Stephen Vlastos as my advisor for the past eight years. I would like to express my gratitude and intellectual debt to Dr. Vlastos, Dr. Linda Kerber and Dr. Paul Greenough for their guidance and encouragement in becoming a historian. My gratitude extends to professors, fellow graduate students, and most importantly to Mary Strottman, Jean Aikin, and Pat Goodwin in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. Since I have not been professionally trained in English-Japanese translation, translation of Japanese literature, particularly poetry, into English was an ardent and often overwhelming task. Without the support and friendship of Marilyn Adildskov, Robin Tierney, and Dr. Adrienne Hurley, I could not have accomplished the daunting task of translation as exhibited in this study. However, all the mistakes and short-comings are strictly my own. Living on a minimum income as a graduate instructor with the additional financial support from my family, financial supports at crucial points enabled me to complete this project. I wish to acknowledge the generosity of the James and Sylvia Thayer Short-term Research Fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles. Without the supports of Jeffery Rankin, Supervisors of Reader Services at the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA and other staff members, my archival research would not have been as pleasant and fruitful. I would also like to extend my gratitude to two Japanese Studies librarians at the Main Library at the University of Iowa, Ellen Hammond and Chiaki Sakai for their assistance in navigating the maze of Japanese language materials. Many people outside of the Department of History at the University of Iowa
Load more

Recommended publications
  • COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (Div
    COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (Div. I) Chair, Associate Professor CHRISTOPHER NUGENT Professors: BELL-VILLADA, CASSIDAY, DRUXES, S. FOX, FRENCH, KAGAYA**, NEWMAN***, ROUHI, VAN DE STADT. Associate Professors: C. BOLTON***, DEKEL, S. FOX, HOLZAPFEL, MARTIN, NUGENT, PIEPRZAK***, THORNE, WANG**. Assistant Professors: BRAGGS*, VARGAS. Visiting Assistant Professor: EQEIQ. Students motivated by a desire to study literary art in the broadest sense of the term will find an intellectual home in the Program in Comparative Literature. The Program in Comparative Literature gives students the opportunity to develop their critical faculties through the analysis of literature across cultures, and through the exploration of literary and critical theory. By crossing national, linguistic, historical, and disciplinary boundaries, students of Comparative Literature learn to read texts for the ways they make meaning, the assumptions that underlie that meaning, and the aesthetic elements evinced in the making. Students of Comparative Literature are encouraged to examine the widest possible range of literary communication, including the metamorphosis of media, genres, forms, and themes. Whereas specific literature programs allow the student to trace the development of one literature in a particular culture over a period of time, Comparative Literature juxtaposes the writings of different cultures and epochs in a variety of ways. Because interpretive methods from other disciplines play a crucial role in investigating literature’s larger context, the Program offers courses intended for students in all divisions of the college and of all interests. These include courses that introduce students to the comparative study of world literature and courses designed to enhance any foreign language major in the Williams curriculum. In addition, the Program offers courses in literary theory that illuminate the study of texts of all sorts.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97g9d23n Author Mewhinney, Matthew Stanhope Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki By Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Japanese Language in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Alan Tansman, Chair Professor H. Mack Horton Professor Daniel C. O’Neill Professor Anne-Lise François Summer 2018 © 2018 Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney All Rights Reserved Abstract The Lyric Forms of the Literati Mind: Yosa Buson, Ema Saikō, Masaoka Shiki and Natsume Sōseki by Matthew Stanhope Mewhinney Doctor of Philosophy in Japanese Language University of California, Berkeley Professor Alan Tansman, Chair This dissertation examines the transformation of lyric thinking in Japanese literati (bunjin) culture from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. I examine four poet- painters associated with the Japanese literati tradition in the Edo (1603-1867) and Meiji (1867- 1912) periods: Yosa Buson (1716-83), Ema Saikō (1787-1861), Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) and Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916). Each artist fashions a lyric subjectivity constituted by the kinds of blending found in literati painting and poetry. I argue that each artist’s thoughts and feelings emerge in the tensions generated in the process of blending forms, genres, and the ideas (aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and historical) that they carry with them.
    [Show full text]
  • FP 8.2 Summer1988d Updated.Pdf (4.050Mb)
    a current listing of contents Volume 8, Number 2 Summer 1988 Published by Susan Searing, Women's Studies Librarian University of Wisconsin System 1 12A Memorial Library 728 State Street Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (608) 263-5754 a current listing of contents Volume 8, Number 2 Summer 1988 Periodical literature is the cutting edge of women's scholarship, feminist theory, and much of women's culture. Feminist-- Periodicals:- .- - -. - A Current Listing of--- Contents is published by the Office of the University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian on a quarterly basis with the intent of increasing public awareness of feminist periodicals. It is our hope that Feminist Periodicals wi 11 serve several purposes: to keep the reader abreast of current topics in feminist literature; to increase readers' familiarity with a wide spectrum of feminist periodicals ; and to provide the requisite bib1iographi c information should a reader wish to subscribe to a journal or to obtain a particular article at her library or through interlibrary loan. (Users will need to be aware of the limitations of the new copyright law with regard to photocopying of copyri ghted materi a1 s .) Table of contents pages from current issues of major feminist journals are reproduced in each issue of Femi nist Periodical s , preceded by a comprehensi ve annotated 1isting of a1 1 journals we have selected. As puhl ication schedules vary enormously, not every periodical wi 11 have table of contents pages reproduced in each issue of -FP. The annotated listing provides the following infonnation on each journal : 1. Year of fi rst publication.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ghost As Ghost: Compulsory Rationalism and Asian American Literature, Post-1965
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: THE GHOST AS GHOST: COMPULSORY RATIONALISM AND ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, POST-1965 Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Directed By: Professor Sangeeta Ray, Department of English Since the early 1980s, scholarship across disciplines has employed the “ghostly” as critical lens for understanding the upheavals of modernity. The ghost stands metaphorically for the lasting trace of what has been erased, whether bodies or histories. The ghost always stands for something , rather than the ghost simply is —a conception in keeping with dominant Western rationalism. But such a reading practice threatens the very sort of violent erasure it means to redress, uncovering lost histories at the expense of non-Western and “minority” ways of knowing. What about the ghost as ghost? What about the array of non-rational knowledges out of which the ghostly frequently emerges? This project seeks to transform the application of the ghostly as scholarly lens, bringing to bear Foucault’s notion of “popular” knowledges and drawing from Asian American studies and critical mixed race studies frameworks. Its timeline begins with the 1965 Immigration Act and traces across the 1970s-1990s rise of multiculturalism and the 1980s-2000s rise of the Multiracial Movement. For field of analysis, the project turns to Asian American literature and its rich evocations of the ghostly and compulsory rationalism, in particular Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and China Men , Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses , Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman , Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge , Heinz Insu Fenkl’s Memories of My Ghost Brother , Shawna Yang Ryan’s Water Ghosts , and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being .
    [Show full text]
  • Western Influence on Japanese Art Song (Kakyoku) in the Meiji Era Japan
    WESTERN INFLUENCE ON JAPANESE ART SONG (KAKYOKU) IN THE MEIJI ERA JAPAN JOANNE COLE Master of Music Performance (by Research) Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts and Music The University of Melbourne December 2013 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music Performance (by Research) Produced on Archival Quality Paper Abstract The focus of this dissertation is the investigation of the earliest Western influences on Kōjō no Tsuki (Moon over the Castle) the composition of Japanese composer Rentaro Taki. Kōjō no Tsuki is an example of an early Japanese Art Song known as Kakyoku composed during Meiji Era Japan (1868 - 1912). The dissertation is divided into four chapters with an introduction. Chapter One explores the historical background of the Meiji Era Japan, highlighting the major impact of the signing of the treaty between the United States of America and Japan in 1853. This treaty effectively opened Japan to the West, not only for trade, but for exchange of social, political and cultural ideas. The resulting evolution that occurred in Japan from feudal society to one of early twentieth century is illustrated by reference to articles and writings of the Meiji Era. The second chapter examines the Japanese Art Song form Kakyoku using the example of Rentarō Taki’s song, Kōjō no Tsuki. This chapter presents an argument to illustrate, from an anthropological viewpoint, why this new form of Japanese Art Song could have its own identity based on Western ideas and not be categorised as a Japanese Folk Song known as Minʹyō or Shin Minyō.
    [Show full text]
  • Japanese American Citizens League (75C Postpald Us.) 25 Cents
    THE PACIFIC CITIZEN Established 1929 National Publication of the Japanese American Citizens League (75c Postpald us.) 25 Cents #2,581 Vol. 110 No.25 ISSN: 0030-8579 941 East 3rd St., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90013 Friday. June 29. 1990 • New Notional JACL Officers Toke Office RESOLUTION PRAISES WWWS NISEI DRAFT RESISTERS SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Candidates for the ix ational Board Offices were JACL A H I C W d elected last week at the 31st Biennial JACL Convention. All ran without oppo - cts to eo ommun.ety oun 5 ilion but required a imple majority. The new JACL national officer.;, with the number of vote received, are: ~ident-Cressey akagawa (inl:), 88; vice pre ident for generaf operauons-PrisciUa Ouchida {mc.),73; Lillian Kimur'd (write·in), I; vice pl"C.'ldent for public affairs Floyd Mon, 72, vice pre ident for planning and development-William Kaneko. 9: Vice president for membership and >ervicl!lr- Ted 1asurnoto, I; secretary·treasurer-Tom akao Jr , 50; Randolph hibata (write-in). 1 AI 0 elected were the two board member.; repre enting youth. Kim Tachikl defeated Joe Takano for the po t of youth repre entalive, and Tri ha Murakawa, runmng unoppo ed. was elected national youth council chatr Only the youth repre entatlve cast ballots for the e offices 31 st Biennial JACL Convention in San Diego Ends; LEC Honors 12 • By Harry K. Honda from EnomOto; en Spark M. Matsunaga, POSl­ - humou Iy from Shig Wakamatsu; Sen i}aniel SAN DIEGO - Curtains for the 31 t Photo by Koren Serigucho K Akaka (D-Hawaii) In absenua from Mae Biennial ational JACL Convention Takahashi; Rep.
    [Show full text]
  • Tim Yamamura Dissertation Final
    UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Science Fiction Futures and the Ocean as History: Literature, Diaspora, and the Pacific War Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3j87r1ck Author Yamamura, Tim Publication Date 2014 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ SCIENCE FICTION FUTURES AND THE OCEAN AS HISTORY: LITERATURE, DIASPORA, AND THE PACIFIC WAR A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LITERATURE by Timothy Jitsuo Yamamura December 2014 The Dissertation of Tim Yamamura is approved: __________________________________________ Professor Rob Wilson, chair __________________________________________ Professor Karen Tei Yamashita __________________________________________ Professor Christine Hong __________________________________________ Professor Noriko Aso __________________________________________ Professor Alan Christy ________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © 2014 Tim Yamamura All rights reserved Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi Introduction: Science Fiction and the Perils of Prophecy: Literature, 1 Diasporic “Aliens,” and the “Origins” of the Pacific War Chapter 1: Far Out Worlds: American Orientalism, Alienation, and the 49 Speculative Dialogues of Percival Lowell and Lafcadio Hearn Chapter
    [Show full text]
  • Awards Appendix
    Appendix A: Awards Jane Addams Book Award The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award has been presented annually since 1953 by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Jane Addams Peace Association to the children’s book of the preceding year that most effectively promotes the cause of peace, social justice and world community 1953 People Are Important by Eva Knox Evans (Capital) 1954 Stick-in-the-Mud by Jean Ketchum (Cadmus Books, E.M. Hale) 1955 Rainbow Round the World by Elizabeth Yates (Bobbs-Merrill) 1956 Story of the Negro by Arna Bontemps (Knopf) 1957 Blue Mystery by Margot Benary-Isbert (Harcourt Brace) 1958 The Perilous Road by William O. Steele (Harcourt Brace) 1959 No Award Given 1960 Champions of Peace by Edith Patterson Meyer (Little, Brown) 1961 What Then, Raman? By Shirley L. Arora (Follett) 1962 The Road to Agra by Aimee Sommerfelt (Criterion) 1963 The Monkey and the Wild, Wild Wind by Ryerson Johnson (Abelard-Schuman) 1964 Profiles in Courage: Young Readers Memorial Edition by John F. Kennedy (Harper & Row) 1965 Meeting with a Stranger by Duane Bradley (Lippincott) 1966 Berries Goodman by Emily Cheney Nevel (Harper & Row) 1967 Queenie Peavy by Robert Burch (Viking) 1968 The Little Fishes by Erick Haugaard (Houghton Mifflin) 1969 The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia by Esther Hautzig (T.Y. Crowell) 1970 The Cay by Theodore Taylor (Doubleday) 1971 Jane Addams: Pioneer of Social Justice by Cornelia Meigs (Little, Brown) 1972 The Tamarack Tree by Betty Underwood (Houghton Mifflin) 1973 The Riddle of Racism by S.
    [Show full text]
  • Living Voices Within the Silence Bibliography 1
    Living Voices Within the Silence bibliography 1 Within the Silence bibliography FICTION Elementary So Far from the Sea Eve Bunting Aloha means come back: the story of a World War II girl Thomas and Dorothy Hoobler Pearl Harbor is burning: a story of World War II Kathleen Kudlinski A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (bilingual: English/Japanese) Amy Lee-Tai Baseball Saved Us Heroes Ken Mochizuki Flowers from Mariko Rick Noguchi & Deneen Jenks Sachiko Means Happiness Kimiko Sakai Home of the Brave Allen Say Blue Jay in the Desert Marlene Shigekawa The Bracelet Yoshiko Uchida Umbrella Taro Yashima Intermediate The Burma Rifles Frank Bonham My Friend the Enemy J.B. Cheaney Tallgrass Sandra Dallas Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows 1 Living Voices Within the Silence bibliography 2 The Journal of Ben Uchida, Citizen 13559, Mirror Lake Internment Camp Barry Denenberg Farewell to Manzanar Jeanne and James Houston Lone Heart Mountain Estelle Ishigo Itsuka Joy Kogawa Weedflower Cynthia Kadohata Boy From Nebraska Ralph G. Martin A boy at war: a novel of Pearl Harbor A boy no more Heroes don't run Harry Mazer Citizen 13660 Mine Okubo My Secret War: The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck Mary Pope Osborne Thin wood walls David Patneaude A Time Too Swift Margaret Poynter House of the Red Fish Under the Blood-Red Sun Eyes of the Emperor Graham Salisbury, The Moon Bridge Marcia Savin Nisei Daughter Monica Sone The Best Bad Thing A Jar of Dreams The Happiest Ending Journey to Topaz Journey Home Yoshiko Uchida 2 Living Voices Within the Silence bibliography 3 Secondary Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Jamie Ford Before the War: Poems as they Happened Drawing the Line: Poems Legends from Camp Lawson Fusao Inada The moved-outers Florence Crannell Means From a Three-Cornered World, New & Selected Poems James Masao Mitsui Chauvinist and Other Stories Toshio Mori No No Boy John Okada When the Emperor was Divine Julie Otsuka The Loom and Other Stories R.A.
    [Show full text]
  • Activism Through Music
    Portland State University PDXScholar Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations Physics Spring 2005 Activism Through Music Cherry Muhanji Portland State University Jack C. Straton Portland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/phy_fac Part of the Community-Based Learning Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, and the Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Muhanji, Cherry & Straton, Jack C. (2005). ‘Activism through music’, Inventio—Creative Thinking about Learning and Teaching 7(1), (Spring 2005) This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Activism Through Music by Cherry Muhanji and Jack C. Straton Introduction Origins and Emphasis Introduction Music and the Activist Impulse Promoting Activist Sensibilities Music as Activist Education Portland State University has been engaged in a 10-year revolution in general ''Four Women'': Interplay of Race and education (Journal of General Education, 1999) that has inculcated activist Gender ''Prove It On Me Blues'': Lesbian Sexuality education as central to instruction. In addition to the Critical Thinking and Race, Gender and Oppression Communication instruction that any general education program must provide, Music and Activism: Historical Portland State’s University Studies Program promotes Social Responsibility Effectiveness Music and the Activist Impulse and Diversity as central goals of its efforts. Students start with year-long African-American Roots Freshman Inquiry courses taught by interdisciplinary teams of three to five Lesbian-Affirmative and Profeminist Activism faculty with a corresponding number of Peer Mentors.
    [Show full text]
  • American Book Awards 2004
    BEFORE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION PRESENTS THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS 2004 America was intended to be a place where freedom from discrimination was the means by which equality was achieved. Today, American culture THE is the most diverse ever on the face of this earth. Recognizing literary excel- lence demands a panoramic perspective. A narrow view strictly to the mainstream ignores all the tributaries that feed it. American literature is AMERICAN not one tradition but all traditions. From those who have been here for thousands of years to the most recent immigrants, we are all contributing to American culture. We are all being translated into a new language. BOOK Everyone should know by now that Columbus did not “discover” America. Rather, we are all still discovering America—and we must continue to do AWARDS so. The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 as a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature. The goals of BCF are to provide recognition and a wider audience for the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity that constitutes American writing. BCF has always employed the term “multicultural” not as a description of an aspect of American literature, but as a definition of all American litera- ture. BCF believes that the ingredients of America’s so-called “melting pot” are not only distinct, but integral to the unique constitution of American Culture—the whole comprises the parts. In 1978, the Board of Directors of BCF (authors, editors, and publishers representing the multicultural diversity of American Literature) decided that one of its programs should be a book award that would, for the first time, respect and honor excellence in American literature without restric- tion or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre.
    [Show full text]
  • Novel Approaches to Negotiating Gender and Sexuality in the Color Purple, Nearly Roadkill, and Stone Butch Blues
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1997 Distracting the border guards: novel approaches to negotiating gender and sexuality in The olorC Purple, Nearly Roadkill, and Stone Butch Blues A. D. Selha Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Selha, A. D., "Distracting the border guards: novel approaches to negotiating gender and sexuality in The oC lor Purple, Nearly Roadkill, and Stone Butch Blues" (1997). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 9. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/9 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. -r Distracting the border guards: Novel approaches to negotiating gender and sexuality in The Color Purple, Nearly Roadkill, and Stone Butch Blues A. D. Selha A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Major: Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Major Professor: Kathy Hickok Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 1997 1 ii JJ Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Master's thesis of A.D. Selha has met the thesis requirements of Iowa State University 1 1 11 iii DEDICATION For those who have come before me, I request your permission to write in your presence, to illuminate your lives, and draw connections between the communities which you may have painfully felt both a part of and apart from.
    [Show full text]