In the early decades of the NAES College library, librarians kept a physical card catalog which described, organized, and made findable all of the materials faculty, students, staff, and their relations might need as part of their experience at the college. Representing a unique view of the library in the...
In 1964 the Second Vatican Council encouraged a switch from Latin Mass, celebrated by Roman Catholics across the globe in standardized form since the 16th century, to Mass in the languages spoken by the local people and with some adaptation to local circumstances. This event is familiar to scholars of...
This dissertation aims to understand the ways that the social, specifically race, ethnicity, and neighborhood, intersects with the religious identity, beliefs, and practices of early-generation Americans in Chicago. This dissertation asks at the most general level: What is the relationship of race, ethnicity, and religion for early-generation Americans? More specifically,...
Like the majority of media studies, research on Latinx media is characterized by a focus on a single medium. As an alternative, this dissertation provides a media ecology of the city's Latinx mediascape between the years 1953 and 2012. This dissertation investigates four case studies: (1) Univision's former television affiliate,...
Ecological restoration is a land management tool for biological conservation in areas where ecosystems are subject to a suite of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. This approach is particularly critical in urban areas where disturbances are often frequent and substantial. Restoration projects aim to re-establish an entire ecosystem, including the native...
My dissertation, “Talking Drum: Chicago’s WVON Radio and the Sonorous Image of Black Lives, 1963-1983,” studies WVON radio as a mediating institution of the black public sphere in Cold War Chicago. “Talking Drum” explores how WVON celebrated, represented, and mobilized black public life in the mid-twentieth century amid a dominant...
The purpose of this mixed methods study was to learn about the ways that instrumental music teachers in Chicago navigate the urban landscape. The design of the study most closely resembles Creswell and Plano Clark's (2007) two-part Triangulation Convergence Mixed Methods Design, with the addition of an initial exploratory focus...
This dissertation examines the history of Mexicans' changing racial status in the Chicago metropolitan region, a place where race has traditionally been understood in strictly black and white terms. From World War I through the 1930's whites violently resisted Mexicans moving into their neighborhoods in Chicago, East Chicago, and Gary,...
Bosnian women war refugees are not only trauma survivors, but are actively engaged in economic and social practices that shape their American sites of relocation. These economic activities--wage labor, and unremunerated volunteer and kin labor--are embedded in a moral framework of mutual obligation rooted in the concept veze / connections,...
Drill rap, a subgenre of hip-hop intimately connected to Chicago street life and brought into the nation’s musical mainstream by Chicago rapper Chief Keef, sounds and means differently than traditional forms of hip-hop. Unlike most hip hop, drill is outwardly unconcerned with mobility. This project explores drill’s departure from hip-hop’s...
In this paper, I analyze a piece of music that I wrote called The Health, a 90-minute musical ceremony that comprises speech, action, video projections, costumes, lights, chant, song, recomposed hold music, diagnostic exams, and renaissance magic. I wrote the piece for Mocrep and myself to perform, the initial run...
The dissertation’s topic is the creation of quotidian judgements and practices related to food, amid the enduring social and spatial stratification of everyday life. The sites are two large and diverse cities: Paris and Chicago. The method is ethnographic and contextual.Chapter 1 documents the dietary tastes and culinary practices of...
