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M. Rini Hughes <rinibini@earthlink.net> I am very interested in the mechanisms by which ideology is transmitted from generation to generation, especially the way popular culture artifacts play into that transmission. I've done work on this using comic strips and film, and I would like to expand on this in popular literature forms including mystery, science fiction/fantasy, and romance novels; possibly in musical forms, both classical (which was once *popular* and modern popular forms. My earlier investigations have examined the ideology of the nuclear family, but any persistent ideological notion is interesting to me -- gender and sexuality, social roles, notions of race, the many faces of bigotry -- almost anything, really. Of particular interest is the way that ideologies function to exclude certain groups. I also have a strong interest in technology and teaching in the humanities. I am currently teaching two sections of English Composition (the research paper) online, and I am finding some odd things that I want to examine more fully. For example, there is a strangely personal attachment that develops when students are faceless but not voiceless. Since the only way students can communicate with me online is via the *written* word, they reveal more of themselves than they realize, especially in emails, chats and bb discussions. |
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List Affiliations: | Former List Editor for H-Amstdy Reviewer for H-PCAACA |
Reviews: | untitled |
Interests: | American History / Studies Educational Technology |
Bio: My Ph.D. is in American Studies (Michigan State University) and I did my dissertation on _Little Women_ and the transmission of nuclear family ideology from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. My master's degree is in American culture (Univ of Mich) and my Ph.D. (Mich State) is in American studies. My concentrations are American literature, American history, and cultural studies. I have been teaching adjunct (in other words, the leftover classes), but I have managed to teach American lit and African American lit surveys as well as English classes ranging from developmental English to advanced composition. I also taught some general humanities for a community college. I have given a number of conference papers on comic strips and comic strip families. I have also given papers on film adaptation, women's writing groups, and using email discussion groups in a humanities class. I co-authored an article in _Electronic Communication Across the Curriculim_, "Electronic Conferencing in an Interdisciplinary Humanities Course." I also reviewed _American Families: Issues in Race and Ethnicity_ for H-PCAACA, and _Yesterday's Stories: Popular Women's Novels of the Twenties and Thirties_ for the Journal of Popular Culture. I am working on a joint review (with a musician) of _Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality_. My technology experience is primarily in online teaching, although I developed a website for teaching the novel _Babbitt_ for a humanities computing course. Unfortunately, I've never been able to use it. |