The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2011 A collection of scholarly research by fellows of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program Preface Having the opportunity to contribute to the essential mission of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) mission for a fourth year by assembling the collection of articles by undergraduate fellows has been an immense pleasure. Reducing the severe under-representation of certain minority groups in higher education is no small task, yet the MMUF program has risen to the challenge. Through its support of more than 3,700 undergrad- uates, the MMUF program is facilitating the journey to the PhD for more than 600 fellows and has already assisted more than 400 fellows to earn their doctorates and begin teaching. The program continues to play a critical role in increasing the number of minority students and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities in the pursuit of PhDs in the arts and sciences—offering significant progress in the aim of diversifying faculties across the nation. The 2011 MMUF Journal highlights the intellectual efforts of current fellows and recent alumni alike. This year, there was an overwhelming response to the call for Fellows to showcase their original research, resulting in an unprecedented number of submissions. While we could not include each one, these 31 articles are indicative of the breadth and depth of insight represented in the program’s 21 fields of designated study.1 These articles explore a range of topics: from Bradley Craig’s and CaVar Reid’s pieces that challenge us to rethink popular and scholarly his- torical narratives on the manifestations of black masculinity and responsibility, to Irtefa Binte-Faird’s analysis that expands our notions of the actors engaged in the struggle for India’s liberation. Whether probing the challenges of constructing post-colonial narratives in literature, film and national memorials, reframing our understanding of essentialism in feminist discourse and the contributions of translation in comparative literature, or offering glimpses into the lingering consequences of narrow conceptions of beauty in Moroccan women’s lived experience—the issues they examine extend our historical, practical and theoretical knowledge. The work of these apprentice scholars is not only intellectually engaging, but timely and practically significant—raising questions about the juxtaposition of consumerism and charity in cause-related marketing, the role that increased Internet accessibility may play in addressing contemporary inequality, and the challenges of encouraging civil society participa- tion in new republics. Moreover, engaging pieces like Jasmine Elliot’s examination of the role changing interpretations of the 14th Amendment played in the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education, and Monica Smith’s research on the barriers minority veterans faced in gaining equal access to the benefits of the GI Bill offer sobering reminders of the chal- lenges that have hindered educational equality in America. I hope their insightful analyses serve as clarion calls to action that keep us pressing forward in our work to realize MMUF’s aims and mission. We present these students’ original research in the 2011 MMUF Journal in continued support of their aim to obtain doctorates and become exceptional scholars. Enjoy! Jovonne J. Bickerstaff Meg Brooks Swift Editor, 2008–2011 Contributing Editor, 2008–2011 Harvard University, PhD Candidate in Sociology MMUF Coordinator, Harvard University 1 Designated fields for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship: Anthropology, Area Studies, Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Demography, Earth Science, Ecology, English, Ethnomusicology, Foreign Languages, Geology, History, Literature, Mathematics, Musicology, Philosophy, Physics, Political Theory, Religion, and Sociology. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2011 Table of Contents 3 Adrián Aldaba, Harvard College 51 Abjection of Homosexualidad in the US Latino Canon Marlise Jean-Pierre, Princeton University Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Dr. José Rabasa Don’t Silence the Victim: The Representation of Incestuous Rape in the novel The Bluest Eye and the film Precious 7 Mellon Mentors/Advisors: Professor Diana Fuss and Professor Valerie Irtefa Binte-Faird, Williams College Smith Insurgency as Civil War: The Case of the Indian Liberation Struggle 56 11 Caroline Karanja, Macalester College Lauren Cardenas, Swarthmore College The Red Revolution: A New Chapter in Corporate Branding The Substance and Style of Len Dong: Healing, Transformation, and Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Leola Johnson Aesthetic in Spirit Possession Rituals of Hue City Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Yvonne Chireau 60 Bretney Moore, CUNY Hunter College 15 How We Talk about Talk: The Pervasiveness of Covert Racism in Cases of Candrianna Clem, Rice University Linguistic Discrimination Social Media Capital: Social Media as a Vanguard for Social Capital Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Candice Jenkins Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Michael O. Emerson 64 19 Rebba Moore, Rice University Adriana Colón, Harvard College Joining Fox Nation: An Ethnographic Content Analysis of the The Body as Space: Mapping the Physical and the Fictional Fox News Network Mellon Mentors/Advisors: Professor Doris Sommer; Debra Caplan, Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Michael O. Emerson PhD candidate 69 23 Mary Morales, Princeton University Bradley Craig, Harvard College Chinese Rural Migrant Women: A Struggle to Find a Sense of Self “Pass It over in Silence”: Race, Sexuality, and the Unspoken in an Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Everett Zhang 18th-Century Slave Crime Narrative Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Caroline Light 73 Sophia Nuñez, Washington University in St. Louis 27 Reading the Real Biblioteca del Escorial: Incorporating the Cassandra Eddington, Wellesley College Dangerous Other Biracialism and the Post-Colonial Binary in Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Stephanie L. Kirk Story and Nadine Gordimer’s Country Lovers Mellon Mentors/Advisors: Joy Renjilian-Burgy, Angela Carpenter, Tracey 78 Cameron Nasrin Olla, University of Cape Town Building for Difference: Essentialism in the Work of Judith Butler and 31 Gayatri Spivak Jasmine Elliot, Rice University Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Natasha Distiller The Law as a Weapon in Transforming Equality: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Select Precedent Cases 82 Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Nicole Waligora-Davis CaVar Reid, Wesleyan University Black Fatherhood Before and After Slavery 35 Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Claire Potter Jaime Estrada, Smith College Sir Walter Scott’s “Un-English” Woman 86 Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Ambreen Hai Adara Robbins, Rice University Religion or Race?: Assessing the Likelihood of Membership in Multiracial 39 Congregations in Houston Steven Garza, Yale University Mellon Mentors/Advisors: Dr. Jenifer Bratter and Dr. Ruth Lopez Turley Applying Translation to Studies in Comparative Literature Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Paulo Moreira 91 Hadiya Sewer, Spelman College 43 Beauty Standards and Beauty Rituals: An Ethnographic Examination of Simone Gonzalez, Harvard College the Social Implications of Skin Color and Hair Texture on the Black Merchants of Addiction—Parsi Involvement in the India-China Identity in Morocco Opium Trade Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Alma Jean Billingslea Brown Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Daniel Jensen Sheffield, Ph.D. candidate 96 47 Braxton Shelley, Duke University Thomas Hernandez, Washington University in St. Louis Postmodern Gospel: Richard Smallwood’s Compositional Aesthetic Civil Society Participation and Legitimization through Transparency Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Anthony Kelley Initiatives in Azerbaijan Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Dr. James Wertsch 1 The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2011 Table of Contents 101 115 Monica Smith, Washington University in St. Louis Elena Swartz, Bryn Mawr College Jim Crow’s Middle Class: An Examination of the Socioeconomic Impacts Re-visioning Memory in the Rainbow Nation: Challenges and Critiques of of Devolution on Colorblind Legislation Post-Apartheid Nation Building through Memorials in South Africa Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Garrett Albert Duncan Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Gary W. McDonogh 104 119 Thomas Snyder, Harvard College Mercedes Trigos, Rice University Descent into Darkness: The Catholic Center Party and the Fall of the Ghost Ship: The Slavery Weimar Republic Mentor: Dr. R. Lane Kauffmann 108 123 Amy Sun, Carleton College Daniel Valella, Columbia College Shaken Syntax and Silence: Language as Resistance in How Spike Lee Brought Down Ed Koch: The Politics of 1989’s Do the Post-Colonial Writing Right Thing Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Gary Y. Okihiro 112 Kristen Sun, Northwestern University 127 Ambivalent Relations: Korean and American Cinemas in a Doris Zhao, Macalester College Comparative Context The Whitening of the United States in the 1940s and 1950s Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Jinah Kim Mellon Mentor/Advisor: Professor Ernesto Capello 2 Abjection of Homosexualidad in the US Latino Canon Adrián Aldaba, Harvard College Adrián Aldaba, a Chicago native, is a senior pursing his degree been challenged by few. Queer Latina writers, primarily in Romance Languages and Literatures with a secondary field Chicana scholars like Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga in Ethnic Studies at Harvard College. His current research with their works, Borderlands/The