Contributors

This digital exhibit was completed in Fall 2013 as a class project in Jolie Sheffer's graduate course on American Literary Realisms at Bowling Green State University. 

Samantha Ashby

Samantha Ashby received her BA in Cinema Studies from New York University and her MSI in Archives & Records Management and Library & Information Science from the University of Michigan. She is reference archivist at the Center for Archival Collections at BGSU. Her responsibilities include implementing and overseeing reference policies and procedures, answering reference requests, maintenance and development of the CAC website and social media, and supervising student employees. Previously, she worked at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and MTV Networks. For this exhibit, Samantha aided in finding items from the Center for Archival Collections and digitizating artifacts.  

Eric Browning

PhD, American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

MA, Film Studies, University of Miami

BA, Film Production, Bowling Green State University

Eric Browning focuses his research on gender within film, horror, and French film. His research for this project reflected racial representation in the films of the period and put them in discussion with the nickel weekly covers from the collection.

Colleen Boff

Colleen Boff is Associate Dean of BGSU Libraries. She facilitated this project from the beginning, coordinating the work of BGSU librarians and web developer to support the creation of the digital exhibit. 

Kevin Calcamp

PhD, Theatre, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

MA, Theatre, Montclair State University

BA, English/Drama, Psychology, Queens University of Charlotte

Kevin Calcamp is a theatre scholar and is working in the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University, where he will graduate with his PhD in 2015. He is a member of the American Society for Theatre Research and his research interests include the theatre of Ancient Greece and Rome, French Neoclassicism, adaptation and appropriation, contemporary Broadway Theatre, and celebrity studies. For this exhibit, he contributed research on the cakewalk.

Susannah Cleveland

Susannah Cleveland received her M.M. in Musicology and M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas in Denton and her B.M. in Music History from Baylor University. Her research interests include non-textual description of music materials, popular music collections in academic libraries, and music librarianship. Her publications include chapters in A Basic Music Library, 4th ed. (forthcoming from American Library Association), articles in Music Reference Services Quarterly, The ARSC Journal, and NOTES: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, and the forthcoming book, Careers in Music Librarianship III: Reality and Reinvention (A-R Editions). For this exhibit, Susannah aided in the accessibility of items from the music library, digitization, and selection of sheet music, sheet music covers, and music clips.

Emily Dagg

MA, Literary and Textual Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, English, Bowling Green State University 

Emily Dagg's research interests include feminist theory, gender and sexuality studies, and constructions of identity through performance and visual representation. With this exhibit, Emily explored representations and stereotypes of Native American masculinity in popular culture artifacts such as nickel weeklies, magazine novels, and sheet music. 

Nancy Down

Nancy Down is the Head Librarian of the Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL). Her responsibilities include cataloging  items in various material formats, organizing and processing special collections and their respective finding aids, as well as developing collections and instruction materials with the English department. For this exhibit, Nancy aided in finding and accessing items from the Browne Popular Culture Library, and oversaw the digitization of artifacts.

Hannah Espinoza

MA, Literary and Textual Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, English, Cedarville University

Lucas Fullenkamp

MA, Literary and Textual Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, English, Minors in Spanish & TESOL, Bluffton University

Lucas Fullenkamp's interests include wartime literature, particularly post-apocalyptic novels written during the mid-20th century. In this exhibit, Lucas worked with early twentieth-century African American spirituals, contextualizing them within the larger exploration of race in America during this time. This included sheet music analysis, as well as a study of the entrance of African American spirituals into the American music scene. 

Stefanie Hunker

Stefanie Hunker is the Digital Resources Librarian in the Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL) and has been employed at BGSU since 1995. Her responsibilities include the maintenance and development of the BPCL web site and its social media outlets, cataloging of items in various material formats, organization and processing of special collections and their respective finding aids, as well as collection development and instruction with the Dept. of Theatre and Film and instruction with the School of Cultural and Critical Studies. For this exhibit, Stefanie provided Omeka training, developed protocols for the collaboration, aided in finding and accessing items from the Browne Popular Culture Library, and oversaw the digitization of artifacts. 

Alexandra McCollum

MA, German, Bowling Green State University 

BA, German, Bowling Green State University

Alexandra McCollum's research interests include German cinema and literature, gender studies, disability studies, and sideshow performance. She examines these topics in her thesis, "Freaks and Masculinity: Sideshow performance in German and American Cinema." For this exhibit, Alexandra explored visual representations of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans, focusing on Yellow Peril stereotypes, barriers to assimilation, and yellowface performance. Her contributions to this exhibit demonstrate the ways in which both positive and negative visual portrayals of Asian Americans from the 1880s to the 1940s make use of problematically racialized assumptions and stereotypes about this group. 

Rachel Miles

MA, Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, English Literature, University of Central Florida 

Rachel Miles is a first-year MA student in the Department of Popular Culture at BGSU. Her research interests include feminist theory; queer theory; and portrayals of gender, the body, and space in American superhero comics. For this exhibit, her research focused on gender in historical performances of blackface, redface, and yellowface.

Alexis Riley

MA, Theatre, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, Theatre, Rollins College, 2013 

Alexis Riley's research interests include non-scripted/ improvised performance, feminist theatre, and mental health in performance. Her current thesis project explores issues of gender and identity in collegiate improv troupes. For this exhibit, Alexis explored constructions of white identity through the work of John A. Himmelein's theatrical touring company, The Ideals. 

Nichole Rued

MA, Literary and Textual Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress)

BA, English—Creative Writing, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

BA, Spanish, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Nichole Rued is a first-year MA student in the Literary and Textual Studies program at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include deconstruction, ethnic studies, and dialect in literature. For this exhibit, Nichole researched portrayals of blackness in sheet music and illustrations. She also contributed research to the pages on US laws and government documents. 

Jolie Sheffer

Jolie Sheffer is Associate Professor of English and American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University. She teaches courses in twentieth-century American literature, multiethnic American literature, critical theory and cultural studies.  She is the author of The Romance of Race: Incest, Miscegenation, and Multiculturalism in the United States, 1880-1930 (Rutgers University Press, 2013). Jolie conceived of the idea for the Digital Exhibit course project, coordinated the project administratively, facilitated collaborations, and did final editing on the exhibit text.

Carol Singer

Carol A. Singer has been a librarian for more than thirty years, specializing in government information and history, among other subjects. She has been a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Bowling Green State University since 1998. She is the author of Fundamentals of Managing Reference Collections, published by the American Library Association in 2012, in addition to many articles.

Ying-Bei Wang

PhD, American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University (in progress) 

MA, Comparative Literature, University of Iowa 

BA, English, National Chengchi University

Ying-bei Wang is a second-year Ph.D. student of American Culture Studies in BGSU. She is from Taiwan. Her research areas include modern fiction, American popular culture, race and ethnicity, and youth studies. Her current research project explores the emergence of young celebrities in American popular culture after 9/11. For this gallery, Ying-bei worked on the "Within Whiteness: The Image of Youth" section, which presents the consolidation of youth identity from 1880-1940. Also, she was responsible for creating the timeline to highlight historical background. 

Dave Widmer

Dave Widmer earned a BS in Visual Communications Technology from Bowling Green State University. He is the web applications developer for the Bowling Green State University Libraries and served as the technical contact for Omeka for this exhibit. Working alongside student graphic designer, Kevin Cornett, he also developed the Race in America theme.