The following thesis project explores the foundation of and current operation of the humanities classroom with a focus on who and what is considered scholarly and therefore who and what gets to be in the classroom. In the first chapter I explore the idea of how space- both physical and proverbial- is made through narrative and gives rise to one’s social place. From there I explore notions of human and person. I explore how human is different from person and how current notions of human and person have philosophical foundations that exclude African and Afro-descended persons. In chapter three I explore how notions of human that exclude black-plus persons have gone on to shape the humanities classroom as a white space where notions of scholar and scholarly often exclude black-plus persons. I then go on to reflect on my personal experiences in the Barrett and Women and Gender Studies classrooms. In the final chapter I explore the importance of popular media, specifically modes of mass media (theater, film, TV, social media) as spaces where black-plus narratives tell stories and give depictions of black-plus persons as beings, as humans, as persons. I also touch on how popular media currently is a space where black-plus narratives provide place for black-plus persons and space for people to learn new ways of seeing black-plus people.

An asset-based approach to vulnerability, as presented in Voices of the Poor: Can Anyone Hear Us? and World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, provides a possible theoretical framework for understanding vulnerability to human trafficking. Case studies, field studies and narratives of human trafficking provide evidence that the assets of victims of trafficking play a significant role in human trafficking. This appears to be true both with regard to how traffickers exploit victim assets and with regard to how successful human trafficking prevention efforts are implemented. By exploring and further establishing this connection, I hope to provide evidence that a model of human trafficking acquisition incorporating elements of victim assets and the assets of communities deserves field-testing. Such field-testing will hopefully confirm the deep connection between assets and human trafficking activity and establish the necessary connections anti-trafficking activists will need to create a predictive version of the model with regard to individual vulnerability to human trafficking. Lastly, I argue that, provided the connection between human trafficking vulnerability and victim asset levels holds, an asset-based approach provides a rhetorical framework to resist policies that compromise asset levels of particularly vulnerable populations.

ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on Anne Moody's use of the autobiographical genre as an extension of her political activism. Noting consistent values and conventions that govern the writing of political activists, this study asserts that Moody's narrative is best situated in the genre of political autobiography--a term coined by Angela Davis. Using Margo V. Perkins' text as a base to define autobiography as activism, this dissertation illustrates the consistent values that characterize Moody's narrative as political autobiography, resistance literature, and ultimately Black Power literature. Building on the works of Joanne Braxton, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, bell hooks, Margo V. Perkins, Assata Shakur, and Johnny Stover, this project demonstrates the use of Moody's autobiography as a collective form of resistance that is reflective of autobiography as activism. To frame its argument, this study theorizes how one comes into revolutionary consciousness, demonstrating the move toward activism as a process. Drawing on Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's autobiographical theory that the "narrated I" is distinguished from the "narrating I," this study asserts, as Francoise Lionnet suggests, that the "narrating I" is the vehicle to deliver recollections relevant to the autobiographer's agenda. This study emphasizes that the early version of the self Moody creates is consciously linked to her role as a future activist, ultimately demonstrating her political evolution through the emphatic linking of the personal and political. Most importantly, this dissertation demonstrates that Moody's text represents a continuity--an autobiographical bridge--between representations of the Christian nonviolent civil rights movement and the Black Power movement of the late 1960's. This study argues that Moody's autobiography is ideologically poised at the intersection of civil rights and Black Power; therefore, it serves as both a civil rights autobiography and a Black Power autobiography. Coming of Age in Mississippi offers a unique contribution to the genre of Black Power autobiography for the way it facilitates unprecedented insight into the transition from non-violent civil rights ideology to revolutionary consciousness.

Despite a wealth of academic literature critiquing current tensions within the Fair Trade (FT) movement, very little work has focused on examining the birth and evolution of the FT movement within the broader context of the international political economy (IPE), specifically in reference to the ideological and policy changes that ushered in an era of free trade and deregulated markets for both trade and finance. From such an optic, it is no longer enough to merely question the extent to which the market should be engaged. Rather, one must question whether the engagement of the market strips the movement of its power to affect long term development in local economies. Drawing upon the historical record, this thesis focuses attention on the complexity of the linkages that exist between political ideology, trade policy, and development. While Fair Trade is commonly understood to be a responsive effort to create more equitable trade relations with producers in the least developed countries, less emphasis is placed on understanding the state-centered political structures that contributed to a capitalist push-back and the implementation of today's liberalized trade policy, and yet to do so is absolutely critical if we are to gain a deeper understanding of the limits and constraints of Fair Trade. Full engagement with mainstream markets has led to robust growth in the FT market per annum, yet countries that are heavily engaged with the FT market show little evidence of development or poverty reduction at a macro-level. Thus, Fair Trade must define itself as more than principled opposition to labor exploitation if it is to present itself as a credible instrument of economic development.

Interviews of nine managers within the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division's Western Region were conducted by a researcher who also works as a Wage and Hour Investigator. The intention of this research was to survey the differences in trafficking-related training and experience throughout the region, to examine the role of the Wage and Hour Division in human trafficking casework, and to explore potential areas for growth. This thesis recommends that upper level agency management produces standards for training, interagency engagement, and procedures and also provides suggestions for best practices and effective enforcement.

The crime of human trafficking has received increased national attention over the past decade. However, the subject of human trafficking is rarely mentioned in criminal justice and criminology curricula in colleges and universities. This study discusses findings from a review of listed courses in 100 criminology and criminal justice bachelor degree programs in colleges and universities in the United States. Implications for further research, including examining criminal justice education programs outside of academe, are discussed. The author advocates adding courses on human trafficking in criminology and criminal justice curricula and makes recommendations for undergraduate criminology and criminal justice education.

This thesis examines the 1994 Rwandan genocide with a specific emphasis on the rape of Tutsi women as a weapon of genocide. From the perspective of scholarship in trauma studies, an account of the conflict and colonialism leading up to the genocide is offered in order to demonstrate the historical making of the ground of collective trauma in Rwanda. Further, this thesis examines the discursive means of the perpetuation of collective trauma in the form of the Hutu demonization of Tutsi women. Shortcomings in the justice system emerging from the genocide are also discussed as a perpetuation of trauma. Finally, projects of justice and healing among Tutsi women are examined in an account of survival and resiliency. In conclusion, women that survived the genocide have navigated through societal and governmental systems to provide better lives for themselves, their families and the society.

This thesis seeks to answer the question: "What do artistic representations add to the dialogue about the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration beyond political rhetoric and popular media portrayals?" Drawing on political communications (as put forth by Edelman and Altheide), socio-political construction (particularly the White Racial Frame put forth by Feagin), and collective memory theory (especially those of Halbwachs and Pollak), this thesis uses a dual-coding, content analysis to examine the linguistic and visual messages disseminated through news media. Then, interviews with and the work of six immigrant artists are examined for their contribution to the information put forth in the news media. This study finds that news reporting bias falls along a continuum from pro-immigration to extreme anti-immigration (labeled "fearful" reporting). The news media skew strongly toward anti-immigration to fearful in bias, and there is no opposite pro-immigration bias. Through observations of artists' work, the study concludes that artistic representations of the border can fill this strongly pro-immigration void on this bias continuum.