Date of Award
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Trapani, William
Abstract
This thesis examines the rise of image culture in the 1920’s and its impact on American national identity. I demonstrate that, perhaps surprisingly, the central figure in these debates was not a past or present prominent American but instead an indeterminate Other which is read in ambivalent ways and for varied purposes. It is the central claim of this project that in order to trace the modern American subject that emerges from the 1920s national rift, one must attend to the ways in which a felt need to view and position oneself in relation to “the Other” was essential to defining the nature and future of the nation. More specifically, I argue that the film Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925) offers a solution to this national divide by providing viewers a popular culture form of “evidence” of the Westerner’s capacity to exhibit both premodern and modern qualities.
Extent
90 p.
Recommended Citation
Maldonado, Chandra Ann, "American national identity and discourses of the frontier in early 20th century visual culture" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 931.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/931
Identifier
FA00004214
Comments
Includes bibliography.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.