An American spectacle: college mascots and the performance of tradition

Guiliano, Jennifer E.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/16068 Copy

Description

Title

An American spectacle: college mascots and the performance of tradition

Author(s)

Guiliano, Jennifer E.

Issue Date

2010-05-19T18:33:51Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Burgos, Adrian

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Burgos, Adrian

Committee Member(s)

• Roediger, David R.
• Hoxie, Frederick E.
• Giardina, Michael

Department of Study

History

Discipline

History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Mascots
• U.S. History
• Native Americans
• American Indians
• Sports
• College Athletics
• University of Illinois
• University of North Dakota
• Stanford University
• Miami University
• University of Florida
• Florida State University

Abstract

“An American Spectacle: College Mascots and the Performance of Tradition” seeks to understand how college football and its attendant events (termed here “An American Spectacle”) became a vehicle for cultural production by individuals and institutions in specifically raced, gendered, and classed ways. It asks what was the role of this “American Spectacle” in the articulation of individual and group identities at sites across the United States and outlines the individual aspects of the spectacle: bands and musical performances, newspaper writers and narratives of athletics, artistic production and commercial athletic identity, student publications and University identity, and the rituals of performance. In each instance the fundamental exploration is guided by consideration of how individuals and institutions constituted, transformed, and transmitted ideas of Indian mascotry within the spectacle of college football. This dissertation then asks these central questions: How and why were Native Americans represented as sports mascots? What cultural work did these images perform? How did these written narratives, visual images, and live performances create a tradition of performance that branded college football as “an American spectacle?” In answering these questions, “An American Spectacle” vividly illustrates a uniquely American story of race, class, identity, and community that argues for the framing of a complex set of institutions that are uniquely shaped by industrialism, commercialism, capital acquisition and expression, mass democracy, and the nation-state. An innately political practice that, while recognizing multiple identities, privileged young, male, white, middle-class, and athletic as powerful and transmitted those ideas via various networks, this dissertation ultimately reveals a uniquely American spectacle.

Graduation Semester

2010-5

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16068

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2010 Jennifer Elizabeth Guiliano

Owning Collections