Vassar College Digital Library

Vassar Scholarship

Vassar Scholarship, the institutional repository formerly known as Digital Window, reflects the research and scholarly output of the Vassar College community.  It provides access to a variety of collections, including senior theses and projects across a wide range of disciplines.

Covering Islam: National Trauma and The Politics of the Imagination

Publication Date
2015-January-01
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My thesis scrutinizes the U.S. media construction of the events of September 11, 2001 as "national trauma," and the way in which this framing of the attacks has allowed '9/11' to invoke a visceral imagination of the deterministic relationship between...

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Infotainment: the pressure of ratings and their dangers for democracy in cable news

Publication Date
2016-January-01
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In this thesis I argue that through the necessity to generate a profit, cable news organizations focus on attracting the most viewers so that they can then charge more for advertising and in turn make more money. This symbiotic relationship...

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Transgression and containment: transhistorical themes and tropes within televised American women's stand-up comedy

Publication Date
2017-January-01
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Joan Rivers. Elayne Boosler. Roseanne Barr. Janeane Garofalo. Amy Schumer. What do these commedians–whose careers span seven decades–have in common? Starting in the 1950s and ending in contemporary times, we see that there are transhistorical trends–including self-deprecation, navigating one's anger...

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