Through original fieldwork, this dissertation compares narrative occupational humor of white American social workers to that of white American prison workers, concluding that both occupational groups use humor, both performed ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] "Sphinx Eyes Antiphon," one of the poems in my collection, And the Wood Doll Arose and Told, I'm a Real, refers to a blank or unreciprocal social gaze. ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation analyzes the complications of existing in a violent world as much as it explores formal and experimental narrative techniques. As ...

This thesis examines Civil War reenactment as it is practiced and performed by residents of Missouri. Using fieldwork (interviews and participant observation) conducted by the researcher at reenactment events, the thesis ...

This dissertation examines hip-hop fatherhood narratives from 2010-2015 influenced by drug addiction, mass incarceration, underground economies, trauma, and dysfunctional co-parenting. Explicitly, the paper explores how ...

The following work analyzes the fetishization of firearms across a number of different mediums including, the corporeal world, African-American folklore, film, and music. The overarching theme is that firearms are sometimes ...

This dissertation looks at nine works by contemporary black women writers and argues that the relationships between the major characters in the text reflect and emphasize the importance of mentoring bonds in black communities. ...

My dissertation includes a critical introduction and a manuscript of poetry. The critical introduction, “There was no warm body in what you wrote”: Redefining the Gurlesque via Patricia Lockwood’s Motherland Fatherland ...

The category of "harmful" cultural practices” has become a central and defining concept in global health and development policy. A key target of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), as part of its objective of achieving ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] In the same vein of their spiritual forbearers, the African griots, African American wordsmiths utilize their time-binding capabilities in oral ...

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents tell the story of a young visionary, Lauren Olamina, in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Lauren, the fifteen year old daughter of a black Baptist minister, ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This thesis is devoted to arguing for recognition of the urban neo-slave narrative, and to analyzing two examples of such novels: Richard Wright's ...

Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions is, primarily, a novel about nervous conditions. It's about many other things, too. It's about power. It's about women. About men and poverty and riches. It's about education and ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation consists of a critical introduction and a full-length book of poetry. The critical introduction deals with the literary manifestations ...