Lucerna, vol. 8 (2013)
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Items in this collection are the scholarly output of undergraduate UMKC students, either alone or as co-authors, and which may or may not have been published in an alternate format.
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Item Ethical Exclusions: Culpability in the Suffering of Vulnerable Populations(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013) Smith, McKayla M.; Sheppard, James W.This paper incorporates various sources, especially the ethnography Righteous Dopefiend, in order to analyze mainstream culpability in the suffering of vulnerable populations. It does so by seeking to draw to attention certain exclusions of information regarding the suffering of others and by calling attention to the systemic forces which affect this suffering. Specifically, this paper explores the topic of systemic exclusion in the Kansas City greater metropolitan area. It analyzes the development of racial segregation in the city and the forces which created it. It discusses the topics of gentrification, segregation, ghettoization, homelessness and the exclusion of vulnerable populations in public places in relation to Kansas City and Righteous Dopefiend. This paper seeks to develop the connection between our ideologies and actions and our contribution to the suffering of disenfranchised people.Item The Struggle between the Domestic and Desire : Bourgeois Women’s Role in the Modern Market(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013) Devonshire, Gloria R.; Levy, Gayle A., 1965- advisorThe Industrial Revolution brought with it changes in manufacturing, advertising and social order, which in turn spurred a consumer revolution that took hold of Paris in the late nineteenth century. This essay examines this culture of consumerism and the anxieties that came with it—in particular, anxieties about the effect that the market had on the moral standing of bourgeois women. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this issue is discussed in the context of two period works from separate fields, one, an advertisement for “L’Artisan Moderne,” created by Toulouse-Lautrec in 1894, and the other Emile Zola’s immensely popular novel of 1880, Nana. Through the lens of these two works we can see two different views of female consumers from a nineteenth-century standpoint. This essay then draws on the work of present-day historians to explore changes in the marketplace that occurred during this period, including new methods of advertising and the development of department stores, as well as accounts of how men viewed women in the context of these changes and speculations as to why women behaved the way they did during this period. Examples from Nana and the “L’Artisan Moderne” poster are integrated to illustrate and reinforce these points.Item Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and Metaphors(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013) Sands, Lorraine I.; Wood, Henrietta Rix, advisorThis paper examines how immigration discussions and laws are considered based on the rhetoric used in talking about and planning them. Specifically, it looks at how anti-immigrant rhetoric shapes the way a majority thinks about immigration and how that same rhetoric creates anti-immigrant laws such as Arizona Senate Bill 1070. The most controversial section of the bill, part 2B, states that officers have to stop anyone they suspect of being an immigrant and then detain or arrest that person if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is here illegally. Not only is that blatantly racist, the rhetoric of the bill is euphemistic, hiding that racism by using words such as “reasonable,” implying that there is some clear reason when to stop someone and ask for papers. This paper examines in detail how the law was discussed, debated, presented and then passed to determine how anti-immigrant rhetoric shaped it. This is relevant to everyone’s life because we all have a responsibility to recognize the wrong in this bill and in immigration portrayals. This anti-immigrant rhetoric is not only present in this law, but also in news sources and mainstream media. Recognizing anti-immigrant language is important for an overall understanding of the discussion on immigration.Item The Literary Achievements of Alice Lloyd Pitts : Assumptions of Power through Rhetorical Identity Constructions(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013) Allred, Kristen; Greer, Jane, 1964-Questions of American female intellectual and social identity were hotly debated at the turn of the 20th century, most publically within urban centers of the eastern United States. Focusing on the 1899 writings of a single 18-year-old Baltimore girl, this essay provides exegesis on the voice of the writer through a review of both her words and her penmanship. The purpose of this analysis is to consider how the conflicting historical archetypes of the New Woman and the Gibson Girl were explored and negotiated through a careful process of individual identity construction. The Baltimore setting is particularly crucial to this undertaking as this city offered the location for an experiment in female academic rigorousness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Bryn Mawr School for Girls, a feeder school for the university with the same name, was one of the first and most notable female college prep schools in the country. Competing for clientele against traditional finishing schools, Bryn Mawr promoted itself by negating the legitimacy of the education provided by its rivals. A student at the rival finishing school Southern Home School for Girls, Alice Lloyd Pitts uses the pages of her high school yearbook as a mouthpiece to simultaneously refute these attacks and identify herself and her classmates as intellectually superior beings, whose autonomy and wit as New Women is only surpassed by their Gibson Girlish beauty and feminine grace.Item Evoking Emotion :The Visual Rhetoric of World War II Propaganda(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013) Poppen, Alex A.; Wood, Henrietta Rix, advisorIn our media-dominated culture we are constantly bombarded by visual rhetoric and every image we look at leaves some form of influence on us. The instant that we see an image, whether it is a poster, billboard, or picture, we form unconscious biases in our minds. This is the goal of most visual rhetoric, to elicit a response. Visual rhetoric, the use of images to influence or persuade an audience, is used countless times each day but goes unnoticed by most people. One of the most famous and most successful uses of visual rhetoric is found in propaganda posters during World War II. Government-employed artists designed these posters to persuade people to buy war bonds and enlist in the armed forces, among other things. These images depicted determined and patriotic soldiers raising flags or carrying children home to their parents. In this paper, I will illustrate the use of visual rhetoric during the Second World War to demonstrate the mechanics of visual persuasion, of which most people have little understanding. Drawing on the scholarship of Rick Williams, a visual communications scholar, I will analyze several propaganda posters to demonstrate the role of the effectiveness of visual rhetoric while increasing the understanding of how images influence people. Increasing public understanding of visual rhetoric will not only increase the awareness of the many influences people encounter daily. It will also lead to more logical and unbiased decisions due to people recognizing propaganda efforts of the media and interest groups and therefore rationalizing the issues instead of letting emotion control one’s thoughts and actions. I claim that visual rhetoric has a profound, yet unnoticed, effect on our culture.