Essays on American Studies

Introduction

There are several reasons why the annual Burning Man festival is unique among mass gatherings. Held in the Black Rock section of America’s Great Basin desert in Nevada, Burning Man’s 70,000 participants construct a city that houses—and in itself functions as—a participatory performing arts space, a communal spiritual retreat, and a cathartic experience of radical self-expression (Brill 2007). Then, one week later, they tear it all down, pack everything out, and leave no trace behind. It is an anti-market event (Cesewski & Giles 2007) whose participants rely on gift-giving and barter to secure any necessities ...

Annotated Bibliography: African American History

Mayer, R. (2000). "Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds. Amerikastudien / American Studies, 45(4), 555-566. Palmer, C. A. (1995). From Africa to the Americas: Ethnicity in the Early Black Communities of the Americas. Journal of World History, 6(2), 223-236. According to Ruth Mayer’s Africa as an Alien Future (2000), there remains a connection between the African Diaspora community and the motherland. In the author’s words, African culture remains evident even in contemporary works such as “literature, installation art, [and] pop music” in which the passages between Africa and ...

Education plays a crucial role in the betterment of one’s life. In fact, it leads to the intellectual growth of an individual and it makes a tremendous contribution to the quality of life one is likely to embrace. With this in mind, it is worth appreciating the fact that the lack of education can jeopardize the quality of one’s life. As such, it is imperative that the government implements proper measures in the administration of education since lack thereof compromises the value of learning offered to students. I believe that education should not be blended in political ...