Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: My paper examines how an official commemorative narrative is received and interpreted differently than its intended meaning in the 1985 student protest movement against and why that happened.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Rebuilding the site now commonly known as Ground Zero has become a battle over "images and lost opportunities" as much as about "material form" (Boyer 120). This paper argues that the symbolic success or failure of a future memorial to 9/11 will be determined largely by how well its design embodies the qualities of a "public space" and by how adroitly it negotiates the utopian and critical aspects of public art. Because the design of a permanent memorial at Ground Zero is a culmination, rather than a beginning, of the work of collective memory that commenced on September 11, we insist on examining the different stages of commemoration leading to it--from makeshift tokens of grief and mourning to museum exhibits--to illustrate the quality of publicness and to assess the balance between utopia and critique in the commemorative public art.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: Celebrity fandom increasingly finds a home online, yet there are few physical sites where fans can gather to pay tribute to their beloved celebrities who have died. Spontaneous memorials often occur following the death of a famous performer; the flowers and remembrances left at the door of Heath Ledger’s apartment building provide one recent example. Long after a celebrity dies, fans still desire to commemorate their passing. More than eighty years after his sudden and untimely death, Rudolph Valentino continues to gain new fans and admirers. In addition to participating in an annual memorial service, fans gather online to discuss how they will commemorate the anniversary of Valentino’s death. Through these events and discussions, fans are able to share not only their appreciation for Valentino, but also to celebrate their participation in media consumption outside of the contemporary mainstream. This paper uses online communities to show that the pleasure of fandom is not solely in the relationship between the fan and the star but in the relationships among fans fostered by websites and discussion groups.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since 1994 Potawatomi Indians have held an annual festival to celebrate the Nation’s shared history, a remarkable event given the Potawatomi Nation’s dramatic fragmentation over the century and a half since forced removal. While early Potawatomi Gatherings lasted a few days and attracted several hundred participants the event now draws more than a thousand participants per year and is a significantly larger, more complicated commemoration. Rather than ask if the Potawatomi Nation is imagined, this paper instead inquires what are the symbols and discourses engaged to articulate the Nation. I examine the three rhetorical tropes most commonly used to describe the Gathering of the Potawatomi Nation: Gathering as family reunion, Gathering as powwow, Gathering as county fair. It finds that these discursive frames are complimentary rather than contradictory expressions of the Nation’s collective memory.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Introduction and Purpose

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in its landmark ruling, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Over the next twenty years, this landmark decree would slowly change the racial make-up of school facilities, especially in the South(Patterson, 2001). But despite the propitious ruling, an area in which Brown had a less than favorable impact concerned the number of African Americans in leadership roles in our schools (Ortiz, 1982). When Black and White schools merged in the South, African American principals at predominately Black schools were the ones who usually lost their jobs. In one state between the years 1963-1970 there was a 98 percent decrease in the number of secondary school principals (Patterson, 2001). In commemoration of Brown this study sought to determine to what extent African Americans, in the state of Alabama, are occupying secondary school principal positions at predominately white schools.

Initial analysis indicates that aspiring African American administrators are not being given a wide range of opportunities to lead in a principalship capacity at predominately White schools (McCray, 2003). Instead, most African American principals are placed in schools where the student body is predominately Black, and vice versa for White administrators. A critical inquiry concerns whether this placement pattern is designed to underpin efforts for school resegregation. Therefore, this study sought to gain a better understanding of African American principal placement and its implications through the utilization of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the theoretical framework. CRT challenges the notion of White privilege, and its conceptual framework is embedded in the lived experiences of people of color (Taylor, 2000). CRT requires the acknowledgment of the role that race has played in our schools and society and creates policies to ensure that individuals who have been historically disenfranchised are given equal access to equal opportunities (Bell, 1992).


References

Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York: Basic Books.

McCray, C. R. (2003). Alabama Secondary School Principals? Perceptions of Multicultural Education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green.

Patterson, J. T. (2001). Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. Oxford: University Press.

Ortiz, F. I. (1982). Career Patterns in Education: Women, Men and Minorities in Public School Administration. South Hadley, Mass: J. F. Bergin Publishers, Inc.

Taylor, E. (2000). Critical race theory in the backlash against affirmative action. Teachers College Record, June, 539-560.