Scholarship & Research
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Item Fear in the 21st Century: U.S. cultural anxiety and the psychology of stress(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Ready, Tyler James; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettIn the 21st century, narratives circulating throughout a variety of societal landscapes emphasize the danger the country's populace faces. This creates an overall stressful environment, with the result often manifesting itself in bigotry that seems to resist facts. For instance, the racism undergirding President Trump's Muslim ban continues to persist, despite an availability of information indicating Muslims aren't any sort of meaningful threat. This dissertation examines how underexamined fear narratives affect cultural discussions like the War on Terror, social media, gun violence, and the January 6th riot in Washington DC. In analyzing texts across politics, entertainment, journalism, and academic scholarship, I illustrate how fear operates in both explicit and subtle ways. As I argue, this results in a variety of cultural discussions where people opt for the 'comfort' of well-cultivated fear tropes instead of engaging with complicated societal concerns. Myriad fear narratives (of which I analyze just four) work together to ensure people are always reminded of the danger they're in. The collective fear, as a chronic source of stress, then lessens the likelihood of any one fear association disappearing. This means that trying to address prejudice of varying types, as humanists frequently do, is a losing proposition and explains why people often seem to ignore facts. In drawing upon psychology and neurology, I further the fields of American studies and affect theory in explaining how an understanding of human physiology helps explain these contentious arenas. I argue we need a theory of fear that builds upon established scientific research and presents a roadmap for addressing both individual fear discourses, and how they function together in the aggregate.Item Green onions: kitchen design and foodways in mid-century Memphis(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2020) Keesee, Angela King; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyFlush with the victory of World War II, America faced an expansive industrial and agricultural landscape that had been focused on war. As factories re-tooled themselves from military production to a domestic market, kitchen appliances, metal cabinets, plastics, and synthetic fabrics appeared at the same time that processed and packaged foods inspired by the efficiency and development of MREs became available for public consumption. Simultaneously, a pent-up need for housing and an end to the deprivation of the Great Depression and war led Americans to embrace new approaches to design and construction. The development of suburbs with affordable single-family houses, standardized kitchen furnishings, and the open plan reflected new attitudes towards living. The accessibility of a variety of foods and time-saving preparations such as cake mixes and canned fruits complemented those attitudes. In this study of mid-century Memphis, the synchronous qualities of cultivation, production, presentation, and consumption in kitchen design and foodways are analyzed to demonstrate an inextricable relationship between the design of place and the culture of food. Memphis was a Southern city steeped in regional tradition but modernizing rapidly while absorbing the national and international dynamics of social and economic changes during the Cold War. Local factors of race, gender, and class on this growth affected the convergence of new ideas in kitchen design and foodways. Regional and national media such as newspapers, magazines, and the rise of television saturated the public with images of idyllic suburban life, particularly available to middle-class whites despite the increased appearance of a black middle-class culture flourishing in the same modern environment. Whether spotlighting the femininity of Betty Crocker or the favorite appetizer of a local socialite, the growing publication of cookbooks fueled a desire for new kitchens and the presentation of new foods. The convergence of kitchen design and foodways illustrated the influence of material culture and regionalism on the experience of place.Item The Montana modernists: redefining Western art(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2019) Corriel, Michele; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyThrough an investigation of twentieth-century Montana postwar societal aspects, I examine the emergence of an avant-garde art movement in the state. The pioneers of this movement, Jessie Wilber, Frances Senska, Bill Stockton, Isabelle Johnson, Robert DeWeese, and Gennie DeWeese, nurtured, sustained, and promulgated an aesthetic philosophy that redefined Western art in Montana. Divided into three sections, the exploration of this avant-garde movement concentrates on place, teaching/artistic lineage, and community. Part one examines place. For some, place refers to the physical attributes of Montana in the postwar years, the isolation, the beauty, and the complexity of its landscape that not only served as a backdrop but also played center stage in the influences on life and art. For others in the group, place became a metaphor for the body politic, a personal evocation of space held within the boundaries of time. Part two charts each artist's artistic lineage to further understand how they arrived at their particular artistic styles. Community, the third section, seeks to answer one of the larger questions within this work: how did six artists working in Montana in the late 1940s create a thriving art community that opposed the meta-narrative of the West and still resonates in contemporary Montana art. A thorough study of their teaching styles, art techniques, and social gatherings demonstrates the workings of a tight-knit community of like-minded artists (and writers, dancers, musicians, and philosophers) as they addressed the changing zeitgeist of a postwar America, cultivating fresh ideas through a modern lens, allowing Montanans a new option for viewing themselves.Item Belief ways of the Apsaalooke: development of a culture through time and space(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) Bull Chief, Emerson Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Matthew HermanThe purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the oral history of the Apsaalooke for connections to the four Native science foundations. I interviewed the Crow Cultural Cabinet Head to attain the stories for each religion. I then compared the content of each story to the four foundations and found the connections that corresponded. The Clan System connected to the community foundation. The Sweat Lodge connected to the environment foundation. The Sacred Pipe ceremony connected to the language foundation and the Sacred Tobacco Society connected to the spirituality foundation. Although these connections were developed, there are many more that can be made interchangeably. The four foundations of Native science and the four belief ways of the Apsaalooke complemented each other.